Most popular Sci-fi franchise outside of SW and ST?

Nonamer · Post by **Nonamer** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 4:30 pm

I was just wondering about this. It use to be that there were 3, SW, ST, and B5, but B5 has died out altogether. So what's the next "third" big franchise? Currently I would say it is Stargate. With 13 seasons of SG episodes, it's pretty popular, though I think the franchise is starting to run out of gas.

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign · Post by **AnonymousRedShirtEnsign** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:21 pm

Based on its longevity I would have to agree that Stargate is probably third. However, I think that BSG is a better show.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:28 pm

Stargate has snuck up on us. I really only know the movie, of course...

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:33 am

To me, stargate feels like it's running out of steam because they are stretching things out with the Ori for too long. They could have sealed this Ori thing up in a season and spent this last one doing intital exploration of a third galaxy. That would have had another off world base located in the new galaxy and a third galaxy team could have taken over in the beginning of the 07-08 season. They could have even sent Vala and Cam as the first and second of the military part of the team. The rest of the SG team could have cameos some times, but not a lot.

If we're talking about the franchise in general, I'd say it's Stargate, even though they seem to be just wondering around mostly in Atlantis, but I'm not sure if there are any we can say that could reach the longevity as Stargate. All the other scifi ones are either long lived, but low knowledge of or are known by more, but they don't last that long, so their popularity stays low. Some aren't even on TV. Some are game franchises (video and table top ones).

You got Blade that was just cancelled, Who has started up again and they're currently filming season 3 across the pond and showing season 2 now here. BSG has been around for a bit, but it's still young. I think the only other TV scifi that are popular are in cartoons. There's Jimmy Neutron, that kid with the ghost powers with a father that's got scifi gadgets.

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign · Post by **AnonymousRedShirtEnsign** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:17 am

Thank you GStone, that's right interactive sci fi also counts. In light of this a case for Halo can be made. I mean Halo 2 did have around 4 million preorders when it launched in 2004. And with Halo 3 and Halo Wars coming out on the 360 the series looks stable in the near future.

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:43 pm

I forgot about Halo. I don't know how popular it's been, but the Marvel superhero game used at classicmarvel.com was originally put out in the 80s, I think (I think the early 80s, but I"m not sure). Classicmarvel.com has a strong following on its board, but I'm not sure of the game's overall popularity.

I heard of the stones game, but I think I then heard that it was discontinued, too, fans liking the style of the classic game from TSR over the stones. You've got ones, like Warhammer. D&D has been around since who knows when. I don't know if they're making anything new for D&D.

Anyone know the popularity height the Culture novels have or Bolo or cyberpunk?

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign · Post by **AnonymousRedShirtEnsign** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:35 pm

Halo is still pretty popular, around 500,000 people play it every day on Xbox Live. Half Life and Dawn of War are big for PC gaming. Doom and Quake, hell most first person shooters that do well are sci fi. If you're looking at big things that have come and gone then The Terminator, The Matrix, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are all series that come to mind. Also, I don't know that superhero stuff counts as science fiction, and I'm pretty sure D&D is fantasy like LotR.

GStone · Post by **GStone** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 9:56 pm

I've known a couple D&D campaigns have been the scifi type. The superhero one does contain scifi. There's the mutants that were supposedly created by this space farring race of uber people, the powers of the mutants themselves (like for instance, Cyclops doesn't just shoot energy beams from his eyes that give off no heat. His eyes are actually extradimensional apertures that allow an exotic form of energy to come into our dimension and shoot away from his eyes; he's got a psionic force field that apparently protects him or something...but who the hell knows just what is going on with him. It's Marvel.). There's the "hi-tech" heros/villians, aliens, gods who are actually aliens and that some humans view as gods. It's just a huge mish mash of a lot of stuff.

Nonamer · Post by **Nonamer** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 11:38 pm

If you include interactive sci-fi, Starcraft is probably well above anything else in that regard.

AnonymousRedShirtEnsign · Post by **AnonymousRedShirtEnsign** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 7:45 am

I though Starcraft would be like Babylon 5 as a former juggernaut that has all but died out due to lack of new material. When was the last new Starcraft game made? Also how many copies sold in total? Its game play still holds up well compared to newer games, but I don't know anyone personally who still plays it regularly, or has in five years.

Nonamer · Post by **Nonamer** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:59 pm

Going by wikipedia, there are some 9 million copies of Starcraft, versus 6 and 7.4 million for halo and halo 2 respectively. Also half a million people play Starcraft every night in Korea alone. It's safe to say that including the sales of the expansion and any potential future sales of Starcraft 2, SC-verse > Halo-verse in terms of popularity, though Halo is closer than I thought.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 4:43 am

I have heard StarCraft described as the national sport of South Korea before.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:49 am

As far as most popular SF franchises outside of Star Trek and Star Wars, I would submit the Japanese Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, which since 1979 has churned out some 24 TV series, OVA series, and movies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam

In addition, let us also not forget that old standby Doctor Who, which has run consecutively for several decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_who

Easily these two series franchises gives the likes of SG1 an easy run for it's money.
-Mike

l33telboi · Post by **l33telboi** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:12 pm

What about Warhammer 40k? It seems to be quite popular in the circles i frequent. It has books, games and of course the table-top it started out as.

Narsil · Post by **Narsil** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:21 pm

Doctor Who: has been going since 1963. And if we count the Doctor Who EU, it never really stopped, it just happened to undergo a bit of a downpoint in the production; namely the fact that the TV show was off the air entirely from 1989 [with the end of season 26] to 2005 [with the start of season 27]. It also happens to be liked by non-fans of sci-fi, because it focuses on characters and plot as being above the science fiction aspect of it. Case in point; it just won 'Best Drama', 'Best Actor (David Tennant)' and 'Best Actress (Billie Piper)' at the National Television Awards... again, although last time it won, the Doctor was Christopher Eccleston.

In short; Doctor Who is actually more famous than Star Trek... in its native country at least. It isn't all that popular over in the US, while it's frequently third or second place in the UK ratings.

It's quite interesting, as well, since Doctor Who managed to rack up at least seventeen years of consecutive filming before even entering any sort of hiatus, but SG-1 got 'longest running sci-fi (consecutive)' in the Guinness Book of World Records, with only ten years.