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#1 Sep 04 2009 at 10:03 PM Rating: Decent
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I was just wondering what everyone's thoughts on the demi-recent trend of cancelled television shows continuing on via straight-to-dvd movies. Such shows who have followed this trend are, to my knowledge (please feel free to add to this list if I miss anything), Serenity which continued Firefly (and quite possibly was the "first" to start this trend), Stargate: The Arc of Truth & Stargate: Continuum (SG1), "untitle Stargate Atlantis project", and Dead Like Me: Life After Death (hoping this did well enough to respark the series DLM even if for one more season.)

There was once a time when a cancellation of a good show meant The End - regardless of if it ends on a cliffhanger or not *cough*Angel*cough*. Now-a-days it seems more and more are picking up the dvd movie continuation in response to fan's demands. Heck, before Scrubs move to ABC Bill Lawrence had toyed with the idea of a movie to wrap up the series better than how season seven was then scheduled to end.

So what else? Any other shows doing this or wanting to do this?
What shows would you like to see get a direct-to-dvd movie to wrap things up.

As mentioned, Angel could definitely use this. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a great ending for its show but a movie to show what happened to all the awakened potentials would be nice too. Just a couple off the top of my head.
#2 Sep 04 2009 at 11:52 PM Rating: Good
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a great ending for its show but a movie to show what happened to all the awakened potentials would be nice too.

The comic continues it.
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#3 Sep 05 2009 at 3:12 AM Rating: Good
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People want another Buffy movie? Wasn't the one with Peewee Herman enough?
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#4 Sep 05 2009 at 7:13 AM Rating: Good
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Actually, I agree about Angel.
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#5 Sep 05 2009 at 7:20 AM Rating: Decent
Angel definitely deserves a movie!
#6 Sep 05 2009 at 6:06 PM Rating: Good
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AzuranX wrote:
There was once a time when a cancellation of a good show meant The End - regardless of if it ends on a cliffhanger or not *cough*Angel*cough*.

Angel was intended to end like that. I think Joss Whedon just wanted to move on to other projects, like Serenity and Dollhouse (and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but I don't think THAT was planned really). Considering how much time Mr. Whedon spent writing in the Buffy-verse, I'd be willing to bet that he wanted to work on something different. I'd be a bit surprised by a Buffy or Angel movie of any sort, as much as I'd love it.
Karlina wrote:
The comic continues it.

QFT. Angel: After the Fall (?) picks up where the TV series left off.

This seems to only happen with series that have a small-ish fan base: not enough to support the ratings numbers networks like to see, but enough to make DVD sales profitable. Futurama is another excellent example of this: the last two years has seen 4 straight-to-video Futurama movies.

Oh, for the record, Serenity wasn't straight-to-video. It was in theaters, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.
#7 Sep 12 2009 at 4:20 AM Rating: Good
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Rykhorne wrote:


Oh, for the record, Serenity wasn't straight-to-video. It was in theaters, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.


Screenshot


I've always kept my ticket stubs. I'm a bit annoyed that I lost them when I moved so I only have them back to 12/19/01 when I was at the opening of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring".
#8 Sep 12 2009 at 7:26 AM Rating: Decent
Rykhorne wrote:
AzuranX wrote:
There was once a time when a cancellation of a good show meant The End - regardless of if it ends on a cliffhanger or not *cough*Angel*cough*.

Angel was intended to end like that. I think Joss Whedon just wanted to move on to other projects, like Serenity and Dollhouse (and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but I don't think THAT was planned really). Considering how much time Mr. Whedon spent writing in the Buffy-verse, I'd be willing to bet that he wanted to work on something different. I'd be a bit surprised by a Buffy or Angel movie of any sort, as much as I'd love it.
Karlina wrote:
The comic continues it.

QFT. Angel: After the Fall (?) picks up where the TV series left off.

This seems to only happen with series that have a small-ish fan base: not enough to support the ratings numbers networks like to see, but enough to make DVD sales profitable. Futurama is another excellent example of this: the last two years has seen 4 straight-to-video Futurama movies.

Oh, for the record, Serenity wasn't straight-to-video. It was in theaters, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.


I've been checking out that "After the Fall", so far it seems it would have made a heck of a good show. I haven't read all that much of it though, it could easily go bad after the initial ones.
#9 Sep 12 2009 at 8:27 AM Rating: Decent
23 posts
Karlina wrote:

The comic continues it.


Oh, I'm aware of both Buffy & Angel having comic continuations. Think there's plenty of comics that either continue the story or have canon/non-canon story arcs. Heck, there's even some Star Trek: The Next Generation comics still being printed to my knowledge.

And while they have excellent story arcs, are cannon (short of a movie, new season, or new series), and don't have the limitations of a budget preventing what he wants to do... it still would have been nice to have something with a more realistic feel the shows had to offer and the warmth of a flesh & blood, human with emotions cast.

Turin, Eater of Souls wrote:
[quote=Rykhorne]

Oh, for the record, Serenity wasn't straight-to-video. It was in theaters, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.


Oh wow, I didn't remember it being in theaters. I got into the series after watching it on dvd. Show & movie were quite enjoyable; would be nice to see a sequel. Am glad Whedon did a comic that takes place in between (if I remember correctly) - looking forward to learning more about Shepherd Book. :)
#10 Sep 12 2009 at 12:44 PM Rating: Good
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Oh wow, I didn't remember it being in theaters. I got into the series after watching it on dvd.

I actually had never watched Firefly until my girlfriend, being a big Whedon fan, saw a trailer for Serenity. We spent the next month or so renting Firefly one disc at a time from the local Hollywood Video (it shouldn't have taken that long, but apparently other fans wanted to watch the series before the movie too; we waited like two weeks for the fifth disc). That Christmas I got the best gift ever: the Firefly box set and a voucher for Serenity when it was released.

Quote:
Show & movie were quite enjoyable; would be nice to see a sequel.

QFMFT. One of my favorite movies/series. It's too bad Fox dropped Firefly. Admittedly they got lukewarm ratings, but by today's standards, M.A.S.H wouldn't have made it past their first season either. I really wish the networks would decide to kill or renew a show based on more than viewer numbers...
#11 Sep 12 2009 at 10:37 PM Rating: Good
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3,829 posts
AzuranX wrote:
There was once a time when a cancellation of a good show meant The End - regardless of if it ends on a cliffhanger or not *cough*Angel*cough*.


Oh, I don't think you could really call the Angel finale a cliffhanger, unless you mean in the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid sense. Which is to say, it wasn't so much a cliffhanger as it was "they're jumping off the cliff, and it's pretty much certain they are going to die, but we're going to fade to black before that happens."

Quote:

As mentioned, Angel could definitely use this. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a great ending for its show but a movie to show what happened to all the awakened potentials would be nice too. Just a couple off the top of my head.


BSG relied a lot on extra materials to tell the story. Each summer they had the webisodes which--while not essential to understanding the next season's events--filled in the blanks about what happened during the hiatus and set up a lot of what would be going on with the characters, and I really think that was a cool way to go about things, in large part because it seemed to really be done for the sake of the fans, rather than as a means to squeeze a few more dollars out of the franchise.

Like I said above, with Angel, it really was a "Butch & Sundance" ending by design. They're dead, we just didn't see them die. They jumped into the canyon, we just didn't see them go splat. As much as it grieves me to never see Spike again, end of story. I'm really okay leaving it there.

As for Buffy, oy! Finding out what happened with the potentials ranks right below "Voluntarily experience a non-anesthetized root canal" on my list of things I'm just dying to do. I can think of nothing less interesting or more annoying than seeing any of the potentials again, as they were all pretty much irritating to the nth degree. I'm not even all that interested in seeing Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles again, since most of them had managed to **** me off and make me dislike them in the last couple seasons. By the end of season 6, the only sympathetic and interesting characters on the show were Spike, Tara and Anya...and they're now all dead. So yeah, pretty much okay leaving that one where it rests, too.

I think the problem is, I've been a fan of too many shows which went way WAY too far past their peak (X-Files, I'm looking at YOU) because the producers didn't know when to call it quits and put telling a good story ahead of milking the last few pathetic dollars out of the franchise. And I've been a fan of some that have peaked really early and really dragged on to a very inglorious ending (Veronica Mars, BSG.) These days, if a show can end strong, like Angel did, I'm HAPPY to let it go, because I then know my memories of the show will be that it was solid from the beginning to the end, without being tainted by frustration and annoyance over bad storytelling and annoying characterization at the end.

Edited, Sep 12th 2009 11:47pm by Ambrya
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