BSG reboot reboot

I have no idea why Millennials get into these ridiculous dystopian stories but they suck. YMMV of course.

.

The first sure sign of a jaded personality is one who makes assumptions and then proceeds on them.

I'm not a "Millenial"... far from it. I was born in 1970. I grew up with the original and loved it...THEN.

Though I don't fit the demographic you've laid out, I did very much appreciate the contrast of the darker story with the original's overly glossy hopeful one. that is probably because I grew up with that, and during that time it seemed almost everything had to have that 'silver lining" added in. the "hope".

I don't say that it was a bad thing, but since I already got that in the original, it was nice to see the new one take a different road.

But then I'm not one of those who has to have every single thing in a reboot be just like the original or be a direct continuation of it, either. If that can be done--and done well--then I'm for it. but if not, then a new direction is welcome. It may pass or fail... but that is up to each of us to determine for ourselves.
 
The first sure sign of a jaded personality is one who makes assumptions and then proceeds on them.

I'm not a "Millenial"... far from it. I was born in 1970. I grew up with the original and loved it...THEN.

Though I don't fit the demographic you've laid out, I did very much appreciate the contrast of the darker story with the original's overly glossy hopeful one. that is probably because I grew up with that, and during that time it seemed almost everything had to have that 'silver lining" added in. the "hope".

I don't say that it was a bad thing, but since I already got that in the original, it was nice to see the new one take a different road.

But then I'm not one of those who has to have every single thing in a reboot be just like the original or be a direct continuation of it, either. If that can be done--and done well--then I'm for it. but if not, then a new direction is welcome. It may pass or fail... but that is up to each of us to determine for ourselves.

I didn't say you were anything, I made a statement about Millennials. "You" were never part of that statement. Learn to differentiate.

And I never said that it had to be identical. I just said that it had to be good. In my opinion, it wasn't. In the opinion of a lot of people in this thread, it wasn't. Your own opinions are your own and you're welcome to them.
 
I didn't say you were anything, I made a statement about Millennials. "You" were never part of that statement. Learn to differentiate.

And I never said that it had to be identical. I just said that it had to be good. In my opinion, it wasn't. In the opinion of a lot of people in this thread, it wasn't. Your own opinions are your own and you're welcome to them.

In general, critical and audience reaction to the series was very positive, a few comments in this thread not withstanding. 95% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.8/10 on IMDB. So the facts indicate that perhaps it's your opinion which is in the actual minority and you are welcome to them.

i can also speak as a member of this forum who was here when the show aired and we were all very into it if memory serves. And I was born in 1968 and adore original BSG, have a Coyle blaster prop and Viper model at home. At the time the dark tone of the show was entirely unique to TV series like this. It was very innovative and has been copied to death since then.
 
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That wasn't SyFy's fault, for once. It was Ron Moore who wanted the show to end after 4 seasons and not 5 and it really didn't feel rushed to me, not that I liked the way that it ended it definitely didn't feel like they rushed because it ending before they expected it to. SyFy actually wanted BSG to go on for at least another season but Ron told them no and that's why it was only 4 seasons long, of course, SyFy being SyFy there was no real guarantee that there actually would have been a season 5 and the show would have either ended on cliff hanger or a really rushed ending.

I did feel that the show really lost its way around season 2 or so, basically when they landed on New Caprica, it seemed like they'd written themselves into a corner and did the whole New Caprica arc to buy themselves some time as well as to give themselves a way to essentially reboot the show. It was starting around then that the show got really dark and bleak. Up until then, while it was a fairly dark show it wasn't overly so, in my opinion, and didn't seem so bleak either and I really enjoyed it up until the New Caprica arc, that's when I thought they effectively jumped the shark, even though I still continued to watch it until the end.

I agree with this. I enjoyed the show throughout -- except the ending, and most of the last season, really -- but I do feel like it became a lot less fun to watch after New Caprica. That was the point where the show really turned a corner and went off the rails for me. I watched it til the end, too, and while I felt the ending hit the right emotional notes, the actual solution for it (Um....God did it!) was just...not very satisfying. I recognize that, if you go back and look at the series, you'll find all manner of "bizarre, unexplainable things," but the show always implied that it would provide a more rational explanation than just "It was God's plan all along."

Dramatically speaking, the literal deus ex machina is a very unsatisfying solution, even if you've hinted at it all along. The other part was that the universe and setting itself did not seem...particularly connected with the spiritual. "God" would only show up in those moments where something miraculous NEEDED to happen, and the rest of the time was pretty well removed. The characters themselves didn't seem too religious, either, and faith and worship only seemed to play a major role for Head Six. So, to then finish it up with God LITERALLY solving the unsolvable problem felt like a real cheat in the storytelling to me. It may have been what they intended, but I still think it's lazy writing when you haven't otherwise gone to any real effort to examine the manifestly spiritual nature of the show's universe (again, except for deus ex machina moments).

There's nothing dramatically satisfying about introducing a mystery, and then answering that mystery with "Wow. It's kind of unexplainable. Some things are just mysterious, I guess..."

In general, critical and audience reaction to the series was very positive, a few comments in this thread not withstanding. 95% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.8/10 on IMDB. So the facts indicate that perhaps it's your opinion which is in the actual minority and you are welcome to them.

i can also speak as a member of this forum who was here when the show aired and we were all very into it if memory serves. And I was born in 1968 and adore original BSG, have a Coyle blaster prop and Viper model at home. At the time the dark tone of the show was entirely unique to TV series like this. It was very innovative and has been copied to death since then.

And I'd back this up, too. On the whole, the darkness of the show didn't bother me (at least in the first two seasons). The New Caprica storyline was seriously depressing, though, and not fun to watch at all, which was a real change for the show. The later part of the show had intriguing and cool moments, but a lot of it...I dunno. I think a more satisfying ending would have made the "second half" of the show a lot more enjoyable in hindsight. For me, a bad ending will kill my enjoyment of most of what came before.

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The last thing I'd say is that this show, along with the X-Files and a few others, really soured me on the "mystery box" approach to storytelling in television, because American television shows do not seem able to effectively handle it. The answer to the riddle, the moment that everyone was waiting for, inevitably disappoints. By contrast, just telling a straightforward story is, I think, a lot easier to do. Compare the endings of, say, Parks & Rec or Justified to the endings of LOST, BSG, or How I Met Your Mother and you'll see what I mean.
 
I'm in the camp of:

• Loved the original (and still do, dated production values and infinitely-recycled VFX notwithstanding)
• Wanted to like nuBSG
• Started off not liking nuBSG when it actually aired, and my opinion of it went down from there

I need to run over to Rotten Tomatoes so I can downvote it. :p My take is similar to Cephus', regarding the characters -- I had no one to root for. Everyone had some flaw that made them unlikable, with the possible exception of the President, Boomer/Athena, and the resurrected Caprica-6. And they all got royally hosed by the show, which made me feel worse, not better. Plus all the "[random character] is actually a Cylon skin-job" crap toward the end that Ron admits was truly picking characters at random. Too many of those it undermined everythign that character had been through to that point.

While the original definitely needed someone to sit down with Glen and explain the difference between a system and a galaxy, I find the stubborn hope something very relatable. I, too, want to see an updated version of Hatch's "Second Coming" project (since John Colicos has died, and I just never could get into the red version of the jackets). He and Benedict are still looking good. Herb Jefferson and Terry Carter and Laurette Spang and Anne Lockhart and Ed Begley are all still looking good. Maren Jensen got out of acting right after BSG because she developed (and later beat) Epstein-Barr, and Tony Swartz lives in Iowa, so he's also out of the game, but they might be able to be coaxed back. And as for Noah Hathaway? I think he done growed up pretty good:

MV5BMjEwOTkyMDk4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjc5NjQzNzE@._V1_.jpg


A lot of the other actors, like Sarah Rush (who played Rigel) and David Greenan (who played Omega) are still around, too, and having as many familiar faces around as possible would help make new faces less of a shock. Having the story move forward a generation has always been something that intrigued me. Seeing how everyone deals with still being on the run (even if the urgency has lessened as time has gone on, they still can't stop), still hoping to find Earth... and a fresh chance to answer the question we've had since forever, "is this the past or the future?"... I think both Galactica 1980 and nuBSG answered that question badly.

--Jonah
 

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Having the story move forward a generation has always been something that intrigued me. Seeing how everyone deals with still being on the run (even if the urgency has lessened as time has gone on, they still can't stop), still hoping to find Earth... and a fresh chance to answer the question we've had since forever, "is this the past or the future?"... I think both Galactica 1980 and nuBSG answered that question badly.

I want to see this, too.

As a kid I'd always thought that BSG took place in the distant past, and that we, the current inhabitants of Earth, are the descendants of the 'rag-tag fleet'.
So I hated BSG:1980.
I liked that NuBSG took this tack. One of the (very) few things it got right (IMO).
 
I'm in the camp of:

• Loved the original (and still do, dated production values and infinitely-recycled VFX notwithstanding)
• Wanted to like nuBSG
• Started off not liking nuBSG when it actually aired, and my opinion of it went down from there

I need to run over to Rotten Tomatoes so I can downvote it. :p My take is similar to @Cephus', regarding the characters -- I had no one to root for. Everyone had some flaw that made them unlikable, with the possible exception of the President, Boomer/Athena, and the resurrected Caprica-6. And they all got royally hosed by the show, which made me feel worse, not better. Plus all the "[random character] is actually a Cylon skin-job" crap toward the end that Ron admits was truly picking characters at random. Too many of those it undermined everythign that character had been through to that point.

While the original definitely needed someone to sit down with Glen and explain the difference between a system and a galaxy, I find the stubborn hope something very relatable. I, too, want to see an updated version of Hatch's "Second Coming" project (since John Colicos has died, and I just never could get into the red version of the jackets). He and Benedict are still looking good. Herb Jefferson and Terry Carter and Laurette Spang and Anne Lockhart and Ed Begley are all still looking good. Maren Jensen got out of acting right after BSG because she developed (and later beat) Epstein-Barr, and Tony Swartz lives in Iowa, so he's also out of the game, but they might be able to be coaxed back. And as for Noah Hathaway? I think he done growed up pretty good:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjEwOTkyMDk4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjc5NjQzNzE@._V1_.jpg

A lot of the other actors, like Sarah Rush (who played Rigel) and David Greenan (who played Omega) are still around, too, and having as many familiar faces around as possible would help make new faces less of a shock. Having the story move forward a generation has always been something that intrigued me. Seeing how everyone deals with still being on the run (even if the urgency has lessened as time has gone on, they still can't stop), still hoping to find Earth... and a fresh chance to answer the question we've had since forever, "is this the past or the future?"... I think both Galactica 1980 and nuBSG answered that question badly.

--Jonah

I don't even care if they bring back any of the original cast, they can recast all of the roles. Let's be honest, Starbuck being played by a 70-year old Dirk Benedict is not going to work if you're just rebooting. If you want to give him a cameo as an older character, fine. Let's not try to be too nostalgic about this though. The one thing they need to do if they're going to remake it is make it feel like the original. NuBSG feels nothing like the original at all. In fact, they could have made a couple of design changes, changed the name and nobody would have known the difference. They only used the BSG name to play on the nostalgia of the old show. It wasn't a remake, it wasn't an homage, it was a ripoff.

Honestly, I'd rather they just forget Galactica 1980 ever happened and just say they are still looking for Earth. A whole generation has gone by. Now we get to see how an entire generation of people who have grown up in space without ever having a real planet for a home respond to the threat of the Cylons. And hey, maybe bring Richard Hatch back as Apollo and say he took over for Adama and runs the Galactica. Make all of the old characters members of the Quorum. Keep the show optimistic and upbeat and I'll be watching, I promise that.
 
That's pretty much what I was getting at with the old cast. I don't necessarily want them all at their old posts, but I want them around. Boxey can be the new CAG. Some new character can be his Lieutenant. Apollo can have inherited Adama's religious role, but I think he and Tigh should jointly command Galactica. I like the idea of more craft than just the Vipers and shuttles. I like the Raptors of nuBSG because of that (although I'd want a slightly more original-series design), and I like the idea of Starbuck, Sheba, and Boomer shifting to flying those on recon missions and such because they refuse to hang up their wings, but don't do combat flying any more. Starbuck and Cassie and Athena can all be happy together doing whatever they're doing. And I have a notion of Jane Seymour coming back as a Cylon agent taking Serena's form. The skin-jobs as infiltrators was not new to nuBSG -- Galactica 1980 introduced the idea (while keeping the tin cans around, too). I'd like her to take over Baltar's role in the story, as that of complex antagonist.

--Jonah
 
A couple things.

-The viper mark 2 is one of the greatest updates ever. To me, it is the ultimate viper. Nimble and rugged. And a great contrast to the mark 7.

-When Nugalactica first aired, it was the greatest 9/11 allegory we had. Having the cylons look like us was to capture the real paranoia of post 9/11 terrorism. We were not at war with a nation, we were at war with individuals who blended in. It was about paranoia. Taking our shoes off at the airport...taht sort of thing. And the notion that the colonials were responsible for the cylons was a comment on the Western hemisphere's past involvement in the middle east.

-When I was watching BSG it felt like such a wonderful ripoff of SDF macross. For so many reasons. The overall arc followed macross as well....up until the ending. In all honesty, if they had followed the plot of Macross it would have been a far more satisfying ending.
 
-When I was watching BSG it felt like such a wonderful ripoff of SDF macross. For so many reasons. The overall arc followed macross as well....up until the ending. In all honesty, if they had followed the plot of Macross it would have been a far more satisfying ending.

Keep in mind that the original Galactica came out long before Macross.
 
I see the original BSG backstory as more apropos vis a vis Islam. The Colonies intervened in Cylon expansion, and the Cylons spent the time since trying to destroy the Colonies. In Reality-Land™, the Allied powers broke up the Caliphate at the end of World War I, and the Islamic world has resented it increasingly violently ever since.

But I do like your parallel to Macross. I'd actually wanted something like that instead of Galactica 1980, back in the day. Galactica reaches Earth in the middle of a global war in the nearish future. We put aside our silly differences and work together with the Colonials to build up our defenses before the Cylons get here. High adventure and deep philosophical introspection into the nature of life ensue.

--Jonah
 
This isn't going to be popular, but...

I was 11 in 1978 when BSG came out. Absolutely loved it, couldn't get enough. Was really pissed off when the pilot episode was pre-empted for the signing of the Israeli-Egypt peace treaty (remember that?). Had all the models, flew them around the neighborhood making all the appropriate "pew-pew" noises. I was all in back in 1978.

Watched the original series on Netflix again last year, biggest steaming pile of dog crap I've ever seen. Seriously, made me question my whole childhood. I nearly threw up every time Adama took Boxy aside to instill some Pa Ingalls fatherly advice. Talk about plots that don't mean anything to the series story arc, how about "Starbuck, I'm your father". Starbuck and Apollo, two man basketball (triad) team - really? The "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" episode was the only one after the pilot worth the time it took to watch, and even that just barely.

The new BSG outshines the original BY A LONG SHOT. Even the ending with the "opera house". Brilliant. Sooo much better than the original.

Told you, it wouldn't be a popular opinion. Flame proof suit donned.
 
I see the original BSG backstory as more apropos vis a vis Islam. The Colonies intervened in Cylon expansion, and the Cylons spent the time since trying to destroy the Colonies. In Reality-Land™, the Allied powers broke up the Caliphate at the end of World War I, and the Islamic world has resented it increasingly violently ever since.

But I do like your parallel to Macross. I'd actually wanted something like that instead of Galactica 1980, back in the day. Galactica reaches Earth in the middle of a global war in the nearish future. We put aside our silly differences and work together with the Colonials to build up our defenses before the Cylons get here. High adventure and deep philosophical introspection into the nature of life ensue.

--Jonah
What I liked about Macross was that notion that there was an entire armada of zentradi out there. But the pursuing fleet became corrupted. Which is what happened on Galactica. But it also meant that the pursuing fleet stopped being a threat. It was more of a soap opera.

I think Galactica would been much stronger if along the way, the Cylon Homeworld intervened in what was going on and the pursuing cylons (Led by Caprica 6) banded together with the colonials
 
There's only two years difference between the two (Macross went into development in 1980) but the similarities mostly apply to the RDM Galactica. (hybrid baby, "culture" infecting the warlike cyclon/zentradi creating factions, arrival on a destroyed earth etc...)

True, but I'm sure Glen Larson had no clue what anime was. I can certainly see RDM knowing about it, but by that time, Macross really wasn't a "thing" at the time that nuGalactica was coming out, the last complete series before it was Dynamite 7 and Macross Zero OVA series was coming out about the time RDM was developing nuGalactica. That isn't to say that he might not have seen Macross, but the elements aren't uncommon across lots of books, movies and TV series.

And let's be honest, Macross, at least the original, was much better than nuGalactica.
 
This isn't going to be popular, but...

I was 11 in 1978 when BSG came out. Absolutely loved it, couldn't get enough. Was really pissed off when the pilot episode was pre-empted for the signing of the Israeli-Egypt peace treaty (remember that?). Had all the models, flew them around the neighborhood making all the appropriate "pew-pew" noises. I was all in back in 1978.

Watched the original series on Netflix again last year, biggest steaming pile of dog crap I've ever seen. Seriously, made me question my whole childhood. I nearly threw up every time Adama took Boxy aside to instill some Pa Ingalls fatherly advice. Talk about plots that don't mean anything to the series story arc, how about "Starbuck, I'm your father". Starbuck and Apollo, two man basketball (triad) team - really? The "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" episode was the only one after the pilot worth the time it took to watch, and even that just barely.

The new BSG outshines the original BY A LONG SHOT. Even the ending with the "opera house". Brilliant. Sooo much better than the original.

Told you, it wouldn't be a popular opinion. Flame proof suit donned.

Absolutely remember that, I remember sitting in front of the TV hoping that we wouldn't join the premiere "already in progress". Luckily, that didn't happen.

And you have to watch old TV shows in the context of the time they were made. They are going to have a different sensibility, older effects, different camera techniques, different writing styles than are currently popular, etc. Watching it in the context of the time that it was made, it holds up just fine. Some people can't do that though, that's why they can't watch black&white movies, they can't understand that things once weren't in color. I think they miss a lot that way.
 
I actually like them equally.

And oddly enough, It was new galactica that got me into old galactica.

The one thing I loved about old galactica is that (like old trek and buck rogers) the episodes were over 45 minutes in length. That may not seem like much of a difference to todays' 42 minutes, but it adds a surprisingly large amount of plot/action.

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And let's be honest, Macross, at least the original, was much better than nuGalactica.


The original macross is probably the best space opera ever made.

Even better than the original star wars trilogy
 
And you have to watch old TV shows in the context of the time they were made. They are going to have a different sensibility, older effects, different camera techniques, different writing styles than are currently popular, etc. Watching it in the context of the time that it was made, it holds up just fine. Some people can't do that though, that's why they can't watch black&white movies, they can't understand that things once weren't in color. I think they miss a lot that way.
There is truth to that, but - I love Star Wars (refuse to call it episode 4, or especially -barf- "a new hope"), Star Trek, Hogan's Heros, Brady Bunch, and all sorts of entertainment of the day. And as much as I really didn't care for my second watching of the 1978 BSG, John Dykstra's effects still hold up (considering the era), even though the same shots were used over, and over, and over. The SFX of the new BSG are superior to the old, that can be expected and nobody can really argue otherwise, and they don't bother me one iota.

So, my problem isn't one of context. I lived the context. My problem is that the storytelling and the acting were awful. The new is much better than the old in this respect.
 
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