Battlestar Galactica On SciFi Channel

[narf poit chez BOOM]

so, they make it the colonials fault the cylon's are bad robots?

'oh, but he/she had rotten parents/freinds/small furry animals'.

so now, the colonails are the bad guy's?

anyone want to start a petition to the sci-fi channel to stop them from ruining a great show?

^calmest thing i could think of^

[Prince Xizor]

Originally posted by SpaceBadger:
Try to look at it without 23+ years of hindsight. When Star Wars first came out, one of the best things about it for us kids (I was 14) was the special effects - the ships in space, the bLaster bolts, the light-sabres - all a quantum leap beyond what we were used to seeing in Star Trek re-runs on late night TV, or on Space: 1999. These were pretty much the only referents we had, and without VCRs we did not have the opportunity to study them in detail, we could only try and catch them when they happened to show up on TV.

From that point of view, yes, Battlestar Galactica certainly did a pretty good impression of Star Wars. The ships had a similar look to them; the appearance of ships in space, and ship combat, was very similar; and I think the hand-weapon effects were similar, too.

I didn't get to see Galactica much, only when I was over at the home of someone who lived in town and had cable TV, as it was on a network that we could not recieve by broadcast (ABC, maybe?), but I remember thinking back then that it would be so cool to be able to watch it regularly, like getting Star Wars on TV. (I watched Star Wars three times the summer it came out, then did not get to see it again in any form until Empire Strikes Back came out several years later; did not see the original Star Wars again until it was shown on TV about the time that Jedi came out, I think. My kids have them all on VHS and watch them whenever they get a notion, and think nothing of it.)

So anyway, yeah, I understand exactly what Xizor was saying, and agree with him.

SpaceBadger

Thanks, SpaceBadger! Couldn't have explained myself any better than that.

Of course when A New Hope was first released in 1977, I was only a year old. The first Star Wars film I saw in theaters was Return of the Jedi in '83. The previous two I saw at my neighbor's house; she babysat for my brothers and I, and happened to have a VCR (my parents didn't get one until the mid-80s). So I was pretty young when first watching Star Wars, Galactica, and I also remember a show called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (which has re-aired on-and-off on Sci-Fi). And at that age, you're too young to really understand the story. You just wait for the scenes with starfighter dogfights and bLaster bolts darting across the screen. Naturally you perceive obvious similarities between Star Wars and Galactica: Cylon centurions resemble Imperial Stormtroopers (and their mechanical appearance distinguishes them as the "bad guys", as opposed to the "good guys" who are mainly human in appearance); similar weapons and ships; the Cylons and Imperials always tend to outnumber the "good guys", who more than make up for it through heroics; and so on. The Last point you find in any fantasy epic, but Star Wars and Galactica were my first exposure to this kind of thing. Which is probably why even today I prefer space fantasy over the Harry Potter / Lord of the Rings varieties.

[Atrocities]

Comparing BSG to SW is like comparing Air Combat in California to Air Combat in Florida. Space fighter combat in both BSG and SW are simular because that is how we preceive fighter combat for space. The fact that they are simular is by design and concept. No one has the right to "claim" the style as their own.

Vipers look nothing like X-Wings IMHO. Cylon Fighters look nothing like TIE Fighters. A Battlestar and a Basestar have no resemeblence to anything seen in Star Wars. Lucas lost his case, and we lost BSG. Thank George.

Remember BSG was sued by the guy who made Howard the Duck.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, now that was a nifty show. Corney by todays standards, but in the day it was a great Thursday night flick. I still love thinking about Erin (Wilma) for she was one very attactive women and I guess she still is. Do any of you remember the episode where Whilma and another women were locked inside of a hot room filled with steam? Ohhhh ya baby, for a 13 year old that was like pure gold.

Any one here recently listen to BSG Main title theme? I need to get that on P2P as I can not find it on any CD any where.

[ October 07, 2003, 10:15: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
You really should watch the old Version from the late 70's. It debute on September 17th 1978 I believe and was 3 hours long.

Women fighter pilots is nothing new to BSG, as they had them in great numbers in the original series.

Uh, actually I think maybe you need to brush up on your old episodes. They had one female viper pilot on a regular basis. I can't remember her name but I think it was Appollo's sister. And she was always whining that they never let her fly combat and made her fly the shuttles. It was all very 70's TV war of the sexes crap. Finally they had one episode where all the male pilots got sick and the women folk had to defend the fleet. After that episode though they went back to just male pilots for the most part, although the one girl did get to be a regular member of the viper squadrons after that.

My first impression of making Starbuck a woman was "you got to be kidding me!". I am all for adding more strong female characters but I thought it would have been better to simply add them as new characters that weren't in the original. But after reading some of the back story it actually sounds like it might be kind of interesting. And it doesn't hurt that the actress they got to play her is HOT!

I have decided I am going to watch the new series and just take it on it's own merits. Instead of looking for discrepancies I am going to watch it as a totally new story and decide if I like it or not based on that. The original series was cool for the time and one of my favorite shows growing up, but in retrospect sucked pretty badly. I tried catching them on sci-fi a few months back and they were frankly unwatchable except for making fun of.

[Mudshark]

I just wonder if they are going to recycle the same space scenes 1,000 times like in the original series?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Mudshark:
I just wonder if they are going to recycle the same space scenes 1,000 times like in the original series?

Oh yeah, that same scene of the cylons approaching and rolling over into a dive every time there was an attack. That one became so ubiquitous it was in an RCA TV commercial for a while. Then there is the one they play every time a viper got behind one of the cylons: cut to an interior of a cylon fighter and the pilot looks back over his shoulder just before the ship explodes.

One of the nice things about the computer generated effects is once you set the basic paramaters and elements of the shot you can run it from different angles and what not and make several shots that look nothing alike. So hopefully no.

[Prince Xizor]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, now that was a nifty show. Corney by todays standards, but in the day it was a great Thursday night flick. I still love thinking about Erin (Wilma) for she was one very attactive women and I guess she still is. Do any of you remember the episode where Whilma and another women were locked inside of a hot room filled with steam? Ohhhh ya baby, for a 13 year old that was like pure gold.

*nods*
"Planet of the Slave Girls" had to be the best episode for that reason alone.