The Glade 4.0

I'm doomed. Doomed to have everything I love most get cancelled, discontinued, lose content/technical support, go out of print, and/or otherwise fail to make the jump to a format that would be the greatest entertainment product since 35mm film.

This isn't in reaction to any recent events, or whatever. This is just an epiphany regarding a long-building pattern of events, that I just felt I had to climb to a lonely mountain and shout at the world in frustrated rage and angst.

Maybe later, I'll feel masochistic enough to come back and suffer through dredging a list of the lost and unpursued properties through my mind in excruciating detail so that I can list them here for your schadenfreudey amusement and pleasure (or, if you are in sufficient need of GingOOMH, torture).

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Because if they were allowed to run long they'd have time to reach mediocrity.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

/console

To be fair, everything ends. And almost nothing gets to end of its own accord. It gets pulled when it's no longer profitable.

There is no war between art and commerce. There never was one. Art got its *** kicked right out of the gate, before the smoke from the starting gun had even wafted away.

Similarly GOOMH-y, I was ruminating on the premature cancelation of so many genre properties a week or so ago. I can only think of two that ended of their own accord, without being prematurely canceled or unnaturally stretched into a husk of their former selves. Babylon 5 and...well, I've forgotten the other now. BSG, maybe?

I think this may be a distinctly American problem. We seem to be the only ones conditioned to be this way, and unlike, say, Britain, our stuff isn't subsidized. So we can't simply say "I want to make a 16-episode maxi-series," get the funding, and go out and make it. Instead, in our system, no corporate (and thus, effective) funding gets signed off on until it can be demonstrated that the show/movie/book/whatever has legs, that they'll be able to reap the whirlwind of income for many, many years.

Think of how much better so many of the shows we enjoy would be if they'd been able to plan not only for a particular duration, but also to definitively end at that point. Did we need 10 years of Stargate SG-1? The X-Files ran a good three years after its fresh-by date. Those post-trilogy Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies? And conversely, what about Firefly, Carnivale, Angel, and countless others (mostly that aired on Fox)? Hell, Star Trek managed to be both prematurely canceled and turned into an interminable series of movies that long outlived their relevance.

Artistic integrity can't be maintained on the current US system, in my opinion. With the constant uncertainty and the guillotine hovering over every week's Nielsen release, you wind up with one of two options: either tell broken, diluted versions of the story you want to tell, and then scramble to stretch it if you manage to be a hit; or roll the dice, plant yourself in for the long haul, and watch as those dreams fail to come to fruition. And both are equally frustrating for the dedicated viewer.

Having good television get made at all in the current climate is an utter miracle. Having it go out on a high note? That's priceless.

This is depressing, FarSky.

However, it brings up something I keep hoping to see someone do...

Remake Babylon 5.

Hire J.M.S. as a consultant. Have it produced by the same people who made BSG, but with a definitive ending. Cut out the filler standalone episodes, keep the fun parts of the dialogue, hire real actors, use real special effects, and plan it out from beginning to end (which JMS already did, though he deviated somewhat from his plan.) That series could be the best thing ever put on TV. This goes unnoticed because the original had terrible production values (even at the time), horrific acting, some suspect dialogue, and was under constant threat of cancellation, which caused him to actually deviate from his plan to finish things off early (then surprise! he was given a 5th season.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This article was what set me to musing over this.

Stuff I loved, that was too short lived/hamstrung from the outset/killed before its time...
Crimson Skies
Firefly
Veronica Mars
Pushing Daisies
Human Target
Vanguard
Sid Meier's Gettysburg!

Then, there's the stuff that should have broken into a new format/media years ago, but just doesn't seem to get any steam...
Crimson Skies
Invincible

Then there are entire genres that have just died out on me...
Tactical Turn-based Strategy
Flight/Space Sims that struck a good balance between simulation and accessibility

These days, I'm almost afraid to like quirky, interesting projects for fear of cursing them to destruction. Stuff like Air, Leverage, White Collar, Frozen Synapse...

Every once in a while, something I'd given up hope on shows hope of getting some karmic justice, so I guess things like HBO's aGoT and the upcoming Deus Ex may be enough to keep me going on...

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

God, yeah. Where has this genre gone?

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It died with TIE Fighter, Crimson Skies (PC), Privateer, and Wing Commander. Starlancer might've managed it, but it always crashed on me when I tried to play it back in the day.

I think, for me, the thing I miss most about those space sims was that left/right on the stick was still roll. More modern stuff gives you pitch and yaw with the primary axes, and it just annoys me. Yes, it is, strictly speaking, more likely to be useful/usable in space, but it's boring and doesn't feel like classic dogfighting. Look at all the popular licenses in other media, and space fighters roll and pull up. Get your hard sim out of my fun cinematic experience.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Descent Freespace wasn't perfect, but was still fun.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

In other news, be sure to read the article (it's more an article than a review, since the "Gaming Made Me" series is all about outdated classics) I linked if you didn't, Taly. It really hits an entire box of nails on the head when it comes to what made most of those games I listed great fun.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades