Battlestar Galactica music video

[Spanky The Dolphin]

You should be the person who asks this question whenever someone says "X and such sucks" from now on, Mr. Potter.

Yeah, I know. I was actually going to add at the end something like "I certainly learned that lesson with Harry Potter," but it came off to me as a little narcissistic...

But I seriously want to know how much of nBSG Wayne has seen to just outright declare that it sucks with such conviction.

I like the original series, personally own it, and occasionally get strong desires to watch it again, which I sometimes indulge. But the show is flawed from dramatic and storytelling areas, and was made by people who didn't know a God damn thing about science fiction. But I still like it, it has its nostalgia and charm, but the new series simply blows it out of the water completely and totally.

[Lord Poe]

So you're saying someone's opinion can't be trollish?

Nope, not when its on-topic in the thread it appears in.

The "original" BSG was so original that they got taken to court for ripping off a sci fi movie you might have heard of.

Link

Certainly, the lawsuit from Twentieth Century Fox didn't help. Fox sued Universal, claiming that Galactica infringed on the copyrights of Star Wars. This was a ludicrous claim. While Galactica was certainly inspired by Star Wars, Star Wars was inspired by numerous science fiction stories before it. Just as the lawsuit was about to be thrown out, Universal countersued Fox, claiming that Star Wars infringed on Universal's 1972 science fiction film Silent Running. This claim was even more ridiculous than Fox's, and it only served to prolong the lawsuit until August 22, 1980, when the courts finally declared that Galactica was not an infringement on Star Wars.

Maybe you should look up the facts before breaking out the rolly-eyes, eh?

What's your opinion based on, though? How much have you seen to make that judgement?

I saw three episodes. But that's not the point. The original show, which I'm quite fond of, was fucked with in this "re-imagining"to such a degree that it's unrecognizable. I won't watchh the "Starsky and Hutch" movie either, because "Starsky and Hutch" the TV show wasn't a comedy. I will refuse to see "The Six Million Dollar Man" movie starring Jim Carrey for the same reason. I'll once again repost my initial reaction to nBSG at the end of this post.

Well, golly gee, Poe, It's really too bad that you have a problem with the fact that some people like a redone version of a crappy -ghasp-(my opinion,) 70's TV show. The least you could do is to go to the taxing effort of actually watching a couple of new episodes so you can come up with some NEW things you don't like about it.

Why the fuck should I look for new things to hate about it, when the original bullshit that made me hate it in the first place still exists?

I like the original series, personally own it, and occasionally get strong desires to watch it again, which I sometimes indulge. But the show is flawed from dramatic and storytelling areas, and was made by people who didn't know a God damn thing about science fiction. But I still like it, it has its nostalgia and charm, but the new series simply blows it out of the water completely and totally.

The old show didn't need to be "fixed". It was what it was, and plenty of people still enjoy it to this day. I'm sure "Star Wars" can be "re-imagined" to be more xtreeeme to today's anime soaked audiences too. But you wouldn't catch me watching the fucking thing. I might have actually watched nBSG if it wasn't trying to pass itself off as BSG. I doubt I would have hung around anyway, because I get "Space: Above And Beyond" vibes from it, which is another show I didn't like. But I have much more respect for "SAAB" for daring to be original, instead of naming itself after something that was popular and had a following then changing everything that following liked about the original show.

Here's my initial review:

Starbuck is now a short haired hard-as-nails lesbian who can drink the men under the table, kick the men's asses, and out gamble the best of them. Apollo is pissed off at Adama for some reason. Boomer is now a female asian who has an identical twin who is a Cylon. Oh, yes, Cylons are now Fembots, the main one slinking around in a red cocktail dress trying to outdo Seven of Nine from Star Trek on the fanboy boner scale. Oh, and she has a red train of LEDs running down her back. And, she's invisible to everyone but the new Baltar, who's now a mincing pretty boy who talks to himself. The Vipers actually look better than the old show, but Galactica itself looks like the old Galactica if it left spacedock without its outer hull.

I watched the "mini-series", and the first two episodes; "33" and "Water". My dislike of this dreck has only stengthened. Its no longer that they've borrowed a name from a popular 70's scifi show and raped the entire concept, simply to get it on the air. I can't stand the smothering pompous crap that this series is. It is nothing more than long stretches of boring dialogue meant to flesh out characters that are indistinguisible from one another. Then if you're lucky, you're treated to one and a half minutes of special effects footage.

Then you have the baseball bat over-the-head scenes to show the audience how lo-tech the design of everything is, right down to 1970's telephones and 19th century time pieces. I'm waiting to see them shovel coal into the engines as they wink at the camera. All the new show is is a big soap opera. Love story with Boomer 1 and the generic character 1 on Caprica.
Love story with Boomer 2 and generic character 2 on the Galactica. Apollo and StarDyke trading amorous jabs at one another until Moore get his Apollo/Starbuck sex scene. Baltar and Harvey the Invisible Hooker only he can see.

Meanwhile, Baltar is invited into important strategy meetings and talks to himself, but it barely raises an eyebrow on the main characters. The camerawork is the worst of all. To make the show more "hip", they use that idiotic "shaky camera" crap. Its completely intrusive and obvious. Every dialogue exchange looks like the cameraman is on a piece of floatsom on a river.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

The old show didn't need to be "fixed".

I never said that it needed to be fixed, just that it was flawed and that the new version is superior.

The new series isn't at all an improvement on the old one: that wasn't how the project was approached or executed. It's just a different version of the same approximate premise.

[Vympel]

I never got the impression that nBSG was out to "fix" the old show. They took the basic concept and put it in a new direction, that's all. A direction I personally prefer. But then, we're all arguing personal preference.

So yeah, I think oBSG is campy flotsam and nBSG shits all over it

[Cao Cao]

"Hey, I always wanted to be a lesbian..."

"That's fine for you. But I get to be a toaster damnit..."

[Lord Poe]

Ron Moore's Star Wars



"Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system."



Yes indeed!!

[Cao Cao]

You do realise that you're parodying Ron Moore with campy images, even though one of your beefs against nBSG is that it isn't campy?

[Lord Poe]

You do realise that you're parodying Ron Moore with campy images, even though one of your beefs against nBSG is that it isn't campy?

Turning an iconic character like Starbuck female, and making the character Boomer female and asian for no other reason than personal whim, is the height of campiness to me.

[Darth Wong]

I've watched a couple of episodes of neoBSG and I hate the whole pompous self-important "look at me I'm profound and culturally relevant" style of it. Modern TV shows are so goddamned full of themselves. CSI, Law&Order, 24, etc ... they all think they're fucking Citizen Kane.

[Darth Servo]

<snip pic of count ibils>
"You're all just jealous because I'm not in nBSG!"

Patrick Macnee in a white spangled cape? That's not Satan, that's a Liberace impersonator!

[Stofsk]

You do realise that you're parodying Ron Moore with campy images, even though one of your beefs against nBSG is that it isn't campy?

Turning an iconic character like Starbuck female, and making the character Boomer female and asian for no other reason than personal whim, is the height of campiness to me.

Uh... what's your definition of campiness?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

That is not even remotely camp. "Camp" is ironic referential humour.

[Noble Ire]

I've watched a couple of episodes of neoBSG and I hate the whole pompous self-important "look at me I'm profound and culturally relevant" style of it. Modern TV shows are so goddamned full of themselves. CSI, Law&Order, 24, etc ... they all think they're fucking Citizen Kane.

Do you like any current, serious TV dramas, then? Honestly, without more specific examples, I can't see how, from your point of view, a show can take itself seriously without "being pompously self-important", at least not unless it removes itself so completely from reality that it risks falling to bizarre excess, as Farscape did later in its run. I hardly see how trying to integrate cultural relevance into a show is inherently bad, as long as it is not done to an excess (the laughable "drugs are bad" scene from early TNG comes to mind).

[MKSheppard]

I believe we need to have a nice sitdown and comparison between Colonel Tigh and Colonel Tigh with Wayne.

Or between Commander Adama and Admiral Adama....

Hell, I can go on and on; look at Baltar from oBSG; he was right away a traitor to the entire human race with his MUWHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA "i'm so evil" schtick for no reason at all.

Gaius Baltar from nBSG isn't the evil villian right away; it's his own actions which damn him beyond redemption as the series goes on, which is far superior.

[Darth Wong]

I've watched a couple of episodes of neoBSG and I hate the whole pompous self-important "look at me I'm profound and culturally relevant" style of it. Modern TV shows are so goddamned full of themselves. CSI, Law&Order, 24, etc ... they all think they're fucking Citizen Kane.

Do you like any current, serious TV dramas, then?

No. I got so fed up with pompous TV drama that I've stopped watching anything but comedy shows.

Honestly, without more specific examples, I can't see how, from your point of view, a show can take itself seriously without "being pompously self-important", at least not unless it removes itself so completely from reality that it risks falling to bizarre excess, as Farscape did later in its run. I hardly see how trying to integrate cultural relevance into a show is inherently bad, as long as it is not done to an excess (the laughable "drugs are bad" scene from early TNG comes to mind).

Wel, let's see. First there's CSI, in which everybody is a hard-driving totally conscientious employee completely devoted to the job, because as we all know, in real-life, the office is always 100% composed of such people.

Then there's neoBSG, where they took the "interpersonal conflict helps drama" motif and decided to run with it so far that they ended up flying off a cliff. Nobody trusts anybody, and nobody even seems to like anybody. Oooh, but it's so gritty and dramatic!

And quite frankly, the whole "ripped from the headlines" style of writing is seriously starting to piss me off. I don't watch TV fiction to see dramatized versions of the news; I watch it to be entertained.

[MKSheppard]

Then there's neoBSG, where they took the "interpersonal conflict helps drama" motif and decided to run with it so far that they ended up flying off a cliff. Nobody trusts anybody, and nobody even seems to like anybody. Oooh, but it's so gritty and dramatic!

Which is an unrealistic depiction of life how?

[MKSheppard]

It is nothing more than long stretches of boring dialogue meant to flesh out characters that are indistinguisible from one another. Then if you're lucky, you're treated to one and a half minutes of special effects footage.

And this is any different how than seeing the SAME 1 and half minutes of flaming space death over and over through oBSG's run?

[Darth Wong]

Then there's neoBSG, where they took the "interpersonal conflict helps drama" motif and decided to run with it so far that they ended up flying off a cliff. Nobody trusts anybody, and nobody even seems to like anybody. Oooh, but it's so gritty and dramatic!

Which is an unrealistic depiction of life how?

Oh yeah, I forgot. In real armies, every person hates every other person and there are no decent people at all, just different flavours of asshole. Right?

[MKSheppard]

Oh yeah, I forgot. In real armies, every person hates every other person and there are no decent people at all, just different flavours of asshole. Right?

Pretty much yes. The Captain's Hand was a really good episode, they actually had a snipe bitching about the "flyboys" showboating all over the place.

EDIT: The only thing that gets overdone is the current love triangle or whatever it is going on with Kara/Lee/Anders/Dualla.

The rest of it is pretty good; Tigh and Gaeta have a pretty good grudge match going on there; they don't have to LIKE each other, but they got to work together however...

[ray245]

Back on topic, http://youtube.com/watch?v=utWxIfIFXaQ this video is rather nice, and i enjoy the music.

By the way, could someone do a music video of battlestar, with the soundtrack of Halo? I tried watching a music video of nBSG with Halo soundtrack, and i find it rather fitting...

[Noble Ire]

Then there's neoBSG, where they took the "interpersonal conflict helps drama" motif and decided to run with it so far that they ended up flying off a cliff. Nobody trusts anybody, and nobody even seems to like anybody. Oooh, but it's so gritty and dramatic!

Which is an unrealistic depiction of life how?

Oh yeah, I forgot. In real armies, every person hates every other person and there are no decent people at all, just different flavours of asshole. Right?

At least two of the characters on the show are undeniably good people; Admiral Adama and Captain Agathon. And, with only a few exceptions, the other characters are generally good as well, with their records only marred by a few personality quirks or lapses in judgement. If anything, I think the spread of characters is fairly realistic; there are a few dangerous assholes like Tigh, a few erratic, potentially amoral people like President Rosalin, a few extremely principled ones, and the rest are a mix of the rest. Its a far cry from older shows like most of Star Trek, where every major character without exception was a veritable saint.

[Stofsk]

Its a far cry from older shows like most of Star Trek, where every major character without exception was a veritable saint.

Oh please. Kirk wasn't a saint. More than a few episodes dealt with the fact humans were still hyper-aggressive and belligerent, with Kirk being no exception to that, and that they were (metaphorically) babies that had barely left the cradle and begun their first walking steps while other races were all grown up and driving cars. The message Trek conveyed was simple: we're not perfect, but we're trying.

I like nBSG, but let's not treat it like the second coming of Jesus. Most of the characters are straight out of a cop show cliche book. The drunk, stupid police chief (Tigh)? The maverick cop, with the huge chip on his shoulder (Starbuck)? The maverick's partner, who's more straight-laced and reliable and 'by the book' (Lee)? The City Mayor who is either 'pragmatic' or amoral, or corrupt (Roslin for the first, Baltar for the second)? And of course the Chief Commissioner, who's noble and the best cop around (Adama)? Not to mention the Character With The Dark Past (could be applied to everybody). And I'm saying all this as a fan of nBSG.

[phongn]

I like nBSG, but let's not treat it like the second coming of Jesus. Most of the characters are straight out of a cop show cliche book. The drunk, stupid police chief (Tigh)? The maverick cop, with the huge chip on his shoulder (Starbuck)? The maverick's partner, who's more straight-laced and reliable and 'by the book' (Lee)? The City Mayor who is either 'pragmatic' or amoral, or corrupt (Roslin for the first, Baltar for the second)? And of course the Chief Commissioner, who's noble and the best cop around (Adama)? Not to mention the Character With The Dark Past (could be applied to everybody). And I'm saying all this as a fan of nBSG.

Well, nBSG took a lot of inspiration from Hill Street Blues, so this shouldn't be too surprising

[Noble Ire]

Oh please. Kirk wasn't a saint. More than a few episodes dealt with the fact humans were still hyper-aggressive and belligerent, with Kirk being no exception to that, and that they were (metaphorically) babies that had barely left the cradle and begun their first walking steps while other races were all grown up and driving cars. The message Trek conveyed was simple: we're not perfect, but we're trying.

I was referring to the franchise as a whole, not TOS specifically. The original did have it share of "shades of gray" characters, certainly far more than the later series, of which I was mainly speaking. I apologize for the lack of clarification.

[Spyder]

I've actually got to go with Shep on this one, nBSG delivers. Sure there are flaws but on the whole the finished product is pretty high quality. Yes there's drama, but for many of us that's something that appeals. When you look at what we've been fed throughout Star Trek, where the height of dramatic tension was having a Voyager character walk slightly faster then the aliens that were chasing him, it's quite understandable. Also if you're going to make a show about a small group of people facing annihilation I'd expect it to be somewhat gritty.

Not only that but characters are suddenly being held accountable for their actions. No more third options, no more resets and time travel. There's logical progression throughout the series, characters have actually grown and if you watch any particular episode you can usually tell where in the overall story it fits.

My opinion, oBSG didn't get raped, it got loved tenderly...by suprise.