The new Battlestar

[Darrin Drader]

PUPPETS. YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT PUPPETS AS BELIEVABLE, FULL CHARACTERS, OVER REAL ACTUAL HUMAN ACTORS?

Hey, no dissing the muppets. For what its worth, Rygel was one of the best actors ever, regardless of whether he was a "synthetic" or not.

 

[jdavis]

ratings are in: http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|85110|1|,00.html

 

[Darrin Drader]

Yep. Looks like we're going to get the series.

Woot!

 

[National Acrobat]

That's cool, very cool indeed. I am glad it looks like the series will be a go based on that. Good news indeed.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

If this does indeed go to series I will definitely check it out. I liked the miniseries a ton.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Everyone in Galactica was dark and depressed before the Cylons attacked even, well except for Baltar (maybe why I liked him so much). You would think a society that invented space travel and AI powered robots would of come up with some Prozac at some point. Some of these characters were so freaking flawed they wouldn't even fit in on Days of Our Lives.

Since this will likely go to series, give the characters time to define themselves. In the face of an apocalypse, I don't see why being somber is inappropriate. If you remember, Star Trek II was a fairly dark movie and the characters seemed a little less like their usual jovial selves. Nevertheless, this is considered by most to be the best Trek movie.

 

[Villano]

I taped it, but haven't gotten around to watching it. In fact, I planned on watching it while it taped, but I had to turn it off after the first few minutes because that opening was so awful. However, the bits a pieces I saw afterward were much better.

It'll probably be awhile until I can finally sit down and watch it since I just bought myself some early Christmas presents (i.e., a whole bunch of dvds). Plus, a local video rental store is going out of business and is selling its entire stock, including new releases. I'm kicking myself because they had a Hulk widescreen dvd for $10 and I bought one full price last month.

My "too watch" movie pile is now grotesquesly huge. Still, picking up the Tick: The Complete Series dvd was worth it.

Back to BSG, no matter how good it is, part of me will still hate it soley for the way Sci-Fi (aka, The New USA Network) handled the whole thing. They seemed to have a "screw the fans" mentality. Do you really want people who worked on the show talking about how they would only be involved if it had nothing to do with the original?

 

[MaxKaladin]

Wasn't going, but I wanna see this Tigh scene where there is Number 6 in his picture. Can anyone identify roundabout that was?

It was pretty quick, so I could be mistaken. It wouldn't be the first time but I sure thought it was her. The fact that nobody else has seen it is putting doubts in my head.

 

[pezagent]

Hmm... I happened upon an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica, on the Sci-Fi Channel, the other day ago. You know, the original Battlestar Galactica was not all that great to begin with. So, really, this new series doesn't have all that far to fall from.

When I was a teenager, I thought the original Battlestar Galactica was awesome. Now, decades later, it seems vapid and insipid to me. (But, then, most television sci-fi seems that way to me, nowadays.)

Hi all,

I've been living in New Zealand for the past three years so I gave up on watching television a long time ago. (We only get four channels, two of which are owned by Canada. There is Sky--our version of cable--but it's very expensive and doesn't have anything worth watching. The movies they release are either way behind the States or old stuff I didn't bother watching when I was in the States.)

But after reading some of the posts in here, I can see that perhaps I haven't missed much... I never really got into BSG when I was a kid--the special effects really bugged me. Of course, I played with the toys (until they were recalled because kids were choking on the missles when they fired them into their mouths--like duh) and the Cylon voices were cool... but the costumes sucked, the stories were lame, the special effects were lame (the same explosion clip) and I *hated* the damn joystick operated ships. The actual Battlestar looked like a bad Lego™ project, and it was really hard for me to get into it.

So if they stick more sex appeal and violence into the new miniseries, then maybe it might perk it up a bit. The concept is nothing new--I'd prefer to watch Star Blazers though.

/johnny

 

[MaxKaladin]

*Pick a random guy to frame as a Cylon so I can cover my but while pointing out the cylon thingie (which was never mentioned again). How big a jerk am I for selling out an innocent? Oh wait, I guess he really *was* a Cylon so it all worked out. (OK, so it was Baltar. But now he has unknowing done a good thing for the wrong reason. IF you want him flawed, let him be.)

Ah, but that's the beauty of it. At first, he talks about using the guy as a scapegoat and the next thing you know, he's explaining to Tigh about how he took skin samples and analyzed them to look for the trace elements they found after the cremation of the Cylon from the station. They leave you for the rest of the show thinking Baltar is a rat who used this guy as a scapegoat and made up all that stuff about the test. Then, in the last scene, you find out he really is a cylon. Now, you have to wonder if it was just blind luck he stumbled on an actual cylon as his scapegoat or if he really did find a way to detect cylons and was on the up and up the whole time.

There are a couple of other moments like this where you wonder if Baltar did/was about to do something bad or if he genuinely had good intentions all the time.

Baltar finds himself in a real fix. He's not a traitor and doesn't want to be one, but his past and present association with "6" puts him in a situation where it would be really easy for people to decide he is one. He knows he can help out, especially with the info he's getting from "6", but he's trying to do so without revealing the things that would make others see him as a traitor. Its true that he looks out for himself before anything else and that helping the fleet out is helping himself out, but I don't think that's his only motivation. I believe he genuinely wants to do the right thing and help people out, just not at the cost of his own life.

Why does he feel responsible? We know that "6" was playing him like a piano, but he also knows he broke the rules for her. Evidently, she wasn't supposed to have the access she did. Rather, he shared his with her so she could help with his program. Some things were said in one of the scenes on Caprica that lead me to believe that some of it was aimed at helping her secure future defense contracts as well. I got the impression from his comments about computer technology during his interview on Caprica that he didn't believe the cylons were comign back anytime soon. He was playing fast and loose with the rules, but I don't think he was an intentional betrayer of humanity. Rather, what he thought was a victimless bending of the rules to gain financial advantage and get in good with his girlfriend turned out to open the door to apocalypse. Because he isn't an evil man, he feels immense guilt about that.

I may have the chronology wrong, but I think the "cylon thingie" was mentioned again. I'm pretty sure the scene where the bridge officer is explaining how he noticed it and thought it was part of the museum setup was after the cylon was arrested.