Geek Dreams That Will Never Be Fulfilled

Geeks are a fickle bunch. No matter how much awesome stuff we get there’s also something else we want. Even when something we want gets given to use on a silver platter most geek’s first response would be to pick it apart and find everything that could be perceived as being wrong. Fortunately we leave in a golden age of geekdom, when we’ve been marked as a valid marketing demographic almost everything we wanted is coming true from seeing the Watchmen on the big screen to using Wolverine to beat the snot out of Ryu.

Regardless how mow much we want them there are some things that we will never get. Even when there’s ways for a major production company to make money of it there’s to much standing in the way between geeks and these dreams…

5. Spider-Man in an Avengers Movie

Why We Want It: Spider-Man has been one of the most popular leading characters in comics since his creation many decades before, and has been a stable on our big and small screens for almost as long. Whether good or bad Spider-Man has always proven successful screen fodder and has become one of the most easily identifiable heroes of our time. The Avengers was created by Marvel as a title that could combine other characters together to work as a team and although that have featured dozens of characters there’s been a group of consistent big names. All of these big names have been included in the upcoming movie – Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Nick Fury, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye.

The only other big Marvel name (apart from members of other teams) left of the roster is the web-slinger. As well as being a great character in his own right there’s a good potential dynamic to be had. Spider-Man is significantly younger than the rest of the team and has a tendency to spout nonsense one-liners when under pressure. Spider-Man exchanging quips with Captain America and Thor in a script by Joss Whedon would be plenty awesome. Plus he’s very much a street level hero, dealing with crime on a smaller scale than the other heroes using equipment fashioned in his basement, giving him a different set of values from a team made up of people with a military background or come from the 1%.

Why We Can’t Have It: Politics. The Avengers and its roster of characters are owned by Marvel Studios, currently under the Disney umbrella. Spider-Man, being one of the first in the superhero movie trend, was quickly snapped up by Sony and turned into a big budget franchise. Even though public attitude towards the Raimi series has soured Sony would be pretty reluctant to give up a ready made brand with huge marketing potential. Having cashed their chips on the previous series they’re starting the franchise anew with the Marc Webb helmed, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone starring The Amazing Spider-Man, giving them one less reason to allow the wall-crawler to appear in a competing studios movie as a supporting cast member.

4. No More Console Exclusives

Why We Want It: Unless you’re Scrooge McDuck and have nothing else to do with your time than swim around in giant mounds of coins it’s not feasible to own all three major gaming consoles currently available and have the time to keep up with all the major releases from the combined three consoles. When it comes to picking out the one best for you it’s pretty easy to find one that best suits your tastes. If you want family friendly light-hearted fun you go for the Wii, character and story based players would get more out of Playstation and people looking for a heavy emphasis of big, loud, manly games are more likely to buy an X-Box.

But no matter what type of console you buy there’s going to be some games you want that you can’t have. Personally I opted for the PS3 on the promise of Metal Gear Solid 4 but missed out on Dead Rising as they were both console exclusives. This is less of a problem than it has been in the past but the value of an exclusive title isn’t lost on console developers. Microsoft paid out a massive amount of cash to keep the GTA IV expansion games exclusive on X-Box for only a limited time, Sony won’t let go of the inFamous series without a fight and good luck playing a Mario or Pokemon game on anything other than Nintendo.

More recently Playstation players have been enjoying the sublime brilliance of Journey, but only X-Box players have been able to try and wrap their heads around Fez.

Why We Can’t Have It: Aside from the economic issues of console developers using exclusives as major selling points for their systems, taking away console exclusivity is a double edged sword. Like any business the gaming industry thrives on competition. Without Sony upping the ante, Microsoft would have no reason to push their technology and gaming library forward, and the other way round. Nintendo pushes itself ahead by innovating new ideas which the other consoles are quick to try and catch up. When people chose which console to buy the primary motivating factor behind their decision is the games available.

Back in the pioneering days of the home console Atari found itself with nothing in the way of competition, leading them to turn out dozens upon dozens of terrible games that wouldn’t have been approved for a Game-and-Watch system. The flood of terrible products was a result of there being no competition to set the bar, and led to the great video game crash of the late 1980s.

3. Alan Moore (and others) Working to a Schedule

Why We Want It: It goes without saying that when you’ve gotten invested in a story you want to see it through until the end. When it comes to serialized stories, such as comics, TV shows, books and movies in a series you have to wait a while between the parts of the story. Normally this isn’t a problem. When a studio announces the release date for a movie it doesn’t change. The same goes for books. When a television show is added to the schedule you can generally assume that it well be one each week at the same time.

Comics, on the other hand, are part of a practically unregulated industry leaving publishers to delay release dates at a whim. A recent example would be the rebooted ‘Ultimate X-Men’ series titled ‘Ultimate Comics: X’ – a much publicized series for which every issue was so needlessly delayed that Marvel scrapped the line and retconned it into a prologue for a different series.

Kevin Smith has been working on the limited series Batman series ‘The Widening Gyre”, scheduled for release in two parts to hit shelves in 2009 and 2010. Part 1 arrived a year late and, two years later, he hasn’t finished writing the second part. Although he claims that he’s working on it, his explanation as to why it’s taking so long doesn’t suggest much is happening, nor will it be coherent: “I’ve been writing this Batman: The Widening Gyre miniseries, and I’m stoned all the time when I’m writing it. And, I swear, I’ll write it, and then, it’s not so much blackout, but forget, so much so that the next morning, I go to read what I wrote, and it’s, like, I’m that cobbler and elves came and wrote it in the night, because I’m, like, “This is better than anything I’ve ever written before.” I mean, like, I’ve done comics, but this is way better.”

If there’s one writer we want to see getting his act together it’s Alan Moore. The industry legend behind ‘Watchmen’, ‘V For Vendetta’ and others seems reluctant to deliver his ongoing works, preferring to spend his time shuffling around small English villages and shouting at strangers. Most notable in the epic three-part finale for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that was originally slated to be released in three parts each six months apart. The first part was released over a year late in 2009, the second turned up two years later and although the third part has been announced for mid-2012 no-one is holding their breath. This expectation is fueled by the many delays that accompanied the previous The Black Dossier, and the similarly pushed back ‘Absolute Edition’ that featured none of the promised extras in spite of costing more than previous volumes.

Why We Can’t Have It: Short of holding a gun to their heads there’s no actual way to force a writer to do their work, especially if they have already achieved success in their field. Besides…do YOU want to try telling this guy what to do?

2. Complete Box-Set of ‘Doctor Who’

Why We Want It: Few television shows command the loyalty from their fans as the time traveling Doctor, and no fictional TV show has managed to stay on the air for fifty years after its original broadcast. Hundreds of episodes have been produced with eleven different actors playing the lead role. The new DVDs and Blu-Rays are consistent best sellers and the BBC have a steady income coming from the re-release of old episodes on DVD. Plenty of fans have emptied their wallets and filled their shelves putting together a complete set of Doctor Who DVDs.

Plus – geeks love box-sets! Almost every television show out there releases not only individual seasons but complete series box-sets with extra features and fancy packaging. Fans eat that stuff up. Why wouldn’t the BBC put out a big TARDIS shaped box stuffed full of the dozens of discs needed to house the full collection? Just think of all the times they could claim it’s bigger on the inside during the marketing!

Why We Can’t Have It: Because the complete series doesn’t exist. Sadly the BBC used to have a foolish policy of destroying anything they weren’t using any more that saw the destruction of hundreds of episodes of early Doctor Who serials, mostly involving the first two incarnations of the character. As it currently stands the full series is not available as many are still under-going the restoration process but even when that’s been accomplished there’s still over a hundred episodes lost for good. A couple have been recovered from personal collections and international distribution, whilst some gaps have been filled in with animated recreations but as time goes on there’s less chance of the lost episodes turning up. The full collection is just the stuff of dreams.

1. More Episodes ofFirefly

Why We Want It: Joss Whedon had just come of the success of a seven year run on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel – a franchise that made him a household name (in geek households anyway) – and had announced his intention to create an original sci-fi show for Fox. It was, he claimed, something he’d been working on for quite some time and was called ‘Firefly’. For a long while all we had was an image of a spaceship on the website. When is aired it was awesome. A massive ensemble of cool, unique characters in an original setting. Top writing lead to one entertaining episode after another linking together an ever growing narrative. And then…it was over.

Through mismanaged marketing and bizarre scheduling practicing even people who were actively seeking out the show missed out on seeing it on television. Ratings were low and Fox canned the series after less than a dozen episodes. A dedicated fan base and growing DVD sales led to Universal acquiring the rights to produce a movie version with the hopes of launching a new franchise. Although popular it didn’t bank enough at the box office to continue the series.

To this day Firefly has been growing in popularity. The characters are instantly familiar to every geek, the actors have been on the radar of casting agents everywhere. Although comics have filled in a few gaps there’s plenty of story left in the Firefly universe, and much more we want to see happen.

Why We Can’t Have It: The entertainment industry is not one to take risks. Firefly dared to be something original – a character focused blend of science-fiction and Western with characters who didn’t subscribe to stereotypes. The only reason it was picked up in the first place was due to the man behind the idea, and when it wasn’t a blockbuster hit from the first moment Fox were unwilling to invest any more time in it.

While Fox have been quick to resurrect cancelled shows such as Family Guy and Futurama after DVD sales picked up they never gave Firefly a second chance. Fans still hold conventions more than ten years and want to see more episodes, but the more time passes the less likely it will come back. The cast and writers have moved on to other projects and the inability of the movie to break to bank means that the ship has landed for good.

So there’s five things that geeks want to happen that never will – what other suggestions are there?