Battlestar Craptacular

[Noriko Takaya]

Well, I haven't seen any posts yet on the Sci-Fi Channel's abhorrently awful remake of Battlestar Galactica. I hated it. I felt like I was watching a badly done movie about US Navy fighter jocks in outer space. And the image of the female Starbuck chomping on a cigar and acting like a man was really disturbing. And Apollo was an a**hole. And Starbuck was not the only one to have undergone a sex change. Boomer turned into a hot chick. And here I thought that nothing could get worse than the second season of Space: 1999...

Others out there may have liked it and could probably offer a better critique, but I for one am glad to call myself a purist of the older series and admit that, while it was corny at times, I loved it. And where the hell was Athena?

[Hikuro]

I thought this show took place 40 years AFTER the tv series? not a complete remake. Don't get me wrong, I watched it, and I liked it alot better than the tv series, but than again I didn't really ever watch the TV series cause it was boring to me and at times made little of no sense.

But from what I was seeing, this is based AFTER the show...not a complete remake of the original...since there's alot of evidence to prove it's a sequal.

[treatment]

I'm watching it right now.

The lowdown:

The first half was pure cheesy drama crap.

Yes, the famous Starbuck is now a woman. And she's a dyke with no character charisma at all. Just a pure wallflower with really corny lines.

The Galactica pit-crews were all morons acting like morons. Way too cheesy.

Boomer's one hot asian chick! Too girly and too cheesy, tho.

I guess Apollo's the only actual hero now. I like the way they upgraded his character to the forefront instead of re-relegating him to the original's second-stringer to Starbuck. He's got more angst. Pretty well done, I say.

The space battles with the Viper, the Viper MK2, and the Cylon ships were done pretty well. Better than Babylon-5 and Star Trek visuals. They have some of the patented Macross drunken missile effects.

Overall, not bad. The second-half (space battles, Apollo) pretty much redeemed the show for me. I hope they take away the cheesy drama in the future episodes and just focus on the space battles.

Oh, btw, the Skull Squadron of DYRL will still kick Galactica, Cylons, and Vipers combined asses.

--treatment--

[Keith]

I thought this show took place 40 years AFTER the tv series? not a complete remake. Don't get me wrong, I watched it, and I liked it alot better than the tv series, but than again I didn't really ever watch the TV series cause it was boring to me and at times made little of no sense.

But from what I was seeing, this is based AFTER the show...not a complete remake of the original...since there's alot of evidence to prove it's a sequal.

What are you, on crack? It's been clearly stated to be a remake from the get go, the cylon's are spontanoiusly no longer metal, and the same character names are used for new incarnations.

I didn't watch it, as I've disavowed all recognition of the sci-fi channel now that they've lived up to the bad rep of their parent channel USA.

[Anubis]

My opinions were kind of mixed about it. I'll give some leeway tonight since it was the first part, but there was way too much talk and time devoted to the decommisioning ceremony. That, and the intro was stupid. Outright dumb. The guards were cool though. I liked that update on those cylons.

I must have missed a few minutes, but how the hell did they shut down all the Vipers with that electronic jamming. If the older battlestar and Mark II Vipers were designed not to be hacked into and what not, wouldn't the new stuff be the same way?

The SWACS plane didn't settle with me too good, in that there was a fuel leak, yet they subjected the craft to a stressful, and HOT reentry and landed. Bull. Park next to wreckage, turn systems off, go outside and fix problem.

And the new president is anooying as hell. She sure settled into bossy mode quick.

" We need to get the civiliands off that ship."

"There are cylons coming to kill us in two minutes you know."

"Don't care. I've made my decision do it."

Bitch goes out the airlock. Move to number 44 in line. Next.

I like the ship designs so far, but the story suffers from made-for-sci-fi-channel syndrome big time. Guess my feelings weren't so mixed after all. Hopefully it redeems itself next part.

[areaseven]

Hey, how are the new Cylons? Do they still have red lights flashing left to right on their eyes?

[treatment]

Hey, how are the new Cylons? Do they still have red lights flashing left to right on their eyes?

I haven't seen an actual walking Cylon Centurion, yet. There was just a head-relic in the museum.

There was the Cylon female spy, tho. Baltar's lover.

I'm not really sure how they're portraying Baltar, tho. It seems like he's not the evil traitor anymore.

The Cylon fighter-ships have the flashing red-light, tho. Pretty good effects.

[Graham]

Wonder if we will ever get this here in HK? Even though it's probably really bad, I still want to see it just to see how awful it is and well, because I'm a masochist

I'm still really pissed at the local TV stations for only showing up to season 4 of Babylon 5 and never showing season 5.....grrrrrrrrr. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy the DVD set when it's released so I can find out what happened.

Graham

[Anubis]

In the intro they showed two updated Cylon Centurions. They kinda had a Terminatrix style gun/hand transformation, and looked pretty cool. Yeah, they had the red light eye still. The cylon fighters had the eye too.

[kam63]

female Starbuck chomping on a cigar and acting like a man was really disturbing. And Apollo was an a**hole. And Starbuck was not the only one to have undergone a sex change. Boomer turned into a hot chick.

???? what ???? is she the daughter of starbuck? and a asian boomer? wasnt he blk. is she his daughter too

[treatment]

wtf?!

wtf happened to Apollo?

that was freakin' lame and really cheap.

---

btw, Anubis.

the Viper MK-2 and the other battlestars were cracked.

Sci-Fi channel's repeating it right now.

Whoa! I see the Cylons Centurions! They've been upgraded!

Edited December 9, 2003 by treatment

[Jolly Rogers]

I don't remember much of the original TV series from the 80s (other than it started to suck once they traded in the Vipers for motorcycles that fly) so I didn't have much baggage watching the new miniseries. While the music and sound sucked, it was at least more entertaining than G-Saviour (puke) with better character development than anyone from the Star Wars prequels.

[EXO]

female Starbuck chomping on a cigar and acting like a man was really disturbing. And Apollo was an a**hole. And Starbuck was not the only one to have undergone a sex change. Boomer turned into a hot chick.

???? what ???? is she the daughter of starbuck? and a asian boomer? wasnt he blk. is she his daughter too

No, these are suppose to be the same characters.

The story or the writing was really bad. I wanted to turn it off after 45 minutes. But I thought it was only an hour so I decided to stay for the space fights... guess what I had to wait another 20 minutes.

The second hour was better because of the space skirmishes (they weren't battles), a good number of carnage, and yeah boomer was hot. I feel funny saying that because the he was a black male in the previous series.

The space skirmishes were nice though. They applied somewhat real physics to the way the ships were controlled. They also muffled the space sound so that it would seem like sound wasn't travelling. I think they got all that from Final Fantasy: Spirits Within though...

Bad Ideas:

Apollo and Boomer are now females.

Humanlike Cylons... she wasn't that sexy even though they forced it

Backward technology that runs a space battleship (no computer network??? yeah right!)

School teacher becomes president

Adama and Apollo are father and son? Was that the case in the original?

Good Ideas:

semi-realistic physics in space

Pilotless cylon cruisers - the whole thing WAS a cylon.

Overall it was pretty bad. I'd tune in once and a while to watch the battle scenes but that's about it.

[areaseven]

Wonder if we will ever get this here in HK? Even though it's probably really bad, I still want to see it just to see how awful it is and well, because I'm a masochist

Given the reviews so far, you'll probably hate the new Galactica more than G-Saviour. But then again, that's almost impossible, as G-Saviour is practically second to Battlefield Earth as the worst sci-fi ever conceived.

[Mechwarrior]

Well, i'm gonna fo out on a limb and say I liked it. Sure the start of it was slow, but then again they had to establish characters and such. I really liked the very beggining where the history was explained, and then after 40 years the hot female cylon chic shows up with the upgraded bodyguards. A little insight she provided by stating that chrome ones are still around too. Starbuck and Boomer are chcics, and they do suck, but i'll give the show a chance and maybe their characters will grow on me. The story works for me and I like it. I look forward to part 2. Just have to remember that it is a remake, that's all.

[Radd]

It's amazing how many people refuse to read the previous posts in a thread.

Anyways, while I was never a huge fan of the original, except for the very first episodes that started it off (it got a lot cheesier very quickly), it seemed to me that they took everything that was original and imaginative about the old series and replaced it with sci-fi cliches and some boobs.

[JELEINEN]

[Adama and Apollo are father and son? Was that the case in the original?

Yeah they were, in the original.

Did they drop the pseudo-Mormon background? That along with the blatant Egyptian/Mayan style influences were what made the original great, IMO. The whole thing was a fun twist on the ancient astronaut idea.

[VF-1S Alpha]

Well, i'm gonna fo out on a limb and say I liked it. Sure the start of it was slow, but then again they had to establish characters and such. I really liked the very beggining where the history was explained, and then after 40 years the hot female cylon chic shows up with the upgraded bodyguards. A little insight she provided by stating that chrome ones are still around too. Starbuck and Boomer are chcics, and they do suck, but i'll give the show a chance and maybe their characters will grow on me. The story works for me and I like it. I look forward to part 2. Just have to remember that it is a remake, that's all.

Seems like everything revolves around chicks now?

Well, like Graham, I will probably will have to wait until comes out on DVD, as here in Asia we don't get the Sci-Fi channel.

Still, even most people said it is bad, I would like to take a peek into it, I bought the PS2 game, and saw the mini series trailer...couldn't see any any "cylons" in the old format as I knew before...

What ever happened with the live action film of Macross that they were supposed to do?

Paulo

[oneredlude]

well, I saw the remake tonight and had mixed feelings. on the one hand, i liked how they portrayed the cylon attack on the colonies...especially with the images of the nuclear bombardment. it was very dark, and it made you feel (at least i did) the level of loss that was occurring. the space combat was very well done, IMO. i liked how they made the camera pan across the screen during the combat scenes. it was sorta jerky but it made it look sorta realistic, as if someone was videotaping it with a camcorder. but what i liked most about the space combat was the subdued sound. you could hear the weapons firing and the explosions, but overall the combat was quiet. it was a good effect, IMO. overall the special effects and visuals were very good.

what i didn't like about the show was the "hello i'm new in the scene - lets have sex!" thing going on. i didn't like that in battlestar galactica. it just didn't feel right. and the whole female starbuck thing. don't get me started. i'm not anti-feminism or anything like that...don't get me wrong. but what made starbuck great was the brotherhood and comraderie(sp?) between starbuck and apollo, along with his devil-may-care attitude. that relationship should remain unchanged if you're gonna slap on the name "battlestar galactica". if you want to explore that same comraderie and brotherhood between female and male warriors, make up a new female pilot. don't go fixing what aint broke.

[Californium]

Yeah, should have just made up some new characters if they wanted more female pilots.

Mixed bag really. Some improvements over the original. Some crap.

Didn't outright suck.

One thing i'll mention: I like they way they introduce the Viper MkII as the older cousin of the Raptor. Sort of implies that the Viper MkI would be the classic design from the original show, now relegated story-wise to having fought in the first Cylon war. And yeah, it's nice that the new cylon fighter is one big flying cylon.

My only really huge complaint would be that the original BG music was relegated to the military band at the retirement ceremony. That music was kickass and dropping it was a really pathetic idea.

[Skippy438]

Guys, complain all you want, just don't go Richard Hatch on me ... Just seeing him in the preview show, knowing he'd dedicated his life to a show that was only on for a year and debuted to limited acclaim ... sigh

[Hikuro]

What are you, on crack? It's been clearly stated to be a remake from the get go, the cylon's are spontanoiusly no longer metal, and the same character names are used for new incarnations.

I didn't watch it, as I've disavowed all recognition of the sci-fi channel now that they've lived up to the bad rep of their parent channel USA.

Hey now like I said, I didn't really ever watch the 80's show it was too boring for me and I didn't keep up with the new one cause I'm so busy and totally forgot about it so you can't blame me for something I already stated. It just sounded MORE like it was a sequal rather than a complete remake....damn.

[Southpaw Samurai]

Sometimes it felt like Adama fathered half the crew of the Galactica (would have put a odd spin on him being the figurehead/father figure commander of a ship full of his kids and grandkids). How many family members did he have on the old show. There was Apollo and his kid brother who died in the pilot, and then there was his daughter on the bridge (Athena?). Definitely likes to keep the family close.

I haven't seen the new show...will catch it someday perhaps, but I just don't want to even really examine or discuss it and just let it die a quiet death. I would've much preferred had they decided to play it up in a different time period. Either make it the next generation (or, to avoid Mr.Hatch jumping at playing an old Commander Apollo, two generations) later or do what they did with the entertaining video game and make it back when Adama was an active pilot. While the latter ruins a lot of the 'rag tag fleet running basically on just hope' motif, it almost seems like the new series wants to remove most of that anyway, so why not go with a time when you can see multiple Battlestars in their prime (I remember the old episodes with the Pegasus as being very entertaining). Given how people can change, you could've made Adama nearly personality you liked and throw in whatever 'young' versions you wanted (like a young Tigh and maybe a really young Baltar who's not really traitorous yet, but shows signs that he could falter if given the opportunity) and just created new ones.

This remake just seems to be aimed at people who either won't remember the characters or wouldn't care, so why bother remaking the characters only to murder their traits.

[JsARCLIGHT]

OK, I was indifferent to it.

I talked with Ali Sama and was quite negative on it but he got me to want to see it so I sat down when it was rebroadcast (like six times) and watched the first episode. Despite several major issues with the show I did not find myself hating it. It was just as poorly written and acted as the original and the "horrendous" cast changes did not bother me that much... after all, Dirk Bennedict was practically a woman anyway.

The things I liked about it were that they at least suppied some backstory to things. The original Galactica's backstory was that there was this group of no-goodniks called the Cylons who get Baltar to turncoat for them and they nuke the 12 colonies forcing them to go look for their long lost sister colony Earth. The new show at least made up a lot of "excuses" for why things happen the way they do.

Things I found myslef not liking about the new show are as follows: The actors chosen for the roles are good enough but most of the acting is either heavyhanded melodrama (the crew chief) or wooden barely acting acting (the XO). The main cast seems to be assembled from out of work B actors and new faces. The special effects done by computer are nice but the practical effects have this weird "we made them from cardboard and eggcrate with some cowboy paste" look to them.

I'll most likely try to watch the next episode tonight and see where this thing goes... as if we don't know already. Then again I just want to see what they do with the old things... such as the reappearance of Dagget, those weird bee people on the party planet and if the Cylons (who now appear to be terminator-ish) actually have a big brained Imperious Leader alien at the helm.

To sum it up: I sort of liked it and sort of didn't. After all, it is a modern reworking of a terrible '80s Sci-Fi show in which the original had all the failings the new one has (bad acting, worse writing, cheesy SFX and goofy plot devices).

At least Rick Springfield was not in this pilot.

[mechaninac]

If I were to grade the show so far I'd have to give it a C+. The first hour was really bad, with few exceptions. The second half was much better.

The Good:

1. The father-son rift. Apollo was a flat character in the original; this made him more interesting

2. The Cylon back-story. The "we should not play G*d" and "our own creations will come back to bite us in the a$$" angles are very standard sci-fi fodder; but they makes a bit more sense than an extinct reptilian race having created the Cylons in man's image.

3. The space flight physics. Enough said.

4. The Cylon raider IS a Cylon. I'm sure this was inspired by SW:TPM; which begs the question: if the Droid Fighters were Droids, shouldn't the Trade Federation tanks have been droids too, instead of piloted by droids?

5. The MK IIs were cool and, I'm not sure, I think I saw a MK I way in the back in the museum.

6. Missiles and Bullets. While the turbo-lasers were cool in the original series, it makes a lot more sense to shoot guided missiles at long range than to duke it out WWII style.

7. The Nuclear bombardment of Caprica, and the other colonies.

The Bad:

1. That little tub Boomer was flying.

2. The Galactica itself was fugly as sin.

3. The Cylon femme fatale. Despite what the writers may say or think, the idea of human-like Cylons is not new. There was an episode of Galactica 1980 where two android Cylons and one Centurion crashed on Earth in an experimental craft during, conveniently, mardi-gras. It was lousy then...it's lousy now.

4. The Raptor was just plain ugly. It's good that the MK II will be the hero fighter of the show.

5. Retro tech. I understood where they were going with the notion of non-networked computers, manual valves, wired comms, et al. One Cylon compromised system won't compromise the whole works. But from a technological standpoint it make absolutely no sense that older systems would be less vulnerable to jamming and hacking then modern ones; whatever happened to redundant systems, emergency standbys, firewalls, etc.?

6. I thought the thunderclap effect of B5 PPG was hard to get used to. Those side arms were crap.

The Ugly:

1. The new president of the 12 colonies. Give me a break. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would have overruled her decision to continue rescue operations in the face of impending attack. I agree with a previous statement: dump her out the nearest airlock; 43 down...bring on number 44.

2. Boomer is a girl! WTF! Granted that she was pretty hot and all (a lot easier on the eyes than the original Boomer). But if they had to have that character, why not just call her something else...like Hoshi Sato.

3. Baltar. They turned a cool, albeit two dimensional, villain into a boring self-pitying worm.

4. Starbuck. Every time he, she, IT was on screen I just felt like groaning. That was, by far, the worst case on PC rework since the computer airbrushing of guns into walkie-talkies in ET. Starbuck was one of, if not the, best characters of the original series; now Starbuck is just a cigar chomping butch.

[Pat Payne]

Retro tech.  I understood where they were going with the notion of non-networked computers, manual valves, wired comms, et al.  One Cylon compromised system won't compromise the whole works.  But from a technological standpoint it make absolutely no sense that older systems would be less vulnerable to jamming and hacking then modern ones; whatever happened to redundant systems, emergency standbys, firewalls, etc.?

I liked this idea, since it allowed them to keep at least some of the design ethics of the original series (from 1979) rather than try to make it this millenium's version of "faux futuristic." Yeah, even in the here and now, telephones with cords are going the way of the dinosaur, but it gives continuity with the original. Also, didn't they establish Adama in the miniseries as being something of a technophobe because of the Cylon wars?

Starbuck.  Every time he, she, IT was on screen I just felt like groaning.  That was, by far, the worst case on PC rework since the computer airbrushing of guns into walkie-talkies in ET.  Starbuck was one of, if not the, best characters of the original series; now Starbuck is just a cigar chomping butch. 

No argument. There was no character there, just a pile of attitude. You don't build a character on one trait only (unless his name is Camille Vidan ). I haven't seen all that much of the original Galactica, but I don't remember Starbuck being half as much of a jackass as Starbuckette here. Making the character into a woman didn't bother me as much (since this wasn't a sequel or follow-up, but a new continuity... think of it as "Battlestar Galactica Wing" if it helps ) but, as you said, I think they bent over backwards to make her a woman in form only so that they could get the network's quota of "empowering" female figures there.

Baltar.  They turned a cool, albeit two dimensional, villain into a boring self-pitying worm.

Other than the unecessary sex scene, I thought Baltar's character worked. He was a dupe whose hubris and pride laid the groundwork for the catastrophe. He became a metaphor for scientists throughout history who can only see the benefits (and major awards) of their work, but not the unintended negative consequences. And there wasn't self-pity there, but self-interest. Even after the Cylons attack (thanks to him), he basicsally only wonders what will happen to him. He seems not to care that nuclear armageddon is wiping out the planet. And that, I think will turn him towards the Cylons in later episodes.

dump her out the nearest airlock; 43 down...bring on number 44

If you watched all the way through the episode...done and done. And the whole "breast cancer" angle was serving no purpose anyway.

[Uxi]

Eh. It was ok. Not great, but not absolutely horrid, either.

Starbuck wasn't as bad as I feared, but didn't need to be made a chic. Boomer being an asian chic drew a bigger "WTF?" from me. Why do they need to use the old names if they're not going to be anything like the old characters?

The pseudo wanna-be military without much semblence of actual military discipline is a bit irritating, but not worse than much else on tv. Definately think the "Terminatrix" Cylon is getting too cliche.

As campy as the original was, I prefer it to this one, though the SFX are admittedly better. Viper evolution is ok to see. I like the nod to the past the new one was doing, but don't know why this had to be a remake instead of another sequel (:shuddering at brief memories of Galactica 1980:).

But yeah, I agree with the B-actor part, too.

[bsu legato]

[sarcasm] Oh boy...I can not wait until January, when this begins airing in Canada. I can hardly contain myself. [/sarcasm]

[EXO]

Starbuck wasn't as bad as I feared, but didn't need to be made a chic. Boomer being an asian chic drew a bigger "WTF?" from me. Why do they need to use the old names if they're not going to be anything like the old characters?

Yeah I don't get the point of making a male character a girl if they're just going to act manly. What's the point. It's like Starbuck au lait.

[Seven]

Look at it this way for all the gripers, it could be worse - you could be watching Star Trek Voyager.

I actually think that it's been better sci fi TV than most offerings in the past 5 years. Enterprise is falling flat on its face, and I don't think anyone really cares much about Stargate SG-1. Everytime I see the big bald black guy with eyeliner, it just makes me wince.

Did anyone notice the verniers on the fighters? That was pretty damn cool. The handheld camera work was a nice touch.

And the AWACS thing Boomer was flying with the guy reminded me of both the episode when Misa was in the AWACS escorted by Vermillion squadron and the movie when Misa and Kaifun were in the equally boxy AWACS ship and had to run from the Zentran power armors. I felt there were more than a few similarities to things in Macross.

[rocco_77]

Man you guys are tough to please....

I actually thought the show was enjoyable...

I agree, that Starbuck is a bit annoying, and Boomer being female pissed me off a bit too...

I thought the story so far is pretty good... Also, I think that most shows start a little shaky, and hopefully this one will get better as it goes.

The whole slurmtly Cylon was pretty dumb IMO... Did she snap that baby's neck!?

The space physics were really good.... I do agree about the fuel leak though.... That was a HUGE oversite. They should have blown up as soon as they hit the atmosphere.... Especially since the fuel leak was UNDER the craft.

All in all though, I liked it, and I'm looking forward to how it progresses.

[Mr March]

*snip*

Better than Babylon-5 and Star Trek visuals. They have some of the patented Macross drunken missile effects.

I would hope the special effects for this new Battlestar Galactica show are better than Babylon 5. I love Babylon 5, but the show and its effects are ten years old now!

[Mr March]

*snip*

I'm still really pissed at the local TV stations for only showing up to season 4 of Babylon 5 and never showing season 5.....grrrrrrrrr. Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy the DVD set when it's released so I can find out what happened.

Graham

The Babylon 5 DVD sets are up to season three so far. Season four is to be released January 2004. So you might have just a bit of a wait.

Just some advice, speaking as a huge Babylon 5 fan, you might not be so thrilled with fifth season. It's easily the weakest season of the five-year show. Personally, I can watch and enjoy it, but I beleive the fifth season could be skipped quite easily by most fans. Worth a look regardless.

[Isamu Atreides 86]

Just some advice, speaking as a huge Babylon 5 fan, you might not be so thrilled with fifth season. It's easily the weakest season of the five-year show. Personally, I can watch and enjoy it, but I beleive the fifth season could be skipped quite easily by most fans. Worth a look regardless.

yep. but i did like the very last episode. it did a pretty good job of closing out the series. pretty sad....

[GobotFool]

Just some advice, speaking as a huge Babylon 5 fan, you might not be so thrilled with fifth season.  It's easily the weakest season of the five-year show.  Personally, I can watch and enjoy it, but I beleive the fifth season could be skipped quite easily by most fans.  Worth a look regardless.

yep. but i did like the very last episode. it did a pretty good job of closing out the series. pretty sad....

last 5th season ep, that the one where the future humans are looking back on the past?