The new Battlestar

[Skade]

There were no cheesy one-liner jokes, no comedic sidekick characters, it's just a plain old drama. There's a strong military feel to it, ala Black Hawk Down, etc. Very reminiscent of Independance Day too.

That's just cause Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin the Secretary of Education, now the President) is in Independence Day as the First Lady. Oh, and the big explosions and end of humanity, and the last ragtag group of fighters... hey, it is like Independence Day!

 

[clark411]

I'll play Devil's Advocate vs some of jdavis' comments for giggles (and because I actually enjoyed the show, and am looking forward to tomorrow's episode... no accounting for taste ^_^)

I thought the first five minutes of the show were fine. Is it silly that the Cylons bother to board? Absolutely. Would it have been superior in a cinematic sense if they had simply had the guy start to nap and then blow up? Absolutely not. It is far more appropriate, looking at the trope of the show, for the Cylons to juxtapose the cold, machine-like execution of murder via space-missiles alongside the somewhat-primal smoochies of Cylon Slutbot Six. If they somehow managed to negate the "Gee that's Stupid of them Factor" of blowing up their own resources while still trying to touch upon the various themes they were going for, it would have been better- but they did better leaning closer towards Entertainment value rather than Realism.

Set Design didn't really strike me as a problem so much as the cinematography. There seemed to be a good amount of potential to make clear the complexity of the bridge environment, or even do a few roaming camera shots through the halls. The closest they pulled off was doing a moving shot or two during the non-action sequences (Adama and his speech, for instance). Looking at another of the themes of the show, it is quite clear that the set design was intentionally crude or below what is to be expected- the Galactica is an old ship and they spend at least two exchanges making this point evident (the public relations tour guide spiels, and Adama refusing to allow networked computers onboard). Whether this is to explain away a low set budget or not, I dunno- but I won't fault the Sci Fi channel for their efforts and struggles with budgetting- they've come a pretty long way in the Originals series.

The CGI was the best that Sci Fi has done in an Original movie, and they went to a good amount of effort to make it somewhat realistic, if not pretty. Unlike most, they kept the lens flare to a minimum and instead focused on jerky camera action that, admittedly seemed ill-fitting in relation to the camera action in the live shots. Their attention to inertia (even bothering with it) along with the presence of attitude thrusters gave me a nice Babylon 5 flashback. The gripe I had with it was the size of the CGI engineers that were blown out of the ship... unless I'm mistaken, they looked to be about 20-40 ft tall, in proportion to the section they were shown flying out of.

While it was sad to not get scenes showing the destruction of the cities, the fleet, or the headquarters, it again seems to boil down to the plot theme of no one knowing exactly what is going on. News comes in lil slips of paper, and via transmissions. By not showing the entire situation, they do not allow for the viewer to see beyond the viewpoints of the main characters. Personally, I would liked to have seen the boom boom, but I appreciate not seeing the action as well (kinda like Wolf 359 transmissions in TNG... I say, opening my Dork Sails to full).

On the whole, I thought it was entertaining- if not a little conflicting. They had FTL drives but still relied on Nuclear weaponry. They had Artificial Intelligence that was capable of attempting to overthrow its masters and make sexy Fembots but seemed incapable of advancing technologically in a military sense despite forty years of gearing up for an armageddonish coup de grace. Cinematics were a hodgepodge, where it was obvious the CGI guys had little to no interaction with the director beyond the basics. The storytelling was good, and there were several themes to it that, despite being outdated (a given, given the fact that it's Battlestar Galactica), were present... which says a lot in comparison to most the shows out there. I wasn't asking for much, but got more than I expected and will probably pick it up on DVD when it releases.


(PS.. yeah the baby neck snapping was a little too much, but I suppose it is an acceptable way of showing the Cylons lack of compassion when it comes to children. It's a pretty big deal that the Battlestar Galactica will be a warship with kids on it, and that colony ships will be endangered. Perhaps just a blunt scene of what was to come- it's not like the nukes didn't take out a few babies along with the millions.)

 

[jdavis]

Ok I have to jump in on this thread. I just finished watching part and very disapponeted. I agree to alost of disagreements and for the cylons, they screwed up the history from the original which I am the most upset about. In the original, the cylons were made by an alien race to perseve their society and the reason the war was that Humans were the invaders of the Cylons galaxy. Think of the Cylons being native americans and the humans were soliders wanting land. The cool thing about the orinigal Cylons was the mystery of where they come from why they wage war against them. That mystery is now gone and sorely missed.

Thes mess up the design of the new Galaitica on howthe Vipers were suppose to leave the hanger. In the orinigal, the Vipers left the hanger from the end part, not from the sides of the new one.

Camera view was way to shaky for my part, was getting too dizzy and missing alot of the scene.

Baltar is way too much of a coward and how are they gonna have him join the cylons? Take him prison and make part of the Cylons empire by force? I hope not.

The president character has no place for the story, from what I saw.

Had to get this out of my system, by giggest gripe was the Cylon plot and history.

It is a reimagining of the story, they wanted to get in some human angst so they had the cylons being made by the humans and then turning on them. Why? we don't know, maybe it was Skynet or maybe they needed humans as batteries but the big thing is that technofear is a much more popular fear these days and they really couldn't get preachy about robots who just showed up in space. They really gave no reason at all for the cylons attack in the new show, but then again they really never gave a good reason for the cylons to attack in the old show either. Lets face it Robots just don't like humans (unless it's to satisfy their robotic sexual desires?). It's not the history change that bugs me (I knew that going in) it's the fact that the cylons have went from genocidal robots to perverted genocidal robots, man I hope they explain that away in the next episode, maybe cylon 6 is the only sex starved cylon, maybe she was specifically designed to be a hookerbot or something and the rest of them are computer swift and electronic precise and don't feel the need to French Kiss humans before they blow them up. But you just got to let the history part go, the old Battlestar Galactica is dead and gone into TV history, this one is so far different I still think they should of called it something else. I do agree on the dizzy camera bit 100% though.

 

[jdavis]

I'll play Devil's Advocate vs some of jdavis' comments for giggles (and because I actually enjoyed the show, and am looking forward to tomorrow's episode... no accounting for taste ^_^)

I thought the first five minutes of the show were fine. Is it silly that the Cylons bother to board? Absolutely. Would it have been superior in a cinematic sense if they had simply had the guy start to nap and then blow up? Absolutely not. It is far more appropriate, looking at the trope of the show, for the Cylons to juxtapose the cold, machine-like execution of murder via space-missiles alongside the somewhat-primal smoochies of Cylon Slutbot Six. If they somehow managed to negate the "Gee that's Stupid of them Factor" of blowing up their own resources while still trying to touch upon the various themes their going for, it would have been better- but they did better leaning closer towards Entertainment value rather than Realism.

Here I'll fix the scene for both realism and entertainment, it will only take a second:
Keep everything the same up to the point where the hookerbot tries to taste the old dudes tonsils, instead of that awkward old man molesting scene have her just walk up and announce that the cylons are withdrawing from the peace agreement, then shoot him in the head and all three cylons leave. Then show the station being blown up. See that wasn't that hard and it didn't force me to watch a cylon tongue hockey game, if they had gotten that camera any closer it would of been inside their mouths.

Set Design didn't really strike me as a problem so much as the cinematography. There seemed to be a good amount of potential to make clear the complexity of the bridge environment, or even do a few roaming camera shots through the halls. The closest they pulled off was doing a moving shot or two during the non-action sequences (Adama and his speech, for instance). Looking at another of the themes of the show, it is quite clear that the set design was intentionally crude or below what is to be expected- the Galactica is an old ship and they spend at least two exchanges making this point evident (the public relations tour guide spiels, and Adama refusing to allow networked computers onboard). Whether this is to explain away a low set budget or not, I dunno- but I won't fault the Sci Fi channel for their efforts and struggles with budgetting- they've come a pretty long way in the Originals series.

Yea I got the it's supposed to be old bit, that wasn't my problem with the set, my problem was that it was just a one level loop for jogging and any door could lead to any random area of the ship. I don't mind crude and old for the set but it really needs to look like they are on a actual ship and not in Dr Evil's underground lair and it needs to be huge, a Battlestar is a vast ship, you know with more than two levels to it. All this ship had was the hallway and the hanger deck and it wouldn't of suprised me if any of those random doors opened up to the hanger deck from the hallway, for goodness sake put in a elevator or something, or is a elevator too much advanced technology for a spaceship.

The CGI was the best that Sci Fi has done in an Original movie, and they went to a good amount of effort to make it somewhat realistic, if not pretty. Unlike most, they kept the lens flare to a minimum and instead focused on jerky camera action that, admittedly seemed ill-fitting in relation to the camera action in the live shots. Their attention to inertia (even bothering with it) along with the presence of attitude thrusters gave me a nice Babylon 5 flashback. The gripe I had with it was the size of the CGI engineers that were blown out of the ship... unless I'm mistaken, they looked to be about 20-40 ft tall, in proportion to the section they were shown flying out of.

Ok I'll give you that this is the best CGI Sci Fi channel has done but it wasn't to the level of Farscape or Stargate SG1 or Babalon 5 or even Andromeda, the bar on CGI on tv shows has been raised pretty high and you shouldn't go around bragging about your effects if they are not better than the ones on Kevin Sorbo's freaking show. The realistic space bit isn't new or original it's just never caught on, why because in the end most of your fans want cool effects not just realistic effects. Yes you can have both at the same time but that herky jerky hard to watch without getting dizzy act will wear old, I want to see cool dogfight action not dizzy herky jerky or blurtacular effects. I don't care about the physics myself but it better look cool on screen whether they use guidance thrusters or not.

While it was sad to not get scenes showing the destruction of the cities, the fleet, or the headquarters, it again seems to boil down to the plot theme of no one knowing exactly what is going on. News comes in lil slips of paper, and via transmissions. By not showing the entire situation, they do not allow for the viewer to see beyond the viewpoints of the main characters. Personally, I would liked to have seen the boom boom, but I appreciate not seeing the action as well (kinda like Wolf 359 transmissions in TNG... I say, opening my Dork Sails to full).

Not seeing the action is a sign of "we don't got the money to show the action" and that is what this show was lacking the most, funding. Everybody picks on the old show and it really hasn't aged well but you have to remember those were cutting edge effects back then, the only other thing like it at that time was Star Wars. The reason the old show got cancelled was it cost so much to make. I understand Sci Fi's budget woes but come on you have to show some freaking cylons attacking, what were they invisible? Give me a single shot of cylon ships over the planet, heck give me a radar blip showing a actual attack fleet over the planets, anything at all will do. When I watched it it actually took me a while to figure out they were actually attacking with ships, heck I'm still not sure about that, it could of been hookerbots with built in atomic bombs walking into towns for all I know. You got to have enough money in the budget for a single flyby shot or even a fleet on a radar screen. How much money would a shot of a fleet on a radar screen cost? No wonder the Colonials didn't know what was happening, the audience was kept in the dark too.

On the whole, I thought it was entertaining- if not a little conflicting. They had FTL drives but still relied on Nuclear weaponry. They had Artificial Intelligence that was capable of attempting to overthrow its masters and make sexy Fembots but seemed incapable of advancing technologically in a military sense despite forty years of gearing up for an armageddonish coup de grace. Cinematics were a hodgepodge, where it was obvious the CGI guys had little to no interaction with the director beyond the basics. The storytelling was good, and there were several themes to it that, despite being outdated (a given, given the fact that it's Battlestar Galactica), were present... which says a lot in comparison to most the shows out there. I wasn't asking for much, but got more than I expected and will probably pick it up on DVD when it releases.


(PS.. yeah the baby neck snapping was a little too much, but I suppose it is an acceptable way of showing the Cylons lack of compassion when it comes to children. It's a pretty big deal that the Battlestar Galactica will be a warship with kids on it, and that colony ships will be endangered. Perhaps just a blunt scene of what was to come- it's not like the nukes didn't take out a few babies along with the millions.)

I got to wonder about graphic baby murder and their target audience here, I mean who were they aiming to draw in with baby murder? They could of made the point without that in there, it just wasn't necessary to the show at all, her saying that all the humans would die was enough for me to realize she was a killer robot.

Hey I'm picking at it but it actually wasn't all that bad, don't get me wrong it wasn't anything worthwhile but it did have enough to give me hope for the next episode.Just for comparison my friend with the film degree sent me a e-mail about the show, all it said was "OOF!"I'm not nearly as down on it as he was.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Was not too impressed 5/10.

Starbuck change to a macho female with gun really ticked me off, sorry, he is a rogue, a man's man, a buddy, the cool guy, not a ___ (sorry) driven good as a guy woman. Boomer to a lesser degree. The 70's BSG had a number of strong women that could have been added, such as Apollo's sister!

Number 6, well, sex sells and killing babies makes the viewer see how evil you can be, not that you were a cylon and you nuke planets. It did not brother me that she can't die, wireless downloads, but I do wish she would get off the show!

Space combat, give me some flash! While they tried to be realistic, they also did a few things non-realistic, ships loose power in space and they go all over the place hitting each other. Still not sure why missles would have a vapor trail but that is a little thing.

I don't know if I will be catching it, if nothing else is on and I am not out shopping.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I hadn't planned on watching this, but caught it just as it started. It was entertaining enough, if not particularly great -- and familiar enough that I started remembering all sorts of old BSG trivia.

I like some of the improved attention to detail -- like seeing the reaction motors firing on the Vipers as they maneuver (though this nod toward spaceflight physics is immediatley broken by other things, but heck, it's scifi -- I'll suspend some disbelief).

The nostalgic nod toward the old series was kind of cool in a retro sort of way -- the museum with all the old Ceylon props (though of course they *had* to switch back to the old Vipers). The anti-technology theme was at least interesting, and I liked the explanation for the Ceylons' existence, even though that immediately made the rest of the tech levels in the show incongruous. It at least shows they've updated some thinking in 25 years.

Fembot and her related activities I mostly ignored. My comment to my wife was "They didn't have sex in the '70s -- that's why there wasn't any in the original show."

We are interested enough to watch Part 2 tonight. It's not great work, but it kills the time until RotK!

Edit: It did get me thinking about the backstory, though, which I don't completely remember. There are 12 colonies, right, with Earth the missing 13th? Where did they come from, originally, and why don't they go back there -- and why do they still refer to themselves as colonies after all those years? It's like the US or Canada referring to themselves as colonies. Sigh. *attempts to suspend disbelief again*

 

[Psion]

Again, I don't share this view. I thought the set designs were excellent. They reminded me of the original, but a little less relaxed, more like a military vessel should be.

I dunno. I didn't think it was bad, but the sets (and the lingo) reminded me a little too much of a modern aircraft carrier and a little too little of a space vessel. I think the often overlooked Space: Above & Beyond did a good job of creating sets that reflected both influences to a spaceborne carrier.

THIS IS NOT A REMAKE. CONTINUITY WITH THE ORIGINAL DOES NOT EXIST. THIS IS A REIMAGINED, COMPLETELY NEW SHOW.

1) I fail to see how that excuses anything. I roll my eyes everytime hollywood invokes the term (or practice of ) "reimagined". I think the producers DESERVE to be taken to task for "reimagining". It's spin control for following their ego instead of making a show that would have been more appealing to a preponderance of fans. (And a reflection of the all too prevalent malignancy that scripts don't sell unless it can be defined in terms of shows that are already out there.)
2) It seems to me that the plot was almost originally intended to be a "years later" plot with continuity, but they scrapped it halfway through.

 

[jasper]

Wait a minute I originally thought they came from the front of hanger deck too in the original but in some scenes they appear from under the side of the ship. Also in the old one you could see clear through the landing bay open space to open space so why have launch tubes.

Personally I would like to see realism a bit more in scific. After how many times can kirk, spock, luke, Captain Sheridian, etc avoid the blaster light. They didn’t fall for the laser/blaster moves slower than a bullet.

Good points on the generic corrodor but having nearly got lost on the USS Alabama it did look convincing plus standard scene where civilian/political flunky gets lost on military ship.
Strong female parts. Hmm Starbuck’s blonde nurseie look concern over current wounded guy actor. The only strong woman in the original was Apollo’s wife who took a bullet. The rest were just average stock characters.

Rating both them I give the original C and the new one C+. Mainly because the new one have flaws which can be plot story lines. The original Baltar would have taken the old lady’s number and mugged for the camera.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

The first 5 minutes of the show were pure crap. Lusty Cylons are just goofy, and why did the Cylons even stop there to start with? Just shoot the thing as you fly by, why do we need a scene with a Cylon french kissing a old guy for no apparent reason?

Agreed. I didn't see the point in it, nor in the baby-killing scene.

They never showed any of the rest of the fleet getting attacked, heck they never showed any of the fleet at all. They never showed the planets getting attacked either, just far off scenes of atomic bombs going off (I did like the one effect when Baltar was watching the reporter get blown away on his TV.)

I liked this way of handling it a lot better than in the original show, where the entire population of the colonies is massacred by conventional bombs and vehicular small arms.

And I think it was a decision on the part of the creative tem to try to portray the devastation from a personal viewpoint, rather than panoramic shots of the devastation, or the huge cliche shot of crowds felling from explosions.

7. I didn't like the "Computers=Bad" storyline either. Yes man's overeliance on computers will one day lead to his downfall, I've seen the Terminator movies and the Matrix movies please stop preaching to me about the evils of technology. I mean really they navigate space and control huge space fortresses but they can't have cordless phones? They sent messages with something that looked like a old form feed printer and a teletype machine. They created a sentient AI system and fully moble robots, but they can't shield a onboard ship network cable. Man if the cylons had had more than two fighters this would of really been a disaster. The "smartest man in the colonies" Baltar had to have help with a computer program, yet over 50 years ago they managed to build indepenant thinking robots that have the ability to send their full programming and AI light years away to new bodies if they are destroyed? Maybe I should log off the internet here before my reliance on technology destroys the world I mean really is that the best they could come up with?

You'll recall, I think, that the orginal show had at least as strong an anti-machine theme. I thought it was reltively underplayed, actually, and that Adama's speech at the decomissioning ceremony added a new layer of complexity to the theme. The problem lies not with machines, but with us.

 

[buzzard]

She definitely had his cockiness, just not as much of the playfulness. One thing I liked about her was her toughness. Not to say that she was Arnie or anything, but at least in this role she did not come across as a sex object or a girly-girl. She was a soldier, regardless of her sex. Maybe not a great soldier (discipline problems seem to be a problem) but certainly not eye-candy.

Overall I didn't mind the show much at all. However the Starbuck character was lousy. How could anyone who is that regularly obnoxious to superior officers have lasted in the military for more than a couple weeks is beyond me. She could be the best pilot since chuck Yeager, but she still would have been pitched. They went to far in making her reckless.

As for the baby killing, I almost see it as 6 being 'merciful'. Remember the line about "soon you won't have to cry any more". Living through a nuclear holocaust is likely worse than a quick painless death (or so 6 might calculate).

One thing I did like about the show was the commanding of the Battlestar from the bridge and the rather submarine like navigation commands. That was a nice touch of realism IMHO.

buzzard