Sci-fi films are as dead as Westerns, says Ridley Scott - Times Online: "He was the director of two of the most critically acclaimed science fiction films, but now Sir Ridley Scott believes that the genre is so tired and unoriginal that it may be dead.
At the Venice Film Festival for a special screening of his seminal noir thriller Blade Runner, Sir Ridley said that science fiction films were going the way the Western once had. “There’s nothing original. We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it,” he said. Asked to pick out examples, he said: “All of them. Yes, all of them.”"
9 comments:
Even Ridley should know the old William Goldman saying about Hollywood, "no one knows anything." I thought there would never be another pirate movie in my lifetime, much less one that would make any money.
1) It just takes a genre-breaking script or a formula to get the train rolling again. Not to mention, the core audience has never diminished.
2) Regardless of the quality of each of the films throughout their histories, the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises are still viable money makers.
3) CGI combined with brand new audiences who haven't been turned on to the classics, have a tremendous upside. I'm stoked about the recently announced remake of "The Illustrated Man."
Um, conversely, Gort! Keanu barada nikto.
Maybe even westerns aren't dead, what with two new ones opening soon.
How about a western in space? Firely put on airs of such.
Curious, since Westerns seem to be making a comeback. Americans may not be aware of it, but Westerns lived on in Europe long after they disappeared in their homeland.
(I wish I'd made that Firefly comment!)
Never having had cable television, I'd thought that the Sci-Fi channel would have been one of favorites. Sadly, now that I've had exposure, I find it's a pit of paranormal dramas, monster movies, and wrestling, and damned little to do with science fiction. Perhaps Scott has been watching too much cable TV.
I thought I'd love the Sci-Fi channel, too. But no. I do love Firefly, though.
"Maybe even westerns aren't dead, what with two new ones opening soon."
And not just any western, but an Elmore Leonard western.
I've seen a few hours of "The Sci Fi Channel" and I have to say that the Canadian Channel, "Space: The Imagination Station" is better. Oh sure, "Sci Fi" has a few good shows - the revival of Battlestar Galactica, Eureka and the revival of Doctor Who (though of course they only remarket that; it's produced by the BBC with cooperation from Canada's CBC) - but mostly they seem to try to get by on the cheap.
I'm looking forward to the remake of 3:10 To Yuma and it's not often that I can say that about a remake.
Yeah, the trailers for that one look promising.
If skiffy films are so damned dead, Ridley's brother should probably stop making them. To say nothing of the brothers might want to knock off producing the borderline-sf series NUMB3RS. Well, as dead as the western, indeed. The brothers' other major current tv production is the somewhat poky historical drama THE COMPANY, because golly, surely spy drama isn't being run into the ground yet again...
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