Battlestar G - Miniseries Part 1

Hellboy's Cat

Anyone else watch the first part of the battlestar galatica miniseries on SKY1 last night? (For the first time, I realise there is a post further down the board from people who have already seen it on DVD)

Any thoughts?

Having spent some of my childhood watching the original series I started to feel quite ill on watching the new version, for some reason images of Space Above and Beyond were coming to me. However, I resisted the urge to change the channel to watch the 700th re-run of an episode of friends and gave it a chance. At the end of the first part I was quite pleased with what I had seen, I thought most of the characters had been cast well. They couldn't really mess up the storyline at this early stage, so I'm reserving judgement for when the format changes to episodes, where the strength of (or lack of) the writing will really tell.

DaBreno

Was pleasenty surprised by it. Thought it looked really well. Edward James Olmos makes an excellent Adama. Major changes from the old series : Strabuck and Boomer as girls?? :eek: Battle scenes looked great and the whole episode had a very dark feel to it both in atmosphere and character interactions : No star trek buddies here! Kudos for an original approach for a new series.
On the negative side : what little we saw of the cylons were clcunky to say the least. They look cool but move horribly. hopefully this wont always be the case.

Cant wait for the next episode tonight!

Stabshauptmann

GIRLS!!!!!!??????????

But hows that goin to work, dont they chat up some stranger every week, great, we now have a new show staring some slappers *

Stabshauptmann

*these smiles dont quite express me as well as the last ones. Lng story short, dont take offence or point out inaccuracies, twas only a joike shere

Hellboy's Cat

Obviously there's the whole thing about changing the gender of certain characters, but I'm hoping that casting the Starbuck character as a girl will provide some interesting storylines.

Change is good, but not too much.

Stark

but I'm hoping that casting the Starbuck character as a girl will provide some interesting storylines.

I'm hoping there's a big scene where she has to reveal to her crewmates that she's a transsexual and was born a man

The mini series was quite good I thought, and the part 2 is very good. But as a previous poster here said, the real test will be the actual series.

billy the squid

This was repeated several times on the movie channels over the past few months. I certainly hope that the quality of the production continues when the series starts.

One of the best pieces of Sci-fi that I have seen in a long time, yeah it was a remake, but it was a bloody good one.

mike65

I saw the 1978/79 stuff the first time round and it was'nt any great shakes. I glimpsed a few bits of the episode last night and was underwhelmed, it looked awful. I don't like CGI at any time tbh but the look they went for was very dull. By chance I caught a video for MUSE, its the one where the band are astronauts heading to earth (post appocolypse) and it had much better visuals. The cylons looked very awkwark as did the origionals but they were "real" at least ditto the spaceships. Nope, the whole thing looks like a video game.

Mike.

shinzon

dont forget the series is starting soon and not to spoil anything but Apollo from the original series actor Richard hatch makes an appearence

Apparently the series is quite good, something to look forward to

Shin

Stark

mike65 wrote:

I glimpsed a few bits of the episode last night and was underwhelmed, it looked awful. I don't like CGI at any time tbh but the look they went for was very dull. By chance I caught a video for MUSE, its the one where the band are astronauts heading to earth (post appocolypse) and it had much better visuals. The cylons looked very awkwark as did the origionals but they were "real" at least ditto the spaceships. Nope, the whole thing looks like a video game.

Reminds me of when I saw Sky Captain and thought "I'd have been so much better off playing Half-life 2, better graphics and more realistic humans".

CGI is getting better though, it's getting to the point in some productions where it's difficult to tell it's CGI, or at least it's getting to the point where I don't find it distracting. Only 2 or 3 years ago, CGI was clearly computer gamesque in even the most expensive productions. I didn't find the CGI in Battlestar Gallatica noticeable/distracting, even though I the CGI in the Star Wars prequels drove me to insanity ("I can't get into this, there's no sense that any of it is real", as opposed to the original trilogy with real models of ships that you felt you could reach into the cinema screen and touch).

bus77

The cgi looked fine to me. Really like the camera work aswell.

Missiles and machine guns? no one's willing to put lazer guns in sci-fi anymore

Hagar

I thought that the sound effects in the battle scenes were excellent. In a way the muted sound gave the effect of sound travelling through vacuum. I know, I know but that's the feeling I felt it generated. A sort of sense of dissociation. Other than the obvious hot women the program was dull as ****.

AntiRip

well i though it was very good. loved the zooming thing with the camera. also the cyclons missiles looked excellent through space!

Fenster

bus77 wrote:

The cgi looked fine to me. Really like the camera work aswell.

Missiles and machine guns? no one's willing to put lazer guns in sci-fi anymore

This bit of realism is great.

Much as beam weapons chopping a ship in half look cool, they wouldn't really fit in with the new series. Not to mention that it gives them a possible plot for later episodes "whoops, we're out of ammo"

Ave

Was very pleasantly suprised, had a nice dark atmosphere, space scenes/sound/camera were all excellent - and different, looking forward to the proper series.

_Kaiser_

at the risk of being unpopular...

I hated it...watched it the first time round on Movies and all it did was inspire me to go buy the original series DVDs

Missiles and machine guns...errr, ok... so I prefer lasers but I could accept it EXCEPT the references to the original series and actual models of an original Centurion and Base Star (in the exhibit scene).. so they've established a link to what we saw in the original series and expect us to believe they've gone BACKWARDS?? And even if we accept the Galactica herself is an old ship then why have the Cylons gone backwards too? Make it harder on themselves or something - I think not! - did they hire producers from Enterprise I wonder??

Then there's the over use of sex and the pure eye candy Seven of Nine...oops, I mean Number Six. Don't get me wrong.. sex is good , but watchin this it was more like an episode of Melrose Place than Battlestar Galactica

And the whole Boomer/Starbuck as women thing... don't like it - sure, bring in strong female leads (like the President) but you can't change a character like Starbuck into a girl with a HUGE chip on her shoulder about authority. Boomer didn't seem to do very much either except hide in corners with the chief engineer. Baltar is just a snivelling coward now - and the actor reminds me of Alex Sidding (Julian Bashir from DS9) - with none of the presence of the late John Colicos. And Tigh with a booze problem? Well at least he mostly made up for it in the 2nd half of the show. EJO is pretty good as Adama, but he's about the only one IMHO

I suppose I'll probably still watch the first few episodes anyway, but based on what I've seen so far, it'll be out of morbid curiosity than genuine interest

Summary: Don't mess with a classic!

billy the squid

shinzon wrote:

dont forget the series is starting soon and not to spoil anything but Apollo from the original series actor Richard hatch makes an appearence

Apparently the series is quite good, something to look forward to

Shin

better blow the dust off the video, me does be in work at this time.

If it is as good as the mini series was then i am looking forward to it.

Xcom2

I enjoyed it!

G

Ivan

I must admit, Starbuck as a girl seems a bit... off to me.
Then as we go along through the show she is very confrontational. Rather than being a strong, smart ass character like the original she just comes off as moody and aggressive.

I dont think she pulls it off too well. Whether thats the fault of the story writers, the casting or the actress, I dont know. But its a problem all the same, imho.

I'll be interested to see where it goes tbh, but if they do the whole Adama & Starbuck, will they/wont they (hook up) I'll be very pissed off.

I'm holding my breath.

AngryBadger

I remember watching the original series as a kid, and not knowing what the hell was going on. But I'm loving the new stuff. In fairness, I don't get all the bitching about messing with a classic.

I'd be pissed if they just re-made the original series exactly,with new actors, and better effects, what would be the point.

The purpose of a re-make is to re-tell a great story for another generation, and as such I think they're doing a fantastic job. Ok they've changed things, but so what? It's still brilliant. If it was a completely new series it wouldn't be slated half as much for the things people are unhappy with. But then it probably wouldn't have even been made.

They've got all the important pieces there. Cylons, all the human colonies wiped out, lost in spcae, cool, cool stuff.

Baltar is brilliant, the characterisation is spot-on. From what I remember in the original series he was just arrogant, now we're getting the full gamut of emotions you'd expect to see in a self-absorbed piece of crap like this.

Can't wait to see the rest of the series, brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Stark

I must admit, Starbuck as a girl seems a bit... off to me.
Then as we go along through the show she is very confrontational. Rather than being a strong, smart ass character like the original she just comes off as moody and aggressive.

I dont think she pulls it off too well. Whether thats the fault of the story writers, the casting or the actress, I dont know. But its a problem all the same, imho.

Basically she's a tomboy

Venom

Stark wrote:

Basically she's a tomboy

She pain sucks. Very bad acting and is the worst character of the new show. Even the Tom Paris style rip off Apollo is not as bad.