# Sci Fi TV; What else can we recycle?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 22, 2007, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457 "2007-08-22T03:31:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/41 "2007-08-22T20:52:09Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
The Amber series by Roger Zelazny would make an incredible SF soap opera – because it IS a soap opera, with two incredibly extended monarchic families: the Courts of Chaos and the Court of Amber – vying for control of reality itself. It would absolutely ROCK, and the special effects budget cuold be really cheap.
But for the series to be any good, the writing would have to be topnotch and there’s the rub …
[/QUOTE]
I would actually pay to see that, but I am too afraid they would screw it up royally.
So, I hope they never, ever do.
---
### Author:  [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/42 "2007-08-22T21:15:21Z")
I’ve always though that Glen Cook’s _Black Company_ novels could be made into an excellent (fantasy) TV series. There’s at least 8 seasons worth of stuff from just what he’s written, and I’m sure people could branch off from it pretty easily.
---
### Author:  [@ArizonaTeach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArizonaTeach)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/43 "2007-08-22T22:09:58Z")
[QUOTE=A Monkey With a Gun]
But just for shits and giggles, imagine Freddy Mercury singing “A Wing and a Prayer”.
[/QUOTE]
…oh my…that would be like looking at the face of God…
---
### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/44 "2007-08-22T22:28:11Z")
[QUOTE=Santos L Halper]
[It’s About Time](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059997/)?
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm
Maybe if we could get Ricky Gervais?
---
### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2007, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/45 "2007-08-22T23:13:07Z")
It would be great to see good filmed or tv versions of the John Carter of Mars stories, and the Amber novels. But those would be _adaptations_ of literary works that have never been filmed, not recycling.
I wonder what could be done with “Man from Uncle”.
If it were British tv, I’d suggest a Quatermass series.
---
### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/46 "2007-08-23T00:06:14Z")
Though, **Bladwin’s** right in that it can’t be recycled if it’s never been filmed, it’s my thread and we can go a bit away from the OP if we want to. I give you: [John Carter of Mars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/) set for release in 2009. Made by Pixar to boot!
---
### Author:  [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/47 "2007-08-23T01:07:24Z")
[QUOTE=Fiver]
Not science fiction, but I’d bring back _Hogan’s Heroes,_ retitled _Hassan’s Heroes_ and set in Guantanamo.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, that is unquestionably the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
---
### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/48 "2007-08-23T02:57:20Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
The Amber series by Roger Zelazny would make an incredible SF soap opera – because it IS a soap opera, with two incredibly extended monarchic families: the Courts of Chaos and the Court of Amber – vying for control of reality itself. It would absolutely ROCK, and the special effects budget cuold be really cheap.
But for the series to be any good, the writing would have to be topnotch and there’s the rub …
[/QUOTE]
Yeah and Roger isn’t around to defend his creation (even tho that didn’t help Ursula), and we’ll likely get that Betancourt guy penning scripts. \ Still, if I had confidence in the people involved AND the FX budget did the Amber universe justice, I might back it.
---
### Author:  [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/49 "2007-08-23T03:17:53Z")
**Alien Nation**!
It’s a great premise that never got the development that it deserved, either in the original movie or the subsequent TV series.
---
### Author:  [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/50 "2007-08-23T03:22:25Z")
[QUOTE=Fiver]
Not science fiction, but I’d bring back _Hogan’s Heroes,_ retitled _Hassan’s Heroes_ and set in Guantanamo.
[/QUOTE]
How about M_A_S\*H The Next Generation?
---
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/51 "2007-08-23T04:05:06Z")
Not a remake exactly, but the suggestions for **It’s About Time** got me thinking: everyone knows\* that cavemen didn’t live with dinosaurs; or for that matter, cavemen didn’t carry clubs around with them all the time, dress in ragged furs or walk semi-upright.
But what if you had a series about time travelers who find themselves in what might be called the Fictional Past? Instead of journeying to the past that modern scholars are sure existed, they keep ending up in a quasi-past or para-past that reflects all the totally unrealistic cliches’ that have accumulated in the popular mindset. For example, they visit medieval England and find the knights literally rescuing princesses from fire-breathing dragons? They visit ancient Egypt and it’s like Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments? A 10th century middle east straight out of The Arabian Knights, etc. You could have lots of fun with the time travelers coping with the sheer unreality of their situation.
\*well, you’d hope so anyway
---
### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/52 "2007-08-23T11:33:23Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
You could have lots of fun with the time travelers coping with the sheer unreality of their situation.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure that premise could last a multiple season SF series. It sounds more like a good idea for a movie or book.
---
### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2007, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457/53 "2007-08-23T15:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
Not a remake exactly, but the suggestions for **It’s About Time** got me thinking: everyone knows\* that cavemen didn’t live with dinosaurs; or for that matter, cavemen didn’t carry clubs around with them all the time, dress in ragged furs or walk semi-upright…
[/QUOTE]
S M Stirling’s _The Sky People_ shows us an “alternate” Venus. Instead of the blasted Hell revealed by probes, we’ve got a steaming jungle planet, full of creatures from Earth’s past. Pterodactyls & saber tooth cats. Oafish ape-men & bootyfull female warriors. An “alternate” space race pushes the exploration by dashing Earth-humans. From the Acknowledgments:
> [@](#):
>
> Thanks to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Otis Adelbert Klien, Leinster, Heinlein, and all the other great pulpsters for gracing my childhood with John Carter, Northwest Smith, “Wrong Way” Carson of Venus, and all the heroes gifted with a better solar system than the one we turned out to inhabit. From the jungles of Venus and the Grand Canal of Marsopolis, I salute you!
Plot & characterization are pretty basic. But subtle works of great literature can be difficult to adapt to the screen. Many _excellent_ special effects!
Upcoming sequel: _In the Halls of the Crimson Kings_. (Mars, of course.)
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-tv-what-else-can-we-recycle/416457.md?page=2)