The new Battlestar

[Psion]

Night one tells us that computers are evil.

Night two tell us

Spoiler

beautiful women are evil.

By the end, I figured they would do one of two things with the cylons. But they did them both.

Spoiler

Made a fighter pilot a cylon, and made the scapegoat really the cylon.

A little less convulted and a little more palatable in the second night. Plot is interesting, but I gotta say, I'm still not warming up to the characters.

FTL jumps make the cameras zoom. Whee!

Re: The space battle. Did anyone else who has played it get a real strong Homeworld vibe off of it?

 

[Psion]

I fail to see how anything needs to be excused.

Of course not, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The producers and the owners of the property are under no obligation to be true to their fans.

Legally, no. Else (frex) Jorune wouldn't be wallowing undeveloped.

But if you want to make a work that will be appreciated, I do think it behooves you to consider the sensitivies of the fan base.

 

[jdavis]

Man they reimagined the hell out of that didn't they. Oh well here we go for Part 2.

1. Out of all the characters they left out or drastically changed they decided to keep Boxey? WTF? Boxey got a part but every single female lead from the old show was cut? At least he didn't have a robot dog, but come on getting rid of Boxey is one of the few things that even the die hard fans wouldn't of minded all that much.

2. Still don't like the Cylons or anything about the Cylons or anything remotely to do with the Cylons. At least greasy arms dealer Cylon didn't try to French Kiss Adama during their fight. I just didn't buy into them, their technology, their fighters or the new basestars. I did like the new centurions but they had all of two scenes as background, they did nothing but stand there and look cool.

3. So happy they blamed the technology problem on Baltar's navagation program, that works so much better than them being able to control computers at a whim. So score one fix for episode 2. I also liked that after the battle scene at the end they had mixed in the new vipers with the old ones, showing it was Baltar's program and not computers=evil that messed them up.

4. Baltar was the best thing about the show, I could almost see myself watching a series just to keep up with his Dr. Smith-like hyjinks. He was the only saving grace of the show for me.

5. Still didn't like the sets or uniforms either. I will give them credit for trying to show more of the Galactica inside though.

6. "Find me some Bullets." come on I about turned it off at that point, after trying to make me believe this is a military operation then they have him say something so stupid? Come on ordinance, weapontry, ammunition, supplies, armaments, shells, heck even provisions would of done, but bullets? It makes him sound like he's going to the OK corral with his six shooter. Bullets are for small arms, the Galactica was firing shells and/or missles and a military commander would of known the difference. I really prefer lasers in space to start with anyway, where will they ever get any more ammo from now?

7. They failed to sell me on the space battle stuff too, it was jumpy and hard to follow and I personally just didn't care for it. Call it a difference of opinion but I found it looked terribly lame in both episodes. I guess I just like my lasers too much.

8. If people were having a fit over Boomer being a woman I bet they will really have a fit over

Spoiler

her being a Cylon

.

Overall I'd have to say I was disappointed with it, I gave it a shot and it just didn't do it for me. I really wish it hadn't blown the chance for a continuation story of the old show as that is just the Battlestar Galactica show that I prefer. This was too gritty for my taste in a space opera and I really found nothing special about the writing or the reimagining of the story, except for Baltar. I opened my mind and I gave it a chance and it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, but I just didn't like it.

 

[Tauric]

Well, I was less impressed with ep2. If they turn this into a series, I may not watch it now, for two reasons: Boxey and Sexbot.

I know the kid actor didn't get much screen time, but the whole idea of Boxey is just weak. If this BSG is going to be grim and gritty, like is seems, then the leads should be adults, with maybe a recurring, but not regular, child character for change of pace episodes.

I was really annoyed by the whole "Scorpius neural chip" (at least the steal from the best) angle that they used with Baltar and the sexbot. The character of #6 reminds me of Eve on Angel. She's a flat character played by a wooden actress.

I also thought the bit with the guy at the end was lame (sorry about not being specific, but I don't know how to do the spoiler dealie) . It would have been better if his protestations had been true.

After seeing part 2, I have to downgrade by opinion to 5/10. It had some really annoying elements, but it wasn't total dreck, just average, IMHO.

 

[KenM]

I knew that

Spoiler

They would have someone unexpected turn out to be a cylon. I just thought I might have been someone higher up, like Tighe or Adama, that would have been a twist.

 

[Skade]

Spoiler

I think the whole reason Boxey was left in was to have him be adopted by Cylon-Boomer, so that when she is eventually activated her emotions for the kid and the Chief will somehow cause her to deny her programming and remain loyal to the Galactica. It's kind of obvious, but not a bad plot device really.

 

[2d6]

Re: The space battle. Did anyone else who has played it get a real strong Homeworld vibe off of it?

I've been getting the Homeworld vibe off all the space effects. I love Homeworld.

 

[2d6]

Re: The space battle. Did anyone else who has played it get a real strong Homeworld vibe off of it?

Good call! I've been getting the Homeworld vibe off all the space effects. I love Homeworld.

 

[JohnBrown]

Being a huge fan of the original as a child (heck, I even like Galactic a 1980), I have to say that I enjoyed the new BSG. After reading through all of the posts, some of the negative comments read as if some posters are wallowing in nostalgic feelings of a beloved childhood memory and not really looking at the new show itself. Not there is anything wrong with nostalgia. I have been re-watching old tapes of the original all last week, shows I haven’t seen (as sydicated re-runs) in 15+ years, and while they still have a special place in my heart, I just couldn’t believe just how bad some of those episodes were. I still love them, but gosh some of them were bad.

Some people were complaining about #6 being eye candy. Most of the time, so were the women of the old BSG (Cassiopeia, the hooker with a heart of gold. Simultaneously a useless character and a cliché). Some people were complaining that the new Starbuck is a cliché. The old one was too. The production values on the old show were horrendous. I couldn’t believe that, as a child, I didn’t notice that they were using the exact same shots for the space battles over and over and over again. Like or dislike them, at least these were new viper scenes. Some people have also been talking about the BSG fan base. Color me completely out of touch, but just exactly how big is this fan base? I am honestly not trying to be coy here. It has been 20+ years since anybody’s done anything with this property (that I am aware of), so just how big is the “loyal fan base?”

I am not trying to change anybody’s mind here. Different strokes for different folks. I just curious how much of the negative postings were do to remembering the original show being better than it actually was? I have been running into this sort of thing a lot myself lately. The other night I stumbled on to an episode of Speed Racer on cable. Man, I certainly remember that as being much better. I still think the Mach 5 is cool though.

 

[jdavis]

Did it not occur to you that the reason these character are cliche is because many of them are extremely realistic in military settings and the others are in there so that the rest of us have someone in the cast to relate to? Exactly how would you have rewritten the characters so that they're less cliche?

How about the situations you find cliche? Have people not sacrificed themselves during war time by jumping on a hand grenade to save their friends? Have commanders not given the order to sacrifice the lives of soldiers to accomplish their objectives? Have politicians never interfered in military affairs? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then I suggest you go speak to a few vets who have actually served during war time.

I think the problem here is not that they are military cliches they are entertainment cliches. In the real military 2/3rds of this crew would of been discharged and several of them would of been courtmartialed. These weren't real military cliches at all they were "The Dirty Dozen" characters, they were the cast of "Top Gun" cliches their characters weren't realistic they were gritty and flawed, all of them were flawed, every single character in the show was flawed in some way. Their Military disipline was pathetic, they wouldn't even hold up to military dress codes and lets not even get into military personel having sexual contact while on duty (or off duty for that matter). Gritty and dark does not equal realistic it just equals gritty and dark, this is TV entertainment not a documentary on military life. And as far as asking vets about this stuff I got a feeling most of them would laugh their asses off at the suggestion this show had anything at all on real military life during a war.

After reading all these quotes about how they were going to revolutionize the Science Fiction genre with this show and how new and unique the show will be then you really need to come up with something new and unique and revolutionary, this wasn't.