What I hate about Battlestar Galactica

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If you know what the constellations are and what they look like from Earth, then it wouldn't take a computer program long to extrapolate there positions after rotating the viewpoint from where they are to make them look like the "cartouche" (sorry, wrong show, I know).

 

The fact that they don't know the distance to the individual stars makes it a far, far more difficult task.

There are, after all, 100,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy! Thier computer would have to have the position and relative magnitude of each of them in order to perform such a calculation, unless they are very, very close to begin with.

 

It soytanly does! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

 

Oh damn, you ninja edited! But my kung fu is stronger.

 

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Thunder stoylen!

Woo woo woo...

 

Yeah yeah, make fun of my chemotherapy-induced numbness of the fingers...

Seriously, typing has become a major problem. It's probably been months since I've been able to type as much as a sentence without having to go back and delete extra characters, and there are so many of them, sometimes they slip through. And they only told me AFTER the chemo had ended that the damage might be permanent.

 

Damn, sorry to hear that, Rob.

 

Don't blame chemo, it's just becomming a geezer like some of us folks

 

They did recognize most of the constellations there. Even so, If they could correctly identify just one constellation and travel to it's vicinity, all you would have to do, is once you have one constellation looking like the image on Kobol in your rear view mirror, and keep travelling, eventually you will find yourself in an area of space where more of the constellations are more recognizable and then triangulate a course to the solar system.

 

I don't believe they recognized them as constellations, but rather as symbols of the 12 colonies...

 

I can't believe that there is anyone that has such a strong opinion about this show (which is a reimaging of a child/teen oriented show that was on 27 years ago) after watching less than 2 episodes of the current version.

On top of that, the same person is acting like Richard Hatch sold his soul to get a small part on this new series.
How about mentioning that Richard Hatch tried for literally YEARS to bring back his own version of Battlestar Galactica! Glen Larson would not allow him to do it!
They offered him the Tom Zeric part in this version and he accepted it as a chance to be part of someone's remake of BSG as opposed to being left out entirely.

Instead, Richard Hatch who is an actor and public speaker by trade should have held his ground and demanded that his version of BSG be done instead. After all, he was one of the stars of the original series for nearly a year. He had much more of a right to the story than Glen Larson (who wrote the story in the early 70's) does!
If Richard Hatch was really a strong believer in the original series, he should have done everything that he could have to sabotage this version of BSG. Maybe he could have succeeded in killing the project off permanently! That would keep all of us "sheep" from believing that we enjoy the current BSG while fondly remembering the "different" BSG of our youth.

At the age of 11, that trained chimp was so realistic that I swore it was a real daggitt!

I just knew that Vipers really existed and made noise in the vacuum of space. They always flew the exact same formations in them so as to confuse those slow moving/menacing cylons. (Everyone always claims it was the frequent reuse of stock footage, but I know better!)

Everyone I know wants to be named after a constellation or a Greek/Egyptian god.

In the real world, our brothers of the 12 tribes really do use confusing and occasionally changing measurements of time. (I'll get back to that in a centon!)

Does anyone know where I can get one of those Egyptian looking helmets with the light up electronic face shield? I need it to comply with the new helmet laws when I ride my flying motorcycle that disguised like a regular motorcycle when it's wings are down. The police are kind of picky that way.

I could go on for at least a few more sentences but I want to make it clear that I appreciate the 1979 BSG for what it was and I don't enjoy pointing out it's shortcomings.
I have worn out countless cassette tapes and VHS tapes over the years recording those old episodes and listening to/watching them many times over. (Only to be replaced by my current DVD set with the special Cylon helmet box) I've spent days of my youth trying to make sense of the timeline and the broadcast order of those shows. I've collected a modest amount of memorabilia over the years. (How many of you have a "Backwards-J" cubit replica?)

Still, with all of my past devotion to the 1979 BSG, it's not really that good by today's standards. It really is cheesy. It is juvenile. It has been a guilty pleasure of mine because it's not really good enough that I feel comfortable mentioning it in public.
I feel it was better than Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and maybe about the same caliber as Knight Rider. We also can't forget Airwolf belongs in there somewhere as well.

The 2003-Present BSG is substantially different as others have noted. (Repeatedly for about 3 years actually.) There is much more real life, accurate drama even though the premise is still purely fantasy. The visual and audio effects were groundbreaking for a show in 2003.
This is a mature BSG that holds our attention in a way that the 1979 BSG cannot any longer.
This is not BSG made for children and early teens. It's BSG geared for adults!

IMO, saying that the 2003 BSG pales in comparison to the 1979 BSG is nuts. That's like comparing Jazz to the music on Sesame Street. Both are good for their intended audience.

Most of us that remember the original BSG now have adult intellect and taste. The old BSG just doesn't cut it anymore.

BTW, That darn Richard Hatch should never show his face on BSG again. He's too convincing as Zeric and I hardly remember at times that he used to be Apollo. That's not normal!

 

Don't forget Galactica 1980 where the kids from Galactica get to earth and have super powers that enable them to crush other kids in Little League.

Such wonderful writing.

 

Reading about the original series and the one from 1980 makes me glad that I never watched it. I was alive at the time (6 in 1980) but still, I am glad this show is the one that I will remember and not the one with the guy wearing the Holiday Inn bedspread. To go all the way back to the OP, the only thing that bothered me originally was the use of earth-made vehicles and then Ron Moore told me to deal with it in the podcast. So I did.

 

BSG 1980 was crap, but the Original series was good. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks that, otherwise they would have created something original rather than turning Starbuck into Stardoe (among other gripes). Personnally, I think that if they are going to change as much as they did with this new series, they shouldn't call it BSG, they shouldn't call the characters Cmdr Adama, Capt. Apollo, etc. Because the fact is, this show is NOT BSG!

 

I see your point and raise with a simplistic, "It's about the Battlestar Galactica".

I haven't been too happy with the gender changes myself. Starbuck's just not the same as Dirk Benedict's character. Boomer as a Cylon instead of a technically adept viper pilot is also too much of a departure. Nearly every character is sufficiently different that you can't really waste time trying to make the old and the new match.

I would have liked to have seen more of Richard Hatch's closer-to-the-original vision of a contemporary BSG but it wasn't going to happen.
(In all honestly, I'd like to hear someone mention a wholly Glen Larson production that wasn't juvenile oriented fluff. I can't think of any in all of these years.)

IMO, A new BSG closely based on the original would never have survived past the miniseries if it was shown at all! The original, whether you think it was great or not, just wouldn't draw in the viewers these days.
Some of the most intense stories from the original such as "Fire in Space" and "War of the Gods" are pretty tame by today's standards. Stories like "The Young Lords" would get the show cancelled.

Perhaps if it was called "Battlestar Atlantia" people would grasp the concept that this is intended to be a different show! I bet that would open a whole new can of worms!

 

Magnum P.I.

Just my opinion. I didn't think it was "fluff" like "Knight Rider" was fluff.

 

I'll agree with that! Of course, it seemed to be more Bellisario than Larson.

After looking at IMDB, it occurs to me that there really wasn't too much that can be credited to Glen Larson alone. I know that BSG was originally his creation and was originally titled "Adam's Ark". (Adam became Adama, and so on.)

How about Manimal, Automan and Chameleons!

 

You're looking at the wrong entry. If you look at this one, you'll see that Larsen only got the Executive Producer credit for the first season.
Bellisario was the showrunner there......

To be fair to Larsen though, the original intent was to make BSG more adult in tone (e.g. Cassiopea and Starbuck were supposed to be naked in the launch tube instead of just kissing and her "socialator" pasat was played up more).
ABC dictated that BSG had to be strict family fare (although I believe that Larsen had no problems slathering on extra cheese).

 

Actually, I remember the first run of the pilot episode had more "skin" in it than reruns usually did. There was a scene with Maren Jensen in a silver bodysuit in the locker room that I never saw again on broadcast TV. It was on the VHS releases. I believe that it's also on the DVD set but I haven't checked.

I seem to remember some other scenes but I have no idea what they were now.

 

No, I remember that scene as well.

Also, in the first production episode, The Lost Planet of the Gods, you might remember that all of the regular Viper pilots get sick and Apollo and Starbuck have to train the (mostly female) shuttle pilots to fill (including Maren {Athena} Jensen and Jane {Serina} Seymour).
There was a fair amount of footage shot of the women in their very revealing "G-Suits" that didn't make it into the final cut of the episode.