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plutherusSaw the new Battlestar Galactica last night.
I loved this show!
I was a big fan of the original, and have been awaiting the remake for 20 years. And I
gotta say, in many ways, it's better than the original. There were some great scenes
in here. The characters all have a lot more depth to them, as well. Not that I thought
the originals were as one-dimensional as most modern TV characters, but the new ones
are, imnsho, even better.
While, if it ever does go to series, I doubt it'll replace Babylon 5 from the top of my
favorites list, it does have a lot of potential. Certainly, it's better than anything
Star Trek's done lately.
First off, Zack starts off dead (Apollo's brother who died in the original, if you
don't remember). But his death is felt more strongly in this new version than it was
before. For one, it's the cause of a major rift between Apollo and his father,
Commander Adama. Apollo blames Adama for pushing him into becoming a fighter pilot,
and pulling strings to get him into a Viper before he's ready.
Then there's Col. Tigh. Completely changed from the competent, cool, right-hand man of
the original. He's XO of the Galactica, looking forward to retiring, drinking, playing
cards with the crew, and sensitive about his recent marital problems. Sensitive enough
that he flips the table over onto Starbuck during their Pyramid game leading to her
striking him and landing herself in the brig. A move that, of course, saved her life
since she wasn't there to take out a Raptor space fighter to go fight the Cylons,
instead ending up on one of the old decommissioned Vipers, which, lacking the fancy
computerized systems of the Raptors, couldn't be simply shut down.
Speaking of which, it's been 50 years since the war with the Cylons ended (instead of
starting off with the fake armistice the way the original did). In the war, the Cylons
were able to take over the humans' computer systems, leading to the military taking a
giant step backwards in technology in self-defense. While now slowly starting to
advance in computer technology (Baltar is a defense-contractor A.I. specialist, for
instance), there is a lot of general distrust of it. Especially from Adama, who is
nearly Luddite in his views of technology, from insisting that all landings on his
Battlestar be hands-on instead of utilizing the common auto-landing computers the rest
of the fleet does, to his absolute insistence that every computer system be
independent, not even allowing the Secretary of Education (who later becomes the
President when the all the rest of the cabinet is wiped out) to network the educational
computers together.
The anti-technology sentiment is apparent throughout, as they brake out the "lightspeed
calculation tables" before calculating their hyper-jump, to the printout systems they
use for official communiques between spacecraft. (Coincidentally, putting the computer
technology about on par to the early-80's level shown in the original series :-)
A couple of scenes I loved:
As Commander Adama's old Viper is unveiled, he comments that "I haven't seen one of
these in twenty years." Loved that line.
A Galactica shuttle, landed on Caprica to make repairs - as you see the mushroom clouds
in the distance from the Cylon nukes, a huge mob tries to get on board. Far too many
for them to take, they load in all the children first (including a kid that looks
suspiciously like Boxy from the original series, including the same haircut), and do up
a quick lottery to determine who else to take. Baltar is in the crowd. As they call
#47, an old lady next to him hands him the ticket, "can you read this? I lost my
glasses and my eyes aren't too good." It is, of course, #47. Baltar takes it, takes a
step forward and yells out "Number 47," and, when you think, oh, of course, he's gonna
steal the old women's place, leaving her to die, he continues, "this woman here has
number 47. He then helps her to the ship. Not quite the incompetent coward and
paragon of evil from the original series.
Col. Tigh, obviously not a respected leader of the Galactica crew, orders a series of
compartments sealed off and opened to space to put out a fire before it can reach the
hangar bays. The problem is that there are still a hundred men in the compartments.
"If they remember their training, they'll take cover and hold on to something while the
compartments are open to space." Apparently, 85 of them did not remember their
training. The pit chief believes he was overly hasty and cowardly in not giving him
the 40 seconds he needed to evacuate his men first, and complains to Adama. Adama
reminds him that Tigh is the XO and he therefore needs to obey his orders. The pit
chief tells him that the Colonel was too hasty and those men could have been saved. It
is never revealed whether he is right or not.
A lot of relationships like that are set up, begging for further explanation (and,
mercifully, no hint of any romantic relationship between Starbuck and Apollo). I hope
it does go to series, it could be very good. The producer seems to like it a lot,
taking it very seriously, and implying that he believes he is creating a great piece of
art. Arrogant, yes, and a far cry better than the, "hey, it's only Star Trek" attitude
of the producers of that other SF show.
Lots of potential here, for the characters and the universe both, and if I had a TV I'd
probably watch it regularly if it did go to series.
Oh, yeah, and the characters still say "Frack". A lot.
And, thankfully, so sign of any Daggits, robotic or otherwise.
I loved this show!
I was a big fan of the original, and have been awaiting the remake for 20 years. And I
gotta say, in many ways, it's better than the original. There were some great scenes
in here. The characters all have a lot more depth to them, as well. Not that I thought
the originals were as one-dimensional as most modern TV characters, but the new ones
are, imnsho, even better.
While, if it ever does go to series, I doubt it'll replace Babylon 5 from the top of my
favorites list, it does have a lot of potential. Certainly, it's better than anything
Star Trek's done lately.
First off, Zack starts off dead (Apollo's brother who died in the original, if you
don't remember). But his death is felt more strongly in this new version than it was
before. For one, it's the cause of a major rift between Apollo and his father,
Commander Adama. Apollo blames Adama for pushing him into becoming a fighter pilot,
and pulling strings to get him into a Viper before he's ready.
Then there's Col. Tigh. Completely changed from the competent, cool, right-hand man of
the original. He's XO of the Galactica, looking forward to retiring, drinking, playing
cards with the crew, and sensitive about his recent marital problems. Sensitive enough
that he flips the table over onto Starbuck during their Pyramid game leading to her
striking him and landing herself in the brig. A move that, of course, saved her life
since she wasn't there to take out a Raptor space fighter to go fight the Cylons,
instead ending up on one of the old decommissioned Vipers, which, lacking the fancy
computerized systems of the Raptors, couldn't be simply shut down.
Speaking of which, it's been 50 years since the war with the Cylons ended (instead of
starting off with the fake armistice the way the original did). In the war, the Cylons
were able to take over the humans' computer systems, leading to the military taking a
giant step backwards in technology in self-defense. While now slowly starting to
advance in computer technology (Baltar is a defense-contractor A.I. specialist, for
instance), there is a lot of general distrust of it. Especially from Adama, who is
nearly Luddite in his views of technology, from insisting that all landings on his
Battlestar be hands-on instead of utilizing the common auto-landing computers the rest
of the fleet does, to his absolute insistence that every computer system be
independent, not even allowing the Secretary of Education (who later becomes the
President when the all the rest of the cabinet is wiped out) to network the educational
computers together.
The anti-technology sentiment is apparent throughout, as they brake out the "lightspeed
calculation tables" before calculating their hyper-jump, to the printout systems they
use for official communiques between spacecraft. (Coincidentally, putting the computer
technology about on par to the early-80's level shown in the original series :-)
A couple of scenes I loved:
As Commander Adama's old Viper is unveiled, he comments that "I haven't seen one of
these in twenty years." Loved that line.
A Galactica shuttle, landed on Caprica to make repairs - as you see the mushroom clouds
in the distance from the Cylon nukes, a huge mob tries to get on board. Far too many
for them to take, they load in all the children first (including a kid that looks
suspiciously like Boxy from the original series, including the same haircut), and do up
a quick lottery to determine who else to take. Baltar is in the crowd. As they call
#47, an old lady next to him hands him the ticket, "can you read this? I lost my
glasses and my eyes aren't too good." It is, of course, #47. Baltar takes it, takes a
step forward and yells out "Number 47," and, when you think, oh, of course, he's gonna
steal the old women's place, leaving her to die, he continues, "this woman here has
number 47. He then helps her to the ship. Not quite the incompetent coward and
paragon of evil from the original series.
Col. Tigh, obviously not a respected leader of the Galactica crew, orders a series of
compartments sealed off and opened to space to put out a fire before it can reach the
hangar bays. The problem is that there are still a hundred men in the compartments.
"If they remember their training, they'll take cover and hold on to something while the
compartments are open to space." Apparently, 85 of them did not remember their
training. The pit chief believes he was overly hasty and cowardly in not giving him
the 40 seconds he needed to evacuate his men first, and complains to Adama. Adama
reminds him that Tigh is the XO and he therefore needs to obey his orders. The pit
chief tells him that the Colonel was too hasty and those men could have been saved. It
is never revealed whether he is right or not.
A lot of relationships like that are set up, begging for further explanation (and,
mercifully, no hint of any romantic relationship between Starbuck and Apollo). I hope
it does go to series, it could be very good. The producer seems to like it a lot,
taking it very seriously, and implying that he believes he is creating a great piece of
art. Arrogant, yes, and a far cry better than the, "hey, it's only Star Trek" attitude
of the producers of that other SF show.
Lots of potential here, for the characters and the universe both, and if I had a TV I'd
probably watch it regularly if it did go to series.
Oh, yeah, and the characters still say "Frack". A lot.
And, thankfully, so sign of any Daggits, robotic or otherwise.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-10 06:20 pm (UTC)A hint...
Date: 2003-12-11 01:25 am (UTC)I hope they develop a close, friendly, working relationship, like the original Starbuck and Apollo did. It's such a TV cliche (that even Babylon 5 fell into) that there must be sexual tension between any two people of the opposite sex working together. The X-Files proved that even on TV people will buy a profession relationship between a man and a woman (well, at least for about 5-1/2 years anyway :-)
But confessing after 2 years of estrangement that she was the one responsible for his brothers death that he'd always blamed his father for should add an interesting dimension to their relationship. Actually, there's quite a few relationships I'm looking forward to seeing developed if it goes to series, including the open animosity between the pit chief (forgot his name) and Col. Tigh. And the hottest, most famous pilot, is on the pit chief's side in that one...
I'm even looking forward to seeing more of Boxy, though I don't imagine it'll be pleasant when the truth about Boomer comes out...
Hell of a lot of drama potential for Baltar, too, with his various problems.