Myst Online: URU Live Forums

Re: A Myst television series?

Emor D'ni Lap — Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:25 am

Author: Emor D'ni Lap

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 5:25 am

Dangerzone, from your screenwriting class you probably already know that you don't need Cyan's permission to write whatever you want; only if you publish or otherwise turn that writing into a public medium do you need their legal approval.

You also probably know that such approval is almost never given without some sample scripts, several episode storylines, character breakdowns, a master-plan for the long-term story arc, and so on. (here's an example, for the ill-fated series "Carnivale")
This serves both as a starting point for discussion and gives the other parties - franchise owners, producers, investors -confidence that you can deliver good writing and good ideas .

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:37 am

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:37 am

... as soon as i get a reply from cyan, which may be never

Re: A Myst television series?

DLordofTime — Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:52 pm

Author: DLordofTime

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:52 pm

Perhaps we could use D'ni history as a basis for some of the main issues in the series? Not quite sure how it'd work, but it's probably worth taking into consideration.

Now, seeing as we've fleshed out the ideas, I think it's time we actually started making something more material.

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:19 am

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:19 am

yeah the series is always about the characters, so i have quite a few new good guys and baddies... and some who you cant quite pin down

and there will be plenty of cameos for good measure... some of whom will be huge reveals when you figure out who they are

Re: A Myst television series?

Rhee — Wed Feb 08, 2012 5:30 pm

Author: Rhee

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 5:30 pm

I think the plot would work well using the puzzles to carry it along.

Using the example of Myst 3: (and i know you aren't thinking along the lines of tv-ifying existing games, but just to explain my point) The first season would comprise the arrival of the stranger or whomever was going to be the cast of characters in J'Nanin. The premiere would of course involve solving the elevator puzzle and watching Saveedro escape with the precious Releeshan book. As episodes progressed, they would work through the book-protecting puzzles and by the end of the season would have realized that the combinations for accessing the linking books were found by using the little telescope viewers in the top of the central tower. Of course, there would be the "human element" to delve into as well, things like "What can we eat? Where will we sleep?" and "Who's in charge here?" and 'That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of! Why would turning all these useless little lightposts around fix anything?'

Subsequent seasons would work through each of the other ages(i can just imagine the wild ride on the Amateria marble machine!! lol), with the final season (or last three or four episodes of that last season anyway) dealing with the final problem of being trapped with a madman in a very small and not entirely friendly place.

Admittedly, what i've described above is a bit of a combination of the "Big problem" (evil Saveedro) and "Mystery" (where the heek are we?) styles, but I think something like that would really work. If there's some kind of enemy (tangible or not) that is always a threat in the background, I think it would add motivation to the plot, even if most of the episodes deal with less dangerous things like solving puzzles and sorting out the social heirarchy of the characters involved.

Hope you can pitch your series idea, whatever it comes down to being, and be successful with it! I know i'll be watching

Re: A Myst television series?

DLordofTime — Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:49 pm

Author: DLordofTime

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 4:49 pm

You're thinking of Dr. Watson. He was only the 'Stranger' for Myst V.

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Wed Feb 08, 2012 6:09 am

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 6:09 am

I know that the stranger was once actually identified by cyan, although many have forgotten who they named... still, it would be a fun reveal to reveal the identity of the stranger in flashback at some point in the show

I actually kinda also loved the idea of each season having a separate series of flashbacks that takes place before the previous season

The fate of the explorers> The story of Atrus> The fall of Dni> The Rise of D'ni> The fall of Gaternay> and the series finale flashback being how the art of linking came to be eons ago

meanwhile the present day story nicely parallels those flashbacks

The second Civilization> The Return of the DRC> The discovery of a D'ni refugee age> The Bahro strike back> The cavern finally collapses and D'ni is lost> and the mirroring finale story shows the ultimate fate of the MYST universe

Re: A Myst television series?

DLordofTime — Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:35 pm

Author: DLordofTime

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:35 pm

Unless the characters found the Stranger's journal, and one of them read it out...

Re: A Myst television series?

T-Squared — Tue Feb 07, 2012 3:42 am

Author: T-Squared

Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 3:42 am

If we were to have the stories told from the point of view of the Stranger, then the voice would have to be VERY androgynous.

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:07 pm

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:07 pm

the "big" puzzles are all mythological... telling stories only hinted at until now, and each season will fully resolve one of the 5 main groups still present in-universe

every age they visit will also have smaller physical puzzles of their own... such as making machines work, or dealing with natives, some will be exploration based, and others will be old school adventure game puzzles (having to find object *A* to use on object *B*)

Re: A Myst television series?

DLordofTime — Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:08 pm

Author: DLordofTime

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:08 pm

What sort of puzzles are you planning?

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:32 am

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:32 am

Yeah I was aiming more towards the "big mystery" deal... only with like 5 big puzzles composed of smaller intricacies that each take an individual season to solve. But as you said that is simplifying it, my concept has some quite complex storytelling techniques.

In either case I am only planning 5 years, and if cyan gives the go ahead I am going to make this the final volume in the Myst/URU saga... No matter what happens in or to URU, (which may live on forever) these seasons will be final chapters in the story after ours ends.

Re: A Myst television series?

belford — Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:38 pm

Author: belford

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:38 pm

(I take this question in the spirit of pure dream-spinning.)

There are roughly three strains of SF/fantasy TV that are popular these days. There's the Big Problem show (this includes dangerous-enemy plots like Stargate, but also trapped-in-space plots like Stargate Universe); the Mission show (Warehouse 13, Buffy, Supernatural -- the plots are organized around an ongoing goal but there's no sense that it'll ever be finished); and the Big Mystery show (Lost). I know I'm oversimplifying -- does Eureka really have a show-level mission? and then there was Caprica, which was intentionally none of those strains, quite possibly the reason it wasn't popular -- but that's to get started.

The problem with doing Myst as Big Mystery is that so much of the story and backstory has been published already. If you were starting fresh in 2002 you could do Yeesha and the exploration of the cavern as a Lost-style mystery, but that wouldn't fly today, because any viewer either already knows that material or can Google it.

So running that sort of show would require inventing completely new material. And of course inventing a Big Problem would be the same, because there aren't any good candidates right now.

A mission show of "re-open the cavern" might be workable, but that's not enough plot there -- plots are about people. So again, this is inventing new material. Mind you, I'd have no problem with that. I just want to be clear about what would be required.

(If this imaginary show were real, Cyan would be involved in the conception to some degree, as they are with the Mysteriacs movie. Or, you know, if somebody decided to write epic-length fanfic... well, do that and I'll read it.

Re: A Myst television series?

DLordofTime — Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:16 pm

Author: DLordofTime

Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:16 pm

Perhaps one of the indigenous peoples from a D'ni Age became as sophisticated as the D'ni were, and took over the Cavern, forcing out the explorers?

Re: A Myst television series?

Dangerzone — Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:25 pm

Author: Dangerzone

Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:25 pm

Partially yes, but the new colonizers have built equally mysterious structures of their own in some places. Also the questions of "who are these people?" and "what are they doing here?" will dominate most of the first season... The ages that the main cast visit over the course of the season will slowly reveal the truth to these questions and more.

But most of the stories are subplots contained within the individual ages, some of which deal with freeing their oppressed inhabitants from the second civilization, others deal with world shaking events occurring in long abandoned ages, and some are more whimsical and just plain fun...