Battlestar Galactica II (No Joke) - Page 5

disabled · #41 June 26th, 2002, 03:50 AM

If I recall a small news article from back in the days..

BattleStar Galactica was one of the most expensive series ever produced, episodes were produced near the cost of the most expensive tv show pilot (about 600,000) known at the time - The Original Star Trek Pilot.
600k x 26 episodes a seasons... Expensive as hell...

But they pulled Ratings both in first airings and syndications.... Networks like that.

but there was a far greater evil... far far greater... and it was from a galaxy far, far, far, very damn far away...

Yes, Mighty Emperor George Lucas felt BSG was a direct rip-off of the Star Wars. And he sued them up one side and down the other with not 10, not 12, but 11 over-payed, high priced, foreign lawyers until the studios questioned the series seriously.

While BSG did eventully win the law battle... changes is the writer staff sent the writing quality to the crapper. Anyone remember the episode where they switch the lines for Apollo and Starbuck so that one could have the funny lines of a change.....

Those things really piss off fans (like in the case of Star Trek TNG & DS9 fans that watched Voyager and Enterprise) and the Ratings dropped and dropped.

Then the execs at the studio said "Kill them all...."

And George Lucas smelled the sweet sent of the burnt remains competition was pleased...

If I recall right, isn't Ron Moore of StarTrek TNG taking over for some of the writing team on the new BSG.

Also, Glen Larson has been fighting the studios for years to let him produce a series of movies. That is way Hatch hasn't got his series yet, Glen as bigger plans....

Now to physics, Star Trek pulled that banking in space crap too during DS9's Dominion War -With a GALAXY CLASS STARSHIP!

Krakenup · #42 June 26th, 2002, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
In fact, an aircraft in an atmosphere theoretically could turn at a sharper angle because it can change the angle of attack of it's wings and bank into the turn. This will add the wings lift to the thrust of the engines in changing vectors. It's not a big difference, and it takes a lot of skill and a really well designed aircraft. But a viper in a vacuum would have no such assistance. It would have only it's engines for forward thrust and some kind of reaction jets or moveable thrust cowling for direction changes.

(Btw, I am not an aeronautical engineer, but I play one on T.V. )

Geo

It's not a big difference, it's a HUGE difference. For example, an F-16 can perform a 9-G turn (until the pilot blacks out) using aerodynamic forces. Its thrust-weight ratio, however, is generally less than one so its acceleration using just the engine is less than 1 G.

Cylapse · #43 June 26th, 2002, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Those things really piss off fans (like in the case of Star Trek TNG & DS9 fans that watched Voyager and Enterprise) and the Ratings dropped and dropped.

LOL, What happened with Enterprise? DS9 was my favorite, and I couldnt stand that god damn Voyager. But Ent Im actually half interested in. Not to mention its the only fooken thing on these days, someone needs to pick up and air DS9.

geoschmo · #44 June 26th, 2002, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Krakenup:
It's not a big difference, it's a HUGE difference. For example, an F-16 can perform a 9-G turn (until the pilot blacks out) using aerodynamic forces. Its thrust-weight ratio, however, is generally less than one so its acceleration using just the engine is less than 1 G.

Heh, I was pretty much talking out my behind there wasn't I?

Aircraft almost exclusivly change directions by use of aerodynamic forces. I didn't mean engine thrust there at all. Or if I did I was nuts. I was trying to differentiate in my mind between the amount of vector change that is a result of manipulating the control sufraces, and the amount of vector change that is a result of banking so that the lift of the wing surface is pushing the aircraft in the direction you want to turn. But it's all so interrelated you would need to know a whole lot more about it than I do to separate those two elements.

I was trying to contrast that to a space ship in a vacuum where the "control surface" is a retro, and there is no lift. Got my self a little tied up. Thanks for pointing that out Krak.

Geo

Krakenup · #45 June 26th, 2002, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Aircraft almost exclusivly change directions by use of aerodynamic forces. I didn't mean engine thrust there at all. Or if I did I was nuts. I was trying to differentiate in my mind between the amount of vector change that is a result of manipulating the control sufraces, and the amount of vector change that is a result of banking so that the lift of the wing surface is pushing the aircraft in the direction you want to turn. But it's all so interrelated you would need to know a whole lot more about it than I do to separate those two elements.

I was trying to contrast that to a space ship in a vacuum where the "control surface" is a retro, and there is no lift. Got my self a little tied up. Thanks for pointing that out Krak.

Geo

The main wing control surfaces, the leading- and trailing-edge flaps, are used at low speed (takeoff and landing) to increase the wing's effective camber (curvature) to increase the lift. The other control surfaces are used to control the direction of the aircraft. At speed, vector change is accomplished by using the control surfaces to reorient the aircraft so that the wing lift provides the required force. In space, you would just use thrusters to reorient the main engine thrust vector and fire. It would take huge engines to maneuver effectively (dogfight) in space.

geoschmo · #46 June 26th, 2002, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Krakenup:
It would take huge engines to maneuver effectively (dogfight) in space.

Right, not to mention that by any process of propulsion that we can even theorize about it would take a tremendous amount of fuel to do the things they do in all these shows. Star Wars, BSG, B5, SAAB. They are all guilty of that "little fudge".

The Apollo space craft that went to the mooon and back travelled for several days, but all together the engines fired for what, maybe twenty minutes total? Including the launch from earth probably around twenty minutes. The rest was just inertia.

But space fighters are just so darn cool.

Geoschmo

Baron Munchausen · #47 June 26th, 2002, 11:02 PM

Yeah, we prefer to see what we understand, even if it's incorrect. Fighting in space will probably be unlike anything we're familiar with now if it occurs.

What's funny is that even now 'dog fights' hardly occur anymore. We've reached the point where long-range radars can spot incoming planes and missiles can be fired before there is any hope of direct engagement. Maybe when non-US airforces clash there are still dogfights, but right now we've got such an advantage over every other airforce in the world that I don't think our pilots have done anything but training dogfights for decades.

[ June 26, 2002, 22:08: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Baron Munchausen · #48 June 26th, 2002, 11:07 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Krakenup:

Quote:

It's not a big difference, it's a HUGE difference. For example, an F-16 can perform a 9-G turn (until the pilot blacks out) using aerodynamic forces. Its thrust-weight ratio, however, is generally less than one so its acceleration using just the engine is less than 1 G.

Well, I know that both the F-15 and the F-16 can fly straight up for a considerable distance. I clearly recall that the F-15 can reach 50,000 feet faster than the Apollo moon rockets could. Is the difference really all attributable to the very slow vertical lift-off of the Apollo rockets? I'd have thought that the F-15 and F-16 would have a better thrust-weight ratio than "slightly" more than 1-1. They are suppose to be able to make a start down the runway & then flip the thing into vertical before they would have reached horizontal take-off speed.

disabled · #49 June 27th, 2002, 04:42 AM

DS9, sadly, won't be picked up by many networks mainly because it went into a gray area of character development where good guy abd bad guy got mixed. While more realistic, it requires story arcs and such that dropped Ratings.

Voyager was supposed to fix that by have all episodes unrelated. That did even worse since all the characters were made to fit the writer's wet dreams.

What I'm hoping for is Berman to be reduced in power... ALOT so that trek can grow a bit. DS9 and TNG did well because Berman kinda stayed out of it, just handling the studio affairs and supervisor top level crap. He went nitty-gritty on Voyager for season 1-5 and that series went to crap, he totally abandoned Voyager for Enterprise in seasons 6 & 7 and that really sent it to the crapper.

Lesson to be learned- Berman is interested in money.

Baron Munchausen · #50 June 27th, 2002, 04:56 AM

Bwahahaha... what do you think any studio is interested in? Trek went into the trash bin when Rodenberry died. Paramount was left in sole control of it. Berman may or may not be dumber than the average studio exec, but it'll be incredibly lucky to find one willing to let Trek be a SciFi show with real attempts at exploration and experimentation. It's just another cash cow with a formula to follow as far as the suits are concerned.

The only reason DS9 had any quality at all was that it was a rip-off of Babylon 5, designed to 'block' it's success. Strasczinsky (sp?) had pitched it to Paramount before being accepted at WB, and so they had the outline of the story arc to work with.

[ June 27, 2002, 14:22: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]