New Battlestar Galactica Premieres Monday 483
An anonymous reader writes "In several
news articles, 'Battlestar
Galactica' returns in a new four hour mini-series on the Sci-Fi
channel this Monday. However, there has been fan furor over some
changes to the story. Aluminum Cylon enemies look more like
humans, complete with feelings, including one with rabid sexual
desires, and the quest is not for a mythical Earth, as it no
longer exists. More information at the BattlestarGalactica.com
website, and the Sci-Fi
channel."
Bad omens (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks sex-addled, low-action, and pretty scanty on the mythology. "Cylon Fembots" is all we need to know.
The mythology was pretty much all that made it distinctive, such as it was, in the original case.
Little? Cylon? Different? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which I think they deserve.
BSG a network tv production (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it that popular? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too many humanoid aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
How can you be a purist? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like the original series did? (Score:2, Insightful)
And yes, I saw the movie release of the original -- in SENSAROUND! Which meant, back then, bass speakers less impressive than those playing in the "Love Boat" revamp I saw last weekend, "Love Actually." (That movie took the high road, though, and did not call the loser who traveled to Wisconsin "Gopher.")
the usual complaints (Score:3, Insightful)
i've watched a couple of the originals on sci-fi this week. c'mon people, it was a lame show with low-res special effects and horse-opera plots. it was "wagon train" in outer space! some of it was so badly done, it was "cover-your-eyes" embarrassing.
how do you update that? apparently, the complainers want the producers to give them the same tired plots with the same tired characters but in different uniforms with "hi-res" special effects. how boring.
i don't know if the new version is any good, of course, as i haven't yet seen it. but it's for sure that it should be allowed to stand or fall on its own merits. "is it a good movie?" is the only question that needs answering. it is not the original -- thank goodness. we already know that one was a clunker.
mp
Re:I'm not surprised Ed said that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:BSG a network tv production (Score:3, Insightful)
Other great examples but done better. "The Magnificent 7" (Seven Samari). Many of the Clint Eastwood Dollar films (Tashira Mafune Ronin character). "Master Gunfigher" (Goyokin) (that was the best worst direct copy. And the Rudger Haurer Blind Swordsman film copying the Zato Ichi (Shintaro Katsu as Zato Ichi character).
Plagerism + Royalties + Proper Attribution = productivity
The beginning of the end (Score:3, Insightful)
Typical Corruption (Score:3, Insightful)
What ever happend to REAL sci-fi that required the viewer/reader to actualy THINK....
Fans who don't watch are morons because.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too many humanoid aliens (Score:4, Insightful)
Always has been. Sci-fi literature did it first, but the original "Star Trek" was probably definitive in using humans with makeup and funny clothes as aliens. The simple and obvious reason is that it's much easier for studios to produce human actors as aliens, and easier for viewers to relate to them.
When you have an alien that's a blob or a rock or a robot, you have to work ten times harder to find the pathos. "Dr. Who" used them as identityless villains without much in the way of personality.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:5, Insightful)
I watched the original series when it first aired and there was nothing else like it on TV at the time. Those were the lean years; no Star Trek except reruns of the original series, no other big budgeted SF TV shows (Space:1999 had been canned the year before BSG started), and no cable channels to fill the void. There were three networks (that's right, pre-FOX, pre-UPN) and cable was a rare thing involving bulky switch boxes... Whoa, this is turning into a "when I was your age" type rant.
In its day, BSG was fairly sophisticated and thoughtful. In its day, the SFX were the best you could see on TV (those vector graphics displays they used were, for the time, amazing). Re-making the show now with deacades of new Star Trek series and Farscape and SG1 and such to compare it to pretty much requires the details to be rebuilt from the ground up... The underlying theme of conflict and hope should hold up no matter who's gender changed.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is perhaps the most reasonable and fair statement I have heard regarding the new show from either side.
I am a huge fan of the original series and look forward to continued efforts and new content based upon it. However it IS a different vision so it should be allowed to be judged on its own. Hey--it still has Vipers and the Galactica.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:3, Insightful)
they're different series, and I'll judge them on their own merits
but the point is they went and used the name of the old one. why is that? they want to borrow some of the "goodwill" of the old show. if they really wanted it to be all different they should have chosen a different name
It's a standard Hollywood trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Its an entirely different animal, it is in fact so different that I suspect that the only reason its title is BSG is to get the built in audience ...
You hit the nail right on the head there. See, it's risky for a movie or TV studio to put up the cash for a brand new show. They don't know if anyone is going to watch it or not. Doesn't matter how good it is. It's much easier to simply co-opt an existing brand name and slap it on your product. That way, you're guaranteed that some people are going to watch the first couple of episodes of your show, regardless of whether it's any good or not.
Perhaps the most striking example of this in recent years was Hollywood's remake of Godzilla. The Japanese Godzilla that we all know and love was a real force of nature -- with a twist. It was an unpredictable and unstoppable as a hurricane but with the added sting of knowing that mankind was responsible for its creation. The Hollywood version turned the once-mighty creature into a powerless wimp who scampered away like a frightened kitten in the face of helicopter gunships. Thus, you never really felt like the world was in danger. Every time Godzilla popped up you could chase him away with helicopters or tanks. Of course you can't keep doing that forever but I think we can all agree that eventually they would have found where he was hiding and finished him off. So the writers tried to make him a threat by having him spontaneously produce offspring. So instead of having a large, scary, unstoppable force bearing down on you, this new Godzilla was little more than a glorified bacterium, reproducing rapidly. Not very scary and not at all faithful to the original. In fact, other than the fact that both monsters were created as a result of nuclear testing, there was nothing about this new monster which indicated that it was Godzilla. You could hear kids in the audience tugging on their parents sleves asking "Why is Godzilla running away?" It was clear that Devlin and Emmerich (the writer/producer/director team) had just made up their own monster and story and slapped the brand name of Godzilla on the front to move more product (be it movie tickets or associated toys).
There's a balance that needs to be struck when doing a new version of a beloved classic. You don't want a shot-by-shot remake like Point of No Return (La Femme Nikita) or Gus Van Saint's Psycho. On the other hand, it does the original a disservice to completely throw everything out the window and start from scratch. I watched the "Behind the scenes" special on BG last night and Roland Moore came right out and said that the only thing they were planning on keeping from the original was the Viper shape. Stuff like making the cylons humanoid and the womanizing, but likeable, Starbuck into a bitchy woman is going way, way too far.
Before someone flames me for calling the new Starbuck a bitch, I want to make it clear that I have nothing whatsoever against women as action heros. Quite frankly I think it's a long time in coming. But if you had seen the show last night, I think you would have to agree that this new actress is trying way, way too hard to be 'tough'. Jean-Luc Picard was tough and he didn't feel the need to mouth off to people constantly. He was respectable and everyone knew it. True strength simply radiates from people -- there's no need to constantly shout out your superiority to everyone. It just doesn't work.
GMD
Re:another botched memory? (Score:5, Insightful)
You got that right. The whole "sexy baby" thing is annoying, not just when they're the bad guys. Don't get me wrong, woman are beautiful. But like you said... if you want to see some hot chicks, you know where to go. Not EVERYTHING has to be about hot babes, and I'd like to be able to enjoy some fun science fiction without having to feel like I'm watching something that's really targetting some puberty-controlled teenage boy.
There was a Battlestar Galactica marathon on SciFi about two months ago and I got to watch a few episodes. Of course, most of the commercials were for the new Galactica that they were going to release in December. One of the commercials actually was talking/showing a photoshoot from Maxim magazine where apparently one of the actresses came from (that ought to tell you something... their cast consists of models, not actors apparently).
In other words, screw promoting the series based on its storyline (apparently no longer involving earth) or characters (which apparently have had sex changes and I get the impression that they even had to put a gay character in there, you know, to be PC and all)... rather just promote the blatant sexuality of the series. After all, with a sensual sex scene with a female Cylon, showing previous photoshoots of the actress^H^H^H^H^H model, and using the "Battlestar Galactica" goodwill, profit is guaranteed.
I don't plan on watching. I hope to buy the original series DVD box set this month, maybe even by Monday, and I'll watch that instead. Sure, this new series is completely different and should be judged on its own merits. It might even be fun. But I don't want to contaminate my memory of Battlestar Galactica by even associating this new material with the name.
I will be interested to see, though, how well the series does. They've basically alienated the real fan base that's been waiting for a new Battlestar Galactica for 25 years and I'm not convinced the new generation is really dying to see a remake. Who IS their market? Maybe it IS just the pubery-driven teenage boys.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I will judge them based on how they relate to each other. The fact is both series are called "Battlestar Galactica" and if this new mini-series' producers wanted to do a different sort of story they could have called it something else. As it is, it seems they're just trying to cash in on a well-known name, and the series should be judged as such.
When you use the title of a well-known series/movie/whatever, I expect either a remake or a continuation. I don't think that's unreasonable - these amount to brand names, and what SciFi is trying to do is equivalent to New Coke. I don't think anyone would have complained about New Coke either if it was called, I don't know, Wild Mountain Cola or Mister Smith's Fabulous Cola or something. I mean the public would not be comparing it to real Coke (except in a generic and non-specific "this is not my favorite cola" sort of way), because nobody's trying to pass it off as Coke.
These people, though, are trying to pass this off as Battlestar Galactica. As such, it should be judged as Battlestar Galactica, not some sort of standalone series, because it's not a standalone series, whatever the producers try to say to subdue the fans. I mean what's next, an Indiana Jones movie where Indy is a woman and the setting is 21st century Tokyo? Part of the criteria of any franchise entry is how well it adheres to the narrative that's already been established. And on that basis, without even having seen it but based on what we all already know, this alleged version of Battlestar Galactica obviously fails miserably. It will have to be absolutely amazing in every other way to redeem itself at all, but it will never be considered "great" simply because it is a poorly interpreted imitation of its own namesake.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with most of your rant, but should point out that Maxim does not typically feature models. They feature celebrities (usually acresses and musicians) who model for them. Nobody "comes from" Maxim (yes, I know there's a funny pun there... leave it alone), in the way that Tyra Banks "came from" Victoria Secret, because the women Maxim photographs are already famous from elsewhere. In the case of the actress you are speaking of, she probably is doing the Maxim shoot because of ther role on Battlestar Galactica.
(Maxim has actually become a common vehicle for promoting new shows and movies. Both X-Men movies were hyped by Maxim spreads of Famke Janssen, Halle Barry, and Rebecca Romjin-Stamos a month before each release.)
As a BSG fan and a Mormon... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am aware of no such doctorine. The idea of 12 tribes of Israel is straight from the Bible. Ten of those tribes were taken captive or "lost". There is nothing uniquely Mormon about that. There are LOTS of things about BSG that are references to the LDS faith and culture due to Glen A. Larson being a Mormon, but this is not one of them. There are plenty of websites with comprehensive lists of the similarities, so I won't try to out do them here. Google for Battlestar and Mormon and you'll get plenty of hits.
Odd that BSG got all the Mormon references and Magnum PI, Knight Rider (notice how KITT's light and sound are very Cylon?), and the A-Team didn't.
Re:I'm not surprised Ed said that... (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, its probably a good thing that they made Starbuck a woman. The only other alternative, given current trends in TVland, would have been to make Starbuck and Apollo gay lovers.
Don't Like It? Don't Watch. (Long Post) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:another botched memory? (Score:3, Insightful)
Far too many brands get hijacked by morons who know that the only way they can get their crappy idea on TV is to bastardize a good brand and kill it with their crappy universe. Make your own! At least don't try to premise your work as a remake of the original. Call it Battlestar Galactica: Rise of the Cylon Pornbots or something.
What about COSMOS? (Score:1, Insightful)
was PBS. And as much as you say that
Battlestar Galacta was "good for its
day" (faint praise indeed), PBS had a
space themed show that kicked Galactica's
ass: Carl Sagan's COSMOS. The spaceship
on COSMOS was something even the most
nitpickiest theoretical physicist could
agree with, a "ship of the imagination".
It explored the mysteries and wonder of
space far better than Galactica did. There
was even a hint of drama in COSMOS that
Galactica couldn't approach. Week after
week, the Galactica was chased by Cylons...
oooo, killer robots! Yeah, it was cool
when I was seven. But in COSMOS, there
were hints that humanity wouldn't leave
the cradle because we weren't wise enough
to not destroy ourselves. I know that
COSMOS was a documentary and that Sagan
was practically a caricature in the '70s,
but I still think it was better than
Battlestar Galactica.
Re:another botched memory? (Score:4, Insightful)
I see your response is tounge-in-cheek, but there is a difference between having attractive woman on a show (nothing wrong) and running commercials showing a naked female Cylon (back view) apparently in the middle of having sex (blatant sexuality). Maybe the scene is even useful to the storyline, but the fact that they use it as a centerpiece of their advertising is telling.
I can't believe my original post got modded flamebait. Drugged out, porn-addicted moderator I guess. :)
Re:Little? Cylon? Different? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. Amazing, isn't it. For those of us who have been around long enough, reading that paragraph may remind you of the changes that have occurred in our society since the time the original BSG aired..
Seems to me, the remake may actually be a pretty good reflection of what the original BSG would have been had it been written today. Go ahead, reread the quoted paragraph with that in mind.
Re:Quick comments (Score:5, Insightful)
You have too many 'm's in that word.