Battlestar Galactica

Elmo

Any views on this show.

I thought less talking more action. The effect where wonderful, pity they didn't use them more.

A bit slow at times.

As for the twist, only if you where a fan of the orginal.

Zulu

Saw the second part on Friday; missed the first part.
Was very impressed. Looked very good. I enjoyed it a lot. (I particularly like the leaving the slower than light ships behind) Special effects were very good, really gave perspective to the vastness of space.

Can someone tell me... Is this a remake of the original, or a continuation?

monkeyfudge

It is a remake. But they do talk about a war that took place with the Cylons years before. And the cylons in that war looked liked the Cylons from the old series, and also the ships were the same too.

chewy

what is the story of battlestar gallicata i can't remember it , i have this image of the traingle ship landing on planet with people there but them hiding it ?

jor el

Check out http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/classic/ and http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ for info on both series.
This is a remake of the original but with a new twist and new effects (and also a sex change for Starbuck and Boomer and a change of skin colour for Col. Tigh), but it's all good.

The series starts tonight on Sky One at 8, but it would help if you've seen the mini-series beforehand.

moggie

and another thing for those who missed part 1 of the mini-series,

the cyclons can interface with machine and computers, cos they're robots etc
therefore
(and I love this)
therefore all the tech is chunky tech
none of it is networked, none of it is hightech - all machines are kept primitive so they can't be controlled by the cylons
its all 80'sfuturistic chunky tech
all of the computers required for the jumps to lightspeed have to be warmed up 5/10 minutes before they go anywhere!!!!

"warm up the computers!!! we're going to be going to light speed"


chunky big bad ass computers the size of a small house
chunky telephone-like handsets for internal communication

and whats more

the galactica was decommissioned
for the last few years it has been a museum

so it ain't the fastest of the fastest ships
it ain't the flagship of the colonies
it ain't the sleekest, meanest, sharpest mofo of the stars that other sci-fi ships have been
its a bucket of bolts
with guns
lottsa guns
but
they couldn't fire the torpedoes from bay ##whatever## cos its a giftshop!!
:cool:
aaahhh
legend

can't wait to see more :cool:

[small edit made]

Cabaal

Its not 100% a remake as it does refer to the old wars, but it has its nice twists and I like it

sceptre

I don't know what to think of it yet. I've picked up this annoying habit of only half-watching the telly while reading or typing or cooking you see and this show requires attention. Leaving that aside it's reworking one of my favourite shows of when I was a nipper so my expectations are high. Slow burner, definitely. Attention to detail, excellent. Missing the cockiness of the Apollo-Starbuck exchanges from the 80s, seems so so far (in other words, so far it's lacking the charisma Benedict brought to the original). The story arc is obviously being drawn far longer than before and that's rather a good thing as the story premise has always been good. This is what was missing from the original version more than anything else - the series hung together more as a collection of stories than anything else, which presumably they're trying to avoid here.

I demand the use of the phrase "rag-tag fugitive fleet" at least once. They managed to knock "by your command" in...

RicardoSmith

I thought it looked like fun. A nice diversion coming into the winter months.

GuanYin

I agree with sceptre (too often sometimes) Benedicts style and charisma is what made alot of the original BG. Its gone darker now and I'm not sure if thats good. They made Starbuck less charismatic (Remember Dirk Benedict's pesimistic heroism in the Viper "we're all gonna die, its suicide, oh hell I'll do it anyway") and more of a bipolar loner ("the only place I'm happy is in the viper, I hate orders and other people"), Apollo is gone from a born leader to an insecure son and they have changed the toughness - empathy roles of Adama and Tigh around.

Now all this is fine if the characters are just as likable but they aren't. The only character of any real interest is the doctor (not typecast at all are we Dr. Bashir? ) and thats only cos he envokes curiosity, that story arc could easily go either way.

That said, I'm still watching to see how it goes, I'm enjoying it but I think many of the changes the implimented aren't thoughtout properly and don't enhance the story.

SteM

I was under the impression that the war they talked about that happened years ago was just some back story, not a reference to the original series at all.

The mini-series was great and I thought the first episode last night was really good. The only annoying thing was that just as some tension was building up they'd cut to the doctor and the hot blonde cylon for more yapping and that would break the tension up.

They managed to knock "by your command" in...

I missed that!

matrim

It seems good. The special effects in space were good but did anyone think the new cylons looked really bad. When they showed one standing in the forest beside an actor, just at the end of the first episode, it just looked like ****ty cgi.

Is this not a kind of continuation from the first one and not a remake. As in the war they reference is the first war (original series) and the cylons have found them again. I can't remember how the original ended so I'm not sure if this fits in.

monkeyfudge

It's definitely a remake.

The 12 colonies are destroyed and the Battlestar Galatica goes off in search of the lost 13th colony. The characters have all the same names. Except this time around some of them are women and Baltar has far more interesting motivations.

I actually really like Baltar, I really want him to be able to get away with it. But yes... the the actor is alot like Dr. Bashir off DS9.

They just used the old cylons and ships from the original series to act as relics of the old war. It was just a respectful nod to old series. They even featured some of the old theme tune as well.

I didn't think the cylons looked too bad last night. They showed themselves to be nimble which is good. Far better than big awkward clanky robots.

SteM

matrim wrote:

It seems good. The special effects in space were good but did anyone think the new cylons looked really bad. When they showed one standing in the forest beside an actor, just at the end of the first episode, it just looked like ****ty cgi.

Is this not a kind of continuation from the first one and not a remake. As in the war they reference is the first war (original series) and the cylons have found them again. I can't remember how the original ended so I'm not sure if this fits in.

Did it not finish with them finding earth? I remember seeing some episodes where they were playing baseball and shooting around on flying motorcycles and stuff.

Or did I dream all this?

monkeyfudge

SteM wrote:

Did it not finish with them finding earth? I remember seeing some episodes where they were playing baseball and shooting around on flying motorcycles and stuff.

Or did I dream all this?

That was Galactia 1980.

It was set a good few years after the original series. And the Battlestar Galactia has reached Earth and must subvertly try and increase Earth's technolgy level so that they will be able to defend themselves from the Cylons.

It was pretty rubbish.. they had hover bikes and stuff.. and the Cylons didn't show up until the last episode. And one of them was in human form actually.

oh.. and they had this awful Starchild on board the Galactica who looked like the milky bar kid. They showed a flashback episode were it showed Starbuck and a Cylon marrooned on an alien planet together and they end up having a baby, which grew up to be the starchild... I may have dreamt that episode up though... I certainly hope I did...

SteM

monkeyfudge wrote:

That was Galactia 1980.

It was set a good few years after the original series. And the Battlestar Galactia has reached Earth and must subvertly try and increase Earth's technolgy level so that they will be able to defend themselves from the Cylons.

It was pretty rubbish.. they had hover bikes and stuff.. and the Cylons didn't show up until the last episode. And one of them was in human form actually.

oh.. and they had this awful Starchild on board the Galactica who looked like the milky bar kid. They showed a flashback episode were it showed Starbuck and a Cylon marrooned on an alien planet together and they end up having a baby, which grew up to be the starchild... I may have dreamt that episode up though... I certainly hope I did...

Okay, I remember the milky bar kid. An annoying little git who kept giving everyone advice. I remember Starbuck and the Cylon being marooned on a planet together. I don't remember them getting it on and having a kid though, that might be your overactive imagination.

Surely there would have been 'compatibility' issues there? :eek:

monkeyfudge

Well... It was an origin story for the milky bar kid (Dr. Zee was his name if I recall correctly now) So, if it was just Starbuck and a Cylon on the planet, the kid had to come from somewhere. Starbuck was some sort of sex-addict, so I'm sure he'd have found a way... just a matter of finding the right port...

The whole episode was very like Enemy Mine. But was still probably the best episode of the series.

Remember how it was set 30 years after the original series and Commander Adama just had a beard to make him look older. And he just took orders from Dr. Zee for some reason...

jor el

Starbuck was marooned on the planet and he built the Cylon out of old Cylon junk lying around, for company I guess. The child was born to a woman who turned up (already pregnant, not by Starbuck), from somewhere. Then Starbuck managed to fix his ship, or a ship, but was only able to send the woman and child off in it, possibly due to weight restrictions.

I guess Starbuck lived out his days with his new Cylon friend, no more was mentioned of them.

monkeyfudge

ah... well if Starbuck built the Cylon, then I'm sure it was almost certainly 'sex-capable'

So the kid wasn't magical in any way? How come he got to boss Commander Adama around then?

jor el

So the kid wasn't magical in any way?

I didn't say that, just that he wasn't born of a Cylon-Human coupling. Maybe he's like Anekin in Starwars and was miraculously conceived by the woman? She didn't seem to have a husband anyway.

ah... well if Starbuck built the Cylon, then I'm sure it was almost certainly 'sex-capable'

LOL

superfly

he was definitely magical or something and the woman nicked the ship but in a " we need this ship to bring our son to the Galactica" way and when it arrived there was just the child on board, and Starbuck was a bit peeved as he had to stay on the planet with the robot as she wanted him there for some reason as she didnt stick around to tell the galactica where he was

delly

I'm enjoying what i have seen so far. The effects are good but I think its a little bit too quiet in space when there launching any missles etc. I don't know wheather there trying to be factually correct about there being no noise in space, but it never stopped any other programs.

At least I have my Monday night viewing sown up for a while, what with that Ewen McGregor bike thing after Gallactica, which was pretty cool as well.

Scruff

i thought it was good though i have to admit a few things are confusing me.

how come the cylons cant track the cylon boomer? or Baltar for that matter? whats going on with them showing the pilot and a 2nd boomer cylon on caprica?

guess i'll have to watch and find out

jor el

That had me a little puzzled too. Maybe the Cylon's are just toying with him to see his reactions? He can't know anything about here Galactica is so he's kind of useless to them.

bus77

lmao I'm just after remembering the plot of one of the original episodes. The cylons set up a casino in order to lure humans in. Starbuck gets suspicious when everyone wins big money all the time

monkeyfudge

The Cylons were working with these wierd bee people, who were abducting people from the casino and sealing them up in their underground honeycombs.

And there was a sexy woman in the casino who had 4 eyes...

it was all a bit disturbing actually...

Zulu

monkeyfudge wrote:

The Cylons were working with these wierd bee people, who were abducting people from the casino and sealing them up in their underground honeycombs.

And there was a sexy woman in the casino who had 4 eyes...

it was all a bit disturbing actually...

Saw that one too. reciently, on Bravo. :eek:

GuanYin

Zulu wrote:

Saw that one too. reciently, on Bravo. :eek:

Someone asked me about my memory, I confess that I too have access to the wonder that is Digital TV.

Battlestar Gallactica and Quantum leap ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Brerrabbit

Ahahah! yeah I remember that casino one; they had a sort of futuristic APC made of tinfoil. (I think tinfoil = future in 80s TV; "This little boy has lost his parents, family, dog and his homeworld in a devastating attack from robotic killing machines bent on destroying hthe human race, lets cheer him up. But how? oh I know, Lets build him a dog... out of tinfoil, yeah great idea! silly silly stuff)

I was a huge fan of the original as a nipper, loved the whole ragtag fleet thing (Some of the ships in the new series seem to be the same as the ones in the original (But with CG not made out of tin foil) but some of the old episodes were a bit daft;that casino one and the last series set on earth (The one with a rake of kids who could jump five stories and knock down buildings and stuff? -I think they formed a basketball team or something equally silly) was that one with starbuck and the cylon on the same planet have a kind of wild west feel or did one involve time travel or somenthing; seem to remember a shoot out between starbuck and a cylon "outlaw" or something in a kind of wild westy way)

This series seems really really well made. I love the quiet space battles, and the effects of space in general are fantastic, the story is clever, well plotted, well paced and full of twists, the acting is top notch and theres tons of little nods to the original series. Great stuff!

I can't wait till the next episode.

MisterAnarchy

The original series was fantastic.
Only 2 series were ever made as the production costs were huge and re runs plus syndication hadnt been invented so the studio pulled the plug.
It was costing over 1m dollars per episode back in 1979.
The 1980 series was crap.
They brought it to Earth to cut costs but it was a travesty.
In the episode where Starbuck was marooned on the planet a nother cylon ship arrived and Starbuck was saved by his Cylon friend who sacrificed himself.
A great episode.
The new show is very good.

sceptre

Brerrabbit wrote:

and the last series set on earth (The one with a rake of kids who could jump five stories and knock down buildings and stuff? -I think they formed a basketball team or something equally silly) was that one with starbuck and the cylon on the same planet have a kind of wild west feel or did one involve time travel or somenthing; seem to remember a shoot out between starbuck and a cylon "outlaw" or something in a kind of wild westy way)

I don't really want to talk about Galactica 1980 (I didn't like it even when I was nine - RTE showed both series in 1984-odd) but yeah, baseball team for an episode, there was time travel in the first few episodes (before the wonder kids became more important until they just shut the whole thing down) and the last episode was "The Return of Starbuck", originally written as an episode for the regular series and supposedly intended for season 2 featuring his constructing a cylon out of three broken ones before Cy (as he called him) saved him from other cylons before dying, leaving him on the planet alone. Sounds crap but the last episode was actually good. As for the rest, total crud. I doubt Jeremy Brett puts it on his CV though Dick van Dyke's son probably does.

The original series hasn't aged all that well unless you enjoy the cheese of your childhood (I tend to) but Galactica 1980 was the series that took a reasonably good idea for an epic series and turned it into matinee fare for kids (and bad matinee fare for kids at that)

Milkman Dan

moggie wrote:

and another thing for those who missed part 1 of the mini-series,

the cyclons can interface with machine and computers, cos they're robots etc
therefore
(and I love this)
therefore all the tech is chunky tech
none of it is networked, none of it is hightech - all machines are kept primitive so they can't be controlled by the cylons
its all 80'sfuturistic chunky tech
all of the computers required for the jumps to lightspeed have to be warmed up 5/10 minutes before they go anywhere!!!!

"warm up the computers!!! we're going to be going to light speed"


chunky big bad ass computers the size of a small house
chunky telephone-like handsets for internal communication

and whats more

the galactica was decommissioned
for the last few years it has been a museum

so it ain't the fastest of the fastest ships
it ain't the flagship of the colonies
it ain't the sleekest, meanest, sharpest mofo of the stars that other sci-fi ships have been
its a bucket of bolts
with guns
lottsa guns
but
they couldn't fire the torpedoes from bay ##whatever## cos its a giftshop!!
:cool:
aaahhh
legend

can't wait to see more :cool:

[small edit made]

that actually sounds deadly!

MarkR

Yeah, I love the barrage of fire coming from galactica. Great stuff. Must find old film in xtravision.

GuanYin

sceptre wrote:

The original series hasn't aged all that well unless you enjoy the cheese of your childhood (I tend to) but Galactica 1980 was the series that took a reasonably good idea for an epic series and turned it into matinee fare for kids (and bad matinee fare for kids at that)

The main difference I notice between the series (old/new) is that after the initial 3-4 episodes of the old series (that is the feature length episode and two after) it became a rather formuleic affair with the run from the cylons being an incidental backdrop to the usual Star Trek style dilemma of the week with the odd riot in the smaller ships due to poor conditions.

The new series seems much much more bleak and character driven. Its gone for the ongoing storyline approach and deals much more with desperation of the situation and the tension and consequences of an endangered species.

In that sense the new series pulls off the concept much better imho.

That said, I'd trade it all for a decent incarnation of the old starbuck character