Battlestar Galactica Tonight!

Cafe Society
21

Thanks, Declan, for clearing that up, just exactly what kind of ship Boomer was piloting. That had gone right over my & wifey’s head.

Is that why her scopes didn’t go dead with the others’? Different/better sensors? Or is that just 'cause they weren’t forward enough to get caught in the jamming?

I think it’s great. I watched the original series, but since I was 7 or 8 at the time, and it made sense to me then, well… when I caught a re-run a few years back, I realized it translated to my now-grown-up tastes about as well as “Six Million Dollar Man” and “Scooby Doo” do. That is to say, I now agree with my dad - it wasn’t that great a show the first time around.

This time out, they’re punching up the intensity and the drama. The dialogue ain’t Shakespeare, but the story is holding my interest quite well. Which is (or at least should be) a good recommendation, since I already knew the story. So I thought.

So, to list what I like about the new:

[spoiler]Home planet wasn’t just bombed on strafing runs, like was shown in the original series opening titles. No, the entire heffing planet was nuked. Talk about something you couldn’t show on network TV back in the seventies… Looks like these 'bots don’t just want to subjugate humanity, which was my impression from the original series (“Cylon tyranny”…?). Nope, they’re going all Berserker on 'em.

New Cylons - very cool. (Not meaning the one that looks like a human piece-o-tail either.*) Can’t wait until I hear the first one say, “By your command.” Also love, LOVE the self-piloting Cylon fighters. Updated design looks really sharp.

Colonel Tigh’s a hard-ass, and NOT a token!

I think the dramatic elements - i.e., the conflict between Adama & Apollo, and the impending one between Adama & the President - have promise, even though they’re not exactly sophisticated. Then again, story tellers haven’t had enough time to develop the drama yet. And I’m wondering if that traitor fellow will wind up commanding a Cylon legion, like he did in the old series. Somehow he seems too spineless to assume a command role. Though self-preservation IS obviously his primary motivator. Except he didn’t bring it fully to bear there at the crunch-time, during the lottery to get off-planet. Showed a little multi-dimensionality that Glen Larson never seemed able to inject into his characters.

Really enjoying the fully-fleshed out backstory. I don’t recall much of the details of the original pilot, but I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t this involved.

Anyone heard if there’s going to be a mechanical dog showing up…?[/spoiler]

All in all, judging by this opening, I wouldn’t mind seeing it developed to a regular series.
*Don’t gripe at me about my choice of words, when you know damn well that’s the only reason she was made to look like that, whether by the Cylons OR the producers. Guess the rule has to be, “Gotta ratchet up the babe factor in a sci-fi series in order to hold the geek-boys’ attentions.” Purty tired of this sort o’ libido-pandering…

And anyway 7-of-9 was way hotter.

22

1 hour in, i hate Starbuck, Snotty Kid of Commander, Hot Sex Robot, and Snotty Computer Idiot. Besides that, it’s average so far.

23

Quite good. I’ll be tuning in tomorrow.

I did a search for some opinions by fans of the original Battlestar Galactica, and many of them were trashing the show even before it premiered because it isn’t the same as the 1978 show.

I just can’t understand that. Would they rather the show remain a trivial footnote of 1978? I thought this remake was done in much the same spirit as the original, only it didn’t suck as much, so to speak. For BG to be a living entity, it needs to attract a new audience, and i think, based on the first two hours, that this version may run longer and be more successful than the previous version.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Earth figures in to this revamped continuity, and hope that when they do finally reach it, that they handle it better than the awkward “Galactica 1980” did.

24

Heh… ** Alzarian **, just look one post above yours, and you’ll find one of those irrational bashers.

(Does anyone else besides me have the image of ** Tars Tarkas ** as the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy?)

25

Ooh. The one thing that caught me right away and made me decide to watch:

The Cylon babe snapped the little baby’s neck! How cool is that? It’s like they had the balls to cross a line I don’t think I’ve ever seen crossed by evil doers before. Woo, hoo! Snap more cute little baby necks, you evil Cylons!

26

I really liked it. I was so lost in it that I was shocked when the first hour had passed.

Did anyone else get a kind of 9/11 feel while watching Caprica get bombed? They’re really playing up the sense of loss in this one.

27

It was okay, i’ll have to catch tomorrow’s at a later date since i have class (but it looked like perpetual reruns tonight, so maybe i can see it late tomorrow)

Starbuck did not cease to be annoying, if she was real i’d probably hit her with a chair.

I did like the tribal music during the fight scenes, Attack of the Clones didn’t have enough of that.

28

That part was hard to take, having one (not a hot cylon, the other one) asleep in the room next to me as I watched.

So do you think Baltar was replaced by a cylon? I don’t know how he could have survived the shockwave otherwise.

29

That’s basically it. They built a bunch of robots, as per basic chaos theory, the robots went crazy with the shoooooting and the cruush-ing…glavin.
I have to say I liked it overall. Here is my mixed review:

Pros
Decent atmosphere - It definitely had a 9/11 telecast meets Independence Day (maybe it’s Mary McDonnell) meets Space: Above and Beyond feel to it.

Creative departure from the original show - the retro style technology and the reasons behind it.

Gone are the stupid Egyptian pharoh helmets.
Cons
Starbuck played by a lesbianized version of Dirk Benedict.

The missing afro-jive-funk of the original Boomer.

Two words - “snap zoom”. Much like “lense flair” and “motion blur”, a little goes a long way.

The corny looking “Decent III” style ships. Is a ship shaped like a croissant perform better in space or something? And big salmon of a Galactica is one of the least notable ships.

Call me a traditionalist but I like my killer robots to lurch around and yell DESTROY THE HUMANOID!! SILENCE!!!
Undecided
The circa 1970s memorabilia - the classic toaster robot and ships in the gift shop as well as the classic John Williams-esque theme during the air show was a little distracting and confusing. Is this take place after the show? Are these the actual events and the old show was a corney TV series about the war? What gives?
All in all, a decent movie in and of itself that is weakened by images of Lorne Green and polystyrene ships whenever someones name is mentioned.

30

<thread drift> I had never seen Farscape till today. I ended up watching 4 solid hours of it. Great series! Shame it is gone. </thread drift>

Ok, I loved the new BG. I remember nearly nothing of the old one so I am not bringing any baggage with me.

The effects were great. I am glad they did not go over the top like Star Wars. Give me a plot over CGI any day. The acting was decent. I too liked the silent space flight. I am looking forward to part 2!

31

I believe there was a rumor about Farscape coming back, though I don’t know what became of it. You know, I can’t stop watching it. I kept going “Man, this is dumb” and not changing the channel and needing to watch more. And I have no idea why.

Alright, the baby thing disturbed me a little. It was just so gratuitous. Like “Alright, well, we have the psycho nympho robo chick, let’s have…a dead baby!”

And complaining about the lack of character development? Geez, an hour in, they were still introducing new characters. I was yelling “Who cares!? These people are going to die when the big mean robots come!”

32

I was a big fan of the original series, even though now I find it to be incredibly hokey I wasn’t quite sure whether I would like this miniseries given all the changes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did.

There were a bunch of things that were a nod to the old show, like the chrome toaster Cylon in the gift shop (and in the colonial diplomat’s briefing papers at the very beginning), but this really is a different spin on the whole story, and not just a sequel of sorts. Remember, in the original, the battlestars were ambushed on the way to the signing of the peace treaty - in this version, a peace treaty WAS signed 40+ years earlier, and the current attack comes out of nowhere. The Galactica herself is a veteran of the earlier fighting, and is seen as outdated enough to warrant de-commission.

msmith537 - did you catch the exchange between Apollo and Starbuck, when Starbuck is in the brig? No way she is lesbianized if:

she was in a relationship with Apollo’s brother Zach at the time of Zach’s death, which btw also explains why the elder Adama has a soft spot for her.

Maci - REALLY interesting idea about

Baltar being replaced by a Cylon. So in this case, the human Baltar is not an intentional traitor, and his Cylon replacement gets to do further dastardly deeds, maybe…

Other things I like about the new version:

  • Apollo, Starbuck, etc. are the pilots’ call signs, not their actual names.
  • Actually, the whole de-emphasis on mythological elements is rather refreshing - it was too heavy-handed in the original.
  • No Boxey! No daggits! No Serena, Cassiopeia or Athena to muck things up with an obligatory love story right now, either. After all, this is war! :wink:
  • Fight scenes in space are very cool… I like the minimal sounds, and the ?heat-seeking missiles are visually stunning, much better than the standard laser blasts.
  • I like the conflict being set up between Adama and the new President. Much more realistic to see people squabbling about how to get things done in the middle of a crisis.
33

I remember the original series a little bit (I was such a wee little child when I watched that I didn’t understand how that guy from the A-Team ended up in space).

I must say, I really like this new spin on it, and I wasn’t really expecting to. Sure, new Starbuck is a bit obnoxious, and the cheesy melodrama is cranked up to rather high levels (“40 seconds!”), and Baltar has weird beaten-puppydog eyes, but it’s definitely enjoyable.

I really like the quiet spacefights.

34

I don’t have cable, so I haven’t seen it, but am I correct in believing that they’ve done away with the look of the old chrome Cylon foot soldiers?

The show may be good, but that’s just wrong!

35

Well, my complaints boil down to a few things:

For all the posturing the creators had about shades of gray and not using any cliche’s it was full of both.

** In fact the Starbuck character appeared as a 6 foot plus woman in a DC comic “Atari Force” back in the 80’s and is the brash pilot cliche, except she’s a woman.

** There are no shades of gray for the new Cylon B*tch she is pure cold evil.

** The Panda factor was out of control in the first 40 minutes. In fact there was so much sex, they didn’t actually bother with a story until it neared the second hour.

** The actor playing Apollo – I got the feeling Joey Tribbianni (not Matt LeBlanc) could have done a better job in that role. His rant at Adama was just awful.

While the basic revision process has some cool elements, they are wasted among weak and lazy writing. I was no big fan of the original, but thought it was a great concept poorly done. I would call this a fair concept poorly done. The ships, the technology (though there are some problems), even the structure of the society is interesting, the people are not. I’ll be watching tonight, but I think I’ll be rooting for the Cylons.

I’d give it 3.5 to 4 rotten vegetables out of 5.

36

I like this new version, too. I watched the old series as a kid, and enjoyed that one back then - though I have to admit it hasn’t aged well.

All in all, I think they did a decent job here. I like the quiet nods they’ve made to the old series. I like the way they’ve handled the technology here - missiles and nukes are a lot more plausible than laserbeams etc. The flight sequences are awesome and a lot more “realistic” as well.

Character development could have been a little better, but that seems to be true of most miniseries, especially in this genre. The characters take a back seat to the action and the hardware, and often take a while to flesh out. If this miniseries turns out to be a springboard to a regular timeslot, I’m certain the characters will develop from meat puppets to believable people as the first season unfolds. And if not, I’ll just keep enjoying it for what it is.

37

According to the Cylon superbabe, those models are still around, as they still have their uses.

The new ones, I don’t like so much. It’s clear that the colonial diplomat was in complete shock at how different both the new soldier model, the superbabe and the fighters were from the old chrome toasters… I think meant to underscore just how much the Cylons have changed (evolved?) on their own while the humans were blisfully ignorant.

38

This version was pretty good, but they should’ve just changed the names of the characters, ships and races and called it something new because it bears only a passing resemblance to Battlestar Galactica. I liked the reaction control thrusters on the Vipers and the rapid-fire particle beams taking out Cylon missiles, and the space combat just looked good. Hell, story-wise (other than the gratuitous sex that didn’t advance the plot an inch) I don’t have any complaints.

Actually, I do have one complaint - the missile that hit the Galactica - does a Colonial Battlestar have no point-defense weapons at all? As soon as Starbuck called that missile inbound, Adama should have ordered all point defense guns active and it should have been blown out of the sky a half-mile out in a hail of defensive fire - or at least flown through a hail of defensive fire to its target. On the show, the only hail of fire if flew through came from Starbuck’s museum-piece Viper. They’ve copied enough jargon from our modern Navy without understanding what it means (Telling Apollo to “Call the ball” when he can’t even see the landing deck yet, etc…), they could’ve borrowed the idea of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses…

I also agree with one of Richard Hatch’s main compalints (you know, the original Apollo from the '70s) about the mini-series. The original BG had some pretty good female roles: Athena - ship’s tactical officer and later a fighter pilot; Sheba - ‘kick-ass and take names’ fighter pilot; hell, they even found ways to make Casseopia a useful character a couple of times. But instead of keeping the female characters that were already around they just decided to get rid of 'em and re-cast Starbuck and Boomer as women instead.

Oh, and I hate the new Cylon Trade Federation Battledroid Centruions and Droid Fighters. I suppose the Colonial Jedi will have to deal with them with their Colonial Clone Army of the Republic…

And while I’m complaining, what’s with Col. Tigh? Adama couldn’t get a competent, non-alcoholic professional, so he had to settle for a drunk who picks fights with junior officers under his command? Thank God the Galactica is going to be decommissioned and this asshole’s not gonna be relied on in combat at any point…whoops…

I must admit, though, I enjoyed watching the show - I’d rank it with Space: Above and Beyond and I can admit there are some things they did better than the original. Some. Not most. Love the sense of tumbling perspective and constant motion in the space scenes, BTW…

39

Loved it. Don’t look for any more depth than the old series, but it’s as good as escapist space-war SF gets.

Lessee here … Starbuck’s a woman now, not Face from the “A-Team”. Boomer morphed from a black man to an Asian woman. Colonel Tigh got the Michael Jackson skin treatment, too. The white Sioux woman from “Dances with Wolves” is the President. Captain Castillo from “Miami Vice” commands a battlestar (I kept waiting for him to call in Crockett and Tubbs for a chewing out). Baltar isn’t a collaborator, just a fool who thought with the wrong head, but he has possibilities. The residents of Caprica are all white. The only black person in this future is some one-line-speaking yeoman on Galactica - sheesh, that’s regressed even from ST:TOS. But maybe they’ll fix it. And they’re not using microns and centons as units of distance now, either, but apparently they haven’t developed even cathode ray tubes - what happens if they run out of printer paper?

One of the kids who got on the Viper on Caprica looked like the old Boxey, so I wouldn’t worry about him. The requisite babeflesh will no doubt be present, too, based on all the first-hour action scenes.

The spaceship maneuvering scenes actually looked like they would in space. An easy thing for SFX to do, but rarely done.

Pity they didn’t show a Cylon with a Mac laptop typing “Perform Jolly Roger” when they got close to the new networked Vipers.

Only plot point I don’t get is why the Cylons sent the new fembot model and the 2 battle droids to Babylon 6 just to tell the human diplomat that the war had started. As if he didn’t know. But she gave him her picture anyway so he could burn it.

40

Once the show got past the first half hour, it really got good… that first half-hour was almost painfully bad and cliched, though, particularly the obligatory “evil hot chick” coming on to every man she comes across… that, and what she did to the baby, just seemed pointless. I was waiting for that bit to be over.

However, once the Cylon attack started, it got good in a hurry. The combat scenes have some great effects and are nicely shot. I’ve never seen a space-war show that really captured the vast perspectives of space the way this one does, and the physics of the ships’ flying seems right on the money. Very unique, in the regard.

I like the irony of Starbuck, the womanizing man in the original show, being a tough-as-nails woman in this version. That really works for me.

Olmos does just fine as the Commander. His son, Apollo, not so much.

Nice treat to see Mary McDonnell in a good role again, and she’s really playing it up well. Very cool.

As Adama said at some point, they obviously have lots of computers, but most of them are not networked together. I actually like this plot-point, and it carried through well to the rest of the show, as the old Vipers were the only ones unaffected by whatever was jamming the newer ships. Kind of a nice touch, and a good way to regress the technology back to the old show.

Good show, so far, now that it’s gotten over the pointless sex of the first half-hour. I’ll be watching tonight, definitely.