Before discounting the series as too difficult, too expensive and limited fan base, let's quickly look at a couple different details.
Too difficult - Is it? The universe of SC is highly engaging and imaginative. With 20 some odd alien races, fully realized with history, direction, and drive - each interacting with the main character with their own agenda in mind, and a progressive storyline which begins with "Humanity got their galactic butt kicked", and the most unlikely of heroes fly their ancient (sentient?) ship across the universe to enlist the aid of belligerent alien races in order to save humanity from galactic imprisonment. I would think the stories would write themselves (with a progressive storyline, of course).
Too expensive? Fortunately, there have been quatum leaps and bounds in film and CGI technology. Consider the difference between film and High-Def technology (both I'm fairly well versed in, so let the jousting begin!). Film, the traditional technology, is still the choice for 'Must See TV', and is horrendously expensive - retail (which I'm sure studio's never pay, but still...) 35mm film can run up to $1000 per 1100 ft roll (a little over 10 minutes), counting post productions costs (which never end if your an Indie filmmaker), plus sound conforming and a billion other steps.
Enter HD, more importantly, HD 24P - cheap cheap cheap. A 55 minute tape is roughly $100, and the cameras are getting less and less expensive (the Panasonic hit an all time low of $40K just recently.) Sounds great, with 8 channels, just dump it to an AVID, edit, add effects, color correct, ect. My point is the cost of shooting has been reduced considerably.
Now effects. Who here thinks adding optical effects and CGI has gotten more expensive in the last 5 years? Have cost stayed level? Or have the dropped like a hot rock? Again, technology has gotten cheaper while effects have gotten better, there's a greater talent pool, all driving cost's down.
I would see SC as a Situational Space Comedy Action Series, spoofy enough that you could get away with CGI on par with the first Toy Story, add in a judicious amount of live action with a group of actor's who can nail comedy, and build just a few permanent sets. Here's the key - composite, composite, composite - They whole game was basically told through the view screen of the ship, why not take a page from this and tell a majority of the story from that prospective? Sure, we get the see the bridge, areas of the ship, crew quarters, ect.., but alien interaction (with the exception of Syreen) is all done through view screens and exterior optical effects. No Illwrath wrestling, Ur-Quan tussling hand to hand combat here, but there could planet interaction through a shuttle viewscreen.
Lastly, the fan base. I totally agree with you. It's been, what, fourteen years since the game has been released? It's been sooo long that many people say "Star What...". However, videogame Aficionado have considered SC to be one of Greatest ever made (hey, #6 on gamespot.com Greatest of all Times), and the videogame industry is smoking hot right now with no slow down in the near future, Hollywood has figured this out, but television is still trying to figure out how it’s going to stop hemorrhaging it's male demographic (hey! Let's do reality TV about boxing!) to the almighty Xbox.
But that's not what's going to sell it. Tetris is also considered one the best games ever, and no one in their right mind is ever going to make Tetris TV. What's going to sell is a not just a good story, but a great one. Great stories and amazing writing would get this off the ground, the fact it's based off a videogame is all secondary and marketing.
Finally, I understand trying to get a television series picked up is a Herculean task. First, you would need to get the rights (Dear Paul and Fred…), next, come up with a rockstar concept (think B5 meets FarScape meets ST: TNG, but funny), write a pilot like you’ve never written before, get yourself an agent, take a view meeting with Spike and Sci-Fi networks, and try to get something to stick. Yeah. That easy. So if your laying odds, it doesn’t look good, but you’ll never see it to no one tries.
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