Project Blue

[CX]

This is a duplicate post of one I made at my own forums at [url='http://www.scifi-online.org/smf/index.php?board=23.0']scifi-online.org[/url]. I might try to steer people there, but then I've turned off registration due to all the spambots that kept trying to join. So I thought I'd post this here for the **** of it and see if anyone might be interested in discussing the things I bring up here.

This is all about the development of a rebooted version of the anime series [url='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gender']Blue Gender[/url]. Why? Well, much like Enterprise, while I didn't care that much for its execution, I did like many of the concepts and feel kind of compelled to make a better version of it, just as I did for Enterprise by starting Foundations in much the same way I'm doing here now, with public input.

While I would like help developing this, keep in mind that as a grad student, I'm probably not going to be able to get to work on this right away, much as I've been unable to really work on Foundations for quite some time. Still, it doesn't hurt anything to work on the concepts of the show even if there's going to be a long wait for any payoff. :-\

Anyway, let's get this ball rolling, since, to be fair, some of this is stuff that I worked out previously with my IRL friends, only to fail to write any of it down and to forget all of it.

Things I liked about Blue Gender

I liked the premise of the protagonist/viewpoint character waking up from cryo-sleep to find himself in a devastated world he knows nothing about. It's well after the end, and he has no idea what's going on or what the hell happened, or initially how long he's been asleep. Believe it or not, I also like this being because of giant bugs, and I even like the angle of the bugs being that they eat and make nests out of the artificial materials humans have made their cities out of. I also like the premise of a group of soldiers being sent to retrieve sleepers like the protagonist, and that shit hit the fan for them in this particular mission. I like the idea of Marlene, the strong, competent, ice-cold soldier who is a major driving force in keeping herself and the protagonist alive and getting them to safety. I also like the idea of both Marlene and the protagonist being changed during this, and the idea of them falling in love. I like the idea of "Second Earth" being in orbit, and even the idea of humanity, or at least the humans of Second Earth being messed up in their own way, though for me this would serve as both an obstacle, and as something that could be changed as the story goes on. Incidentally, this means I also liked the idea of the scientist guy leading a coup and the attempt at a counter-coup by the authoritarian leadership council. Yes, all of these things would still need to be developed and fleshed out more to make sure their execution didn't suck, but I at least liked the idea of these things.

Problems with Blue Gender

The major problem with Blue Gender was a lack of real coherence. This lead to many of the sudden changes in the story, and in character development. It's like the writing staff had no idea what to do with the many different ideas they brought up, which made the show kind of mysterious and drew the audience in early on, but then failed to have a satisfying conclusion to any of these various threads. Then there was the frankly insulting final revelation, which was that the planet was alive, as in literally alive, and it was trying to kill off humanity, because pollution and over-crowding, the ultimate upshot of which was that humanity would be better off living in grass huts in the jungle. It was kind of like watching something Micheal Piller had written for Star Trek later in his life, when he'd fully bought in to the idea of "rural simplicity" and thought that the Amish lifestyle represented a utopia all of humanity should strive for. And while I'm sure there's an audience for that, it isn't really the kind of thing one expects when tuning into a sci-fi. Also, Second Earth blows itself up at the end for no reason in a montage that lasts maybe a minute tops. Needless to say, I hope to remedy that lack of coherence and lose the hippie, "one with the Earth," kumbaya bullshit.