With the brilliant Battlestar Galactica having restarted Friday night with more questions than answers, here’s a look at what some producers had in mind 30 years ago with a tad less imagination and ability than Glen Larson and Ronald D. Moore.
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Marauding Hitmen?
maraud:
– to roam about and raid in search of plunder
Marauding Hitmen?
I don’t think it was so much the producers lack of imagination, rather the problem was selling concepts to the studios and the networks. Can you imagine today’s Battlestar selling to ABC back in the 70’s? No way — they’d label it ‘too dark’ and ‘too much potential religious controversy’, etc. That’s why the original ‘Star Trek’ was so cool; it was a little subversive — the bright, shiny and near perfect veneer allowed the producers to slip a couple of controversial (back then anyway) concepts right to the audiences past the censors. And, for similar reasons, that’s why the original Battlestar seemed so corny — this concept had to sell to the networks so they toned down the darker concepts to make the show “acceptable”.
Bring “Quark” to DVD!!
So–instead of these fine shows we actually got The Hulk and the 6 Million Dollar Man? Comes out about even???
#2–I recall the chance Star Trek had to be controversial==Kirk was trying to defeat an Alien who portrayed himself as “God” and totally acted as if he were–and all he wanted was for the crew to worship him. (Him being the god figure–not Kirk, but THAT controversy was never developed either!) and Kirk said “We Have no needs for gods” and I thought “Wow!” and then he continued “We have our own” or something like that and I thought “sell out.”
I’ve tried, but I can’t enjoy Battlestar Gallactica. The series is too dark and gloomy for me.
It could be worse. What if someone had done a show about a jet that crashed over an island. And the survivors met some others on the island. And all kinds of inexplicable things happened. And then some other people arrived at the island. And some people thought they were being rescued – but not really! Oh the horror! The horror!
What means “hillarious”? Is that a synonym for “hilly,” or what?
[Fixed. Unfortunately, the spell checker doesn’t work in the headline. –UD]
I totally want a series with The Man With The Power, Northstar, and The Guy Who Was Spock as a team of super powered government agents.
Battlestar Glactica is “brilliant”? Jeez, Unk, you need to get out more! Sheesh!
I find it interesting that they tried to make Dr Strange.
Now I’m frightened
at how many of those I actually saw.
(Exo-man was the first I recognized)
J/P=?
‘Dr Strange’ is very familiar to ‘Dr Who’;) Just see this space vortex;)
wait a minute… didnt the caveman show acutally happen recently???
BSG isn’t brilliant. They keep contradicting themselves with silly plots. Let’s see, if Dick Cheney were running against Bush in 2004, and Bush knew that Cheney was working with Al-Qaeda, do you think Bush would just let Dick have the presidency and keep quiet about it?
Or maybe if the Marines went in to rescue captured Americans, and among them was Billy Graham? You think one of the soldiers might notice that, or as happened on the show, no one realizes it?
And also, Adama knew Baltar was a traitor, and when the nuke blows up his report is,’We think someone stole the nuke from your lab’
Baffled was decent.
At the series finale of BSG it is revealed that they are ALL cylons and then the Real Starbuck will wake up from his dream and push on Cassiopeia and say:
I had the weirdest dream.
The cylons were like us and we were all cylons.
Adama was one the guys from Blade Runner.
Tigh wasn’t black.
Baltar was hammering some hot cylon chick.
We had no blasters, just really badly covered up glocks.
Apollo was some terrorist guy.
There was another guy SAYING he was Apollo.
Bommer was an asian chick.
And I was beautiful blonde.
And Cassopeia will look like Suzanne Pleshette and say go back to sleep Starbuck. And then ask beautiful blonde? And Starbuck will say:
I should wear more tank tops.
Cursor_
#9 – Battlestar Glactica is “brilliant”? Jeez, Unk, you need to get out more! Sheesh!
If you are talking about the new series, yes, it is brilliant.
#15 – BSG isn’t brilliant. They keep contradicting themselves with silly plots.
It’s fun to nitpick the details of both good and bad TV and cinema. Galactica certainly has any number of silly elements. In a surviving population of less than 45,000 (which is 10K less than the pop of Flagstaff, Arizona), it is hard to imagine that there would be a fully functioning press actually competing with each other for news. Why would there be an underground economy and a criminal network?
With a few exceptions, nearly everyone who survived the Cylon attack was on board a ship in space when it happened, and all but a few of the ships were industrial in nature. So why are there so many people in the population who seemingly are not skilled spacefaring people, but appear more like refugees? How did prostitutes and exotic dancers survive the attack?
The humans number about 45K, a population that would most certainly perish if Galactica were even remotely realistic… But in order to do a long running drama series it is important to take a lot of liberties, and so you are asked to provide a willing suspension of disbelief to allow the drama to unfold… and it is in the writing, the production values, the direction, and the acting, that we realize the brilliance of Battlestar Galactica.
AND, if you are willing to accept the premise of the universe they living in… with spaceships and sentient biological robots and all the rest… then how hard is it to accept the other details?
The thing is that for fans, these characters and their tribulations are fun to follow. As much as I like pointing out what is totally illogical, I still eat this show up. It’s entertainment value is high, and the stories just suck me in.
Let’s see, if Dick Cheney were running against Bush in 2004, and Bush knew that Cheney was working with Al-Qaeda, do you think Bush would just let Dick have the presidency and keep quiet about it?
Considering the pics of Bush walking hand in hand with Saudi Prince Whateverhisnameis, maybe your example isn’t the most convincing?