Battlestar Galactica Review

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-12-09 05:29pm

A race of intelligent machines would more probably build an AI into the fighter than build it to accommodate separate machine pilots (and obligingly provide it with a life support system in order to allow human pilots to fly captured examples as we saw in the original series – even though such a life support system would be utterly superfluous to the fighter’s intended robot crew).

That might not be life support so much as making sure the grunt-cylons can survive. It's entirely possible those aren't designed to survive in vaccum and actually need something like the terrestrial environment to survive.

That doesn't make it any less silly that they needed a crew in the first place. Even as a kid watching it I wondered why they did that.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-12-09 05:31pm

Stormbringer wrote:
A race of intelligent machines would more probably build an AI into the fighter than build it to accommodate separate machine pilots (and obligingly provide it with a life support system in order to allow human pilots to fly captured examples as we saw in the original series – even though such a life support system would be utterly superfluous to the fighter’s intended robot crew).
That might not be life support so much as making sure the grunt-cylons can survive. It's entirely possible those aren't designed to survive in vaccum and actually need something like the terrestrial environment to survive.

That doesn't make it any less silly that they needed a crew in the first place. Even as a kid watching it I wondered why they did that.

Could be the raiders are a holdover from the ancient Cylons and the design hasn't changed since and the original concept of the Cylons were as cyborgs so they would need life support. Also the stolen Raider in the episode where they use one was Baltar's hence the life support system.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 05:33pm

Because the Cylons being robots was a rather late alteration made on request by ABC. Up until then, the Cylons were planed to be a reptillian species, but the network was weary of having such a prominent programme in which dozens of living beings would be killed, so they requested that the production change them to robots.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-09 05:42pm

One thing I will say for the new version is that I liked how they incorporated in the old Vipers, given that they'd decided to change a lot of other stuff. I'd have prefered a straight-up remake, but if that's not in the cards, then that is that.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-12-09 05:45pm

BTW what is it with the current trend in sci fi soundtracks with the weird percussion thing. The soundtrack was bad, granted not as horrible as Crusade's but Jesus its in the same vein. I've always been partial to orchestral scores but you could have explored like a more techno rock thing or anything else but the soulless precussion music is awful.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 05:48pm

Well, they obviously didn't do a good job with it, since I can't remember any of the score other than the rescorings of the TV series music.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-12-09 06:06pm

I had the first part on TV while I was busy doing other things, so I didn't get much of a chance to pay attention to the plot. The only thing that caught my eye were the space battles, and I liked what I saw of them...

Bright white flashes from nukes detonated in space. Good. That was very nice to see, and definitely something I want to see more of in sci-fi space battles. Also, destroying them doesn't seem to make them blow up like a properly initiated explosion would.

Eerily quiet or muted sounds in space combat, neat... looks like they're trying to compromise between no sound in space and keeping things from feeling odd to the viewer. I'll have to see more space battles from it to see how well it works. I like this direction, though it could probably be improved upon.

Camera movement in the space battles seemed pretty good. I thought the debris hitting the camera and knocking it back in the opening explosion was fun.

Newtonian physics and long, sweeping runs in fighter battles... nice, and done well. Things seemed to move a lot more like they should than what we see in most sci-fi. In fact, I think the fighter movements looked better than the ones in Babylon 5. (Of course, I always thought the turns done by 'Furies in B5 were too slow for any sane pilot to make while going in a perfectly straight line... you'd think the pilot would use a bit of thrust to give him some kind of delta-v so he's not a sitting duck during those turns... or maybe I've just played too much Descent... in any case, the Cylon flips just seemed better executed.)

The stuff from elsewhere in the series didn't really get my attention, so I guess it wasn't important.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-12-09 06:15pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Well, they obviously didn't do a good job with it, since I can't remember any of the score other than the rescorings of the TV series music.

At one point they did use the original theme music which I found a little refreshing.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2003-12-09 06:26pm

I liked the muted space combat sounds as well.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 06:30pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Well, they obviously didn't do a good job with it, since I can't remember any of the score other than the rescorings of the TV series music.
At one point they did use the original theme music which I found a little refreshing.

What I found interesting was that it appeared to be diegetic in origin.

So does that mean that the BG theme might be something like the Colonial anthem?

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-12-09 07:21pm

Stravo wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
A race of intelligent machines would more probably build an AI into the fighter than build it to accommodate separate machine pilots (and obligingly provide it with a life support system in order to allow human pilots to fly captured examples as we saw in the original series – even though such a life support system would be utterly superfluous to the fighter’s intended robot crew).
That might not be life support so much as making sure the grunt-cylons can survive. It's entirely possible those aren't designed to survive in vaccum and actually need something like the terrestrial environment to survive.

That doesn't make it any less silly that they needed a crew in the first place. Even as a kid watching it I wondered why they did that.
Could be the raiders are a holdover from the ancient Cylons and the design hasn't changed since and the original concept of the Cylons were as cyborgs so they would need life support. Also the stolen Raider in the episode where they use one was Baltar's hence the life support system.

Still doesn't seem very plausible. Even if it is an old design, what possible reason would there be to cling to it when they could make a newer fighter without life support, piloted by an AI, which would be more compact, likely faster (less mass), more efficient, easier to manufacture and maintain?

No, I'm afraid no matter how you slice it that's an aspect of the old series that just doesn't make much sense, and the new version improves on the original in this area.

Bug-Eyed Earl · Post by **Bug-Eyed Earl** » 2003-12-09 07:32pm

Peringuus: My thoughts exactly.

It's suppoed to pick up and get moving tonight; one review from a die-hard BG fan who was willing to be impartial said that he hoped the first part wouldn't put people off, because the second part is where it gets good.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-12-09 08:35pm

Patrick Degan wrote:... At no point could I feel anything for the "characters" or their alledged plight —particularly Edward James Olmos who was clearly just phoning in his performance in this goofy film which seemed to be attempting to avoid even a hint of action and excitement as if it were touched by the plague.

I take it you were similarly enthralled with the soap-opera romantic intrigue of DS9, Ron Moore's other baby

... All the critical sequences of the downfall of the Twelve Colonies occur off-screen. Never once is the horror of the event actually shown, breaking one of the most cardinal rules of screenwriting which even a hack like Ron Moore should understand. The few battle scenes which are shown are not only all too brief but filmed in either at such distance that you barely make out what's going on or so closely fixed on one fighter or missile that the rest of the combat scene is lost. If a film is going to incorporate battle scenes, it should actually show the fighting, shouldn't it?

He was probably trying to be different just for the sake of being different. Always a bad beginning to a creative enterprise.

... the Colonials stupidly networked every computer system together in both their planetside and space forces so that the whole defence could be attacked at a single point of failure (which means they learned their computer science from Microsoft or Starfleet) and shut down. That this in and of itself is horribly implausible is small beer compared to the truly loopy notion that a race of robots would not only build human duplicates but a particular one with a sex drive to boot. The backstory of the 01 cybernation from The Animatrix is infinitely more reasonable, and that's saying a lot.

Good lord, that's awful. It's like they took their inspiration from the single most absurd plot point of ID4.

Where the original BSG was a weird mix of Mormonism and the pseudo cosmology/history of the VonDaniken School of Crackpots, the new BSG is an exercise in tedious antitechnological sermonising and moralistic handwringing over man daring to Tamper in God's Domain.

In other words, it's Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park set in space. Sounds like they forgot the Jeff Goldblum character, warning everyone of the perils of reliance on technology with vague references to chaos theory.

... All this, however, is merely periphral to the fact that Ronald Moore's new vision for Battlestar Galactica removed everything which gave the original its identity and left us with a tedious, plodding mess of a movie; populated by "characters" who haven't even the personalities of cardboard standees. A movie with all the excitement and entertainment value of watching very moralistic paint drying.

Pretty much what I expected. Thanks for saving me the trauma of watching it for myself and seeing my childhood memories vandalized.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-12-09 09:00pm

What childhood memories? I was too young for BSG.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 09:05pm

MKSheppard wrote:What childhood memories? I was too young for BSG.

Maybe, but Mike wasn't.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-12-09 09:08pm

MKSheppard wrote:What childhood memories? I was too young for BSG.

I remember watching BG in the theaters during its short theatrical release. I loved it. 70's Sci Fi, definately a golden age.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 09:37pm

Well, here comes Part II...

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-12-09 10:01pm

Stravo wrote:
MKSheppard wrote:What childhood memories? I was too young for BSG.
I remember watching BG in the theaters during its short theatrical release. I loved it. 70's Sci Fi, definately a golden age.

The televised premier of BSG was a traumatic night for me.

I wasn't allowed to watch it.

It started at 9:00, and ended at 11:00, and fucking school started THE NEXT DAY! So of course, watching that and staying up an hour later than ws normal was out of the question.
The fact that no one wanted to watch it, and wanted to watch the 1976 version of King Kong that was on at the same time had nothinng to do with it, I'm sure.

It took me until the recent airing of the pilot on Sci-Fi to finally catch it! Somehow, I believe I would have enjoyed it a LOT more as a ten year old.

Solid Snake · Post by **Solid Snake** » 2003-12-09 10:15pm

Call me crazy, but if this comes out on DVD or anything like that, so far I'm planning on buying it. Still a lot of room for improvement though. I'd also like more glory shots of the Galactica, dammit.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 10:17pm

Anyone else get Silent Running vibes from the botony lab? I know that footage of the SR ships were used throughout the original series, so that might be a pretty subtle reference to the OS.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2003-12-09 10:22pm

I'm liking this ep more than the first so far.. and how many damn missiles do those Raiders carry yeesh..

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-12-09 10:25pm

The new Galactica model looks like ass, too.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 10:29pm

SylasGaunt wrote:I'm liking this ep more than the first so far.. and how many damn missiles do those Raiders carry yeesh..

I only wish that they carried more than just missiles.

But yeah, that was a damn lot of them.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2003-12-09 10:40pm

If I'm not mistaken they've got some kind of cannon to.. at least I seem to remember a shot from the first ep with blue bolts blowing a viper up.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-09 10:42pm

I think you might be right. hard to remember though, since the battles were so slow...