posted
Folks have been fighting over Galactica's incarnations for years now - but the original series fans seem to have petered down to a shrinking number of increasingly embittered people. Same thing happened when TNG hit the screen, and that passed as well (albeint much more quietly, thanks to a lack of internetting). Anyway, whole websites have imploded over the fighting, so I'd rather not extend that outside of the flameboard on this one. The vast majority here love the new series and respect the old, which suits me just fine.
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: I agree that the CIC makes sense, but I have one question: Who STEERS Galactica? We seem to have answered this question on the Pegasus, but I don't remember anyone doing the same on Galactica.
B.J.
This was shown in the miniseries. There are four helmsmen in CIC, occupying the middle section of the "ampthitheatre" seating on one side of the room. Each seat has a control yoke and specialized controls, which we can't really see from the main places they put the cameras on the floor level. Anwyay, the introductory description for the miniseries read something like each of the helmsmen held primary control over one of the four main attitude control thruster clusters, as well as shared control of the main engines. FTL is a seperate position in CIC and doesn't have much to do directly with moving the ship STL, and Gaeta handles that along with his navigational duties.
EDIT: This confirms most of what I said and changes a little bit too.
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I don't understand Benedict's reaction now, especially since he and Katee met at a Starbucks (heh) before filming the miniseries. From what I remember, he basically gave her the "welcome aboard" speech. Wish I could find a link about that.
quote: I don't want to sound like a fanboy or a basher, but the fact remains that the original show, for all its merits, never seemed to think the entire concept through. From simple stuff like the Cylons "destroying" the colonies with strafing laser fire, to the silly notion that a mere three days after the whole thing, everyone's already smiling and clean and happy at a party? The whole thing was just half-baked � at least in retrospect. (We all view past works through the goggles of our own times, of course. Just like the original Star Trek, we can't entirely judge its style and say it was wrong to make the show.)
I think that's the key here. We're judging a 1979 show based on our current perceptions and viewpoints. You have to put the original BSG in it's proper context, and that includes the mindset that SciFi was for children and, at the timeslot it was shown in, certain sanitizing had to take place to appease the censors.
Additionally the show starred Lorne Greene. There's a certain mindset from the get-go that the show would promote wholesome entertainment and not focus on the dark underbelly of society.
Which the new show is embracing. Rapes, torture, various hard-core vices, death, destruction... These are ugly factors of our times and the show reflects that.
Additionally, you really can't tell a show like this without giving attention to some of the darker undertones. These people are fleeing the devasation of their entire civilization. There are bound to be some dark repurcussions.
You can't tell a show like this without hilighting the starvation, lack of supplies, overcrowding, and the traumatic stress that is associated with such a holocost.
And some of this we've not even seen yet. Supplies have been mentioned, but we've not really seen any of the disease or starvation. No overcrowding issues. Not really much in the way of post-traumatic stress. No real rage, alienation or guilt (except for Starbuck and Apollo). Not much in the way of suicidal thoughts (again, excpet for Apollo). The stresses should be felt by everyone.
Moving on...
quote:I have to again grudgingly agree with you on that statement. But I wish that Moore would have been just a little more loyal to the original namely on the design of the new Battlestar. I have never like the design of the ship or the bridge area in the new ship, the design of the bridge and the design of the original Battlestar are classic and well done but that is my 2 cents on the matter. Pw
I like the design of the ship and the sets. Well, the design of the Galactica has grown on me. I didn't like it at first. I really dig the Pegasus, but that's because it looks like the original.
I do like the internal layout. I like the feel the sets give off. It looks realistic.
But there is a lot I wish Moore and Co. would have taken from the original.
I don't like how everyone looks like they just stepped off of a plane from New York or LA. Everyone looks too much like modern day society in dress and grooming.
While the robes may have been passe, I liked how different than modern society the clothing on the original BSG looked.
Additionally the effort made to use different terms for distance and time. Oh, sure, they really could have been better (the Cylons were 5 microns away... 5 microns? We can't even see a distance that small). At least they tried. Centars, Yarens...
(Side note: Farscape did a good job of using different terms and being consistent with how they were used).
And shame on Ron Moore for getting Triad and Pyramid mixed up. Tsk Tsk Tsk...
Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by HerbShrump: Additionally the show starred Lorne Greene. There's a certain mindset from the get-go that the show would promote wholesome entertainment and not focus on the dark underbelly of society.
Y'know, that's a little tidbit that I know I knew before, but I always seem to forget. It's a very valid point that shows that the original show and the remake were always intended for very different directions and audiences.
However, even by that measure, I still believe that the whole concept of a "destruction of Human society" premise was therefore inappropriate from the get-go. If they couldn't address the issues, they shouldn't have done it at all.
The best way to sum up my feelings:
quote:Apollo: Dr. Ravishol, your worker clones have secretly been having children. Ravishol: Impossible! They are all under strict orders to obey Straczynski's Law -- "No cute kids or robots, ever!" Boxey: (out of sight) Muffit! Come back here! Muffit: (out of sight) Yap yap yap! Ravishol: Exactly who and what was that? Apollo: Nobody and nothing. Just ignore them.
I can't say I exactly miss Boxey on the current show, but I really loved his few scenes in the early part of the season. Especially when he was being corrupted by Starbuck.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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posted
Tigh: "Where's your mother?" Boxey: "Dead. Where's yours?"
I did love that scene. More than just for the sarcasm. Boxey's comment highlighted the devastating consequences of the attack. Whole families were ripped apart with survivors losing spouses, children, parents, siblings, etc...
That's an avenue the show could have explored except hasn't. Everyone semes to have adjusted fairly well over the last nine months.
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: It's like getting bent out of shape because no one talks about the Articles of Confederation anymore.
Well, come on, those things did rock. These days it's just constitution this, constitution that. The Articles were far more in line with the original ideals of the founders anyway...
-------------------- "Brave men are vertebrates: they have their softness on the outside, and their toughness in the middle" -Lewis Carrol
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posted
The image of a male Starbuck smoking cigars now seems more jarring than that of a female one does. The idea of a woman smoking cigars is, well, I don't know how to describe it - saucy? But a young man smoking cigars, you just think "You're trying too hard!"
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It's a little bit sad. As is Dirk Benedict's post. I was secretly hoping he'd make a guest appearance, but it would seem that bridge is burnt. Faceman's makes some good points (re: overbleak + teh sexxors + the case for roguish swanks), and I didn't realize it'd been such a struggle for Starbuck to be such a 'chauvinist' rogue, but I don't know that making Starbuck a girl is really the afront to masculinity he makes it out to be. If you're going to take gender equality seriously and have really competent girls fighting side by side with dudes on the show, one of the original series principles was going to have to be cast differently.
As I understand it there is apparently this whole Mormon underpinning to the orginal series which (not really knowing much of anything about mormonism) I missed. But anyway that might explain some of the hinkiness.
I do like the original series, and I felt like that original pilot episode showed a lot of promise. But there were some just terrible episodes and there was an awful lot of fluff in there. I for one was relieved to find the new series didn't re-tread that well-worn ground.
People are going to criticize, whatever, but I'm not sure drawing unflattering comparisons to the original series is really all that relevant. Or relevant to whether this is a good show. Certainly ship-design, costume and set differences are fairly cosmetic details which may have disappointed personal expectations, but I think there are plenty of thematic disparities from the original series which might take precedence. Like it seems that pretty much any beautiful or innocent thing on the show is inevitably going to be shit upon and then betrayed. ($$$$$ NuBSG 2nd season spoiler-y in next sentence!!!!) Billy Keikeya we hardly knew ye. And while it was necessary to get away from the (literal) puppy-hugging in the original series, I do feel like the new series doesn't have to ALWAYS feel like we're all swimming in the Trainspotting toilet. Maybe just that if you really want to show ugliness, you need to have a little beauty for contrast. And so this would be my example of a critcism of the new show which while it might harken to the original isn't saying the new one is bad because it's different.
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
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posted
I'm not sure where any Mormon stuff might play in but I always wondered if the OBG's use of the Egyptian motif in some stuff was the seed idea that brought about Stargate.
The original series did have promise but TV shows just were NOT that sophisticated in the 80's. We're talking Magnum, A-team, Charlie's Angels, Buck Rogers era here. I see Babylon 5 as an example of the way the OBG could have been made, as a streaming storyline actually heading somewhere. Instead we got that era's version of continuity. BTW...does anyone remember how Baltar in the OBG ended up commanding a Basestar?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
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Wiz: Baltar betrayed Humanity because he wanted the Cylons to spare his colony only and set him up as Supreme Ruler. The Cylons, naturally, had no interest in sparing any Humans at all. They were getting ready to execute Baltar when the Galactica and the RTF escaped, and they decided they needed his experience to help them hunt the fleet down. So they set him up with that silly-yet-creepy-looking Imperious Leader.
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
posted
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: I'm not sure where any Mormon stuff might play in but I always wondered if the OBG's use of the Egyptian motif in some stuff was the seed idea that brought about Stargate.
The original series did have promise but TV shows just were NOT that sophisticated in the 80's. We're talking Magnum, A-team, Charlie's Angels, Buck Rogers era here. I see Babylon 5 as an example of the way the OBG could have been made, as a streaming storyline actually heading somewhere. Instead we got that era's version of continuity. BTW...does anyone remember how Baltar in the OBG ended up commanding a Basestar?
Meh, for you Peon Pussies who think Oldschool BG is still 'good', think about this:
OBG-Baltar was the seed idea that brought about Cobra Commander, The Iron Fist guy (and the cat) from Inspecter Gaget, Megatron and Starscream (Once Transformers went formulatic), KATT & all the other formulaic loser Poser villains on TV. To even think otherwise....
you didn't see good believable villains (on TV at least) until TNG's later seasons and, of course, Babbleononononononon 5
Though i'm sure our Jason would agree Jason of Star Command should get a second look
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