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New Battlestar Galactica Spin-off Series Announced
An anonymous reader writes "The Sci-Fi Channel's hit series Battlestar Galactica may soon be joined by a 50-year-prior prequel series, called Caprica. To be co-exec produced by Ron Moore and David Eick, the new series will follow the tale of the creation of the Cylons."
I'd turn up. More power to ya, Ron.
BG has gone from strength to strength. Who'd have thought it, for a remake of such a camp piece o'crap. I went in with EXCEEDINGLY low expectations. Maybe that's the secret.
Anyway, Ron can tell a story. I'll be there.
I am a leaf on the wind
The original series started back in 1954 and was called Paprika.
http://religiousfreaks.com/I'm not interested in a series whose name is an anagram of "I C A CRAP!"
I just really hope that this doesn't hurt the quality of BSG by spreading writing/producing talent as well as budgets too thin. I mean, I think Stargate might be suffering from that right now, having two complete series to do.
I also think that having a prequel could hurt a bit, because I feel like a strength of BSG is its unpredictability. I mean, it changes so much (season finale anyone?) that I feel that knowing the ending (Cylons created, rebel, we fight to a draw, Galactica survives to the present day, none of the Colonies get totally destroyed, etc) kind of hurts it.
Boomer loves Chachi
Col. Tigh's Place
Laverne and Dualla
Caprica City 90210
A Different World
Law and Order: Special Cylon Unit
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I was hoping it would be ADAMA: The College Years.
Maybe in one episode, Adama has the sorority girls from Caprica Caprica Caprica over for a game of Strip Pyramid.
I'm not interested in a series whose name is an anagram of "I C A CRAP!"
That may be a valid point, but I can't trust any comments by One Butch Orgy.
There are only twelve types of BG spinoffs.
What is it with Hollywood's fascination with prequels anyway?
First there was Star Wars with Eps I-III, then there was Star Trek with Enterprise and the new proposed movie on when Kirk/Spock were in the Academy. And, now this.
I feel doing prequels is a bad idea and will never produce great entertainment.
There are three main reasons:
(1) Future is Known: Since the audience already knows what will happen to the characters in the future based on earlier movies, there is never that subconscious element of suprise. For example, no matter how much the main characters are in jeopardy, we know they will survive to justify their existence later in history. Writers basically paint themselves in a corner since they are bounded by the events that are supposed to come later.
(2) Risk to Established Canon: Sometimes the writers try to inject novelty by doing things that meses up the canon. They introduce things that no longer justifies what was established in the earlier movies. This leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouth because it invalidates everything they have come to believe. For example, the appearance of Borg on Star Trek Enterprise before the time of Kirk.
(3) Anachronistic Special Effects: Since prequels get made with special-effects technology that has evolved much beyond when the earlier movies were made, we end up seeing special effects and the general look of the movie not being in line with what we would expect how things would look in the past. For example, some of the consoles and user interface screens used by the cast in Star Trek Enterprise looked more advanced than the ones on Star Trek : DS9. This anachronistic anomaly again leaves a bad taste in the audience's mouths.
I feel Hollywood should abandon this fad of making prequels and just start making more novel sequels where what they can do is only limited by a good writer's imagination.
If it's anything like the "re-imagining" of this show, count me out. No idea why so many people fall for this show. The new BG is below par in just about every aspect of production....
Dad? I didn't know you read slashdot!
I'm most excited about meeting the first Cylon. In the series, the Cylons a sophisticated belief structure and a strange confidence in those beliefs (although we know they sometimes change their minds). We get to see a little of how Cylon society is structured in the second season, but there are a lot of unanswered questions. How did an artificial intelligence creat a monotheistic belief system? How did it come to believe anything at all? Why do Cylons believe they're God's chosen species?
In the director's commentary for the first-season episode "You Can't Go Home Again," Moore and Eick say that they think the key to a great BG episode is to give away secrets. There's a lot of secrets left.
I'm still waiting for the book before Genesis on the origin of God, It should make quite the prequel.
Every so often I read a slashdot comment that forces me to imagine it as if it were being spoken by the Comic Book Guy.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
BSG has been full of them, especially of late, with fantastic "should we ask him if he still has that bomb we know was ours yet is the only one unaccounted for? Naaaaaah."-related activities.
I think the reason you don't get it is because you're missing the fact that Galactica is largely based around politics, which means that it is intentionally based around the "idiot plot", where everyone acts like idiots. For instance, if they accused Baltar of stealing a nuke, who are they really accusing? They're accusing the second most politically powerful human left, who also happens to be some sort of Bill Gates/Stephen Hawking celebrity mega-genius. Just look at all the accusations that have been levelled against George Bush or Dick Cheney, neither of whom are ridiculously popular outside of politics the way Baltar is. Regardless of that, those accusations go nowhere, even if they're from other powerful politicians.
The whole thing is about people knowing the right thing to do, but having their hands tied to the point where they're forced to act like idiots. In the finale, literally every main character knows Baltar is wrong... but he's the president, so WTF are you going to do? Plenty of Western heads of state have done very bad things, but very, very few end up like Richard Nixon.
I really hate plots dependent upon idiots. They're so bloody banal and completely unbelievable.
Was reading this alt-history book about a completely useless and improbable war. Apparently there was this relatively evil empire barely beaten in a long war, and then a new, much more evil leader takes over the evil empire and manages to convince the leading powers to just give him entire countries, even when the other powers could have easily crushed him. Then he joins forces with another equally evil leader and surprises these idiots by launching lots of invasions. Then the other evil leader is shocked when the evil empire turns on him too. What a bunch of bloody idiots! Not to mention yet another set of evil idiots who picked a fight with a country twenty times their size, though that country was somehow surprised by the attack even though they could read all the encrypted transmissions. "World War II" was complete drivel and a pointless sequel to that fair-to-middling book called, imaginatively enough, "World War I". Can't remember who wrote it but, with the flatness of the plot and characters, it was probably Turtledove.
So I gave up on that crap and started watching a movie about some imaginary American president who never read the newspapers but somehow managed to start a war against some minor country on the basis of lies even a child could see through, after he was caught napping by a bunch of barely competent terrorists. Of course, to advance the plot, the minor country had nothing to do with the terrorists, and was ruled by some incompetent moustachioed kitten-eating dictator straight out of central casting, circa 1915. I think the director just wanted to draw the audience in with some big explosions with a villain so laughably evil that everyone would just hiss at him and ignore the huge plot holes.
Anyways, there was also this really pointless subplot involving some idiot who used to run some horse organization who, after being fired, was put in charge of emergency systems or something, and then he managed to sit twiddling his thumbs while some city was utterly destroyed. Not sure what the point of showing this idiot was other than maybe the director has some bug up his ass about global warming and wanted to make a point using a sledgehammer.
The film's plot was so completely dependent upon idiots that I left the movie early and have no idea how it ended. Feel free to post spoilers here.
So, yeah, there's no relvance to these idiot plots. Wish writers would stop using them and stop relying on special effects, banal good/evil imagery, and absolutely stupid characters to get their points across.
ST:TNG has a pegasus, and an episode named after it
SG1/Atlantis has an entire pegasus galaxy
Therefore BSG had to have a pegasus!
Uh, hello? The original BSG had a Battlestar Pegasus, and its Admiral Kane was played by Lloyd Bridges (thus providing karmic balance: Katee Sackoff > Dirk Benedict, but Lloyd Bridges >> a PMSed Ensign Ro). Therefore, TNG and Stargate ripped off BSG. This is something that only a slight amount of research could have informed you of.
Those who don't research their history are doomed to end up looking like a fool on /..
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Was reading this alt-history book about a completely useless and improbable war. Apparently there was this relatively evil empire barely beaten in a long war, and then a new, much more evil leader takes over the evil empire and manages to convince the leading powers to just give him entire countries, even when the other powers could have easily crushed him. Then he joins forces with another equally evil leader and surprises these idiots by launching lots of invasions. Then the other evil leader is shocked when the evil empire turns on him too. What a bunch of bloody idiots! Not to mention yet another set of evil idiots who picked a fight with a country twenty times their size, though that country was somehow surprised by the attack even though they could read all the encrypted transmissions. "World War II" was complete drivel and a pointless sequel to that fair-to-middling book called, imaginatively enough, "World War I". Can't remember who wrote it but, with the flatness of the plot and characters, it was probably Turtledove.
When I first read this, I realized that you could have already been talking about Iraq.
Apparently there was this relatively evil empire barely beaten in a long war (Iraq/Iran) and then a new, much more evil leader takes over the evil empire and manages to convince the leading powers to just give him entire countries, (Kuwait) even when the other powers could have easily crushed him.(France, Germany, Russia, China).
Or maybe you were talking about the old Soviet Union (Afghanistan, Eastern Europe).
Funny how you talk about idiots who do nothing when could-be powerful leaders start threatening everyone and all the countries that could stop them simply don't believe their tyrant rants. I think Iran is a good example of that today.
So, I see your point, if from a different angle, and still come to the same conclusion. The world if full of idiot plots.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.