posted
"They" didn't name it at all. This was something Charles Oines did on his own time (I saw the work-in-progress thread at scifi-meshes.com) based on Eric Chu's concept sketch, and somehow (don't know the details yet) got noticed and allowed them to use his model in the show. According to his own words, they made "minor modifications" before it went to air, which I'm guessing is mostly texture and lighting setups. Charles was the one who named it long before it became BSG canon. Looking at his online portfolio, I'm really not surprised at his choice of name.
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Yes, we were already told about the events but I happened to like seeing them. One of my complaints about the BSG Mini/Pilot was the fact that we were told more about the destruction of the colonies than we actually saw. Television is a visual medium. Show us, don't tell us.
I didn't notice all the parallels between Cain/Pegasus and Adama + Co. /Galactica and Fleet until I was reading another DB. I really liked the parallels and how the different commanders reacted to the same situations.
Adama and Cain both retreated from the attack on the colonies. Both decided to fight for their survival. Both gave rousing speeches that the crew echoed with "So say we all!"
Roslyn and Lee had to strand several colonist with inoperative (or lacking) FTL drives. They saved who they could and left the rest to die. Cain and the Pegasus stranded several colonists after stripping them of key personnel and FTL drives/parts.
Adama ordered Lee to fire on and destroy the Olympic Carrier and all of its crew because of suspicion they may have been Cylons. Tigh led a marine massacre on the Gideon. Cain's new XO Frisk and Shaw led a marine massacre on a civilian transport.
Adama and Cain were both betrayed by a Cylon sleeper agent posing as one of the crew.
Is Adama a bad leader? Is he too soft? I'll grant you he's made some decisions I disagree with (such as keeping Tigh as XO) but he doesn't really have many options. He's alone in a difficult position with the weight of the entire human civilization on his shoulders. He's had Roslyn at his side to help him carry this burden though.
Even without Roslyn I doubt Adama would have made the same decisions Cain did. Cain was too haughty, too full of herself. Cain placed her own superiority above the lives of everyone else. Cain forgot that she swore an oath to protect and defend the colonies against hostile aggression. Instead she felt that SHE and the Pegasus were the colonies. When they found the Galactica SHE told Adama "Welcome back to the Colonial Fleet" as if he was the one that was lost. Cain refused to follow the orders of the duly elected president of the Colonies, her Commander in Chief.
I used to work for a man that watched BSG. His name was Bill and he kinda liked the fact that Adama was named Bill. Let me tell you, I'd much rather have followed Bill Adama than the Bill I worked for.
Think what you will about Adama and his shortcomings but just remember there is worse out there. A lot worse.
Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Yes, we were already told about the events but I happened to like seeing them. One of my complaints about the BSG Mini/Pilot was the fact that we were told more about the destruction of the colonies than we actually saw. Television is a visual medium. Show us, don't tell us.
Well the whole story is told in a "you are here" kind of way, hence the shaky cameras, zooms and whatnot. To cut to a sweeping montage of mass destruction would violate the basic concept of the show, to say nothing of being gratuitous. We saw what we needed to see, that is a news report interrupted by a blast wave, nuclear flashes seen from orbit, mushroom clouds on the horizon, refugees running for the hills...what more did you expect?
Anyway, the story isn't about the attack, it's about the people who ran from it, so it's told from their perspective (with the odd exception.) Which is why you won't find a "SPEAK CENTURION!" - "BY YOUR COMMAND IMPERIOUS LEADER." scene anywhere.
quote:Originally posted by OnToMars: Which goes back to the discussion of what kind of commander is Adama. I think Reverend has it spot on, and I remember making this argument a long time back. Adama isn't a good commander, and subsequent flashbacks have revealed this. He saw one mission in the war, got back in thanks to nepotism, fucked up his real command, and got handed Galactica to quietly wait out retirement. And looking at the crew, at least at the start of the miniseries draws it out even further; the troublesome pilot that decks superior officers, the fraternizing pilot and enlisted crew chief, and the drunk mess of an XO. The only apparent blemish on this view is Lee's callsign as Apollo, which he presumably got because he was the son of a "god," presumably meaning William Adama. But one flight instructor's ironic sarcasm can explain that.
I agree, this is a spot-on analysis. And it wildly - but correctly - deviates from the conventional wisdom that was flying around at the time of the "Pegasus/Resurrection Ship" arc, that Adama was a true leader of men, while Cain was obviously a peacetime commander who probably got where she was via cushy staff assignments, and was consequently way out of her depth when faced with a real war.
Instead, there have been a string of revelations that have chipped away at Adama's halo. And as Herb says, there are parallels between the two commanders' actions since the war started, but only at a cursory glance - Adama abandoned the non-FTL ships because he had no choice, he couldn't help them, Cain could have helped those ships but chose not to; Tigh lost control of his men during that massacre, while Cain's men were acting under her orders transmitted via her XO and pet Aussie.
No, I think it's more about Adama and Cain as mirrors of each other. Cain, it transpires, was the successful peaceime commander who got where she was by merit; Adama wasn't as succesful, getting where he was by influence (initially) and, bearing in mind how much longer it took him to reach a senior-but-lower rank than Cain held, maybe only his seniority and years-in-service. But when they found themselves faced with a cataclysmic war, the professional went to pieces, the fuckup pulled things together. Which really brings us down to their respective characters, again. . .
quote:Adama abandoned the non-FTL ships because he had no choice, he couldn't help them,
Actually, just a quick nit: that was Lee Adama who recommended abandoning the non-FTL ships when the civilian ships were found by the Cylons (and then Roslin who gave the order to carry out his recomendation). This was before the civilian fleet joined Galactica at the Anchorage.
quote:Yes, we were already told about the events but I happened to like seeing them. One of my complaints about the BSG Mini/Pilot was the fact that we were told more about the destruction of the colonies than we actually saw. Television is a visual medium. Show us, don't tell us.
We did see the destruction of the Colonies. We saw shattered Battlestars burning in orbit of Caprica. We say nuclear explosions reaching into the atmosphere. We saw crowds of panicked people fleeing into the countryside. Seeing scenes such as the one in Razor, while fitting for that movie, would have been gratuitous in the BSG miniseries.
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Did Cain ever really think she could defeat the Cylons with her one battlestar? I always got the impression that she was aiming to go out with a bang thereby making her dangerous because at some point she would have placed the fleet on a suicide mission.
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
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I don't think she thought that far.
I think the extent of her thought process was, "How best can we fight them?"
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
For those that loved seeing the interior of the old raider, thank Mojo!
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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