Merry Christmas to you and yours, John!

I surely hope you get your X-Mas wish.

Do you count novel adaptations as "original" to the screen?

If so, I know this totally awesome series of books about a military that recruits senior citizens because of their knowledge and life experience whose minds are then transferred...

I'm thinking that if Sommers had creative involvement in the third Mummy instead of leaving it to three people known for wrecking films and careers, we wouldn't be in this mess.

But you've heard this before.

That's been my biggest gripe about Hollywood Sci-Fi for years. They remake Jules Verne (I bet there's a CGI 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the pipeline right now) and H.G Wells ad nauseum, as if the last 100 years of SF novels never even happened. I'm even getting tired of all of the comic book movies, and I love comic books (Sandman, anyone?).

Where's the goddamned Heinlein adaptations (that DON'T suck)? Asimov (that don't suck)? E.E. Smith? David Brin (that don't suck)? Anne McCaffrey? C.J. Cherry? Eric Frank Russel, Theodore Sturgeon, Poul Anderson, Bester, Bova, Bradley, Card, Clement, Farmer, Foster, Gerrold, Haldeman, McIntyre, Niven & Pournell, Pohl, Silverberg, Spider Robinson, Varley, Zelazny (to name but just a few favorites)? Enough ideas for centuries of films, and Hollywood is like that cranky old relative at the Chinese restaurant who only orders a steak from the American portion of the menu while everyone else is trying something new.

I can think of something that could not be described as anything but original. Two somethings actually. The Android's Dream and Agent to the Stars. If only they could be made without destroying their inherent originality and humor, they would really be something.

The only part of Agent to the Stars that struck me as unfilmable was the Academy Awards. No way is AMPAS going to let their little golden emasculate appear in a Sci-Fi film.

Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah!!!
I, too, hope for some refreshing sci-fi movies for 2009!!!

I've a more basic wish: How about a sci-fi movie with a screenplay written by someone who doesn't regard literacy as a form of mental retardation? I don't think it's any coincidence that two of the most satisfying sci-fi shows of recent years (despite being awful "reboots") -- the revived 'Doctor Who' and 'Battlestar Galactica' -- were produced by writers, who appear to have paid more attention to the writer's room as the FX and marketing budgets.

Craig: I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but take issue with the "awful reboots" part. The new Doctor Who (besides not being awful at all) has been confirmed to be a continuation and not a reboot at all. The new Galactica may be a reboot, but that was necessary to make something good out of what was one of the worst SF TV series of all time.

My Christmas wish is that scifi geeks do a little more research before complaining because the last I heard The Book of Eli and The Road were both coming out next year. Both major films with major stars and that's just off the top of my head. Oh and Push, which is derivative but still new. Give me another five minutes and I'll probably have five more. This is just some old man whining going on...

And my wish is that people who complain about people complaining do the sort of research they maintain the others aren't doing, inasmuch as The Book of Eli is currently slated for release in 2010, according to IMDB, and The Road originally slated for release this year, has still not been given a definite 2009 release date (although I agree it's likely that it'll be released sometime in the year).

As for Push, it's a film whose biggest star is Dakota Fanning and a director whose biggest "hit" was Lucky Number Slevin, distributed by a company which, while it just got lucky with Twilight, is not considered a major studio. So let's just say that my definition of a major science fiction release apparently differs from yours.

It is my considered opinion that sequels are the Hollywood equivalent of cargo cults, wherein the natives, having gotten excited about the money and fame that a spectacular original movie has generated, go about building bamboo and coconut models of said original and waving them at the public in the hopes of attracting more of the same.

Alas, for all the waving they do, bamboo and coconuts only rarely ever manage to get themselves off the ground, let alone reach the heights of their source material. And yet, the lure of the cargo cult is strong, and so we have to swallow an awful lot of tropical vegetation between rare and effervescent steel and asphalt originals.

Pah. Bamboo always leaves slivers in my mouth.

I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, but take issue with the "awful reboots" part.

EdKed: I was being a wee bit snarky there. :) If I really thought Doctor Who and BSG were "awful" I wouldn't have just engaged in serious overdraft abuse on the latest box sets. (Hey, I'm doing my bit to spend my way out of the Global Economic Crisis by spending money I don't really have on stuff I don't really need,)

And without wanting to get into semantic hair-splitting, I give Davies enormous credit for pulling off a very difficult balancing act. He's a real classic Who fan boy, but he commissioned to bring a show back to the BBC that had to appeal to an audience of children that weren't alive when it was effectively cancelled in 1989.

So let's just say that my definition of a major science fiction release apparently differs from yours.

Oh, of course it is. That does make the complaining easier. And yes, The Book of Eli will be released in January of 2010, but that still doesn't change:

The Road (the adaptation of the award winning book)
2012 (latest disaster epic from Roland Emmerich)
Knowing (latest Nicholas Cage sci-fi entry)
Push (beneath your notice)
Moon (probably too small for you)
G-Force (kids, but still sci-fi and major)
Surrogates (latest Bruce Willis sci-entry
Planet 51 (kids, but still sci-fi and major)

And while you can overlook kids films, science fiction movies starring people like Nicholas Cage and Bruce Willis are obviously major---not to mention the adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize winning novel a huge blunder for a writer---and suggest you failed to do your due diligence before writing your post. But griping is easy. Research is not.

ArthurPDragon:

Meh. 2012 is a disaster film based on the Mayan calendar running out, which seems more supernatural than science fictional to me. Knowing, likewise, seems more supernatural than science fictional at this point, but even if we slot into SF (it does feature math and computers, after all), it's still being released by Summit Entertainment (not a major studio) in any event.

The Road, as noted, doesn't have a firm release date, and while I agree it's likely to be released in 2009, I'd like to see a firm release date first. The fact it was pulled from the Christmas 2008 schedule (i.e., Oscar consideration, which it was clearly aiming for) doesn't give me confidence in terms of where it will land on the schedule for the upcoming year.

As for G-Force and Planet 51, the latter is being made independently and merely being distributed by Sony (as far as I can see from the information), and the former is about "A specially trained squad of guinea pigs is dispatched to stop a diabolical billionaire from taking over the world," so I'd slot it in as kid's film more than SF. Moon is definitely minor, in terms of distribution.

So, that leaves Surrogates, which slipped under my radar. My bad, but the inclusion of a single additional original major SF film doesn't really change the point of the article, which is that the major studios at this point vastly overprivilege science fiction retreads and sequels to originals.

Again, it does seem your definition of "major science fiction" release is somewhat wider than mine, inasmuch as it appears that you pile anything speculative into it (see: 2012 and G-Force), you're not concerned about confirmed release dates, and you're willing to include non-major releasing companies and I'm not. Be that as it may, my choosing a particular set of criteria that does not comport with yours does not qualify as lack of due diligence, any more, than, say, your apparent willingness to shovel anything into the science fiction bin to make your point constitutes sloppy pedantic-to-be-pedantic nitpickery on your part. We're just starting out from different criteria.

That said, what you've inadvertently discovered -- and which may or may not have been on my column schedule to note in the near future -- is where the major studios have been falling down on the release of original science fiction, smaller companies (notable Summit Entertainment, which is releasing Push and Knowing) are picking up the slack. And that is definitely interesting.

"...is where the major studios have been falling down on the release of original science fiction, smaller companies (notable Summit Entertainment, which is releasing Push and Knowing) are picking up the slack."

What might be even more interesting is that the new and fresh not only comes from smaller companies but also from a non-western viewpoint.

Just saw the trailer for Sleep Dealer a mexican SF-movie that takes outsourcing to the extreme. I liked it and it was certainly refreshingly different from the usual sci-fi stew people get served at the cinema.

I'm not sure, Sleep Dealer might just be an exception, but maybe for fresh and original we need to turn our gaze away from Hollywood and look at the rest of the world.

I'm looking forward to Repossession Mambo. It promises to be both fresh and smart, and is due out in Spring 2009.

I agree that sometimes the foreign studios produce imaginative and different SF. Certainly "The City of Lost Children" was an eye-opener when my wife and I saw it way-back-when. Alas, the motion picture industry for the planet still leaves and breathes to the Hollywood beat, sad as I am to say that. Just as the publishing system orbits New York and Toronto.

I think the largest problem is not that original material isn't on the table, it's that studios won't dump cash into anything SF or F that isn't guaranteed to earn a W, because your average cost for an SF or F film is so massive these days. I remember when T2 was big news because it crested $100M production budget. That was unreal back in 1990-1991. Now? It's routine. And no producer in his right mind will suggest a studio invest that kind of cash into an unknown, untested product. Hence the endless sequels, reboots, remakes, and comic hero adaptations. The studios demand a front-loaded audience.

Best chance for "original" SF & F on the big screen, is for a new blockbuster novel franchise to emerge, ala Harry Potter. Hollywood will bank a project that is already selling millions of copies at Borders and Barnes & Noble.

Otherwise.... Hmmmph. Is there any place anymore for the John Carpenter type SF movie? Or is Hollywood "beyond" that kind of "midlist" movie?

"Avatar" is based on a kids show, "Avatar: The Last Airbender", which my daughter (7 years old) watches. I used to be dimly aware of it playing on the t.v. in the background, thinking it was just a second-rate Pokemon retread. But then I actually watched an episode. It's a well-written and clever show.

I agree that when it concerns major sf-movies it is still Hollywood that dominates, but that's because it has so much spending money.

It's interesting that you mention T2 and its $100 million production budget. Indeed budgets for major sf-movies inflated dramatically, but is not the inverse true for the costs of special effects? I wouldn't be surprised with the technology we have today you could create the same effects of T2 for much, much less.

So yes Hollywood will dominate when it comes to the best of the best with special effects, but if the technology becomes better and cheaper then the smaller studios might have a good chance of creating their own major blockbuster that is fresh and original.

What would you rather watch: sequal umpteenth with cutting edge special-effects but lame story, or the movie with decent special-effects but one mindblowing story?

Oh and to bring up another point: what about Bollywood?

dcarrington: I think I can almost guarantee that Cameron's "Avatar" is not based on the anime.

It's based on the Commodore 64 video game "Ultima IV."

Tycho Brahe: Alas, you are correct.

The kid's show had some real quality to it. Movies based on video games, on the other hand, almost universally suck.

I see that "Airbender: the Last Avatar" IS being made into a movie for 2010, though, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

One film they could do with the new CGI would be one based on Keith Laumers BOLO series. Only CGI would give you the scale and speed necessary to tell the stories right.

On another note some sequels miss an opportunity to really get "out there". With Star Trek it is their Deep Space 9 series they missed an opening for: a religious holy war led by a member of the Federation. In light of present times might be a slightly sore spot, but something to consider.