Syfy greenlights pilot for third Galactica series

[DrMckay]

I dunno, In my opinion, a series titled:

"How Bill Adama got Really, Really badass" could be pretty good.

I mean the first Cylon War can be compared to Vietnam and WWII simultaneously, which means you could do a Band of Brothers sort of thing with it, possibly shoot stuff monochromatically, etc, and follow pilots, and groundpounders alike

(Not enough focus on the groundpounders in nBSG.)

Also, they should be aware that drama - funny = annoyingly angsty. Perhaps they could borrow the gallows humor aspects of some of the characters in Band of Brothers (Luz's voice imitations and the spirit of cameraderie.) with that addition the show could work.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that when Battlestar worked, it was when they worked with hard scifi in a universe with physical rules and left the supernatural shit out of it.

This wouldn't have to be a war show all the way through, you could show how the civilians are being affected by the conflict, like Band of brothers did when Winters went on leave in Paris.

Also, this show has tons of potential to show life on a space warship as an established part of a military unit, and not just in the war itself. A section of the show about securing rear areas or patrolling spacelanes when pulled off the front or after the war would be really cool, and would be sorta like a reverse Firefly:

Picture this:

The Military establishment must pursue and capture smugglers, drug runners, war profiteers and lowlife scum pulling illegal salvage off of derelict warships, disturbing the bodies of the crews who perished to save them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Those are some good ideas, but I have a feling that isn't how it'll work out. I bet at least half of the non-combat scenes will be Adama dealing with the racism he experiences as a Tauron on the battlestar that represents Caprica (I think hes a Tauron, at least I think hes form a Tauron family)

EDIT: On a side note, if you want a good BSG spinoff, read the "Battlestar Prometheus" stories, they are much better and dont have any "religious/destiny" shit in them

[Sarevok]

No head people.

The easiest way to make a scifi show cheesy is to insert hallucinations as main characters.

[Anguirus]

I think this could be a really, really good thing. This franchise needs an injection of space battles and maybe slightly less gloom and doom.

I never liked the bits in the Razor Flashbacks saying it was Adama's first mission. These bits were dropped from the extended version of Razor anyway. For time, no doubt, but it also showed Adama as an insanely good pilot, better than anyone else in the series. On his first mission? Nah.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fair enough. I agree that it needs to go back to its sci fi/space opera roots. I will be dissapointed if there arent at least two battles in the pilot. Hopefully we'll see some proper capship combat as well, rather than the prosaic "launch vipers, fight, flak, recover vipers, jump"

[Crazedwraith]

I think this could be a really, really good thing. This franchise needs an injection of space battles and maybe slightly less gloom and doom.

I never liked the bits in the Razor Flashbacks saying it was Adama's first mission. These bits were dropped from the extended version of Razor anyway. For time, no doubt, but it also showed Adama as an insanely good pilot, better than anyone else in the series. On his first mission? Nah.

'Insanely good'? He got shot down. He certainly wasn't better than Starbuck or Apollo. (He admits to former in the minseries)

I recall Adama mentioning other cylon war missions he did in the show, but I think they were in Raptors with Razor being his first Viper mission or something.

[Stofsk]

Well, Starbuck got shot down as well...

[Crazedwraith]

Well, Starbuck got shot down as well...

Starbuck got shot well taking on a half-squadron by herself apart from one nugget that she then had to protect for the rest of the fight after the first pass. And she won.

Adama totally failed to protect columbia from like two raider and then got shot down. Granted we don't know how long the battle had been going at that point but anyway...

Regardless, he didn't come off as any more or less competent than other hero viper jocks in my opinion. Though he sounds more badass. Husker Indeed.

[Galvatron]

I want them to stop making nBSG spin-offs, but I'll be damned if I don't relish the thought of seeing the oBSG-style cylon basestars and centurions on a weekly basis.

[Lord Insanity]

3. The whole series is basically going to be S:AAB with Galactica patches!

If the show is even half as good as that sounds it will blow nBSG out of the water space.

[Netko]

I don't know, I'd hope with the bump to an actual TV series, they'd now be able to build more stuff practically.

On the other hand, the CGI hasn't been standing still either. If you look at Spartacus, Sanctuary (which over does it), SG:U or more relevantly for this production Caprica and nBSG itself (hangars were partly CGI, for example), you can see shows that have gotten more adept at integrating CGI relatively realistically into the show. Sanctuary and Caprica are both SyFy (groan at the name) shows with extensive CGI, so they have institutional experience in this sort of thing, and both shows have refined their usage of CGI over time - for example, Sanctuary started out with full CGI sets which didn't really work, but these days they do CGI/practial compositions a lot (as does Caprica) and for the most part it works really well.

So I'm relatively confident about their institutional ability to do CGI/practical, and I'm sure that after the experiment with Sanctuary they aren't going to go full CGI, but instead only more CGI then nBSG was - and that's fine to me.

Of course, if this ends up a miniseries or if it transitions to a full blown series is, of course, a factor.

[neoolong]

Well, it depends on what they mean by virtual sets. It was just the callout of it in particular that makes me think they were intending something more than how SGU uses it.

It was originally meant as a webseries though, which is why more CGI might have worked.

[Anguirus]

'Insanely good'? He got shot down. He certainly wasn't better than Starbuck or Apollo. (He admits to former in the minseries)

I recall Adama mentioning other cylon war missions he did in the show, but I think they were in Raptors with Razor being his first Viper mission or something.

1) Um, he destroys multiple raiders, pulls off frankly nuts maneuvers after diving into a planetary atmosphere to successfully kill two more (he wasn't shot down, he and the Cylon collided with each other due to no visibility). The real-world equivalent would have been "ace in a day," which AFAIK is unheard of to pull off in your first combat mission. (Cue someone pulling out an obscure WWII anecdote, probably from the Russian Front. ) Also, safeguarding the Columbia wasn't his exclusive responsibility--he destroys at least two Raiders IIRC and then the ship blows up because it's taking fire from two basestars and dozens of Raiders. Heck, we have to imagine the battle is less fast paced than it is on screen for his accomplishments to be relatively sane. Starbuck didn't splash a half-squadron on her first mission, never mind that she never actually did it without help.

Also, you have the Rambo impression that Adama does after he goes down.

2) If you accept the Razor Flashbacks as canon, this was Adama's first combat mission. He's never made a kill, and a Raptor pilot is giving him advice and telling the story of her first kill. This isn't an experienced Raptor pilot who transferred to Vipers. That's why I think they might as well scrap this backstory.

[Solauren]

What if the Razor flash-back was Odama's first SOLO mission? And otherwise, he had lots of combat under his belt.

There we go, it all fits now, and back to work!

[Anguirus]

^ Once again, there's just no way. If Adama's and McGavin's conversation is part of the story, then Adama is just an unknowing Viper prodigy. Which could sort of work with the series, his reputation comes from being nucking futs in his one and only combat.

But, if we just take Razor and only Razor as canon, then we can easily have a Young Adama TV show. Which, clearly, someone is doing, so YAY! The events of Razor is Adama at the top of his game, having really earned his rep.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I want them to stop making nBSG spin-offs, but I'll be damned if I don't relish the thought of seeing the oBSG-style cylon basestars and centurions on a weekly basis.

I have no problem with them doing nBSg spin offs, IF and only IF they are same quality as the miniseries/season 1/season2. If they like seasons 3 and 4 then "shudder"

And, yes, old-school basestars and centurions regularly = a very happy me

Ofc, if they wanted to be realy daring, they could try literally remaking the original series (by which I mean same designs, same characters, same plots (or relatively close anyway)) rather than re imagining it. Old-school Cain and Pegasus taking on tw basestars with modern CGI? sweet

[Sarevok]

What if the Razor flash-back was Odama's first SOLO mission? And otherwise, he had lots of combat under his belt.

There we go, it all fits now, and back to work!

No. It was stated in "Sine Qua Non" that Adamas first solo mission was in a Raptor reconnoitering a star system. Adama muses this fact when after all these years he once again sets out alone in a raptor in an unknown star system.

That said it is quite possible to reconcile everything by saying the battle of the ice planet was the first time Adama was allowed to fly as a viper jock. His previous war experience was in a Raptor, But he ended the war doing what he wanted most in the final battle - flying a Viper in combat.

[Johonebesus]

Ofc, if they wanted to be realy daring, they could try literally remaking the original series (by which I mean same designs, same characters, same plots (or relatively close anyway)) rather than re imagining it. Old-school Cain and Pegasus taking on tw basestars with modern CGI? sweet

I'm waiting for the technology to allow fans to isolate actors and replace everything else with new CG on home computers, or someday even create photo-realistic models and voice simulators to make new scenes with old actors. Imagine Lorne Greene commanding a new Pegasus type battlestar, or Davros' prototype actually looking primitive, or even seeing Hartnell and a teenage Susan in The Five Doctors.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ofc, if they wanted to be realy daring, they could try literally remaking the original series (by which I mean same designs, same characters, same plots (or relatively close anyway)) rather than re imagining it. Old-school Cain and Pegasus taking on tw basestars with modern CGI? sweet

I'm waiting for the technology to allow fans to isolate actors and replace everything else with new CG on home computers, or someday even create photo-realistic models and voice simulators to make new scenes with old actors. Imagine Lorne Greene commanding a new Pegasus type battlestar, or Davros' prototype actually looking primitive, or even seeing Hartnell and a teenage Susan in The Five Doctors.

That would be sweeeeeeeeeeeet. Although if its going to be Lorne Greene, then it has to be the original Galactica. Him in Adm. Cain's place would be interesting, but it just wouldn't be a proper oBSG remake if it didn't have lasers (or whatever they actually are)

[Channel72]

There are a few differences though. For one thing, we know that Galactica and Adama survive because of what we've already seen. So if this 3rd spin off was about the war and it shows Adama as a lowly pilot onboard the Galactica when it was brand-spanking new, there wouldn't be any tension as far as it relates to either him or the ship being in danger.

Arguably a lot of WW2 movies don't fall into this category because the good ones that stick out are about the 'unknown soldiers' who are given a name and a face but aren't historical figures. The movies that are about historical figures like Patton, Macarthur, Hitler and so on, are less about the battles and more almost dramatised biographies. On the other hand, I found 'Enemy at the Gates' to be wonderfully tense as you would expect from sniper duels, and I guess that doesn't help my case any.

It's difficult to identify exactly what elements make a prequel work, but I think it's sufficient to say that our foreknowledge of how events turn out doesn't have to be a hindrance to the drama of a prequel, especially if the prequel itself is mostly character driven. I mean, most historical dramas are basically character driven. Nobody watches "Saving Private Ryan" because they want to find out who won World War II. Also, there's something inherently interesting about watching characters in real historical settings that obviously can't be replicated in a fantasy prequel setting. This is probably because in the fantasy genre, the setting itself (as opposed to the characters) is often a key element in what makes the story interesting.

I think a Star Wars prequel trilogy could have worked - it had a 20 year old cultural icon to work with, and was basically a character-driven tragedy. Somehow, the execution just went horribly wrong.

But an nBSG prequel seems very tricky to pull off. The execution would have to be fantastic, because a lot of what drove the drama of the original nBSG was the question "will they survive?". Since we already know the answer to that, a prequel would be very hard-pressed to come up with compelling drama. Plus, the ending to nBSG was so depressing and anti-climatic that it would be hard to really become attached to any prequel story set in that universe. Really, it's like, how can I become attached to any prequel nBSG stories when I know they're all eventually going to end up as a bunch of struggling Luddite subsistence farmers.

[xt828]

What makes things like Svaing Private Ryan work, imo, is that while we know who won the war, we don't know who in particular survived it. Making a prequel series about the Battlestar Shroom and its intrepid crew's struggle through the first Cylon war would work, because nothing in the other show lets us know if they made it or not, but making one about Adama is less interesting because we already know that he'll win.

[neoolong]

Well, we do know that they got destroyed since the only ones left were the Battlestar Galactica, Pegasus, the civilian fleet, and the scattered people that survived for a while on the colonies.

We may not know who exactly dies on a person to person level, but if we're talking the fleet, then we kinda do know what happens.

[xt828]

We don't know who made it through the First Cylon war. The Second has already had a show about it, but this one is focusing on the First. Given that Adama and Starbuck's Mum are the only people we see in nBSG who served in the first war, and Adama at least is implied to be quite young at the end of that war, which is said to be quite long. It's totally possible that the crew could have all retired to the obligatory pleasure planet by the time the cylon holocaust occurs, and the series could indeed end with a "forty years later" everyone dies sequence.

[Vympel]

Finally, they're doing what I said they should've done ages ago!

[TOSDOC]

neoolong wrote:
They managed to craft a trilogy of movies around Anakin Skywalker.


You're not really helping your case here by bringing that up as an example. Only one of those three films is widely considered to be "good" around these parts.

The first one, right?

A 10-year war would have tons of stories to tell, even knowing who won. Look at all of the movies made about WWII, a 3 1/2-year war for the US alone, in all of the different genres, from Saving Private Ryan to the Tuskegee Airmen to Operation Petticoat to Below (just saw it last night, enjoyed it) to the Desert Fox. While I don't so much agree with the idea to do the filming by bluescreen, what would draw me in is the chance to see more than two battlestars working in unision. They are battleships as well as carriers, and I would love the chance to see them in a large scale fleet action against centurions. They have a good opportunity to exhibit actual large-scale 3D combat tactics with capital ships as well as fighters, which have already been done. The show could focus not only on Adama in a cockpit, but also the Admirals' and Colonies' strategy in conducting something as massive as decades-long space war.