Life On Mars Vs Life On Mars

tony1kenobi

Did anyone invest any of their time in the US remake of Life On Mars?

If so did you see the finale?

Compared with the original it was a poor effort at the show, but the finale was just the most jaw droppingly dreadful cop out I have ever seen on television.

The desperately sad fact is that they had a perfectly usable ending from the original show that they could have reproduced at any point as a get out.

However they chose to give the middle finger to anyone that isn't an utter mongoloid.

Does anyone have an opinion on this. I'd love to know if ANYONE thought it had ended with any kind of grace.

Based on this effort I am not looking forward to the end of Lost.

Mr E

I lost interest in the USA version Tony. What happened in the finale? Put it in spoiler tags if you want......

tony1kenobi

I will, but don't shoot the messenger....

Sam wakes up in 2035 out of an induced sleep. He is an astronaut on mars. All of his 73 team are his astronaut buddies and Gene Hunt is his dad, except his name is....wait for it.....Major Tom.

The virtual reality dream Sam selected for his long sleep was to be a cop on 2008 but a glitch meant everything happened in 1973 but with his 2008 memory.

It ended with them stepping out of their rocket and onto mars.

You would think I just made that up but someone actually wrote that crap.

Mr E

April 1st was 4 days ago mate, you missed the boat there.

Mr E

Jesus... just looked it up. I apologise.
Thats unreal, and sounds completely stupid.
I'll wait for it to show up on youtube and have a look (they only have up to episode 16 now).

DingDong

That sound like a horrible ending to the show I gave up on it very early. The original was one of my all time favorite shows and this US version looked brutal in comparison

2fivers

Reading the forum pages for Life on Mars US on Imdb, the Americans seem to, in the main, have enjoyed that ending over the ambiguous UK one.

One particular comment that tickled me went along the lines of

"Yeah well i think the ending Rocked! It is called "life on MARS" DUMMY! Why else would they call it that?

Way to go! I Think the british ending sounds sucky! maybe if Britainland had imagination and innisshy-tive like US they would have their own space shuttle by now instead of hitching rides on ours! USA! USA! USA!

Speaks volumes, really.

tony1kenobi

Mr E wrote: »

Jesus... just looked it up. I apologise.
Thats unreal, and sounds completely stupid.
I'll wait for it to show up on youtube and have a look (they only have up to episode 16 now).

I accept your apology because if I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it either. I can only conclude that with the show being cancelled the writers just tacked on the ending as a "fcuk you" to the network.

Basq

I read some interviews with the creators of the US version.. and they really have no grasp on reality with regards to their cancellation and I quote Scott Rosenburg (writer / producer):

I think ultimately what really hurt the show was that it was just so wholly original, and there was nothing like it on television yet. I also just don't think it was necessarily the right fit with that network. I think if it was on HBO, we'd be running for 20 years, and we'd all be rich. And I'm not even joking. I really do believe that.

Of course ye would lads! :eek:

ixoy

Just saw this. Oh my. Oh my. I kinda wanted to think the end was a joke but

so the reason he hears Bowie is because he's on an actual trip to find life on mars? And Gene Hunt is called that because they're hunting for genes? Eugh.

Also President Obama? Please. How patronising that they have to make a future president the child of the current one.

Got to like the Wiki entry for the US edition -

The script was rewritten, with permission of the original creators, to remove the "unsatisfying" ambiguity of Sam's story in favor of a "mythological element" and "deeper mystery".

I think the quotes mark dripping sarcasm.

Thing is I didn't hate this remake - it was unnecessary but it had its moments and they didn't too bad of a job translating it across. I can only assume this was the rushed ending and not what they had planned originally.

tvnutz

That ending sounds so bad. But then again I was very disappointed with the ending of the original. I only got the boxset recently and watched it all. I had heard the ending was supposed to be amazing,but it was such a let down.

basically,

he is just in a coma,he wakes up,doesn't think real life is as fun as his fake coma life so he offs himself. pretty stupid. It also never explained what was really going on. It was implied that what he was doing in 1973 was changing the future,like his girlfriend who was kidnapped in the very first ep is talking to him at his bedside while he is in the coma. is this because in 1973 he stopped the serial killer so in the future the girlfriend was ok? and the nightclub owner who he put away in the future is trying to kill him while he is in the coma. So in 1973 he ends up getting the guy sent to a mental institution,and then we hear that in the present day,an escaped mental patient had tried to kill him while he was in the coma,so obviously he changed how that goes future panned out.

The same with the great ending to the first season where he had a memory from childhood which turns out to be his father killing annie,but he stops it. None of this is ever accounted for or explained. it just turns out it was a coma and thats it despite the fact that it was very much implied that everything he did in his coma state was changing the future.