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New Battlestar Galactica Series Greenlighted

Trunks writes "A few days ago the Sci Fi Channel officially announced a 13 episode season for Ronald Moore's Battlestar Galactica remake. Looks like they'll be bringing back most of the cast members, including Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell. The new series will begin a few days after the miniseries that aired a few months back. Production commences next month in Vancouver, B.C." This had been speculated previously, and the rumors are indeed true.

14 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Vancouver! by Dumbush · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in Vancouver
    where are they shooting the movie?

    side note: A lot of X-Files eps were shot in Simon Fraser University. The central university building is Academic Quadrangle, name after its quadrangular shape. Whenever the X-Files team needs a shot of the pentagon, they just "cheat" their way out by shooting a section of AQ...

    1. Re:Vancouver! by Lev_Arris · · Score: 5, Informative

      As far as I know SFU was also used in 'the 6th day', 'Agent Cody Banks' and the 'Stargate SG-1' (the campus is known as 'Tolana' in the series).

      Can't find the reference links right now though (try Google).

    2. Re:Vancouver! by CommieLib · · Score: 5, Funny

      So in Canada, the pentagon only has four sides? You guys always get screwed on the exchange rate.

      --
      If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
  2. Good news by Xoro · · Score: 5, Funny

    I watched that show thinking it would be laughable, but I wound up enjoying it.

    Ballistic missiles over beam weapons. Mmmm.

    But they have to bring back the original theme song.

    --
    Kill, Tux, kill!
  3. Re:British Columbia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are we really so out of ideas?

    You must not have seen the billboard ads for the Starsky & Hutch movie, starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

    Is the entertainment industry out of ideas? In a word... YES.

  4. Rant: annoying sexism by MagerValp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I watched the mini series and I really liked it. But what really bugged me was the stupid plot surrounding the android Number 6. The Cylons have vastly superior technology and a huge army, but to destroy the human race they create a sexy blonde android that seduces our best programmer. Sheesh. Almost made me stop watching there and then.

    --

    READY.
    #
    1. Re:Rant: annoying sexism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The statement about superior technology is not born out. Since the colonials built the cylons in this version of the series they start out with baseline colonial tech as their starting point. Then following the storyline they move offworld to their own little planet. And then in a VERY short period of time they come back to attack. That leaves very little time to develop, test, build and deploy anything much better then what they started out with.

      To many resources would be devoted to building infrastructure for their war machine, so at best you could state that they have marginally better technology (although we really did not see the "best" colonial toys). And that is not truly enough to defeat prepared defenses on a multi planetary scale.

      Number 6 is a logical infiltration unit. Most people in power are Male and most males can be lead around by their gonads....

    2. Re:Rant: annoying sexism by sundling · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are two main ways to get a programmer's attention. Sexy blond works and the other is really awesome hardware. Hell, I'm not a dog like he was and I'd probably have fallen for the andriod, which is a whole different dimension. Then would come the difficult choice of living with the android you live or mankind... Baltar could have been a tragic romantic figure if they had tried that.

      The problem with giving the programmer access to really advanced hardware is it's a bit difficult to explain, even if you say it's a prototype. Um, where did I get this 2 billion Ghz machine? Well, um....

    3. Re:Rant: annoying sexism by Merry_B.Buck · · Score: 5, Funny

      to destroy the human race they create a sexy blonde android that seduces our best programmer
      Agreed. It would have been much more realistic if the Cylons had created a middle-aged suit-wearing Business Consultant who outsources Boltar's job to a distant planet.

  5. Where are the new ideas? by MMHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I enjoyed Galactica as a kid (yeah, I'm old now), and am looking forward to this new series.

    Where, however, is the "buzz" over cool new ideas yet unseen? Many people buzz over remakes of old ideas, but are they done any better?

    Star Wars lumbers on with dialogue-ridden prequels (and yet unseen postquels), Gilligan's Island is probably in production for the silver screen by now, I-Spy has been dubiously remade.

    Firefly was/is a cool idea and at least got an airing. Star Trek is still a cool franchise, but has been pretty commodotized.

    Where's the new, cool stuff.

    I'm not a huge Anime fan, but Cowboy Bepop seems pretty cool to me. If there aren't new ideas, why not bring this one from one format to another?

    Still; Where's the cool, new stuff?

  6. Waiting with baited breath.... by BobSutan · · Score: 5, Informative

    To be honest I had serious reservations about them bringing this one back. However, once I actually sat down and watched it I was blown away. Personally I think they hit a homerun with the pilot and can't wait to watch the new series. They did so many thing right IMO: the Sci-Fi wasn't so much "Fi" as I thought they'd throw at a show of this type. For example: Ballistic weapons, somewhat realistic space flight (thrusters), and the cinematic zooms all help add some realism to the space scenes.

    On top of all that they nailed the human side of the story. Family ties, personal relationships, etc all played a huge role in the pilot (perhaps even more so than in the original series). For me, this is the element that makes the show so good.

    My only fear is that they change the characters or take away from the dynamics of what they were building.

    --
    "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
  7. not THAT is Sci-Fi by __aahlyu4518 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The new series will begin a few days after the miniseries that aired a few months back

    Now THAT is Sci-Fi... Giving the green light NOW and have it begin a few months back...

  8. "New Ideas" die in boardrooms by tekrat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that totally unimaginative people are holding the purse-strings. They don't want to gamble on something they haven't seen before. They want to sell something they know has already sold once before.

    That's why you don't get big budget "new" movies, you get sequel after sequel of The Matrix 6, Charlies Angles 3, Scooby Doo 2, etc., and the crap just gets churned out, but they know they can market it because the auideince for that crap is pre-existing.

    Lord of the Rings was such a fluke because there's no way that should have gotten done, or done as well as it was, via the Hollywood system. Because Hollywood crushes creativity, it eschews original thought, and it despises anything it can't reference as something else.

    When you're committing millions of dollars before even a frame of film is shot, the boardroom people want to be comfortable about it by knowing it's really something they can already relate to. That's why Gene Roddenbury had to "sell" Star Trek as "Wagon Train to the Stars", and couch it in relation to a Western, which was the TV staple of the 60's.

    Unless you can make your "new idea" seem like *exactly* something everyone has seen before, you'll never get funding for your production. You've got a better chance of winning the lottery and self-producing it.

    And that, my friend, is why there's only crap on TV and Movies. Because Hollywood hates "new ideas".

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  9. Confessions of a Science Fiction Junkie by invid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll admit it, I watched the original series back in the 80s, and I liked it. It's no excuse that I was a kid at the time, I should have known better. It was crap and I liked it. I also liked Buck Rogers, which was an even bigger load of crap. I was so starved for science fiction entertainment I religiously watched what the tv execs threw out at us.

    So I watched this latest version of Battlestar Galactica, and you know what? I liked it. I really should know better...

    --
    The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.