Glen Larson at Buck Rogers event
Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:52 pm
Wow, I had a fun time last night…
I went to a special 25th anniversary screening of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”, hosted by Universal Home Video in celebration of the DVD release next week. Glen Larson, Erin Gray, and other cast and crew members were there.
There was a press area where the crew was being interviewed, and of course Larson was asked about the Knight Rider movie. He said “We’re so close to being able to talk about it, but not tonight.” Although in a way it’s the same “I have no news” report we’ve been given for months, to me it sounds a little more optimistic than “it’s in development”. Larson talked a little about making movies in general. These aren’t exact quotes, but it should be pretty close to the spirit of what he said: “We’re having a great time with so many projects in different stages of development: Magnum, Knight Rider… I think movies are harder than television. There are so many more voices. With television, we were pretty much able to do what we wanted.”
I ran into composer Stu Philips, whom I met at Knight Con in Germany this summer. He is still working on doing a Knight Rider soundtrack CD, which would have the pilot episode and 4 episodes. He is getting the original recordings, which he believes may be 16-track and will obviously be much better than the mono recordings he has now. Right now, there is a legal hold-up where the project has to go around Universal for 30 days- various people have to pass on the idea before Stu can run with it himself, but it should be just a formality. He hopes to have it released in January.
Glen Larson was being pulled all over the place for publicity photos and interviews, but Stu graciously grabbed him and introduced me to him. Stu explained how we had met in Germany, at which point Glen started singing in German. At least I assume it was German; I didn’t understand a word but he certainly seemed fluent. He then started jokingly complaining about Universal still hasn’t sent him a copy of the Knight Rider DVD boxset.
Inside, they screened the original theatrical version of the Buck Rogers pilot episode. I didn’t realize Buck Rogers was released in theaters, but it’s worth seeing just for the opening credits. It is filled with cheesey 70s sex vixens crawling all over a glowing Buck Rogers logo. Jaw-droppingly dated. It’s on the new DVD. Following the movie there was a panel discussion and the first question the moderator asked was “Glen, what were you thinking with those credits?!” His response: “I wasn’t”.
The panel was Glen Larson, and cast members Erin Gray (Col Deering) and Tim O’Connor (Dr. Huer). Even “Dr. Theopolis” was there: they had the round computer face sitting on a director’s chair, voiced by the original actor Howard Flynn. Crew included director Daniel Haller, who also directed Knight of the Phoenix , effects supervisor Peter Anderson, and the man who created all the infamous Buck Rogers costumes, Jean-Pierre Dorleac.
To top off the evening, I was one of the winners of a Buck Rogers DVD boxset.
I went to a special 25th anniversary screening of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”, hosted by Universal Home Video in celebration of the DVD release next week. Glen Larson, Erin Gray, and other cast and crew members were there.
There was a press area where the crew was being interviewed, and of course Larson was asked about the Knight Rider movie. He said “We’re so close to being able to talk about it, but not tonight.” Although in a way it’s the same “I have no news” report we’ve been given for months, to me it sounds a little more optimistic than “it’s in development”. Larson talked a little about making movies in general. These aren’t exact quotes, but it should be pretty close to the spirit of what he said: “We’re having a great time with so many projects in different stages of development: Magnum, Knight Rider… I think movies are harder than television. There are so many more voices. With television, we were pretty much able to do what we wanted.”
I ran into composer Stu Philips, whom I met at Knight Con in Germany this summer. He is still working on doing a Knight Rider soundtrack CD, which would have the pilot episode and 4 episodes. He is getting the original recordings, which he believes may be 16-track and will obviously be much better than the mono recordings he has now. Right now, there is a legal hold-up where the project has to go around Universal for 30 days- various people have to pass on the idea before Stu can run with it himself, but it should be just a formality. He hopes to have it released in January.
Glen Larson was being pulled all over the place for publicity photos and interviews, but Stu graciously grabbed him and introduced me to him. Stu explained how we had met in Germany, at which point Glen started singing in German. At least I assume it was German; I didn’t understand a word but he certainly seemed fluent. He then started jokingly complaining about Universal still hasn’t sent him a copy of the Knight Rider DVD boxset.
Inside, they screened the original theatrical version of the Buck Rogers pilot episode. I didn’t realize Buck Rogers was released in theaters, but it’s worth seeing just for the opening credits. It is filled with cheesey 70s sex vixens crawling all over a glowing Buck Rogers logo. Jaw-droppingly dated. It’s on the new DVD. Following the movie there was a panel discussion and the first question the moderator asked was “Glen, what were you thinking with those credits?!” His response: “I wasn’t”.
The panel was Glen Larson, and cast members Erin Gray (Col Deering) and Tim O’Connor (Dr. Huer). Even “Dr. Theopolis” was there: they had the round computer face sitting on a director’s chair, voiced by the original actor Howard Flynn. Crew included director Daniel Haller, who also directed Knight of the Phoenix , effects supervisor Peter Anderson, and the man who created all the infamous Buck Rogers costumes, Jean-Pierre Dorleac.
To top off the evening, I was one of the winners of a Buck Rogers DVD boxset.