What happened to space opera?

[knowles2]

I think BSG played a huge part in why Syfy became so wary of space operas. Every season of that show came in late and over budget.

But space opera is making a come back over the next two years there are several new space opera coming out.

Sadly Expanse from the trailers seem have hired a bunch of amateur actors, CGI looks awesome through. Waiting for trailers for Killjoys and Dark Matter to come out, hopefully they will be improvement over the expanse.

I personally would love to see a space opera more along the lines of space race between several powers on earth to launch faster than light ship. I think that has huge potential for story telling.

[N7OperativeAlpha]

The Expanse is exactly what we need!

The space opera genre needs its "Game of Thrones" or "The Walking Dead"!

[ClockworkNebari]

Space Opera needs lead and direction like Arthur C Clark had a lead vision, like Roddenberry leads Trek later allowing people like JJ Abrams or Whedon to make these scifi visions into a blockbuster movie...if you got the budget and can afford it you should be ready to design this vision as best as possible, sets, CGI, make up, costumes...the whole works

Actors and actress, you need big actors to drive the drama, make you believe the story Shatner, LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew and so many others in Trek, Kiefer Sutherland in 24 Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks, Buscemi Boardwalk Empire, Gabriel Byrne from the show In Treatment, Gandolfini in The Sopranos and so many others.

You need to say something, the scifi opera can't just be about blowing things up in space or traveling from Earth to Saturn to Mars and maybe fly to the next stars...it has to be about some thing, it has to mean something. The world we live in is different to the world when people first watched black and white Flash Gordon, the Invisible Man or War of the Worlds, the show has to say something to say maybe say something about people, about politics, about the enviornment it should also entertain as people need escapism and fun.
Why is Blade Runner ranked as one of the best scifi movies? It's not the ships, its not its space battles, its because the movie still has something to say! and as dark as Blade Runner is the movie did have some little bright moments, drama and humor to balance out a dark scifi movie.

[Annoyed]

This is a copy paste of one of my posts on The Expanse board, but it applies here..

Yet another sci fi show about a dysfunctional human-based civilization, with elements of that one society fighting with other elements of humanity. These seem to be all that anyone wants to make anymore.

Why can't they get into exploration? I'd much rather see a show about a group of humans exploring the galaxy or even the stars in our own local corner of it.

[ecgordon]

This is a copy paste of one of my posts on The Expanse board, but it applies here..

Yet another sci fi show about a dysfunctional human-based civilization, with elements of that one society fighting with other elements of humanity. These seem to be all that anyone wants to make anymore.

Why can't they get into exploration? I'd much rather see a show about a group of humans exploring the galaxy or even the stars in our own local corner of it.

Since when has there been a time in human society where there weren't rival factions for something? Star Trek had rival alien races, and even factions within the Federation. Firefly had the Alliance against the Independents. BSG had humans against the Cylons. The Expanse has been compared to Game of Thrones, and while the shows couldn't me more different in type and scope, the comparison is apt in that there are many rivals for control.

The subsequent books in The Expanse series do get more into exploration, but first there are hurdles to jump. There are rivals for territory and tech (Earth and Mars), there is the downtrodden mining colonies of the Belt, and there's the OPA trying to make sense of it all, but being mistrusted by most everyone else who don't understand their agenda. There is another faction, but I can't say anything about that to avoid spoilers. Give the story time to develop.

As I said in the other thread, if and when we can have cooperation among ourselves here on Earth, maybe we'll get more positive SF, but until then, we should appreciate the good shows we do get and stop bashing them publicly, or else their fate might be the same as so many others lost to cancellation.

EDIT: One other point. Since when has any interesting human drama not had conflict at its center? Soap operas are about rival love interests, Westerns (horse operas) are about influence and control of territory. Space Operas have to have those same basic conflicts or they wouldn't be classified that way. If you want stories about exploration without conflict, there are other authors to read, but they wouldn't be Space Operas.

[ecgordon]

Actors and actress, you need big actors to drive the drama, make you believe the story Shatner, LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew and so many others in Trek, Kiefer Sutherland in 24 Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks, Buscemi Boardwalk Empire, Gabriel Byrne from the show In Treatment, Gandolfini in The Sopranos and so many others.

With the exception of a couple of those, were you aware of those actors before their iconic shows premiered? I'm not saying all of the actors on The Expanse are the best they could have cast, but I'm willing to let the story develop and the actors grow into their roles before passing final judgement.