Fred Cartwright | 16 Jan 2014 3:21 a.m. PST |
I've started watching the new Battlestar Galactica on Freeview here in the UK. What do others think? I feel not as good as the old one, which although corny at times had a lot of action. This is all angst and psychosocial examination of the plight of the survivors, which is ok, but I want to see some epic battles and a lot more action. |
Stealth1000 | 16 Jan 2014 3:32 a.m. PST |
I really enjoyed it but I agree a bit more action and less angst would have been nice but overall I really enjoyed it. I watched the series over a week on DVD. Watch some of the compilations battles on Youtube. They put you in the frame of mind for a game. |
Earl of the North | 16 Jan 2014 4:08 a.m. PST |
The first series is probably the best and it went downhill from there, by the end of the show I hated everybody and was hoping that they would just get massacred and put the show out of its misery
..oh and the ending sucked as well. Good points
..the spaceships and thats about it really. |
kabrank | 16 Jan 2014 4:15 a.m. PST |
Great version but tailed off towards the end. Poor final episode. Well worth watching. |
ubercommando | 16 Jan 2014 4:28 a.m. PST |
I didn't like the show. I tried to, seeing that it had all these good reviews from sci-fi fans, but for me it had numerous problems. My biggest issue with it was the slow pace of it. Not just slow to take time to tell the story, the slowness in general. For example, Adama gets a call that the Colonial fleet is being annihilated and he just slowly hangs up the phone and sits there, for a while. There's rarely a sense of urgency and pacing that a tense show should have. Then some of the performances are a bit dodgy (I really didn't like James Callis' bug eyed gurning as Baltar and it had me thinking John Colicos was so much better in the role), there are big plot holes that get glossed over, the angst isn't that convincing
.well, that's just some of the problems I had with it! I kept going with it until halfway through season 2 before I gave up. |
Pete Melvin | 16 Jan 2014 4:42 a.m. PST |
I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2 but 3 killed it about half way through I reckon. The ending is just awful so watch to the end of season 3 then make up your own ending that makes more sense. |
Mr Elmo | 16 Jan 2014 4:54 a.m. PST |
It got really stupid when they were on that planet for a season or whatever. That's when I quit watching. |
Tgunner | 16 Jan 2014 5:11 a.m. PST |
I'm with the others. The first season or so were really good. But it seemed to go downhill from there. At that point it seemed like everyone was a Cylon and it got really silly. Like an RPG campaign that starts out really good, but then the GM runs out of ideas and then starts adding more and more odd and just plain goofy ideas. There are great individual episodes and the whole Pegasus arc was decent, but the Cylon spy arc and the Cylon "plan" and rebellion was just odd
really odd
I stopped watching after that myself. Never saw the last couple of seasons. |
PaddySinclair | 16 Jan 2014 5:35 a.m. PST |
Way better than the original (which is still awesome in it's cheesy 70's way) in my opinion. And the ending works fine, it's just not the ending some people were hoping for. There are some aspects that don't get fully tied off, but it brings everything to a conclusion but with something of a "Return of the King" style resolution
But it has some of the best space combat scenes ever, just not as frequently as some would have liked. Season 2 probably has some of the best episodes overall though it must be said. Season 3 is a little padded in the middle after a cracking start, and a very interesting finale. Season 4 (in two halves which is why some think there were a last two seasons) is not to everyone's taste and is mostly concerned with the fallout of season 3 and getting to the series finale and takes some very harsh steps along the way. Hopefully they'll be showing "Razor" which is feature length episode set mid season 2, but should only be viewed after the end of season 3 (which was when it was originally shown) for reasons of "spoilers" and "The Plan" which fills in a lot of the "plot holes" perceived by people, but should only be seen after you've seen season 4. Lots of "battle porn" in that when you see the destruction of the colonies from the Cylon point of view. |
ubercommando | 16 Jan 2014 5:43 a.m. PST |
I don't think the space combat scenes were as good as in Babylon 5. For one thing, I couldn't make out a lot of what was happening in them with all the crash zooms and pan and scan shots. |
David Manley | 16 Jan 2014 5:49 a.m. PST |
Agreed, went downhill from season 2 IMHO. What really hacked me off was rrealising that the Cylons actually didn't have a plan at all |
Angel Barracks | 16 Jan 2014 6:28 a.m. PST |
which is ok, but I want to see some epic battles and a lot more action. I would stop watching then to be honest. If you hope BSG is about the fight scenes it is not. I think good TV and or films has to be about people. If you can't get emotionally invested in the characters then why would you care what happens to them? I enjoyed the character interaction and watching as they grew and changed as their lives went on. I liked seeing how they dealt with the continual bleakness and then the odd ray of hope. How they coped in the face of what seems a life without purpose and what kept them going. The hard decisions they have to make to keep the entire Human race alive. It is a story about survival and adversity set in a sci-fi background. It is after all a very familiar story about a group of people being hunted down and chased from their own lands by another group of people. Watch GI Joe or Transformers if you want action for the sake of action!
And the ending works fine, it's just not the ending some people were hoping for Yeah I liked it too.
:D |
BaldLea | 16 Jan 2014 6:41 a.m. PST |
I loved it. And its occasional nods and winks to the original. |
Dynaman8789 | 16 Jan 2014 6:49 a.m. PST |
Loved the show. The problem was the budget – they did not have much but what they did have they put to good use. Sure the planet episodes were a pain, but the battle in "Exodus" made it all worthwhile. As for the original, it went downhill real fast too, PLENTY of episodes in that one had no action either. I was really tired of that shot Viper shooting at 3 Cylons, destroying one and watching the other 2 bank off, over and over and over again
|
Fred Cartwright | 16 Jan 2014 7:17 a.m. PST |
I think good TV and or films has to be about people. If you can't get emotionally invested in the characters then why would you care what happens to them? I think that's the problem. The character development is poor and some of the characters are cliches. Maybe it gets better. I'll keep watching for a bit. The best shows IMHO deliver both character development and action. So far I'm finding this poor on both counts. |
DsGilbert | 16 Jan 2014 7:36 a.m. PST |
It's worth watching. There are major issues overall and you'll probably start to root for the cylons in the end. I never felt like I wasted my time watching it. |
Garand | 16 Jan 2014 7:48 a.m. PST |
I think it is worth watching. Before the miniseries came out, I re-watched the original BSG. I was a fan as a kid. All I can say is that sometimes your memories of something are much, much better than the reality. The original BSG IMHO did not age well, and it shows. The new BSG was good, enjoyable, even with the angst. There were some clunky elements, but the payoff was often worth it. I didn't like the last episode either, and how it ended. There is a lot I could say about it, but that might constitute spoilers. Damon. |
Mithmee | 16 Jan 2014 7:56 a.m. PST |
This is all angst and psychosocial examination of the plight of the survivors, Yup, that is todays Hollywood they think that shows that do nothing but angst and push social agendas are what people want to watch. Which it why I never watched it after seeing the first show. To me it was nothing but crap. |
ubercommando | 16 Jan 2014 8:17 a.m. PST |
One core problem with the new version of the show is that it tries to set up this moral crisis with the humans where they agonise over whether they have the right to live, whether the Cylons have a point, whether they should cede to the Cylons but.
the Cylons killed a baby in the first few minutes of the pilot episode. It's a false dilemma: They Cylons committed genocide, we see one of them taking pleasure in killing a baby in its pram. With all their angst and agonising over whether they deserve their fate, the humans aren't the genocidal ones. There's agony over each death in the fleet. The destruction of the colonies is heartfelt. Having read a bit about the making of the show, it seems the producers and writers were making up the whole saga as they went along. There was no big story arc. If they'd taken the time to think out the issues in advance instead of on the fly then the show might have had more cohesion to it. The moral dilemmas better thought out. However, neither version of BSG is that good. It's got a good central concept and the Galactica and Vipers are design classics but one show is just an episodic romp and the other wants to be this intelligent show but is sloppy. |
Cadian 7th | 16 Jan 2014 8:54 a.m. PST |
I actually enjoyed the show, but I did find a few episodes rather dull. My favorites were in the "Razor" and when they retold the story a bit from the cylon perspective. I also enjoyed the classic centurians and raiders being used as an "Old Guard". I did not mind the ending at all, it did take me by suprise and tied in well to Starbuck's fate. On a sidenote, I liked the racisim and bigotry when the fleet had the rebel Caprica and Sharon models assissting in fleet repairs. To me it was hilariously ironic in twisting the fantasy of working with a flock of beautiful girls, but they are machines and I must hate them! |
PaddySinclair | 16 Jan 2014 9:19 a.m. PST |
ubercommando wrote: "I don't think the space combat scenes were as good as in Babylon 5. For one thing, I couldn't make out a lot of what was happening in them with all the crash zooms and pan and scan shots." Definitely a point of disagreement there! B5's fighter combats are rather pedestrian in comparison, mostly due to the intervening years of advancement of CG effects technology. The combat environment in BSG looks as hellish as it should be for fighters around capital ships with effective point defence systems. |
PygmaelionAgain | 16 Jan 2014 9:21 a.m. PST |
I've heard from folks who like the original BSG that the new show is just too different. I agree with them, but did like the new BSG for being dramatic with good character development, as well as having spaceships and pewpewpew! You may have to hunt around through the series a bit, but there are some not-to-be-missed space battles laced through it. If the downward spiral of dispair and diminishing returns doesn't thrill you, don't throw out the battlestar with the bathwater, just scan through the eps until you see raiders incoming! |
PaddySinclair | 16 Jan 2014 9:45 a.m. PST |
ubercommando, I'm not sure where you get the idea that 6 was taking pleasure in killing the baby from. Yes, it was done as a shock manoeuvre for the audience (by the writers), but commentary around this indicates she did this as a mercy (quick and painless death) knowing what was about to come. And there's absolutely no moral dilemma for the Colonials AFTER the attack on the Colonies. The moral dilemma posed by Adama at the inauguration ceremony was about what caused the previous war, which was long over. Was there a pre-plotted story arc a la B5? Not quite (but then B5's wasn't exactly what was planned either), but they knew the shape of how it had to go. The fleet had to find "Earth", humanity had to find out why the Cylons agreed to the armistice in the previous war, and why they withdrew from Colonial space then. And why/how had machines found "God"? |
darthfozzywig | 16 Jan 2014 9:52 a.m. PST |
I feel not as good as the old one I feel that opinion is not good. :) |
DsGilbert | 16 Jan 2014 10:39 a.m. PST |
I thought Six accidently killed the baby. |
Caesar | 16 Jan 2014 10:58 a.m. PST |
I think it is fantastic. There are a few epic space battles but is primarily about the characters and how they deal with the situation they are in. |
ubercommando | 16 Jan 2014 11:01 a.m. PST |
Well, I thought Tricia Helfer's performance as 6 was so wooden it was hard to tell if she was being cruel or kind. I don't care for up to date SFX, I care about being able to follow the action. B5 may not have been up to date but I knew who was shooting at who. |
Garand | 16 Jan 2014 11:10 a.m. PST |
Maybe it is a generational thing, but there was never any ambiguity on who was shooting at whom for me
Damon. |
Moonbeast | 16 Jan 2014 11:14 a.m. PST |
"ubercommando, I'm not sure where you get the idea that 6 was taking pleasure in killing the baby from. Yes, it was done as a shock manoeuvre for the audience (by the writers), but commentary around this indicates she did this as a mercy (quick and painless death) knowing what was about to come." I also came to the mercy killing conclusion as well after seeing the episode, though I didn't listen to the commentary. If I remember correctly she even had a tear run down her cheek while doing it? I could be mistaken, I'll have to pop the disk in and watch it again. |
Moonbeast | 16 Jan 2014 11:17 a.m. PST |
"but I want to see some epic battles and a lot more action." Watch Blood & Chrome then, it takes place during the first Cylon war and has plenty of action. |
Landorl | 16 Jan 2014 12:12 p.m. PST |
The effects in the new one were incredible. The old one was a little too light-hearted at times, but I like the fact that Cylons were bad. They had one purpose, to wipe out humanity. I didn't like the human cylons from the new series, and I didn't like all of the soap opera. There is this idea in movies and TV now that every person has to have a dark side. I don't agree with that. There are still people who are noble and try to do the right thing, and don't always battle their dark side. |
Wellspring | 16 Jan 2014 12:14 p.m. PST |
Ron Moore's an excellent producer and the dialog is very good, but the actual writing-- by which I mean characters, plots, themes, and especially the series metaplot, is very lacking. The first season is by far the best. Where the show followed the original series' plotline, it was very strong and well-executed. Later plots, especially once the New Caprica storyline kicked in, were weak at best. The finale was deeply disappointing. Although Moore assured fans otherwise at the time, he never really had any idea where the show was going. The insistent TV intro crawl saying the Cylons had a plan was totally false. He made it up as it went along, and once he was no longer recycling plots from the original series the show went off the rails and never really came back. A combination of arrogance and the whole director-as-auteur film critic school causes guys like Moore (and Michael Bay, James Cameron, etc) to think that the director has to be the writer as well. If Ron Moore hooked up with a great writer, then all his skills as a director and producer would be channeled so much more productively. As it is, he's at his best when he has some template to work from, some other related work whose core ideas he can use and dress up with better production values. Think of him as the inverse of Babylon 5, or the original Star Trek-- the dialog was cheesy at times, the production values while good for their time were cringe-worthy by modern standards, but the core STORY was so compelling that you forgave it. BSG had wonderful dialog, casting, acting, set design, costumes
there's so much it did RIGHT, that it suffers all the more because it was so lacking in core vision. It's probably worth seeing just because it was so big in its time, but to me it's very much a case of What Might Have Been. |
SBminisguy | 16 Jan 2014 1:43 p.m. PST |
The end sucked, but they could have redeemed themselves slightly of they'd mentioned that the crew members who wanted to go off and maintain a tech society were primarily from the Atlantis
woulda been a nice touch. As it is, the whole "lets go off and live like primitives" thing was lame on many levels. |
Angel Barracks | 16 Jan 2014 1:53 p.m. PST |
As it is, the whole "lets go off and live like primitives" thing was lame on many levels. I dunno
If technology had nearly wiped out the entire human race I would be keen to stay away from it if possible and avoid making the same mistakes. Back to basics would seem very appealing. |
Garand | 16 Jan 2014 2:52 p.m. PST |
If technology had nearly wiped out the entire human race I would be keen to stay away from it if possible and avoid making the same mistakes.
So what was the point of the series then (cat's out of the bag, so I'll talk about it now). Through 4 seasons of struggle, suffering, and dwindling population, what exactly is the point then? The planet they find already has a human population, so the suffering in the show was not to save the human race. The point then is to save what remnants of their civilization they had. Which they effectively dumped in order to embrace some sort of luddite idea, and at the same time fail to break the cycle "God" has enslaved them to! IMHO the reason why the ending was so poor is that it effectively made the rest of the show meaningless, in a Spock in Star Trek III way
Damon. |
Mobius | 16 Jan 2014 3:22 p.m. PST |
It lost me at the 'death returns me' Resurrection ship. The dead Cylon's spirit finds the mother ship instantaneously no matter how far away. What‘s with that FTL homing technology? |
CeruLucifus | 16 Jan 2014 4:22 p.m. PST |
|
Katzbalger | 16 Jan 2014 5:18 p.m. PST |
I wanted to like it, but by episode 2 or 3 (can't remember now), I disliked so many of the characters that I couldn't continue. And I won't even mention the "they are so incompetent it is painful to watch" meme (ooh--looks like I just did mention it). Rob |
Wellspring | 16 Jan 2014 7:07 p.m. PST |
The big challenge was that they DIDN'T know where to go. The writers just kept stringing together episodes, never really thinking further than the next plot twist. As the series neared cancellation, they had to try to look back on everywhere they'd been and then retcon in some sense that it all added up to something. Traditionally, that's how TV has always been written, especially soap operas. But the B5-style story arc changed things. And, much more importantly, it's what Ron Moore promised his viewers. BSG is far from the only show to do this, but they harped relentlessly on it, and when the show got bad, the writers kept the fans by insisting that it was all going somewhere. Then when it was over, they said that really it was all about the ride. Neither was terribly great. Talking about the internal logic of the story or its deeper meaning or whatever is meaningless because the writers have admitted that they didn't think of any of this until after it had aired. They drew circles around where their darts had hit and called them bullseyes. So Six killed the baby because she hated humans and liked to do it and because it was a shocking and evil and viewers would love it. Then, later, they decided that a heel/face turn was in order. So they had to re-imagine what she did and why to make it fit. The problem is, it DOESN'T fit. Saying "this was what they really meant and you don't get it" doesn't work because what they're saying they meant they cooked up long after the fact. And the same goes for many of the plot points. |
(Major Disaster) | 16 Jan 2014 10:57 p.m. PST |
I loved the new Battlestar Galactica. It was definitely better than the original. I know the new BSG had its faults(what Hollywood production doesn't?), even so, one thing is for sure, Hollywood hasn't put out any new science fiction television series since BSG, that have been worth a proverbial carp. The only science fiction series I bother to watch now comes from England
.Oooh eeee oooh, Dada-da-da, Dada-da-da, oooh eeee oooh
|
McWong73 | 17 Jan 2014 12:23 a.m. PST |
Season 1 I found some of the best TV ever made. Season 2 took it down to some if the best SF TV ever made. The remaining seasons were a slog at times, and Starbuck.sucked majorly in the last two seasons, but it was a rewarding show and worth sticking with. |
BugStomper | 17 Jan 2014 5:18 a.m. PST |
Wellspring – Spot on! There's a video with the writers kicking around on YouTube where for the final season the producers told them to "Indulge themselves" and boy did we get some self indulgeant rubbish from them! They also admitted that there was no grand plan with the story. Season 1 took a bit to get going but once it did I was completely hooked. Season 2 was fantastic. Season 3 tried to be bold with some of its ideas but it all felt a bit mediocre. The writers strike didn't help matters resulting in some very generic episodes being filmed that could've been used in any TV show covering any era. The first half of Season 4 was an improvement on Season 3 imo but the final half of Season 4 was awful. You can tell that they didn't know how to finish it so they waved a magic wand and hope we'd swallow it. I did like the homage to the original series on the final episode and I would've enjoyed it ending right there. As an aside I loved the space battles in BSG! I enjoyed the chaos of them, you had huge ships giving each other broadsides, nukes flying, fighters careering through the flack barrier etc. I don't think we'll see such great action on TV for a very long time. With regard to the original BSG I loved it as a kid, even the flying jetbikes in the movie (sorry! :D ) but you can't compare the two against each other. Enjoy them both for their own merits. :) |
Badgers | 17 Jan 2014 5:54 a.m. PST |
I loved the 'new' show for its drama, acting, action, and special effects. The script wasn't always fantastic but there were some good speeches, and Edward James Olmos as Adama went beyond gritty. To hear it compared to the old show (and I saw the movie version of the pilot twice at the cinema in 1978) made me spray coffee across the room. The new show was totally flawed but there's been nothing better since. (Doctor Who? Please.) |
PaddySinclair | 17 Jan 2014 6:30 a.m. PST |
Mobius wrote: "It lost me at the 'death returns me' Resurrection ship. The dead Cylon's spirit finds the mother ship instantaneously no matter how far away. What‘s with that FTL homing technology?" You weren't paying attention were you? There was a strictly limited range on resurrection (probably under a light year) hence why the Resurrection ships were necessary in the first place. There is undoubtedly some FTL communications tech involved but not understood by the Cylons in a way that they can use for anything else, and the Datastream the Hybrids are connected to is part of this – the Hybrids can home in on the location of the Resurrection Hub, and seem to know when important Cylons are killed. |
PaddySinclair | 17 Jan 2014 6:55 a.m. PST |
Wellspring wrote: "The big challenge was that they DIDN'T know where to go. The writers just kept stringing together episodes, never really thinking further than the next plot twist. As the series neared cancellation, they had to try to look back on everywhere they'd been and then retcon in some sense that it all added up to something." That's actually quite far from the truth. The production staff were given a choice towards the end of season 3 as to when to end the series – either another two seasons (but with uncertainty over the renewal for a fifth season (so they could have been railroaded B5 like into a early conclusion with attendant problems if they had been renewed) or to do it within one season. They chose option 2 as they wanted to get to a conclusion. |
Fred Cartwright | 17 Jan 2014 8:14 a.m. PST |
I feel that opinion is not good. :) Opinions have no intrinsic value good or bad! :-) The thing about the original BSG it wasn't pretentious. It was cowboys and Indians in space, the characters were likable and in general there was enough action. I'll stick with BSG 2 for now, but preferring Stargate Atlantis in my current viewing schedule. |
John Treadaway | 17 Jan 2014 9:21 a.m. PST |
I thought it started slow, built well but ended badly. In the end, despite some good episodes and good acting from James Olmos, and some thought provoking story lines (human suicide bombing being an example), I felt, at the end, I cared for almost no one. Post the 'everyone's a cylon' "cliffhanger" I just found I could engage with almost none of the characters. Better than the sub star-wars original, I grant you, but – although I wn the whole thing on disc – I've never rewatched it. Whereas I must have watched B5, I dunno, six times, front to back (ignoring the awful Crusade, of course
). So I guess that says it all, for me, at least: pretty, sometimes clever but, in the end, I didn't care much. John T |
(Major Disaster) | 17 Jan 2014 9:40 a.m. PST |
@Badgers I didn't say Doctor Who was better, just meant that Hollywood hasn't put forth much in a good way for Science Fiction programming in the States since BSG, and that the only thing that doesn't make me nauseated is the BBC's Doctor Who series, even though it's not "high" sci-fi, it is infinitely more entertaining than current U.S. television offerings in the genre |
billthecat | 17 Jan 2014 11:50 a.m. PST |
I have to agree with UberCommandoe, above. You can keep the new 'BSG' the new 'StarWars' the new 'StarTrek' and the new 'Doctor Who'
all of which utterly fail to emulate the spirit/themes of their name-sake ancestors. Of course, the originals were not always golden either, but at least they weren't re-inventing the horse and then beating said animal until it bled money
Notice also the current cultural trend of 'teenage angst' that rather defines all of the above 'reinventions'
Pass. |
John Treadaway | 17 Jan 2014 3:28 p.m. PST |
Billthecat. In general, I too am not in favour or 'retreads'. The new incarnations of Trek nd Doctor Who leave me cold. I couldn't watch any of the last three Star Wars 'epics' except the first (which was dreadful) and I only managed the new BSG because I wasn't overly fond of the old one. TV and film people: can we have some 'new' SF programmes rather than rehashes of old ones please? John T |