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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.
From the article "The most expensive-to-produce program of its day, at $1 million per episode" Thats funny. My strongest memory of the original BSG was how, in nearly every episode, there was a fire on board the ship and they reused the exact same footage of firefighters putting it out every week. Even at 8 years old I knew that was the producers being cheap. The only other program that I recall doing this so much was Astro Boy. I think there was a Simpsons episode that satirized the technique. Anyone know which one?
Am I the only person on the planet who remembers the original Battlestar Galactica as being a steaming pile of crap? Aside from being a rather blatant attempt by Glen Larceny (who also brought us Tron^w Automan and American Werewolf^w Manimal), the plots were the utmost juvenile tripe.
My theory is that you had to be about ten at the time to think BG was actually cool. Once you're past the nostalgia, does it really stand up? There was an awful lot of silliness involved. For example, the man who single handedly sold the humans out to the Cylons got what ammounted to kitchen duty. That'll teach him!
While I haven't seen all of the new BG, what I have seen I've liked very much.
And one thing I will say for Glen Larson: putting Erin Gray in spandex ("Buck Rogers") was, indeed, friggin' genius. Kudos for that.
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Sci fi has been stale for a long time. We're looking for the next big fix to kick it off. In the past we had "flying cars and silver panties for clothes in the year 2000". Now all we have is special effects and soaps in space.
When the next big thing comes along we'll see sci fi pick up, but untill then people will keep trying and failing to make anything but Star trek Mark 12 or the latest "lets hop planets" type fodder.
I like muppets.
I too really enjoyed the new SG-1...
Probably more than I enjoyed any of the episodes of the last season.I particularly Farlah's comments on our limited gene-pool when Cameron and Daniel are side by side (Don't they look just a bit similar???).
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Have you looked at your site? Hello, 1999 called.
Let's face it folks.
The BIGGEST reason why the new version of Battlestar Galactica is so good is that one of its creators (Ronald D. Moore) has strong experience doing excellent work with a sci-fi TV series. After all, some of very best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was done with his assistance.
That's why Enterprise sorely missed Moore's presence. If Ron Moore had been Enterprise Executive Producer I guarantee that we would be waiting with baited breath for the upcoming season, that's to be sure.
In personally think years from now, the Ron Moore-created version of Battlestar Galactica will go down as one of the truly great sci-fi TV series of all time
Boxey will come back... he apparently, um, grew a bit. "Shot up like a weed" was the term used IIRC.
I did like the one line he was given in the new show.
Colonel Tigh: Hey kid, where's your mother?
Boxey: She's dead. Where's yours?
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The one thing I love about BG is that the spaceships are physically accurate. They have thrusters all over the ships in different directions to subtly change course and they conserve momentum. When an enemy is behind them they just use the thrusters to flip around and shoot backwards.
I remember cringing in Stargate when they expressed a ship's top speed in miles per hour.
And for that matter Carnivale (one of Moore's other recent efforts). But if left with a free hand, do Moore's projects always have to have a messiah?
What do you know I wrote a novel
After being disappointed when Babylon-5 and Farscape went away I remember wondering if there was EVER going to be another Sci-fi series like those two.
The BEST scifi (and fantasy) explores the human condition in situations that cannot or do not exist today. In this way an author is able to explore aspects of emotion and dichotomy by creating situations which bring seemingly unrelated ideas into conflict. Even in sci-fi with Aliens there will always be a "human" anthromorphic undertone or the Alien will have characteristics of Terran life (mental or physical since currently humans have no real evidence of what a REAL alien would look or think like). Ron Moore Understands this.
If you take out exploring the human condition...then you get a show with lots of cool equipment and places but is easily forgettable.
This is why I think sci-fi/fantasy is a VERY interesting genre. They are limited only by imagination...but are ALWAYS about humans (US) because they come from human imagination.
On a different track....I'm particularly impressed with SG Atlantis. Usually it takes a season or two for me to become "comfortable" with the characters (case in point...Voyager took 3 seasons)..but after just one season the characters on Atlantis have "jelled" and are interesting. This is a GOOD thing! I'm conflicted about them contacting earth so soon though it might have been more interesting if they had kept them back for a couple of seasons.
Its to be seen if the addition of the stars from Farscape will breath new life into Stargate SG-1...but I'm hopeful since both actors have shown they know their craft from Farscape. Remember that Law and Order has shown that a show can go on indefinitely if you rotate actors in over time that are good. I would not be surprised if SG-1 tries for this (or Atlantis).
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 ;-(
And one thing I will say for Glen Larson: putting Erin Gray in spandex ("Buck Rogers") was, indeed, friggin' genius. Kudos for that.
I was just a wee tyke when that show was on. I remember I was a confused little boy and couldn't figure out why my wee-wee got big and swollen whenever Erin came onscreen. So I asked my dad about it and he explained what was going on. If it hadn't been for Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, my sex education probably wouldn't have happened for many years.
As an avid Stargate fan (yes, that is right, I could probably retell every episode, and yes... I am probably bias) I have to defend my favorite series from the little "stale" quip by CmdrTaco.
The view of SG-1 as stale is ridiculous... I think most viewers don't find appeal with it because the show WAS not turning into the next generation MTV\OC\BS crap. I personally am a big fan of Season 5-8, unlike some others. I think the sarcastic humor and Sci-Fi mix is awsome. I am not a fan, however, of the attempted OCafication (a word, which means teeny-bopperafication) of Stargate with the perpetual appeasement of 16 year old pale boys who won't watch a show if it doesn't have some reference to sex every sixty-nine seconds.
> > the show has started it's second season
> Sigh.
An apostrophe *can* indicate possession in most cases; but note that "its [second season]" is an exception to the rule; i.e.
"The man's car"
"The boy's toy"
"The Slashdotter's pr0n collection"
"The Slashdotters' pr0n collections"
"Its second season"
Why?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
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.
I loved Richard Dean Anderson in Star Gate. If anything, I think they are going to have to pull off some briliant writing to save the show now. I do like that they stole the Farscape cast for the sho and that is a plus, but without that Anderson humor, well, it won't be the same.
I also don't put an once of credit into anything that blowhard Richard Hatch has to say. What a dork he is.
I thought the last couple seasons of SG-1 were really good.
We know the characters. They've developed them all very well. So, they were able to concentrate on the story more instead of character development.
I've always liked how they continue to bring back the re-occuring characters. It really gives you a feeling that the show is "bigger" in a way.
But I like Ben Brower and I like Claudia Black, so I definately think they will bring new life into the show, keeping it going.
The show has definately changed though. Although it's always been a Science Fiction show, it has kept it's feet on the ground of viability. However, now there's spaceships, shields, and super space guns. It's fully engulfed in the SciFi space drama now.
It does make sense though; they've aquired technologies and made friends enough to build space ships and such.
It's a good progession of the show.
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Who honestly cared to see Worf have a romantic relationship with Dax?
Heh...sci-fi geeks who actually don't have anything approaching romance in their real lives, maybe.
Oh, come on, you know it's true.
"His car."
"The house is hers."
Etc.
IOW, as another poster pointed out, "it" is a pronoun, and pronouns don't take the possessive apostrophe. I'm not saying it makes sense, but that's the way it is.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The writers are generally geeks
However that is not really the case for some of the writers for the new BSG. Several of them used to write for lawyer TV shows and that kind of thing. The writers for the season 2 premiere were previously story editors, not writers (except for the previous season). They are used for the 'military strategy' episodes. Maybe they have military experience or have done previous work with military oriented shows.
Personally I hate this whole team-of-writers, different writer for every episode style of American TV writing. I think the British style of one writer per season makes for far better television. They should at least trim things down to the three best writers. A huge team of them is just ridiculous. How can you expect consistency that way? It's not so bad for planet-of-the-week episodes, but not a good strategy for a continuous story arc.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Perhaps they were able to detect some type of electromagnetic signature of the computers connected to it and break in from there, but if they were able to do that, why couldn't they just attack each one of the galactica's computers separately, several episodes ago during the original battle?
Maybe Boomer put some kind of bug in the computer system? Or perhaps the cylons are just super Xc3113n7 l337 h4Xor5!
I've read most of the posts and here's my observations:
1) I hated the new BSG when I first saw it - mostly due to the fact it is NOT "Battlestar Galactica" - it just has the same name. Now I love it because it stands on it's own - I just wish it didn't carry the name BSG.
2) Comments about reuse in shots for the original BSG... didn't you guys ever watch The A-Team? That same damn jeep flipped over 2000 times! Not to mention there's a "B" Sci-Fi movie from the 80's that actually bought all the original space dogfight footage from the original BSG and reused it for their own story line... I wish I could remember the name.
3) You have to realize, the original BSG was a fictional excursion in a religious universe. It was reportedly also based largely (and loosely) on the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS / Mormon's)... I'll let you do your own research into how much and in what way. I guess you could say it's based on Mormon doctrine in much the same way that the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card is...
4) The new version still carries the religious theme, but in a current pop culture scientology sort of way if you ask me.
5) I'm an idiot for numbering my thoughts.
Could it be that most (all?) pronouns don't have a plural form with an ending s, so an apostrophe is not needed to distinguish from possessive and plural like it is for most nouns.
TV is a collaborative medium. When you tilt at windmills as an individual you usually don't get anywhere, even with a lot of fans behind you, since the insiders, the bean-counters, they decide what gets the green-light.
Richard Hatch has to put food on the table. He's done a lot of lowly things, like adult education acting workshops. He currently does these cruises which I assume are like conventions on water where the fans get to poke at you for days on end. Some years back I read an interview with him where the author said he lives in a guesthouse someplace. The guy doesn't have a lot of money.
The guy took BSG so seriously that he attempted to kind of become the spiritual father of it, above and beyond Glen Larson. He wrote BSG novels. He thought he knew better about how to take the franchise. But he didn't have the rights to the show. He couldn't claim to be the creator. So it was a loser's gamble.