Ridley Scott to produce 3001

[dragon]

idley Scott is going to close the book on the "Space Odyssey" series with "3001."

Scott - the director behind "Blade Runner," "Alien" and other sci-fi classics - will executive produce "3001: The Final Odyssey" for Syfy. The miniseries will be based on the Arthur C. Clarke novel that closed out the "Space Odyssey" quartet that included "2001," which was made into the acclaimed 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Syfy did not say when it plans to premiere the miniseries.
I am thrilled to be bringing that legacy to audiences and continuing the great cinematic tradition that this story and its creators deserve. - Ridley Scott, director

"I have always been a fan of Clarke's extraordinary 'Odyssey' series, and certainly Kubrick's adaptation of '2001,'" Scott wrote in a statement. "I am thrilled to be bringing that legacy to audiences and continuing the great cinematic tradition that this story and its creators deserve."

Syfy earlier announced that it would adapt another Clarke novel, "Childhood's End." That begins production later this year.
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In addition to Kubrick's "2001," "2010," the second book in the series, was made into a film in 1984. "2061," the third book, has yet to be adapted.

What do you think of Clarke's series of books and the new Syfy project?

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[Borgholio]

A SyFy miniseries? Well, it's already fucked beyond repair.

[Elheru Aran]

Dunno. The original nBSG wasn't all that bad. Of course, that was almost 10 years ago now, I suppose, before it went all Monday Night Wrestling... It won't be Kubrick but it'll be something. As long as they don't go all The Asylum on it.

[Borgholio]

Yeah but unless Scott holds SyFy by the balls, they might make this into "Sharknado in space"

[Eternal_Freedom]

Honestly I'd rather he did 2061 than 3001. 2061 may have had a plot that was mostly disconnected from the eponymous Monoliths (just the aftermath) but it had an actual, interesting plot, unlike 3001 which was a travelogue of the future. At least with 2061 you could have cool-looking futuristic technology that looks plausible, whereas in 3001 we have inertialess engines and a fucking artificial planetary ring system in geostationary orbit. It's so far out there that there is no connection to the audience.

[Themightytom]

"Back in 2010 when that second sun showed up..."
is right about where you lose most of your audience.

[Batman]

Not to mention 'ha-ha, Frank Poole somehow survived a thousand years in hard vacuum'.

[Elheru Aran]

From what I vaguely recall of Sci-Fi's methods, if they make a sequel or whatever of a previous production, they tend to air the past ones before they actually show the new thing. So it's almost a certainty they'll show 2001 and 2010 before they actually air the 3001 series. I also wouldn't be surprised if they combine elements of 2061 with 3001, to ease the whole 'future travelogue' side of things a little.

The Frank Poole thing... Well. Someone throw up a picture of the Ancient Aliens guy. That'll about do it.

[SCRawl]

I read the book recently, and it was "Buck Rogers in the 30th Century" without the adventure. It could be an interesting premise, letting us discover the future along with a relic of our time, but I have my doubts that it can be done well.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I would almost prefer he re-make 2010. The film was pretty damn good but a miniseries woudl give you time to include some of the other bits, like the Tsien subplot, and maybe remove the Cold War tensions bit.

[TOSDOC]

Include the carnivorous dinosaurs-turned-harmless-gardeners or I'm not watching.

[Starglider]

3001 was, sadly, written after Clarke had gone into a decline and was coasting on past success; 'Rama Revealed' has similar problems.

[cosmicalstorm]

3001 impressed a 15 year old version of me. But today it seems silly. It would have made more sense if the book ended with Poole realizing he was living a resurrected life simulated inside a monoliths virtual memorybank.

[Havok]

3001, if I'm thinking of the right book (robot dinosaurs and the lady that freaks out because he has a mutilated penis) will be good as a series. Probably more boring than 2001 as a movie.

Also Syfy recently admitted that they really screwed the fucking pooch by changing their name, and shunning the core and original audience and are eating shit now watching all the sci-fi and fantasy that is hitting the airwaves. They said they wanted to get back into it and be the leaders in television sci-fi like they feel they should have been.

This is a good start.

[Borgholio]

3001, if I'm thinking of the right book (robot dinosaurs and the lady that freaks out because he has a mutilated penis) will be good as a series. Probably more boring than 2001 as a movie.

Also Syfy recently admitted that they really screwed the fucking pooch by changing their name, and shunning the core and original audience and are eating shit now watching all the sci-fi and fantasy that is hitting the airwaves. They said they wanted to get back into it and be the leaders in television sci-fi like they feel they should have been.

This is a good start.

Admitting one has a problem is the first step in recovery. I would very much like to see the old SciFi channel come back. It was one one of my favorites. But while we're on the topic, why not wish for the History Channel to go back to actual history too? Or maybe we should take this one step at a time.

[Alyeska]

A SyFy miniseries? Well, it's already fucked beyond repair.

Actually, no. When they produce miniseries they tend to be extremely high quality. The made for SyFy movies have been shit and have been for a long time. But their miniseries are on a different level all together.

Farscape Peacekeeper Wars
BSG
Tin Man

[Batman]

I wouldn't exactly count nBSG as a point in their favour, but they did give us 'Warehouse 13' and 'Defiance' so it's not like they're inevitably going to fuck it up.

[Elheru Aran]

The original nBSG miniseries wasn't bad (basically the first season?). It was trying to stretch it out into a full series that harmed it because then whatshisface (Ronald Moore?) was able to give full rein to his craziness.

Sci-Fi does have production values; they just don't have the money to hire people who actually know what they're doing very often. So they tend to spend money on filler, for lack of a better term, in between spurts of higher quality material.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The thing with many of the SyFy original movies is that they aren't even TRYING to be good. For the most part, they aren't cases of movies with high aspirations being derailed by substandard production and shoddy writing. Most of them are made by The Asylum;the founder, David Rimawi, has been pretty upfront in interviews that these movies are more or less satirical. Most of them are intentionally ridiculous and idiotic, because they not only enjoy making them, but it has a certain cult appeal. Hell, look at the success of "Sharknado" recently. Every single person involved knew they were making a bad movie, but it was with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It's a bit unfair to accuse the SyFy channel as being incompetent cheap-skates because they air intentionally crummy movies (made, by the way, by an independent production company).

I'm not saying SyFy hasn't had its share of original programming that was trying to be good and failed miserably, but so has every other single network. As some other people have already mentioned, they've turned out some pretty good miniseries in the past. Not that this makes this project a sure thing, I just don't think the SyFy channel quite deserves all the off-the-cuff scorn. (EDIT: That said, I will not excuse the weird obsession with wrestling).

[FSTargetDrone]

Also Syfy recently admitted that they really screwed the fucking pooch by changing their name, and shunning the core and original audience and are eating shit now watching all the sci-fi and fantasy that is hitting the airwaves. They said they wanted to get back into it and be the leaders in television sci-fi like they feel they should have been.

This is a good start.

Here is an interview with the programming chief of SyFy concerning this.

[gigabytelord]

You guys have no idea how happy I am to see that SyFy SciFi is at least trying to get back to it's roots.

[Borgholio]

When they change their name back, I will be happy.

[NoXion]

I don't get the point of creating intentionally crappy movies. I mean, you're going to take an opportunity to be creative and get paid for it, an opportunity that few are likely to get, and deliberately screw it up and do a shit job because you think you're making some kind of clever point? Are you that creatively bankrupt that can't use a movie to make your point without shitting over things like "a decent narrative", "suspension of disbelief" and "special effects that at least try not to be shit"?

It strikes me as being like taking a nice house and coating it in stucco made of dried dog shit.