What TV shows or movies remind you of Traveller?

[cajon5]

Ok, here's a variation on a question I've seen in previous threads: what TV shows or movies make you think of Traveller, whether in terms of FTL technology, general feel, or whatnot?

I started playing Traveller with the CT Deluxe boxed set, then had a long gap. When a TV movie (or maybe a pilot that didn't get picked up) called Star Command came out in 1996 I dusted off the old Traveller materials. I don't think it has come out on DVD, but I ran across Star Command on youtube, here: http://video.google.com/videosearch...vid=Star+Command+1996&vid=5849352816094134940 . The lack of FTL communication is what made it seem Travelleresque to me. What do you guys think of it?

Firefly seemed like a Traveller campaign on the screen! I wonder if Joss Whedon used to play the game, or perhaps it was simply that the things Marc Miller thought would make for good adventuring were the same things Joss Whedon did.

The new BSG did somewhat, certainly in the FTL that wasn't just "point the ship that way and go fast."

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Wing Commander, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131646/
Firefly, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/
Lost in Space, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120738/
Event Horizon, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/
Moon, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/
Pandorum, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/
The Black Hole, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078869/
Dark Star, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/
Supernova, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134983/
The Alien Franchise, http://wapedia.mobi/en/Alien_(franchise)

My gamer buddy just suggested BattleStar Galactica, He said certain episodes gave him some Traveller inspiration. I would have to agree.

Each of these flicks have aspects that are Traveller in some way or another, at least to me. I'll add more in later.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ok, here's a variation on a question I've seen in previous threads: what TV shows or movies make you think of Traveller, whether in terms of FTL technology, general feel, or whatnot?

I started playing Traveller with the CT Deluxe boxed set, then had a long gap. When a TV movie (or maybe a pilot that didn't get picked up) called Star Command came out in 1996 I dusted off the old Traveller materials. I don't think it has come out on DVD, but I ran across Star Command on youtube, here: http://video.google.com/videosearch...vid=Star+Command+1996&vid=5849352816094134940 . The lack of FTL communication is what made it seem Travelleresque to me. What do you guys think of it?

Firefly seemed like a Traveller campaign on the screen! I wonder if Joss Whedon used to play the game, or perhaps it was simply that the things Marc Miller thought would make for good adventuring were the same things Joss Whedon did.

The new BSG did somewhat, certainly in the FTL that wasn't just "point the ship that way and go fast."

It kind of looks like a Bab-5 knockoff... not that I liked Bab-5 a great deal (overwritten, predictable stories). Of course, Morgan Fairchild is in this other series... hmmm

 

[beowulf2044]

Blake's Seven.

 

[WarriorKnight]

I loved Star Command,I was going through some old vhs tapes of tv shows I'd taped(B5,DS9,Forever Knight,etc.)& I found the tape I had Star Command on.It plus Wing Commander were the insprations for my Active Duty game. Almost all the shows listed so far remind me in some way of Traveller &/or inspired my Traveller.I'd include Cowboy Bebop also.

 

[cajon5]

Blake's Seven.

I've never seen Blake's Seven. What was Travellerish about it?

 

[Sir Brad]

Bunch of Misfits with a wide skill base rocking about on a space ship getting them selves in to all kinds of trouble

 

[spinwardpirate]

Original BSG was a huge inspiration to me in the early days of Traveller. Another film in those early days that inspired me was Outland.

 

[Major B]

Another film in those early days that inspired me was Outland.

Beat me to it. Outland had the atmosphere that I most associated with traveller - and shotguns too.

And of course, Alien and Aliens had the atmosphere too though I always provide my ships with better lighting and don't allow cats.

 

[abomination]

Bunch of Misfits with a wide skill base rocking about on a space ship getting them selves in to all kinds of trouble

Unfortunatly being the 1970s the ship was made of plywood & tinfoil, with the trouble usually taking place in a quarry in East Anglia about 200 yards from Dr Who.

Great series though.

For me Firefly is the most traveller like TV show.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Original BSG was a huge inspiration to me in the early days of Traveller. Another film in those early days that inspired me was Outland.

Oh an, how could i forget Outland. Awesome.

 

[Hemdian]

Well, just about any SF film or TV show has elements that can suggest Traveller but specific inspirations ...

• Outland
• Firefly/Serenity
• Andromeda ... 1st season (ignore the bad science and this is TNE)
• Dune ... David Lynch version
• Star Wars ... A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back

'Honourable' mentions (*) go to ...

• Starship Troopers
• Alien
• Pitch Black
• Star Trek ... TOS
• Battle Beyond The Stars
• BSG ... original
• Moon 44
• Saturn 3
• Bladerunner

(* = some of these are 'B' movies that I wouldn't otherwise recommend)

 

[aramis]

Makes me think it's a traveller game turned into a set of scripts:

• Riddick Trillogy (MT)
• Firefly/Serenity (CT)
• Space Above and Beyond (TNE)
• Andromeda (it's a TNE game)

Makes me think it could be done readily in a tweaked traveller:

• old BSG
• Alien series
• Buck Rogers (starring Gil Gerard)
• V (either)
• Dune (either)
• Spacehunter
• Space 1999
• Space Academy/Jason of Star Command
• Star Command
• B5

 

[PathfinderAP]

Outlander

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewBIp8uv58I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXmlgIQboxY

Its a great movie,

+Alien/s, x
+Blader runner
+Spacehunter
+Wild Boys (Duran Duran, because of Spacehunter)
+Outland
+2010
+Firefly/Serenity
+BSG (new)
+Mission to mars
+Red Planet

I'm sure theres more, but can't rmember them right now

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Gunsmoke (TV, 1955-1975)
Bonanza (TV, 1959-1973)
Outland (1981)
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future (TV, 1987-1988)
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (TV, 1954)
Bladerunner (1982)
Mission: Impossible (TV, 1966-1973)
Get Smart (TV, 1965-1970)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Stargate (1994)
Stargate SG-1 (TV, 1997-2007)
Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008)
Stargate Atlantis (TV, 2005-2009)

And of course...

Firefly (TV, 2002)
Serenity (2005)

 

[rancke]

Oh an, how could i forget Outland.

Known to me and my friends as "High Moon".


Hans

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

Known to me and my friends as "High Moon".


Hans

In a similar vien, I've always referred to the movie "Starship Troopers" as "Teenage Space Nazis in Love"

PS. Sorry for getting off track

 

[BlackBat242]

Previous versions of this thread:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=16777

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=1280

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=868

 

[cajon5]

Makes me think it's a traveller game turned into a set of scripts:

• Riddick Trillogy (MT)

Riddick? Really? What seemed Travellerish to you?

 

[aramis]

Riddick? Really? What seemed Travellerish to you?

The general tech level, the kinds of gear, the nature of life, the mix of extant real world and made up religions, the limited use of cyber and nanotech, the mixture of interface technologies in use, the mixture of low and high tech colonies, the general feel of space travel.

In short, almost all of it. The first movie (Pitch Black) is VERY travelleresque; a hybrid of Marooned and Chamax Plague/Horde (I forget which side).

The Animated and the Chronicles of Riddick flesh out the setting more.

Aliens, by comparison looks to be TL9 but with TL15-16 robots, and a much slower drive, and some other tech tweaks, which is why it doesn't feel travelleresqe to me; strongly inconsistent tech in the CMC, and the same inconsistent tech throughout the series. Excellent, just wrong tech presumptions. Doable, but you need to rewrite the tech level tables.