“The Best Science-Fiction show on Television” -TV Guide
RadNerd says a Blu-Ray set of the entire Farscape series will drop on 11/15 at a price of $200. I’m excited because this is the set I’ve been waiting for, and not just because it means I can replace my original collection of 42 discs currently filling an entire drawer.
This is a pleasant surprise, since as I was told before, it would be cost-prohibitive for Henson to release Farscape in high-definition.
Now, when will Farscape HD be on Netflix streaming or the iTunes store…??
In light of Sci-Fi channel’s hit 1999 series Farscape getting re-released on DVD, Brian Henson admitted to the crowd at Creation Entertainment’s annual Farscape convention that there are no plans to release Farscape in any high-definiton format.
The series was filmed on 35mm, which is far superior to HD, said Henson, but the visual effects were created for a standard-definition format, and when looking at the costs of re-creating the visual effects in HD, it would have been in the millions of dollars. Per season. Understandable for a series that holds the Guinness world record for the most digital effects in a TV series.
Unfortunately, there was yet another cost that would kill the possibility of Farscape appearing in high-definition. At the end of each season, the original camera negatives were archived, which according to Henson left “a gymnasium of footage” that was particularly costly to store due to the volatility of the film itself. And so, I assume, the original 35mm prints of Farscape have been scrapped.
Henson stated that the Farscape series was produced in both NTSC and PAL formats, and that PAL’s 576 horizontal lines of resolution (compared to NTSC’s 480) was the highest-definion version of Farscape available. This is a far sight less than HD’s top resolution of 1,080 lines, and a sad fate for such a visually stunning and complex series.
Every November, I attend the annual Official Farscape Convention in Burbank, which this year happily conflicted with the only other convention I attend. Still, I had to go: after 8 years, this was to be the last official Farscape convention. Not a bad run for a show that got cancelled a year too soon back in 2003, but still I had made my peace with that and I had made my peace with this being the last convention, and the last time I would see a lot of my Farscape friends, as well.
So it came as a bit of a shock when I read to the last page of the program and found these words: JOIN US NEXT YEAR FOR THE 2ND ANNUAL FINAL FRELLIN’ FARSCAPE FAREWELL!
You sons of bitches.
Iit’s not like Creation Entertainment to walk away from buckets of money, but still.
Speaking of buckets of money, I don’t possess the deep pockets to bid $10,000 on the lead actor’s full-length coat, or even one of those sweet pulse rifle props they were auctioning off. What I could afford was a doorbell.
Or maybe an elevator button? Or Farscape’s answer to the tricorder? Truth is, I don’t know what it is, and I’ll probably have to tear through the series again just to figure out what the hell I bid on. All I know is it’s Peacekeeper design and it lights up when I press a switch cleverly concealed under one of the panels.
And that’s pretty cool for …a lightswitch?
I was a little disappointed with the corner-cutting on ADV’s Farscape line of DVDs and just as a proof of concept thought I’d show that yes, you can make a cool-looking DVD interface without trying too hard.
The best part of the cover is its designer-imposter motif. Hold it up next to one of ADV’s Farscape DVDs and you’ll find it hard to tell the real one from the home-made one. The quotes, episode descriptions and even tiny credits and badges help complete the illusion. Like they say, “The devil is in the details.”
Okay, not exactly, but Wayne Pygram, who played the arch-villain Scorpius on the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically-acclaimed series Farscape will be filling Peter Cushing‘s shoes as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode III, as reported by SciFiWire:
The official Star Wars Web site has released a cast and crew list for Star Wars: Episode III:Revenge of the Sith, confirming among other things the appearance of familiar characters such as Gov. Tarkin, played by former Farscape star Wayne Pygram.
Finally, something to be excited about! Pygram’s portrayal of Scorpius in Farscape conjured up a determined, cold-blooded nosferatu, which I think is just the right tone to uphold the ruthlessness of the Tarkin character. (Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to inject some of the life Farscape brought to sci-fi into the Star Wars franchise.)
I had done some editing for Farscape fans before, and I guess they liked what I did, because I was tapped to produce a commercial advertising Farscape‘s mini-series finale The Peacekeeper Wars! The fact that this commercial was funded entirely by Farscape fans through farWhat.com was an amazing display of support from the show’s fanbase. Together, fans raised over $11,000! Our 15 seconds of fame aired on FX and Cartoon Network.
Here’s an earlier idea I had for what to air on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim]. It only took me about ten minutes to make, but I ultimately scrapped it because, cute as it was, I figured ripping off the style of their bumps would be misleading.
Problems viewing the video? That’s because you’re using Internet Explorer 6, which completely screws over non-MS browser plug-ins and ignores the way plug-ins have worked since 1994. Thank you very much, Microsoft.
Hey, look, everything’s on YouTube!