New Battlestar Galactica Spin-off Series Announced 473
An anonymous reader writes "The Sci-Fi Channel's hit series Battlestar Galactica may soon be joined by a 50-year-prior prequel series, called Caprica. To be co-exec produced by Ron Moore and David Eick, the new series will follow the tale of the creation of the Cylons."
If Ron Moore were to produce The Phone Book... (Score:5, Informative)
BG has gone from strength to strength. Who'd have thought it, for a remake of such a camp piece o'crap. I went in with EXCEEDINGLY low expectations. Maybe that's the secret.
Anyway, Ron can tell a story. I'll be there.
Re:Prequel? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Steadicam? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hollywood's fascination with prequels (Score:5, Informative)
The sad thing is, I've yet to see a prequel done well. The reasons you've mentioned are limitations, but they're also windows of opportunity.
The future is known, right? So why make a prequel that supports it? What if what you thought you knew about it wasn't correct? What if the Sith were really the good guys? What if the Federation was built on slavery? What a difference a generation or three makes.
Risk of Established Canon? Typically a fair point. I'd refer back to my previous comment. First Contact was a semi-interesting example of it. Cochrane was recorded in history as a big hero to humanity, turns out he was just a regular guy with fairly selfish motives in mind.
On an unrelated note: I don't think your Borg example was very strong. They were the Borg from First Contact. If anything, they helped explain some of the other oddities in the series, such as the lack of the NX-01 in the 1701-D's conference room. I think a better example would have been the Feringi. The Federation had supposedly never met them, but obviously they ventured in to Star Fleet's space from time to time. That was not a smart move. Thanks B&B.
Anachronistic Special Effects: Okay, Star Trek was unusual here. The show started in the 60's. Deep Space Nine did a Forrest Gumpian venture into the past. They had no real choice but to follow that pattern. Modern shows like BSG wouldn't really suffer from this. Set construction these days has pretty much reached a point where just about any artistic vision can be made. Actually, this is one of the reasons the prequels come about anyway. When a movie alludes to a massive un-realizable event, a prequel made a few years later can offer the opportunity to make it happen.
Believe it or not, this is not a rebuttal to your post. Lots of opportunities are presented by prequels, but Hollywood just doesn't seem to be able to zero in on them. If they can't take these simple steps and make something compelling, then I agree, they shouldn't go this route. Gimmick gimmick gimmick.
To Reign In Hell - By Steven Brust (Score:1, Informative)
mindless troll (Score:4, Informative)
Terrible acting?! Bad casting choices?! Are you kidding or just being a mindless troll? This is one of the best elements of the show, bar none.
"cheesy sets,"
I hope you're not an Star Trek fan...
"barely acceptable lighting, "
"herky-jerky camera work, "
The camera work -- with its sudden pans and zooms -- tries to be realistic and convey the feeling of iminent attack. It feels just as the nervous cameras depicting the attack and fall of the Two Towers... It was a novelty back then and is still a very powerful instrument of dramatization...
"exceedingly shallow politically correct plotlines and characters,"
politically correct?! gimme i break, will ya! Boomer and cast are all but politically correct. Adama lies to the tripulation. There is a scientist with a moral dillema. There are alcoohol adicts... gimme a break!
"not to mention the barely concealed pro-USA anti-terrorism propaganda agenda in the writing."
while i agree the show depicts this "anti-terrorism propaganda agenda", i don't believe it's a weakness. In fact, it's one of its strong points.
In conclusion, i believe you're just trolling against what is one of the best shows -- SciFi or not -- to ever grace TV. If i had any moderation points left, your Insightful +5 would be history...
"If the original plan to do a continuation of the original series created by Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto [battlestargalactica.com] had gone forward, the show, and subsequent spin-offs probably would have been very watchable and entertaining."
yeah, Cylons would be mutants in a soap opera setting... gimme a break!
Re:Smart Sci-Fi vs Idiot Plots (Score:4, Informative)
Spoilers like this one: 1 year later.
Re:UH OH! Family Drama? (Score:3, Informative)
Back when I was a kid, there was a film called Planet of the Apes. Charlton Heston, you remember.
Well, I happened to get hold of the books, I forget how many there were but they had a lot more in there than the film(s). Basically, the story starts off with the astronauts crash landing on the planet of the apes, as does the film. But the plot continues throughout several books, until 3 of the chimps figure out how to fix the astronauts space ship and get back to earth in the 20th century. They are imprisoned for a while and the govt. ends up wanting to kill them off, especially when the female (Thira ?) gets pregnant by her mate Cornelius. They manage to escape (with the help of some friendly humans) and she has her child. The rest of the books are about the life of that child, and the gradual growth in the use of apes as human servants.
Eventually, they get pissed off with being servants, until one day Aldo (a gorilla) lets rip and kills his master, while shouting "NO !", the first words spoken by an ape on earth (the 3 chimps not withstanding). Riots ensue etc, etc. I forget now how the series ended, but I think it was leading up to the war that caused the nuclear war, that was in the far distant past for the Planet of the Apes. Nice and circular.
Anyway, you mentioned servants, so ...