The Best and Worst Sci-Fi, From TV to the Big Screen and Vice Versa
By ReelzChannel Staff
In a world where comic and videogame heroes rule the box office, the premier of The X-Files: I Want to Believe, the second big-screen adaptation of the popular series, is barely even notable. But the increasingly two-way exchange between science fiction TV series and theatrical movies is never as straightforward as you'd think. Historically, results have ranged from good to bad to something else entirely, and even seemingly single-concept efforts have not been above adaptation. (Logan's Run the series, anyone? Anyone?) Here's just a small sample of what can go right and wrong in the transition.
BEST
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"Firefly" (TV) to Serenity (movie)
Joss Whedon's amiable space-western series drew a mix of geeks, fanboys, fangirls and libertarians that was predictably small and even more predictably fanatical. The result: rapid cancellation but enough public pressure to lead to a modestly budgeted cult picture.
Lasting historical significance: Fans had hoped a successful film might bring the franchise back to life after Fox's unceremonious cancellation of the show. Instead, the movie's disappointing box office showed that even in a world of superhero blockbusters, true sci-fi fans usually end up disappointed.
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: Terraforming can make even far-flung planets look exactly like Southern California.
Value-add: English-accent-faking Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays some kind of super-assassin here, really ought to be the next James Bond.
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Gene Roddenberry's beloved creation was still in the post-larval stage of its growth to juggernaut proportions when Trek novices Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer hit on the idea of reaching back to one of the show's finest hours.
Lasting historical significance: Credited with rescuing the hallowed franchise from the aftertaste of Robert Wise's interminable Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: Ricardo Montalban, reprising one of history's great all-purpose ethnic roles (as the genetically enhanced sub-continental Khan Noonien Singh), disproved physicists' long-held belief that it's impossible to out-ham William Shatner.
Value-add: Terrifying earwig creature from planet Ceti Alpha 5 proves fatal to all humans except series regulars.
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WORST
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Star Wars (movie) to "Star Wars Holiday Special" (TV)
For years George Lucas patrolled the galaxy in an imperial star cruiser trying to confiscate all evidence of the SWHS's existence, but the distributed power of ironic fans proved too great. You can watch the entire Wookiee-planet extravaganza at YouTube. In theory it should be unintentionally funny, but it's really just unintentional.
Lasting historical significance: Long before the Ewoks, Jar-Jar Binks, Howard the Duck and a big steaming pile of Dooku, the Holiday Special hinted at how low Lucas can go.
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: Creatures on other planets celebrate Christmas too, but they call it "Life Day."
Value-add: A chance to see career desperation in its purest form: Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll, the Jefferson Starship and dancing pixie-men (don't ask) show up in brief but humiliating guest spots.
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"Thunderbirds" (TV) to Thunderbirds (movie)
The pent-up demand for a live-action re-imagining of Gerry Anderson's "Supermarionation" rockets-and-rayguns series remained curiously pent-up throughout the theatrical run of this movie, which features all the original's improbable plot and dialogue with none of its fun or occasional visual beauty.
Lasting historical significance: Through a scheduling accident, the film hit theaters in the same year as Matt Stone and Trey Parker's brilliant marionette comedy Team America: World Police, guaranteeing it would be forgotten even before it was released.
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: Real actors can be even less convincing than Supermarionettes.
Value-add: The move from puppetry to humanity is the biggest value-subtract imaginable.
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OTHER
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"Battlestar Galactica," original series (TV) to Saga of a Star World (movie)
Glenn A. Larson's whole-cloth ripoff of Star Wars is now remembered for providing the source material for the Sci-Fi Channel's popular 21st-century "re-imaging," but in its original form it took on more different forms than Doctor Who, among them this brief theatrical release made from spare parts.
Lasting historical significance: None.
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: Even in the lazy, hazy, crazy, national-malaise-y Carter era, America could lose its heart to a mechanical dog.
Value-add: Here's hoping the makers of the Galactica remake show might take one more page from the original playbook and give us back "Galactica 1980," a work of surreal desperation featuring time travel, Nazi villains, and wacky but elegant period style.
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Planet of the Apes (movie) to "Planet of the Apes" (TV)
Is there anything the apes can't do? From four sequels (each trying gamely to match the original film's last-reel shocker) to a cartoon series to a Tim Burton reboot to several generations of Halloween masks, the Planet of the Apes movement brought us the world. It also brought us this ill-advised effort to set a Starsky and Hutch-style buddy series in the world where apes evolved from men.
Lasting historical significance: While "official" history remembers President Nixon's resignation and the oil embargo as 1974's major crises, it was this short-lived series that finally got Americans screaming along with Charlton Heston: "It's a madhouse... a madhouse!"
 Science fiction premise it demonstrates: "Humans and apes are supposed to be equals, not masters and slaves!"
Value-add: Kept the late, great Roddy McDowall working for another season.
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