It’s currently the top item, dated 3-27-03 for some reason, on this news page from one of the producers of last year’s deliberately campy CGI-fest Eight Legged Freaks. “I’m crazy about the material and this is a real passion project for me,” says Dean Devlin in an annoying Flash-text page you can’t copy and paste from. Man, if you thought the netgeeks jumping on Peter Jackson were ferocious, wait until aficionados of the five kajillion years of BattleTech storylines get on this guy’s case. Still, it’s nice to see cheap CG make a thousand flowers bloom, and maybe something good will come of this.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t FOX or some other network try to do a cell animation / CGI series (ala’ Zoids) of the Battletech universe a while back? Didn’t have cable at the time so I never actually saw any episodes, but I’m sure I saw it advertised a few times… As for a potential film, it’ll all depend on screenplay, director, cast, budget, etc. But I’ll tell you this much for nothing – it couldn’t POSSIBLY turn out any worse than “RoboJocks”. *shudder*
It was called “BattleTech: The Animated Series.” It was produced by the folks who brought “The Power Rangers” series to Saturday Morning. The cartoon took place during the beginning of the Clan Invasion. Andrew Steiner headed the group known as the 1st Somerset Strikers, which comprised of both FedCom and Dracs personnel.
Hey, how about that? Nice to know I wasn’t imagining the whole thing! *grin* How long did the series run, REG? With the DVD craze in full swing, do you think we’ll be seeing it on WalMart shelves sometime soon?
The series was actually cute, with a real attempt to hew to 3055-3059 continuity. It had horrific CG sequences resembling the nonsense pages in the 3rd edition of the “Battletech Compendium” (subtitled “the rules of warfare”) but I suppose that those were a way to separate the ‘Mech combat from the “talky” scenes.
It wasn’t great. At the time, I was a young TV snob who didn’t have to take what little TV sci-fi he could get. But I think that given Devlin’s experience with Moon 44, Independence Day, and Stargate, he should do well given an actual story to work with.
Is Emmerich attached at this point? Anyone?
I don’t think anyone can be said to be attached to anything at this point – still not enough Hollywood bigshots smelling an opportunity yet, I guess. Anyway, at the risk of going off topic… GREAT handle, Mend. *grin* Vive la ReBoot! =)
Actually the show was 15 episodes long, fox didn’t air the final 2, not sure why, the 13th episode is the first of a two part episode, with the 15th being the finale. They are rare to find, though Space aired all 15 when they were showing them. Just thought I’d let you know, cause if you’ve only seen 13 you’ve missed the last final cool battle. I’ll get the names of them for you and post it.
Found this one:
Episode 1: The Gathering Storm
Episode 2: Well bargained and Done
Episode 3: Warriors of Light and Steel
Episode 4: Retribution
Episode 5: Trade Secrets
Episode 6: Protect and Survive
Episode 7: In the Belly of the Beast
Episode 8: Bound by Honor
Episode 9: Road to Camelot
Episode 10: The Enemy of my Enemy
Episode 11: Shadow Heir
Episode 12: Homecoming
Episode 13: Trial of Possession
the 15th episode is a clip show
called ‘no guts no galaxy’
I remember watching that series when I was young. The cg was damn good for the time, probably contributed more than I know to my current occupation in 3d cg.
We got to see the whole series in New Zealand, but just once… then it disappeared.
The mech warrior movie to be produced by dean devlin, will come out sometime in 2005. It will have a budget of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000,000.00. the basic premise that I saw is that roughly 30 to40 years after the fed-com civil war there is a unified govt called the republic. The story centers around a group of young and untried mechwarriors who grew up in peaceful times and have no real war experience, other than fighting the occational pirate band. but that all comes to an end when a faction secretly decides to try and initiate a new round of mech wars like the ones of old. like this is only a basic premise that I read. they could change it, but I think that this is the one that they are going to use.
Listen up good, mechwarrior darkage starts in 3132 AD and is ACTUALLY ABOUT A NEW FACTION OF THE CLANS STARTING A SECOND INVASION OF THE INNER SPHERE, and that movie about that has gots to be good, I cannot wait.