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Battlestar Galactica Resurrection Effort Described
MistGhost writes "A background story of the effort, both by Richard Hatch, and Ron Moore to resurrect Battlestar Galactica (NYT link so remember to lie on their free registration). Now that the show has started it's second season (at least here in the States) this article appears. " I sat down with the Tivo last night and really enjoyed the premiere. I think the SG-1 retooling as real potential too- that show has been stale for a long time.
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There was a Simpsons where they satirized reuse of cartoon backgrounds. I think it was the one where Bart and Lisa became writers for Itchy and Scratchy. They put Grandpa Simpson's name on the episodes because the producers outright dismissed ideas from children. In it, Lisa and Bart and Grandpa walk past the same doors and the same janitor over and over discussing how studios reuse things to save money.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Sigh.
Yep. There is (among other things) footage from the movie Silent Running. Watch for the colony ship with the Eco-Domes ..
it looks a lot like the Valley Forge.
And, regrettably, there is the re-re-re-reused shot of a jettisoned dome being blown up. Unfortunately, that particular shot isn't just "random spare footage" but one of the key scenes of Silent Running. It makes me cringe every time ;-(
Thus far I am enjoying the BSG series, but I wonder why they feel the need to put bright lights in the helmets of the pilots. They would not be able to see a thing and the cylons would easily destroy every viper.
John Dykstra (of the original Star Wars fame) was responsible for those Viper shots. Supposedly, he did a ton of footage of Vipers in various situations before getting burned out with the show and going on to other things. The stuff he did shoot was recycled for the duration of the series.
And yeah, I'm pretty sure some of the scenes of panicked people running for their lives were recycled from older movies, since the clothing seemed remarkably Terrestrial.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No, it's because space ships don't have a top speed! There's no friction to slow them down, they can accelerate forever; or at least until they run out of fuel.
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However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.
:) If you watch the first season of SG-1, it really wasn't that impressive graphics-wise. There weren't any major battles that involved a lot of graphics, just a few shots of a mothership and some gliders every so often. But if you watch this first episode of season 9 again, take note of the amount of CG in the flashback sequences.
It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.
I think a lot of it has to do with their budget too.
What I think really makes you feel the way you feel is that everything in the series--except maybe the stargate itself--began grounded on reality, so to speak. A bunch of Air Force people jump through this wormhole not knowing where or when they'll end up. As the series progressed, the story featured technology that's supposedly developed by the military based on items the characters had brought back. While this makes sense story-wise, it's more or less departed from reality. Now, instead of going into new worlds with just our guns, we also have spaceships that are ours (rather than stolen from some alien civilization's) to lend us support.
Atlantis is sort of like that, which perhaps contributes to why it isn't quite as appealing as SG-1. That, and SG-1's first few seasons (the rockier ones) were on Showtime, and so by the time it hit mainstream television, it was already mature.
Your assignment: take a five ton rock. Put it in a skating rink. Put on skates. Push against the rock. Notice how you move much faster than the rock.
The cake is a pie
The original series had 65 million viewers during it's first episode. The new series had about 4 million.
That was then. This is now. Back then the primary video delivery system for most people was a set of rabbit ears (or, if you were really upscale, a Rota-Tenna on the roof). When your channel lineup consists of 6 stations, a friggin' test pattern will get ratings.
Plus the network hyped the living begeesus out of the series. What was it up against, Mork and Mindy? Three's Company? The Star Wars Holiday Special?
Having lived through the 70's I can tell you with onitoligical certitude that US television at the time was a vast, vile, steaming heap of crap.