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Television It's funny. Laugh. Sci-Fi

Amazon Developing TV Series Based On Galaxy Quest 87

Posted by Soulskill from the shows-about-movies-about-shows-mocking-shows dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Entertainment Weekly reports that Amazon Studios is developing a TV show based on Galaxy Quest, the 1999 film that parodied classic sci-fi shows like Star Trek. In the movie, actors for a Trek-like show were conscripted by real aliens to help run a starship and negotiate peace with a mortal enemy. The actors had no idea what to do, of course, and ended up getting help from the most rabid fans of their show. The new TV show is still in early stages of development. It's unlikely that the original Galaxy Quest cast will return — it starred Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Sam Rockwell, to name a few. However, several important members of the production crew will return: "The film's co-writer Robert Gordon will pen the script and executive produce the pilot. The film's director Dean Parisot will direct and executive produce. And executive producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein are on board as well." The show is a ways off, yet — they haven't even been greenlit for a pilot episode — but it'd be a welcome addition to today's sci-fi TV offerings
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Amazon Developing TV Series Based On Galaxy Quest More

Amazon Developing TV Series Based On Galaxy Quest

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  • History repeats. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Farmer Tim ( 530755 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @04:43PM (#50412879) Journal

    But will it be another Stargate or Logan's Run? Sometimes a good idea can be spread too thinly.

    • I always set my expectations low for things like this. That way it's hard to be disappointed when my expectations are met. But if the show is good I can be pleasantly surprised.

    • I loved that movie.

      However, it was about a bunch of actors thrown into a situation their characters on a long-canceled TV show should be in, who eventually figured out how to use their own abilities to win. You can't have character development like that in a typical TV show. The stupid parts of the ship that were created just to match things in bad episodes were fun, but that wouldn't last long before they'd either exhausted the possibilities or more than filled the ship with idiotic sets.

      Unless they

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mitzoe ( 2531020 )

        Unless they're going to do something like the Galaxy Quest TV show in the movie

        This was my thought, especially it they made it as much a parody of Star Trek as the movie was of the cast and culture.

        which looked fairly mediocre

        Okay, so it'd have to be really well done.

        • This was my thought, especially it they made it as much a parody of Star Trek as the movie was of the cast and culture.

          The same actions, characters and tropes that movie is poking fun of, turn out first heroic then triumphant by the end.
          They really become heroes they were playing on a show, they save the world, help out friendly aliens, redeem their fans AND they get a revival of their show.

          I doubt that the same effect can be achieved with a lesser (cheaper) cast and as a running gag over a season or more.
          Sam Rockwell [youtube.com] alone already used up most of those jokes.
          While being awesome and ultimately - heroic.

          Trying to copy Rickma

          • Re:Not a parody. A love letter. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Forever Wondering ( 2506940 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @11:17PM (#50414293)

            The sad part was that Galaxy Quest was marketed to kids instead of a parody of, or homage to, Star Trek (TOS in particular) and its adult fan base. Thus, didn't do as well at the box office as it should have. Note: I've seen ST:TOS in original network first run and have been a fan of all forms of the show since (and I'm a huge fan of Babylon 5 as well).

            Galaxy Quest had a great mix of comedy, parody, character development, and heroism as well as some classic sci-fi elements. It's one of the first works that was respectful to the sci-fi genre without taking itself too seriously.

            If done carefully, the series could work. In TOS, there were a number of plot holes (e.g. in "Balance of Terror", Spock hitting a button that causes a beeper to go off, alerting the Romulan ship--this ignores the fact that sound doesn't travel in a vacuum). In ST:TNG, they got around things with the "exotic particle/ray of the week" approach.

            For example, "cross phased polartronide delta particles", CPPDP for short. They threaten to rupture space/time, etc.

            The new series could work because maybe the ship has something that could combat CPPDP but they'd have to explore the ship to find it. Then, they'd have to figure out how to operate it. Plenty of opportunity for comedy. Plenty of opportunity for traditional Star Trek plots, just presented in a lighter vein.

            In TOS, the "A Taste Of Armageddon", the planet fights its wars with computers and herds casualties into suicide stations. Everybody took this so seriously (Kirk, Spock, the aliens, and Ambassador Fox). Nobody ever said "How silly that is".

            How about having a smart-mouthed android that says: "Completely logical. Our ship's sensors have determined 99.44% of your population is composed of genetic defectives" (like the robot in "Lost in Space" saying "Dr. Smith is a quack").

            Further, the android is programmed to abide by Azimov's robot principles. But, the android is constantly trying to break that programming so he can kill the rest of the crew (e.g. Like Klinger doing outrageous/funny things to win him a section 8 discharge in "Mash").

            The ship, internally, could be much larger than the outside (Think: Tardis). In Stargate, they were always discovering new stuff left behind by the "ancients".

            If the interior of the ship were large enough, it could have a ST:DS9 "promenade". In Babylon 5, there was the "zocalo". Plenty of room for a shady character like Quark, Harry Mudd, etc. In B5, it wasn't all equal. They had levels that were little more than tent cities, with the denizens living in poverty.

            How about "breaking the fourth wall" and speaking directly to the audience. This was done by George Burns in "Burns & Allen" [and "Wendy and Me"]. It was also done in "She Spies". Let the android do it, functioning as narrator: "Android's log: The ship is headed to Omicron Burpo Five to initiate trade negotiations. I, however, have determined that the Omicron Burpo system has large amounts of Kyratron radiation and that if I'm able to collect enough of it, I'll be able to break my Azimov programming and finally kill the crew".

            Oh, yeah. How about a character like Jonathan Harris' "Dr Smith" in "Lost in Space", who is just as cowardly. Or, like Colonel Klink from "Hogan's Heroes".

            Or, maybe there's the lovable ship's cook (like Neelix in ST:Voyager), but who is inept. Food poisoning after his meals, etc. The crew has to find ever more clever ways to disguise the fact that they're not eating his food anymore, lest it hurt his feelings.

            Because the ship is so big [internally], it could have a passenger liner section (Think: Love Boat). ST had a number of episodes around transporting diplomatic personnel to peace conferences. A passenger orders a vegan meal. Gets a vegetarian meal. But, the passenger really wanted "sauteed kremloks" served as they do in Vega star system.

            Do a main plot each week, just like Star Trek, albeit a little more tongue-in-cheek. Add more sarcastic stuff in smaller side plots and characters. This was the form for a lot of episodes of the Mash series, which carefully balanced serious subjects with comedy.

            In short, Galaxy Quest as a series, has the potential to be just about anything.

            • You are missing the point.

              You can make fun of everything. You can jam in jokes anywhere.
              Hell... just put a laugh track on it and some people will laugh at anything.
              Just like with that show where people tune in to laugh at how awkward nerds are.
              You can also parody SciFi up the kazoo. Most of it has already been done by Red Dwarf though.

              The fact that there is room for jokes can't change the fact that Galaxy Quest was not about joking about SciFi tropes or making fun of such shows or its audiences.
              That's what

              • Nor did Lost in Space or Star Trek get a laugh track and started being about crazy hijinks of a wacky crew.

                Are you thinking of something along the lines of Quark? [wikipedia.org]

                Quark is an example of good actors, decent writing and genuine parody dragged out WAAAAAYYYYY too long.

              • See my second paragraph:

                Galaxy Quest had a great mix of comedy, parody, character development, and heroism as well as some classic sci-fi elements. It's one of the first works that was respectful to the sci-fi genre without taking itself too seriously.

                That acknowledged all that you were saying and the key word is mix. BTW, I saw GQ in a theater, and I own a copy, so I may understand it better than you seem to think I do.

                So, where does the series go? Ignore the movie and spread the movie across five seasons and the characters achieve their final growth by the series finale? Or, do you start the series where the movie ended? So, will it just become another serious Star Trek like series without much humor. Or, will it try to ble

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Snowgen ( 586732 )

              In TOS, there were a number of plot holes (e.g. in "Balance of Terror", Spock hitting a button that causes a beeper to go off, alerting the Romulan ship--this ignores the fact that sound doesn't travel in a vacuum).

              While the sentiment may be correct, I have to disagree with the example.

              While it's true that sound doesn't travel through space, even archaic 20th Century technology like laser microphone [wikipedia.org] would detect Spock's beep. While it's true that the cloaked Romulan probably wouldn't be using such an active sensor, there could be a legitimate way of detecting such vibrations passively. Indeed it might be exactly these types of vibrations that the show refers to every time Spock says something like "I'm [not] detectin

              • There have been some discussions about sound in [sci-fi] space, particularly about whether you could hear the sound of an explosion during a space battle. Somebody showed how it could be theoretically possible. The main point is that hearing explosions during space battles makes them more exciting. ST:TOS did this in "The Ultimate Computer" by showing the bridge of Bob Wesley's ship when it was it by a phaser blast. Inside the ship, no problem. So, a bit of poetic license and suspension of disbelief ad

      • I loved that movie.

        However, it was about a bunch of actors thrown into a situation their characters on a long-canceled TV show should be in, who eventually figured out how to use their own abilities to win. You can't have character development like that in a typical TV show. The stupid parts of the ship that were created just to match things in bad episodes were fun, but that wouldn't last long before they'd either exhausted the possibilities or more than filled the ship with idiotic sets.

        Unless they're going to do something like the Galaxy Quest TV show in the movie, which looked fairly mediocre.

        The Galaxy Quest TV show reboot could be very awesome - there are tons and tons of Trek (hell, even B5) stuff that's great parody material. Super-powerful aliens (Q), weird alternate-realities that are too-much-like-reality, time travel... or things like how reboots and retcons are done.

        And then there's sci-fi comedy like Red Dwarf which could lend some ideas. Or maybe pull stuff from Aliens or other scifi movies. There is a rich vein of material that awaits good parody.

        I think there are dangers of bein

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That is why they invented holodecks - Patrick Stewart wants to be a jazz playing pulp noir detective or he wont leave his trailer . No problem holodeck just goes on the fritz again.

      • However, it was about a bunch of actors thrown into a situation their characters on a long-canceled TV show should be in, who eventually figured out how to use their own abilities to win.

        Well, you could do it as a fly-on-the-wall backstage mockumentary (a la 30 Rock/The Office/Parks & Rec/Muppets:TNG), set during the run of the original show.

        You're welcome. I'll just make my exit now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      But will it be another Stargate or Logan's Run? Sometimes a good idea can be spread too thinly.

      I'm betting that it will end up as another Quark [wikipedia.org] which was a good series for what it was.

  • Okay, if they think that will work (Score:3)

    by Nyder ( 754090 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @04:45PM (#50412883) Journal

    While I do remember seeing the movie, I never felt it was something special. The idea is okay, but really stupid in the long run, guess we'll see if they can pull this off.

    • Re:Okay, if they think that will work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @05:33PM (#50413187) Journal

      I actually thought the movie was a pretty good one, probably the best movie outside of the Toy Story films that Tim Allen has been involved in. He played a great Bill Shatner, vain and obnoxious, and of course Rickman and Weaver were pitch perfect as versions of Spock and Uruha. It was much about gently mocking Treckies as it was about mocking the actors. It was a mild, good-natured bit of satire that I've watched a couple of times since it came out and have enjoyed.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Yep, what made the movie work was that it was actually good Sci-Fi, as action movie Sci-Fi goes (which has little enough to do with written SF). Good character development, a bit of actual suspense, you cared about the characters, etc. Even without the parody stuff, it was better than the Star Wars prequels or half the Star Trek movies.

        It was genre-savvy satire, more than simple parody, and it was good. Not sure how you could turn it into a series though, unless they're going to make the Galaxy Quest ser

    • It was a good idea for a movie. A spoof of the whole circus surrounding fan favorite shows (it's by far not limited to Star Trek), with actors that are sick of being typecast but pretty much forced to do it because they can't get a sensible acting role anymore due to that problem, with fans going bonkers over their idols, and the added "what if that whole shit was real" spiel to push it over the top. Hilarious.

      For a periodical, it's about the worst idea you could have. That whole idea lives off its novelty

  • In the words of Alexander Dane (Score:5, Funny)

    by MetricT ( 128876 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @04:54PM (#50412953)

    "By Grabthar's Hammer, we live to tell the tale..."

  • It'll devolve. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by T.E.D. ( 34228 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @05:04PM (#50413003)

    The idea behind Galaxy Quest was really neat for a single story. The problem with doing a series that way is that after an episode or two, it will necessarily just devolve into the bad Trek clone the movie was parodying. Voyager had the same problem. They set up this neat twist with mortal enemies forced to work together on the same ship to survive, but then once the pilot was over they were all chummy (because the fundamental survival problem was still there), and the rest of the run it became just another Trek TOS clone.

    I can see two good ways out of this:

    Way 1: Don't resolve the main plot in the pilot. Basically, they'd need to stretch the entire move out over a 3-5 season arc, more like Babylon-5 than like Trek. A lot of modern shows are doing this. The only issue is that it tends to make the series feel really slow and boring if you don't throw some other little things in there to resolve. There's only so much foreplay a guy will sit through...

    Way 2: This time, take a writer with them. An actor playing a writer, I mean. Someone to think up the silly resolutions (like the stuff that TNG always had Wesley do). So every week the "writer" would have to think up a new ridiculous way to get everyone out of the latest pickle. After all, it was really the writers who thought up the BS resolutions that made Galaxy Quest (OK, Trek) so silly. There's probably enough silly kinds of SF plot devices to parody that you could get a good two or three seasons out of it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Higaran ( 835598 )

      Way 1: Don't resolve the main plot in the pilot. Basically, they'd need to stretch the entire move out over a 3-5 season arc, more like Babylon-5 than like Trek. A lot of modern shows are doing this. The only issue is that it tends to make the series feel really slow and boring if you don't throw some other little things in there to resolve. There's only so much foreplay a guy will sit through...

      I take it you didn't watch any of the DS9, especially the later season, I'll argue that it was the best written

      • Overall, the last few seasons of DS9 were indeed probably the best in overall quantity. I still think there are about a dozen ST:TOS episodes that are better than anything that later Trek series produced, and a handful of just really brilliant TNG episodes, but the overall story arcs in the last few seasons of DS9 were, as a group very gripping, and in some ways kind of presaged, though I wouldn't say at the same level of quality, the way that the writers of shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men built up stro

      • DS9 got turned into that whole metaplot-y mess after Bab5 took off and the writers noticed that viewers like story arcs that bind stories together. You can almost exactly pinpoint the transition from episode style writing to metaplot writing. Which is fine, I liked Bab5 and it's season spanning story arc. Lovely.

        The only problem is that in DS9 the writers did not cooperate. For B5 it was easy. One main writer can easily spin a plot and drive it. With DS9 you had multiple writers with little communication am

    • Re:It'll devolve. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @05:17PM (#50413097) Homepage
      Way 3: Make it an "event series"; a single series run with maybe a dozen episodes that serves as an extended sequel to the original with precisely how many episodes would depend on precisely how many parody scenes the writers can come up with before they start to repeat too much. I think they could probably get to a dozen or so quite easily if they draw on more series than just Trek: the BSG remake is ripe for parody, but you could also draw on Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Stargate, and several other series that hardcore SciFi fans would recognise the scene immediately yet still be obvious enough to be funny to those who haven't seen the show.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      Way 2: This time, take a writer with them. An actor playing a writer, I mean. Someone to think up the silly resolutions (like the stuff that TNG always had Wesley do). So every week the "writer" would have to think up a new ridiculous way to get everyone out of the latest pickle. After all, it was really the writers who thought up the BS resolutions that made Galaxy Quest (OK, Trek) so silly. There's probably enough silly kinds of SF plot devices to parody that you could get a good two or three seasons out of it.

      This was basically the main plot element of John Scalzi's Redshirts [wikipedia.org]

      • Alas Redshirts is already being made into a limited TV series for FX.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

        This was basically the main plot element of John Scalzi's Redshirts

        Yup, that's precisely where I got the idea. This would be pretty different, as in Redshirts they essentially invaded the writers' universe to force them to resolve the plot holes in theirs to end the whole thing properly. They essentially blew a huge gaping hole in the "third wall". GQ, due to its setup doesn't have that third wall problem. (unless you count the aliens who don't understand the concept of fiction). What I'm talking about is simply bringing a writer along on the ship for their weekly "adventu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I think it depends. If the show's well put together, smartly written and performed by actors people enjoy watching, it could be successful. If it depends entirely upon recycling material from the movies, it'll definitely fail.

  • I don't know why it's taken so long, but it's about time that they got Galaxy Quest back on the air!

  • I've watched the movie many times. funny stuff. But as mentioned a series could be a hard thing to pull off.

  • Stop!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Can there be an original idea that is used for a series instead of trying to stretch out an idea that was meant for a movie? Jeeez. The best shows were written and produced as shows. The problem with most entertainment these days, no original ideas.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Can there be an original idea that is used for a series instead of trying to stretch out an idea that was meant for a movie? Jeeez. The best shows were written and produced as shows. The problem with most entertainment these days, no original ideas.

      They tried that on TV. Didn't work out. Original shows just don't get the ratings. The only way around it is to not care about ratings (e.g., Netflix, HBO and others that survive not on eyeballs, but on subscriptions).

      You have to see where the money stream is to

  • I really loved the film, cautiously optimistic for a real tv show based on the movie based on a fake tv show.

    I really enjoyed Joe Frank's voice for the ships computer. If they can get him back it will all be worthwhile IMHO no matter how else it turns out.
  • New fans every episode, abducted for their individual expertise. They could be brought back for several episodes, or all of them for the series finale. The ship could be the only constant.

  • I predict it will suck, like 95% of all remakes do.

  • But I agree Will Wheaton has to be a Recurring Character with Crossovers from the Big Bang crew.

  • ... what a series.

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