Giant Freakin Robot

Before Hollywood announces yet another reboot of some already beloved science fiction movie franchise, let’s give them a few better ideas. Since we’re talking about the entertainment industry, we can’t expect anything to original. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s a wealth of science fiction out there, just waiting for some movie studio to pick it up and do something with it. No more waiting. Drop that Back to the Future remake Hollywood and do something with these already brilliant sci-fi properties instead:

FuturamaIt worked for The Simpsons and they ran out of jokes ten years ago. Futurama on the other hand, thanks to frequent network cancelling, is still young as when the world was new. Matt Groening’s other animated masterpiece has never gotten a fair shake, but with its spacey setting and tendency towards blaster fire, it’s far more suited to the big screen than Springfield’s favorite family. It’s animation, yes, but animation for adults. Feel free to take things up a notch for the theatrical version, hook Bender up with a three-nippled robot hooker, and slap it with an “R” rating. Or if you’re really feeling spendy, ditch the animation and give us a live action version.

The Pitch: A pizza delivery boy is accidentally frozen for a thousand years, and wakes up in the future. There he finds employment at the interplanetary delivery company, Planet Express, and struggles to fit in with the company’s strange assortment of employees. His best friend is an alcoholic robot, he’s in love with a smoking hot kung-fu Cyclops who finds him repulsive, and he’s employed by a mad scientist with an increasingly bad case of dementia. Hilarity ensues. Think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Encino Man.

Quantum LeapWe’re running out of time on Quantum Leap. Scott Bakula isn’t getting any younger. In fact we’re probably out of time and if there’s any hope that the early 90s most brilliant sci-fi show will ever get its cinematic due, it’ll have to start all over with a new Sam Beckett. Much as I love Bakula, I can live with that. It’s Dean Stockwell Quantum Leap can’t live without. Stockwell’s stint in Battlestar proved he’s still spry enough to play the wise-cracking, cigar-smoking Al and Quantum Leap’s resonate style of character-driven storytelling is still as relevant as it ever was. Maybe even more so. Imagine Sam leaping into 9/11. Oh boy.

The Pitch: A botched experiment sends Sam Becket leaping through time. But Sam can explain it better than I can. “It all started when a time travel experiment I was conducting went… “a little caca”. In the blink of a cosmic clock, I went from quantum physicist to Air Force test-pilot. Which could have been fun… if I knew how to fly. Fortunately, I had help – an observer from the project named Al. Unfortunately, Al’s a hologram, so all he can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am, bouncing around in time, putting things right that once went wrong, a sort of time traveling Lone Ranger, with Al as my Tonto. And I don’t even need a mask… Oh Boy”

The Mote In God’s EyeIt’s one of the greatest science fiction books ever written, and perhaps also one of the most overlooked. Written in through a collaboration between Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and first published in 1974, this two book duology charts the first contact between humanity and an alien race. I know what you’re thinking, we’ve seen this before. No you haven’t, not like this. Sure, much like Alien this first contact doesn’t take place until far off in man’s future, when we’ve already explored most of space. But any similarities end there. What really sets this apart is the complex, utterly realistic, detailed way in which Niven and Pournelle develop the alien race, known as the Motes, which humanity encounters out there in that far off place.

The Pitch: Popular science fiction usually ends up portraying aliens either as monsters or as something nearly human. Rarely is there a middle ground. Avatar’s Na’vi for instance, are barely alien at all. They’re more like some blue African tribe. Mote presents an intelligent alien species that is truly alien, not just in appearance but in the way they think, and then uses them as part of a gripping tale which asks this simple question: How can we possibly trust something so alien, let alone understand it? Maybe they lack the sex appeal of blue cat people (you’re unlikely to be aroused by a Mote’s gripping hand), but the story’s brilliantly written characters and massive, epic scope could turn the science fiction genre on its head if it ever made it up on screen.

Red DwarfThis character driven sci-fi comedy ran for nearly ten years on the BBC and earned massive cult status, but outside of a few randomly scheduled late-night PBS showings never really got a chance in the United States. The show is a wild pastiche of hastily slapped together sets and insane plots which seem chiefly designed to get a laugh, and getting laughs it does all too well. The thing is, underneath all of the insanity and ridiculously low budgets there’s more often than not, a pretty brilliant sci-fi plot. It’s subversive and wickedly smart, tackling completely new ideas on a weekly basis, the type of heady, ever-changing sci-fi thoughts rarely seen anywhere outside the Twilight Zone and never presented as this much fun. Don’t be a bunch of smegheads Hollywood. Get it done.

The Pitch: It’s the story of Dave Lister the last man alive aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf. They’re three million years away from Earth, every human he’ll never know or meet is either dead or out of reach, and his only companions are a lifeform which evolved from the ship’s cat, Arnold Rimmer, a holographic recreation of one of the most annoying members of the ship’s crew, and the ship’s computer Holly (who claims to have an IQ of 6000 but rarely seems to use it). Later on in their voyage crew is supplemented by a guilt-ridden mechanoid named Kryten.

Babylon 5With all due respect to Star Trek, Babylon 5 (at least for the first four seasons), may have been the greatest science fiction series in the history of television. At the least, it was one of the most revolutionary. It was the first television show, for instance, to use computer generated effects on whole sequences. The show’s plot plays out as a single complicated, linear story arc of the type now used by Lost and every other show currently on television but unheard of back in the early 90s. It told a complete story wrapped in a single series. Most importantly though it’s character-driven, epic, and utterly compelling.

The Pitch: The show began every week with a monologue which, much better than I ever could, tells you all you need to know. Here’s how Babylon 5 described itself in Season 2: “ The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A self-contained world five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space . . . all alone in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind – the year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

The Hyperion CantosThere have actually been rumors that Dan Simmons masterful far-future series of novels (collectively referred to as the Hyperion Cantos) may be turned into a movie, but it hasn’t happened yet, and we’re tired of waiting. The material is challenging and heady, but also utterly unique. It starts out as a group of pilgrims journey to a far off planet called Hyperion, where they’ll visit the legendary Time Tombs. The tombs are guarded by the Shrike, an unstoppable, unknowable, spikey, metallic creature which snatches up travelers and impales them on its tree of thorns.

The Pitch: Hyperion tells the story of the pilgrims as they travel, and as the story spans multiple books it goes beyond them. It works brilliantly because it’s character-driven, scratch that it’s more than character-driven, it’s emotion driven. Simmons puts his characters through hell and takes us with them through every step of suffering, sadness, and pain which gradually comes together to form a larger picture. Hyperion is a story with something to say about the human condition, and it does it in an epic, potentially visually stunning, package. It’s science fiction’s Lord of the Rings, and done right, it’ll win just as many Oscars.

Doctor WhoThe character has been on television since the early sixties, you’d think by now he’d have earned a proper trip to the big screen. Instead he’s been permanently fixed in the low-budget world of television where, despite brilliant storytelling, he’s sometimes hampered by the limited effects capabilities of the format. But with this most recent stint by the Doctor as played by David Tennant, the character finally seemed on the verge of crossing over to the mainstream. Tennant’s gone, but maybe there’s a way to bring him back? If there was ever a time for a Doctor Who movie, doing it with Tennant is the way to make it work.

The Pitch: The series follows the adventures being known only as “The Doctor”. He’s the last of the Time Lords, an alien who travels through time and space in a blue box called the TARDIS which, incidentally, looks exactly like a 1950s police box. Don’t worry, it’s bigger on the inside. Sometimes he travels alone, most often he travels with a human companion lifted from Earth to accompany him on his journeys through the universe righting wrongs and setting things right. The show’s format allows them to explore literally anything, it’s an incredibly broad palette for science fiction storytelling which is, perhaps, why Doctor Who has endured as long as it has.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along BlogJoss Whedon’s internet series was a huge hit when it splashed across our computers in 2008, and though there have been hints that he might do more episodes, I’d rather see him take the whole thing even bigger. A superhero movie musical has the benefit of never having been tried. What could possibly be more original? Superhero movies could use a shot in the arm, and musicals could use a younger crowd. Doctor Horrible services both things all at once. With Neil Patrick Harris is well on his way to being a huge star, why hasn’t this already been done? Sing-a-long’s work better in a big crowd.

The Pitch: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog turns the standard superhero story on its head, and then sings a song about it. Neil Patrick Harris stars as a sympathetic and somewhat ineffective supervillain trying to win the heart of the perfect girl (Felicia Day) while an asshole superhero (Nathan Fillion) plays the bully and generally makes Dr. Horrible’s life miserable. Horrible’s adventures in nerdy dysfunction turn out to be heart-wrenching, toe-tapping fun.

Battlestar Galactica – The Right VersionBattlestar Galactica is already well on its way to getting the movie treatment. One problem: It’s the wrong version. When the fantastic, award-winning, Ronald Moore reboot of the classic franchise went off the air, Hollywood immediately cast it aside and rehired the creator of the less successful 80s version to start the whole thing all over again. If it goes into production, when you see BSG up on the screen in a few years, Starbuck will be a dude, Cylons won’t be hot, and the plot will be full of all the silly 80s sensibility Moore worked so hard to get rid of in his modernized version.

The Pitch: The right version of Battlestar Galactica is about a small group of survivors fleeing the destruction of their home worlds by an army of robotic entities of their own creation. Their tiny, rag-tag fleet is led by the only surviving fighter carrier, an aging battlestar known as Galactica. While struggling to survive Moore’s character driven show also tackles issues of spirituality, morality, and friendship as different personalities are pushed to the limit of human endurance, trapped together in space and on the run.

Ender’s GameThis is another property that Hollywood has toyed with turning into a movie, yet somehow it never seems to get done. Enough with the waiting. Make it happen. Orson Scott Card’s 1985 masterwork is two parts Star Trek and one part Harry Potter. The results, should it ever finally get on screen, will be game changing. Don’t bother with turning any of the sequels into movies, they’re good, but Ender’s Game is the only one we need to see on screen.

The Pitch: It’s set in a future where mankind is at war with a race of alien insects. To defeat them, humanity has combed its ranks to find brilliant children who can be turned into the tactical geniuses needed to win the war. Among them is Ender Wiggin who, along with other genius kids, is shipped off to a remote, orbiting battle school where they’re taught the ways of war and eventually used as a weapon to save humanity and eliminate the threat. As generic as that sounds, it’s the way Card develops it that’s makes Ender so absolutely perfect. Imagine watching the creation of a latter day Napoleon set in outer space, and you’ll get some inkling of what you’re in for.

FarscapeFarscape was critically acclaimed from day one, but it’s so linear and so deeply character driven that missing even a single episode meant finding yourself adrift without a paddle. A movie presents an opportunity to solve that. Instead of one story stretched out over several seasons, we have the chance to get a complete story in a single, epic film. And if you thought Farscape’s visuals were impressive on a basic cable television budget, just imagine what the geniuses at the Jim Henson workshop could do with a $30 million budget. It seems impossible to do it without the original cast. Get it done before Ben Browder gets any frelling older.

The Pitch: It’s the story of modern day astronaut John Crichton, flung through a wormhole into a distant galaxy. There, he’s stuck on a living ship with a group of escaped prisoners who though at first his enemies, become his allies, and eventually his friends. It’s the classic tale of a stranger in a strange land mixed with piracy and full of deeply rooted, character drama. It’s romantic too, full of realistic relationships against a fantastic backdrop.