'I, Robot', 'The Thing' Sequels for Battlestar's Ron Moore
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I think it was during the upfronts earlier this year when Ronald D. Moore, showrunner for Scifi Channels "original" series Battlestar Galactica let slip that he was writing scripts both for a sequel to I, Robot, and possibly a new take on The Thing. The latter of the two has been wrapped into a new two-year overall deal with Paramount, according to Variety.
There's a couple of things worth talking about here, namely that The Thing is John Carpenter's version of a story from 1938 called "Who Goes There?", in which scientists in the arctic find an alien space craft buried in the ice along with a frozen alien, although Carpenter's version I believe was a much better film than The Thing From Another World - also based on the story - where the two depart in several significant ways. It's obvious where Carpenter got the title from.
If this version done by Moore is going to be "his take", that could mean his take on Carpenter's version, or his take on the original story written by John W. Campbell Jr. Don't head into it expecting either.
The I, Robot feature is being done at Fox and has nothing to do with the new development deal at Paramount, though this is the first official acknowledgment I've seen that he is indeed penning the sequel script. I'd rather see an I, Robot sequel than one for The Thing, simply because I think Carpenter did everything right and that film is just fine the way it is. We don't need to go back there again and do it a fourth time.
So, it looks like Ron Moore's plate isn't going to be wanting for work after Battlestar Galactica finishes out its fourth season. We're know there is a 2-hour TV movie in the pipe that'll air later this fall/winter and a spin-off series entitled Caprica may be in store for us sometime down the road.
As a guy who began his career by writing a spec script for Star Trek: TNG and sending it in under their open submission process, he certainly has come a long way. Just imagine how many Ron Moore's we could discovery if other shows would stop being such tight wads about accepting unsolicited submissions. It's not like TNG didn't still require legal waivers that fully protected them from accusations and lawsuits over plagiarism.
I don't know about you, but more Moore sounds good to me.
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