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Forming a syfy franchise

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15 comments, last by Launcher111 4 years, 2 months ago

I would say that it has less to do with corporate buyers and more to do with poor leadership/vision. There are some great franchises that are reboots and what not too. I personally really liked the BSG reboot in the early 2000s. The new Star Trek shows, though some disagree, are pretty good Imo (but my opinion may be different since I'm not a huge Trekkie really). A council and board doesn't necessarily rectify the issues of poor leadership but rather creates issues of people squabbling over what the right way is. It could just lead to fragmentation and divisions in itself. It can also lead to whacky things emerging because the board would want to please everyone in the fan base. Or just watered down stuff. You need someone who has a vision and plan and can make decisions. A board is cool and useful for other aspects however, such as managing the various projects, and maybe helping create a vision, but ultimately you need that one guy/girl.

FutureRamen said:

@undefined yeah, the rise of Skywalker was awful imo. The storyline was all over the place and made no orderly sense, it was visually appealing but other than that pretty garbage.

The Rise of Skywalker was pretty awful and a pure result of no one having a plan for the whole series. I'm still not sure who thought green lighting the mess that was the Rise of Skywalker was a good idea.

Really though, what's absolutely necessary, is a plan, a vision. And nothing can really replace that.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

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Star trek had its new trilogy moment with the reboot, blowing up Vulcan and Romulus.. Which are now non cannon? Discovery requires the terran empire to win their battles, otherwise they are all dead… and picard… golden girls in space… picard is what 80? Possibly more? Chasing after Romulans in a walker? Than you have burnam… a mutinier, starting an interstellar war, than attacks their captain, yet at the end of season one, breaking the prime directive using alternate reality operatives to destroy the klingon home world… potentially… they than have the balls to lecture everyone on following the federation protocols, when they follow none of them. Its an amusing double standard, its the equivilent of captain kirk teaching cadets abstinence.

The group will be a challenge, on the plus side an episode 7-9 would be thrown in the garbage and ripped apart. The franchise would have the brain trust group, an example if you have 1 writer working on the factions, one building species, planets. You have another building the ship designs and science behind it. You can prevent a great deal of friction. Like wise you have eras hundreds to thousands of years apart. Than you have story writers taking information creating stories.

An example, have the great exploration age, were you have first contacts. Crude unrefined equipment, which gives way a thousand years later to the faction wars. A thousand years beyond that have the age of commerce and expansion, the terraforming of planets and establishment of consistant trade routes. Than you have the trade wars and empire wars. This allows for a great deal of content to be built. A large aspect of this idea is allowing the fan base to take part in it. Were if people dress up and make a movie we wont send lawyers to their house. Establishing a fan base friendly franchise, not swarm them with pay to win gimmick games.

Consider this idea… lets say you have a fan, good at building and makes a fighter simulator of the franchise, functional controls, smoke machines for the landing strut and engine areas, that's basically movie quality props. Capable of the cockpit movie shots, put up a few green screens around that prop, and have one of them large pieces for next level movie production. The thing is lets say the Cgi/animation/movie wing of the franchise are like.. We need a outer space version script of top gun… that's the freedom that could be explored, that normally isn't. They could make the Titanic story, a midway story. Taking the franchise in a more rounded direction.

You have many ways to look at this project, but one would be, what if you were a co creator of star wars or star trek, that would be the top tier of our child hood dreams collectively in some manner, possibly lead developer on a star wars game. Right now this galaxy is only a dream, its easy to say I want to have something already in existence… the existing franchise's lawyers say otherwise. I know countless developers of all types, afraid to commit to a large endeavour like this, that is why few to no groups mimicking us would follow. I posses the ability to build new species and cultures, that are new and unique, i have roughly 30 species figured out. This galaxy could be developed rapidly. Many ask why don't i make the galaxy and hire minions to do my work. It's hard to get honesty out of employees, you end up with episode 1… when its a group people would be more open to saying… hey that sucks.. Kill jar jar binks 3 minutes into meeting him for the fans sake.

You can contact me on discord if intrested in joining.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

Launcher111 said:
Star trek had its new trilogy moment with the reboot, blowing up Vulcan and Romulus.. Which are now non cannon? Discovery requires the terran empire to win their battles, otherwise they are all dead… and picard… golden girls in space… picard is what 80? Possibly more? Chasing after Romulans in a walker? Than you have burnam… a mutinier, starting an interstellar war, than attacks their captain, yet at the end of season one, breaking the prime directive using alternate reality operatives to destroy the klingon home world… potentially… they than have the balls to lecture everyone on following the federation protocols, when they follow none of them. Its an amusing double standard, its the equivilent of captain kirk teaching cadets abstinence.

This is really a matter of opinion, and like I said, I'm not really a Trekkie, so I enjoyed them for what they are. I don't think these series had structural/systemic issues. I can't comment on anything else lore wise.

As for the rest of your comment, my only point is that I think that this approach will also have its issues. They'll be different from Disney's approach (which we can all agree had various issues), but your issues will be getting a consensus, and not doing a please everyone style approach potentially. It has advantages, namely that you can get quite a diverse range of ideas. It's possible for it to work, but it isn't a magic bullet so to speak.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

deltaKshatriya said:

I would say that it has to do with poor leadership/vision.

pretty much sums it up. Corporate overlords want to remain corporate overlords, to do so requires making $. Problem is friends of friends and family get hired into positions they have no business being in, and then they get unquestioned support from said overlords.. not out of guilt, but rather the overlords don't want to look like they made the wrong decision putting the lame duck into position.

People that did not start on the bottom will never be leaders if they never have to understand what it means to be on the bottom. The income source comes from the bottom, it would behoove oneself to understand the customer you wish to separate $ from.

The second part of the equation is just plain not having good ideas. Good game design is a mix of absolutes and pure subjectivity, you either got it or you don't. If you come from wealth/privilege chances are you don't have the same needs/wants as the customer or derive satisfaction in the same manner, mega-success titles were developed out of passion and became cash-cows after the fact VS the other way around.

The older generations I believe are more into cannon than younger generations, in time the younger generation will catch on. When you watch a series for 5 to 10 years, and the new series just shreds the old series, and gets key facts wrong. Rewrites what happened, you end up sitting their going well what is the truth? Because the original star trek to enterprise, 5 series and a dozen movies the line of cannon was followed. The latest movies crapped on that, discovery made its own time line separate of the reboot movies and original cannon. As a fan its disgusting, like Stillwater was referencing, someone gave an undeserving and unknowledgeable person the keys to a franchise, that they had no business with. Your looking at around 400 episodes plus, and a dozen or so movies and 5 decades of work flushed down the toilet, by a novice that didn't bother watching all previous shows and movies. Star wars is no different… they believe it is a sand box game were they make whatever and that it has no consequence. When you sign up to make a movie or game, it should as accurately as possible depict the subject matter your dealing with.

They absolutely give projects to unqualified and untalented people because of relations. A new galaxy sounds insane on face value… people are like.. Your competing with George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry!!! Which 30 years ago… yes… today they are Paramount and Disney… which is proven that they are unable to make content that doesn't contradict itself. They are unable to make a story that as an example have secret armadas of 10,000 star destroyers, with a previously dead character coming back.(requires 250 million soldiers to man that fleet, with around 1 million pilots) the level of fuel needed would be mind blowing. The story line isn't even coherent or remotely plausible. They have secret unknown super enemy appears, because they destroyed all the pieces to a good story already, with nothing left to kill, they needed to add more enemies. The worst part is by episode 9 both sides were so depleted they had no remaining pieces to play with. The ewoks had a larger standing army than both sides.

A council or group has a chance, because one the group will have seen other companies disasters to learn from, understanding that to remain profitable, effecting them personally on a financial level, requires a strict adherence to cannon. You cant write a book as an example where halfway through you change everything(unless a book on dimensia and senility), the viewers simply wouldn't go for that. The syfy appeal is what is a possible future outcome, what would it mean to live in that future, can you place yourself in that future and get a sense of what it is to live in that future. What you see is graphics and CGI.. But a weak to non existent story.

Having a decent size group to go through, the word no, will be heard… some dislike this word, I believe it isn't the worst thing in the world for people to disagree, unless its disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. Which if your in a group, and hate the groups ideas… why are you part of that group? The group can expel members, likely a ⅔ vote or more. The idea behind the group is bring in people from all kinds of back grounds, an example a person with a medical back ground, not a normal game developer pick, but could explain things on a medical levels that most people would not know, infusing a level of realism and depth to stories that are currently lacking. An example in star wars latest trilogy, the new characters never opened up, rey never had moments laughing about a scavenging experience, finn never talked about what being a storm trooper is like, if they have jokes or senses of humor. Or crazy parties at the barracks. Poe never talked about his rise to squadron leader. They did a poor job creating connections to the characters, take han in episode 4, their life existed before the movie, they told you about their smuggling mission going bad, and being hunted, how they worked for Jabba, how they need money, he has his ship and chewie, which is their home. You had Luke hearing from Obione stories about his father. You had his aunt and uncle talk about it, talking about joining. The only reason Luke was able to join is they were murdered. The new movies had no dewph..

Eventually someone will join making this project snowball fast. The idea that your going to make a stable franchise that wont allow itself to be trashed is a big deal.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

Having a new era of dungeons and dragons would also be a syfy franchise i would be interested in. Upgrading the old concept heavily, for instance you play as the leader of a group, which establish a fortress/city/trade outpost/port.

Instead of the traditional 6 characters, you would have 6-10 leaders of sorts, with the ability to have workers and soldiers under neath them. Have a stronghold, warcraft 3 style castle and industry building. So that your castle or city will be attacked.

You would have quests and missions still. The map would just be more open and explorable, as opposed to follow the pathway. Exploring middle earth essentially were you need to be careful who you pick fights with.

The city construction would be more realistic, no instant structures, or endless inventory. You would use wagons and animals to assist in projects. Wouldn't be digging when its snow covered and icy out. Would need to grow your food, and trade with major city's. Getting then goods to a market to trade has thieves and army's trying to intercept them.

If this turned into multiplayer would be a lot of fun. Trying to raid castles and villages and supply lines, even some naval combat. The ability to play online and offline.

If you have a fun project in mind, with nontraditional and obscene characters, probably save time and message me.

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