What Setting For Traveller the Movie

[BP]

Firefly pulled similar concepts off pretty well...

 

[rust]

I think the "classic" traveller setting would be a little hard to get through to a wide modern audience. Think about it. Look at all the star trek and star wars movies ...

While this is a purely hypothetical discussion, I very much doubt that it
would be a good idea to turn Traveller into a Star Trek or Star Wars clo-
ne. If a Traveller movie had any chance to become a success, it would
do so because it would be something different and original, and not just
more of the same.

 

[Mithras]

Well, it would be quite easy to set a movie in the Traveller universe and it would work very well. Pitch Black, Ghosts of Mars, Screamers could all easily have been set in the 3i, couldn't they?

 

[kafka]

The Alien movies scream Traveller to me. The more I watch them the more I see Traveller.

But in terms of setting indeed they could be anywhere where survival is not determined by technology and that one has to think with their wits fast and solve a mystery. Therefore, anything set in the modern day - or classic World War films - A Bridge Too Far would make a great Merc epic. Similarly, Casablanca is perfect backdrop for the District 268 during the frontier wars.

 

[Mithras]

I also think you could do alot visually with Vargr. I've never used them in a game, but if I did I play up the striped ships with improbable bladelike wings, and the wild, werewolf like nature of the Vargr. They'd be a cross between reavers and werewolves (the corsairs, anyway!). They'd be bloody terrifying.

 

[Solomani666]

1105

"Syncronicity"

Follows the paths of 4 or more Traveller groups

1. Female Zhodani agent gathering intel prior to the Fifth Frontier War.
2. Imperial Intel trying to discover/capture her.
3. Travellers on a Far Trader.
4. A squad of Imperial marines.
5. Other minor or temporary groups.

The plot revolves around how each of the various groups affects the others leading up to the FFW with an emphasis being on the crew of the far trader.

Better for a series really where something might go afoul for the traders, but you won't know why until the next eposide seen from the perspective of one of the other groups.

Each group is subtly and sometimes not so subtly intertwined and having actions that affect the other groups.

 

[locarno24]

I think the "classic" traveller setting would be a little hard to get through to a wide modern audience. Think about it. Look at all the star trek and star wars movies, you have instant galaxy wide communications. Not so in traveller. Hard to deal with characters and events happening in different locations without that.
Also, travel is a lot quicker in those settings. In traveller, it takes a week to make a jump from one system to another. you can't change course, you can't get messages during transit, you're locked in a box for a week. How exciting is that to film? not very, unless your'e doing a horror story. If you acknowledge the travel time in the script, will the audience wonder what happened to the heroes during that week?
Babylon 5 sort of pulled it off, but even they had communications from planet to planet through the "hyper channel" or some such.

Depends how you do it - you can quite happily chop forwards a couple of days in time, or change location - in terms of communications lag, things like The Tudors or any Sharpe/Hornblower-esque story has similar turnaround times for important messages, yet never felt like they're hanging on waiting for a reply. The reason (or at least a big part of the reason) why the Imperium is so heavily feudalized is the need to provide one or more Nobles on each world who have the authority to make unilateral decisions without waiting for a response.