Buck Rogers in the 21st and a 1/4 Century : Space Opera without Space Nazis

[@ecmorgan69]

I loved the 1980s Buck Rogers. Of course I was a kid, so of course I did.

[@feralhistorian]

I still have that little kid memory of Buck Rogers being amazing. I've watched it as an adult, I know it's not very good, but the idealized memory persists.

[@DaveMarx-te2rs]

Bidi bidi bidi

[@kylereece5511]

If Buck Rogers ever comes back, I’d personally like to see an attempt at a retro-futuristic alternate history take on the story; starting out as a period piece and then going to the future which is inspired by depictions of future technology and civilization of the time. Sort of a Space Opera take on Fallout, if you will.

[@feralhistorian]

That is exactly what I want to see.

[@kylereece5511]

@@feralhistorian I was thinking you could even play with the “Han Empire” element from the original pulps by fusing it with a hypothetical “Roman von Ungern-Sternberg survives and recreates the Mongol Empire” alt-history plot, especially given that Buck was portrayed as a WW1 vet in those stories and the benefit of hindsight. Maybe the Mad Baron discovers some ancient/alien technology or something? It’s a little Wolfenstein-ish admittedly but I think with enough tweaking it could work.

[@murgmaggleramaxis8535]

​@@kylereece5511 Sounds perfect

[@cynbartek9324]

I prefer Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century.

[@Zeithri]

What about Captain Proton?

[@gc5907]

You ever seen FLESH Gordon

[@seatspud]

Cadet Porky: "Buh-bubuh big deal."

[@zimriel]

@@gc5907 the peni-saurus was my pfp when i first got onto Discord

[@SSGTStryker]

That's the last straw! Now I use my secret weapon!

[@brianmurphy250]

There is a mini documentary on YT called Lords of Light…which is a making of documentary on Thundar the Barbarian. The creator said that his biggest challenge was how to creative the post apocalyptic world back story ( shown in the shows opening) without scaring the hell out of kids. They didn’t want to use nuclear war or biological warfare and settled on the comet ( which also created the cool broken moon )

[@feralhistorian]

Lords of Light, I'll have to check that out. I have only the haziest memories of Thundar.

[@nneisler]

Night or the Comet is a good movie

[@meiketorkelson4437]

That 80s Buck Roger's found its identity... in disco...

[@physchir]

Buck Rogers? I only remember Wilma Deering... ah, Wilma...

[@GrymsArchive]

Psssssst: Are you forgetting Princess Ardala?

[@bombfog1]

It’s 0030 and I ought to be sleeping, but I accidentally clicked on your video. I enjoyed the content and especially your voice. Many channels I’m subscribed to don’t necessarily mirror my interests, rather it’s about listening to an interesting person who is enthusiastic about his/her subject matter. I especially liked that you chose a beautiful locale as your studio. I just subscribed and fervently hope that you aren’t a leftist; you certainly didn’t sound like one.

[@feralhistorian]

Definitely not a Leftist.

[@bombfog1]

@@feralhistorian Sweet.

[@Fred-rv2tu]

Had the same thought. The first video of his I watched was critical of capitalism which me worry he might be leftist. But it was critical in a good let’s be honest about the problems way.

[@_Yep_Yep_]

Buck Rogers was amazing. Every episode was a gift

[@oneproudbrowncoat]

"Beedee-beedee-beedee-beedee. Goddammit Buck, quit trying to convert me to run on ethanol. Beedee-beedee. It's wrecking my internal gaskets."

[@pbh81]

I watched the series a few years ago. I was struck by how uncynical Buck and the show was. Found that very refreshing

[@ldroland]

What an amazing video. I expected smirking quips and ironic takes from the host in front of a digital backdrop. Boy was I wrong! 10/10 sub.

[@RedSiegfried]

I liked the 1979 show when it was as simple as Buck Rogers being James Bond in space. I "got" it. Then they tried to turn it into Star Trek and it wasn't as cool.

[@stizanley3987]

WOW, I was born in 93 and didn't even imagine that the Holocaust was ever not referred to as the Holocaust.

[@lwilton]

Holocaust (which was permitted to be used without a capital H) originally just meant firestorm. As in, literally, "fire". "Someone dropped a match, and the gas station was destroyed in the resulting holocaust." That was a perfectly legitimate statement until perhaps the 1980s, and everyone reading it knew what the author meant, (a fire burned down the gas station) and didn't think "Oh Horrors! Nazis!" After that time the word was co-opted by the US-based Nazi hunters that were still looking for the last few 80 year old escaped war criminals, and if anyone tried to use the word in any context for any other purpose, there was a deafening hue and cry from all of the press, and most notably the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. At some point in the 1990s the Native Americans tried to claim that they too, underwent a Holocaust, with its new improved meaning. There was a huge outcry from far and wide of "How DARE you use OUR word!" that went on for a few months. Eventually the Simon Wiesenthal Center was forced to issue a press release where they gave Native Americans (but nobody else) special dispensation to use _their_ word. Before "Holocaust" was used for the Germany in WW II, it was typically known by terms like "the great extermination" (no capital letters needed). What was perhaps a lot better known then than now, is that the Germans didn't _only_ exterminate Jews. Tens of millions of civilians all over Europe were butchered for a variety of reasons. A typical one was when the Germans came into a town in an invaded country, and established slave-labor factories, using the local male population. They usually killed all of the women and children, since they were useless (they couldn't work in the factories), and they used up resources (food) that could be used by the enslaved men, or more commonly exported to Germany while the men mostly starved. It's a shame that knowledge had to be lost to add a capital letter to the start of a now-copyrighted word.

[@stizanley3987]

@@lwilton Yeah, I learned holocaust (lowercase) was a word when I read about the X-Men character named Holocaust. He has no connection to the Holocaust (uppercase), they just gave him an edgy supervillain name, lol.

[@zimriel]

"nuclear holocaust" was still used in the 1980s, but then Andropov died

[@vilefly]

All the while during this video, I was expecting the return of Dr. Fu Manchu to wreak havoc upon the entertainment world yet again. The other villain I was thinking of was Dr. Zin, arch-rival to Dr. Quest. I actually enjoyed these villains, rather than let them skew my thoughts about Asian folk. I was glad that these guys were interesting foreigners, instead of the typical american villains who were mostly boring. The 70s were interesting.

[@josephcontreras8930]

I hope someone makes a much needed remake of this character. Mire like the buster crabb serial and comics of the time. Very steampunk like the vein of sky capt movie. And while we're on remake subject we need a new shadow and a new flash Gordon movie too. Maybe a new Allen quartermain movie too.

[@therizinosaurus214]

"Eat lead suckers!" "Lead, what lead... Twiki what are talking about?"

[@WombatDave]

1980s Buck Rogers is incredible. Then again, I was high as a kite when I was watching it.

[@willumbermarchant5510]

Ah Wilma, those uniforms!!!

[@williamvorkosigan5151]

No, no, no. Season 1 was awesome. Season 2, not so much. Oh! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am a former soldier and I can never get over the stunning lack of care to bother to shape berets in almost every TV, or Film production. You give it to the actor the day before. You tell them to completely soak it. Ring it out. Put it on their head to shape it to look good. Then wear it while watching tv all evening. Then rest it over a scrunched up towel to finish drying over night and you have a good beret. What's difficult about it?

[@silverbladeTE]

Loved the TV series back in "me yoof" , ah Wilma and Princess Ardalla! :P A bit off topic...you may want to read the "Zero Day Code" trilogy by John Birmingham, I don't' want to spoil it, but oh boy is it so apropos currently

[@macsnafu]

2:54 "You're describing every government everywhere." Exactly! But I would disagree the guy's assessment of governments as "stupidity" because they "failed to stamp out lawlessness". Governments are stupid because they only differ from criminal organizations by having a veneer of "legitimacy" As for the Yellow Peril aspect of the original Buck Rogers stories, John Eric Holmes wrote a "sequel" to Armageddon 2419 AD, Mordred, in which he tried to soften the blow by saying the that "evil" Han were actually a human/alien crossbreed when some alien species interbred with Asians on earth. Not sure how well that really works, but give him points for trying to explain it away. But it is interesting how popular culture reflects the ideas of its time, as in what constitutes a villain for the stories. The Nazis or neo-nazis made great villains for a lot of comic book stories and cheesy movies. The Communists were a bit more problematic but were fine as villains for endless Cold War espionage stories. The rise of the gangster stereotype during 1920's Prohibition contributed a lot to the gangster films of the 30s. Some people tried switching to drug dealers and druglords in the 80s and 90s, but that never seemed to catch on as well for a stereotypical villain. One aspect that I really liked about Armageddon 2419 AD was how they hadn't fully recovered from the earlier disaster, or holocaust, or whatever it was, but were still working on it. It was nice that the TV show at least touched upon that aspect of it, but yeah, second season got completely away from that and really messed up the show. Strangely enough, some of my favorite stories in various series, comics, and franchises are the ones that are more offbeat, only tangentially related, if it all, to the main story or premise of the series. For example, The Marvel Star Wars comic #38, or the Blake's 7 episode where Avon has to explore the mystery of a dead spaceship travelling in a circle out of sheer curiosity. I'm not sure I understand why I liked these types of stories, though. Maybe it's something about putting these characters in a different situation than they are normally in and seeing how they fare.

[@Emanon...]

Your first point is objectively a stupid, reductive one. A government that is representative has the defacto legitimacy by consent. It doesn't mean that the government or the people themselves are moral in their actions and laws, but the actions of the government would be considered whollylegitimate. However you can say that criminal organisations rule by coercion and violence, much like an authoritarian government does.

[@macsnafu]

@@Emanon... All governments rule by coercion. Without a monopoly on the legal system and involuntary taxation, a government couldn't exist, at least, not a government as we recognize it. As for its legitimacy, who gave their consent? Did you give it when you were born? When you first voted? When you paid your taxes? The only thing "de facto" about government is that we accept it because it's too big and powerful any person or small group to fight or resist. I suspect most people are actually suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

[@macsnafu]

​@@Emanon... My reply to your comment disappeared. Trying again. All governments rule by coercion, authoritarian or not. See what happens when you don't pay your taxes (involuntary extortion). The differences between an authoritarian government and a liberal democratic goverment is largely a matter of degree, not quality. Liberal democratic governments are better than authoritarian governments because they allow a greater freedom of action for people. That is, they limit the amount of coercion they use. But they're still just "allowing" you to have some freedom instead of actively focusing on protecting individual rights and liberties as they ought to. As for legitimacy, when did *you* give your consent to your government? When you were born? When you first voted? When you paid your taxes? The only thing that's "de facto" here is that people accept goverments because they have little choice. And as long as a government isn't too terrible, it's probably better than the alternative. I think many people in the world are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. At least how people act under governments seems to be a pretty close match to what Stockholm Syndrome is. Unable to escape its control, they become fiercely loyal and defensive of it. It's a coping mechanism. The alleged legitimacy of government is the main difference between it and a protection racket like the Mafia. If the legitimacy isn't real, then neither is the difference.

[@nikoteardrop4904]

"without space Nazis" First words we read from Wilma, "Half-breeds!" woof

[@feralhistorian]

I was a little surprised too. That was the first comic strip in the entire series. It's easy to forget how casual the racism was back then, even when you spend a lot of time reading documents from that era.

[@cynbartek9324]

I caught that too.

[@neongenesisevangelion587]

Yeah, literature from that era are probably some of the only literature in pop culture that I would actually be willing to admit genuinely require significant amounts of value and sensitivity updating for a “modern audiences” moral sensibilities. If this were the thing man annoying “woke” people were pointing to as their examples of stuff with antiquated ideas I would have very little objections to their retconning of popular culture. But instead they feel the need to stretch themselves into pretzels with their mental gymnastics attempting to find evidence of offense material in innocuous fictional media that refuses to peddle to their ideological agendas.

[@thomasciarlariello]

Notice how "female Mongols" help Buck Rogers "Capture a Mongol Emperor" so "Buck Rogers" exclaims some vendetta about "Pearl Harbor" when in fact in of 1938 the United States massacred unarmed Japanese ships a typical case of WWII racist propaganda.

[@darthjekyll3648]

What would be buck Roger's like today?

[@jamesomeara2329]

I recall this on reruns in the eighties on UHF channels, the same channels that Twilight Zone and Star Trek were on. Like Battlestar, this had a soft spot that amused me then, but yes I know it probably doesn't stand up today. A remake for our time might go back to the mutant idea if anyone tries. And as an aside, your suggestion of Mongols and Romans as the influences in my mum's Trek make so much more sense than her talking about it being the Soviet Union, kind of an interesting take. Thank you.

[@feralhistorian]

There are usually layers of influence too, like in old Trek the Klingons were stylistically Mongol influenced, but that also played into the contemporary idea of the USSR as a violent horde from the East bent on conquest, blending all those elements into an archetype of "The Bad Guys." That way they could play the Soviet card in episodes like "A Private Little War" but not have to be too on the nose with space-commies. Space-Mongols are more fun.

[@jamesomeara2329]

@@feralhistorian thank you for the response.

[@Fred-rv2tu]

Heroic Americans?! Woah there gonna have to stop you right there buddy. As Americans we are only allowed to be ashamed of our history and heritage. -50 social credit for you.

[@wynfrithnichtwo8423]

I always liked the hawk dude. The show is or was up on Tubi. I stopped in the second season. Sadly it doesn't live up to the nostalgia of childhood, except for Miss. CanWearTheSpandexBetterThenAnyOtherWoman.

[@c6h5choh-cn82]

Wilma Deering in super tight spandex uniforms😜😄 I like. That's all I fondly remember 😁

[@richardmurphy9006]

Erin Grey o dear lord what a stunning woman

[@robertlehnert4148]

In the early 1980s, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle were contracted to start a multiple novel reboot of the original Buck Rogers concept. The series died at book 2 ( _Mordred_ was its name, if I remember correctly). I witnessed at a Science Fiction convention panel, both Larry and Jerry ruefully reminisced how they had to struggle to remove the pretty blatant racism from the original themes, by making the "Han" invaders the residents of a Mongolian insane asylum, who in a work project, uncovered a bunch of long buried alien technology and went on a rampage to destroy civilization. The duo even worked out how the disintegrator rays of the original Han, would have quickly destroyed the Earth's atmosphere, especially when used as a force field around their cities, so they turned them into random location teleportation devices, that teleported anything in their range to some location around earth. Ah, when you get two writers (one of them an active alcoholic at the time) who don't care for a project at all but signed a contract for a quick buck...

[@feralhistorian]

That sounds horrendously awesome. I'd never heard of that.

[@nikoteardrop4904]

Am I reading that right? They changed the Han *too* "residents of an insane asylum"? If so... man. Nothing like replacing racism with ableism.

[@robertlehnert4148]

@@nikoteardrop4904 It was the 80s and even they admitted, far from their best work.

[@thomasciarlariello]

Jerry Pournelle was a disturbed war veteran while Larry Niven was of Germany not allowed to criticize WWII nor NATO European battles so both played on Japan bashing.

[@robertlehnert4148]

@@thomasciarlariello WTF does that have to do with a failed revival of the series? Jerry certainly had problems with the booze, but last I heard, he'd put the cork in the bottle for good since c. 1989 to his death in 2018. Larry Niven (birth name Van Cott) is a scion of the Stanford Oil Clan and never had to work, but did writing out of the love for it.

[@erikawhelan4673]

I read Killer Kane and his super-racketeers as a stand-in for Stalin and the Bolsheviks

[@devilspalm16]

I'd love to see a video essay about the growth of the "holocaust industry" you allude to @6:42!

[@devilspalm16]

That's not to say the holocaust didn't happen (it did!), but the tragedy did become great fodder for audacity propaganda.

[@culex818]

I'd be interested in hearing your take on the Buck Rogers XXVc RPG that was published by TSR in 1990. It was also set after a Nuclear War, but in this setting the main "bad guys" were the Russo-American Mercantile (or RAM). A far cry from the "yellow peril" themes of previous Buck Rogers iterations. It had a lot on genetically modified humans for specific biomes and the societal complications associated with that.

[@davidbigboutay782]

The funny thing is when you look into it RAM had heavy similarities to the Russian oligarchs and Elon Musks of today.

[@RedSiegfried]

I always thought they changed his name to "Buck" as a reaction to "Flash" Gordon. But not really sure of the timing of that. It's definitely just a cooler name than Anthony.

[@Sargonarhes]

Ah, someone else would like to see a straight adaption of the Armageddon 2419 book. I'd also like to see a movie or even series of them based on E. E. Smith's Galactic Patrol and Lensman series. But as flawed as the anime movie was, I guess I'll just have to settle with that.

[@benjaminstorace6699]

The original novella's Han were space alien hybrids, nearly human, but when you looked into their pitch black eyes, you KNEW they were inhuman monstrosities. If the oppressive subjugation and near extermination of humanity wasn't enough of a give away.

[@Madcapredcap]

GORDON'S ALI -- Oh wait, wrong one

[@Arnsteel634]

I loved the series. Especially the first season. But the second season was still good

[@johnarpin8760]

What,, no Homer Lea reference? Or did I miss it?

[@feralhistorian]

Nope, I missed it.

[@peterhessedal8539]

The best part of Buck Rogers was Erin Gray... And Twiggy, "bede bede what's up buck?" Funny that the 1950s Sci Fi was about aliens coming to steal our women. I wonder if they would feel the same if they saw today's toxic dating culture? "Lord high commanders Kang, she is threating to hash tag us!!!"

[@thomasciarlariello]

Grandfathers had to go to murderous wars to obtain wives since childbirth was a Vogt's Xenomorph death sentence and in of China a guy has to kidnap a wife while in of Inda a guy has to castrate young underage boy for wife so on wonder we argued with are fathers for being jerks while Disney sugarcoated such barbarism.

[@dubuyajay9964]

4:50. And yet Star Trek did a time travel episode to World War II Germany. As did its later iterations.

[@JackMyersPhotography]

I remember in 1979 when this was first presented as a feature-length movie. I was young, so I enjoyed it, although it did feel like a dime store rip off of Star Wars, and I did not have the full historical perspective on its origins to fall back on. And I remember specifically not liking the naughty nature of the evil Princess Ardala played by Pamela Hensley. I was 13. I followed the first run on TV, too. And I did not watch anything to do with this show again until I was well into my 50s. I watched the movie again. Pamela Hensley vamping and strutting as her evil character are far more appealing than I recalled. And that’s the difference between a boy and a man.

[@norahjaneeast5450]

Theatrical release 1979 ?

[@TheDashingRogue]

I have both seasons on blu ray

[@jarosawknas8947]

Well, I think Nazi archetype was never stronger than in last and this decade. I saw on the Battletech Sarna wikipedia like page, that there will be no Rommel tank model because Rommel was a Hitler's general. It was an answer about small tank figurine in a board game. And in the lore of this game one can find unit called Greenhaven Gestapo or mech Blitzkrieg which was introduced about three decades earlier.

[@bigd4366]

Which is especially silly since the Rommel was always a sister design to the Patton tank, much like the Brits calling variants of the M3 Grant or Lee. It never had any meaning beyond picking out a couple of famous WWII tank generals.

[@agadirmoon5475]

Im badly want buck serie in 2023

[@bombfog1]

Were you, once upon a time, a US Soldier, Airman, Marine, or Sailor?

[@feralhistorian]

No, never served in the military. I was a DoD paper-shuffler back in the last millennium.

[@bombfog1]

@@feralhistorian Well, you fooled me given the way you carry yourself and speak.

[@KelsaRavenlock]

Your example of the word holocaust makes me think of the word molest. Before the McMartin preschool era that word simply meant unwanted attention of any kind from an unwanted conversation to a punch in the nose to your aunt pinching your cheek now it has one single meaning in general culture.

[@GrymsArchive]

"Space Opera" ✅ "Space NAZI's" 🚫 And that folks is how not to do it. Two seasons with the second being unwatchable. There were shows that would do 30+ episodes a season and this only got 37 total.

[@revelclef3957]

Based on a true story apparently.

[@RedSiegfried]

The release of Armageddom 2419 that I read had a sort of epilogue where they explained that the Mongolians weren't really Mongolians, but were actually the descendant of hostile aliens that killed all the real Mongolians and took their cultural identity and name. So it was kind of a sort of ... "sorry if you think it's racist against Asians but actually they're aliens and not humans so it's not really racist" thing. Awkward and weird. Not uncomfortable, just unnecessary.

[@Mythteller]

Well, not-German aliens but Asian alien/hybrid socialists(past racism) in the first story🤓

[@grast5150]

Yes and Yes but the real reason why Buck Rogers never found its foot is because of ONE PERSON. Gil Gerard, a woman hating egotistical moron which could not share the lime light with Erin Grey and the show suffered for it. Interesting point is that show was as good as it was to a 10 year brain IN SPITE OF GIl Gerard. If the casting had went a different way, we would have had 5 season of Buck.

[@zimriel]

That may or may not be so, but the show was perfectly capable of being 1970stastic all on its own.

[@grast5150]

@@zimriel I have read first hand accounts via interviews with Erin, Glen Larson, and Felix about Gils behavior on set. He would argue with the script, walk off set, change the words in the script, and basically act like a three year old ego maniac. It cause production delays which was one thing Larson could not afford.