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How Did The U.S. Ending To Life On Mars Compare To The BBC Version?
San Francisco, 1:21 PM
Wed Dec 9
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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How Did The U.S. Ending To Life On Mars Compare To The BBC Version? |
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04/04/09
For those that didn't like it, Harvey Keitel in "Saturn 5" will help wash the taste out of you mouth.
04/04/09
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04/04/09
Most people I know who watch "The Office" (both versions) don't rewatch episodes of the British one, they don't think it holds up to repeated viewings once you already know the jokes/cringe situation of the week. Whereas they'll rewatch the US one.
I know Brits who duck and mumble apologetically that they really think the US version is superior and hope their fellow subjects don't hurt them. Doesn't Ricky Gervais like the US version better?
04/03/09
So you've given people unequal choices, much like bad political pollsters who do crappy push polls. You'd need another US better option and more neutral wording on all choices.
Answer 7, in other words.
04/03/09
04/03/09
Sam went through all that stuff, and everything we watched him do was all a dream and then he woke up.
So, really, anyone "let down" by the US ending and pissed at the people who made it either a) didn't notice that the UK version also ended with "it was all just a dream" and/or b) they like that the UK dreams really meant absolutely nothing at ALL to the audience who'd invested all the hours watching Sam's dreams and/or c) they like watching characters die for no good reason other than "woops, our 8 episodes are up" (similar to the later Shamalamadingdong school of "the movie's almost over, quick, a pointless TWIST!").
I hope that the readers of io9 are smart enough and critical/discerning enough not to automatically think that all happy endings are worthless/ TEH SUX.
04/03/09
04/03/09
CBS aired a lot of stuff from Canada (and co-productions with Canada and other countries) as far back as the 1980's, but only on late nights.
04/03/09
The Canadian co-productions with Global (like Night Heat and Adderly) were made with Toronto talent, generic back-east-cold-city settings, and American money. When the CBS funding ended, so did those Canadian shows, leading to the Great Vancouver Sci-Fi Boom of the 90's and 00's... and TOPIC!
04/03/09
04/03/09
Also, they played "Life on Mars" at the beginning of the show in both 2008 and 1973, just like the original.
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04/03/09
English LoM wanted to have it both ways: use the structure of SF with time-travel and then wuss out (YES, I SAID WUSS OUT! ya big girl's blouse nancy-boys) with an ending of "It was all a dream and Sam is too much of a wimp to deal with reality, so he killed himself". Had it actually been time-travel, it would have been a much better, more honest ending.
UK Sam used his dreams to escape his reality; US Sam used his to improve it.
Plus, in the UK version, Gene is clearly the star (as can be seen by him getting another show, though it isn't as good), whereas in the US version, it's always been Sam.
Also, those of you who are all "English ending is superior in every way YAH BOO" would also have been bitching if the US ending was identical or even similar, so your bitching is superfluous. You wouldn't have liked it anyway.
04/03/09
UK Sam had even more issues than I thought! That's really low self-esteem.
The US version was SF and proud of it; the UK version was a cop show that used SF tropes and was ashamed of it. The difference in Sams shows that.
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It was written and filmed in England. The sequel is entirely London-based. The Welsh and Scots had to pay the fee for it, but got no more out of it than the people who saw it worldwide.
04/03/09
Pretty please?
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04/03/09
I mean, it was no Answer 5, but still...
04/03/09
No Mars, no astro's, no supercomputers. No compromise.
The fact that Ashes to Ashes did a bloody good job of continuing in the same universe is also a thumbs up from me.
And for those Americans in here who are saying they've not watched the UK version... you haven't watched Life on Mars then.
04/03/09
And we still like the American ending better.
But enjoy your bitterness!
04/03/09
04/03/09
Hey, "Titanic" made the most money worldwide and won the most Oscars, so by your same logic it's the best movie ever made, right?
Funny how "the originals are always better!" (oh, except for "Battlestar Galactica") (and "Star Trek") (and "Doctor Who")
04/03/09
04/03/09
Try as I might, I can't think of any strangeness from U.S. LoM that can't be explained via that ending, so thumb's up. And it made me realize that there's a criminally untapped market for Harvey Keitel in Space.
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04/03/09
Sorry but I was starting to get really annoyed by the way this show was going a while ago. I didn't hold much hope for the ending. Sam never seemed to make as much of an impact on the 70's as the original Sam did. He was more of a bystander while Gene & Co. beat the s@#* out of everyone. Which made the show play much more like a regular 70's cop show than a sci-fi/fantasy show. Where was the fish-out-of-water story? And if they were going to put Sam and Annie together I would have preferred him to have noticed her earlier on, instead of her mooning over him all season while he chases other skirts and then only figuring out he likes her in, literally, the last 15 minutes of the series.
04/03/09
So I think you're reacting more out of emotion than relying on the what actually transpired. Which is fine, but then just say so--don't make blanket statements that can be refuted with facts.
04/03/09
If you're all "it sucks b/c it wasn't like the British version", you've forgotten that that all turned out to be a dream too -- and not even based on real people that Sam knew.
At least US Sam chose to make himself the center of his own dream; poor UK Sam had such lousy self-esteem he made himself the sidekick of an imaginary construct, and then killed himself to go back to being the sidekick after he'd struggled so hard to get to the future!
("Ashes to Ashes" proves who the real center of UK "Life on Mars" was. It wouldn't exist without people wanting more of The Guv even after LoM ended.)
04/04/09
04/04/09
As for your idea that "we don't know real Sam related to real Annie, those characters weren't real" -- well, the characters in the original weren't real either! They mattered even less since they weren't even based on real people at all.
US Sam comes out of his coma with clearer ideas of how he wants to relate to important people in his life. UK Sam just realizes his life sucks so bad that dying is a more attractive option.
IN BOTH CASES, as you said, "all we saw were months of episodes about characters that weren't real!"
If you have that complaint about the US version, you should realize that it's endemic to the setup and the original.
04/04/09
Probably a down to a combination of the writing and the physicality.
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but in ashes to ashes the characters say he lived for months after he jumped off the roof, so time travel is still plausible :)
04/04/09
And why is she "starring" in someone else's fantasy world, with their characters? I suppose b/c she'd just read Sam's file. At least she's got her parents and Evan in there... which surprised me when Evan shagged Mum, as I had him pegged for gay... but I digress.
The coppers need to run better psych evaluations; shouldn't have let Sam go back on duty! Hope they're more careful with Alex when she wakes up.
I have a soft spot for all versions of Chris.