Anyone who’s seen the trailers for today’s theatrical release of ‘Lockout’ should easily recognize it as a thinly-veiled knockoff of ‘Escape from New York’. The ads aren’t even a little bit subtle about that. This is just the latest in a not-so-proud tradition of remakes (official and otherwise) and franchise sequels that transport their story or characters to outer space. For this week’s Roundtable, we thought that we might make some suggestions of our own.
Tom Landy
Well, since we’ve already had Jason Voorhees and the Leprechaun (“Where’s me gold?!”) in space, it only makes sense to have Freddy Krueger reach for the stars with his infamous gloved hand. I’d like to see a claustrophobic slasher something along the lines of ‘A Nightmare on the International Space Station‘, where the bogeyman in the striped shirt and fedora begins invading the dreams of the astronauts on board. Eventually, Freddy gets strong enough to manifest in reality, where the victims are like fish in a zero-gravity barrel with few places to run and hide. I know this isn’t exactly original, but hey, it works. Robert Englund of course would have to rattle off some crazy one-liners like, “Houston… you BETCHA have a problem!” and “Ground Control: Major Tom has something wrong ALL RIGHT!” before (or after) he dispatches each victim one by one. Then, once everyone’s dead, Freddy comes to realize that he’s stuck up there by himself, and that’s when he lets out a piercing “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” a la Blu-ray Darth Vader. Yeah, I’d go for that most definitely.
Chris Boylan (Big Picture Big Sound)
‘12 Angry Spacemen‘ – Murder has been committed on the terraforming colony on Vega 7. Eleven colonists from all walks of life are convinced that they know who perpetrated this heinous crime: a sentient plant, with deadly snake-like tendrils and poisonous secretions. But one lonely xenobotanist tries to convince his fellow jurors that all may not be as it seems.
‘The Good, The Bad and the Weightless‘ – A mysterious space jockey, a petty thief and a hardened fugitive all set out to find a lost planet of gold. Who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy and who’s the gravity challenged?
‘Full Martian Jacket‘ – An astro-marine documents his strange and perilous journey through boot camp on Luna Base to an extended tour in the Martian colonies, where he blogs about the events leading to the famed Olympus Mons offensive, a turning point in the Terra/Martian conflict.
Adam Tyner (DVDTalk)
It was kind of a thing for a while there to rocket slashers off into deep space. Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, the Leprechaun and those otherworldy Critters all had their zero-gravity adventures in the darkness of space. That just leaves me wondering… well, why stop there? Can’t you just picture Leatherface bobbing around the exterior of a space station to the strains of The Blue Danube, flailing a chainsaw around? ‘Leatherface in Outer Space‘! You’ve got my ten bucks, New Line. Maybe another Freddy movie: “In space, no one can hear you dream“? The most obvious one for me, though, would be yet another Halloween sequel. Take your pick if you want it to follow the original franchise or the mostly-unwatchable Rob Zombie series. Michael Myers is still looking to hack apart whoever’s left in his bloodline. It just so happens that Laurie Strode (or fill in the blank with some twentysomething starlet type) has pulled herself together in the wake of all his havoc and is proudly being launched into orbit as an astronaut. With a butcher knife and a spacesuit in hand, Michael Myers ain’t too far behind… Heck, go all out and put a Silver Shamrock label on the spacesuits while you’re at it. I’m still working on my ‘Child’s Play-in-Space’ treatment if there are any bidders.
Luke Hickman
Imagine ‘No Country for Old Men’ set in space. The movie is already like a Western, so it would be a true “space Western.” In ‘No Galaxy for Old Men‘, while hunting on a small planet, a tough dude runs across the scene of a smuggling deal gone bad. There, he’s seen by a bounty hunter (picture Boba Fett if Boba was actually threatening) who begins to pursue him around the galaxy, killing tons of innocent folks along the way. Most space Westerns blow, so maybe this one would actually be worth watching. If it was made with serious intent and no pod racing whatsoever, it could be seriously awesome.
Josh Zyber
‘Alien Kane‘ – The trans-dimensional media baron Char’les Floomquad K’ane (because if there’s one thing that sci-fi movies and TV shows have taught us, it’s that all alien names are filled with pointless apostrophes), one of the richest and most powerful humanoid creatures in the solar system, dies alone in his Martian mansion. An artificially-intelligent search engine program digs into his past to seek the meaning of the tycoon’s enigmatic last word, “Rosebud.” Spoiler Alert: It’s the name of his favorite childhood hoverboard. This will be the ‘Citizen Kane’ of sci-fi movies… literally!
‘Gone with the Solar Winds‘ – The epic tale of a woman’s life during one of the most tumultuous periods in galactic history. Follow the adventures of Scarj O’Hara (played by Scarlett Johansson, ‘natch) from her young, innocent days on a prosperous clone farm to the war-torn streets of New Atlanta during the Robot Civil War. Will Scarj O. find love with charming space smuggler Rhettcon Butler? Frankly, my dear, you will give a damn!
‘Lawrence of Andromeda‘ – Five hundred years in the future, scientists use preserved DNA samples to clone real historical figure T.E. Lawrence, now enhanced with genetically-modified strength, agility and telekinetic powers, to be the ultimate super-soldier in the battle against Islamic terrorists. (Yeah, they’re still a problem.) But they don’t count on Lawrence going rogue and following in his famous predecessor’s footsteps. While scouting a battlefield on planet Ceti Beta VII in the Andromeda constellation, Lawrence 2.0 joins with the primitive Cetan natives to form a guerrilla army against the evil corporate douchebags from Earth who sent him… Blah blah blah… White guy becomes leader of “noble savages,” etc. etc… Copy/paste bits of ‘Dances With Wolves’ and ‘Avatar’. You get the idea. It’ll make a bajillion dollars!
—
We know that our readers are creative folks. Give us your space-themed titles and plot summaries in the Comments.
Shayne Blakeley
I’ll have a ticket to each of these please
HuskerGuy
Intergalactic Jones – Raider of the Lost Moon, The Space Crusade, The Comet of Doom, Galaxy of the Crystal Skulls
Shayne Blakeley
John McClain finds himself on the space station on Christmas, unfortunately a shoeless Xenomorph is crawling through the ventilation shaft.
JM
‘Léon’ is a hitman on assignment, on an orbital supercomputer the size of a planet, known as ‘The City Of Lost Children,’ which is filled with packs of Xenomorphs who are puppeted by a Gary Oldman AI known as Control.
Alex
Harry Potter and the Orbital Kerfuffle
Shayne Blakeley
Dances With Wol… oh
Teenage Mutant Nin… shit
Alex
The Hidden Fortre…wait a sec
JM
Reboot ‘John Carter’ and set it on Mars.
William Henley
Reboot “Total Recall” and set it on Mars. 🙂
HuskerGuy
The Zodiac Killer – Someone believed to be from the upper Ursa Major sector is suspected of serial murders spanning planets in every constellation associated with Earth’s Zodiac. He then proceeds to taunt intergallactic law enforcement with a series of riddles and letters, never to be found.
Shayne Blakeley
Gorn With The Wind
Julian
“The Nebula Gun”: more bumbling adventures from Frank Drebin! Cross-over with “Forbidden Planet” is to be expected, with plenty of lampshading and fourth wall-breaking.
JM
‘Indiana Jones and the Guardian of Uranus’
In the dark jungle of South America, Nazi archaeologist Christoph Fingerman has discovered an ancient secret. A way to transport men to another world.
The CIA, having lost all their top men, offer Dr. Jones a black leather supersuit of alien design, and a chance for redemption.
His new wife, Marion, unable to come with him, issues a prophetic ultimatum. If he leaves her for this insanity, he will face the probability of becoming lost forever.
But, with the human race at stake, Indiana Jones Jr. straps on his rubber hat.
JM
Which is counter-programmed with ‘Even Martian Showgirls Get The Blues.’
Jonathan Doan
Brilliant!! All of it!! 🙂
Alex
This is going to sound strange, but I think Julius Caesar is the one Shakespeare play that could actually work in space. I’m thinking if you cast Rome as a Galactic Empire, then the themes carry over into Space Opera rather nicely. Betrayal, loyalty, assassination, revenge, all-out war. You’d need to change a few names, but there’s some quality drama in there.
JM
‘Doomsday Protocol’ – ‘Seven Samurai’ in space, directed by James Cameron.
JM
Remake ‘Heat’ in the ‘Blade Runner’ universe.
Shayne Blakeley
Big Trouble with Little Tribbles
Shayne Blakeley
DeForrest Gump…
Aaron Peck
Totally forgot to add in my two cents on this post. I had it all planned out. I was going to do ‘Shame in Space’. How hilarious/weird-as-hell would all that nudity be in zero gravity?
JM
I wonder if bouncing breasts in zero gravity would be too uncanny valley?
Aaron Peck
Do breasts bounce in zero gravity or do they sort of just float there?
JM
During zero gravity sex, there has to be some kind of weird breast physics, but I don’t know what happens during general naked floating.
Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She was up there for three days and orbited the earth 48 times. During her mission, she performed various tests on herself to collect data on the female body’s reaction to spaceflight.
I would ask her two questions.
(1) If you push one breast up, and pull the other down, will they stay where you put them?
(2) If you push the nipple in, will it remain semi-inverted?
Aaron Peck
The History Channel did a whole segment on if sex was even possible in a weightless environment, even going so far as to showing a suit that was invented that would hook two partners together in the front by velcro straps.
JM
Lyubov Serova, a specialist with the Russian Institute for Space Sex, says:
“After a period of adaptation for weightlessness, people will not need any special devices, like elastic belts or inflatable tubes to have sex in space.”
JM
Adult entertainment company Private Media Group filmed ‘The Uranus Experiment: Part Two.’
Zero gravity sex was accomplished by flying an airplane to an altitude of 11,000 feet, then doing a steep dive.
Budget constraints allowed only one 20-second shot.
Josh Zyber
AuthorI love the notion that the Russians would have something called the Institute for Space Sex. 🙂
For those of you who don’t feel like Googling, it’s actually called the Russian Institute of Medical Sciences and Biology.
William Henley
Uncanny valley? Are we computer generating breasts now? Oh wait…..
William Henley
Demoliton Man.
James Bon…. Wait, I think they already did that
The Matrix – just change it from robots to aliens. We already have flying ships
Monty Python and the Meaning of… Oh wait, just remembered how that movie ended.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Just have them look for some DNA strand, yet they somehow never leave earth, even though the Martians deliver insults for half the movie, the subtitles are in Klingon, and the princess has huge…. warp naceles!
Jurassic Park. Actually, surprised this hasn’t happened yet (unless there is some really bad 70s movie I don’t know about). I mean, they already took Dinosaurs to San Diego.
Flight of the Navigator. As much as I love this movie, I was disappointed when I first saw it when I was 7 because they never left Earth.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Candy maker builds a car capable of intergalactic space travel, he and his kids sing a song while flying over the Marian Planes, meets a girl whom he takes to the seas of the moons of Saturn while the kids sing some horribly sweet song, then pirates show up and kidnap them and take them to Andromida, where you have to wonder if the whole thing was a dream or real.
Charlie’s Angels – come on, you know that no matter how bad the plot is, you would see this
Constantine – Sadly, I think this would end up with a movie almost identical to Final Fantasy The Spirits Within
You know, its only Friday night, I am sure I will come up with some more after i get some sleep
Thulsadoom
Hmm… Lethal Laser – Spacecop Rartin Miggs is a suicidal spacecop from Molderan, who’s wife was on the planet when it mysteriously blew up. (In the sequel, it will turn out evil oppressive aliens blew it up because he was investigating them) nobody wants to work with him, because he has fits of insane space-rage.
Moger Ruttaugh is a Mingon spacecop with a family, who gets saddled with Miggs. Both veterans of the great galactic war of 1138, they must team up & bond to help stop the evil ex-general Varth Dader from selling mutagenic drugs that at first make people deliriously happy, but after prolonged use, turn them into hideous mutant killers!!!
In the planned sequel, they also run into money launderer turned snitch, Bar Bar Jinks, (a marginally less annoying character, than one played by Joe Pesci in a little known series of unelated human films)
EM
Death Race 2001: A Space Race Rally
Why didn’t this happen?!?
JM
‘3001’ – ‘The Shining’ meets ‘2001’ as directed by a Stanley Kubrick AI.
William Henley
3001 is the final book in the Arthur C Clark’s series of books. The books are 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001.
EM
Having seen the Thing prequel recently, I have been wondering what a pre-prequel Thing might be like.
JM
I thought ‘The Thing’ prequel was the alternative sequel to ‘Alien,’ but they changed the title to ‘Prometheus 3’?
JM
The Unbearable Lightness Of Kolob.
Shannon Nutt
Two words:
Starship Titanic
I see billions and billions in profit.
EM
Too bad Douglas Adams did not live to see it.