'Syfy' HD - Page 11

LOL. Their "higher quality CGI for less" is comparable to studios films FROM THE 1970'S. They aren't even up to current broadcast network television standards.

I love people who say 'technological advancements' are making effects easier to do. Hey, Mr. Badish - if I give you a paint brush, that doesn't mean you can paint like Rembrandt. And if I give you a computer with the latest and greatest software, it doesn't make you a visual effects artist. They key word is ART. What makes your show look good (or in your case, not) is the quality of the artists using the tools and the time you give them to work.

Well it's going to be difficult to convince the network that mandates the words "mega", "super" or "giant" (or a combination of the three) be in the title of all new movies to increase quality.... but you can try

You can pretty much count that no executive of a network can relate at all to their audience. They like to think they do because they read studies and analysis done by market testing firms that they sometimes hire. Focus groups can be fairly useless in entertainment and why some of the best directors either resist having them altogether or ignore what they say. Most people in focus groups are there for the freebies (money and food). Hence no surprise that the Syfy execs are paddling around in a rudderless boat.

I've never watched one of the Syfy Saturday Night specials. I find the commercials comical, but they must be doing something right. They have been putting out these "b" shows for a long time and they are still in business. Yet when they put out a high concept show they don't last. SyFy has put out a couple of best shows in the last decade. Farscape they cancelled and Battlestar they did finish (yet you get the feeling that they concluded early).

they are so bad that they can be funny at times.

The problem with the argument here is that those silly movies do well for them in the ratings. If focus groups are telling them the movies will do well and they actually so, then SyFy has every reason to rely on them.

In short, you can't blame them for doing what gets them viewers.

Super Shark and (to a lesser extent) Arachnoquake both fall into that category. If you're with a group that loves picking apart the absurdities, mistakes, etc. - they can be a blast.

Super Shark had my family rolling.

I tried to watch the SciFi remake of The Philadelphia Experiment. Quite frankly it could have been better, but the reliance of not only Evil Big Business but also Very Evil Military turned me off and toward the end I channel hopped quite a bit. The reliance on these old stereotypes is wearing on me. It could have been written more around the competing scientists (and yes, one could have had nefarious motives for the sake of drama) trying the figure a resolution and less on big business and military trying to snuff everyone out I caught the last 5 minutes just to find out if the hero survived. Seems I'm definitely not in what The SciFi Channel considers their prime demographic, but I've known that ever since they got away from the shows that had me watching SciFi every Friday and Sunday night religiously.

I have recorded "The Philadelphia Experiment" but have only seen the first few minutes of it. Those looked promising, so I'm sorry to hear that it might be such a stinker. It was good to see Ryan Robbins out of the Sanctuary and not being hit on the head by Falling Skies.

I have to admit, it looked better than Sharktopus, or Dinocroc! These are fodder for the MST3K writers!!

x

Better than but not by much. Also good to see Michael Pare and Gina Holden. Too bad they didn't get the opportunity to do much of anything.

Alas, this is what I have come to expect from Syfy movies on Saturday night. I THOUGHT that this might be an exception. Not having seen it, but in going by the reports here, I guess I just might have been mistaken.

That's a pretty low bar....lol Yeah it probably is better than those two.

That was my point. It'a pretty low bar, so I thought that it would have to be better. I still haven't seen it, but from the comment from ltownsend, it apparently wasn't MUCH better. My enthusoasm for watching it has waned considerably.

I usually enjoy these Syfy cheese fests. We need an all-star cage match. Bigfoot vs Piranhaconda vs Dinocroc vs Sharktopus. They'd really be taxing their CGI supercomputers on that one.

Actually, they wouldn't be.

These movies are intentionally campy, which takes them out of the running for MST3K material. A movie selected for lampooning by the MST3K team usually meets the following criteria:

1 - Those involved have to have been truly ernest about the thing. There had to be belief that what they were creating is truly good. If they aren't genuinely surprised at the poor reception , it's not worth picking on it.

2 - The effects or style of the movie simply not holding up to our current standards also does not make it a good movie to lampoon. Only effects that were bad by the day's standard would be picked on. Granted, these qualify in this regard, but the lack of quality is intentional, not some lack of know-how.

3 - There has to be something completely outlandish in the premise well beyond simply being unlikely or implausable. However, it can't be intentionally outlandish. Those involved have to have a belief in the concept. Deliberately coming up with a concept like Nuclear Zombie Zoo Train doesn't count.

Now, I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun to riff on these movies, it just wouldn't qualify under the standards of MST3K. It's not as fun to poke fun at a movie when it wasn't done seriously to begin with.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. The guys doing the effects for some of these movies think they are doing great work. I've seen their entries into various industry awards competitions (the Emmys, Visual Effects Society Awards, etc), and their corresponding written documentation that explains why they think their work is award worthy. They take it serious.

That's so sad.

There's a huge difference in taking it seriously when you're making a project and when there's an award at stake.

I can make pure trash and know it, but if I can say I won an award and improve my status, I'm going to call it art. You know how I know? Because I've worked on plenty of craptacular stuff over the years on the way up to where I am and when it came to submitting something for an award, I was all in so I could take home an award.

You know what? That award (or nomination) went on my resume. After a few Emmy awards, though, those silly little awards for the cheap local junk disappeared from the roles.

When you're in that situation, you know it's crap, but it still comes down to being award winning crap and that's all that matters: at least until the first time you win a real award for something you're proud of. To that, you have to get to something you can be proud of, and if that means selling you the junk first, you sell all the junk you can.

Trust me, these guys know the score. They go out of their way to choose the most absurd premises and titles, then do as little as possible to add quality to it. half the effects could have been done twice as well with a kid using Final Cut. The cheesiness is a schtick and they're in on the joke.

Most of these guys have no desire to do this long term. If they have to sell their virtues a bit to become an award winning member of a film crew, they'll act just as proud as they have to of it to sell it to the awards committee.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/2/12 at 6:07pm

From the "Hot Off The Press" Thread (top of 'HDTV Programming' page).

TV Notes
M. Night Shyamalan Jumping Into Scripted TV With Syfy Project
By Philiana Ng, The Hollywood Reporter's 'Live Feed' Blog - Aug. 2, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: Syfy is getting into business with feature filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.

The cable network has given a put-pilot commitment to a project from Shyamalan and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Marti Noxon titled Proof, marking his first foray into scripted television, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.

Shyamalan, who made his mark with The Sixth Sense, would direct the Universal Cable Productions project.

Proof centers on the son of a billionaire tech genius who offers a large reward for anyone who can find proof of life after death following the tragic accident and sudden passing of his parents.

Shyamalan and Noxon will co-write the project and serve as EPs. Ashwin Rajan, of Shyamalan's Blinding Eagle, will also serve as an exec producer.

Shyamalan's jump to the small screen comes after Syfy renewed Total Blackout and Lost Girl, opted not to move forward with Sanctuary and bid farewell to long-time series Eureka. He also has some history at the network. In 2004, the then-called Sci Fi Channel was involved in a controversial "special," The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, that ended up being a marketing ploy for The Village.

Shyamalan recently wrapped Sony's After Earth with Will and Jaden Smith. Noxon, who counts Mad Men, Glee and Grey's Anatomy, as some of her other TV credits, is penning The Glass Castle adaptation for Lionsgate and Gil Netter.

UCP is behind shows like USA's Psych, Suits and Royal Pains, and Syfy's upcoming Defiance, Eureka and Alphas.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/m-night-shyamalan-syfy-pilot-357866

This is the perfect channel for him, given that no one takes either seriously now.

The pilot for HIGH MOON has been ordered to production. Looks like Syfy is returning to outer space in a BIG way


High Moon is described as an imaginative, out-of-this-world series exploring what happens when the countries of Earth establish colonies to mine the Moon’s resources and discover a new form of life. Chaos erupts in a genuinely emotional, humorously thrilling and always unexpected fashion as the people of the Moon race to uncover this life form’s powerful secrets. Co-executive producer/writer: Jim Danger Gray (Pushing Daisies). Executive producer/writer: Bryan Fuller. The pilot is written by Gray from a story by Fuller and Gray. Executive producers: Cary Granat & Steve Granat of Reel FX and Don Murphy & Susan Montford of Angry Films. Studio: UCP.

Here are the other space projects in development, in addition to Blake’s 7 and Legion:

Orion – In this space opera Orion, an adventurous female relic hunter, tracks down valuable artifacts while trying to piece together her past. Set amidst an intergalactic war pitting humans against a terrifying alien race, Orion must decide whether to use her abilities to save herself or commit to the cause and unearth long hidden artifacts that could free all of humanity from a horrible fate. Executive producers/writers: Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes Burton (Alphas). Co-executive producers: George Krstic & Ryuhei Kitamura. Supervising producer: F.J. Desanto. Studio: UCP.

Sojourn — The first detective ever in space is tasked with investigating a murder on a starship — headed to colonize another planet – and instead becomes embroiled in a vast conspiracy involving a mysterious terrible crime dating back to the original launch of the ship 50 years ago. Writer: Phil Levens (Smallville). Producer: Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity). Studio: Lionsgate.

Clandestine – After a clan of bandits are nearly destroyed and left for dead by Coalition forces, they take refuge in the nearest safe haven, a derelict Coalition starship floating in space. Once onboard, they masquerade as Coalition officers while continuing their criminal ways – until they stumble upon a shocking realization about the true nature of the Coalition. Writers: Todd Stashwick & Dennis Calero. Executive producers: Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) and John Shiban (Hell on Wheels). Studio: UCP.

Infinity – When an alien armada is sighted in the region of Pluto, the Earth government turns to a young billionaire industrialist — who has the only ship ready for interstellar travel — to greet the aliens and avoid a catastrophe. Powered by secret alien technology discovered on Earth in the 1960’s, the ship engages in a firefight that sends them spinning through a wormhole into an uncharted region of space. Lost in the universe, the team struggles to survive as they encounter new planets and alien species, searching for a way back home. Writer: Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost). Producer: Berman/Braun Television. Studio: Universal Television.

Silver Shields – When his father is slain by assassins connected to the government of the large nearby city of Pont Royal, farm boy Caymer journeys there to continue his father’s legacy as a member of the local police force — and to solve the mystery of his father’s death. He discovers that his simple country view on life is at odds with the big city, filled with orcs and other magical creatures. Executive Producer/Writer: Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Alphas). Producer: Aaron Kaplan. Studio: UCP.

Shelter – A massive meteorite is headed toward Earth, forcing 30,000 hand-picked humans to live underground in a government funded shelter in order to start a new society. What begins as a Utopia quickly succumbs to the old human faults and jealousies as certain members of society create alliances to gain favor and power. Meanwhile things on the surface are not what they seem. Humans slowly realize that this event may have been fated and the survivors meant for a greater purpose in rebooting life on Earth. Executive Producer/Writer: Bruce Joel Rubin (Deep Impact) and co-executive producer/writer Ari Rubin. Studio: UCP.


http://www.deadline.com/2013/04/syfy-on-galaxy-quest-with-pilot-order-to-bryan-fuller-pilot-other-space-series-in-development/

The new Blake's 7 sounds interesting. Those of us who watched it in the 80's or 90's on PBS would like to see a continuation to see who lived and died, but this sounds like a remake from the beginning.

The new Doctor Who was a continuation, and not a remake from the beginning, and it is doing just fine.

We'll see.  I trust SyFy about as far as a wrestler can toss a table.

LOL

Anyone notice a running religious theme with SyFy's movies lately? Maybe it's my timing as I've only really channel surfed there about 4 times so far this year but every movie has this "you must believe" theme going on. One was a dude with some staff in Afghanistan or somewhere like that. Another with a book some girl couldn't read but she had "faith" and wasn't necessary for her to be able to read. Another just went out-and-out God with it , the other I don't recall but I do remember the whole "believe" theme was there.

I hope not because that crosses over from science fiction to fantasy.

'Ringworld' miniseries in the works at Syfy -- EXCLUSIVE

by James Hibberd



Two classic sci-fi novels are in the works at Syfy. The network is developing miniseries projects based on Larry Niven’s Ringworld and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End.

Michael Perry (The River, Paranormal Activity 2) is adapting Ringworld as a four-hour miniseries. The story follows a team of explorers that travel to the farthest reaches of space to investigate an alien artifact called Ringworld – an artificial habitat the size of one million Earths. As they crash land on this enormous structure, they discover the remnants of ancient civilizations, technology beyond their wildest dreams, mysteries that shed light on the very origins of man and, most importantly, a possible salvation for a doomed Earth.

For Ringworld fans, this news might cause some deja vu. Syfy previously considered making a Ringworld miniseries under a different production team nine years ago.

Childhood’s End will be executive produced by Michael DeLuca (The Social Network) and follows a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war and turns the planet into a near-utopia.


http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/04/10/ringworld-syfy/

wow!
I hope they do them both justice and not the usual Sat night specials they did pretty good with the Dune's & would love to see both of these done right. both are classics & deserve to be treated as such.

there may be hope for SyFy yet.

as a side bar...I've been hoping some studio would do Bear's Eon. there was talk about it at one time, even did a contest of graphics & video clips to promote interest but it seemed to die away.

isn't Ender's Game supposed to be turned into a movie soon?