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Battlestar Galactica (Un-official thread)


Ghost

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Anyone here seen the new BSG series? I know its done but I think there should be a thread about it. Basically give your thoughts about the series.

 

For those who don't know, Battlestar Galactica is a TV show about humans making their way to Earth after their worlds have been destroyed. They are pursued by Cylons, some are robots, some look human, but are synthetic. The show is somewhat spiritual and controversial on religion, but it also has a lot of space battles with amazing special effects.

 

There was a series before this in the 70s, but i think that is just too cheesy. And this show is not the typical good guys win 24/7, it is a dark series. A lot of heroes die or are close to death. Watch the miniseries (aka, the movie. You will be blown away), which was made in 05 or 04 i think. There are a total of 4 seasons.

 

You can learn about both series here: http://www.battlestargalactica.com/

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Basically give your thoughts about the series.

 

"By your command..."

 

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The 70s series was great (Galactica 1980, however, was f***ing awful), and had one of the

in Sci-Fi at the time (although Space 1999's theme was pretty good). It was also one of the first shows to get an unheard of $1,000,000 an episode.

 

The new series is awesome, and I love it, but I think I still love the original series more (although that's more from childhood nostalgia, watching the reruns on BBC2).

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For those who don't know, Battlestar Galactica is a TV show about humans making their way to Earth after their worlds have been destroyed.

 

Excuse me, what?

How does that make any sense at all?

Earth IS our world, isn't it?

Unless maybe it was space colonies, and there were multiple planets maybe that'd make sense, but wouldn't there be more aliens?

Furthermore, I'm assuming these 'Cylons' are the ones who destroyed the planets, that's why they're chasing them, right?

Well why don't they just destroy Earth?

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Excuse me, what?

How does that make any sense at all?

Earth IS our world, isn't it?

Unless maybe it was space colonies, and there were multiple planets maybe that'd make sense, but wouldn't there be more aliens?

Furthermore, I'm assuming these 'Cylons' are the ones who destroyed the planets, that's why they're chasing them, right?

Well why don't they just destroy Earth?

 

You've obviously never watched Battlestar Galactica. :p

 

In both Galactica universes, humanity never evolved on Earth, instead originating from the planet Kobol.

 

Short summary:

 

1970s: Humanity did not evolve on Earth. There were instead, the Colonies, who had been fighting an 1000 year war against the Cylon race. At the peace negotiations at the end of the war, the Cylons launched a surprise attack, destroying the Colonial fleet (apart from the titular Galactica), and then move on to decimating the Colonies themselves.

 

Galactica gathers all of the survivors in their rag-tag fleet, to search for the fabled planet 'Earth'..

 

2000s: Cylons were created by Man (still on the colonies), they rebelled and went into exile, returning fourty years later and destroying the colonies (save for Galactica and the ships that would make up the fleet). The fleet decides to search for the lost 13th tribe, which are rumored to inhabit Earth.

 

I won't say anymore with regards to the discovery of Earth, in either show, in case people haven't seen them and want to find out for themselves.

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The original was hamstrung and ultimately destroyed by terrible writing, but there were a few episodes that rate among the best scifi that's ever been on TV.

 

I've never had the heart to even check out the new series.

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The inferrence of the old series was appealing because it was hot on the heels of a fair bit of popularity for Chariots of the Gods, or pseudoscientific contentions that humans are extra terrestrial, from some extrasolar civilisation whom colonised Atlantis, but following its destruction basically devolved into the ancient classical civilisations of Egypt, Minoan and MesoAmerica. So called "evidence" was the likening of many artefacts (mostly interior reliefs) to the appearance of spaceships and other advanced technologies, and the apparently illogical celebration these civilisations had for advanced maths/engineering concepts (where as we know, ancient and rudimentary is supposed to mean intellectually stupid or else they'd have telephones and televisions).

 

Battlestar Galactica broached this theme with things like the likeness of late-Pharaonic headress in the Colonial Viper helmet, pyramidic and triangular-geometric archetecture in every element of Galactica culture from the shape of "credit chips" to the lines of the Viper Starfighter, even down to subtle themes in the Cylon faceplate (the "speaker" section of which looks like a step pyramid viewed from frontplan).

 

In around 1978 when Chariots of the Gods was first published, through much of the '80's a lot of people seriously believed this stuff. It's like the UFO/abduction movement and a dozen other conspiracy theories.

 

So the movie (and underlaying theme of the series) was to play out this fantasy, an effective measure to really ask yourself, well just how possible is such a thing, what possible backstory/reality could possibly foster such events?

 

 

This is all muted in the new series, which is a much better cinematic product, and today is frought with entirely different social issues. Nobody listens to conspiracy theorists anymore, but they are arguing about ID versus Darwinism being taught in public schools...

And of course edgy sexual independence and unlicensed drama has replaced repressed male bonding and traditional roleplay in modern culture. The modern leader is more human than before, more fallible, and heroes are indeed quite dark, whilst evil is simply delusional, today's witch is the sociopath.

 

Old Baltar wasn't sociopathic, he was evil.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I liked the original series, but as a 20 year old trying my hand at writing I was struck by the inconsistencies. The Cylons were robots yet instead of bulding fuly autonomous fighters (Which they did have in the 2000 series) they had one needing three of them to operate. Their society was loosely created with the centurions at the bottom, the bubble headed advisors, and the Imperious Leader.

 

I did like the idea that count Iblis had somehow created the race, since if you look up the name in Google you will discover that Iblis is the primary demon in the Arabic Pantheon. Also that you had to swear yourself to him before he could torment you properly.

 

It ended in a really irritating note when in the very last episode of the series one of the old communications rooms has a flash of the 1969 moon landing. Assuming they were on the same time line as we were, that would have placed them 10 light years from Earth. Considering that someone must have recorded that, or other broadcasts, they should have known we were there.

 

Yet 1980 had a recast with Boxie (The young kid of the original series) played by a man in his early 30s, suggesting a 20 year hegira before they found it. What, did they stop at every planet along the way to ask for directions?

 

I was ready to hate the new series for the same reason, but the change from fully robot to autonomous ships and synthetic humans as infiltrators helped. The interplay was more interesting, and for me more realistic. The 'dehumanization' of prisoners on both sides was especially chilling because neither side could be called proper by doing so.

 

The Cylons using the males as genetic samples to be harvested and the females as breeding stock was as bad as the brutal 'interrogations' carried out by some humans on the captured synthetics.

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With apologies, I haven't read all the posts above because I fear being spoileraped ;)

 

I have just recently started watching BSG from scratch and have been floored by how great it is. I love whopping story arcs, Babylon 5 style!

 

I don't know why but I really like Gaius Baltar, despite his very unfortunate position (I'm only halfway through S3). He's shown more compassion(eg, to the tortured cylon) than anyone else in the show(Helo coming a close second).

 

I have a feeling Gaius redeems himself somewhat by the end of it all ;)

 

IMO, Best sci-fi show since Trek Next Gen finished ;)

 

mtfbwya

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And DS9 beats the crap out of TNG. Just compare the conspiracy-based episodes of both. :p

 

They both had their moments. I like the mirror universe stuff myself. Mirror Kira was hawt. The second half of DS9 was great, when Avery Brooks got his Hawk look going ;) TNG did some great time loop eps too :thmbup1:

 

All good stuff

 

mtfbwya

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