You're kinder to the original Lost in Space series than I would be, but the rest seems about right. Let's hope there's no attempt to remake Starlost or Space: 1999. Starting from something that wasn't much good to begin with would also be a bad move.

Oh, and what about The Avengers? Where did that film go wrong?

Browncoats! rise up and lynch scalzi for his blasphemous remarks! HOW DARE HE?!?!?!

i kid, because i love=)

1st depends on the chemistry, between the Actors.. if they're bored.. and looking like they can't find the escape hatch, nothing will save it.

2nd the plot, if its cliche or the slightest bit recognizable as a rippoff from some other show this season, forget it.. we're not ignorant teenagers anymore.. PLEASE make sure it has nothing to do with an Island in the South Pacific!

3rd the acting/dialogue, make me 'feel' like you know what your talking about.. not reciting French for the first time

4th good.. Great!.. Music, not too contemporary.. it has to be new fresh.. unique to this incarnation without dissing the original

5th FX, waaay down on the list here, decent special effects.. we all know the Enterprise.. its ageless.. just don't bobble it to death with weird gadgets.. and please get the sound effects right.. hirer some good foley artists.. ones that 'know' what Star Trek is..

I'd throw Wild Wild West in there, successful only in the sense that it allowed Jon Peters to finally see his dream of a giant mechanical spider realized on the big screen. But a miserable failure in every other way. Even Salma Hayek dressed like an old-timey floozy couldn't save it.

And aren't you being a tad harsh on Serenity? The TV show bored me to tears (and I'm a Whedon fan), but I found the movie to be surprisingly good. Fan following or not, it was never going to be a hit with its lack of marquee name stars. But it's found a healthy following in recent years. (It also helps that 95% of the mainstream scifi films released in its wake have been utter garbage.)

--Nick Nadel
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/01/watchmen-lawsuit-possibilities.php

The problem with Serenity was that they did too many free test screenings, and almost everyone who was interested in it saw it before it hit the theaters.

Everyone I know saw it before it hit theaters. The only reason I didn't was because I had something to do that day.

Many fans saw it when it came out, but nowhere near the amount of people who would have were it not for the test screenings.

Wrong lesson learned, the problem with Lost in Space was the dumb ass plot for the last half or so of the film. Oldman's Dr Smith was excellent and more like the original character at the start of the tv series than the campy one he became later on. Not sure why you like the campy Dr Smith.

So Serenity was an economic failure, maybe, I don't care to look up the figures. But are you saying the tv show and the movie weren't good? So you, a writer, are saying that the final judgement of quality is how much money the product makes?

Also a problem for Serenity - it was not very good.
Firefly was fun, and Serenity might have worked in episodes (if they took out the stupid plot elements) but it was a pretty terrible movie.

I liked Serenity, even saw it twice (though the solar system it is set in seems kind of claustrophopic), but I didn't see the TV series.

One film I avoided after initially thinking it might be fun (before I knew any details about it) was Thunderbirds... I liked the the 60s TV SUPERMARIONATION series a lot as a kid, and got into its accompanying material such as the toys and TV21 comic, with weekly news from 2067 (well, 100 years from then anyway). But the reviews and previews of the Thunderbirds live action movie, apparently with whining children in place of the original heroic manly (albeit puppet) characters named after Mercury astronauts, put me off - I didn't want to spoil my memories!

The film sounded like it was designed to fail to appeal both to modern American kids, who would have had little knowledge of the original, and to anyone who might have liked the original (from both its 60s heyday and its later reappearances in the 80s and 90s). Perhaps the makers again failed to get what made people like the series in the first place - but I guess I won't find out from personal experience.

No Tudza, he's not saying that money is the final arbiter of quality. He's saying the money is the final arbiter of money. Serenity wasn't a successful movie in the way that prevents the word "flop", and there is a lesson to be learned there. A movie doesn't have to be bad to flop, it just has to fail to sell tickets.

I think a very worthy addition to this list is going to be Land of the Lost.

@Karen Funk Blocher : Starlost could actually be good, but they'd have to do it right. The way Uncle Harlan wanted it to be.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to think of Voyager, which is one reason I'm glad they've got you on board (to prevent suckage).

Re: Serenity, an intelligent, well-written movie that loses money is actually more dangerous than a bad movie that loses money in that Hollywood suits could then claim that quality doesn't matter as long as the effects look cool and/or they cast Will Smith.

Here's the problem, Mr. Scalzi - your article apparently about BAD movies, not movies that didn't make money. Box office is not necessarily a predictor of movie quality - consider the vast amounts of money made by alleged "comedies" that make our stomachs turn.

So while I'm with you on LOST IN SPACE and X-FILES, yes, I think you're way off on SERENITY. LOS made money even though it was awful, because it was marketed to the point where the studio was shoving it up our nostrils. But it was still a bad movie. The X-FILES movie wasn't just a commercial flop - when I was watching the DVD, it malfunctioned halfway through and I never saw the end and I DIDN'T CARE. That's how dull that movie was.

SERENITY made no money its opening weekend, but its eventual box office was $38 million - not what they wanted, but far from a total flop. But setting that aside, it was a GOOD movie, one of the few movies that people who hadn't seen the TV show could enjoy - I know quite a few people who became Browncoats after seeing the movie, not before. Compare that with STAR TREK: THE MOTIONLESS PICTURE, which was loved only by TV fans and even they were ready to bolt. Thank Zod for Khaaaaaaaan (RIP Mr. Montalban).

You want to talk bad TV adaptations? SWAT, WILD WILD WEST, STARZKY & HUTCH, BEWITCHED, MIAMI VICE, TWIN PEAKS FIRE WALK WITH ME... the list goes on but I've tormented you enough. ;) Don't follow the money in a culture that created the SCARY MOVIE series.

But the difference is Serenity, and Firefly, are good science fiction.

"Oldman's Smith was creepy, not campy and -- for better or worse -- signaled the respected actor's new willingness to descend into occasional hackery."

Around that time I was on a big Oldman kick (what can I say, The Professional is one of my all time favorites) and while talking about Air Force One and Nil By Mouth, Gary Oldman came right out and said that he does the big blockbusters so that he can get a big paycheck and bankroll the small independent stuff he enjoys. One role in a big blockbuster pays the entire budget of a small independent film.

I can't remember his exact quote, but I do recall the phrase "sing for your supper" was used.

Firefly and Serenity were too clever for the average viewer to appreciate. If that means that more SF screenplays are going to be dumbed down, too bad. And we wonder why more young people are not attracted to SF.

It is difficult for me to believe that I live in a world where the Lost in Space film can be discussed at any length with nary a mention of Mimi Rogers. Perhaps I should go back to bed and when I awake once more I will no longer be in The Twilight Zone or on Bizarro World or where ever the hell it is I seem to have found myself.

Mr. Scalzi (if that's who you really are), I agree with much—if not all—of what you said (apart from the aforementioned lack of Mimi Rogers love). I'd like to see a similar column with the adaptation working in the opposite direction: films that have jumped to television with less-than-spectacular results. Stargate meets the first half of that equation, but the eleventeen series that have spun off from the original lead me to believe that the television franchise has been fairly successful. Are there others (successful or not)?

Oh man, Thunderbirds is a great example. The campy charm of the show didn't translate to live action at all. It was horrible.

Was Speed Racer scifi enough to count?

The other example I can think of isn't really scifi - The Flintstones?

I can think of a positive example that went the other way - good movie to good TV show - Jimmy Neutron.

At the risk of sticking my head into the pillory, I was kinda disappointed by Serenity. Yes, it's an OK movie. Yes, it has Beloved Characters being even more like themselves than in the original series. But to me, it's not Firefly. The humour was too thin on the ground and nobody was having any fun. The fact that it was trying to pack Gh0d-knows-how-many series' worth of reveals into two hours didn't help either. Oh, well.

I think the worst transition from tv to screen prize must surely go to the cinematic version of The Avengers more than any of the aforementioned. 'Appalling' doesn't come close.

I prefer to make a distinction between commercial and artistic failure. Personally, I couldn't care less about commercial failure. The only potential effect that has on me is there will be no sequels. But sequels usually suck, so who cares?

Serenity was an obvious commercial flop, but artistically, one of the best sci-fi movies in 20 years.

Lost in Space was crap AND a flop, but I thought the series was dumb anyway.

Star Trek...well, what can you say? They made a lot of movies, and only one of them was actually great -- we all know the one. And incidentally, RIP Khan Noonien Sing.

Was Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which my late friend David called "Star Trek Zero") a financial success? Because it was a wretched failure in terms of actual quality. Recycled plots from the series, "applause pauses" for each of the TOS characters' entrances, some staggeringly bad acting (as is the case whenever William Shatner appears)—it was point-and-laugh bad. That thing made money?

If it did, well...alas for us. If it didn't, then there must have been something that made the studios give the franchise a second chance, which paid off with TWOK.

As for going the other way, of course the classic example is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a silly campy movie that became a terrific series. In my opinion Stargate SG-1 and its kindred suffered from keeping some of the unfortunately rather stupid concepts of the movie, though it's hard to argue with 10 seasons and two spinoffs.

@Nick Nadel -- you can't be serious about the whole "lack of marquee name stars" comment. What was Star Wars but a SF movie with a bunch of no names? Look at how great that did!

StarTrek will teach us that if your reboot is so different that fans don't recognize what they're looking at but for a few glamor shots, you will fail.

Also, to those saying a flop ain't that bad, you just don't get a sequel; well, you might get a lot less if it makes execs nervous about releasing other like movies...

Xopher: Yep. It grossed $139,000,000 worldwide, which, you know, wasn't bad for 1979.

I have to admit a certain fondness for it. It was actually the first Trek I saw (probably one of its first TV screenings, definitely sometime in the early 80s), so maybe it's just nostalgia.

As to Serenity, I don't think it belongs on this list. Not because it's too good, but because it actually did well comparitively to the TV series. All these others were hit TV series with films that flopped. Firefly was a flop TV series with a film that flopped. Completely different beast. That's not "not translating well to film." That's "basically not appealing to the market."

@Xopher: ST: TMP grossed $82M in the US in 1979 -- which when adjusted for inflation would be around $236M today. On a budget of $35M, I'd say it was a success (or should that be suck-cess?)...

@Emmy: I don't know that you could say Star Wars had a "bunch of no names" -- of the main characters, Carrie Fisher probably had the skinniest resumé, having only been in Shampoo before it, and she's the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher (new, but not exactly unknown). Mark Hamill had numerous guest spots on TV, Harrison Ford was in American Graffiti, James Earl Jones was big on Broadway and had been in several movies, and Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing were already movie stars.

@Emmy: See John H.'s response. Not saying the Serenity cast were no-names, but they weren't movie stars, or even popular TV stars at the time. (And let's be honest, they aren't movie stars now. I love Nathan Fillion, but his name alone couldn't open a movie these days.) I just meant that Scalzi's argument that the fans didn't show up and it was a flop doesn't work. Serenity was never going to have a huge opening--it came out at the end of the summer, wasn't marketed well, and had zero stars. No film would do well under those circumstances. But that doesn't make it a failure, since it was well-reviewed at the time of release and didn't totally bomb at the box office. It's not like it was Delgo or anything.

--Nick Nadel
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/01/watchmen-lawsuit-possibilities.php

@DemetriosX - I'll concede that, but it would probably require much more creative control by Harlan (possibly abetted by Bova) than he's had in nearly every film or tv project he's been involved with, ever. Maybe someone like JMS or Spielberg could get it done, but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's hoping Scalzi has the kind of happy association with SGU that Harlan had with B5.

StarTrek will teach us that if your reboot is so different that fans don't recognize what they're looking at but for a few glamor shots, you will fail.

Dealing With Aces: One of my New Year's resolutions was not to bother arguing with impossible to please Trekkies. But you will excuse me if I think the people screaming "J.J. Abrams raped my childhood" from the second his name was attached to the project really don't deserve to be taken seriously.

And with the recent passing of Ricardo Montalban, it might be worth pointing out that director and uncredited co-writer of the best of the Trek films was more interested in making a coherent and entertaining film than a sticky pile of fan service.

And after the pretentious, leaden mess that was TMP, I think 'Kahn' qualifies as a pretty major re-boot of a franchise that was almost DOA. (Xopher is right that the first film's b.o. was pretty impressive. But I'd suggest a good chunk of that was off the back pretty slick promotion, and SF fans who were so desperate to see 'Trek' on screen again they'd have sat through anything. I just don't think they'd have done it twice.)

*Gasp* You can't exactly call Serenity a miserable failure! It may have flopped in theaters, but it is still gaining momentum even today! (Thus says the shameless Browncoat who just discovered her favorite "space western" a couple months ago.)

Also, my money's on huge success for the new Star Trek movie (well, if I weren't a broke college student it would be!). JJ Abrams really can work the magic when he puts his mind to it, and by all accounts, he did!

@Kris Johnson: It's funny you should bring up Stargate as an example of a movie that spawned a TV series, because I was going to bring it up as a TV series (SG-1) that spawned several successful straight-to-DVD movies (Ark of Truth and Continuum)! I agree with you that a blog on movies that inspire TV shows would be most excellent!

Is it the fact that Hollywood is running out of script ideas?? And also remember that some movies also inspire bad tv series. Does anyone remember the Planet of the Apes tv show. You definately need a good working formula to bring a TV show to the big screen. The Addams family comes to mind. The cast was perfect and each made the character they portrayed their own. Also those behind the camera made the film work. And just a food for thought here, had they ever tried to make Hogan's Hero's into a film there would have been only one person that could have played Sgt. Shultz and that would have been the late great John Candy. Sometimes what looks good on paper doesn't translate well to the big screen and in some cases sometimes the movie is less popular than when the TV series comes after. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate.

Serenity was a great film, but let's face it: it was a sequel to a TV series that never managed to find an audience.

And I liked the Lost in Space movie, too--but then I hated the series. And it was probably too different to appeal to fans of the originals, and too dated by the connection to attract new viewers.

I can think of a couple of cases of good movies that were utterly eclipsed by their TV adaptations:

Buffy, of course. The movie did well, and was very positively reviewed, but everybody remembers the TV series.

MASH, which was by Altman, no less, did well and received great reviews, yet the series managed to reduce the movie to a footnote.

Holy Sleestak, Batman--they're making a Land of the Lost movie? Good grief.

I'm a rabid Browncoat, but I forgive you.

I honestly can't think of any TV show that has translated successfully into a movie, except (and don't flame or ban me), the first Brady Bunch movie. It was sooo bizarre that it was hysterical, and they got it all right, down to the astroturf back yard.

Lost in Space made me cringe. Haven't seen X-Files and couldn't get into Serenity (although I got a free T-shirt from it, which I promptly gave away). I will watch the new Trek film just to see what they do with it. I imagine their re-imaginging will be nothing like the original movie, but then I think the studios probably think all the original fans are old and gray and senile and won't remember the original ;)

First time for me reading your blog and I have to say you seem to be right on target on this. I would have to agree with a majority of your comments on Lost in Space, Serenity - wha?, X-Files - yep moved on and so on.
Preview for Star Trek looks ... um, very shiny and glossy and so on. I'm concerned but I will have to see it. I'm hoping for the best but I think it's going to be a one shot deal. At this point if the franchise does anything more I think they should stay on television - but come back after Lost and Fringe, et al..