What reboot/remake would you like to see?

[Graham Kennedy]

For me, I have three.

Forbidden Planet. I love the original, and I do fear that a remake would drop the cereberal aspects in favour of more action. But if it was done right, this could be really awesome.

War of the Worlds. I've always wanted to see a film that was really faithful to the book - set in Victorian England, with Wells's Martians. The Tunderchild battle!

Starship Troopers. I want a film of the book, dammit!

[Jim]

Starship Troopers... never read the book but...

One major thing always bugged (pun not intended) me about that movie. Not the camp or odd acting or blah blah blah... (I might even have mentioned this on here before)

Killing the bugs. When there was ONE bug it took FOREVER to kill it. Multiple people on full auto for what seemed like 10 seconds, and half the time it still killed someone. Yet, when they are getting attacked... 50 troopers are able to basically hold thousands of bugs at bay for 20 minutes. It was like the more bugs there were the easier it was to kill them. One bug takes 5 clips... 1000 bugs takes 3 or 4 shots each...

[Captain Seafort]

Starship Troopers... never read the book

Do so, pronto. The movie isn't bad, provided you treat it as completely unrelated to the book, but the book is far better, albeit best seen as a political treatise very thinly disguised as a novel.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I second the book. Very good novel.

[Mikey]

I've long said that I'd like to see a film of the novel Starship Troopers, because I don't believe one has been made yet.

I think a modern remake of the under-regarded 1972 Silent Running could be very good, if carefully done.

[kostmayer]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

And The War of the World's set in its original time period.

Edit: Just reread Grahames original post - aching to see The Thunderchild bought to life too. And Tripods.

[Varthikes]

I think a modern remake of the under-regarded 1972 Silent Running could be very good, if carefully done.

"...If carefully done" seems to be the running line for just about any re-make, though I do agree about Silent Running.

If I could include television shows, I would say The Starlost. The short-lived show from 1973 had potential if it just had better writers, actors, budget, and had the executives not meddled with Harlan Ellison's creativity.

[Mikey]

I also tend to think Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" could be great... just not the 2005 drivel that passed for a film adaptation.

[mwhittington]

Firefly! Please bring that back! Fifteen episodes and 1 movie just wasn't enough.

[Graham Kennedy]

Actually, I will add Star Trek to this.

And I don't mean a sequel, post-TOS, pre-ENT, Starfleet Academy, or whatever.

I mean a direct remake of the Original Series, with Kirk, Spock, etc on the Enterprise boldly going. The JJ movies, whilst perhaps not perfect, have convinced me that you could do this without it seeming just like a cheesy knock-off or inferior product.

Anybody read the outline J. Michael Straczynski & Bryce Zabel submitted for a rebooted show back in 2004? It's here. Never got made, obviously, but I like where they went with it.

Over the decades, Star Trek has become so insular, so strictly defined, and placed so many
layers upon itself that some of the essence of what made us love it in the first place has been
lost. The all-too-reasonable desire to protect the franchise may now be the cause of its
stagnation.

I think that is very true, and only because more evident as Voyager and then Enterprise went on - shows that were set up to take risks and be different, but then refused to do so.

Imagine taking those characters, and using what we know now about the universe, and
combining it with the kind of storytelling that audiences of 2004 are used to seeing in
modern prime-time television. Hard-hitting. Exciting. Character-driven. Innovative. And
armed with the very latest EFX in support of our stories.
Start with the three best things in the Star Trek universe.

This I like. Essentially the modern flavour of ongoing story arcs, more grittiness, more realistic spins on the characters, but put into the TOS framework.

We will start with a two-hour pilot that tells the story no one has ever seen: the
circumstances that lead Kirk and McCoy (friends before this) to meet Spock for the first
time. It will involve their discovery of a lost city on an uncharted world, nearly a million
years old, and their encounter with the race that built it, a race long sought after by every
civilized world for the tremendous advantages they could provide.

Like this idea. I don't think we need a giant origin story (as JJ gave us in his movie, say), but at the same time TOS just hit the ground running, showing us the crew already working together on their mission. It would be nice to see the Enterprise setting out of spacedock, the crew settling in, etc.

Along the way, we’ll learn how Kirk – the youngest Starship captain in the Federation – won
command of the Enterprise in the course of a battle with another race in pursuit of that
ancient mystery.

...and there's your opening action sequence. Kick things off with Kirk doing Something Heroic in a battle, as a result of which we then see him being given command of the Enterprise. A nice action intro, but with the character context that it's setting up who Kirk is and how he acts in a crisis, and also introducing the Mystery of the Episode - action with a purpose, not just action to be action. I like it.

As noted above and as established in television history, Kirk was the youngest starship
captain in the Federation...but what led to this? We know that the Enterprise was sent out
to explore where no human had gone before...but if you stop and think about it for a
moment, isn’t that an odd assignment...to take one of the finest ships in the fleet, give it to
the youngest captain in the Federation, and tell them to just go drive around and see what
they can find?

It’s peculiar...until you allow for the possibility that they were looking for something
specific...something they had to keep a secret even from the rest of the crew.

Had Kirk, Spock and McCoy stumbled upon something that could have a profound effect
on human history? Had they caught a glimpse of a new and previously unknown race a
million years ahead of mankind...a race whose secrets could elevate humanity to unparalleled
levels...a race that left its footprints on a hundred worlds where its touch had changed
evolution and led to civilization as we know it?

A race, long thought dead, but which our characters know is still out there
somewhere...waiting for us...waiting to see if its children can come and find it, there in the
darkness between the stars....

And there are others out there, also searching for this race...forces of darkness who may
view our activities with more than a little hostility.

One thing we will discover is that buried deep within the DNA of humans, Vulcans (even
Klingons) and other intelligent bi-pedal races is a mathematical code, something buried so
deep and of such complexity that it could not possibly have occurred by chance.
Someone or something put it there… an “artist’s signature” perhaps…
In the re-booted Star Trek universe, there is a “Prime Directive” but it is not about noninterference
in the matters of other races. This Prime Directive states simply that it is the
mission of the Starship Enterprise is to do whatever is necessary to find this long-lost race,
and discover the truth about the common origin of all life forms everywhere, the truth that
will unite a galaxy.

I like most of that... the idea that they are searching for something specific, I like. The idea that there are secrets being kept, I like. Plenty of conflict possibility there. The DNA code thing I'm not so sure about, though - The Chase already did it, and although it's an intriguing idea it wasn't all that convincing then.

[McAvoy]

Firefly! Please bring that back! Fifteen episodes and 1 movie just wasn't enough.

Firefly I can agree with.

How about Batman Tv series?

[Coalition]

A basic one could be taking the Babylon 5 episodes and putting modern CGI in place to replace the existing stuff. It holds up fairly well, but it would also allow for any size differences to be eliminated (for example, a White Star's overall length).


Another reboot idea would be the Buck Rogers TV series. One of the starting images could be that of Earth, with only a few patches of green in the opening shots, but as the series goes on more and more spots of green show up on it (similarly, the night side would have more and more light spots from cities). we could have cargo stations in orbit initially, and if one episode featured a space based culture, then several episodes later we'd see more orbital structures thanks to their capabilities.

We could have arguments about mutations helping or hurting people (i.e. Varek who is intangible), also transhumanism where a culture engineers people for better capabilities (but eventually turning into something like Hellstrom's Hive). Lots of fun arguments.

[Graham Kennedy]

I'd be fascinated to see a new effects version of B5. And a new Buck Rogers series - looooved that show as a kid. And I love your ideas for it, too.

[Jim]

I'd be fascinated to see a new effects version of B5. And a new Buck Rogers series - looooved that show as a kid. And I love your ideas for it, too.

Pre-Hawkman Buck Rogers was good. It got a bit too campy once they went into space.

[Mikey]

I'd be fascinated to see a new effects version of B5. And a new Buck Rogers series - looooved that show as a kid. And I love your ideas for it, too.

Pre-Hawkman Buck Rogers was good. It got a bit too campy once they went into space.

Hear, hear. They'd just need someone suitable to fill Erin Gray's sparkly spandex pants. But could you imagine Brent Spiner as Tom O'Connor's character?!