Screening Saga of a Star World
I have begun screening The Epic Series at the MWR tent “cinema” Friday nights here at my deployed location. I open with Bishop’s poll results and selected fan comment. Thankfully my biggest fear did not arise…no one showing up after I peppered the place with flyers. We had a good size crowd although few young pups. The ladies seemed to enjoy Dirk/Starbuck’s charm I heard more than a few girlish chuckles. Folks enjoyed some of the subtle humor “I hope it’s the grog”, Capt. Apollo and the not so subtle “WHEN COMMANDER ADAMA SEES’ THEESE HE GONNA GO CRAZY”.
It was not all smiles for me hosting this event. When Baltar is on Caprica reviewing the devastation the audio gets out of sync by a half second. For what felt like twenty minutes we had that poor dubbing effect from a Godzilla film, any one else experience that? Could it be the player? Truth is though Saga did not age well and is probably my least favorite “2 hour” episode. Had Universal done a special 20th anniversary treatment of Saga perhaps Moore/Eck would not have been so compelled to “re-imagine”. Through CGI we would not see the same FX shot repeated. Other parts of the fleet could be seen being devastated over the colonies by over whelming numbers of Raiders. The setting of the fires inside Carillon could be made more impressive; ditch the static electricity bolts striking the basestar. Show mountaintops blowing off giant flames of spewing lava and rock striking the basestar. If Battlestar Galactica ended with Saga probably many others and I would not be here discussing it. Not an original thought but if Moore/Eck had watched the entire series events last week might have been vastly different.
I still watch and enjoy Saga for setting up the great story that is TOS. The destruction of the colonies and assembling of the rag-tag fleet through the food shortage issue is great television. My favorite scenes seem to be all the ones in Adama’s quarters.
I’m looking forward to this Friday because IMO the series really starts to take off with Lost Planet of the Gods. I’ll let you know how it goes…
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