Slashdot Mirror
New Battlestar Galactica - Worth a Series?
rwxJava asks: "Ok, so it finally aired! IMHO it was pretty good. The special effects were great (no major laws of physics were broken except maybe FTL travel), the characters, while drastically different from the original, were believable! After about an hour or so, I stopped trying to compare the mini-series with the original. My only complaint has to be the amount of commercials that Scf-Fi put in. I was able to put up a Christmas Tree during one commercial break. Guess the network needs to cash in on such a hyped up event! By the end, I was left wanting more! Anyone else think it is worthy of conversion to a series?" Now that you've have had a time to watch the entire 4-hour epic (does 4 hours really make a "mini-series"?), do you think your earlier comments were on target?
At least Kubrick got it right in 2001.
:-)
Firefly did, too, actually.
Do you like German cars?
There were more good things about the mini-series than bad. Overall I enjoyed the series and found myself wishing it was on next week.
Bottom line, it was better than a lot of crap currently on TV.
Better a bunch of the rest of the crap sci fi out there. The space ships look pretty good.
I'm kind of disappointed that the robot guys (cylons?) aren't at all robotic, even at the microscopic level (according to the show).
Also, space flight doesn't work like that... but every other series I've seen has portrayed space flight as far too similar to atmospheric flight, so I guess I shouldn't bother complaining. I don't like the president woman, either.
Final verdict: yeah, make more, I'll watch it.
-Skeld
Muted sounds, sorry to say, but at least they were muted and the Vipers used maneuvering jets and "hello, I'm flying backwards now" tactics rather than Star Wars-ish "a spaceship flies just like a Spitfire" swoopy stuff.
"You might as well get your son a ticket to hell as give him a five string banjo." -unknown minister
Nothing at all...
Except maybe E=MC^2
Damn that Einstein, who does he think he is??
Dare I forget Voltar
Gaius Baltar
"Frack" was the f-word replacement in the original series, 25 yrs ago. Just another small carryover from days gone by. :P
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Definitely worth a series, IMO.
--
Power to the Peaceful
They answered that at the end of the show. Because if they dont kill us, we will kill them (or perhaps re-enslave them at some point) because "it is in our nature". They believe that eliminating humans is their best chance for survival of their own "Species"
"Sometimes when the meteorite hits the atmosphere,"
Last time I checked, the atmosphere was made of air.
The air is indeed creating the sound, just not in the usual manner.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
You're right, they didn't deal with this very directly, but there were two reasons presented.
At the end, one of the Cylons says that the humans will surely strike back at them and attempt to destroy them, for that is their way. So, it's a, uhm, pre-emptive defensive strike, if you will. (Sound familiar?)
Also, at least a couple times it's hinted at by the Cylons that their motivation might be, somehow... religious, as weird as that seems. I can't remember the exact lines, but I swear that this idea was there.
-- dR.fuZZo
I'd also disagree about the baby-killing scene. Sure, it was sick, but I thought it spoke volumes about the Cylons.
While I'm sure it did, I simply find that it goes to far. It's especially bad for us parents who end up empathizing with the situation. When you put it on a scale of "necessary for the story" against "disgusting sick and not wanted", the scene loses out.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Are you smoking crack? They still had sound in the vaccuum of space. Rocket engines, ships knocking into each other, explosions, guns firing. I suppose you can hear the Verizon Wireless guy out there too, huh?
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I really enjoyed it. Parts I particularly liked were:
Mary McDonnel choosing to leave a third of the convoy behind when jumping. The writers had almost set her up at a touchy-feely wimpy female leader, but then surprise us by showing her making a hard command decision. Very nice touch. Note like the old Battlestar where the politicos were always portrayed as wrong-headed.
Edward James Olmos insisting that the war wasn't over, but then realizing that Mary McDonnel was right (again, with her seemingly touchy-feely "making babies" point). It's so rare that you see a "good guy" character change his mind because somebody else makes a convincing argument; that's much more interesting than the usual cliche that the good guy is always right about every topic the first time, every time.
The excuse to show Battlestar technology that looks a lot LESS advanced than our own current technology (i.e., so that it's immune from Cylon problems). Clever trick to give the show a retro-look in a believable way.
The weird camera angles on the space shot. I've read here that most people didn't like 'em. I liked them, for reasons others have cited.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
What actually gets you in trouble is the are the length contraction, time dialation, and relativistic mass equations.
For example, when calculating relativistic mass you use:
m = m(r)/SQRT(1 - v^2/c^2)
Where:
m(r) = mass at rest
v = velocity
c = speed of light
So, if v=c (i.e. you're going the speed of light) then mass becomes infinte. Therefore, using E=MC^2 you need an inifinite amount of energy.
What's interesting to note here is that faster than light velocities do *not* result in these numbers (though they do result in some interesting other effects). Where you get in trouble is going *exactly* the speed of light.
Most of the 'invented' slang in Clockwork Orange is russian.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Most solid fuel propellent leaves a fair amount of particulate matter behind. In direct sunlight, against a dark sky, that would show up pretty well.
It's quite possible to get a curved trajectory from a missile. Vanes in the exhaust stream can change the thrust vector slightly so it no longer goes through the center of mass, causing the missile's trajectory to curve. No atmosphere or wings are needed.
In that regards, the Sci-Fi channel very well could have done a better job of explaining which episode was playing. On DirecTV, the Guide pulled up the exact same info/description for each episode. Considering they were rerunning each episode making it show up a lot in the guide, it was actually kind of confusing as to what was showing. Would it have been too much to ask that they put a Part I in the title or to have changed the freaking description so that people on satellite would know for sure where they were at in the series?
> The original series (lamely) stole from the stale
> "evil robots want to wipe out the human race,"
> completely without motivation other than they're
> "evil."
You should watch the original series a bit better.
In the original 1970s series, the Cyclons were robots created by an old civilisation of lizards. They were created using the shape of the human body since that 'was found to be the most efficient'.
They went on to become more intelligent then the lizards that created them and well, the lizards died out.
The robots regard biological life as inefficient, resource wasting, and a potential danger due to fear for revenge (for killing other biological life forms for example)
The new series seems to take a shortcut here, and cuts out the lizards.
This makes the story less complete, and less sensical.
... was probably either R.U.R. or Frankenstein, depending on your definition of a machine.
Assuming that Boomer is a Cylon (demonstrated the last scene...), and the Chief and Boomer are more than just kissing, which sexual position have they not yet tried? Or do their backs only grow red during orgasm and the Chief is a little self-centered?
It also implies that Baltar and the other chick were fairly straight forward in their lovemaking (granted there are a million and one other positions, but you probably hit doggie-style sooner than later and they had supposedly been together for two years.)
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
They're repeating the "whole series" (both episodes) Sunday, AFAIK.
One thing that bothered me about it (maybe it's my TV, but I doubt it) was that in many cases, the music drowned out the dialog. I couldn't hear half of what they said. If I've got to have 5.1 surround sound to watch a TV program, I'm going to be a little annoyed.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
No, no no no no. The plasma created around the meteor as it enters the atmosphere generates RF radiation outward, which causes grass/leaves/hair/whatever that are near you to vibrate, causing small sound waves which you hear.
The meteor, the grass, and your head are all inside the atmosphere during this activity, so it does not support your argument at all. If there were no air between the grass/leaves and your ears, you would NOT be hearing any sounds from the meteor.
If you were in outer space (like the camera views were on the show), and you were watching that same meteor hit the Earth's atmosphere, you would not hear anything. Nor would you hear nuclear bombs hitting the site of a battlestar...
(For the record, I did enjoy the way they handled the sound in outer space on the miniseries. But as far as total realism is concerned, there would NOT be any sound in real life.)
I'm on the edge of firing back with a "Look, you didn't even watch the show, how can you possibly comment on it?" But then realized that you sound just like I expected to sound had I not watched it.
I approached it from the old-school view and expected to truly hate it and consider it worse that Galactica 1980. However, I was completely shocked to "hear" myself thinking, an hour into the first episode, "Wow, this is even better than Galactica 1978!!" And coming from me, that's one hell of a compliment. I was only 10 when Galactica 1978 came out, and was so into it at the time that it was nearly religious. I always liked it even better than Star Wars!
So, of course, after seeing the Galactica: Lowdown preview on SciFi, I was ready to puke in disgust. The preview show made it seem terrible. Starbuck was a girl, Baltar seemed really gay in the previews, and Apollo was a big whiner.
However, after actually seeing both episodes in the micro-series, I am just drooling for a series, and massively impressed with the level of thought that went into Galactica 2003.
Without seeing it, I would be totally, absolutely agreeing with you - what a big piece of shit, worse than Galactica 1980 (Minus the last episode where Starbuck returns) and they never should have made it.
However, I am happy to tell you, that if you sit down this Sunday, when they run both episodes back to back, and just check it out for what it is, you will be quite impressed. Sure, there's a lot of T&A, but it doesn't eclipse the story - there's a really good story there, and as weird as it is for such a Galactica 1978 fan as I am to say such a thing, I think the new version is far more solid and intriguing. I'm also thinking that if I saw Galactica 2003 when I was 10, I probably wouldn't have understood it.
Go ahead, bite the bullet and watch it. Hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised like I was. The preview show and the advertisements for it did it no justice. You've got nothing to lose but four hours, it's worth it I think. Enjoy! I'm curious what you say after actually watching it, I'm still amazed that I not only liked it, but very much approve of it now!
In the 2hr pilot for the original series (originaly aired Sept 17 1978) they do not develop the plan to go to Earth until the very end of the show. The whole 2hr pilot is about the Colonies and the other Battlestars being wiped out, and the remaining defensless civilian ships huddling around the Galactica for protection. ...hmmm sounds strangely familiar after watching the new 4hr pilot doesn't it?
Actually the new pilot is only 3 hours long. Which may be why some people have complained that there appeared to be a lot of commercials in the US broadcast...
Actually, it's well known that the bigger a piece of electronics is, the more resilient it will be against EMP. Those "large bricks" had a reason for existing the way they did. Smaller components would be more likely to be destroyed/damaged/disrupted by the eddy currents that EMP produces.