posted
I'm guessing this is the right place to talk about this, just saw the first ep on SkyOne, was surprised there isn't already a thread about it, might be because the US doesn't get it till jan '05. I gotta say I'm very impressed, I only saw the miniseries recently as I originally avoided it due to the real negative rep it got on the internet.
Few things I noticed that didn't quite make sense, how come they've all of a sudden figured out how to fix the new Vipers? Lee was flying one the whole episode along with several other pilots; speaking of which the MkVIIs don't seem so ugly now they're covered in battlescars and scorch-marks.
Secondly 'Number 6' or whatever her name is, constantly cloning herself, as soon as the Boomer clone shot her another clone appeared before they'd even left sight. Speaking of Boomer she's not a very convincing infiltrator, I mean she never showed any sign of fatigue, she didn't even fake it when Starbuck quipped that she wasn't tired 'cause she was a Cylon. Also when ordered to blow up the passenger ship she never even batted an eyelid while Starbuck was b*tching at Apollo. Good thing about that scene was Apollo who finally showed he had some balls by actually following through on an order to fire on 1300+ civilians for 1 infiltrator. Anyone else notice the 'mad tick' in his eye just before he fired?
Gaius Baltar is turning into an absolute mental case which really doesn't suit him when you consider how good a job he did keeping his hallucinations under control during the miniseries. I totally lost respect for the character when he 'repented' at the end less than a second before the President agreed to destroy the passenger ship. I mean it's obvious to anyone that it's not 'the will of God' but rather the will of the Cylons - he knows that but Number 6 is even more of a mental case than him, I just don't buy that a machine could ever believe in a God, or gods. Baltar had more brains than her.
Anyone else who's seen it got any impressions on it?
P.S. if someone's already made a thread and made a complete idiot of me then I guess someone in charge should just delete this yes?
-------------------- Garbled, confusing and quite frankly duller than an inflight magazine produced by Air Belgium.
Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
posted
Nope, don't think there's a thread on this yet. Canada won't get this until after the States either, so...
As for the Mk VIIs, they were in use again as soon as the ending of the miniseries. The problem was a networked computer virus, not in the hardware at all. As soon as they went back to the older way of doing things (probably by just purging and reloading an older OS, or just unpluggin the network card. ), they were back in the black.
I don't recall the Mk VIIs at the end of the miniseries but I'll have to rewatch it when it's repeated, or get it when it comes out on DVD - probably both.
Forgot to mention - as with all good schmalzy endings they had to have a baby born which cheers everyone up after the 1300+ ppl who had just died.
-------------------- Garbled, confusing and quite frankly duller than an inflight magazine produced by Air Belgium.
Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm pleasantly surprised with this show so far, it looks like it's successfully broken away from the dated feel of the old show while maintaining the spirit of the original premise and injecting some believability* into the bargain, something that most Sci-Fi shows really struggle with.
Regarding Baltar's continuing deterioration, remember that at the start of the episode that everyone has been jumping to L/S every 33mins for 5 days! Even though he's able to get more sleep than the pilots & crews of the ships he's been given no rest of mind from Number 6 (whom I now dub Miss Harvey the neural clone). As he said, the human mind has it's limits and for all we know she really is just a psychotic delusion, so that she exists at all proves that Baltar was always a nutter. On the other hand if there is a chip in his head then she's obviously pushing his buttons so that he'll continue to help the cylons wipe out mankind, by spreading paranoia of infiltrators and directing the decisions of the President. How long until he's rumbled is something I can't wait to see.
As for the Cylons finding religion, it's certainly gives them an interesting dimension and motivation that they lacked in the original show. As to how a machine can believe in God is in itself an interesting question, certainly worthy of discussion. Personally I can recall a few Sci-Fi novels in which Machine intelligence has decided that it fits the human definition of a God and so decides to act accordingly. For example "Ship" in Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident" has a space ark outliving human civilisation and effectively becoming a cross between the Greek Gaia Earth spirit and the Christian all seeing benevolent father figure demanding "WorShip". There also seams to be something similar in the attitude of the Matrix machines, although from the reaction of the machine Child God, that appears to be more about mankind's rejection and abuse of early AI. Sort of an abused child lashing out at it's parents and becoming the abuser, combined with a sense of superiority,(similar to Skynet from Terminator) not because of a belief in a higher being like these new Cylons.
It's possible that the Cylons were initially programmed with the religion of the 12 colonies as a basic moral guide, the ten commandments meets Asimov's laws and that when the intelligence began to break free it saw humanities hypocrisy in regards to religion, morality and ethics and believed that only the machines were capable of following the will of god and so took it upon themselves to punish the "sinners".
Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree but either way, I'd be very interested to see where the show takes this concept.
*NOTE: Believability isn't quite the same as realism, but for the purposes of war a drama it's just as good.
quote:I don't recall the Mk VIIs at the end of the miniseries but I'll have to rewatch it when it's repeated, or get it when it comes out on DVD - probably both.
Forgot to mention - as with all good schmalzy endings they had to have a baby born which cheers everyone up after the 1300+ ppl who had just died.
The newer Vipers were definatly used in the closing battle of the mini-series and as for the child, it's obviously a symbol of hope, that the human race can go on. Of course hope has nothing to do with mathematics, but that's what seperates us from the Cylons.
posted
Personally I rather hope that Baltar doesn't get rumbled, he's my kind of guy - narcissistic, manipulative, self-obssesed, devoutly atheist (yes I know that's an oxymoron) and generally a rather amoral dude - pretty much all the personality traits I admire.
I found the religious Cylons a refreshing change from most shows where the good guys are religious and inevitably triumph against the evil technology by keeping their faith. If the Cylons are as you say taking the ten commandments too far and punishing us for our sins it kind of lends the show a 'we deserved it' quality, which given that the humans will win in 7 years time if we deserved it then we'd be sticking it to God in style by wiping out his armies of righteous vengeance - the Cylons.
Hope is an incredibly stupid emotioin that blinds humans to the fact that they really are screwed, obviously this is a show about the BSG saving humanity so hope will prevail over mathematics but in the real world hope is BS (sans the 'G') and when you only have around 47k people left in your whole species you ain't got a chance in hell unless you find a real safe planet with no natural predators (and no Cylons chasing you every half an hour) and start screwing like rabits.
Of course I am very impressed with the show in general, certainly I can't stand the original and Star Trek has become a chore to watch so it's nice to finally have a decent SF show back on in the monday evening slot; but I can see already the obvious hollywood clich�s appearing.
P.S. they really need to repaint the MkVII Vipers, I dunno why they weren't red and white like the old MkIIs.
-------------------- Garbled, confusing and quite frankly duller than an inflight magazine produced by Air Belgium.
Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
quote:I found the religious Cylons a refreshing change from most shows where the good guys are religious and inevitably triumph against the evil technology by keeping their faith. If the Cylons are as you say taking the ten commandments too far and punishing us for our sins it kind of lends the show a 'we deserved it' quality, which given that the humans will win in 7 years time if we deserved it then we'd be sticking it to God in style by wiping out his armies of righteous vengeance - the Cylons.
Well that is as they say, a matter of perspective. Just because the Cylons belive it don't make it so. On the other hand, in this story humanity is practially wiped out by it's own failings as much as a cylon military strike, since it was human weekness, in this case Baltar's lust that allowed the Cylons to compromise the defence net. Also it was human complacancy that ignored the Cylon threat after the war and allowed the civilisation to become soft and decadent. Then of course there's the folly of science when the Cylons were originally created to be slaves of mankind. These are all classic themes that are as old as the hills. Good examples are Plato's story of Atlantis, Exodus and Pandora's Box.
Another way to interpret this is to say that it's a symbolic battle of reason over superstition, which is shown in microcosm in the form of Baltar's psyche. You might also say that it's about the unthinking, almost automaton nature of religious fanaticism or indeed good old reckless self-righteousness overwhelming freethinking, rationality and objectiveness.
quote:Hope is an incredibly stupid emotioin that blinds humans to the fact that they really are screwed, obviously this is a show about the BSG saving humanity so hope will prevail over mathematics but in the real world hope is BS (sans the 'G') and when you only have around 47k people left in your whole species you ain't got a chance in hell unless you find a real safe planet with no natural predators (and no Cylons chasing you every half an hour) and start screwing like rabits.
If you loose hope then you really are buggered, since hope is another word for unrelenting persistance. Without hope you just accept the odds, give up and die and serves you right too. In this case it showed that while humanity is falling into the abyss, it is also decelerating. Therein lies the hope that they can decelerate enough to survive long enough to escape extinction. After all hope is a very human thing, possibly the defining difference between humanity and their creations.
quote:P.S. they really need to repaint the MkVII Vipers, I dunno why they weren't red and white like the old MkIIs.
I seriously doubt the fighters' asthetics are very high on the list of priorities right now. besides from a production standpoint it makes it easier to distinguish between Starbuck and Apollo in the dogfighting scenes.
* Why did the Cylons pull out a ship that was tracking them so well and try such an easy to detect tactic? Unless they really weren't aware how draining the 33 minute jumps were ... or they have other means of tracking the fleet anyways.
* An interesting choice with Boomer and Helo(?) back on Caprica. Why try this deception with someone that probably wouldn't know anything of use? Or maybe this is the "real" Boomer that was used as a template. (Shades of Blade Runner, if true)
* Looks like the population count has replaced the shuttlecraft count But seriously, BSG will have even more resource problems than Voyager, apparantly since they're trying to avoid the "alien of the week" cliche. But with the run-down crew, makeshift chapel/photo gallery, stimulants, and continuing story-lines, it looks like they're really trying to avoid many of the problems that accompanied Voyager.
* Low-key music, especially the title theme which is a bit surprising after the bombastic Star Trek/Babylon 5/Star Wars themes and to be honest aside from *maybe* the Cylon pattern (I'd be hard pressed to call it a theme) there aren't any real melodies at all.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
"I found the religious Cylons a refreshing change from most shows where the good guys are religious and inevitably triumph against the evil technology by keeping their faith."
Has this ever been the plot of a science fiction show? I can think of plenty "tampering in God's domain" plots, but not a single example of brave religious believers triumphing over the godless forces of technology.
Anyway, outside of explicitly religious fiction, religions and religious believers tend to be the bad guys in SF scenerios more often than they are the heroes, especially on TV. From this perspective, having the Battlestar Galacticians be proto-Mormons would be the more iconoclastic choice.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
They were Proto-Mormons in the original version as well....
As to the "machines finding religion" thing, Dan Simmons explores this expertly in his novel Hyperion. The AI's there decide to evolve themselves into a Ultimate Inteligence or "UI"...trouble is, as soon as they commit to the couse, they get a message from their UI in the fiture: "...there is another." Seems the memories and whatnot of all deceased humans will eventually form a human UI and so....
But I digress.
Is the obvious problem of their eventually running out of Ammo addressed?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Well, not science fiction but there's Lord of the Rings. As for science fiction, Dune's fremen is the only thing that immediately comes to mind.
...and I wonder if you're being intentionally ironic since Mormonism is probably one of the bigger influences on the original Battlestar Galactica. http://www.michaellorenzen.com/galactica.html
On a related note, there's always a good debate as to the influence of Mormonism on Orson Scott Card's books. There's definitely some religious oddness going on with his later Ender's Game books like Shadow Puppets.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Re: Card: I haven't read anything he's written since, uh, Pastwatch, I think, or Speaker for the Dead, whichever came latter, but seeing as how he's written a fantasy(magic realist?) novel sequence that's more or less explicitly about North America seen through a Book of Mormon lens (Alvin Maker), and another sf sequence that's like that but in space (Homecoming, I think? ((Which, come to think of it, may be a lot like Battlestar Galactica, though, again, I haven't read it.))), plus at least a couple novels about Biblical figures (OK, not exclusively LDS ones, but still), I'd say he makes no effort to hide his own beliefs in his fiction.
Sometimes. Now, despite that, he's got lots of stuff that isn't particulary Mormon, and for awhile I'd have said that he's a fine example of how an author and his/her work are separate entities.
But don't get me started about Orson Scott Card and some of his beliefs and opinions.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I'm impressed we've gotten this far without someone making a "where do all the calculators go?" reference.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
The Cylons actually reminds me more of Judaism, with their predestination, one God the absolute God, a chosen race with a special mission, etc. Very Old Testement in their conduct of foreign policy to boot.
Anyone else notice that after the fighters were recovered for the first time in the episode, the Chief examines a damaged MkII with a missing wing then comments that Apollo owes him a wing? Apollo was flying a MkVII. At least seeing a MkVII devulnerized so soon gives me hope that some other colonial units might have survive *coughPheonixcough*.
BTW, anyone got a count of the MkVII Galactica has left? I only tagged only one and that was the one Apollo left behind when he borrowed one of the old MkIIs in the miniseries.
If the Galactica has less than half her strength in fighters left, I can't image how she'd survive this. Her shipboard weapons seems pretty limited and having mostly decade old MkII, even with refurbished systems would put them one-on-one at a considerable disadvantage.
I like the new BSG, but they need to tighten up on their writing, way too many little logic problems in an episode reminds me of VOY. For example, there's a time delay between the end of the FTL jump and the resetting of the 33 minutes timer, but the Cylons always show up exactly at the same time. You'd think it wasn't the nav system they tapped into, but the clocks.
And in the miniseries, all Six needed to access the Defence Mainframe and all its data was a code. WTF? You'd think the colonial government, even if it went network, would have something that important a bit more protected. Why doesn't the Cylons just hack the mainframe, considering the way they were portrayed sounds like they could hack into a wristwatch? If networked systems were that vulnerable against the Cylons and the Colonials went with them anyways, you'd think that every individual system of a ship or station would be firewalled and virus protected against each other, and against every other unit in the fleet.
*cross arms* End Communications.
Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Point is they could hack into a watch, the Colonials probably had extremely advanced protection for their networks, Gaius gave 6 access to the defense mainframe - that's how they got in, they were let in.
They've never really given us a count of all the fighters they had on board, the MkIIs were kept off in storage somewhere so it's possible they still had a couple of MkVIIs they didn't send to get blown up.
Re: the clock reset, man that's just anal-retentive, there is such a thing as paying too much attention.
-------------------- Garbled, confusing and quite frankly duller than an inflight magazine produced by Air Belgium.
Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
), they were back in the black.![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
