Battlestar Galactica - Blood & Chrome - Page 3

martok2112 · December 28th, 2012, 11:25 AM

Ah.
Well, no need to fret over it too much. Folks are gonna feel how they're gonna feel, I guess.

Gemini1999 · December 28th, 2012, 02:21 PM

It is indeed JUST a television show...can't we just approach it that way instead of folks continually getting bent out of shape after all this time. In the grand scheme of things, fighting over this stuff is pretty insignificant. I'm one that enjoyed both, but after 9 years of this stuff, it is pretty wearing on the nerves.

BST · December 28th, 2012, 10:20 PM

Agreed. As much as I protested, and still protest some elements of Moore's show, I am way beyond the point of truly giving a damn.

I watched Blood and Chrome, in large part courtesy of Darrell's updates and links. I enjoyed it and count myself in the category who wish that B&C had preceded Moore's show in development instead of just time setting. If Moore had re-focused on just telling a story instead of creating so much dysfunction, it might have made the show more appealing to more people. Alas, he didn't and it didn't.

At any rate, I'll do my best to watch B&C when it's aired on television. Hopefully there will be sufficient advertising.

Dawg · December 29th, 2012, 09:58 AM

Count me among you, although my reasons may vary from everyone else's. These are my opinions, my own observations, so your mileage, of course, may vary...

I utterly despise the GINO universe. The human species is capable of incredible darkness, supreme negativity, but it is also capable of rising above circumstance and displaying equally incredible nobility, selflessness, and determination in the face of overwhelming odds. BG portrayed the surviving Colonials as a mix of qualities, and had people of all creeds and colors and moral makeup, and our heroes displayed the nobility the human being is capable of attaining. Not so much GINO.

BG had a pretty simple framework and stayed pretty consistent throughout. GINO was made up as it went along and disregarded - sometimes quite blatantly - what had been established before. The GINO Cylon was "biologically indistinguishable from human" yet the girl Cylons lit up a room - literally - when they got their motor running, and could access computer systems simply by shoving fiber-optic cable into their forearms. And, despite a lack of implanted transceivers, they could upload and download themselves into new bodies...

I know people like Katee Sackhoff, and in her earlier roles I did, too. There wasn't much of her and she played the angsty teen quite well. But if she has more than two settings - screech and SCREECH - the role of Kara Thrace did not allow her to use them. Nor did her awful turn as the earlier version of the Bionic Woman...

Oh, and those of you singing the praises of David Eick - the travesty that was Bionic Woman was all his.

B&C is a contained story, not the open-ended series that was GINO, so it's possible to tell the entire story as a fast-paced action/adventure, rather than stuff it full of made-up fluff to stretch it out. Its production techniques and pacing are lightyears ahead of what GINO's team was capable of creating. This is all positive and made it something worth watching. But whenever we saw character interaction, actual universe-building, it was 100% GINO and there it crashed and burned.

If I am otherwise unoccupied the evening B&C is shown, I'll probably watch it, too. All things considered, I do not expect to like it as well as I did what was posted on YouTube.

But I no longer really care. Oh, I enjoy discussing my reasons for drawing such a clear distinction between the two shows and why my preferences are what they are - but I enjoy academic debates for the debate's sake. There's no animosity, I'm not trying to change any minds, it's just - discussion, an exchange of ideas on a subject we have no influence on. An academic exercise, one with no practical meaning.

I am
Dawg

David Kerin · December 29th, 2012, 01:42 PM

It is interesting now that we are almost ten years since the premiere of the new show. It did have a lot of things that as a fan of the original really turned me off. However into season 1 I was starting to get into the show, and was actually looking forward to season 2. But then things started to feel stretched out, and I lost interest. I checked in here and there, and kind of kept up on things until the end, but I felt the writers missed so many opportunities for what is a truly epic story.

Having watched Blood and Chrome, I actually liked it. Maybe I liked it because it seemed to embrace some of the feel of the original, but was still modernized as the new series was. I do say if the new series started more like Blood and Chrome, I would have been a bit more interested.

Now believe it or not, I'm not writing this to bash the new series. It is not totally my cup of tea, but in the end if it did one thing it helped bring the name Battlestar Galactica back into the public presence. It irritated me that during the show the differences were so extreme among the fans. I especially hated how so many were quick to put down the original show that started it all, in order to build up the new show. But I think with the new show being done, I've seen that drift away. Sure there will be some, but its not as extreme. In fact I think Battlestar Galactica as a whole is getting a bit more respect than it has in the past. Also on the commerical side, I have to say there have been some great things for original series fans. 12" figures, Mego styled figures, plastic sculpted figures, diecast ship miniatures, minimates (I have the Cylons, need to find the heroes), and an awesome Hallmark ornament that is beautiful and currently on my desk. And it talks!!! Now all we need is a remastered re-release of the original series on bluray. Maybe if that Singer movie ever actually happens.

So, to make a short story long, I can let the new series be what it is. In fact time to time I may go back and watch some of them, hoping to see it as its own thing after these years of distance. I was able to do that with Blood and Chrome. And I do hope that in the near future that movie idea will move forward. It may or may not be what will make me happy, but I'll know that when I see it. Hell, they completely recast Kirk, Spock and McCoy and they have me anxiously awaiting the new movie. I hope Battlestar will live on in many incarnations. And I hope I'm around to see a number of them.

Happy New Year everyone! Been around here a long time, and through the ups and downs, I'm glad we always had Battlestar to share and enjoy... and maybe debate... all these years. And I'm sure we will still be doing it for time to come.

Dave

Dawg · December 29th, 2012, 04:05 PM

Dave, you touch on something that I have come to realize is the biggest complaint I have with Moore and Co.

There is a fundamental difference between how Moore "rebooted" Galactica and how Abrams did the same with Star Trek, and it's the biggest reason why I despised GINO and I loved the Star Trek movie.

From Battlestar Galactica, Moore took the concept of the battlestar, the design of the Viper fighter, and basic story concept - Exodus in space, trying to find a mystical planet called Earth. To that he added characters he he based on characters in a WWII movie, and he took the given names from BG and Americanized them. "William" Adama. "Apollo" the callsign of his pilot son, "Lee" Adama. And so forth.

Abrams, on the other hand, took the Star Trek universe in its entirety and asked the very Star Trek question, "What if the timeline had been disrupted? What would these characters be like if that happened?" and went on to tell the Star Trek story from that altered perspective. He basically took the idea of "Yesterday's Enterprise" and applied it to the larger scale. Jim Kirk is still Jim Kirk, Leonard McCoy is undeniably Leonard McCoy, Spock still Spock. But because of Nero's incursion into the timeline, the timeline was changed and the influences on the characters were different. Jim Kirk is still Jim Kirk, but in this timeline his parents never made it to Iowa in time for him to be born there.

That's the difference. Abrams had enough sense to respect the source material and actually use the characters that inhabited the original universe.

I think I need to go write a blog...

I am
Dawg

martok2112 · December 29th, 2012, 04:42 PM

Yeah, but there's a lot of Star Trek fans out there who blast Abrams for being a "Star Wars" fan, and bringing Star Wars to Star Trek.

Me though....I loved the movie, and eagerly await "Into Darkness".

The big thing with Star Trek is that if you want heady stories, the best place to find that is in televised episodes. Granted, Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek The Voyage Home proved that you did not need to have all out action or space battles to have a successful run, and further granted that Nemesis (my favorite of the TNG films) proved that too much action (and perhaps some very shoddy storytelling) can be detrimental to a successful run for so niche a franchise. (Also also further granting that even though TMP was a financial success, it was far from a critical success.)

But for the most part, the most successful Trek movies have been ones where action and adventure were the order of the day. (TWoK, First Contact).

Where Abrams got it right was not only in balancing action with a good story, but he succeeded in doing what no other Trek film (except maybe Voyage Home) could: Make it appeal to more than just the Trek fan. He made the movie appeal to the average movie goer. He made it appeal to those who may never have even given Trek a chance in the past. Now, he's got a bunch of folks actually wanting to watch the original Trek (and subsequent series), to see just what it was they were missing all these years.

TwoBrainedCylon · March 23rd, 2013, 11:23 PM

Somehow, I missed this thread entirely. I didn't get to catch Blood and Chrome until I downloaded it from YouTube. Again, I'm late to the party.

Not to repeat what's already been said but I also liked it quite a bit. (I had serious reservations about the script when I first read it but the final product surprised me). Like others, I wish this is what GINO had been, -- or at least wish GINO had been more like this. This didn't rely on mystical flashbacks, pits of self-pity and the darkness of humanity, or in your face political spin. It was an adventure story, fairly well executed.

Like Don, I found the VFXs erratic but commend the team on the job they did. In some areas, they went a bridge too far but overall, they really accomplished some amazing stuff. When images are flowing past you at 1800 frames a second, its easy to forget what the VFX teams had had to go through to put it all on the screen. They tackled something that was technically huge in scale and managed to make it watchable, even if they busted their timeline badly.

I bought the Blu-Ray, which for me doesn't say much as I also own GINO just for archive purposes. The GINO series is still sitting unwrapped and will likely stay that way for a decade or so but Blood and Chrome is something I can see myself watching from time to time. (I also bought Caprica and will likely give that a viewing in the next couple of years. Hopefully it will fit with Blood and Chrome pretty well).

I'd like to see more of these. They link to GINO, which does mean they eventually end in a lot of silliness ("Final Five", etc.) but on their own, the production did have a feel that was fairly close to what I'd expect a contemporary Hollywood version of the original series Cylon War would be like. Its easy to find the flaws in this prodcution but its one of the few connected with GINO in which I also found it pretty easy to find nuggets of gold.

All my best,

Russell

Senmut · March 24th, 2013, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg

Abrams, on the other hand, took the Star Trek universe in its entirety and asked the very Star Trek question, "What if the timeline had been disrupted? What would these characters be like if that happened?" and went on to tell the Star Trek story from that altered perspective. He basically took the idea of "Yesterday's Enterprise" and applied it to the larger scale. Jim Kirk is still Jim Kirk, Leonard McCoy is undeniably Leonard McCoy, Spock still Spock. But because of Nero's incursion into the timeline, the timeline was changed and the influences on the characters were different. Jim Kirk is still Jim Kirk, but in this timeline his parents never made it to Iowa in time for him to be born there.

That's the difference. Abrams had enough sense to respect the source material and actually use the characters that inhabited the original universe.

I think I need to go write a blog...

I am
Dawg

But the ship looks like a collision between a nightclub and a video arcade. Did anyone ever notice what the original warp nacelles looked like, or other bits of hardware?

martok2112 · March 24th, 2013, 10:19 PM

Personally, I love the new Enterprise.

She looks great in motion, and when she rises up out of the dust in Star Trek....that was one of the most spectacular shots I'd ever seen on the big screen.

And the water crash sequence for the trailer in Star Trek Into Darkness looks beautiful.

martok2112 · March 24th, 2013, 10:23 PM

As for "All this has happened before, and it will happen again" I can say only this...

Senmut · March 25th, 2013, 07:06 PM

Meeeeee-oWWWW!

TwoBrainedCylon · March 26th, 2013, 10:23 AM

Count me as another who likes the Abrams Enterprise. I'm not so crazy about the jerking-jolt into warp but the rest works well for me. I personally like the concept that to push a ship faster than light, you need big engines. Plus the darker chrome-glass strikes me as better than the glowing red circle things of the original design. Truth be told, I probably like the Abrams version better than the original, although its not an apples to apples comparison given the half-century difference between the two.

All my best,

Russell

martok2112 · March 26th, 2013, 12:50 PM

Good way of puttin' it there, Russell.

I think part of the reason I liked it is because of some of the elements it took from the Motion Picture Enterprise designs, largely the saucer section.

At first, I honestly wasn't sure what to think of the design in static shots, but seeing her in motion.....beautiful.