07: The Young Lords

[Eric Paddon]

This thread will be for discussion on changes etc. on adapting episode #7 "The Young Lords" and conforming the story to a continuous season arc storyline.

[Senmut]

I enjoyed the interplay between Lucifer and Baltar in this one. Lucifer seems very Human in his attitude towards Spectre. And Spectre is so entertaining, in his attempts to lie to Baltar.

[BRG]

One thing that bugged me about this episode(which I have already mentioned in the review section) was that the family decide to stay on the planet, when it appears that they are the only humans alive on the planet.

This seemed very selfish by Megan. First of all it denies his children any chance of ever having a romantic/sexual relationship in they're lives, and by the way Miri was instantly smitten with Starbuck, it's clear she had reached the staged where she needed this type of love.
And the second point is that at some stage they will start too die off, leaving one unfortunate sole alone at the end of his life.

It's safe to assume that either a) There are other people hiding from the Cylons in the wild, and will for a community around the castle again. Or b) Megan has a ship, and can get to neighboring planets as easily as a rural farmer can get into town with his truck!

I would like to see this clarified, as it appears that they are all alone at the end of the episode.
BRG

PS- I would also clear up Miri's age. She looks like a 15 year old jail-bait tempting Starbuck, and it makes our favorite Viper Pilot look creepy.

[SpyOne]

"Last surviving humans on the world elect to stay on the family farm" doesn't work without an escape plan.
Even for children, the locals seem exceedingly childish.
Certain cast members seem retarded in that they look more physically developed than they act.

Now, if you told me I had to have the script for you in five days (which seemd to happen a lot on Galactica), I am sure I would have submitted something far worse, but this one seems to suffer from some pretty poor writing. I am sure the original authors would like another crack at it, and I think all it really needs is a carefull rewrite.

If it was me, in the end I'd have the familly go with the Fleet. (This lets me bring the characters back in later episodes )

[Eric Paddon]

I had some fun with this one because it allowed me to fix what I felt were the real cringe points of this episode.

#1-The whole "singing the instructions" bit went out.
#2-There are definitely other people still alive on the planet. In fact, this to me was the real reason why Spektor kept Megan alive in the first place. It's not because of the threat from the children, it's because Megan is in all likelihood the only person left who can tell Spektor where all the other people on the planet in hiding are, and because doing a full blown scan/search of the planet would require Spektor asking for more equipment than he knows he should ask for, he just feels he can bide his time and get Megan to break eventually, especially if he ends up with the leverage of threatening to wipe out his family if Megan does not reveal where the other inhabitants are.
#3-I changed the whole relationship between Kyle and Miri to also inject a cultural note about how people on this planet live. I saw the people who lived on this planet as being those who would arrange future marriages of their children when they are very young, and in order to facilitate this, the daughter of a family betrothed in marriage at a young age to the son of another is then sent to live with that family and in effect be brought up by that family so that the children who are pledged to each other basically grow up in an environment as brother and sister first, before they reach the age where they become sealed. So as a result, this enabled me to have Kyle and Miri brought up as brother and sister and where she could think of Megan as an adoptive father, but is also engaged to Kyle as well, and thus her interest in Starbuck can add a bit more plausible dramatic edge to the story.
#4-I have Boomer and another warrior (not Apollo because I can't envision Adama allowing all of his best squadron leaders to be away from the Galactica at this point) arrive *before* the raid on the Cylons so they can take part and help out.
#5-I have Starbuck, Miri and Megan overhear Spektor's final conversation with Baltar where he asks for permission to abandon the planet. This helps reinforce the decision to stay on the planet because they know that (a) they face no immediate danger of the Cylons returning and (b) Megan knows Spektor well enough to realize that Spektor can't *ever* let the truth about what happened come out, so he can feel more secure in reclaiming his home planet for his people.

[Senmut]

Given the obvious Egyptian context of alot of stuff in BSG, I just took the apparent relationship between Kyle and Miri to reflect that. Often, the heir apparent to the throne, in this context Kyle, married his own sister/half-sister/first cousin, to maintain the "purity" of the family. Given the sensibilities of TV censors, Larson just didn't elaborate.

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, Egyptian civilization indeed found brother-sister marriage quite natural and common going all the way back to their myth of Osiris-Isis. But even in the world of fanfic adaptation, I wouldn't be comfortable introducing something like that, so doing it as adopted brother-sister marriage by a society with a particular religious tradition that sanctioned it, made more sense to me (and avoided being distasteful).

[Senmut]

That works. Legally, it is essentially the same thing, whether Kyle and Miri are full-blood brother and sister, or adopted somehow. Also, if some of the kids seem childish even for their apparent ages, recall have no actual data on how fast Humans of this racial sub-set mature. If they live to be 200 yahrens old, give or take, do they grow more slowly? Faster? We don't know. And, regardless, living in caves among very few others, spending their time blasting Cylons, gives them little time or opportunity for proper social development.

[Pegasus4]

#1-The whole "singing the instructions" bit went out.

Thank you. that and Hector and Vector's dance number are the 2 scenes I fast forwarded watching the entire series 2 years ago when I got it on DVD.

I didn't like Kyle and Miri being adopted brother and sister when I first read the story but it eventually grew on me. After reading your explanation I reminded myself that the people of BSG are different cultures, religions and sects besides Colonies.

This was never one of my favorites other than the parts with the Cylons and how the ILs don't like each other.

Miri was about 17.

The book sucked. there were 50 children and when they first rescue Starbuck they don't shoot the Cylons, they push them all in the mud. don't ask. Megan is their mother not father. I did like the part where Starbuck is have a conversation with a black telepathic unicorn named Magician who dies from his injuries against a winged lion(!). Spector had also named his Cylons (made on Attila) after the first thing he saw while activating them. The gold one, who stays with the humans to help them(!), is named Treebark, others are named Hilltop and Mudhole. I wonder what Spektor would've named a Cylon if he had seen 2 animals making babies. Just kidding

edit: oh and in the book (which is called The Young Warriors) the people were exiles from Scorpia for speaking out against its totalitarian government. ???

[Eric Paddon]

Your description of the Young Lords novelization describes in a nutshell why I felt these episode adpatations were necessary to begin with! "Young Warriors" indeed was one of the substandard ones with all those changes you describe.

What if the first thing novelization Spektor had seen after activating was a pile of animal waste? Then he wouldn't be insulting a centurion called "Felgercarb" but just addressing him the whole time!

[peter noble]

The Young Warriors does indeed suck, as do books eight, nine and 10!

[Eric Paddon]

#7, with WOTG, was pretty substandard too.

The novelizations of "Young Lords" and "Long Patrol" should already have demonstrated that a gender switch of a character is never a good idea even if the character is only a guest one! (Megan and Robber respectively).

[peter noble]

I didn't mind #7, though it wasn't as good as The Living Legend.

Obviously, #5 was excellent.

[Eric Paddon]

Well #5 I certainly give credit for trying to be different in terms of its narrative approach. But then again, when you're dealing with G80 you *have* to try something different!

Chief problems I had with WOTG novel were not using the Iblis-Imperious Leader voice connector, Adama being more weak-kneed, and of course the bizarre ending of Baltar being returned to his baseship by the SOL (which of course got forgotten again for #9).

[Pegasus4]

#5 is the only one I don't have

most of the books weren't that great. 11-14 weren't based on tv eps. ok, how did a whole planet that never heard of these people still know about Starbuck to make a tv series about him or something like that?

back to Young Lords I just remembered that the Cylons in the book are robots like the show. in the books the regular Cylons are living cyborgs. The ones on Attila died of jungle viruses so Specktor, who like Lucifer isn't an IL Cylon but a Cylon made ambulatory servant, made robot lookalikes. The gold commander, Treebark, had a sense of honor.

When Starbuck found a destroyed one he found he could lift it unlike the bodies of real ones that take 2-3 men to carry. The jealousy Lucifer has for Spektor is still there. And yes Spektor is still a stockpiling kissass

[Eric Paddon]

That point you raise shows what a giant mistake it was to try to stick to the original concept of the Cylons as living beings in the show itself, because for an episode like "Young Lords" doing this novelization only caused the kind of complications they resolved in the not too plausible way you describe of mixture of the living Cylons now building robots. These are the kind of changes that make the universe of the novelizations seem just as alien as.....well, you know.

The novelization was also more PC by having Miri much more conservatively attired than she was in the episode!

[Pegasus4]

She was dressed alright in the ep. Not much stomach showing. It was a warm climate. Her character would be dressed less conservatively nowadays on just about any modern show.

I don't remember her attire in the book but she was a healer, herb specialist (not that kind ) and an art lover.

wow, the imdb is down. was trying to see what Audrey 'Miri' Landers has also done besides soaps and having twin sons. (tvtome)

[Eric Paddon]

I think the cover art of the book reveals the more conservative, non-midriff baring attire of Miri in this one. Definitely prefer the episode itself!

Audrey Landers also was in the not too successful movie version of "A Chorus Line" and had a bunch of hit records in Europe.

[Pegasus4]

this just popped into my mind. How was Starbuck's hair when he crashed on Attila and took off his helmet in your story?

A few years ago a friend showed me a special (I don't know when it aired) about BSG and the narrator made some harmless funny comments about the series. One was the scene when Starbuck crashes on Attila. The narrator comments about the crash and look at that, not a hair out of place

The opening was the Patrick Macnee opening narration (with extra earth tribes mentioned) and when he says 'there are those who believe' again it cuts to Baltar telling the audience that if you believe that he's got land in Florida to sell you. Evil John Colicos chuckle follows.

When I met him, Dirk, Herb, Richard, Anne and Jack Stauffer in 8/99 at a con in PA they talked about this episode. Herb told Dirk to tell the audience about the Cylons on the castle stairs when one tripped and they all fell like dominoes. I have several friends who have seen this footage. It was almost used but you saw one of the stuntmen thru the armor. I never saw it and was disappointed that it wasn't on the DVD in deleted scenes. I know it still exists unlike the cloven hoof footage from WotG.

I read your adaptation last year and think that part should be in it (was it?) They're under attack and have to move down narrow stone steps in a hurry, something they rarely do, so it's plausible that one tripped.

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, I know the footage you're talking about from the blooper reel, which I have on the 15 Yahren Convention tape. Funny bit with Colicos in character uttering the "Florida land" line!

I just looked back at my adaptation and I realize I never bothered to describe Starbuck taking his helmet off. Could probably add a sentence there on that. And there's certainly room to add a sentence about centurions falling like dominoes amidst the chaos. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Pegasus4]

the blooper reel

I remember at least you had Starbuck upset that he lost his viper for good. the same one he had since before the Destruction. the episode didn't comment on that. it made you think that vipers were cheap and easy to make.

[Eric Paddon]

Late response, but time to give this whole section some new life!

Yeah, I think it's fairly obvious that viper's aren't that easy to assemble. And Starbuck I think is the kind of warrior who would pride himself on keeping an old, familiar machine in working order for a number of yahrens. But after Young Lords, he had to have a new viper since there would have been no way of recovering his crashed one.

In Take The Celestra, we learn that the Celestra does act as a maintenance ship for vipers, and maybe it's safe to assume this is where new vipers are built. How long a process it takes is something that certainly could have been better established in the series.

[Senmut]

Certainly the Celestra would need to coordinate with the foundry ship, in producing parts for Viper maintenance and assembly. The Fleet's infrastructure needed more fleshing out.

[Pegasus4]

I always liked how Richard Hatch's first novel had a forge ship appropriately named the Hephaestus. You can call the forge or foundry ship that.

Or by his Roman name Vulcan which brings an entirely different tv space series to mind. their motto on the side of the ship (like the Colonial Movers ship) can be something like making ships last long and prosperous.

And I'd assume the forge/foundry ship or ships are located by the Celestra for easier supply and assembly or even docking.

[Eric Paddon]

Originally Posted by Pegasus4

Or by his Roman name Vulcan which brings an entirely different tv space series to mind. their motto on the side of the ship (like the Colonial Movers ship) can be something like making ships last long and prosperous.

"The only logical place to get your viper fixed!"

it makes a lot sense that many of the ships in the fleet would be re-configured to support the fleets many material needs.For example even with the addt of the squadrons from the Pegasus, how long could the current stock of Vipers hold up given the rate of combat attrition(not to mention accidents and airframe deteriation). It would have been interesting to see how the fleet handled this problem along with drafting/training civilians to do the work.

[LZaza]

Is resurrection acceptable at this point?

One thing I actually enjoyed about the Young Lords is that it showed Starbuck in a slightly different light, than the usual seemingly insouciant lieutenant. It showed his compassion/compatibility with the children, and accentuated his leadership abilities, which were certainly touched on in the series, since he was commonly the wing leader when Apollo wasn't with a patrol.

I thought the fact that the skirmish with the Cylons being essentially won when Apollo and Boomer had arrived, was a tribute to those abilities. And his two best buddies negotiating for his rescue, and then coming to bring him home, were icing on the cake for me.

As for the song . . . one of those embarrassing moments. Glad to hear you nuked it in your adaptation, Eric.

[Senmut]

Resurrection is always fine, O Zaz.

[Eric Paddon]

Originally Posted by LZaza

As for the song . . . one of those embarrassing moments. Glad to hear you nuked it in your adaptation, Eric.

I was willing to move Hector and Vector's to a more appropriate part of the action in GFE, but there wasn't *any* way you could salvage that song credibly in an adaptation. On the printed page in a written narrative form, it's badness would have been all the more evident.

[LZaza]

Hey, Eric! Nice to see you here!

I'm just getting caught up on the action.