The new Battlestar

[RatPunk]

Eh, sci-fi fans are not notorious football watchers, I've found.

Almost everyone in my gaming group are football fans. There are a good number of football fans here at ENWorld and over at RPG.net as well. If not for the fact that I wasn't that interested in the Rams/Browns game on Monday night, I would have been forced to wait until Tuesday night to catch Part 1.

 

[Storm Raven]

True, but since it's a story and not a "reailty TV show" I find I don't have to be "hardheadedly realistic" about it. I approach watching it the same way I approach gaming, that is to say with a moderate level of "suspension of disbelief".

I do understand how this can bother some people, I'm just saying I am not one of them that it does. I can stretch my belief to accept it as part of the story, realistic or not.

But you miss the point of my comment. I pointed out that the characters in this version of BSG were basically stock military cliches, pulled off the "hollywood movie screenwriting" rack, with nothing interesting about them.

The response was that they were cliched becase the "cliches are realistic". My response concerning hardheaded realism points out that the cliches are not realistic, hence trying to prop up the use of worn out military cliche characters with the defense that "they are realistic" is silly, and counterfactual.

You know what would have been innovative and interesting? If the script had called for actually realistic military characters to fill the slots on the Galactica. That would have been a new take on the idea. Instead, we just get rehashed cliches that people think are realistic because they have seen too many John Wayne movies.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Heh. You'd be surprised at what our military still uses...

That said, I just sort of assumed that the 12 colonies have great space propulsion tech, not so great computer tech.

Plus I think they want the viewer to think this was an older model ship and old tech provides that visually. As far as having the tech for FTL drive, well we have had nuclear engines a lot longer than we have had small PCs and if we put forth the effort in the space race of the 60s we could have better space tech too.

 

[Elf Witch]

Let see a million dollar an hour show which may have rated once or twice in the top forty ratings.
Let see
Commander Amanda Hard ass leader who hates politicians but love his kid even when the kid is right. Hmm how has the character changed. Oh Instead of sucking it up and moving on losing Zack. He is upset because he lost one his sons. So far no much change.
Col Tieg step and fetch boy who would occasionally bring the hammer down on both the commander and the good old boys and occasional girl hot shot pilot.
Apollo Up tight flyboy who mostly right. Hmm still the same
Starbuck Cigar smoking hard drinking, poker playing pilot who has a smart mouth. Oh my god he has breastesss. It is the end of the universe.
Boomer backup who tried to keep the main two pilots out trouble.
Boxey no lines no problem
The President this character has a super heart ache and nice scene on silent running garden ship.
Baltar for no reason I going to betray the whole human race. To keep my skin I am going hunt down BG and his little vipers too. They have changed a 1 dimensional character to two. Plus if they do have a series, the mind chip has nice possibilities as long as don’t over do it.
Seven of nine, number 12, number 5, hugh, Um the babe. Eye candy with double oh dresses and scenes which could not be done thirty years ago.

The hard core fans remind me of all the bitching that when on the next generation was in its first season. Or Shatner’s SNL get a life clip hate love fest.

The actors now have 2.5 dimensional characters compared to 2 dimensional ones of 70. Except for sex and sex changes nothing much has been changed.

How many fans had conventions for the Charlie Angels and they got 2 movies.
How many Columbo conventions were there and how often has that series came back.
Hey Fan People. Hollywood cares only about the money and the ratings. Don’t care about loyalty to the show or its fans. Don’t really care about your lame letter writing campaigns.
B5 still got the ax in its fourth season even with superior writing, good eye candy both babes, battles and beef cake due to its low ratings.
Face it good people until a Scific show can pull the same ratings as CSI, Friends or ER the Hollywood PTB will still think of us a pimp faced parent’s basement dwelling morons.

Did you watch the same show as I did. Because you are off on a lot of this. First BSG was often in the top 40 it was not canceled due to low ratings if it had not been such an expensive show to make the studio would have been overjoyed over its ratings, shows with less numbers were not canceled. To justify the cost the show needed to be shown on Sundays where the big bucks were for ads at the time ,it did not come in the top ten which is what it needed.

Adama did not hate politicians he had been a member of the council of 12 for a long time he was good friends with the president. He believed in the system if he had not he had the power to do something about it. As for Zac he sucked it up he had to there was not a lot of time to grieve but there were scenes a great one with Athena where he talks about the pressure of playing god.

Col Tigh was also Adama's old friend and wingman and he was the one who hated politicians.

Apollo was never uptight what he was, was an honorable man with a sense of duty a loyal son father husband and friend. Willing to lay down his life for the people he swore to protect. If this was DnD he would have been a paladin.

Starbuck sure he was all that but as the show progressed you saw why he was like that he was afraid of losing people after all he was an orphan. Dirk Benedict brought charm to the role this new Starbuck has not done that as of yet.

Boxey I never had a problem with the kid I thought he added charm to the show. Showed what it was like from a childs point of view. I loved how well he adapted. Muffit was another story but it was a product of its time.

Baltar had a reason for his betryal POWER plain and simple the agreement he made with the cyclon's was simple the other colonies destroyed his colony spared and all humanity to be under his rule that is hardly no reason.

As a hard core Trek fan I loved Shatner's get a life but then I have a sense of humor. I didn't like Next Gen but not because it was not TOS but because I often found the characters to be smug and sanctimomious. But I also realized the fact that the show was a success made it possible for the show I loved to have more movies made about it.

Sorry since I did not find the 70s show characters to be 2.0 I disagree with this. I found a lot of these characters to be 2.0 because they were just sterotypes been there seen it a nd seen done better.

Of course Hollywood only cares for ratings it is a business and they don't want mine I am the wrong sex and age so my opinion does not count. Charlie's Angels was not the same type of show it is apples and oranges comparing them. SF shows tend to have more of a devoted following.

And since this America I have the right to bitch moan and complain all I want to about them changing my favorite show.

 

[Simplicity]

Well, I thought it was a great show, and I hope SCI-FI goes on to
produce a series out of it. Sure the Cylon Centurions were not shown
much. Good. Save it for the series. It'll just be all the more impressive
when they do get shown.

The miniseries has a heck of a lot more potential than most of the other
SCI-FI series pilots I've seen.

 

[Psion]

Good observations, Elf Witch, and I agree with most of them.

I think the one character I came away liking more was Baltar. He seems much more three dimensional in the mini-series. In the original, he was well acted, but a stock scummy villain.

 

[Storm Raven]

Plus I think they want the viewer to think this was an older model ship and old tech provides that visually.

I think you give them too much credit. This style of printer was used on all of the ships, including the ship the Education Secretary-to-President was tooling around in.

 

[jasper]

Umm, B5 didn't get the axe in it's fourth season. It ran for a full five season run.

BUZZ It got axed then picked up for the fifth season. That is the reason the war was wrapped up in fourth. And the fifth was left floudering in water.

witch is right the original started in 11th and ended 24th for the season. oops.
I still say both series are 2 dimensional. you could took apollo to the black sheet squardon and he would fit in a little. Star buck on the other hand would just blend right in.

 

[RyanL]

I absolutely loved the new Battlestar Galactica. It really drew me in.

I only have vague memories of reruns of the original show. I don't even usually like sci-fi all that much. When I saw "Battlestar Galactica" in the channel guide, it triggered my memory, and I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

-Ryan

 

[NewJeffCT]

it wasn't bad, but the baby killing in the beginning and the little girl in the stranded ship that got blown up as they faded to commerical were a little too dark for me - you just don't kill babies like that in a movie or TV show.