{"id":259,"date":"2012-06-08T12:58:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T17:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/wordpress\/?p=259"},"modified":"2017-08-29T13:28:07","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T18:28:07","slug":"battlestar-galactica-1978-and-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/battlestar-galactica-1978-and-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Battlestar Galactica 1978 and 2004 (TV)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Battlestar<\/a>I gave myself about a month to watch both the original 1st season of the highly regarded classic BSG and all four seasons of the slicker, modern-er version off of Netflix. With strong initial impressions of being a Mormonized carbon copy of Star Wars and finally mutating into a humanistic heavy-hitting space drama\u00a0filled with\u00a0carbon-copied synthetic humanoids, Battlestar Galactica went through its share\u00a0of growing pains, homages, and funky story archs. Ultimately it’s a great franchise filled to the brim with worthwhile material that will appeal to current fans of science fiction, but also those who may even be tiring of the same-old formulas inherent to the genre.<\/p>\n

The 1978 series arrived on the coat-tails of Episode IV: A New Hope (the original Star Wars flick to the uninitiated) and it shows. The ship designs, laser effects, sweeping camera shots,\u00a0settings, technology, and\u00a0more were dangerously close to having BSG\u00a0lose the lawsuit with George Lucas. Oddly enough, the series seems to come into its own after quickly shaking off the vestiges of the opening impression. Galactica is a “battlestar”, a large military space vessel that functions as a carrier to squadrons of smaller fighter vessels who are subsequently sent off on scouting missions and scrambled into attack\/defense patterns at the sign of danger.\u00a0After rigged-to-fail peace negotiations catches humanity napping, this massive vessel soon plays host as flagship to a motley fleet of fuelships, bio-farms, and civilian transports. With the “evil” robot Cylons (I’ve never stopped wanting to call them CYCLONS) in hot pursuit, Battlestar Galactica leads the dwindling numbers of humanity across the stars convoy-style to find the mythical planet Earth, which is promised to be a surrogate home for the weary space warriors. This is the loose story structure for both the original series and the new, though many liberties and reasonable conclusions were thought up and woven into the 2004 version.<\/p>\n

If you ever wished Star Wars and The Star Trex had a lovechild whom grew up to be almost oppressively religious, boy have I got great news for you. BSG 1978 is all that and more. Throw in some classic time-appropriate feathered hairstyles (which I honestly love) and all of the glam that developing gray-plastic ’80s technology exudes\u00a0and we’ve got ourselves a visual-intensive show. Did I mention that they try to pass off a chimpanzee in a suit as a robot-dog…. thing? Regardless of the foibles, the one-season original was a [mostly] refreshing romp into the dangers of space travel in mass exodus from a powerful and pursuing enemy. Sure, many of the episodes were a little contrived in order for a certain showdown or outcome to be inevitable (like a spaceship not being able to circumnavigate the\u00a0trajectory of\u00a0a planetary gun), but they were well-written and well-presented for the most part. Stand-alone episodes dealt with real-world supply and consumption issues, charismatic leaders offering salvation at the cost of subjugation, and others. These were mostly thought-provoking\u00a0dilemmas that fell in line with the morality questions offered by classic Star Trek, but with the dark, dirty, or “used” universe Star Wars was so good at.<\/p>\n

So…. if you can look past the Cylon Cowboy episode with its aluminum cowboy hats, or the repetitive recycled shots of space fighters making the same tired maneuvers with a 3 button joystick, evil robots who look like shiny Darth Vaders with mohawks and indistinguishable droning voices, and Mormon beliefs regarding marriage and prophets superimposed over space drama, you’re in for a unique experience that somehow breaks no barriers and all barriers at the same time.<\/p>\n

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Unlike Christianity, the Cylon religion is violent and confusing.<\/pre>\n
Now, the 2004 series is something special. Rebooted with all of the modern day “grittiness”, quality actors, computer graphics, and cinematography (including\u00a0shaky cam), BSG 2004 takes the best the original had to offer and bred it with awesomeness. It is delivered\u00a0like a sucker punch, throwing you into their living nightmare on the run\u00a0almost as forcefully as the exodus from their home planet of Caprica. Familiar themes return and the show’s conflicts just make sense<\/em> although the plots concerning the introduction of Cylon religion is bizarre, convoluted, and unfocused…. (not too far off). Fast-paced overall story arch episodes are punctuated by slower, more introspective and “artsy” back-stories which are paced perfectly and are\u00a0a welcome break from the frantic lightspeed jumps to evade nuclear ship-to-ship missiles.<\/p>\n
The Cylons look like us now and though they eat, drink, and have sex like everyone else, it is not explicitly stated how the hell this is possible on a microscopic level even though the robots went MIA for about 40 years with no contact. Their ships are bio-mechanical, their soldiers are walking tanks, and their human versions are duplicates\u00a0of 12\u00a0models\u00a0and infiltrate our ranks. The resulting brew of\u00a0volatile ingredients\u00a0leads to drama galore and badass space dogfights a-plenty. Between the Boxing Match episode where crew members work off steam by beating the living shit out of each other and REALISTIC ship on ship mortal combat and maneuvers in zero gravity, the violence is never without purpose and always convincingly grotesque. (I swear there has to be two bleeding faces in every episode or the BSG staff loses a bet.)<\/p>\n
Between religious zealots, labor unions, de facto and dying presidents, charismatic terrorists, hallucinating scientists, and enemies that reincarnate, the show is chock-full of juicy happenstance, ambiguous morality,\u00a0and mind-blowing revelations that rarely come across as forced. Characters are deeply flawed but grow on you like a cancer since you can’t wait to see the oil and water mixture of the hodge-podge crew fighting their fearsome enemy…. and each other when supplies, patience, and affiliations\u00a0grow thin. At any moment, you expect the stalwart survivors to be torn apart by their own growing internal conflicts as easily as their tireless pursuers. Robots don’t sleep, but thinking comes with a price, as evidenced by a growing restlessness and emotional evolution within their own ranks.<\/p>\n
Oddly enough, you may find yourself rooting for the humans, the cylons, or even BOTH, depending on how ugly humanity reveals itself to be or how it redeems itself on a per-season basis. There is some powerful philosophy at work here and it should not be underestimated. Within four seasons, the series runs the gamut of impossible scenarios and tempers the fortitude of all involved in an amazingly entertaining\u00a0high-quality\u00a0package. Though the writers tie up a few loose ends\u00a0by citing\u00a0divine influence, the story is a nail biter to the end and concludes on the staff’s own terms instead of slowly dying in popularity and finishing on a low note.<\/p>\n
Both the 1978 and 2004 series are worth a peek, though I hypothesize that the cratered complexion of\u00a0Edward James Olmos\u00a0and the riveting stories aboard the reimagined series will keep your pulse\u00a0throttled\u00a0until you become a BSG junkie. If you can handle the\u00a0bizarre oddities and unfocused lull of the third season during the real-world writer’s strike, then you will be well-rewarded\u00a0for sticking through to the end. Props to ’78 for laying the groundwork and all hail the execution of 2004. Battlestar Galactica is a must-know if not a must-see and I’m glad I finally got a chance to experience it.<\/p>\n
Oh and they replace the word “fuck” with “frack”. You’ll get used to it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I gave myself about a month to watch both the original 1st season of the highly regarded classic BSG and all four seasons of the slicker, modern-er version off of Netflix. With strong initial impressions of being a Mormonized carbon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-tv-and-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2420,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/2420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullduggery.us\/rants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}