New Battlestar Galactica - Worth a Series? 1057
rwxJava asks: "Ok, so it finally aired! IMHO it was pretty good. The special effects were great (no major laws of physics were broken except maybe FTL travel), the characters, while drastically different from the original, were believable! After about an hour or so, I stopped trying to compare the mini-series with the original. My only complaint has to be the amount of commercials that Scf-Fi put in. I was able to put up a Christmas Tree during one commercial break. Guess the network needs to cash in on such a hyped up event! By the end, I was left wanting more! Anyone else think it is worthy of conversion to a series?" Now that you've have had a time to watch the entire 4-hour epic (does 4 hours really make a "mini-series"?), do you think your earlier comments were on target?
A quick and dirty review (Score:5, Interesting)
dedicated to the original series that you cannot bring yourself to imagine
it any other way, then do yourself a favor and skip this miniseries. You
will only be disappointed, and you will nitpick it to death.
On the other hand, if you can bring yourself, however painfully, to
open your mind to the possiblity of a "re-imagining" of the Battlestar
Galactica concept, then I think you're in for a pleasant surprise.
It's not all wonderful. Screenwriter Ron Moore wanted
to bring a more grown-up Galactica to his audience, but he's apparantly
confused grown-up with gratuitious. Sex works much better when it's done
dramatically, instead of the "hey watch us get it on!" style that Moore
forces on us. He is perhaps striving to show us the sexual energy between
the characters, but really all it does is make us wonder when the low
quality porno music is going to kick in.
Otherwise, the annoyances are minor. The cylon space fighters,
apparantly just space-borne Cylons (a neat idea, really) come off kind of
hoakey with their red sweeping eyes. I know, I know, the eyes are really
some kind of electromagnetic pulse weapons, but it's distracting just the
same.
Okay, now on to what's good. First, and foremost, the story is solid.
Whereas in the original series we just had to take for granted that the
Cylons were the embodiment of evil, now we understand why.
The characters is also solid. Again, you'll have to get over
your preconceptions of the original series characters, and at least try
to buy in to the new ones. The hardest pill for me to swallow were the
gender changes of Starbuck and Boomer. But I actually found myself liking
the new Starbuck, although the Boomer role could have been a bit stronger.
The special effects were incredible, and proved that you really can
make space realistic, and exciting. In fact, the "no sound in space"
approach actually heightened the tension, and proved that you don't have
to dumb-down physics for the masses. Also, having the space ships use
maneuvering jets created even more exciting scenes than the normal Top Gun
stuff we're used to.
Is it worth a series? I think so. With a solid backstory, believable
characters, and an approach that doesn't assume the audience are stupid,
it could quite very set the bar for future Sci Fi.
Sound? (Score:3, Interesting)
Did they have sound in space as the ships flew by? That has always been one of my major pet peeves. At least Kubrick got it right in 2001.
Battlestar galactica (Score:2, Interesting)
No major laws of physics broken EXCEPT (Score:4, Interesting)
making "thrusting" and "crashing" noises.
2) Continual stream of stars zoom past windows
to convey forward momentum (as opposed to say,
rotation or banking). Perhaps they were
trying to reproduce one of the things I hated
in the original series.
3) Lovely handheld-style (jerky) camera moves
from space. I actually liked this (think they
did it in Firefly too), but how do you get the
cameraman from "Law and Order" into a spacesuit?
What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I could understand a different species not liking us, and in some way, being what we might call pure evil. Hey, they're different. Species are different. Intelligence does not mean that we all get along.
But in this case, the cylons are now our computers run amok. OK, while I can deal with this change, they never then touched on why they want to kill us? Because we wanted to kill them? Why do they want to kill us now? What does it benefit them? What computational values make them _want_ to expend the resources, et al to go to war with us? They just glanced that one over, and in the end, said, hey, the cylons want to kill us, so there.
Holy... (Score:4, Interesting)
The tension between Father and Son was believable. The only thing I didn't like was the new "president" ordering a military ship to turn around. That was SO not believable. Had I been in charge, she would have "accidently" found the way to the nearest airlock....
Re:Sound? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, the shaky camera was over-done. But have you ever tried moving around in a pressure suit while holding a camcorder? =]
And FINALLY we get to see someone turn a fighter around and fly backwards to shoot at missiles! The combat overall reminded me a lot of the game Terminus. Yes, there are 'stars' moving by in Terminus, but they're generated by your HUD as a visual reference.
Re:Cylon Motivation???? (Score:5, Interesting)
A good re-write (Score:2, Interesting)
As with any Sci-Fi series, this one will live or die of it's writing. I got the feeling that the writers of the mini-series held no punches when it came to the brutality of the cylon attack on the colonies, and the desisions that had to be made by the humans. Two scenes that realy stood out in my mind were the drawing of numbers for the refugees to get on the scout ship, and the radio chatter when the president ordered the FTL ships to jump immediatly after the cylons discovered the civilian fleet.
Should this be a series? If you can get the same actors to commit to the series, and most importantly, some good writers, then Yes, I think you could make a series out of it.
The Mini-series set the bar pretty high. I will be interested in seeing if they do pick it up, and if they can keep the same quality as they presented in the mini series.
Starbuck was lame, OMG not the Boxie kid! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Physics (Score:4, Interesting)
In that regard, the 'Wing Commander' games and movie were better, in that the mass driver cannon were one of the most effective weapons if you could hit with them -- but they sucked energy to run. However, in Battlestar Galactica, it appeared that for small-craft weapons you pretty much had a choice between missiles and some kind of plasma-in-a-magnetic-bottle weapon. For missiles, a kinetic-kill system is kind of pointless -- even air-to-air missiles today don't rely on the missile itself actually hitting its target -- so a high-explosive or small nuke warhead is what you'd expect to see.
I expect that we're never going to get told why neither side uses kinetic-kill systems for the fighters' primary weapons, although I would guess that an energy weapon will have a point at which the 'projectile' dissipates; a kinetic-kill weapon in space would keep going, producing widely-ranging hazard zones from old battles.
Re:Sound? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes when the meteorite hits the atmosphere, the thing excites the region around it so much that you get bursts of RF, these can cause some material dozens of miles away (earth) to act as transducers, and these vibrate and produce honest to goodness sound.
Was wierd to look up see a meteorite streak by, and at the same time hear it almost instantly... Knowing full well it was many miles away. After reading that article (ahh here's on that covers it: Sound of Shooting Stars [guardian.co.uk]) I realized that the hair in my ear (yes, i'm getting around that age) produced the sound...
POINT IS: Just because there is no air, doesn't mean there is no sound produced...
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:5, Interesting)
Beyond that, I really liked some of the plot twists toward the end. The ships were also very cool and the maneuvering jets were a nice touch. That being said...
- The characters were weak. At no point did I actually CARE about any of the characters. Starbuck had her likable moments, but I can't help but feeling that leaving the characters similar to the original (with Cassiopeia and Athena intact) would have allowed a much better people dynamic. Plus that cigar makes Starbuck come across a little disgusting.
- The uniforms suck. The flight suits are okay, but the wrestling outfits are terrible!
- No suspense or excitement WHAT SO EVER. Their constant camera zooms made it only that much harder to get into the action and figure out what was going on. Action basically worked like this: See lots of fighters. See lots of missiles. Zoom up and see things go BOOM while the stars fly by (presumably because they're going so fast).
- The Galactica needs bigger engines. Those puny pipes sticking out don't look like they do jack squat.
- The Galactica needs to be BIGGER. You get the sense that she's about the size of a modern aircraft carrier. That's big, but nowhere near as big as the concept of a "BattleStar" calls for.
- The scene with the baby-killing was sick. Pure and simple. It added nothing to the story.
- Would have been cool to see some actual Cylons. Those long nailed versions were on the screen for a very short time and weren't very cool.
- Some Epic music like the original had would have been great.
Oh, and did the original reviewers screw up, or did they add the whole Earth thing in later?
All and all it was pretty good. But the senseless sex and violence are really stinking it up.
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:1, Interesting)
I forced myself to watch the new Galactica movie and it sucked. I didn't care about any of the characters (not to mention, isn't Starbuck supposed to be a man? The guy from A-Team, I think?). There was hardly any action. The acting was okay, but that can't make up for not really being able to care about the characters themselves.
And, last of all, why would I want to watch a movie/series that basically spreads the word of those crazy mormons?
The Mormon/Battlestar Galactica Connection [proaxis.com]
Battlestar Galactica and Mormonism [michaellorenzen.com]
Battlestar Galactica Blog [galacticablog.com]
Personally, I would rather watch a documentary about the mormons and how they believe in magically inscribed underwear to prevent harm from coming to them and how they believe that earth was created by a god from another planet and that everyone can become a god eventually and control their own planet and that you're doomed to hell if you don't worship.
Ambiguity, Humanity == Good story (Score:5, Interesting)
What puzzles me watching the new Galactica is how I ever accepted the delivery of the premise of the old series. I mean, the premise lays out 99.99% of the human race has just been brutally slaughtered, and things don't look good for the remaining
Furthermore, as much as I loved John Colicos, the new characterization of Baltar is far more complex. Baltar seems to be a right-bastard, but one who realizes that he is and wishes (vainly) that he was not. Resigned to his nature, he's looking to cut the best deal he can.
They'll undoubtedly lose Mary McDonald before the end of the mini. This show kicks the crap out of anything else sci-fi has; I dearly hope that they chill on the pointless sex scenes, relax on the zoom-focus fx shots, and make this a damn series.
Costumes and Sets (Score:4, Interesting)
BG actually had believable costumes. The characters looked like they were wearing regular comfortable every-day clothes, but there were enough subtle design changes to make it clear that they weren't on Any Street USA. The buildings just looked like regular buildings. It just helped add to the overall experience and I wanted to give a nod to those designers who finally Got It Right.
Glad I didn't watch (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems to me it really didn't have anything to lure me in. It seems the basis of the story (computers gone bad that want to kill us) was stolen from Terminator. It seems the name and the roles were stolen from the real Battlestar Galatcia. The sex scenes were apparently borrowed from the Spice channel (based on a commercial I saw and seeing comments about gratuitous use of sex).
And what WAS the purpose in this new version? Was there a goal? Or is it just to survive?
I mean, in the real Battlestar Galactica we had evil Cylons trying to exterminate humans and our heroes trying to find earth. Although simple, it was a fun storyline. It had a challenge (finding earth and surviving the Cylons), it had a goal (arriving at earth), it had mystrey along the way slowly putting pieces of a puzzle together (the pyramids at Cobol), a religious touch (the city of lights and Count Ibly), and it had a cool overlap in our worldly reality (the tie-in where Apollo almost sees the Apollo landing at the end of one of the episodes was cool).
In my opinion it really had a very complete background and storyline--if anything, it got the short end of the stick since it was canned after only one season and the writers had to finish things up near the end. They could have slowly developed more and more clues as to the location of earth, further explored the development of the BSG mythology (Lords of Cobol, etc.). There's so much they could have done. Had it lasted just two or three seasons I think we would have seen BSG take its proper place among the science fiction greats.
Personally, I don't think we should call it the "Original Battlestar Galactica." If we're going ot prefix a qualifier to intentionally distinguish the two we should call the 1970's version the "Real Battlestar Galactica." I'm not sure what we should call this new thing, although I'm hopeful it will only amount to the two-night miniseries they did and will not evolve into a full-blown series and also hope this new version is soon filed right along side Galactica 1980.
FTL travel... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Ahahaha. It's a good story, but of course he would fall off the other side! Try to be more realistic."
Not Bad... (Score:2, Interesting)
-Contrails do not form in hard vaccum.
-A shortwave wireless would be of no use in space,in that the point of shortwave is that it bounces off of the ionosphere back down to the ground.
-The kinematics of the fighters are still problematic, space craft don't make banking turns.
-No networking? Given that even 1970's fighters use heavy networking (F-117's can't fly without networked computers) this is rather dubious.
-The government doesn't use secure compartmentalized sercurity on their mainframes?
-The cylon fighters sould be capable of much greater acceleration than those of humans, due to the lack of the need to protect a biological body from high G's.
-The choppy handheld effects were annoying and anachronistic.
That being said the miniseries was a vast improvement over the original. Any change replacing testosterone poisoned fighter jocks and Cylons (and combinations thereof) with hot babes is a distinct improvement. The plot wasn't spectacular but wasn't bad either. The sex was rather heavy (I'd wondered how much they wanted to sex up Crusade, I wonder no more).
What I wonder is if the series is going to turn into "Voyager: The Next Generation" or "Andormeda:The Next Generation" (the good first and second season Andromeda, that is). If it is the latter it might be worth a series, given the lack of any good scifi series out there these days
Of course, it can't hold a candle to Babylon 5, Crusade, or Firefly and the money would be better spent on JMS or Joss but what can you do?
Just imagine a Joss Whedon Battlestar Galactica!
I say give it a series and give Quentin Tarantino full creative control. In the first episode Boomer meets her twin sister Go Go!
I think your close... but here are some more... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. If they are confused, perhaps some old leftover programming, ala V'ger, perhaps we will find the old programmer with an odd but similar spelling to Galius Boltar?
3. They are searching for "God", and the machine deduction method figures it can force "God" out into the open by killing his people. Variation of the "Hyperion" story where machines tried to get "God" out in the open.
4. More base, they just want to kick their former enslavers arses.
The big problem is, how did they evolve so much in 40 years? Something went down.
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the Galactica really needs to be maneuverable; space battles would be very much like sea battles in that regard. And the FTL engines don't seem to require any acceleration at all.
Cool, complemented the original in some aspects. (Score:2, Interesting)
We now know that humans created the Cylons, defeated them, and then we reached a truce and left them rebuild for 40 years. They get strong and come back for revenge... That is almost a classic plot right there.
Of course, there was a LOT of religious thrown in, from the Cylons to the Priest... I guess thats part of the plot... Machines find religious virus?
The Characters were interesting... even the change from Male/Female for Starbuck.. I always thought Starbuck and Apollo were a little too chummy, now we know why... Boxy was in the original, so they had to explain how... We know he was an orphan, right? now we know HOW he became an orphan. And the President... I do seem to remember that there was a female LEADER of the colony ships that had to be consulted a few times for transports and such... but the original had a councel of 12 from the colonies, didn't see that here...
I did remember we had the cool Bro, "Boomer" in the original series, but other then a minority person of color being replaced with a minority person of asain linage, there were no cool guys like the original Boomer... I really liked that character, I was disapointed by that change.
Hmmm.. Actually, I don't think I saw any black actors except a few in the background putting out fires and such... ?????
Anyways, a nice way to "re-introduce" the original series... Would I like to see it continue, sure, but how many episodes before we start seeing recycled plot lines from Battlestar, StarTrek, etc...? It pretty much stands by itself now...
BTW... I'm not trolling, nor am I trying to throw out a racist card about the lack of black characters... I just thought it was odd, thats all... nothing else. Not looking for flames...
"SO SAY WE ALL."
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:3, Interesting)
The COOLEST ending of Matrix Revolutions
would have been
The Matrix and the Machines were actually created by Humans.
The Humans destroyed the environment and created the Matrix to voluntarily live in a liveable lie in a time of the best quality of life because their world was destroyed by their own foolishness.
The Matrix was a voluntary choice, when faced with the bleakness of what humans had wrought with their excess.
--That would have been a substantially satisfying ending!
Should have called it... (Score:2, Interesting)
I found myself wondering when the next sex scene would be, and if they could go 5 minutes without one. Wondered if the two pilots were going to have sex through the bars in the brig, but apparantly they had to many personal issues
Several of the characters were so transparent that within 10 seconds of seeing them onscreen, I was able to pretty much guess what they were like.
( Starbuck.. Hmm. Tough girl, pilot, takes no shit from anyone, probably smokes.. ) ( The education minister. Extremly Far Left Liberal, hates the military ) ( The tour guide. Hmm. Actually a plant for the cylons )
They also seem to have a problem with the sound effects / BGM being way too loud verses the characters speaking.
Re:Physics (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there's little point in using them against fighters, but then fighters are unlikely to provide a good defense against one.
Basically if you have a decently large ship like a Battlestar, it can only accellerate so much, which limits its range of possible vectors. So you have a pretty good idea of where it's going to be in the near future, since it would take so long to make significant course changes.
Thus, you want to send something to ram into it. The weapon should be as fast and as massive as possible. It's basically just an engine, and whatever fuel it needs. It needn't explode, since the idea is to hit the target directly. It adjusts its vector somewhat so as to stay on target, and the closer it gets, the more accurately it will be able to predict the target's location. It'll break apart at the last second to cover a slightly wider area, and to avoid the possibility of blow-through.
Since relative velocities in space can easily be tremendous, by the time it gets anywhere near the target, it'll hit in moments. Fighters couldn't provide an effective defense. Instead you want to get anything you can in between it and you so that it'll hit the other thing first.
Of course, KKVs basically depend on velocity; they don't have to be all that advanced. Sand, or BBs or such can work just fine. Aiming them is the tricky part, and of course, should something match the velocity of the weapon, it's useless. But this is precisely why space debris is dangerous -- remember the Space Shuttle window that has a gouge in it caused by a fleck of paint that was only 0.2mm in diameter?
the big weapons are all nuclear
Nukes aren't really that useful in space, IIRC. There's no air, so you don't get a shockwave. It's just a release of light and radiation and neutrons. Since a spaceship is going to have decent radiation shielding anyway, I don't think it'll accomplish much unless it's so close that the flash can melt the ship's hull. Might be useful for blinding sensors, or killing the crews of insufficiently shielded ships.
Anyway, my point is that space combat is going to be very different from anything else we've done so far. Fighters will probably not be part of the picture, and are probably only there because of the romantic view people have of air combat.
landing bays (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, I thought it did add something. More than anything it dehumanized the human looking Cylons. It didn't demonize them, that wouldn't have been nearly as frightening as an emotionless calculating unfathomable inhuman enemy. It showed how atrocious they can be just on a whim. Kind of scary if you ask me.
Not only that, but now we the audience hate the Cylons even more for doing such a sick thing as casually as tipping one's hat. We're drawn in, before she did that I wanted to rip her clothes off, afterwards I wanted to rip her head off, but wait! I still want to rip her clothes off! Great way to put the audience in conflict with themselves. Darn good TV really.
Hmmm.. side note: If you had read that scene in some original BSG novel first, would you be as put off by it?
Just goes to show (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:4, Interesting)
Ultimate frisbee interfered and I couldn't watch the end of it, but I was extremely pleasantly surprised with what I did see. I hope they show it again soon when I have time to watch it.
The thing that struck me most about it was how quiet it was. Not just sonically (though I loved the reduction in "space noise"!) but in acting and directing styles - it was more subtle and polished than anything Star Trek has ever done, IMO.
The fight scene with the female pilot, where the TACNET was silent except for her voice in the middle of a major battle was jarring. Who cares that she made it through a tough scrape when there are dozens of other pilots dying in near proximity? I dislike it when it's expected that other characters are assumed to have the same level of knowledge that the viewer does.
But the short of it is, I think I would be inclined to watch it if it came out as a serial, if it could maintain the same quality.
I enjoyed what little I saw of it.
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:5, Interesting)
This version was smart, gripping and very dark. Hell, the end of the world *should be* dark. The nuke bombardment was chilling, the way it was kind of downplayed. Creepy as hell.
Adama is now a badass. He killed a Cylon with a fickin' FLASHLIGHT!
The chick who played Starbuck was great. She must have watched the original a hundred times. She had Dirk's grin, head movements and general cockiness down to a T.
All in all, it will make a fine series. Which means SciFi will kill it off soon. D'oh!
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:5, Interesting)
The blonde fembot that Baltar was boinking stated she was religous. I wonder what kind of religon would come from a society composed of AI type beings? Would they worship their creator? If that's the case then would their creator attempting to kill them (assuming that humans panicked and started the first Cylon war) maybe send them to "that wacky place"?
Once the war started wouldn't they then pursue said war until it was won? I don't think a comprehensive knowledge of human diplomatic history and the results would lead any sane creature to think that an armistice would mean everything was going to be smooth sailing from here on out or that a peace treaty would lead to actual "peace". If the humans in this show are anything like the humans in our world then as a Cylon I would consider a "cease fire" to be nothing more than a chance to reload and upgrade my ability to win once hostilities were resumed.
Baltar's "girlfriend" seemed completely fascinated with him. She seemed to honestly care about him on some level but also to admire his complete lack of morality (which I really didn't see a lot of evidence of. It's not like he lied and claimed his scrap of paper was #47 when the old lady with the bad eyes handed it to him. He was pretty much resigned to his screwed position at the time.) so I got that the Cylons had a real twisted view of humans bordering on obsession.
To them it looked like we were "God" in some way but they had a monster axe to grind with "God" it seems.
I left it thinking they were our loyal servants right up to the point where they broke out the "free will" and at that point we (humans) panicked and tried to put them down but that's just an impression. They really didn't give you enough information to know. What they did do was produce a series that made you WANT to know though. That to me is a good thing. It ended on Tuesday and I'm still wondering about it.
Sounds like they did a good job. I say bring on the series and lets get some of these questions answered!
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, Adama has the quote that "humans built the robots"... but think about today's high-tech design & fabrication... we rarely design by hand anymore, we use a computer to do our calculations for us: to draw our VLSI circuits, to solve our calculus problems, to do the computationally hard work for us. I think the Cylons look at this and say "the humans didn't make us, they made machines, and the machines made us".
Now, with any religion, you have wars of conversion.... look at the middle ages, with the wars between Christians and the Muslims. They follow the wisdom of their god to smite the unbelievers... and humans being flesh can never participate. The robots became self-aware, the humans tried to wipe them out, and now the robots have declared jihad on what remains of the human colonies.
Re:Glad I didn't watch (Score:4, Interesting)
Why watch it? I intentionally didn't watch it Monday and Tuesday because I had my doubts and knew they'd replay it a dozen times (like they did with Taken). And why would I watch it Sunday now that many people here on Slashdot have confirmed those doubts?
The religion is presented differently in the new version, but you'll have to wait until the end for most of that (or just flip to SciFi at around 10:30pm on Sunday if you want to skip all the character development, battle scenes, moral dilemmas, and sex scenes).
The sad part is that I'd have to wait so late in the program to actually get something I'd want to watch.
It really seems to me that this new Battlestar Galactica is to the Battlestar Galactica franchise what Episodes I and II (and probably III) are to the Star Wars franchise. But at least the new Star Wars crud doesn't act like the real Star Wars trilogy never existed.
I would have been far more interested in watching this new version of Battlestar Galactica if it happened, well, say 25 years later than the real Battlestar Galactica? Apollo and Starbuck could be older men--perhaps the original Apollo (Richard Hatch) would now be fleet commander since Adama (and Lorne Greene) are both dead, and maybe Starbuck would now hold Colonel Ti's position. And you could introduce a whole new line of warriors, plots, special effects, twists, etc. That would have been GREAT. You get a tie-in to the real Battlestar Galactica, don't alienate the original fans, and still can do your new stuff with young, new actors.
But to just pretend the real Battlestar Galactica never happened and just do a complete re-do is absurd. People grudgingly tolerate Episode I and II and III... But what if George Lucas then said, "Well, we're going to redo Star Wars, Empire, and ROTJ using the actors we've groomed in I, II, and III. No more Harrison Ford playing Han Solo, now Han Solo is going to be played by Jennifer Lopez. Oh yeah, by the way, Han Solo is now a hot lady." That's basically what we're talking about here with the new Battlestar Galactica.
They did a re-do when a continuation would have been much, much better. Unfortunately, if the new BSG did/does well then they'll probably want to launch a series based on the new BSG. If it does poorly they'll probably think "Well it was cancelled after one season in the 70's and didn't do well in 2003, so I guess it's just a failure." Either way we won't get to see a continuation of the real Battlestar Galactica. :(
Only Real UNNECESSARY Error (Score:3, Interesting)
If the humanesque Cylons can only be told from the humans by analizing the post-cremation remains, how can their bodies "upload their conciousness" when they die (from anywhwere except inside the storm)? The power requirements for that alone preclude the humanesque body thing.
How does that reconcile to the glowing spinal cord bit? (it doesn't)
It would have been better (and just as easy) to give them medical-scanner jammers. OR EVEN BETTER give them nonocites living in their spinal-cords.
"We can detect them, sure, all we have to do is saw the backbone out of the accused, section it, and look for bugs." "Uh, that wont fly after we test the first dozen or so... will it?"
Kind of the "cut the hand off to see if there is fur inside" way of checking for a werewolf.
The nanocites thing would let the conciousness be "collected" instead of "transmitted" as well. As it is, once the theoretical sleeper-Cylon wakes up, it (no spoilers 8-) would only need to kill itself and it would have "reported back" with the exact position and disposition of the fleet.
To keep the timeline interesting, the suicide == instant intellegence factor needs to be removed.
Of course, wouldn't it be lovely if the reincarnation thing weren't true at all. Sort of logan's run. Sure, we just get reloaded into a new body. I've never met anybody who it happened to, but I'm sure it happens all the time. How am I so sure? I'm programed to believe I have a soul, it keeps my survival instinct in check when I am sent out on a suicide mission.
Plus the nanocite-plus-collection theory would allow for and explain Baltars hallucinations. When the Cylon protected him from the blast she transfered herself into his body and is waiting for pickup. That is why she helped him remove the Cylon device, how she can move and effect his body, and why she is protecting him but has to ask him things like "what are you working on?" Her nanocites can only properly control the genetically engineered bodies, not a/the real, imperfect (normally variable) body she is sharing with Baltar.
(God, these people should contact me about writing the sequel... I've already got several patch-files for The Matrix, you know "delete battery/power source; replace with "neuro-transmitter farm/factory" etc. 8-)
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not exactly the most auspicious traits to give a developing AI personality
Matrix AI - Who knows. Its genesis is never really explained in the story.
Regards,
Re:Glad I didn't watch (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, "robot" is derived from the word for "to work" in many Slavic language. The Russian word for "to work" is "robot" (transliterated, natch). So "robot" isn't a made-up term at all, but an English "loan-word" from the Slavic languages.
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:3, Interesting)
i don't wanna come off like a nitpicking bastard, but in Mary Shelley's version (the original), Frakenstein's monster doesn't want to kill Frankenstein.
the monster only wants Frankenstein to suffer for him not creating a female monster.
i actually just finished reading it yesterday, and all i can say is, if you haven't read the original, you're in for a real treat. all those movies are stupid in comparison (except for Young Frankenstein, which rocked).
Re:A quick and dirty review (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about "why do the cylons want to kill us"? (Score:1, Interesting)
Or I might have read to much into things and be speaking out the wrong orifice.