Sliders: The Animated Series

honestly, I dont think anyone would use the brand for an animated show.  It requires permissions, and reduces ownership of the new thing.   As a sequel of the original, people would want live action.   As a reboot, I don't think anyone would see the value of putting it under the  brand.

Rick & Morty btw is already based in part on Sliders (and Back to the Future).  Or inspired should I say.  The creator was a fan of both.

The human element is very present in the animated films ANASTASIA and TITAN A.E. (both by Gary Goldman and Don Bluth). The characters have a lot of physical interaction with their surroundings and each other, circling, pacing, touching, recoiling. They have most of the nuances of live action actors.

But this is achieved by the directors' process of hiring actual performers to act out the scripted scenes in front of them which they film and record -- and then they use it as reference when animating the characters to add in the body language and physicality that they see in the human performers.

This is pretty slow and unaffordable for most TV animated projects.

Oh I 100% agree and have made this same argument myself.  I don't think there's any reason for any creator to make a new version of Sliders.  You can essentially do the same concept for free without much tweaking.

My thought is only this: if Sliders were ever going to come back, it would be via Jerry O'Connell.  Torme and the other creators are either too old or too out of the game for anything to have happened.  Jerry is the only one who seems noticeably interested in a return because he'd be the star and he has fond memories of the experience.  If Sliders were ever going to return, he'd have to be the champion.

And since Jerry is on Star Trek: Lower Decks, he has the ability to make the right networking connections in animation.  He could find the right talent to either recruit someone to make a demo reel for him or at least hire the right people to get the show done the right way.

Animation also fixes several problems that a live-action story cannot.  Jerry O'Connell could voice a 20-something Quinn when he cannot do that in live action.  JRD can voice Arturo without possibly hurting himself in the process.  And most importantly, they could do all this without a huge time commitment on their part (since Sabrina and Cleavant have their own things going on).

A live action continuation is essentially off the table now.  It's too confusing and too muddled and the cast is too up in the air.  A reboot doesn't make sense logistically because it's too easy to do without the rights.  But an animated series gives Jerry an avenue, allows for a more flexible continuity, and allows for the ease of getting the actors back without a full acting commitment.  If it's ever going to happen, I feel like animation is the only road.

And, yeah, there are drawbacks.  It's not the preferred way.  But I've been watching a lot of animation this year, and I think it can be done really well.

20 plus years ago (in a group chat with Blinker, Mychand, QBall79, Slider_Sarah, TemporalFlux and Tigs) a joke turned into a Sliders Season Six for The Otherworlds that never saw the light of day.

Earth 72099
Are you ready for Sliders: The Animated Series? If not, get ready for Sci-Fi on E72099's answer to the Save Sliders campaign. A weekly animated show using the entire cast (well, actually just drawings of the cast and cheap voice actors who don't sound a thing like the real ones, but hey!) and insulting the intelligence of fans everywhere. Only on Earth 72099!

The idea was to use all eight Sliders, but it was going to be more like the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the 80s where each character was representative of the normal tropes. The brain, the athlete, the shy girl, the comedian, etc..

Would have been played for laughs and probably would have had Kromaggs flying airplanes like in the POTA animated series.

Good Times.

--Chaser9

It's interesting: Don Bluth has advised against rotoscoping (filming a scene live, tracing the outlines of the actors and then drawing on top of the tracings). He says that every time he tried it, it created the sense that the characters were 'floating' above the background because human beings ultimately have a gravity and weight that animated characters don't and the sense of being tethered to the Earth has to be achieved by drawing animated characters into an animated environment and interacting with it. His version of rotoscoping is to create video reference with actors and incorporate their movements into the animation.

I also love how Bluth hates TITAN AE, one of my favourite films, and it just goes to show how the artist is not the art.

Anyway. I'd like to see a SLIDERS animated series. But a 'realistic' vision of a SLIDERS animated series wouldn't capture the original appeal of the Vancouver years. Hand-drawn animation could give you the range of locations and set designs that benefit SLIDERS, but the only character who would translate effectively into animation as-is would be the bombastic Professor Arturo. Quinn, Wade and Rembrandt would need to be retrofitted significantly for simplified character designs and simplified animation which requires exaggerated gestures over subtle performance (as we've seen in LOWER DECKS). A computer generated version of SLIDERS might be able to have more body language and performance through the digital marionettes of such shows, but the locations would suffer in that the sliders would be exploring strangely empty worlds that only ever seem to have the immediate guest stars and no background extras (as we've seen in the Nickelodeon NINJA TURTLES).

I'm not saying SLIDERS couldn't face these problems, but it would be a very different version of SLIDERS than what we saw in Seasons 1 - 2 and it would have to create its own appeal because it wouldn't be able to capture what made the original work.

For the longest time, I tried to bring SLIDERS back and the only format I could offer was the zero-budget PDF screenplay which in recent years has become the zero-budget Google Doc screenplay. I think the audioplay might be the next step forward. If David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will do X-FILES for Audible, it's possible.

That said, Audible put so little time, money and effort into their X-FILES project that they didn't bother to pay Duchovny and Anderson to do any kind of rehearsal on the script and had both actors record all their lines as they read the pages for the first time with no idea what they were saying or why they were saying it. Jerry O'Connell at this stage in his career would read your shopping list for union scale, but John Rhys-Davies wouldn't put up with that and demand rehearsals.

I think you have a point about the economics of audioplays. Amazon is a giant. Yet, Amazon Audible operated on a peanuts model for THE X-FILES. Rather than commission new material meant for the visualess format of audio drama, they used comic book scripts that need visuals to function. Why use something so unsuitable? Probably because they only needed to pay a small fee to writer Joe Harris to secure the material and didn't have to hire a writer; the director, Dirk Maggs, had to adapt the scripts to audio as part of his existing duties.

Amazon Audible hired David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and many of the series' performers -- but they had replacement actors for Annabeth Gish (Reyes), Robert Patrick (Doggett), Nicholas Lea (Krycek), Steven Williams (X) and Jerry Hardin (Deep Throat). Not soundalikes -- just replacements. And the budget was so small that there were no rehearsals. The actors recorded it as they read it for the first time. It was like someone had assembled the play from the actors' voicemail messages. It sounded disconnected and detached.

Amazon clearly didn't see much earning potential in THE X-FILES and didn't want to invest in getting all the actors or a script suited to the medium or even a readthrough.

But I do think SLIDERS could work on audio as part of an initiative to create audio drama for a mainstream audience if NBCUniversal wants to try tapping into the podcast market with a small streaming service and a subscription fee that is low in cost but would be affordable for a high number of subscribers.

I can imagine NBCU Audio Originals as a brand headlined by SLIDERS, KOJAK, SEAQUEST, THE MUNSTERS, EUREKA, FARSCAPE and WAREHOUSE 13. I can see it as a low cost, high volume subscription service for podcasts. $5 a month. Entertainment for the commuter with earbuds or car stereo or for listening at home. Actors recording from home with equipment and sound blocking gear sent by courier.

Jerry and John shouldn't and wouldn't work for free. But if this hypothetical streaming service offered them a small upfront fee but a percentage of subscription gross based on the number of listens to the SLIDERS audioplays, they might sign for a year's worth of audio recording sessions with the caveat that if there is a second year, they need to be paid their usual rate upfront.

I think Jerry would be very eager to be in a SLIDERS reboot and would agree to do an audio drama. I don't know that a SLIDERS audio drama needs a large, pre-existing fanbase; it can court a new audience and if Jerry wouldn't do the voice, the producers could hire someone else. It'd be fine so long as the writing were presenting a reboot and not requiring that Quinn sound like the same character we met in 1995. But... I think Jerry would probably do it if it didn't interfere with his other work even if the pay were minimal. And if we can't get John, we could settle for his vocal stand-in, Bob Joles (a voice actor hired to play John's characters on animated shows if John is too busy to return).

I don't think Jerry O'Connell's profile in 2020 is any different from where it was in 2004. Jerry in 2004 and today is a working TV actor, but he is not a big star. He is, like John Rhys-Davies, a known name and a character performer. He isn't a long-term lead, hasn't been since 1996. I guess he leads CARTER, but that show only produces 10 episodes a year and there's no word on a third season.

Jerry's best chance was from 1994 - 2002. From 1994 to 2002, he tapped into a vital market as the sensitive, earnest, intelligent, thinking man's action hero. In 2010, Benedict Cumberbatch would redefine that sort of character as Sherlock Holmes in SHERLOCK, but Jerry had the first mainstream crack at it and could have kept going had he chosen his post-SLIDERS roles differently. The role that Jerry craved and missed out on and failed to win was the role of Peter Parker in the Sam Raimi SPIDER-MAN movie.

Peter Parker would have been the perfect synthesis of Jerry's brainy science hero persona with a cultural icon known worldwide -- but Jerry in 2002 would have likely played the character with the same smirking, preening arrogance that he applied to Quinn in Season 3. I think after that, Jerry's ego took a massive hit and since then, his performances have rebounded significantly. His episode of SAMANTHA WHO was hilarious as he played a reformed mugger.

He was terrific in the MUNSTERS reboot. He is absurd and self-mocking on CARTER. He has plenty of voice work in animation, he earns a great living -- but his career isn't really that different from 2013. I don't think his feelings have changed: he lost his chance to play THE science hero, Peter Parker as Spider-Man, and now longs to play HIS science hero, Quinn Mallory. I don't think his enthusiasm for SLIDERS has waned; I think it was non-existent until 2002 and now it increases with each passing year. And I think Jerry would like to play Quinn again -- even for a meagre rate -- to play his science hero one more time.

I want to explain how Jerry clearly had no respect for SLIDERS until 2002 or so -- but it occurs to me that I should stop holding Jerry O'Connell -- and myself -- in contempt for what we did or didn't do between the ages of 20 - 24. And instead focus on what we are doing today. In that spirit, this is Jerry's Screen Rant interview from September 7:

I would definitely prefer an audiodrama other an animation. Though you could be tempted to go wild with the concept of worlds in both, I usually find that you get deeper characterisation and character-to-character moments within an audiodrama, which I've personally always found to be at the core of the show and not the various worlds.

I think it would be interesting to do an animated version of Sliders in a potential reboot. A few of you did have some valid points in that the characters being down to earth realistic people would be difficult to translate to an animation medium, but I think it would have some potentional and would help with continuity purposes. If there was a reboot (and I am saying IF), you would want to bring back the original four of course, and you would probably have to go into an explanation of what happened and how they're here and stuff. An animated series would allow you to continuity right from where it left off. If Torme was involved, he would be able to start it out with his story Slide Effects. Although a drawback from this, which has been mentioned before, the social political commentary aspect of Sliders would feel dated because they can't talk about current events and stuff.

But looking at all the ways the show could be brought back, animation route is probably my favourite maybe.

Theres:

a) animation

b) Doing what Ib sort of did with Reborn in that setting up the show taking place in 2021 or whatever year the show is made and having the characters be whatever ages they would be today. Just a weird personal opinion, but I'm not totally interested in seeing them old lol

Theres c) Hard core remake casting new actors in the characters. Which I think would be better for drawing in new fans instead of attracting old fans

d) Remake existing of completely new cast of characters and their adventures. But that alienates some of the audience because I know yeah, the concept was cool but one of the big kickers for a lot of people is the characters.

So yes, animation route would probably be easiest, and probably friendly in case they can't get some actors back, but of course it does have its drawbacks.

I completely understand where he is coming from. For some reason, when shows do this and cast new actors in the existing charactors roles, it feels like strangers wearing their faces instead of the actual characters.

Which you said, many fanfic writers feel burnt out after doing the revivals and don't finish their stories. The Kromaggs existence, whether you loved them or hated them, does put a bit of a damper on fanfic writers because they have to come up with some sort of wrap up to them or find a way to get rid of the tracker.

Well I would say you're right. Torme has moved on with his life. He doesn't spend every waking moment thinking about this show he made 25 years ago. And besides, like you said, he has money and has other things going on in his life. But I can see him wanting a conclusion to the characters he created. If he were to bring back Sliders, and that's an if, he would probably make it a short lived mini series or a movie.