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What happened to space opera?


NickGOT456

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Back in the early 2000s we had awesome epic space operas like Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5. I used to see a lot of commercials promoting the Battlestar Galactica TV series back in 2004-05. I was never interested in sci fi until earlier this year when I played the first Mass Effect under the recommendation of a friend. I thought the Battle for the Citadel scene was epic. I have yet to watch Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5.


Why don't we see shows like Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 anymore? Did the network execs decide the genre was dead? I think we need more epic space battles on TV.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNnd6oUEQ2I



It was long thought that fantasy was a genre once thought reserved for geeks but Game of Thrones has garnered a huge audience. Perhaps a well written space opera with a huge budget could appeal to a diverse audience.



Do you think this genre should be revived?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0udREmT7zgE



What would an HBO space opera be like?


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Mass Effect 2 was fookin' amazing.

Umm, I dunno, I guess its just gone out of fashion for a bit? But yes it ought to be revived.... if only to satiate my own desire, I am so very important after all

I wouldn't worry though, its not reflected in the movie biz... remember there will be a new star wars soon :leer:

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Probly a thread for the entertainment section. But my personal opinion is that Space Operas must needs contain actual opera.to be legit.

Correct, that would make Martinson's Aniara one of the few legitimate SF-epics.

But yeah, it's kind of interesting that there wasn't a wave of copycats after BSG. We haven't even had a Star Trek series for years.

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SyFy Channel is making James S.A. Corey's The Expanse into a TV show, I think it should start airing next year. With any luck, that'll scratch your space opera itch. Until then, go back and Watch BSG and B5!


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It's hardly dead. The popularity of the genre in other forms shows that. It's just that there was a sudden rush towards networks capitalising on the sudden popularity of superheroes, supernatural stuff and epic historical stuff (fantasy and otherwise), so all the budgets and timeslots that might sometimes accomodate a space opera are currently reserved for the likes of those.

Once Star Wars starts rampaging the box office at cinemas again, we'll certainly see another space opera given a go on TV. Like matt b pointed out, there's already one in the works with The Expanse.

Eta: it might not pan out quite as space opera, we'll see, but there's also

coming later in the year.
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Does anyone else find "epic" space battles becoming tedious? Back in the day I thought the space battle at the end of Return of the Jedi to be the best thing ever but the one at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy left me unmoved. To me it was just a bunch of flashing lights that I hoped would end quickly, even though there was a lot more going on than in the one in RotJ.


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Does anyone else find "epic" space battles becoming tedious? Back in the day I thought the space battle at the end of Return of the Jedi to be the best thing ever but the one at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy left me unmoved. To me it was just a bunch of flashing lights that I hoped would end quickly, even though there was a lot more going on than in the one in RotJ.

Mmm yeah I can agree a bit.

Also amazing avatar pic.

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That guinea pig is pretty sweet too Slurms. Its probably just that I'm getting older and space ships shooting lasers at each other isn't novel anymore. Still, the way you got to know the x-wing pilots in Star Wars a little bit before they blew up made all the difference in my eyes.


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I keep hearing about a redo of Farscape. Space opera is never dead just in and out of favour for longish stretches. Youngish males tend to be the audience for this stuff so once programmers decide there is an audience, scripts get the go ahead.


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Firefly killed off space opera, maybe? "Space Opera" gets its name from the 'horse opera" i.e. westerns, which Firefly was supposed to be -- the vaunted western in space. Westerns aren't popular and haven't been for a long time. It's been all gangsters all the time, for a long time now, except when it's all comix superheroes all the time -- and isn't the Thor (and Loki) franchise, at least sort of, space opera?


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There's Star Wars: Rebels and Ascension just about to start and The Expanse to follow, likely next year. The live-action Star Wars series may move back into development if the new films and Rebels are a success, and there's been whisperings of a new Star Trek collaboration between Paramount and Netflix. The Honor Harrington books have been optioned (although only by a small production company). There's also the Babylon 5 movie reboot, which I suspect is JMS's way of trying to get a TV show off the ground with Warner Brothers.



So there's a lot more interest than there has been for a while. It's just that TV SF has gone in other directions for a while, and now the pendulum is swinging back as people tire of vampires and zombies.


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There's Star Wars: Rebels and Ascension just about to start and The Expanse to follow, likely next year. The live-action Star Wars series may move back into development if the new films and Rebels are a success, and there's been whisperings of a new Star Trek collaboration between Paramount and Netflix. The Honor Harrington books have been optioned (although only by a small production company). There's also the Babylon 5 movie reboot, which I suspect is JMS's way of trying to get a TV show off the ground with Warner Brothers.

So there's a lot more interest than there has been for a while. It's just that TV SF has gone in other directions for a while, and now the pendulum is swinging back as people tire of vampires and zombies.

O! Yes! Please! Finally! let's stop with the vamps, weres and zombs.

But gangsters and cops will be with us always, surely.

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Well it would really depend on who made it, wouldn't it.


Do you work for HBO or something?




Eta: a quick google search of the first line of this topic shows you've been dropping this exact topic copy-pasted over all sorts of random forums (including a Ron Paul forum and some religious thing, wtf), which suggests to me you're up to something, even if I can't quite see what you get from it.


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