Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,561
edits
Pilot Movie: Difference between revisions
→Live-Action TV
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)) |
|||
| (2 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 2:
A '''Pilot Movie''' is a TV movie that, while purporting to be a coherent story on its own, is obviously an attempt to get the higher-ups to turn it into a series. Think of it as a proactive version of [[The Movie]].
The advantage of a Pilot Movie over an ordinary [[Pilot]] is that the bigger budget of a [[Made for TV
In addition, by advertising it as a movie, a network can hype up the pilot and gauge the reaction without having to commit to showing any additional episodes. Quite often an ordinary pilot
There are both successful examples (''Babylon 5: The Gathering'' gave birth to, of course, ''[[Babylon 5]]''), and unsuccessful ones (USA's 2004 debacle ''Frankenstein'') An unsuccessful Pilot Movie can become an Amelia Earhart -- "the pilot that was never seen again".
Line 10:
Sometimes the studio will be so impressed by the movie that it will be released theatrically—while still serving as a pilot for a series. This is especially common with [[Anime]], where the pilot may be designed from the start to be shown in theaters.
Contrast
{{examples}}
__TOC__
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' had a [[Short Anime Movie]], unusually released a week before the series itself; it was set four years earlier and starred a younger Taichi and Hikari, and its events are later stated to be the reason why the eight heroes are [[The Chosen One]]s. It was eventually dubbed as part one of ''[[Digimon]]: [[The Movie]]'', and it was arguably the part that fared the best [[Macekre|in translation]].▼
* Similarly, ''[[One Piece]]'' had a Pilot [[OVA]].▼
* The eventual ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' spinoff ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'' started off as a 30 minute movie named ''[[Uchu Enban Daisenso]]''.▼
* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' had a pilot movie for the American run. Funimation used "Curse of the Blood Rubies" as the pilot to sell the series. Because their initial dub had so much footage cut out from the actual movie, they had to copy/paste 5 minutes of footage from episode 2 to fill in for the lost time.▼
* ''[[Kimagure Orange Road]]''{{'}}s pilot was a TV special loosely based on one of the chapters in the manga.▼
* ''[[Ultra Maniac]]'' started out with a one-off OVA pilot before getting picked up for a full 26-episode series.▼
== Live-Action TV ==
* Other ''[[Babylon 5]]'' examples include ''A Call to Arms'' which led to ''[[Crusade]]'', and ''Legend of the Rangers'' (even giving it an episode title, "To Live and Die in Starlight") which led to nothing.
* It is said{{verify}} that the 1979 miniseries ''[['Salem's Lot]]'' might have been considered as one.
* The first season of ''[[Lexx]]'' is comprised of 4 telemovies.
* Wesley Snipes and Dean Cain's ''Futuresport'', with its end sequence where a sportscaster talks about Dean Cain's character (a former player) becoming the coach of an FS team.
* The 1979 pilot film for the 1979-81 series ''[[Buck Rogers in the 25th Century]]'' went to theatres instead of TV.
▲* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' had a [[Short Anime Movie]], unusually released a week before the series itself; it was set four years earlier and starred a younger Taichi and Hikari, and its events are later stated to be the reason why the eight heroes are [[The Chosen One]]s. It was eventually dubbed as part one of ''[[Digimon]]: [[The Movie]]'', and it was arguably the part that fared the best [[Macekre|in translation]].
▲* Similarly, ''[[One Piece]]'' had a Pilot [[OVA]].
* ''[[Eureka]]'' was planned as a TV movie on the [[Sci Fi]] channel. After seeing the movie, executives turned the story into a series.
* Both versions of ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' got a similar start; the original was envisioned as a series of TV movies, picked up as a series after ABC liked what they saw, and the 2000s version originated as a three-hour miniseries that was successful enough to be continued.
* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' had a pilot movie that was actually the first three episodes with some footage taken out for pacing.▼
** Similarly, ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'' had a premiere movie.▼
* One weird example is ''Us'', a Pilot Movie that really wasn't. It was meant to be a normal pilot to a new vehicle for Michael Landon, but was converted to a movie when Landon died during production.
* ''[[Due South]]'' began with a Pilot Movie and later became a series, with a few cast changes.
Line 29 ⟶ 35:
** ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' also had a feature-length pilot, but had a half-hour reduced cut as well.
** The season 6 premiere of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' was a Movie length inversion of all the common tropes on the show which arguably prepared the way to a different direction in the show, thereby qualifying itself as a pilot.
▲* The eventual ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' spinoff ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'' started off as a 30 minute movie named [[Uchu Enban Daisenso]].
* Each of the ''[[Star Trek]]'' series from [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Gen]] on began with a movie-length pilot.
* Each season of ''[[Knight Rider]]'' started with a double-length episode (When re-aired, they would be split into a two-parter) billed as a "Season Premiere Movie". ''[[Knight Rider]]'' has a long history of pilot movie revivials:
Line 35 ⟶ 40:
** ''Knight Rider 2010'', a ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''-style reimagining, really more of an attempt at "Mad Max Gets A Talking Car: The Series", with no links to the original series (But adequate hooks left to add some in the proposed series). Never to be seen again.
** ''Knight Rider'' (2008), for the win. Keeping in close continuity with the original series despite an entirely new set of characters (Michael Knight makes a cameo at the end), going to series in fall 2008 despite some aggressively blatant product placement and a total [[Idiot Plot]].
* [[Jimmy Neutron]] had a pilot theatrical movie that preceded the TV series on Nickelodeon.▼
** Similarly, Barnyard: The Original Party Animals ended up being a pilot for a Nick TV series from the same creators of Jimmy Neutron.▼
* ''Fluppy Dogs''—The 80's Disney cartoon that never was, but WAS an animated, made-for-TV-movie. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150410223909/http://www.alligatorjuice.com/fluppylove.html This article explains it better than I can.] While the film recieved a substantial marketing blitz, with a line of all kinds of brightly colored toy dogs, the cartoon itself never came to be.▼
* ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' had a theatrical release, though it should be pointed out that the series was already green-lit well in advance.▼
▲* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' had a pilot movie for the American run. Funimation used "Curse of the Blood Rubies" as the pilot to sell the series. Because their initial dub had so much footage cut out from the actual movie, they had to copy/paste 5 minutes of footage from episode 2 to fill in for the lost time.
* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' had a direct-to-video movie, which was later aired as the [[Five Episode Pilot|three episode pilot]] of the TV show (Tim Allen reprised Buzz for the VHS and DVD, but in the pilot version and the series he was replaced by Patrick Warburton).▼
* The 1996 ''[[Doctor Who]]'' TV movie was created as a possible pilot for a revival. It didn't pan out, but it gave the writers of spin off media a new canon Doctor to play with until the show was revived for real in 2005.
* The 1970s ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' series had a failed pilot movie that starred Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role.
** The Cathy Lee Crosby "Wonder Woman" TV movie was produced by a different group than the one that made the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series, and was not intended as a pilot. It has about as much in common with the later series as the ''Knight Riders'' movie had to do with ''[[Knight Rider]]''.
* The 2002 remake of ''[[Carrie]]'' was intended as a pilot for a TV series on [[NBC]], but it was never picked up due to disappointing ratings.
* Many of the Disney cartoons from the 80's and 90's had a Pilot Movie, which would turn into a [[Five Episode Pilot]] in normal airplay. Among them ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'', ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'', ''[[Tale Spin]]'', ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'', and ''[[Gargoyles]]''.▼
* ''Turbo: A [[Power Rangers]] Movie'', though not a pilot for the entire series, acts as a pilot for the fifth season of the long running show, ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]''.
* ''[[Red Skies]]'' (2002) Was an unsuccessful movie-length pilot repackaged and released as a [[Made for TV Movie]].
* ''[[Sliders]]'' started with a movie about, well, Quinn Mallory, his friend Wade Welles and his teacher Professor Arturo trying out Quinn's timer and getting stuck on an universe where the Russians won the Cold War with an unwilling companion, Rembrandt Brown. It's a coherent story on its own, and the series really starts with the movie's [[Twist Ending]].
* The Raymond Burr series ''[[Ironside]]'' started with a pilot movie.
* ''[[The Streets Of San Francisco]]''.
* ''[[Earth Star Voyager]]'' was a 2-part miniseries that originally aired on ABC's ''Wonderful World of Disney'' in January 1988. It focused on a bunch of young people from a late 21st century [[Crapsack World|Crapsack Future Earth]] as they [[Serial Numbers Filed Off|trekked through the stars]] to find a new home for the human race. Even though the series was never picked up, the miniseries was actually nominated for two primetime [[Emmy Award|Emmys]] for sound editing and sound mixing.
* ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'' began as a pilot movie which showed how Jessica Fletcher got into writing in the first place and her helping to solve a murder while staying in New York City.
▲* ''[[Kimagure Orange Road]]'''s pilot was a TV special loosely based on one of the chapters in the manga.
* ''[[The Love Boat]]'' had ''three'' pilot movies, all of which had different actors playing the regular lead roles.
* The [[Direct to Video]] ''Stitch! The Movie'' was effectively the pilot for ''[[Lilo & Stitch: The Series]]''.▼
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' had this ''sorta''. There were a lot of changes made.
** In the sense that it aired on
* ''[[Kojak]]'' started with the pilot film ''The Marcus-Nelson Murders''.
▲* ''[[Ultra Maniac]]'' started out with a one-off OVA pilot before getting picked up for a full 26-episode series.
* ''[[My Babysitter's a Vampire]]'' had a pilot movie telling how main characters met the babysitter and found out she was a vampire.
* ABC Family's ''[[Samurai Girl]]'' miniseries was supposed to lead into a TV series that never materialized.
Line 68 ⟶ 62:
* ''[[Push]]'' has "please give us a TV series" stamped all over it.
** Same with ''[[Jumper (novel)|Jumper]]''
* 1981's ''[[K-9 and Company]]'' was double the length of a ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode of the time. It wasn't picked up as a series, though.
== Western Animation ==
▲* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' had a pilot movie that was actually the first three episodes with some footage taken out for pacing.
▲** Similarly, ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'' had a premiere movie.
▲* ''[[Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius|Jimmy Neutron]]'' had a pilot theatrical movie that preceded the TV series on Nickelodeon.
▲** Similarly, ''[[Barnyard: The Original Party Animals]]'' ended up being a pilot for a Nick TV series from the same creators of Jimmy Neutron.
▲* ''Fluppy Dogs''
▲* ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'' had a theatrical release, though it should be pointed out that the series was already green-lit well in advance.
▲* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' had a direct-to-video movie, which was later aired as the [[Five Episode Pilot|three episode pilot]] of the TV show (Tim Allen reprised Buzz for the VHS and DVD, but in the pilot version and the series he was replaced by Patrick Warburton).
▲* Many of the Disney cartoons from the 80's and 90's had a Pilot Movie, which would turn into a [[Five Episode Pilot]] in normal airplay. Among them ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'', ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'', ''[[Tale Spin]]'', ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'', and ''[[Gargoyles]]''.
▲* The [[Direct to Video]] ''Stitch! The Movie'' was effectively the pilot for ''[[Lilo & Stitch: The Series]]''.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]: The Return of Jafar'' was a backdoor pilot for the Aladdin animated series (establishing things like Abis Mal as a villain, Genie being somewhat weaker and his powers being on the fritz so that he couldn't solve the problem-of-the-episode easily, Iago being something of an ally to Aladdin and Co.) in addition to tying up some dangling threads from the first film.
Line 74 ⟶ 80:
[[Category:Show Genres]]
[[Category:Creator Speak]]
[[Category:
| |||