It has been revealed that Crown International Pictures has chosen Mark A. Altman to create a TV series based on Galaxina, a low-budget sci-fi movie that came out in 1980. This seems like a rather odd choice, but Crown International Pictures called the movie one of its “crown jewels.” Unfortunately, that is the sort of description that says lot more about Crown International Pictures than it does Galaxina.
Regardless, some people might have recognized the name Mark A. Altman. After all, he was one of the executive producers on The Librarians, which is a series that has received a fair amount of positive attention from the viewers. Furthermore, he has worked on a number of other projects over the course of his career in the entertainment industries, meaning that he is bringing a fair amount of expertise and experience to this particular project. As a result, while Altman’s involvement with the TV series based on Galaxina is far from being a guarantee of its success, it is nonetheless some reason for interested individuals to show some optimism about the eventual outcome.
What Is Galaxina?
At this point, it is worth looking at what Galaxina was supposed to be. In short, it was a low-budget sci-fi movie with plenty of comedy packed into it, which is perhaps unsurprising considering that one of the reasons behind its creation was parodizing a number of sci-fi mainstays such as Alien, Star Trek, and Star Wars. The movie was named for a gynoid, who remains the single most memorable part of the whole movie, not least because she was played by the Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten.
Plot-wise, Galaxina was centered on the efforts of a starship crew to recover a gemstone called the Blue Star, which is found on a prison planet called Altair One. There is a fair amount of humor incorporated into the plot, with examples ranging from unintentional tampering with cryogenics controls resulting in the ship captain coming out of hibernation as an old man to a group of bikers on the prison planet worshiping a god named “Harley-David-Son.” However, some of the material surrounding Galaxina the character can seem more than a little bit outdated, particularly considering the issues that have caught the public’s attention in recent times.
Curiously, the marketing for the TV series based on Galaxina has stated that it will be a “sophisticated sci-fi thriller” with what it calls an “edgy, smart cable vibe.” Most of it isn’t much more than standard marketing jargon, but what meaning can be gleaned from it doesn’t exactly sound encouraging. Instead, more consolation can be found in the words of Altman, who has stated that they are going for a mix between the storytelling of Battlestar Galactica and the optimism of the original Star Trek, which is something that might provoke mixed responses. After all, while it would be nice to have some optimistic sci-fi, Battlestar Galactica is rather notorious with some fans for its story going in less than spectacular directions over time, perhaps because its producers had never bothered to flesh out critical story details.
It remains to be seen what will come of this particular project. One can’t help but be skeptical of the premise, but it is important to remember that execution is the much more important part of production, meaning that it is not impossible that this will turn out well. As a result, interested individuals should continue to pay attention to news of the Galaxina TV series, if just to see what will become of it.
Follow Us
