tomorrow night the discovery channel will air their new special alien planet which is an adaptation of sorts of the amazing book expedition by wayne barlowe.
expedition was a fictional account of a scientific expedition to the planet darwin IV, where life evolved, but under different conditions and with different results. most notably, all the animals were blind and saw with sonar, and because of the lower gravity, some of them floated around like blimps for their whole lives.
if you’ve ever seen pitch black, they completely stole their ideas from expedition. i could never get firm information on the details, it’s possible barlowe was involved but never credited (aka screwed) or that they simply read expedition and wrote a script.
wayne barlowe is a god. he previously used his strong background in biology to envision what classic scifi novel aliens would actually look like, in his guide to extraterrestrials. he then applied to same sensibility to fantasy novels and hell.
he also designed the reaper super-vampires in blade 2, and the big dog thing in hellboy, among others.
this special appears to be like the dragons special they did. a bunch of real scientists(including stephen hawking!) talking about what life might be like on alien planets, interspersed with cgi of barlowe’s creations. it looks solid, and i’ve been waiting/wanting since i got the book to see these creatures brought to life.
disney had optioned the movie rights awhile back, i don’t know if this is a seperate deal or if this is the end result of disney’s project. either way, i can’t fucking wait. tonight, saturday the 14th, at 8pm. and again at 10 and 12.
Sweet! Thanks for the heads-up, I’ve got our replay set to record it now. :)
May 14th, 2005 at 8:44 am