Battlestar Galatica Razor

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In the full movie, he does a really great job of mimicking Olmos' speech patterns -- not the voice, and not the dialogue, but the kind of pauses and emphases and such. I quite liked it.

Whoever is responsible for casting at BSG has proved to be good at it, I think. I regularly enjoy the performance of all of the actors, even for side characters and "one-shots".

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Well, it aired tonight.

So, what do you think?

 

[Steel_Wind]

Well, it aired tonight.

So, what do you think?

I thought it was the single best BSG episode/arc I've ever seen.

A1.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I thought it was the single best BSG episode/arc I've ever seen.

A1.

Well, its sure wasn't "Galatica jumping into the atmosphere on New Caprica" but I loved every second of it.

Man, I want the last season now even more. With the way this show is set up, I'm glad there's an ending planned, but grar I can't keep waiting!

 

[Ahnehnois]

Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't really impressed.

I dislike the conceit inherent to the story-that we're going back in time to season 2 to see something that we weren't told of when it happened, surrounding a character we've never seen before. I thought the pegasus scenes were disappointing. It was just taking all the dialogue from "Pegasus" and "Resurrection Ship" and acting it all out. I would have liked some novel approach on what happened on the Pegasus. I missed some of the Pegasus characters (what happened to the pilots?).

Another conceit I didn't likie was the idea that the colonials knew a long time ago that the cylons were experimenting with biotechnology, but when human-looking ones popped up they were very surprised, weren't they?

I never cared about this Shaw character because she just popped out of nowhere and was never developed much. I never felt the real impact of the horrors the Pegasus endured or why they felt they had to shoot all these innocent people. The episode didn't have BSG's usual political edge, the score didn't jump out at me, and some of the direction and camerawork felt rather heavy-handed and unnatural.

On the whole, I found the plot a combination of confusingly nonlinear and utterly uncreative and contrived. It seems like an excuse to get us a BSG fix, but that would have better been served by actually starting the new season by now. I don't like the notion of going backwards.


All that said, the look at the old cylons was fun, the effects were great, the acting was good as usual, and frankly, the world needed a BSG fix in a really bad way. It wasn't *bad*, I don't think, but it wasn't any better than an average midseason BSG episode at best. There's nothing approaching the dramatic level of Exodus, Kobol's Last Gleaming, or any of BSG's other great episodes (Resurrection Ship). Given the hype surrounding it, that makes it kind of disappointing.

I still have hopes the DVD will include some more character development and make the story more coherent.

And since when is Season 4 starting in March? And where are my Season 3 DVDs?

 

[Mallus]

I liked it quite a bit. Not the best they've done, just good solid work. I thought the overall theme was handled nicely; in war one must remember to, as Irvine Welsh might say, "choose life", because the wages of choosing death are, well, death.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

So, Kara leads to the "end" of the human race by joining the Colonials and the Cylons into one single people? Because the Cylons are people, too, or rather, the Colonials are just another species of toaster.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't really impressed.

It was just taking all the dialogue from "Pegasus" and "Resurrection Ship" and acting it all out.

I would have liked some novel approach on what happened on the Pegasus.

It wasn't *bad*, I don't think, but it wasn't any better than an average midseason BSG episode at best.

No. You were right on the first sentence. It was just you. Hell, I'm not even sure we've been watching the same show.

RD Moore wanted to give us more of the Pegasus under Admiral Caine. He wanted to give us Caine, because Caine is the most intresting character on the ship.

He wanted to show us what made her tick. What brought her to make the decisions she did - and even if she was the one who made those decisions.

Was she wrong? Do you think she was wrong to draft those civilians into the forces - given the extremes of the situation? Have armies in the past ever done this sort of thing to their own under extremis?

No political edge to it? I think there certainly was. I think you just missed the edge because you already made up your mind as to whether Caine was right or wrong. RDM is trying to make the point that while Caine ends up in a very ugly place - she didn't get there alone - and many of her steps down that path were wholly understandable.

We certainly were never told the Caine and Gina had been lovers before the war - and even after the attack had begun. That Caine blamed herself for the 1600 casualties on the Pegasus because of her own personal sexual weakness. That was not ret-conning so much as it was illuminating and *new*.

That self-abhorrence and anger at having been deceived by Gina explains why it was that Gina was treated in the fashion that she was.
It wasn't just an accident that Gina was found. She was no Boomer sleeper agent. She was an active part of the Cylons plans to destroy the Colonies and the Pegasus - and she almost pulled it off.

And Caine loathed her for it. I understand that aspect of the backstory much better now.

The criticism that this special was no better than an iffy mid-season episode of BSG is, to be blunt, a pile of crap. I cannot see how any BSG fan can say that with a straight face. You are either stirring the pot - or you have been watching a very different series than I have.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Blah, blah, blah...

I loved it, and if you don't your an idiot.

Seriously, he has an opinion, must you attack him for it?

I thought it was a decent show, but it didn't excite me nearly as much as the regular seasons have.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I thought it was a decent show, but it didn't excite me nearly as much as the regular seasons have.

And that's fine. No problem. That's a very different point then criticizing the show in respect of virtually every aspect of its production.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I dislike the conceit inherent to the story-that we're going back in time to season 2 to see something that we weren't told of when it happened, surrounding a character we've never seen before. I thought the pegasus scenes were disappointing.

I agree this happened and yes it is usually a problem when a show does this. But Razor carried it off well enough that I did not care.

The relatioship between the old Cylons (and the "Dead End" in the odd little Basestar), and the new was difficult to grasp.

It was a pity to see Shaw die.