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Old February 13th, 2006, 01:18 PM   #60
spcglider
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Then we'll have to agree to dis-agree!

We're not talking about a venerated brand like, say Batman or Superman or even Star Trek for that matter. Those properties had many years of opportunity to embedd their base storyline and the relationships between characters in the American concious before they started mucking about with them.

Galactica got one season and then was off the radar for a long time. Somebody above said that it would have been pretty much the perfect event to have a revival in the late 1980's or early 1990's and I agree.

When the majority of the television watching public gets Larson's Buck Rogers and Galactica confused (and they DO... try talking about it at church some day or in a crowd of NASCAR fans at a party... you'll see) its hard to get a studio exec to buy in. It's got a percieved lack of clear focus as a property.

"Yeah, I used to love that show," they say, "That Starbuck Rogers was kinda dumb but that little Twiggy robot was funny and those flying motorcycles were kick ass! I hated that kid and his robot bear though. Didn't they have a monkey on that show too?"

"No." you say, "There was a monky inside the daggit suit. But there was no monkey ON the show."

"Huh, could'a sworn there was a monkey and a gal with huge hooters."

"You're thinking of BJ and the Bear."

"The kid with the bear was named BJ? I thought he was daggit?"

And so on. I kid you not. This is a REAL conversation.

One of the reasons that the Moore Galactica is doing so well is that they took the property and declared their mastery over it. They got rid of anything ambiguous and chiseled their version in video stone. And because they got there first, they have the upper hand in calling the rules of the property's universe. They took advantage of the whole new generation of TV watchers who don't remember all the great stuff we do about the original. Yes, there are plenty of OLD fans out there. But there are potential NEW fans entering the room every day. And all the NEW fans know is the NEW Galactica. If they even know the old show exists, they don't care about it.

The owner of the rights to the MICRONAUTS, Ken Abrams, has contacted me on several occasions to help him sort out all the troublesome details of who-owns-what and what-details-belong-where with the many Micronaut storylines. Each time he calls, its more confounding than the last. Trying to explain the differences is a pain in the butt.

But I think he's working on "re-imagining" the Micronauts in the same way Moore has re-imagined Galactica. He pretty much knows my feelings about that, so he's not really telling me much about it. Its probably a smart move and a very market-wise one. A "re-boot" of the entire property.

Anyway, I guess the way I should have phrased it was not "diluted the brand", but "fractured the following".

If a new Galactica came up, say as a movie, and it was based upon Richard Hatch's books, I'd be just as dis-inclined to watch it as the Sci-Fi version. I don't like Richard's take on the property. And I know quite a few others who don't as well.

If it was based on the Leifeld comics, I wouldn't be interested either. And that's all personal taste.

Though I know that there're tons of fans out there who think Richard's books are the be-all and end-all of the franchise. And they'd be all over it. But the producers would be missing out on potential nostalgia dollars. And they don't like that. They want ALL the dollars.

With all of this stuff hanging around, how do you please everybody and make your NEW OLD Galactica a viable property that ALL of the OLD fans will enjoy and NEW fans will not take as a rip-off of the Sci-fi version?

Its quite a pickle. In fact, it may be more of a kumquat.

-G
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