Star Wars came along in 77' and shook the whole formula up. For a time, sci-fi cinema and television followed suit, with Battlestar Galactica following the template explicitly: epic special effects and fantastically ornate production design, a distinctive stirring, sweeping John-Williams-type musical score, a tale of a desperate few human heroes battling a vastly superior force bent on subjugation and destruction
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Watching the original series now with adult eyes is a strange experience; and both the strengths and flaws of the show become apparent very quickly. So firstly the strengths:
Rather than the somewhat aimless weekly wanderings of the USS Enterprise, Galactica is constantly being shadowed by the Cylon menace, fending off threat after threat in its quest to reach Earth. The fact they had a definite mission objective and a target to aim for throughout the show is a stronger and more appealing theme, I feel. It gave the storyline a constant solid base, and is in itself a great jump off point for any remake. The execution of the action scenes is still smart the spacecraft designs and sound effects may have been soooooo A New Hope but they rocked!! (Note: great artists don't pay homage they steal). Now, the flaws:
The sexual and political mores apparent in the script are hopelessly outdated, and the major characters are woefully underwritten and underdeveloped. Indeed apart from the Baltar character, the main players are not developed throughout the series, which is easily apparent in the resultant screenplays being reduced to formulaic and predictable routines. It's always sad to see popular, exciting shows go down this all-too-easy route, it smacks of wasted opportunity and a laissez-faire attitude from the network responsible. Crippled by low ratings, a series of increasingly awful scripts, massive production costs (a rumoured $1,000,000 per episode) and an indifferent studio, the 78' BSG and her fleet of rag-tag ships slipped out of sight after just one season. And there they stayed deep in the cosmos, far from Earth and just one step ahead of the relentless Cylons for the next 25 yarhren
Jump to 1987 and we have Star Trek: TNG gracing screens. Again, rather than the hunt-the-humans-to-extinction theme, TNG concentrated on the exploration side of space travel. Instead of Kirk and co slapping, shooting or screwing alien races, we had Picard & Co performing delicate inter-planetary negotiations and saving volatile eco-systems with the push of a button.
It was all too sterile, convenient and inoffensive for me. The characters were bland, charmless and had nothing to connect them to the average viewer. No matter how hard the cast pulled faces, the banality of the scripts and the dreary, unambitious nature of the series as a whole was shackling them. Whereas "Saga of a Star World" offered a glitzy, gee-whiz escapist romp for two hours that really sold the BSG concept, Encounter at Farpoint was full of waffling scientific talk and unmenacing, annoying villains (Q). As the seasons progressed however, there was a marked improvement, with more interesting story elements such as the Cardassians and the Borg being introduced. But still, despite the programme eventually picking up speed and generating more buzz, the elements of Star Trek which I detest the constant sermonising of federation protocol to other species, the presence of planet saving push buttons upon which to conveniently hang story lines, the clumsy attempts to address present-day current affairs through episodes remained.
Perhaps this is the reason that the Star Trek franchise has died off a bit it was so concerned with being PC and inoffensive and uncontroversial, and not taking risks, even many committed fans turned away from it in droves.
Fast forward to 2004 and we finally come to BSG the re-imagining
I borrowed the Season 1 box set off a friend and got stuck into it. I was kind of lost for a good portion of it there are constant flashbacks to the miniseries (which stupidly I had skipped). But the initial episode of season one "33" was an absolute knockout. I was amazed by the visual style the editing was a triumph, the hand-held camera style (much derided by other IMDb users but not this one) gave it a "war footage" feel that suited the sweaty combat tension down to a tee. The use of Kubrickian space physics and ditching lasers for more conventional weapons grounded the battles in a quasi-reality, which gives an extra sense of plausibility. The sets were magnificent and the re-design of the spacecraft was spot on (I even grew to like the Cylon raider re-design, given that the original looked so bad-ass!!!).
Unlike the original series, the desperation of the human situation is constantly highlighted and the actors give a real sense of this through their measured performances. Particular praise to Eddie Olmos, he brought a gravity, humanity and unbreakable strength to Adama, in my view his performance is much greater than Lorne Greene. Star of the show has to be James Callis as the devious Dr Gaius Baltar. His character is wonderfully complex, and his performance is a great showcase for this particular actor. We automatically despise Baltar for his sly deceiving nature, yet at the same time strangely feel sympathy for his pathetic guilt
..How many sci-fi villains can you honestly say that about? The rest of the cast perform admirably, and by the second season they have all got really into their roles, and are believable and engaging.
It is always a thrill to have a series which confounds your expectations, and BSG is certainly that. It is a real shame they are finishing after season 4, but at least it will go out with a bang
.In short, I fully recommend this if you want to check out an action-packed, entertaining adventure. Don't be a sheep and slag it off without giving it a real opportunity.
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