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January 15, 2005
Battlestar Galactica - One viewer's thoughts
It happens to me when I'm sitting through a really great movie -- I lose all track of time and am left thinking the 2-3 hours went way too fast. LOTR did that to me - even as the bladder was pressing, when the first episode ended you heard the collective groans and protests of the audience who wanted more.
Two back-to-back episodes of BSG last night, 33 and Water had the same effect on me. Despite commercial interruptions, by the end I couldn't believe that two hours had passed that quickly and I was even anxious to see the coming attractions for next Friday. Jeff Harrell wrote about BSG yesterday and in his comments in my post pointed out how the show, more character and plot driven than just being about the hardware, reaches out and engages one's emotions. Jeff and I share one of the points of weepiness he talks about ... where Dee is walking down the corridor where survivors have set up impromptu shrines with pictures of lost loved ones, candles, etc., the poignant, desperate hope and sorrow in just that shot was almost too much. My husband Eric and I looked at each other, eyes overflowing and said to each other almost simultaneously "9/11".
And that brings me briefly to Llama's rather nasty dissing of the new BSG.(via Bill of INDC)
I find it rather curious that the original series, which had an optomistic view of the inherent power of humanity and especially civilized humanity, should have aired at the height of the Carter malaise, while the new series, aired during a period of renewed American resolve, should have such an evident air of self-loathing.Let me be polite and say I guess I watched a different BSG than he did. While the original BSG pilot offered a great premise, had some good writing, the series fell too soon into space opera and camp. Don't get me wrong, camp can be a great deal of fun and as a 20-something woman at the time, watching Starbuck was the ultimate in eyecandy. However, how can I take seriously a theme of "inherent power of humanity and especially civilized humanity" when expected desperation and sorrow at being the only survivors out of billions, harried across the galaxy, devolves into episodes about who's sleeping with whom and very little thought about the past or the future?
It was, in essence, a replay of Lost in Space, another TV sci-fi that too soon squandered its promise by turning into the Dr. Smith and Robot Road Show.
Don't ever wonder where people like Dan Rather get their elitist view of 'regular folk' as drooling, gapped-toothed idiots that must be hand-held and spoonfed the 'truth' as the clearly superior people of the media recognize it ... the Big 3 commercial network culture has long held the American viewing audience as such, who can handle little more than happy pablum. Serious or disturbing themes on commercial television are few and far between. It's okay to offer tits and ass, as long as it's about bed hopping sluts in NYC or Beverly Hills or any other sniggering soap opera -- that's entertainment! As I recall, Schindler's List has only aired once on network tv and only after a lot of handwringing and prefacing disclaimers when airing.
A quick aside -- the opening music over credits on 33 reminded me of the haunting score of Schindler's List.
Yes, the new BSG is grim. Hello? Only 50,000 people surviving out of billions? Not knowing when the axe will fall on them, too? Suspicion growing that traitors are among the survivors? Of course, it's grim. Five days without sleep, there are going to be dirty clothes, unshaved faces, frayed tempers, pettiness, anger ...
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.) ~Robert HeinleinHumanity is petty, cruel, loathsome. However, humanity carries within its individuals the potential to rise to the challenge, to exhibit courage, to endure five days of terror and still get into the cockpit and fly out to face death in order to help ensure the survival of the species. Some succeed, some fail. This is why this BSG is not a product of the Big 3. And as long as the series will not let network culture interfer in its writing and producing, I have hopes the promise of the pilot will not be squandered. The series episodes last night have reinforced those hopes.
Posted by Darleen at January 15, 2005 10:00 AM
Comments
Well, I saw both the new BSG and Llama’s review in a different light. In any re-make some changes are cosmetic, and some are, well, wrong. For example, in the newer Spiderman movies, Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically modified spider, not a radioactive one. Net result: more modern. But what if they had made Peter a married, thirtyish cop instead of a student physicist and photographer? Total change - no adolescent angst, no wondering if he had a duty to protect people. It would no longer be Spiderman.
I can deal without the new Starbuck; but the character was more than a cigar and a Problem With Authority. The new actress is playing a very different, though very good, character. But if you are going to co-opt the name, why lose the defining traits? But that’s still a small change.
For me the biggest difference is the Cylons. In the original series, they were the creation of a Cylon race - the patient, soulless remnants of an aggressive race, conquering on autopilot. In the new version, Cylons are a human creation that have “turned on their creators with deadly results.” (How I wish that wasn’t a quote from the promo material. No cliché there.) What was a Greek tragedy is now a Christian one: the lesson goes from “it’s tragic this had to happen (but look how they bravely deal with it)” to “it’s tragic they didn’t see this coming and prevent it (but look how they learn from it).” What was like a tsunami is now like 9/11. I thought that’s the type of “historical perspective” Llama Robert was getting at. Granted, the new BSG is more modern. Add the android Cylons, and we can have witch hunts for “the enemy within” too! Television science fiction was built on these themes, it’s not particularly new, even if they are done particularly well.
It feels like they stole the title to sucker me in, and then told a totally different story. Why did they even bother to keep the twelve tribes (oops, colonies!) and trash the other symbolism? Did they even recognize any of the myth themes from the series? (OK, they put Mephistopheles in a kickin’ red dress, but that’s about it.)
It would be a very good series if it were called anything else.
Posted by: CJ at January 15, 2005 05:23 PM
I'm glad you liked it, Dar. The emphasis in the first episode on numbers — 33 minutes, 49,998 survivors, etc. — isn't a theme that runs throughout the whole season, but I think it was an important one to establish.
It wasn't until about two days after I first saw "33" that the realization hit me. Seriously, I'm not kidding now, it jolted me out of a sound sleep.
They're counting the survivors rather than the dead because that's the smaller number.
That was when the real weight of the premise really sank in for me. The end of the world, man. You don't fuck around with that. No casino planets for us.
I'm not kidding when I say that, with the recent demise of "The West Wing" as TV's flagship hourly drama, "Battlestar Galactica" may just be the best thing going.
It beats the ever lovin' hell out of the "CSI" shows, "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," that's for damn sure. Those are all quality entertainment, but "Galactica" is just on another level altogether. It's not even playing in the same league.
Posted by: Jeff Harrell at January 15, 2005 05:27 PM
Thanks for the link! Let me be clear about exactly what I object to.
First, I conceded upfront that the original series very quickly ran out of steam. (Frankly, I think this was inevitable, given the plotline.) I also conceded that to enjoy it now you have to discount all the inherent, well, awfulness associated with late 70's television programming.
But you really hit the nail on the head: Let me be polite and say I guess I watched a different BSG than he did.
Exactly. And let me put it plainly - there is absolutely nothing wrong with a new set of writers and producers forging their own vision of a post-apocalyptic struggle for human survival in outer space against a ruthless enemy. But if they are going to do so, they should get their own damn' Battlestar.
I'm sure that there are plenty of good ideas in the new BSG. If they were developed using different characters, different backstories and the like, I'd probably even be interested in the series. But they aren't. That's Adama. And Apollo. And Starbuck. And the Galactica. And the Cylons. As flawed as they were, I have very fond memories of all of these characters as created by Lorne Green, Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict and the rest. The producers of the new BSG seem to hope to lure me in by recyling all the old names and images but then serving them up in a completely different manner. In other contexts, this is known as "bait and switch" and I really don't understand why it should be any more excusable here.
As I posted in an update to my post on the matter, imagine the furor that would arise if someone got the bright idea to do a remake of the original Star Trek series, with different actors playing Kirk, Spock and the rest, a totally overhauled Enterprise and a completely rewritten galaxy, as it were. People would burn the studio down. I fail to see how this is any different.
Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at January 15, 2005 07:16 PM
Robert
You're talking to an original Trekker here. There is little about the original series I don't know. That said, if someone wanted to remake it with the kind of class, writing and production values I seen with the new BSG, you'd find me cheering them on!
Really. (I gave up on the ST spinoffs long ago. Not much engages me about them...but I think that has much more to do with the producers fear of the Great Bird of the Galaxy than anything else)
I don't look at it as 'bait and switch' as more a fulfillment of the original promise. Certain Edward James Olmos brings the same stature and authoritative presence to Adama that Greene brought, if a bit gruffer.
CJ
There are only a limited number of themes out there ...it is all about how particularly well they are done. You can have Romeo & Juliet and Westside Story or you can have General Hospital. Same themes...really different presentations.
Posted by: Darleen at January 15, 2005 07:53 PM
Darleen,
You got my point backwards: Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story both work because the theme is the same, but the presentation is adapted. Here I feel like they are using the same presentation to present a different theme. Kinda like if you kept the Jets and Sharks but the starry-eyed kids just move to Jersey. It may be done well, but it ain’t WSS. Not only that, but here the producers rejected a rarely explored theme in favor of a more common one, and I can’t quite see why. (Cue Bones paraphrase: “I know writers, the love to change things!”)
We saw three intelligent species in the original TV pilot. In the current incarnation, there are no intelligent species except human beings (they created the Cylons, remember). That already makes a dramatic change to the scope and type of big questions that can be explored, and how they will be explored. I’m guessing less outward looking and a lot more inward looking. (Forget the original’s flirtation with stopping on some other inhabited planet; finding any species will be the second most traumatic thing that happens to this people.)
They’ve obviously set up a theme of “what is human?” when the original knew what human was and asked “where does human fit in, and are we unique?” But that’s so far away from the original, theme-wise, that I can’t see it as fine-tuning or fulfilling an original intent. It’s bait and switch.
Again, I think it is a very good series. Well done. I love Olmos. Like the new character they’ve chosen to call Starbuck. (Could do without Six, though.) But it’s cargo cultish - everything looks right from a distance but there’s different stuff inside.
Posted by: CJ at January 15, 2005 10:48 PM
Very interesting comments folks. I too have the same problems with the story using the names and places from the original but telling essentially a different story. Creative license is one thing, this is quite another. I remember seeing where Glen Larson was a consulting producer (or something like that) and I thought to myself as the credits went by, "What did they consult him on, the name?". For myself though, I'm more of a bread and butter sc-fi kind of guy. I was able to stay through much of DS9 and Voyager because of the cool factor that they would bring in with new technology, ships, etc. and would skip right by the 'human interest' episodes. Call me callous, but I don't watch sci-fi to get an insight into the human condition. I watch it to stimulate my mind about 'what if' situations and to suspend reality for a while. That's why I fervently watch Stargate (both series now). Sure human interaction is fine, and there are some good stories, but I like to imagine and think about things that I *don't* see in every day life. Another case in point, I used to love E.R., as I am quite intereted in the technical aspects of medicine. But in recent years it became less about the medicine and more about who was sleeping with who and who done somebody wrong, etc. Gag me. With the new BSG, I found myself wondering 'who WON'T number 6 kiss or sleep with', and while the eye-candy shots are quite nice, it's NOT what I watch sci-fi for.
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