[sargon1955]

Here he is, talking about the new Star Wars TV series:

It's going to be much darker, much more character-based, and I think it's going to be everything the fans always wanted the prequels to be.

So in other words, the prequels weren't what the fans wanted them to be.

[Sagacity]

Isn't that what Uncle Georgie said about ROTS?

[Harmonica]

It's going to be much darker, much more character-based, and I think it's going to be everything the fans always wanted the prequels to be.

LIES!

Isn't that what Uncle Georgie said about ROTS?

And it's coming from the man who said Jango Fett was going to be an effective villain. And called General Grievous the most powerful Jedi killer ever. And we all know how those two ended up.

[Giff]

Meh, I'll believe it when I see it

[civilian_number_two]

I will never watch it, because I don't believe it already. I compare that statement with Lucy's claims that this time, absolutely, she won't pull the football away. It's a god-damned tease, designed to ring in all of the former fans who turned their backs on that failed series. Don't be fooled again.

[KurganX]

I call pure hype BS. I'll "believe it when I see it."

With live action sci fi shows these days "dark" doesn't automatically mean "good." And purely fanboy driven shows can't survive for long without alienating most of their viewers. Take a look at Enterprise for a prime example of the failure of faux "edginess" to keep a floundering series afloat.

Even the new Battlestar Galactica, which I enjoyed through the first season, has kept up the show with its tiring regimen of partial nudity, bad overacting, forced plot twists (with characters acting out of character to create contrived conflict) and shaky cameras plus overuse of its single fake swear word (at least make up a few more fake swear words so it isn't so repetative and irritating to listen to like watching a Jay & Silent Bob movie!). That show is wearing thin, but given Lucas's penchant for imitating what's hot and popular at the time, I have a feeling that's the kind of route he might go.

A much better show to imitate, if he's going to do that would be the new Doctor Who, though Dr. Who may simply be too different from what he's got in mind for Star Wars to work. I think a lot of us envision it being more along the lines of Star Trek, following the crew of some starship or starbase, or like Space Above & Beyond (or Starship troopers) following some small group of soldiers or whatever. But then we really don't know what it's going to be about. It might skip around with random stories and different characters and guest stars. Since he's said it won't focus on the main characters and isn't going to rip off some EU story, who knows.

[Sailor Abbey]

Even the new Battlestar Galactica, which I enjoyed through the first season, has kept up the show with its tiring regimen of partial nudity, bad overacting, forced plot twists (with characters acting out of character to create contrived conflict) and shaky cameras plus overuse of its single fake swear word (at least make up a few more fake swear words so it isn't so repetative and irritating to listen to like watching a Jay & Silent Bob movie!). That show is wearing thin, but given Lucas's penchant for imitating what's hot and popular at the time, I have a feeling that's the kind of route he might go.

Blasphemy!

You can go frak yourself!

[KurganX]

Blasphemy!

You can go frak yourself!

Did I strike a nerve, fanboy? LOL! [or fangirl as the case may be] Since there is only ONE fake swear word to use, ha!

Sure there's a couple of decent actors on the show and the CG is convincing, but really, what were they thinking? If you watched the same show I did, I wonder what you're thinking..

This post has been edited by KurganX: 16 March 2006 - 10:58 PM

[Sailor Abbey]

Did I strike a nerve, fanboy? LOL! [or fangirl as the case may be] Since there is only ONE fake swear word to use, ha!

Sure there's a couple of decent actors on the show and the CG is convincing, but really, what were they thinking? If you watched the same show I did, I wonder what you're thinking..

Are you referring to a specific episode?

And besides, one fake swear word is better than no swear words. Besides, if your gonna pick a word to change so you can show it on tv, it might as well be fuck.

I think its great. Its supposed to be dramatic, so a little bit of overacting is forgivable.

[Smashman]

Stick with the original trilogy and the best of the EU, and ignore anything else.

This post has been edited by Smashman: 17 March 2006 - 06:47 PM

[jariten]

Jesus, McCallum YOU JACKASS SHUT THE FUCK UP.

god I hate that guy.

[KurganX]

Are you referring to a specific episode?

And besides, one fake swear word is better than no swear words. Besides, if your gonna pick a word to change so you can show it on tv, it might as well be fuck.

I think its great. Its supposed to be dramatic, so a little bit of overacting is forgivable.

I'm referring to most of season 2 (a few episodes in season 1 were guilty of course, but things pile up). Let's face it, the actors playing Boomer, Helo, and the Chief were horrible... much better suited to a daytime soap or 90210 than a sci fi "epic." Let's face it, not everyone has the money to expend on a TV series, but any monkey in the director's chair can say "add more flesh and swearing" to add an artificial and repetative "edge" to the show without adding anything to the actual content.

If they said "fuck" instead of "fraq" (or whoever you might spell it), it would be just as silly. The audience's english speaking world has lots of other swear words you could toss in for variety if you just want to copy our's... how about: shiz, triss, phunt, mogslupper, motherfraker, barsehole... it's fun!

My point with swear words is that it gets BORING when its substituted for dialouge. Rather than have the character just repeat one word over and over like Beavis from Beavis & Butt-head, make them growl and make animal noises, I dunno. Facial exp​ressions? Gestures? There's nothing akin to flipping the bird or the old upthrust fist with elbow grab manuver, chin flick or thumb bite in the Galacticaverse... so make one up! I think what they were going for in this show was that we all known military types swear like sailors (even the non-sailor military, but the sailors are the best). Look at all the creative insults that come out of Gunnery Sargent Hartman's mouth in Full Metal Jacket. He swore for a living... so he was CREATIVE! He didn't just repeat the same word over and over because it's the only one he knew. He made it an art. So I'm just saying they could have gone the extra mile and made it fun to listen to.

They haven't used "daggits" yet, they could turn that into a swear, or centons... the possibilities are endless!

Even if the words don't have an exact correlation to an earth based cuss, they could have just made up nonesense words (after getting the actors to do so without laughing on camera of course) and leave it up to the viewer to use their imagination as to what the obscenities meant. Then you get your hard-edged politician swearing like Richard Nixon and it's still boring ol' frak. They didn't even use Andrew Dice Clay or Jay & Silent Bob style combinations like abso-fraking-lutely, frak this, frak that you fraking motherfraker! Unfrakingbelievable... what a bunch of frakked up frakheads... (and FUBAR still works! And BFG...).

But the wasted opportunity here wasn't my only complaint. That they started taking pages from Berman and Braga of Star Trek (in)fame (voyager & enterprise) with contrived conflicts from crazy character quirks or events out of nowhere that were never seen again for one episode wonders... I thought the whole point was to lay out this big epic story arc? It's become much more episodic, which then turns off people who were sucked in by the nice arc of the pilot and the first few episodes of season 1. It just feels much more random now. Oh yeah, seven episodes ago we forgot about that one tiny detail, we'll let's wrap it up implausibly in one more episode now. Oh yeah, great.

One episode in particular that really annoyed me was "Black Market." Not only was it a bad pun to have one of the few black characters on the show be a bad guy in the episode (the head of the "Black Market" is black.. get it! lol) And yes I know Dee is black, but she doesn't get much to do on the show (and what's with suddenly making her and Lee an item? They flirted once in the entire show, the rest of the time she spent on the bridge or being all mushy with the president's intern, obviously he must have needed to leave the show so they had to kill him off in that episode after a soap opera style brush off). Lee turns into a manwhore who's banging this prostitute we've never seen before, because she reminds him of this girl he knocked up and left (that we never saw before) from long ago that is suddenly depressing him, this after they introduce and then brush off a contrived romance with Starbuck (argggh... soap opera, remember?). Starbuck of course gets to have her "bad past" too as the sexual partner of Lee's brother who got him killed by passing him as a pilot when the guy really wasn't up to snuff... but at LEAST that plot twist was sort of anchored in what came before, rather than Lee's past which came completely out of left field, apparently in an attempt to make the character seem more flawed or something.

That's the thing, they gave us all these characters who already had flaws and foibles (Adama is worn out by war and distant from his son and wife and distrustful of those who he feels have let him down, Starbuck is arrogant and bucks authority, Tigh is a drunkard who hates upstarts like Starbuck, Adama is pissed at his dad for divorcing his mom and getting his younger brother killed, the Chief and Boomer are sneaking around behind people's backs against regulations, the redhead whatever her name is gets FTL-sick, Baltar is in love with himself and a womanizer, Six is a nympho with religious obsession, etc). But the writers started "solving" the problems of the characters, leaving them "too perfect" (I'm guessing) so they started creating new foibles and problems for the characters for them to magically solve later. Why do all their problems have to be psychological ones from their past before the Cylon attack? Why can't their problems be based just on their environment and daily routines or ongoing struggle? That makes it just as interesting, and a little less contrived. We know they are short on supplies, the military and civilians clash. The civilians don't all agree on the best course of action and you have class divisions and other divisions like culture, politics, gender, race or religion, etc. the usual sources of conflict on our earth. Leaders clash over what to do, people get anxious, paranoid, or cooped up. Tempers flare.

Anyway, it's not my series, so I don't really get a say in how it's run, I just think they were off to a great start and made some poor choices, diminishing my enthusiasm for the series gradually to the point where I'm really not caring about the next season. It's like they were totally winging it in season 2 and half expected it not to get renewed (hence the oddball season finale). I'd say no big loss, except for the potential wasted. They'll have to be much better than more boobs, more swearing and more soap opera drama (once all the characters have had sex with every other character what else is left but to start killing them off?) and more absurd plot twists (for an example of plot twist overkill, watch the movie "Wild Things"... for a good example of plot twists used well watch just about any Hitchock film).

Each to his own of course, but they really ought to be able to do better. Write up a plausible arc for a third season on par with season 1 or better and stick to it, and maybe they can pull themselves out of their rut they're in. I mean, isn't formulaicness and wasted potential what drove the first BSG serieses to being cancelled? (Not just spending too much money)

This post has been edited by KurganX: 18 March 2006 - 01:12 AM

[barend]

Jesus, McCallum YOU JACKASS SHUT THE FUCK UP.

god I hate that guy.

yeah... and i'm pretty sure by 'dark' he means 'poorly lit'

[KurganX]

yeah... and i'm pretty sure by 'dark' he means 'poorly lit'

You posted "yesterday"? Okay, now I know the counters on the chefelf.com/starwars page are loopy! They all look like there is a new post in all these major threads every day, but some have new ones, and some haven't been posted in for months! Arghhh...

[barend]

yeah, i've noticed that too...

it says there's something new, but then there isn't...

the boards have been McCallumed!!!!