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'Buck Rogers' in the 21st Century
It must've been a month or so ago that I was looking for something on NBC's website - I can assure you it had nothing to do with Jay Leno - when I noticed that you could
watch entire episodes of
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
So naturally, I did. The 70s machismo of
Gil Gerard, presented in a white
jumpsuit with chest hair all-a-flowin' counterbalanced by
Erin Gray's buttoned
up sexuality, which itself was played against the unbridled lust of
Pamela
Hensley as Princess Ardala, was the central component of the show.
That and, of course,
Mel Blanc as the voice of Twiki.
Looking at it through the valuable prism of history, it's a wonder how a show
that bad ever made it past its pilot, but Buck Rogers was on the air for a
couple of years, though to be fair, its place in pop culture is a lot more solid
than most shows that only make it 36 episodes (The Single Guy, anyone?).
IGN did some snooping recently and discovered that the campiness of the
series will be preserved for an upcoming movie version of the
Flint Dille Buck
Rogers graphic novel from the 1990s. Nu Image/Millunnium Films are picking up
the tab on the sub-$40 million project, and having rehashed both Rambo and the
upcoming Conan series, this is kind of their business model at the moment.
Dille will be on board as a writer and producer, and there's talk that
Dille's good friend
Frank Miller could direct. That's only speculation at this
point; even Nu Image says they're actively searching for a director. I don't
exactly think of Frank Miller when my mind turns to cheesy, Mongol-fighting
astronauts 500 years in the future, so there might be better choices out there
for the kind of material we're talking about.
And where do you look if you're casting a Buck Rogers movie? If only Gil
Gerard had really fallen into a coma back in the late 70s after being exposed to
some kind of gas, then we could resuscitate him now. That'd be killer. Obviously, my mind
turns immediately to
Bruce Campbell or
Nathan Fillion. I doubt Fillion would
want to get into another spaceship at this point, but you never know.
As for the women, you have some flexibility. The budget restraints mean some of the big
names are out of the question, but since I just mentioned Nathan Fillion, what
about his Slither co-star, the lovely
Elizabeth Banks as Col. Wilma Deering and
for the hell of it, Fillion's Firefly filly
Morena Baccarin as Ardala.
I think as long as they play it for the camp, this
should be genuinely entertaining, or at least more entertaining than if they
played it straight.
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 10:19AM
by
Colin Boyd
in TV Adaptations, Frank Miller, Comic Book Movies
|
2 Comments
Colin Boyd
in TV Adaptations, Frank Miller, Comic Book Movies
|
2 Comments
Reader Comments (2)
I remember seeing the movie in a theater, then the series later on TV. I still think of the sleep chamber when I can't sleep at night, and how creppy the Hawkman character looked. But that double shot of Erin Gray in Buck Roger's and Silver Spoons means she will always have a special place in my heart.
Morena Bacarrin should have a role in the movie even if she has to play Twiki.