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Olmos Tells Fans: "Don't Watch Galactica"
Obiwan Kenobi writes "Edward James Olmos, in a meeting with a group of TV Critics, did something unbelievable: he pleaded with them to tell their readers not to watch the new Battlestar Galactica remake on the Sci-Fi Channel: 'I must say one thing and will say this very clearly, if you are a person who really has a strict belief in the original, I would not advise that you watch this program. It'll hurt them.'"
From everything I've read or heard about this miniseries (including conversations with some SciFi channel employees assigned to the project), it is exceptionally more crapacular than Episode I and Higherlander 2 combined.
Avoid avoid avoid...
In a related story, William Shatner wants people to watch ST:TNG, DS9, VOYAGER, and ENTERPRISE, because they're "da bomb."
Best way to get people to do something is to tell them not to!
by the fact that Starbuck is played by
Katee Sackhoff.
Yummy.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
'if you are a person who really has a strict belief in the original, I would not advise that you watch this program. It'll hurt them.'
"On the other hand," he continued, "If you really have a strict belief in the original, watching this probably won't make your life any worse."
Here's his personal website: http://members.aol.com/mbeve10258/EddieOlmos.html? mtbrand=AOL_US and here's another page about all this: http://members.aol.com/ejowebmistress/BSG.html?mtb rand=AOL_US
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
He's been saying this for quite some time now (Google: olmos galactica purist).
Clearly this is just PR. I wonder how many of the "purists" will actually tune out?
Suckas.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
Your Reverse-psychology-fu is useless against my hazy recollection of C-3PO wannabes with KITT eyes and creepy cyborg bear-things!
Ceci n'est pas un post.
Granted, these shows are cheap, but Sci-Fi got great ratings (i think) when they brought Star Trek to the network, proving that light entertainment is appreciated. So why the realism in a Battlestar Galactica show? Why the heck is Sci-Fi so dark?
I just might watch.
I believe it was Harlan Ellison who called the original series "Battlestar Galaxative".
Olmos said that FANBOYS of the old series should not watch the new series because they backstory was thrown out and a new one created. He never said people in GENERAL should not watch it.
Oops, I think I multi posted this by accident. Sorry.
I'm curious...I wonder if the mythos of the show, which were basically cribbed from the Book Of Mormon and also may or may not have included some items of Mormon dogma that the LDS folks wanted to keep secret, will remain intact in the remake?
It is interesting to note that the LDS Church did not sue ABC over Battlestar Galactica. Then again, the Super Seekrit Skripturez of the Church of Scientology are very well protected under the Sonny Bono Act, where the Book of Mormon passed into the Public Domain generations ago. If someone cribbed the bizarro stuff that passes for "higher revelations" in the CoS and used them as inspiration for a SF movie/TV show, the one who had the temerity to do so would probably be legal dead meat. Not to mention OTHER possible ramifications...[shudder]
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Plus he'll get Hoss to beat you up.
The old Battlestar Galactica suffered in comparison to Star Wars because the television series could give no hope that the heroes would win. The heroes were therefore losers. On the other hand the constraints of network television story telling demanded that the enemy Cylons, at least the normal soldiers, be portrayed as being ridiculously inept and incompetent, to be swept away like flies in single combat when the heroes used their innate ability. Both sides were portrayed as losers.
Decades have passed and United States audiences willing to watch science fiction have been exposed to anti-heroes in the mass media, from the movies to TV shows such as the Sopranos to WWE pro wrestling. The anti-hero is almost a norm, and it is expected for the weak to be continuously humiliated.
Now is the right time to re-image the Galactica story. Instead of network television having to cater to mass tastes, the Sci Fi Channel can concentrate on a smaller niche, a niche that is quite comfortable with WWE or reality show entertainment.
When I read purported leaks of the Galactica storyline by Ron Moore, I saw that Moore had solved all of the problems posed by the constraints on the original series. What Moore has done is to understand that while the supposed heroes are required to fill up time on the screen, the real stars of the series are the Cylons. Victims in modern television are no more to be pitied than the people trampled in a Japanese monster movie. The story of Galactica has never been about the humans, it should have been, and Moore has remade it to be, about the rise and victory of the new dominant species, the new top predator.
Many will criticize the ridiculous and humiliating portrayal of humans in the new Galactica series. What they fail to see is that we should watch the story as if it were told from the Cylons' perspective. The new series will examine why humans are inferior and why Cylons are obligated to wage total war to eliminate human evil.
Root for the true good guys of Galatica--the Cylons.
Yeah, not mention really, really bad physics.
Col. Tigh: We're dangerously low on fuel
Cmdr. Adama: Bring the fleet to a halt.
Uh... yeah... must be because of all that interstellar drag. The next line should have been:
Col. Tigh: I said WE'RE LOW ON FUEL.
But in all honesty, I was so young when Galactica was made, I really just watched it because I liked to pretend I was Boxie... a six yaron old snot nosed brat living on the coolest ship in a rag-tag fugitive fleet, fleeing the Cylon tyranny.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Think about it. The original concept of Battlestar Gallactica was great: Refugees struggling to escape annihalation and find a new home. But there were so many bad, bad things about BG that had nothing to do with the state of the art of special effects.
Here are some examples:
1. The damn robot dog.
2. The incredibly stupid plots - even in the TV movie. Remember the insect aliens running a casino to entrap humans into becoming larva food? The first half of the TV movie was great, but it went way down-hill from there.
3. The damn robot dog.
4. The damn robot dog.
5. Cheesy 70's hair. At least Boomer didn't have an afro, but that wasn't much help.
6. The overall plot turning into something that wasn't all that different from Space 1999 - each episode was either a throw-away event where the BG either meets aliens or suffers a cylon attack, and then escapes at the end - usually after being betrayed by the aliens or fighting off another cylon attack. The episodes dealing with the plot to find Earth were mostly "Gilligan and the Castaways almost, but not quite, make it off the island again" episodes.
The things I remember about BG that were cool was the tech - the whole idea of an aircraft carrier in space, the way-cool Cylon fighters and base-ships, the cylons themselves (except for the leader-bots, which were lame). Even the thinly-veiled Mormon philosophy was OK.
There's just one thing I'm hoping for: No damn robot dog. If they have to have a robot, it had better be Crow-T-Robot, Tom Servo, or Bender. Or a damn robot dog that's very quickly taken over by the Cylons.
Oh yeah, and make Starbuck a lesbian, too.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Really people. If the sci fi channel had the real money to pump into something, they would. *Cough* Farscape! *cough*
Complaining that the sets look cheap on a non-mainstay cable channel isn't the reality of television now. Farscape was the most expensive made for cable show ever. It really needed a lot of viewers. I was one of them, but obviously the economics don't support it. Period. So it died. I cannot help that. I was watching. But at least Sci-fi is trying to do something original. It is at least aggressive about growing its audience. That is why I watch them. They try. And they make original TV. So there. Can you say that about many other channels? Does lifetime have a budget for their made-for-tv crapfests that last seventy million hours? NO. Sci-fi is working on it. It may not be the best, but they are working on it.
Now that Galactica (a mediocre at best TV show, but one that makes us remember our past, I even had a jacket as a kid) comes back for a little cable money, you all start screaming that it is crap long before it airs. Months before it airs. Look, they just cannot afford to make the best shows with the best actors. YOU NEED TO BUY MORE ADVERTISING AND THEN THEY CAN AFFORD TO GROW THE BRAND. Sorry, as much as I am a sci-fi nut, we are a niche market. We will always get a "niche price" on things. Pray that you are not the Oxygen channel and that you have the Isaac Mizrahi show as your original programming.
Look, complaining about the Sci-Fi channel will not change the fact that they are broke and trying to change that. Giving you something to watch... even if it is a remake, is not cheap. They at least have the balls to venture on TV. They are spending money, employing light riggers, paying actors, and getting TV made when you have no room to bitch or get stuck with the same reruns you've seen since '95.
Stop bitching about anyone making new programming, because if the execs smell backlash, then we are getting NOTHING NEW, and they are putting all of their money into TRADING SPACES. Got it?
Transformers Armada is atrocious. Half the time Armada's writers can't bother to get the characters' names right, the animation gives new meaning to the word cheap, and the writers spend so much time hinting at "epic" storylines that the series effectively goes nowhere. As far as remakes or sequels to the original Transformers go, this one is at the bottom of the barrel. Expecting another G1 or Beast Wars is probably asking for too much, but at this point I'll take Beast Machines or Robots in Disguise over the Armada cartoon.
The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon is mostly based on the original Mirage comic, which is why it seems darker than the original cartoon.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
At least the XXX remake "BattleWhore Ejactica" was profitable, albeit derivative...
Its just not going to be the same without Face from the A-Team. I always wanted to see the cross over where the Cylons captured Face + The Rest of the A-Team and then out of a the pieces of their jail cell they created a tank/car, resuce everyone, ended the war and no-one actually got killed :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I used to pitch stories to Star Trek: The Next Generation. My agent was the same one that got Ron Moore started. She got me in the door and I would pitch stories over the phone (I'm told this is VERY rare) to Moore. Even though I did get a couple mentions (by reference, not by name) in "Hollywood Scriptwriter," I have to point out, before I make my comments, that Ron Moore is making a living writing for film and TV and I'm not (although my company will soon be producing video and digital film).
Ron likes to change things. He's the writer at ST:TNG who would frequently change things from the way they were. He wrote "Relics," the episode where Scotty is found in an old ship and says, "I'll bet Jim Kirk himself took the Enterprise out of mothballs to find me." Later he, with Brannon Braga, has Scotty see the gaping hole in "Generations" where Kirk was "killed."
Ron, as best I could tell, is a very intelligent, articulate, and friendly (if shy, it seemed) person. I would never wish him any ill will. However, he has shown that whenever he works with anyone else's material, he "loves to change things" (as Scotty once said). He seems to actually take delight in making sure he takes the original material and changes it enough to actually irritate fans of the original.
Once I saw his name attached to the project, I basically decided I was VERY unlikely to watch it. When I found out Starbuck was a woman, I was sure I wouldn't watch it. It completely destroys the "buddy" relationship that was so important to the original.
This new version (without seeing a single episode) is completely devoid of what real fans of the show liked. It's like finding out that Darth Vader was really really annoying kid who then later turned into a total poser. Oh wait, that really happened. Now you can see what fans are feeling.
Hey, it wasn't the best show that it could have been. The daggit should have been set on fire, roasted and shot into space. Sure, they could have used more space scenes, but you have to understand that ABC wouldn't pay the money to produce more and they were rushing the entire project. Glen Larson did the best with what he had at the time... which was the late seventies. Everyone in the thread seems to be trashing the obvious mistakes, but forget the great stuff the show had. The *robot* cylons were the shiznit. The Vipers were cooler than X-Wings and I'd take Face... er, Starbuck and Apollo over Luke and Wedge any day. The cylon bases were kick ass and Boltar was the guy you loved to hate.
Let me sum up. BG without the Mormon mythos behind it simply isn't the same show. You don't have to agree with the theology any more than you had to agree with the Catholic undertones of the X-Files to enjoy the show. Heck, when the show was in it's first one, no one really even knew it was there. It's what the show was based on and Sci-Fi is using the show in name only to attract viewers. Sci-Fi really should have let Glenn and Richard Hatch do the show *they* wanted done which would have kept the backstory intact and allowed the show to be updated and entertaining.
Here's hoping that the miniseries is a failure and the series never gets started.
A computer-related note: Unlike the original Star Trek bridge, the Battlestar Galactica controls and displays actually worked. Tektronix provided much of the gear. This created a problem - the actors had to be trained to run the stuff. The Trek crew could push random buttons, but the Galactica crew had to get it right. They hated that.
Not likely, 90% of the fans were already planning on not watching, and sci-fi (and everybody involved) knows it. The Battlestar Galactica buletin at the sci-fi channel is full of complaints, "I am not going to watch because...", and leaks about the re-imagining of the series. The re-imagining is based off of the Battlestar Galactica movie, and all changes were made based on the so-called flaws of it.
In fact most of them are planning on boycotting anybody who advertises during the mini-series. It's a poor script, and Ronald Moore has a lot of sexual issues (he turned Battlestar Galactica into a soft-porn flick).
I hang out at the Sci-fi Board for Battlestar Galactica. There is very little support for this re-imaging on the boards. In fact, a couple of people started to fabricate A LOT of personalities to generate support for this re-imaging. In fact it pissed off Mr. Moore (Mr. Mooron) that he wrote a note on the web telling the people to knock it off.
I doubt there are a lot of people that will watch it. The only resemblance it has to the original is it's name.
Most of the characters in the re-imagine have major problems and can't be considered heros anymore. Starbuck and Boomer are Females now (just for the sake of the femist cause!)!!! The cylons were made by humans and now look like humans. There is no longer 12 planets with 12 colonies. There is 1 planet with 12 colonies that are technophobic. Baltar doesn't betray the human race on purpose (so he can rule his people). He is seduced by a female cylon.
That just the high-lights. Check out BattlestarGalactica.com and search for the miniseries articles, and check out my earlier comment for more information.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Did the story arc ever explain why everyone spoke perfect English, used Grecco-Roman names, and were looking for 1970s Earth?
It kind of did. Though they never address the language thing.
There were 13 colonies of these space-faring folk. 12 of them were named after birth signs, and the 13th one didn't have a name, but they set sail and ended up founding earth. Thus the egyptian architecture and greco-roman names were all artifacts of the fact that they all come from the same planet and then branched out into space. Why the 13th colony decided to give up on technology after arriving on earth, I dunno.
Anyway, the Cylons apparently make peace with the 12 high tech colonies, but in reality they were just maneuvering for a suprise attack. They destroyed all 12 home worlds and all the battlestars except Galactica (and Pegasus, but we don't find that out until later). The remaining humans quickly figure out that chasing a pipedream towards the fabled 13th colony (which they've only heard in their mythology) is their best bet.
So they take whatever ships they have that are still usable (rag-tag fugitive fleet) and high tail it out of there (fleeing the Cylon tyranny). Every so often they stumble across a cylon outpost and have to blow stuff up.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Battlestar Galactica line: Cylons at 10 Angstroms!
Friends mom: Wow, that's close enough for sex.
Us (ignorant kids): huh?
Aieee! The images! The images!!
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Anyhow, back to my original point. Sci-Fi has virtually no good programming. As the person way up above said, they spend a lot of time airing shows that have nothing to do with sci-fi (except for Crossing Over... of course ;p). The final straw was when they killed Farscape. In their deus ex machina ending, Aeryn and John get vaporized and left to die. The crew screams and begs for mercy. And then Sci-Fi thanked the viewers for 5 great years. Yeah - that's what did it for me. The whole "You really don't give a rip about your fans, do you?"
Then there was Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was saved by Sci-Fi after Comedy Central decided to can it, it's true. But they stipulated that MST3K stick with sci-fi and horror movies (Horror is sci-fi? Since when?). Now they run the same five episodes ad nauseum every Saturday. Ironically, Sci-Fi's filler material consists of the same movies Mike and the crew would "pay homage to."
There also was the Saturday Morning Anime a long time ago, which was an introduction for many people to the art form and probably was one of the first major showings of anime on the cable networks. Even if it wasn't the greatest anime, it was better than the Ray Bradbury Theater. But Sci-Fi in their infinite wisdom scrapped that idea as well and the station continues to be decisively animephobic.
So, for me, Sci-Fi is a waste of a television station. A good idea marred by horrible execution and ignorance. Maybe someday they'll get the clue that I don't want to watch cheesy B-movies from the 1950s, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.
So it's not a complete diatribe (too late), you might ask what I would do if I were Sci-Fi. Well, first, I'd either surround myself with a combination of older space operas and have at least two exciting new ones. If we can't have the lavish sets of Farscape, we can scale it down a bit. Have some anime movies from time to time. Ditch all of the goth and horror nonsense that isn't sci-fi. It's probably okay to keep some of the new age programming, like the UFO secrets thing or even that show where they have the homebrew sci-fi clips, but don't rely on it. And for crist sake listen to your fans. Not the rabid fanboys who know what kind of underwear Captain Kirk wore in episode 24, but your typical casual fan. Fans make sci-fi work. Without them, you have nothing.