Originally published at: George Clooney rumored to play the next 'Buck Rogers' | Boing Boing
…
I like Clooney, but Buck Rogers is supposed to be an astronaut. Other than John Glenn’s late life return to the position, astronauts are not senior citizens (or just a few years away from being so).
5 Likes
Maybe he aged slowly in space or the mine shaft he was trapped in?
6 Likes
Last thing I read said “executive produce and definitely not star”.
Never watched the TV series, well I tried a few years back and watched a couple. I loved the RPG world, though:
It has a weird back story in that the woman who took over running TSR happened to have inherited the rights to the Buck Rodgers IP, and so pressured them to build and RPG around it. She’s much hated in the D&D community over what happened to D&D (and TSR) under her leadership, although I think some of the anger is misplaced.
Interestingly, in the RPG world Russia effectively merges with the US and pisses off to Mars to become a grotesque corporatist oligarchy run by a raging asshole who realizes his dream of downloading his consciousness into a computer. I can’t help but wonder if certain people read that and then decided to use it as a blueprint for their lives.
5 Likes
I’d rather resurrect/continue Farscape, which was the best Buck Rogers remake ever.
7 Likes
Well, Clooney’s no Buster Crabbe, is he?
5 Likes
If they reuse the original opening credits, I’m all in.
6 Likes
“Far beyond the world I’ve known,
Far beyond my time …”
6 Likes
Clooney is 59, so there have been a handful other astronauts who flew at that age or older. Franklin Story Musgrave, who is the only astronaut to have flown on all five space shuttles, had his last mission at age 61.
59 is undeniably an advanced age for this character though. I assume if Clooney plays Rogers it will be one of those movies/TV shows that spends a lot of time with a character reflecting on his glory days while a new generation of upshots is starting to take the reins.
7 Likes
I went to the link for the original stories, they’re still there, they’re still free on Kindle. Though where they get categorized is a bit of a mystery. The first one is listed as non-fiction, the second is reference.
3 Likes
Please have Twiki, please have Twiki…
3 Likes
In the gritty reboot version “Twiki” isn’t a robot but rather a short-statured flight mechanic with a crippling meth addiction.
9 Likes
It would be cool to see Erin Gray involved somehow. She’s now an agent for a lot of actors from SF and fantasy TV shows. I’ve met her a couple of times over the years at comicons and she’s both a pleasant person and also a fierce advocate for her clients.
7 Likes
honestly, this is perfect casting.
2 Likes
The character is supposed to be thirty-ish, as was Buster Crabbe in 1939
Maybe Clooney is going to play his father?
3 Likes
2 Likes
Give or take about 500 years.
6 Likes
“supposed to be an astronaut” wellll… if we go to the original texts (1928 comics!) he was a 20 year old (veteran of WWI) miner, and got stuck in a mining accident
(try to ignore Wilma Deering’s racist remarks. and jodhpurs for every male)
7 Likes
8 Likes
