Time to chime in again.
I, Robot looks like it's going to suck. From the little I saw in the trailer, it strays wide of Asimov's writings.
They ARE making a movie "The Sound of Thunder", at least that's what I have heard.
TMC would be very difficult to make, but someone dedicated enough could do it. It would take (unfortunately) some re-writing to tie it all together, but it could be done.

Clay

Why mess with fixing the originals, either of "The Martian Chronicles," which Ray hated, or of "Something Wicked This Way Comes," which he liked better, but admitted still had problems? Just start from scratch with all-new productions. New concept, new scripts, the works.

Watch the "Twilight Zone" episodes "Walking Distance" and "In Praise of Pip" and just picture SW done that way. Wow.

You can't start a new production of The Martian Chronicles. It would be virtually impossible to tie in everything. It would take almost a miracle to re-make the classic science fiction adventure. Unless of course, you had the same people who re-did Dune and its sequels for the Sci-Fi Channel. Maybe then, it could be done. Truthfully, the original mini-series is better.

Yeah, the Dune remake was well done.
Cheers, Translator

Big screen won't work. . .
Miniseries won't work. . .
How about a full fledged television series lasting a season or two until every story was produced? Then just end it? Like the Prisoner.

[This message has been edited by From Greentown Illinois (edited 05-01-2004).]

Because there would be very little continuity from one episode to the next - different characters every week. That would make it very different to The Prisoner, which at least had the same "hero" every time you tuned in.

The old NBC mini-series tackled this by changing some of the characters so that Rock Hudson could be present nearly all the way through.

Hi. First, I never thought anyone could do Tolkien's trilogy justice--but Peter Jackson dedicated years to making a quality product and collected a wheelbarrow-load of Oscars in return. Second, may be a minority here, but I thought Chris Columbus, along with Robin Williams did an excellent job with Bicentennial Man, from Asimov's Positronic Man. Sorry to hear, too, that Ellison's I, Robot screenplay didn't make it. It was excellent.

TMC seems very doable. A narrator might be the best choice to hold it together--perhaps a Martian grandmother in a rocking chair on a ramshackle residence porch, telling of Martian history--then, when the tale's over, she vanishes; a ghost whisked away by red Martian dust.

The key is direction/production that's totally committed to the subtlety, nuance, and "feeling" that are the hallmarks of Mr. B's genius. Here's hoping. . .

I really like your grandmother/narrator idea ravenswake. I too, think it could work as a weekly series. I know the characters would continually change, but that didn't affect my enjoyment when I was reading it, and I think it wouldn't matter either on t.v. There's still the overriding idea of Mars colonization that would be there from week to week to tie it all together.

[This message has been edited by lmskipper (edited 05-01-2004).]

Yes, an anthology television series.
It didn't stop the Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, etc.

It was once said that one reason the Twilight Zone managed to succeed despite not having recurring characters (aside from great stories) was that the introductions by Rod Serling helped tie in each episode to the viewers. Well, we have the great stories, so why not have Ray himself appear at the beginning of each episode to introduce it?
The grandmother idea is okay too, but the problem I have with that is that it would ruin the end of the last story (the million year picnic, was it called?) That story is so cool, because it ends, and yet it's the beginning. To show anything that takes place after that would kill the effect.

[This message has been edited by groon (edited 05-04-2004).]

There is a movie isn't there? I have seen it on Sci-Fi a few times. It is like 8 hours long. I think it must have been a miny series or something. But I am not lying, I have seen it.

Ok, I just read and saw that it was a mini series in 1979. Sorry

Just an aside, I was present at the media premiere of Disney California's "Twilight Zone" ride (doing some photography with the spanish media in LA) and I thought the ride was actually pretty cool (I had been a little skeptical) The coolest thing was how they rotoscoped old footage of Rod from the show and dubbed him into the [new] video in the waiting line. They used part of his speech, then cut away just before he says "service elevator" so that you can't see that it wasn't what he had said in the original episode. Very clever. And whoever they got to do his voice was just excellent! Of course there's a Twilight Zone Shop after, with some very cool stuff. In the press packet I even got a Twilight Zone computer game, but I haven't gotten it to work yet. The event was lots of fun, though! I'm going to both parks tomorrow (complementary) and am very excited, but as I'm rambling, I'll just be off now.

Groon, when was all this? I am on the Fifth Dimension Message Board twice a day every day, just as I am here, and never heard Word One about any of this! Am I reading the wrong sections of the forum, has this come out of left field unbeknownst even to Rod's greatest fans, or did you take a little detour...into the Twilight Zone?

Okay, after a little TZ detour myself, I see the thread on the Message Board is under "Tower of Terror," the subtitle to the "Twilight Zone" ride, which I hadn't looked at as I didn't know it referred to a ride. How about that space simulator which has hospitalized more people than any other Disney ride?

[This message has been edited by dandelion (edited 05-07-2004).]

Funny thing happened over the weekend. I went on the ride again on Friday, and I must say, it is pretty darn cool. Anyway, Saturday night I was up late and at about 3AM, I had to sneeze (not too unusual, considering my constant allergies) and I sneezed and the entire power went out! I was thinking "well, I'm stuck in the twilight zone for sure, now." So I went to sleep and I awoke at about 7AM-ish and as soon as I awoke, all the lights turned on and the answering machine announced "answering machine ready." It was very wierd. All as if on cue for when I awoke.
"Consider if you will, a young man to whom electric power itself is at the mercy of his own consciousness..."
Okay, well, it was fun for a few minutes.