Battlestar Galatica

[Anakin Flair 0]

Ok, so I caught the end of the close-up look on the Sci-fi channel, and now I'm wondering. Does anybody know if this si going to be a continuation of the original series, or will it be a completely new story. And does anybody know what it will be about (I know the basic background, but I never saw the entire series, just episodes here and there this summer.)

 

Thanks in advance.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

New story, remake if you will.

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

Yeah it's a remake. In fact in the mini series Starbuck will be a woman. Remember he was played by Dirk Benedict aka Face from The A-Team.

[razazteca 0]

What Starbuck is a woman? Whats next the enemy will be an army of twiggys?

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

If I remember right the Cyclones are now a race of robots that look exactly like humans that were created by the Galatica people but, went bad.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

^ well the Cylons are the CYlons, but they have a group of 'sleeper' and infiltration agents who look like humans.

[Anakin Flair 0]

Got to say, metroman, I love your sig.

[Guest Ahhee]

Unfortunately, the new Cylon warriors look like poop to me. I don't mind any of the retooling with the scripts or anything, except that I wish they would've kept the classic look for the Cylon soldiers. I hope they at least keep that kick ass robot voice.

 

The idea of Cylon replicants for lack of a better word, is a pretty cool concept, because you just know that some of them are going to end up onboard Galactica.

[razazteca 0]

Cheap bastards did not want to pay for costumes of the Cylons, the director said it himself! Well the SPX better look better than Babylon 5 now that they made the enemies regular looking actors now.

[Swift Terror 0]

Here's an updated piece on the new mini-series.

 

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031203/D.../D7V74TI80.html

 

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) - "Battlestar Galactica" is returning as a four-hour miniseries, backed by hype befitting a science fiction classic in the same galaxy as "Star Wars" or "Star Trek."

 

Never mind that this classic was a campy space opera that lasted just one season.

 

When it premiered on ABC in 1978, the special-effects dazzler was the most highly publicized new series of that season. Lorne Greene starred as Adama, the commander of a ragtag band of refugees in search of a lost planet called Earth after a band of robotic Cylons wiped out much of humankind.

 

In the new version, airing Monday and Tuesday on the Sci Fi Channel (9 p.m. EST), Edward James Olmos takes over as Adama; Jamie Bamber is his son, Apollo (originally played by Richard Hatch); and the hotheaded pilot, Starbuck, is now a woman, played by Katee Sackhoff (Dirk Benedict was the original).

 

While the original series' thematic core remains - the human struggle for survival - a lot has changed.

 

Gone is the space fantasy with the dashing caped warriors of old. Now they're handsome heroes in uniforms akin to Air Force fighter pilots. The 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 - it no longer exists.

 

"It's a fine line in deciding what you want to retain and what you want to change from the original," says the miniseries' writer, Ron Moore. "But it all started with the name."

 

What he ended up with is a saga for a post-Sept. 11 world: an array of conflicted characters forced to coexist under the threat of more deadly adversaries living among them.

 

"When 9-11 happened," says Sackhoff, "I knew for the first time what it was like to feel fear - genuine fear. And had that not happened, it would have been a lot harder for me to actually play this character."

 

"What science fiction should be," says Moore, "is a look at ourselves, an examination of humanity. But where we are with science fiction in television and movies, you've sort of fallen into two categories: There's this quasi-cyberpunk stuff, which is everything from 'Matrix' to 'Blade Runner.' Then there's the sort of 'Star Wars,' 'Star Trek' lush orchestral visions of the future."

 

Olmos, who's eschewed science fiction since appearing in the 1982 film "Blade Runner," says Moore's script "was different than anything I'd ever read before. There's a lot of reality in this that you might find in say a 'NYPD Blue' or 'Hill Street Blues.'"

 

Devotees of the original will be hard to convince, however.

 

Chat-room conversations on many of the scores of "Battlestar" Web sites have been fiercely opposed to this "re-imaged" version.

 

One site even features a cartoon of Benedict's Starbuck being castrated by a laser beam, and there are many who vow to tune out when the miniseries comes on.

 

Hatch understands the fan sentiment.

 

"I had a lot of anger and frustration because I saw a studio not on any level being receptive to what the vast majority of fans wanted," the actor says in his small apartment littered with "Battlestar" paraphernalia, including a lunchbox, posters and videos.

 

Hatch, who has written six spin-off novels, tried his own sequel: "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming." A four-minute, self-financed trailer has been a hit among conventioneers, but studio executives have been unimpressed.

 

"Every time they bring back a classic, they always fail because they've thrown the baby out with the bath water," says the 58-year-old Hatch. "They throw away the very elements the fans loved most."

 

A few years ago, fans thought they'd get the continuation saga they'd clamored for when Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto, the director-writer team behind "X-Men," hooked up with original "Galactica" creator Glen Larson to develop a project at 20th Century Fox.

 

When that deal fell through, Universal TV chief David Kissinger brought in executive producer David Eick and Moore to rework the franchise for Sci Fi.

 

"We want the fans to embrace what we are doing," says Sci Fi President Bonnie Hammer, "but if you produced now what was produced then, it would feel like old TV. We wanted to make it more relatable, even in terms of the stereotypes of characters."

 

"I understand they're trying to do a modern version," says Larson. "But change for the sake of change - it's taking the title and exploiting it."

 

Not according to Bamber, who as a new cast member is part of the change.

 

"It's like a favorite play," he argues. "It's there to be challenged, it's there to be redone and reinterpreted."

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

I've noticed that this remake is the talk of fandoms and message boards for 3 big shows in the 80s. Because, the original show and the remake have big connections to them. Knight Rider, because Glen Larson created Battlestar. The A-Team, because Dirk Benedict was the original Starbuck. And Miami Vice, because Edward James Olmos plays Adama in the remake.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

I'm going to degenerate into fanboyhood with this post so don't laugh too loud.

 

Well after that watching the little "Low-Down" making-of special I'm about to see if my cable company can block Sci-Fi from my TV. It's one thing to change an element or two from the original to update it and make it more comparable with today's society. This however seems to be nothing more than an excuse to take a big stinking crap over something many people look back on with some fondness.

 

And the fact that they're unapologetic about it somehow makes it worse. Katee Sack-o-crap was just a total bitch about making Starbuck a woman, and the producers seemed to think it great that a female character was a pilot and a strong character on the show. I guess they just forgot about the female characters from the original show (Serena, Sheba, Athena, Cassiopeia). Then on top of that they decide to make Boomer a woman as well! All I can say is, if Apollo and Starbuck end up with "sexual tension" I may very well throw up all over my TV.

 

Now for the Cylons. I like my bad guys to look like bad guys. I want my antagonists to look scary as crap and be capable of tearing the good guys apart. These new "human" Cylons look like nothing more than an excuse to throw a hot woman in there to appeal to the Seven-of-Nine and Terminator TX "fans". And then, rather than reintroduce the formulaic but still viable "invaders from outer space" that worked for the original, they make Cylons a human invention that has come back to kick them in the ass! Ooooh, science bad, humans selfdestructive! Bah.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for updating shows and movies to make them more accessible to today's crowd. Throwing needless T&A and screwing up the whole canon of Battlestar Galactica just to bring out the horny adolescent male crowd just perturbs me. Just so I can reach the deepest depths of fanboydom, I will in closing say:

 

Worst.

 

Remake.

 

EVER.

[Mystery Eskimo 0]

Starbuck as a woman is just an awful idea. If they want a strong female character why not use one of the ones from the original series in a more prominent part, or create a new character?

[bobobrazil1984 0]

Weak first half hour,

 

the rest was quite good. I ended up watchign more ofthis than RAW, and watched the 11:00 replay to fill in thep arts I missed.

 

And i dont care what you all say, the new Starbuck rocks

[starvenger 0]

Help me out here, which Trek series was Moore a lead writer for?

[bobobrazil1984 0]

DS9. He also wrote for TNG, but I dont think he was really a "lead writer" until the later seasons. Best known on TNG for the Klingon episodes like Sins of the Father, Redemption (i think), and on DS9, was just known for really good character oriented episodes (Rocks and Shoals, In the Cards, Inter Arma enim silent leges, tacking against the wind)

 

There's a rather lengthy 18 PART interview (though it says 10, when you get to part 10 you can move ahead to 11 up to 18) with him at

 

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/444/444306p1.html

 

where he talks behind the scenes stuff bout Trek.. and pretty much tells the story about why ST sucks ass now

[starvenger 0]

Hey, that's still not as long as that "Life of Reilly" analysis of the Clone Saga...

[Guest Ahhee]

The show felt more like Wing Commander than it did Battlestar Galactica to me. The Cylon raiders looked almost exactly like Kilrathi ships.

 

I said earlier in this thread that the whole cylon sleeper thing could be cool ...

 

Spoiler (Highlight to Read):

Christ almighty did they have to make Boomer a fucking Cylon!?!?

 

I also liked Starbuck, the biggest problems I had characterwise were Baltar and Apollo.

[starvenger 0]

Finished reading the Ron Moore interview. Good stuff - he's been around for a lot of different projects, it seems, including one that I'd have loved to see - Dragonriders of Pern. I remember reading about what WB wanted to do with it, and frankly it's better off being in limbo for now...

[Anakin Flair 0]

Ok, so I watched both halfs,and I'm left wondering...

 

What's up witht he Sci Fi channel and ending shows on cliff hangers? First Farscape, now this...

 

Of course, it leaves the door open for a sequal or possible series.

 

And I also enjoyed it. I see why many hardcore fans hate the remake, but I liked it. Maybe it was because I've only seen parts of the original series over the summer while they aired, but I feel that if they do turn it into a show, it has promise.

[Guest wrestlingbs]

....

 

Farscape Lives?

 

 

Didn't hear about this before, glad it's happened.

[starvenger 0]

Ok, so I watched both halfs,and I'm left wondering...

 

What's up witht he Sci Fi channel and ending shows on cliff hangers? First Farscape, now this...

 

Of course, it leaves the door open for a sequal or possible series.

 

And I also enjoyed it. I see why many hardcore fans hate the remake, but I liked it. Maybe it was because I've only seen parts of the original series over the summer while they aired, but I feel that if they do turn it into a show, it has promise.

I'm pretty much the same way. Never watched the original series, but I think that this remake has promise.

 

And I wonder about the cliffhanger ending - was this put in because they knew that Sci-Fi was picking this up, or was it done in hopes that Sci-Fi would pick them up?

 

Finally, I liked this mini but hated Firefly - does that make me a poor excuse for a sci-fi geek?

[Anakin Flair 0]

....

 

Farscape Lives?

 

 

Didn't hear about this before, glad it's happened.

I actually meant how they ended the show, but they are working on a mini-series to bring some closure.

[Guest wrestlingbs]

....

 

Farscape Lives?

 

   

 

Didn't hear about this before, glad it's happened.

I actually meant how they ended the show, but they are working on a mini-series to bring some closure.

I know I was talking about metr0man's banner.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

I thought it was okay. Sci-Fi did a good job with Dune, and as a guy who read Dune I always thought it was a massive pile of monkey crap. So to see it done in something watchable blew me away.

 

Galactica is better than that, the original had the same issue of "good idea, done not so well." I think this has shades of that, too, but oh well.