William Nolan, the guy who wrote the original novel on which Logan's Run is based, helped craft the continuation of Logan's adventures with the Bluewater team.

According to a release about the series, here's what we have in store:

The pieces are falling into place for Deep Sleep Operative Logan-6 on his clandestine mission to find the ever-elusive Ballard and destroy his precious Sanctuary. But even the best-laid plans can go awry. When his cover is blown, not only does Logan risk being killed, but also he must make a split second decision that transforms him from the hunter to the hunted. In this heart racing continuation of LOGAN'S RUN: LASTDAY, Logan soon discovers that going rogue comes with a price.

The series starts in January, but in the meantime you can take a gander at these goofily awesome covers. They'll make you remember why the blinky lights and shiny clothes of the original flick were so memorably groovy.

Art by Matt Bellisle.

Art by Erich Owen.

Art by Michael Shelfer.

Art by Daniel Gete.

The new series, Logan's Run: Lastday, is being produced with the co-operation of Logan creator William Nolan as part of a deal that will also see the publisher, Washington DC's Bluewater Productions, create comics based on his novel Seven For Space. The Logan series will start by adapting the original novel trilogy before going on to feature all new stories, written by special effects artist and writer Paul J. Salamoff, who seems excited at the prospect:

Having been a lifelong fan of "Logan's Run", it's a dream come true to not only be asked to re-launch and re-imagine the trilogy of classic books as Graphic Novels, but to collaborate with William F. Nolan himself.

The series will launch towards the end of the year.

Logan's Run Begins At Bluewater This Winter [Bluewater Productions]

An Ain't It Cool News tipper spilled the beans that James McTeigue, the second unit director for the rumored Wachowski Plastic Man movie may be taking full control over the film so the Watchowskis can focus on a WB Superman trilogy. According to AICN, "Bryan Singer has refused to undertake a re-boot of the Superman franchise and has left the Executives at WB with no choice but to take a fresh creative direction." And what a different direction that would be.

Seriously, I'm shocked. Aren't there 1,000 directors vying for this job? My brain can't even fathom what a Wachowski Superman would even look like. I was really excited for the Wachowski Plastic Man movie, as I thought they would really be the only directors to take the content seriously enough to make it fun and entertaining. If this rumor turns out to be real, they'd be giving up a passion project to pick up the pieces of a desperate to be rebooted, too-many-hands-in-the-pie franchise. Could they even pull off a more interesting Superman?

It's been a rough patch for the brothers, what with the beautiful-yet-unfortunately-written-and-executed Speed Racer. So from that perspective, this may make the two step things up to reclaim their nerd credit, but I just can't see them diving into a project with this many people involved and leaving Plastic Man behind. Still, if anyone is going to get me at least re-interested in this project, dropping Singer and adding the Watchowskis is probably the way to go.

And where does this all leave Bryan Singer? Why he's moving onto the Logan's Run movie. Which means - if there rumors are true - then we are most certainly getting a Plastic Man, Logan's Run and Watchowski Superman reboot.

[AICN]

The plot has become as timeworn as space flowerchildren themselves: A domed city run by computers forces everyone to die at the age of 30. People who run instead of willingly hurling themselves to a fiery death are hunted down by "sandmen." Our hero, who you see here in his awesome leisure robe, is one of those sandmen. He's just killed a runner, and is ready for a night of love.

He's not interested in the futuristic gay guy, though - he wants a lady. Unfortunately, his casual sex partner is feeling blue due to that whole "all my friends over 30 are dead" thing. Bummer, man. Later, our sandman will become a runner himself, and we'll see a lot of shiny, bubble-shaped indoor malls filled with people wearing Stevie Nicks outfits. The future is far out, man.

Logan's Run [via IMDB]

Talking to the LA Times, Singer was asked about the fate of his remake of the 1976 Michael York film about a future society that killed its citizens once they reached the age of thirty, and his answer was non-committal, but surprising:

I’m taking a few months to collect myself and figure out what I’m going to do in that regard. We did a lot of development on that movie and a lot of work. To start it up again, I wouldn’t start it up again without a full commitment. So I have decisions to make. Right now, that’s just hanging around.

The surprising part isn't that Singer would be considering returning to the project - there is a completed script written for it by his Valkyrie screenwriter Chris McQuarrie, after all - but that Singer was still involved in the project at all; in 2007, a new team were announced by Warner Bros. for the movie, including Joel Silver as producer, Children of Men's Tim Sexton as writer, with commercials director Joseph Kosinski making his feature debut... but all news on that front has been suspiciously quiet since the announcement. Does Singer's comment mean that that team is no longer involved? Will we have to wait thirty years for Logan to make it back to the big screen... and, if so, does that mean that we'll have to all be killed as soon as the credits roll?

Bryan Singer on 'Logan's Run' remake: 'I have decisions to make.' [LA Times Hero Complex]

Hyperion:
Space-war novelist Dan Simmons has been hoping for a Hyperion movie for ages. Speculation has run rampant on the internet with both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio supposedly attached to the project. Simmons himself has said that, "yes there is a Hyperion movie in the works. It has been optioned by a top-notch studio, is slated to be directed by a top-name director, and already has the involvement of a top-flight movie star. Screenwriters have been attached to the project and a first draft screenplay is expected soon." The top notch production company was announced to be Warner Brothers with Graham King producing and the release date is set for 2010. Hopefully this will be the last we see of Hyperion on Development Purgatory, and we'll be watching tree-impaling Shrike in no time.

Count Zero, or Zen Differential:
The sequel to William Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero was optioned during the height of the Matrix craze. The movie Zen Differential was supposed to be based on CZ and made by Michael Mann. Alas this movie's script never even got a draft.

Logan's Run:
This movie's never ending saga has truly earned its place in purgatory. There was talk of remaking it (supposedly closer to the book) as early as 1994. That faded in and out of possibility until 2004, when Bryan Singer was brought on, and everything seemed good to go. Some pre-production work was done and a draft was written, but then Singer decided to "take a vacation" from film making after Superman Returns, and dropped the project cold. Joel Silver and WB stayed hopeful, and a low-budget proposal by rookie director Joseph Korinski caught their eye. Some are hopeful we'll see Logan's Run as early as 2010, written by Children of Men scriptwriter Tim Sexton with Korinski directing, supposedly under the watchful eye of David Fincher. All I can say is: we'll see.

The Forever War
Alas the Chicago public TV miniseries adaptation adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War never saw the light of day, neither did the Sci-Fi channel movie (truth be told, I'd rather see the PBS version). Get crackin' people — we want to see the epic battle of humanity versus Tauran aliens. So does Haldeman, apparently, Sci Fi bought the rights to his novel and then never called him back.

King Of Elves:
This movie has been promised to the scifi masses for ages. Disney vows to have this Phillip K. Dick adaptation out in 2012 as their 50th computer animated feature. It's at the end of a very long Disney to-do list, so there's no telling how many times the green-leafy elves will be pushed to the back burner. That being said we are hopefully optimistic about this feature — it seems to be moving forward, but very, very slowly. Also apparently Disney decided to move the elves' location from Colorado to the Mississippi Delta.

Vurt:
Author Jeff Noon wrote a draft of a screenplay for his novel around 2002. It got optioned by Pathe films, with K-Pax director Iain Softley attached. Noon wrote a second draft of the screenplay, but by the time he finished in 2004, the option ran out and got dropped by Pathe, though Softley promised to look for a new producer. The last that was heard about the movie was in 2005 when Noon told readers of his website "don't hold your breath." No! We need our hallucinogenic feathers and our alternate reality ASAP!

With additional writing and reporting by Andrew Hudson.

The alien visitor from a doomed world:

The most famous refugee in science fiction is probably Superman, who gets sent to safety when his home planet Krypton is destroyed. It's no coincidence that Superman is also the posterboy for assimilation — his "real" family is the Kents of Kansas, and he thinks of himself as an American. He gets to live the refugee's dream, being totally accepted into a prosperous new world — plus he's physically and mentally superior to everyone else around him, which is a plus. He's the embodiment of the melting pot, even as he has the power to melt you. (And of course, his creators Siegel & Schuster were the sons of poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, mainly Lithuania and Ukraine.)

Doctor Who, meanwhile, has the same alien-world story as Superman, but without the assimilation. The Doctor, in the early episodes from 1963, drops hints about being on the run and in hiding, but doesn't explain further. The show's creators had a vague sense, originally, that he was fleeing a space war. But by the time it's explained in 1969, the explanation is much more benign: the Doctor's species are dicks. (No, not Terrance Dicks. Just dicks.) It's not until the show's 42nd birthday that we get back to the idea that he's fleeing a space war (upgraded to a time war.) And his planet has been destroyed, just like Superman's. But like I mentioned, he doesn't assimilate with Earth/British culture — even though he constantly takes on weird British affectations like jelly babies or cricket, they only make him seem like more of an outsider. He's like those Indian immigrants in the TV show Goodness Gracious Me, who anglicize their names and try to be more British than everyone else, only to look more out of place than ever. In many ways, the Doctor is the anti-Superman.

The protagonist who's fleeing war or genocide:

There are also tons of characters who flee a doomed or destroyed Earth, including Arthur Dent in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. And John Varley's novels frequently take place in a universe where humans have been forced to flee an Earth invaded by aliens, and have colonized the rest of the solar system as a result.

And then there's Hope Hubris, the hero of Piers Anthony's Bio Of A Space Tyrant series. As the first book's title, Refugee, suggests, Hubris starts out as a humble refugee from the moon Callisto, fleeing to Jupiter, where his family gets killed horribly. This starts him on his path towards becoming the "Tyrant of Jupiter."

The rag-tag fleet of humans:

And then there are plenty of stories in which a straggling mob of people flees from a disaster or massacre in space. Maybe the most critically acclaimed SF show right now — if not the most popular — is Battlestar Galactica, where the Cylons drive the humans out of their homeworld not once, but twice: on Caprica, and then on New Caprica. At the end of season three, Lee Adama makes a huge speech in which he says this has changed humanity from a civilization to a "gang," on the run and doing whatever it takes to survive.

Less organized rabbles also turn up, fleeing wars or political unrest, in books like C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, where swarms of refugees pack into Pell Station in the wake of conflict between the Earth Company and outer stations. And a mob of refugees from a disaster that befalls the H9 colony swarms aboard a cruise ship, only to be exploited by the media, in Eric Idle's The Road To Mars. The TV show Babylon 5 is also full of refugee crises, like the people fleeing the Vorlon attack on Ventari III in "Falling Towards Apotheosis." (We also see a ship full of refugees under attack in the first regular episode, "Midnght On The Firing Line.")

Eco-refugees or disaster survivors on Earth:

Every eco-disaster narrative or post-apocalyptic story includes some kind of refugee motif, with people fleeing the destroyed cities or trying to find a safe haven. Like The Day After Tomorrow, The Postman, Waterworld, or Mad Max. Or Steven Gould's novel Blind Waves. The Martian attacks in War Of The Worlds spawn a huge fleet of refugee ships running away from the carnage. Islanders flee rising sea levels, only to drown or wind up in horrible refugee boat camps, in the 2002 young adult novel Exodus. And of course, there are tons of refugees from the collapsing nations of the world, seeking sanctuary in the U.K., in Children Of Men. Not to mention the Raft of refugees organized by telecommunications magnate L. Bob Rife in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

One of the most arresting moments in the TV show Jericho is when our heroes find the remains of a refugee train a mile wide, made by people fleeing the frozen north. The refugees have left their icy dead where they lay. (Not to mention the whole gaggle of refugees who settle in Jericho, only to face expulsion again.)

Survivalists:

And the survivalist narrative is a huge part of science fiction. Robert Heinlein not only wrote the novel Farnham's Freehold, about people surviving a nuclear war, but according to the source of all lies, he also wrote "How To Be A Survivor" and other essays on surviving nuclear war. Frederik Pohl deals with similar themes in his story "Fermi And Frost." Also, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle write about a group of survivors barricading themselves into a mountain retreat after a deadly comet strike, in Lucifer's Hammer. Plus there's The Survivors, the TV show Terry Nation made between his work on Doctor Who and Blake's 7 (which is also a refugee show, sort of.)

And then there are the narratives about people going on the run from repressive regimes. Like Logan's Run, where Logan flees the non-stop beautiful-people orgy where they kill you when you reach 30, in search of the mythical Sanctuary. (And in the Logan's Run TV series, he's just on the run, every week, with a rogue android. In Roger McBride Allen's The Ring Of Charon, Marcia MacDougal can only escape from the repressive Naked Purple movement, which has taken over a lunar penal colony, by being declared a refugee when her house burns down.

Fleeing from the future:

And finally there are refugees in time — sort of like the Doctor, except they're fleeing a particular oppressive future through time travel. Just type "refugee from the future" into Google (with the quotation marks) and you get a bunch of weird stories — including various X-Men who have journeyed back to our time to escape one of those Mutants-in-concentration-camps dystopian futures.

I feel as though I've just scratched the surface of science fiction's nearly endless store of refugees here — this post could be twice as long. But these seem to be the main types of refugees in science fiction, and I was somewhat surprised by how many of them I turned up when I started looking.

History is full of mass evacuations and displacements, and we've gotten pretty used to the sight of streams of humans struggling across an unforgiving landscape with whatever they can carry, trying to escape from something or other. But it seems pretty likely the 21st century will see more refugee crises than ever before, as the number of humans on the planet continues to skyrocket and there are more ecological disasters and wars over scarce resources. There will be more and more refugees — possibly including you.

And science fiction is uniquely suited to tell the stories of these fleeing people, because the stark reality of the refugee condition is so awful, we need metaphors to cover it. It's easier to think about people running away from an exploding planet than it is to think about grabbing what you can and running from your home before you get ethnically cleansed. A dollop of escapism — or, in the case of Superman, a truckload — helps us swallow the unthinkable.

Note: The illustration up top comes from Wagner James Au's New World Notes blog, from a report about a virtual "Camp Darfur" in Second Life, which was being vandalized by asswipes spouting racist slogans. So a team of Green Lanterns, most of them extraterrestrial, took it upon themselves to guard the site.

You could argue that most dystoipan movies are really false utopias, because the rulers of a dark, bleak dystopia (like, say, Brazil) still try to pretend that everything is perfect and wonderful. The difference is, most dystopias start out bleak and dark, and just get more horrid until the protagonist is forced to confront the darkness around him/her. But in the "false utopia" subcategory of dystopias, everything is bright and wonderful, and the main character is either getting some great drugs, or having lots of fun sex, or both in the case of Brave New World.

The "false utopia" genre, says Transparency Now,

shows humanity lost in false paradises of technology and simulation. In one subcategory, we see enclosed high-tech cities or habitations with apparently well-ordered societies full of people who are trapped by their dependence on automation and computers. They may also live decadent lifestyles that serve to distract them from the truth of their circumstances.

Here's a brief and cheerful history of fake utopias:

1909. "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. Forster's reaction to some of H.G. Wells' more optimistic fiction. In the distant future, humans live underground, each in a separate "cell," with all of his or her needs provided for by the all-powerful Machine. Human culture stagnates, and people wrongly believe they can't survive on the surface of the Earth without protection. Over time, people start to worship the Machine like a god, forgetting they made it. And then eventually the Machine starts to break down.

1932. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's 2540, and everybody's drugged up to the gills on Soma, a sort of anti-depressant/psychotropic, and people can learn in their sleep. There's lots and lots of casual sex and orgies, and people chanting "orgy porgy" while having orgies. It's awesome. Oh, and people are incubated artificially instead of being born "naturally." The lower classes are engineered to be less intelligent and curious than the upper classes.

1956. The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke. It's a billion years in the future, and humans have mostly abandoned Earth to go off and create super-ultra-awesome minds in space. In the domed city of Diaspar, people lead perfect lives, governed by the Central Computer. When they die, the Computer stores their memories and grows new bodies for them, making them nearly immortal. But then it turns out humans have been lied to about why they have to stay on Earth.

1971. The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. Ijon Tichy goes to sleep (or does he?) and wakes up in the trippy year of 2039, an utopian era without money or want. Everybody's mood is kept carefully controlled using drugs. Many people have pointed out the similarities of this drug-induced utopia to The Matrix: At one point, Tichy's girlfriend offers him a choice between two pills: The black pill will make him forget their relationship, the white pill will make him commit more deeply.

1976. Logan's Run, the movie based on the 1969 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Everything is perfect in the domed city, with all the casual sex and meaningless hedonism you could ever want. Machines provide for all of your needs, but there's one drawback — when you turn 30, you have to die.

1994. The Giver by Lois Lowry. In this award-winning young-adult novel, it's a perfect world: bad feelings and conflict have been eliminated, thanks to perfect communication and drugs. (It's always drugs.) People get around by bicycle, and there are very few cars or airplanes. Romantic love and sexual desire (called "stirrings") are illegal, and are suppressed via medication. Instead, couples are matched up based on compatibility and can adopt up to two children from "birth mothers": one boy and one girl. Here's a Christian review warning against this book based on a misconception that it's actually utopian.

1998. The Truman Show. Truman lives in a lovely small town, surrounded by nice people, with possibly the only job in the insurance industry that doesn't totally suck. The only problem is, he can never leave town, and he's kept scared of the ocean by a fake story about his father drowning. He doesn't realize that everything in his world is a lie, and he's really one of the Pussycat Dolls.

2002. Equilibrium. I hesitated to include this movie, because it's not much of a utopia. It's sort of bleak and nasty, and Christian Bale will do gun-aerobics in your face. But it does have many of the hallmarks, including people being drugged into flat affect-hood.

2005. The Island. Ewan McGregor lives in a utopian community where everything is perfect, and all of his choices are made for him. As usual in these types of stories, everybody's told that the rest of the world is uninhabitable due to some kind of toxic disaster. Everybody yearns to win the "Lottery" and go to "The Island," a tropical paradise — but it turns out The Island is made of people. Sort of.

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• Deckard's hand-cannon in Blade Runner: Deckard's gun was an amalgam of several other guns, namely the .44 Bulldog and a Styer Model SL. For the movie, they added some winky-blinky lights and a massive grip, making the thing look like it came off of a tank. And who could forget those massive CHOOMPF sounds it made when Harrison Ford fired it? This wasn't a little popgun, it had some real kick to it. It certainly wouldn't be very comfortable to wear in a holster under your coat, but it would give you some serious intimidation skills when you whipped it out.
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• The Good Samaritan Gun from Hellboy: Not to be outdone by Deckard's overly large firearm Hellboy sports a truly massive revolver that would dwarf a normal hand. According to the comic books, "The gun itself has unearthly resistance to almost all forms of attack, and includes grips carved from fragments of the True Cross. The metal of the gun is forged from a combination of Irish church bells, cold iron from crucifixes, blessed silver, and other mystic metals." Plus it comes with a handy lanyard so he doesn't lose it. Of course, even that gets dwarfed in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army when he whips out another gun called, no lie, The Big Baby.
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• The M41A Pulse Rifle from Aliens: While Ripley used to be a blue collar salvage worker, she proves that she wants to fight alongside the Marines in Aliens when she asks Kyle Reese... er, Corporal Dwayne Hicks to show her how to use this gun. It's basically a balls-out automatic rifle, complete with an underslung grenade launcher. She gets through the lesson and quickly becomes an expert in popping caps in Aliens. This supposedly also inspired the Assault Rifle in the Halo series, so it's definitely something to have on-hand during alien invasions.
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• The Varon-T Disruptor on Star Trek: One episode of The Next Generation called "The Most Toys," obsessive collector Kivas "Douchebag" Fajo had four of the five of these highly illegal, outlawed collectible guns. They could tear your body apart from the inside, in a slow and painful manner, which is why the Federation outlawed them. Of course, it was still fine for Worf to carry around a bat'leth sword. That couldn't be painful at all, could it?
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• The Lasseter Laser Pistol on Firefly: Not to be outdone by Trek, Firefly later had their own ultra-rare gun (the prototype handheld laser pistol_ and it was named after the jovial and affable John Lasseter of Pixar, who directed Toy Story... which Joss Whedon helped write. Mal and his on-again, off-again "wife" Saffron conspired to steal this sucker and make some dough, but things never really go as planned on that show.
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• Reason version 1.0B7 from Snow Crash: In Neal Stephenson's cyberpunk novel Reason is a gun that comes complete with its own operating system, carrying case, and a heat exchanger that you need to drop into a nearby body of water to keep the gun from overheating. It fires spent uranium rounds gatling-gun style, and features millimeter-wave radar, giving you daylight vision, even during the night. It might not be the easiest thing to carry around, but it's deadlier than the bubonic plague. As long as the system doesn't crash.
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• The Needler gun from the A Stainless Steel Rat novels: Harry Harrison's Rat books still haven't been adapted for film or tv, which continues to vex us. It's a great property that needs someone smart to bring it to the screen, big or small. Needlers, or needle guns, are popular in the series, and can be outfitted with different types of needles: tranquilizer, paralyzer, nerve toxin, truth serum, etc. Anyhow who is already scared of needles certainly wouldn't like this thing. If you haven't read these, A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born is a great starting point.
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• The Sandman guns from Logan's Run: In the movie, the Sandmen fired guns with an incendiary charge at the Runners. Deadly, yes, but not too imaginative. However, in the books they were six-round guns, and each round did something different, like the "homer" bullet which tracked you and would burn out every nerve in your body, or the "tangler" shot with was a sticky, goo-like web substance. Always be prepared!
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• The Lawgiver from Judge Dredd: Since a Judge was judge, jury, and executioner, this thing came in handy. They were DNA locked to each individual Judge, and featured bonus items like heat-seeking bullets, rubber "ricochet" shots, armor-piercing rounds, and even grenade rounds. Oh, and it also had a top range of three miles (!). That's some serious distance. Of course, if your bullet is going to explode when it hits, maybe aiming isn't that important at that range. Plus it gives you the ability to shout "I AM THE LAW" whenever you want.
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• The thermal smart bullet in Runaway: Granted, Gene Simmons' over-the-top performance in this Tom Selleck action flick from 1984 was pretty lethal. However, all eyes were on the "smart bullet" that Simmons' character had devised. It could be encoded with its targets thermal signature and track them, even around corners. The POV shots of it in flight were flight reminiscent of that flying needle in Dune, but it was cool and scary just the same. And yes, we know it's not a gun, but a bullet. Just remember guns don't kill people... the bullet has a lot to do with it.
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• Soran's gun from Star Trek Generations: While we're loathe to put to Trek entries on this list, Soran's gun gets a special mention for the street cred alone. You know how gangstas like to turn their gats to the side when they hold 'em? Soran's will turn right side up when he "gangsterizes" his hold on the pistol, for no apparent reason. The barrel just sort of flips back upright when he holds it sideways. It might look a bit like a doctor's exam tool, but at least it gives you some props and bling value.
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• The Zorg ZF1 Gun from The Fifth Element: Zorg's gun is nothing short of spectacular. It can break down into four pieces that are undetectable by x-rays, is good for left or right handers, features a 3000 round magazine, has a "Replay" button that sends all shots to the same location, a rocket launcher, an arrow launcher (with posion or explosive-tipped arrows), a net launcher, a flamethrower, and an "ice cube" freezing blast. Oh, and it'll self-destruct if you push the button on the bottom. Not bad. We could go on about it, but it's better if you just watch Zorg himself infomercial-it for you in the video below.
  
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1. RoboCop: The Series (1994).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? In England, but not in the U.S.
How many episodes? 22
What went wrong: In an effort to make a kid-friendly RoboCop show, the producers toned down the violence and had RoboCop explore "non-violent" alternatives to killing criminals. Recurring bad guys included Boppo the Clown, Dr. Cray Z. Mallardo and "Pud Face." No, really. Here's the opening credits.

2. Alien Nation (1989-91).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? Yes.
How many episodes? 22, plus a few TV movies
What went wrong: The TV version lost the noir tone of the movie about aliens living among us. In its place came good-natured humor with lots of banter. The cynical human cop teams up with an alien policeman and they tackle social issues. Watch them save an alien hooker from her pimp:

3. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1997-2000)
Original cast? No.
How many episodes? 66.
Out on DVD? No.
What went wrong: Every week, another experiment gone bendy. Plus obligatory subplots about the kids having crushes on other kids, and learning lessons, yadda yadda. Every episode title starts with "Honey." Including: "Honey, We've Been Swallowed by Grandpa." "Honey, I'm Streakin'." "Honey, The Garbage Is Taking Us Out." And my favorite: "Honey, I'm Wrestling With A Problem... And The Chief." Huh? Here's the first five minutes of the pilot. Note the goofy dog covering its face when disaster strikes:

4. Beyond Westworld (CBS: 1980)
Original cast? No.
# of episodes? five, but only three aired.
Out on DVD? Nope.
What went wrong: Westworld hit big with a robot theme-park turned homicidal. A sequel, Futureworld, bombed, so writer/director Michael Crichton decided to try again on television. Every week, Simon Quaid tries to take over the world using android nuclear-sub crewmen and android rock stars. The good guy: John Moore, who spends most of his time watching cheerleaders with his binoculars. Just like in this clip, where Quaid sends a robot duplicate of Connie Sellecca to kill Moore:

5. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1992)
Original cast? No, and in fact Alex Winter denounced the show on Arsenio Hall.
# of episodes? Eight, including unaired pilot.
Out on DVD? Hell no.
What went wrong: The producers "took liberties" with the movie's time-travel format, having Bill and Ted travel inside cable TV and into alternate dimensions. In one episode, Rufus (the George Carlin character) has a bad dream about Ted being sent to military school, and travels back to prevent it coming true. But instead, he causes that disaster, by engraving "Chicken Kiev" instead of Ted's father's name on an award. (Huh?) This enrages Ted's dad, who hates chicken kiev. Ted, off to military school, blames Bill for the mix-up and they become enemies. In another episode, Bill and Ted's boss becomes King Arthur:

6. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81)
Original cast: Yes
# of episodes: 31
On DVD: Yes
What went wrong: The movie was a glorified TV pilot, but it did run in theaters. And like other movies-turned-shows, the series lost most of the themes of the pilot, such as the post-apocalyptic devastation outside of the dome of New Chicago. Instead, it was all about Buck strutting around settings like "Vegas in Space," wearing a skin-tight white jumpsuit with a rainbow armband. And then in the second season, with Hawkman and Dr. Goodfellow, it got really campy:

7. Starman (ABC: 1986-87)
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 22
On DVD: No.
What went wrong: Instead of husband-wife bonding like in the movie, this time our visiting alien (Robert Hays) bonds with the son who never knew him. They travel around together righting wrongs and learning important lessons. It's a Hulk/Fugitive riff except with a kid in tow. Here's the opening credits, plus Hays dealing with some pushy cops:

8. Logan's Run
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 14
On DVD: No, but you can download episodes on Amazon Unboxed.
What went wrong: Yet another road-trip show. Logan escapes the city where they kill you when you reach 30. And then he travels around the post-apocalyptic world with his friend Jessica and an android named Rem. They encounter various other societies, including some robots and aliens. William Nolan, author of the original Logan's Run novel, actually worked on this show, and so did Star Trek alums Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana. Here are the opening credits. Check out the furry alien costumes:

Directors ranging from Skip Wood to Bryan Singer have worked on a remake in various stages of pre-production since the mid 1990s, but it never gained enough traction to stay on the rails. Although it now seems like producer Joel Silver has found his team: director Joseph Kosinski and screenwriter Timothy Sexton (Children of Men).

While the hiring of Sexton is a shot in the arm, since Children of Men did such a great job with a post-apocalyptic future, Kosinski is a first-time feature film director, which could fall on the good or the bad side of the fence. Although if it couldn't get going with a name like Bryan Singer attached, then maybe this newcomer will breathe some much needed fresh air into the project. Although since the novel is part of a trilogy (with a fourth being a novelette, and another sequel in the works), you think they might hand these reins to someone with some experience.

However, if it means getting Logan's Run to the big screen all the sooner, we say hand a camera to just about anyone and let's get things rolling ... er, running. Although we wouldn't mind not having a repeat of the dreaded Logan's Run TV series from the 1970s. Yes, it really happened.

Logan's Run getting a remake thanks to Warner Bros. [Quiet Earth]

Famous Names: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov (Cast).

Crunchy Goodness: 3

Most Painfully Dated Moment: The design of Box, the protein-harvesting robot.

Life Lesson: Don't trust anyone (who tells you that you can't live) over 30.

Stunt Casting: Farrah Fawcett-Majors, in all her '70s glory.

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