Game of Thrones begins....

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Better to turn the talent loose to do a, say, 2-3 season TV adaptation of the Mote in God's Eye series.

would watch

[Josquius]

Wacky looking aliens don't sell.

[Eddie Teach]

Wacky looking aliens don't sell.

[Josquius]

BTW, who else thinks that the "little birdies" that seem to be defecting to Qyburn are doing so under orders from Varys?

Spoiler:  https://m.westeros.org/index.php/Varys#A_Dance_with_Dragons

I really should really read dance before the next book. Totally forgot everything that happens in there it seems

[grumbler]

Wacky looking aliens don't sell.

[Josquius]

In star wars the aliens are varied and supporting.
With the motes they're central to the plot and of a few set types.
I'd love to see such a series.
But it would be a bad business decision

[grumbler]

In star wars the aliens are varied and supporting.
With the motes they're central to the plot and of a few set types.
I'd love to see such a series.
But it would be a bad business decision

You keep asserting this, but repeating assertions don't make them any more credible.  Gollum was wacky looking.  He sold.  The Formics were wacky looking. They sold.  The Bugs were wacky looking.  They sold.

I think aliens can do just fine in movies and TV shows, with today's special effects.

[viper37]

I think aliens can do just fine in movies and TV shows, with today's special effects.

Less in TV shows than movies.
Weird looking aliens require lots of prosthetics and special effects, and these costs a lot, often too much than a tv series can afford, even high production ones with budget similar to Game of Thrones.
BSG only had the cylon robots, the others look humans.  In Star Trek, the regular crew was all human looking, except for Worf.  The other aliens we saw, that were not human looking had a very restricted time on the episode.

That's one of the reasons why there are no Star Wars tv shows (non anime), even if it would top the ratings every week.

[Eddie Teach]

Star Trek aliens are so boring. "Hey, let's just take a human and give them pointy ears and ridges on their face!" "Great!"

[grumbler]

Less in TV shows than movies.
Weird looking aliens require lots of prosthetics and special effects, and these costs a lot, often too much than a tv series can afford, even high production ones with budget similar to Game of Thrones.
BSG only had the cylon robots, the others look humans.  In Star Trek, the regular crew was all human looking, except for Worf.  The other aliens we saw, that were not human looking had a very restricted time on the episode.

That's one of the reasons why there are no Star Wars tv shows (non anime), even if it would top the ratings every week.

i disagree that $10 million an episode (a little less than what HBO is paying for season 6 of GoT) is not enough to do special effects sufficient to create credible aliens.  The reason for no Star Wars TV shows is that more movies are still planned, and no one wants to risk the billions of dollars in movie profits by saturating the market.

[viper37]

i disagree that $10 million an episode (a little less than what HBO is paying for season 6 of GoT) is not enough to do special effects sufficient to create credible aliens.  The reason for no Star Wars TV shows is that more movies are still planned, and no one wants to risk the billions of dollars in movie profits by saturating the market.

There was a Star Wars TV show planned before the sale of Lucas Arts.  It never came through, because it was too costly.  Twice they tried to bring it to tv, but they could never come around to a decent budget.

10M$/episode gives you Game of Thrones.  Add special effects for spaceships, space and aliens, you'll soon be overbudget.  And you're talking half the viewership of GoT, most likely.

[grumbler]

There was a Star Wars TV show planned before the sale of Lucas Arts.  It never came through, because it was too costly.  Twice they tried to bring it to tv, but they could never come around to a decent budget.

10M$/episode gives you Game of Thrones.  Add special effects for spaceships, space and aliens, you'll soon be overbudget.  And you're talking half the viewership of GoT, most likely.

There were no movies planned when the show was considered.  STU was too expensive for ABC, but, then again, so is GOT.

$10M/episode gives you season 6 GoT, add effects for spaceships and aliens (space is easy to do), subtract special effects for a medieval world and magic, subtract the costs of the A list actors, and you are on probably talking about $6 million an episode, same as GoT when it started.  And you'd start at about the viewership of the first GoT, as you note.  That's pretty much the story of every big HBO series.

[Eddie Teach]

$10M/episode gives you season 6 GoT, add effects for spaceships and aliens (space is easy to do), subtract special effects for a medieval world and magic, subtract the costs of the A list actors, and you are on probably talking about $6 million an episode, same as GoT when it started.  And you'd start at about the viewership of the first GoT, as you note.  That's pretty much the story of every big HBO series.

There are no A-listers on GoT.

[grumbler]

There are no A-listers on GoT.

There weren't when they started, except Sean Bean.  Things change.

[Eddie Teach]

Sean Bean, I don't know if I'd say he was A-list in 2010 either. He had a supporting role in Fellowship and had played the villain in a few fairly big movies from 15-20 years earlier.

As for the major cast members, they're getting rather nice money right now, but I haven't seen any breakout movie roles. To become one of Hollywood's elite, they'll need to get casting directors to see them as somebody other than the character they played for 8 years on GoT.