Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
To this day, I still haven't a clue what the hoopla was all about with the latest incarnation of BSG. It was soapy as hell, added shaky cam that was cute in the mini-series but was used to a nauseating degree in the series. Yes, we get it, you like cinema verite and thought it would be cool in scifi but 5 years of that shit?!? Enough already!
The show was slow paced. It took characters where scifi has never gone before, into complete boredom. It destroyed the original BSG. Re-imagining, my ass. If you're going to "re-imagine" an old show by putting all that made it endearing through the shredder then MAKE A NEW SHOW and CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. What's the point of shredding up an old show and keeping the show's name? To capitalize on that show's legacy.
Re-imagined characters. Oh, so much fecal matter tossed into the back of a high speed fan and shred up all over the room just right there. Where do I start?
Colonel Tigh.
Here is a man who was Adama's trusted right-hand man, a voice of reason and the one Adama consulted on the hard decisions. He was a decorated soldier who flew Viper missions with Adama on the same squadron. A very strict, by the book disciplinarian who has proven himself a very capable fleet commander on several occasions and key to Galactica's success and survival.
That was the original Colonel Tigh.
Apparently, the writers of the new BSG thought an old, drunk, one-eyed fool who spent a good part of the series in his quarters with a bottle of booze in one hand and a gun in his mouth was a better choice for second in command and more trustworthy than a black dude. They wanted to be more politically correct by forcing certain major characters through sex changes but erased minorities from command. The hypocrisy is just magnificent. Oh, he turned out to be a Cylon.
Starbuck.
A gambler and a womanizing prick with a fantastic sense of humor and charm. Starbuck was the fleet's most skilled pilot. Starbuck was a chauvinist but everybody loved the guy. New BSG thought it would be cool to turn Starbuck into a swashbuckling bitch with a primate's temper and the manners of a drunken sailor in a Bangkok strip bar who was also no stranger to crying into tissues. Why? Seriously? Why the hell turn Starbuck, a central character that helped define BSG into just another bland character with contrived attitude and give the character a sex change?
Boomer.
Yet another leading black character totally mangled in the meat grinder, this time turned into an Asian woman. I have no problem with leading women characters. Samantha Carter was the quintessential leading woman in a scifi series. Yet, here I am, completely baffled by this change. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii was a completely unnecessary character who had no special appeal. She was no different than any of the other background props in the show. Another whiny crybaby who's sole purpose in the show was to bring shock and awe as being the first discovered Cylon in the fleet's ranks.
Apollo.
What can I say. Interesting character until, for some odd, unexplainable reason, traded his gun and stars for a suit and tie ... TO BECOME A POLITICIAN?!? WTF? This was the point where I threw my hands in the air and figured this show was toast.
Baltar was a pussy. The tall blonde Cylon chick in his mind, number six, was absolutely useless. Her very presence throughout the entire series stank of number 2.
Cylons as humans.
Yeah, I get it, they wanted to save dollars, so, they "re-imagined" Cylons as having evolved into meat sacks. So many beefs on so many levels with this. They're apparently completely human meat sacks like the rest of us, since they're undetectable, yet possess the speed and strength far beyond what is even remotely physically possible with humans. How convenient. The whole human Cylon bullshit turned me off completely and made this show not about robots having turned on their human creators but more like a civil war between two human factions.
Then there are minor details, like GLASS VIEWPORTS. Seriously. An evolved race of space faring beings with warships built to engage in fierce battle would have the silliest weakness any war vehicle can have, glass windows. Vipers are most susceptible to this weakness because the entire cockpit dome is a big giant window. At the speeds Vipers fly, drifting, pebble-sized space garbage would damage those domes. Even assuming they're some sort of really, really super-duper strong special magic glass, we've seen them crack when they hit debris and we've seen them changing these windows in the ship hanger. Proof that they are susceptible to impact, therefore would do little against a pebble hitting it at mind-boggling speeds.
Let's not forget the whole political nonsense inserted into the show. They're in a state of war. Galactica is their last, best hope and the rest of the fleet is a convoy of civilian vehicles carrying the survivors. This is really not the best time to start playing politics and expressing dissent with the military leadership who has kept everyone alive and defended the fleet from the Cylons. It was like they tried to shove every possible bit of modern day human fallacy into a single show. That's not entertainment, it's mass confusion on the part of the writers trying to cram too much garbage into a single series without realizing that garbage can only be deodorized for so long before even Lysol won't defeat the stink anymore.
So, they wanted to add women in lead roles yet completely wipe out the cultural diversity of the original BSG. Here's an idea. Why not just make a new show and call it something else? New BSG has absolutely nothing to do with the old show except for the characters' names, the planet they came from and the ships. Other than that, it's got nothing to do with the original BSG.
Why couldn't they leave BSG well enough alone and just give this show a new name? Maybe name it SSHIS (Some Shit Happening In Space) or whatever and call it an original show. Calling it a BSG reboot and using contrived ties to the original is misleading and disingenuous and pretty much spits in the face of hardcore scifi fans.
On the upside? The didn't migrate the kid and his barking toy bear from the original. Ok, so they get a point for that.
Edit: OMNI brought up a good point about the overuse of religion.
Religious Cylons. 'Nuff said.
In the original BSG, the entire mythology was clearly ancient Egyptian. Scifi loves to link ancient Egyptian culture to extra-terrestrial life. There is a lot of intrigue in ancient Egyptian history and much that lends itself to the possibility of ancient extra-terrestrial contact and influence. Of course, that's up for interpretation. It is, nonetheless, a very interesting angle to explore that should not have been dropped from NuBSG.
The show was slow paced. It took characters where scifi has never gone before, into complete boredom. It destroyed the original BSG. Re-imagining, my ass. If you're going to "re-imagine" an old show by putting all that made it endearing through the shredder then MAKE A NEW SHOW and CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. What's the point of shredding up an old show and keeping the show's name? To capitalize on that show's legacy.
Re-imagined characters. Oh, so much fecal matter tossed into the back of a high speed fan and shred up all over the room just right there. Where do I start?
Colonel Tigh.
Here is a man who was Adama's trusted right-hand man, a voice of reason and the one Adama consulted on the hard decisions. He was a decorated soldier who flew Viper missions with Adama on the same squadron. A very strict, by the book disciplinarian who has proven himself a very capable fleet commander on several occasions and key to Galactica's success and survival.
That was the original Colonel Tigh.
Apparently, the writers of the new BSG thought an old, drunk, one-eyed fool who spent a good part of the series in his quarters with a bottle of booze in one hand and a gun in his mouth was a better choice for second in command and more trustworthy than a black dude. They wanted to be more politically correct by forcing certain major characters through sex changes but erased minorities from command. The hypocrisy is just magnificent. Oh, he turned out to be a Cylon.
Starbuck.
A gambler and a womanizing prick with a fantastic sense of humor and charm. Starbuck was the fleet's most skilled pilot. Starbuck was a chauvinist but everybody loved the guy. New BSG thought it would be cool to turn Starbuck into a swashbuckling bitch with a primate's temper and the manners of a drunken sailor in a Bangkok strip bar who was also no stranger to crying into tissues. Why? Seriously? Why the hell turn Starbuck, a central character that helped define BSG into just another bland character with contrived attitude and give the character a sex change?
Boomer.
Yet another leading black character totally mangled in the meat grinder, this time turned into an Asian woman. I have no problem with leading women characters. Samantha Carter was the quintessential leading woman in a scifi series. Yet, here I am, completely baffled by this change. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii was a completely unnecessary character who had no special appeal. She was no different than any of the other background props in the show. Another whiny crybaby who's sole purpose in the show was to bring shock and awe as being the first discovered Cylon in the fleet's ranks.
Apollo.
What can I say. Interesting character until, for some odd, unexplainable reason, traded his gun and stars for a suit and tie ... TO BECOME A POLITICIAN?!? WTF? This was the point where I threw my hands in the air and figured this show was toast.
Baltar was a pussy. The tall blonde Cylon chick in his mind, number six, was absolutely useless. Her very presence throughout the entire series stank of number 2.
Cylons as humans.
Yeah, I get it, they wanted to save dollars, so, they "re-imagined" Cylons as having evolved into meat sacks. So many beefs on so many levels with this. They're apparently completely human meat sacks like the rest of us, since they're undetectable, yet possess the speed and strength far beyond what is even remotely physically possible with humans. How convenient. The whole human Cylon bullshit turned me off completely and made this show not about robots having turned on their human creators but more like a civil war between two human factions.
Then there are minor details, like GLASS VIEWPORTS. Seriously. An evolved race of space faring beings with warships built to engage in fierce battle would have the silliest weakness any war vehicle can have, glass windows. Vipers are most susceptible to this weakness because the entire cockpit dome is a big giant window. At the speeds Vipers fly, drifting, pebble-sized space garbage would damage those domes. Even assuming they're some sort of really, really super-duper strong special magic glass, we've seen them crack when they hit debris and we've seen them changing these windows in the ship hanger. Proof that they are susceptible to impact, therefore would do little against a pebble hitting it at mind-boggling speeds.
Let's not forget the whole political nonsense inserted into the show. They're in a state of war. Galactica is their last, best hope and the rest of the fleet is a convoy of civilian vehicles carrying the survivors. This is really not the best time to start playing politics and expressing dissent with the military leadership who has kept everyone alive and defended the fleet from the Cylons. It was like they tried to shove every possible bit of modern day human fallacy into a single show. That's not entertainment, it's mass confusion on the part of the writers trying to cram too much garbage into a single series without realizing that garbage can only be deodorized for so long before even Lysol won't defeat the stink anymore.
So, they wanted to add women in lead roles yet completely wipe out the cultural diversity of the original BSG. Here's an idea. Why not just make a new show and call it something else? New BSG has absolutely nothing to do with the old show except for the characters' names, the planet they came from and the ships. Other than that, it's got nothing to do with the original BSG.
Why couldn't they leave BSG well enough alone and just give this show a new name? Maybe name it SSHIS (Some Shit Happening In Space) or whatever and call it an original show. Calling it a BSG reboot and using contrived ties to the original is misleading and disingenuous and pretty much spits in the face of hardcore scifi fans.
On the upside? The didn't migrate the kid and his barking toy bear from the original. Ok, so they get a point for that.
Edit: OMNI brought up a good point about the overuse of religion.
Religious Cylons. 'Nuff said.
In the original BSG, the entire mythology was clearly ancient Egyptian. Scifi loves to link ancient Egyptian culture to extra-terrestrial life. There is a lot of intrigue in ancient Egyptian history and much that lends itself to the possibility of ancient extra-terrestrial contact and influence. Of course, that's up for interpretation. It is, nonetheless, a very interesting angle to explore that should not have been dropped from NuBSG.