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SW v BG has it come to this?

#1 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 01 December 2003 - 10:16 PM

25 years ago I'd have said HELL NO but now I'm not so sure. I mean, considering the accolades a three minute cartoon receieved, the bar's set kinda low these days.

SciFi channel is to air some new Battlestar Galactica miniseries next week. yes, the old abc series sucked. yes, I watched it's comeback with robbie rist (cousin oliver) as the genius boy. and yes, there was a scene when no-one noticed coverage of "the eagle has landed" as they vainly sought a mythical homeland called, EARTH.

I'll watch. BTW, I'm still waiting for tpm or aotc to appear on mst3k.
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#2 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 02 December 2003 - 04:52 AM

That GALACTICA miniseries, as far as I know, is lousy. It has a bigger budget than the old show, of course, so it will look better, but then, so what? They filmed it at Lion's Gate Studios in North Vancouver, and that is a studio well known here for making the low bids and doing all the lousy remake projects and budget sequels, like THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and FREDDIE VS. JASON.

I saw the first ten pages of the script, and there was only one line of dialogue. So I guess they thought it was cool to start out with the big action, like ENTERPRISE and, well, everything out there, really. It starts out ok, I guess, but what really turns me off it is that they have made Starbuck a woman. Why do that? I understand that the original BG didn't have any interesting female characers, but wouldn' it have been more clever to make a new character and keep Starbuck's gender the same? Or not have a character named Starbuck to begin with? Because, honestly, if changing the gender of a character is their idea of updating or modernizing the series, then I think I know enough to give up before it starts.

Mike.

PS: Does anybody watch ENTERPRISE? I've seen a few episodes and it always saddens me. Tell me if I'm right on this one: does the hot Vulcan chick get sweaty in every episode? Has STAR TREK just devolved to T&A?
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#3 User is offline   rogue_scholar Icon

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Posted 02 December 2003 - 11:21 AM

Civilian,

I only saw the pilot episode to Enterprise, and I thought it was good . . . for about the first ten minutes, then it turned into garbage. If the rest of the show is anything like that pilot episode, then, yes, the Vulcan chick does get sweatty every time.

I stopped watching Star Trek a little after the death of Roddenberry. Since then I've caught little snippets here and there of DS9 (which was trash from the very beginning, IMO) and Voyager (which I never watched a full episode of). The movies for TNG are also garbage, including First Contact, which I thought was an absolute bore. I see Star Trek now and I think "here's another storyline where everyone's forgotten what it was originally about."

As far as that Galactica mini series goes, I was interested in it until I got a glimpse of many of the details (the fact that Starbuck is now a woman turned me off too). I figured it would be like a next generation type thing with a new crew and better writers (I never thought BSG was bad idea, it was just written badly IMO), but instead they've opted to re-tell the story. When I realized that, I was like "why?" But, oh well. . .
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#4 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 02 December 2003 - 12:09 PM

ok, fine. it will be trash. based partly on portions without dialogue. so... adding lousy dialogue would make it BETTER? wink.gif

at least I didn't invest a lot of optimism.
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#5 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 03:17 AM

QUOTE (rogue_scholar @ Dec 2 2003, 11:21 AM)
I stopped watching Star Trek a little after the death of Roddenberry.


I agree that nobody in the writing core of STAR TREK gets what TREK was supposed to be about. But to be fair, Roddenberry was a bit of a gumby as well when in came to building his perfect future. Sure, he wanted to show that Russians and Japanese could crew a starship alongside black women and simple country doctors, but he also envisioned an age where men held all the important jobs and women tarted about in miniskirts waiting to be sexed by bold adventurers. So, applause for some of his social reaching, cringe at his lack of scope.

THE NEXT GENERATION had the formula more correctly. It started out pretty rough, of course, with the episode where everyone's all horny and the security officer has sex with the robot, but at least the captain behaved like a human being and occasionally the stories had some depth, insofar as a show like that will allow it. But of course, that series turned to mush eventually, even if it did have a spanking great final episode.

The TNG movie you reference, FIRST CONTACT, is my absolute favorite TNG film. I was cracking up right away when I realized that the away team for the "B story" consisted of all the lame characters that nobody likes much (Riker, Jordie, Troy), and everyone who stayed on board the Enterprise for the "A Story" action-adventure plot were the key players that everyone wants to see more of (Picard, Worf, Data). The added nonsene of the completely new character to impart wisdom and empathy to the captain (Angela Bassett, in the traditional role of "wise black woman") made me laugh uproariously. I thought I would never see such cynical, lazy writing ever again in my life. That was, of course, before I saw NEMESIS.

Mike.

PS: I have a friend who worked in the office for BG. She saw the show through numerous rewrites and she read the whole thing. When I say that I understand that it's lousy, I'm really just taking her word for it. I only read the first ten pages, and it didn't seem to start out bad. That draft at least, and on paper.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#6 User is offline   rogue_scholar Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 02:59 PM

QUOTE (civilian_number_two @ Dec 3 2003, 03:17 AM)
. . . but he also envisioned an age where men held all the important jobs and women tarted about in miniskirts waiting to be sexed by bold adventurers.

LOL . . . So true, and do you remember "Mirror, Mirror" where they go to the alternate universe with the evil Enterprise crew, and the women are all wearing even skimpier outfits? What a riot! That episode is one of my favorites (I think that was the hottest Uhuru ever looked, although I don't tell my wife that)!
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#7 User is offline   Despondent Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 03:00 PM

What about prequels? I'd be curious to see how the robots took control and killed most of the humans. I hope there's a tribute to Lorne green somehow. and that emporer like dude, I'm interested in seeing his digs (taller chair I guess) and finding out how he received the vote of confidence. thought they did music pretty good. always liked the maudlin music (after the first commercial) when camera would swoop in our sad, rag-tag fugitive fleet. buhm- ba ba ba ba ba bahhh da dee da... (bahhh da dee da....) (battleship rumbles, as video cuts to interior)
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#8 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 03:47 PM

??????? You guys didn't like First Contact? That's probably my favorite of the Star Trek movies, along with Undiscovered Country. I can't believe that. And even SW cannot be compared to BG it's not that bad.
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#9 User is offline   rogue_scholar Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 04:00 PM

QUOTE (Despondent @ Dec 3 2003, 03:00 PM)
What about prequels? I'd be curious to see how the robots took control and killed most of the humans.

Actually, if I remember the Galactica storyline coirrectly, the Cylons (robots) were the creation of another race that was hostile to humanity. That race died out, but the Cylons continued to carry out their prime directive, which was to exterminate all humans.

As far as how they managed to kill off most of humanity, in the old series pilot, the Cylons tricked the humans by telling them that they wanted to discuss an end to the conflict. The humans, stupidly, agreed to parley with them, and, very stupidly, sent all of their Battlestars to the location where the meeting was to take place. Quite predictably, the Cylons then attacked the humans, destroyed all of the Battlestars save one, the Galactica, and forced the remaining humans on the exodus to Earth. Why the Cylons could not then manage to get their hands on the Galactica is beyond me, but as I said in a previous post, the idea of BG was good, while the writing was really crappy.

That's how I remember the story. I'm not sure if the new one is following the same premise, but it's looking to me as if though they are.
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#10 User is offline   rogue_scholar Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 04:15 PM

QUOTE (Vwing @ Dec 3 2003, 03:47 PM)
??????? You guys didn't like First Contact? That's probably my favorite of the Star Trek movies, along with Undiscovered Country.

Undiscovered Country I actually liked. Until now I thought I was alone on that one, but First Contact just bored me to death. Maybe it's because so many people kept talking about how it was SO GOOD! I don't know, it just didn't do anything for me.

I'll say one thing though, it was much more entertaining than that god awful Generations movie that came before it and the Insurrection one that came afterward. Insurrection was just awful (I actually paid to see it)! Sometimes I think I dreamt it, but then something always reminds me that it was real.
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#11 User is offline   Supes Icon

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Posted 03 December 2003 - 09:59 PM

QUOTE (rogue_scholar @ Dec 3 2003, 04:15 PM)
I'll say one thing though, it was much more entertaining than that god awful Generations movie that came before it and the Insurrection one that came afterward. Insurrection was just awful (I actually paid to see it)! Sometimes I think I dreamt it, but then something always reminds me that it was real.

Odd numbered Star Trek movies. That's what it is. All the even numbered ones suck rocks...
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#12 User is offline   Vwing Icon

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Posted 04 December 2003 - 06:40 AM

No that's not true. It's even-numbered Star Trek movies. 1 sucked, 2 (Wrath of Kahn) was good, 3 (Search for Spock) was actually still pretty good but not as good, 4 (Voyage Home) was very good, 5 (Final Frontier) sucked, 6 (Undiscovered Country) was very good, then we get into the TNG era and it's odd-numbered for TNG but not as a whole because 7 (Generations) sucked, 8 (First Contact) was very good, 9 (Insurrection) sucked, and 10 (Nemesis) was pretty good.

It's Batman movies that are odd-numbered are good. Batman 1 was very good, Returns sucked, Forever was good, Batman and Robin sucked. Hopefully this means the one with Bale will be very good too.
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#13 User is offline   njamilla Icon

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Posted 04 December 2003 - 08:04 AM

Enterprise isn't very interesting, mostly because it's a weekly (and not even that anymore) episodic series which runs out of steam so quickly. Yeah, the Vulcan chick is sweaty and in a leotard every week. But so is the Texan chief engineer. My bf always makes fun of me because I'll turn on the stupidest show and watch it simply because it's got a cute guy in it. Alas, I have to admit that I only watch Enterprise because the engineer's in it.

I'll watch Battlestar only because it's got spaceships in it. I saw Richard Hatch at a convention last year trying to revive Battlestar, but with him in it and under his vision. He even went and made a movie trailer in the Mojave Desert. I'm sure he had a caniption fit when he heard someone else was going to make the movie.

As for the plot of Battlestar -- stupid humans! As for the Star Trek TV series. I watch'em, again because its sci-fi, but the writing and the writer's philosophical proclivities don't impress me. In the first place, Star Trek was supposed to be this utopian society where humans have solved all of their problems on earth. Yeah, right! That's actually why I like SW more. People do act like humans arguing and fighting over everything. In the second place, all of the sudden humans have the high horse morality that alien species don't have. As if humans have eloved to this higher state and need to impose it on others.

I will give this to ST. At least they try to give a good message in the same way that the old godzilla movies had a message; unlike the modern, US remake which was dinosaur comes to the big city. Basically a marketing platform to make money off of toys and DVDs. ST positive message does have a general appeal, though at times it can get a little sacharine.
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#14 User is offline   Supes Icon

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Posted 04 December 2003 - 07:32 PM

QUOTE (Vwing @ Dec 4 2003, 06:40 AM)
No that's not true.  It's even-numbered Star Trek movies.  1 sucked, 2 (Wrath of Kahn) was good, 3 (Search for Spock) was actually still pretty good but not as good, 4 (Voyage Home) was very good, 5 (Final Frontier) sucked, 6 (Undiscovered Country) was very good, then we get into the TNG era and it's odd-numbered for TNG but not as a whole because 7 (Generations) sucked, 8 (First Contact) was very good, 9 (Insurrection) sucked, and 10 (Nemesis) was pretty good.

It's Batman movies that are odd-numbered are good.  Batman 1 was very good, Returns sucked, Forever was good, Batman and Robin sucked.  Hopefully this means the one with Bale will be very good too.

Sorry. Retraction on the odd even. Not quite sure where I was when positing that. It is indeed the evens that are the better films.

I disagree on the Batman odd even though. Batman 1 & 2 very good and good. Batman 3 - Val in not Batman, Tommy Lee saved it from being terrible, Jim was adequate. Batman 4 (Batman and Robin) - Clooney could have been a great Batman ranking up with Keaton, but Schumaker should be shot for what he did to the films. They just got progressively worse.
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#15 User is offline   rogue_scholar Icon

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Posted 05 December 2003 - 10:59 AM

QUOTE (Supes @ Dec 4 2003, 07:32 PM)
Clooney could have been a great Batman ranking up with Keaton, but Schumaker should be shot for what he did to the films. They just got progressively worse.

I so agree. Schumaker appears to be of the school of thought that the sixties Batman played by Adam West is the real Batman, which is why his vision sucks so bad. I don't know if Clooney would have made such a good Batman though; he seemed to be in agreement with Schumaker's vision, so I often put them in the same boat. The worst part about what's become of the Batman movie frasnchise, is that so many people want to see it done like that horrible TV show. I remember talking to a few people who agreed with Jim Carrey's portrayal of the riddler (as soon I heard he was playing the part I knew BF was going to be garbage).

BTW, has anyone heard whether or not there is going to be a Batman: Year One movie made? The last I heard Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requeim for a Dream) was trying to get the rights to make it. He wanted Brad Pitt to play the part of young Batman/Bruce Wayne. Anyone?
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