Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Starborn SocietySci-fi isn't just for nerds(Battlestar Galactica Ping)
NRO ^ | January 20, 2006 | Peter Suderman

Posted on 01/20/2006 8:29:57 AM PST by isaiah55version11_0

Science fiction has long been stereotyped as a hardware-obsessed, techno-jargon laden refuge for computer nerds and outcasts. Especially on television, which lacks the geek chic afforded by big-screen Hollywood budgets, the genre's reputation for hokey dialog and cardboard-and-wire effects have saturated it with a distinct odor of disrespectability. It is somewhat ironic, then, to see the Sci-Fi Channel, a network which often seems devoted to the pulpy and lowbrow, serve up Battlestar Galactica, a show about spaceships and killer robots that is also arguably the most potent, dramatically vibrant series on television. An unflinching examination of how the military, government, family, and religion interact in the fragile ecosystem of society, it as morally and intellectually serious as it is thrilling.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: scifi
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 181-200201-220221-240 ... 301-309 next last
To: isaiah55version11_0

"Science fiction has long been stereotyped as a hardware-obsessed, techno-jargon laden refuge for computer nerds and outcasts. "

Only by English majors who are jealous that their "superior intelligence" didn't net them as big a paycheck as those "nerds."


201 posted on 01/20/2006 12:37:02 PM PST by Constantine XIII
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DTogo

I think exactly the opposite. Simple entertainment is for non-sci-fi. The halmark of good sci-fi for as long as there's been such a thing is moral and social questions. Sci-fi is generally in a better position to raise these kind of questions because with alien races and super technology and other planets they can put an aditional layer of seperation between what they're contemplating in the real world and putting in the story. Like Gulliver's Travels, the whole story is actually about the political situation in England at the time the story was written, but by turning one political group into Liliputians and another into whatever the giant race was called it gave the author freedom to not fully chose sides and point out flaws in both sides without being brought into the middle of the conflict.


202 posted on 01/20/2006 12:37:58 PM PST by discostu (a time when families gather together, don't talk, and watch football... good times)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 196 | View Replies]

To: doc30

They missed a great intelligence opportunity there. It would have really paid to get pictures of the Cylon bodies waiting to be activated.


203 posted on 01/20/2006 12:38:13 PM PST by IGOTMINE (Front Sight. Press. Follow Through. It's a way of life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: catbertz

I loved Farscape in the beginning. Really good puppetry. Very unusual. BUT, then they started the long-running plots, instead of going to a new planet/sector every week, and finding something unusual (which is expensive), they started spedning all their time on the ship (same old sets), and they kept bringing back old characters. The whole (black hole weapon in my head)thing, could have been dealt with in 2 episodes.

A scifi show always starts out hot, and creative, and then the actors get "famous" and ask for more cash, and they start spending all their time in their cabins talking. I mean, how exciting is that? You're in space, and you're in your office talking. I CAN DO THAT HERE. Let's do some space stuff.

Farscape was great for a few seasons.


204 posted on 01/20/2006 12:39:39 PM PST by warpcorebreach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 200 | View Replies]

To: warpcorebreach

Ahhh now i see why you don't like the new BSG. Ron Moore was sick of doing "alien of the week" stuff with Star Trek, one of the guiding ideas of the new BSG is no aliens. Doesn't work for everybody, I happened to be with Moore though I thought constantly throwing in new aliens had made Star Trek pretty boring.


205 posted on 01/20/2006 12:40:22 PM PST by discostu (a time when families gather together, don't talk, and watch football... good times)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 198 | View Replies]

To: neodad
Um, what's this Battlestar you're talking about? My television doesn't pick up Sci-Fi after 10 PM on Fridays (unless of course there is an extended episode of Stargate SG-1 or Atlantis…)

ducking now.... ;)

206 posted on 01/20/2006 12:41:08 PM PST by billbears (Deo Vindice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: killjoy

Well done :)


207 posted on 01/20/2006 12:41:19 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Governments want to copy all the data on you in existence, but will prosecute you for an mp3 copied.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Dead Corpse
Lucy Lawless is a clyon as well. Veddy yumtastic.

She is ???? did I miss something huge?

208 posted on 01/20/2006 12:42:49 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Governments want to copy all the data on you in existence, but will prosecute you for an mp3 copied.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: discostu

The "aliens " on star trek were just humans with bumps on their heads. That's what was boring. Remeber the "Horta" on the old Star Trek? Or the creature that made Cap'n Kirk fight with Abe Lincoln? Or the brains that wagered Quatloos? THAT WAS GREAT Stuff. They had to be smoking something to come up with that.

The old BSG, the old cylons, they were too cool for waords. I actually played with those dolls as a kid. The flashing eye thing. cool.B But the new- "cylons are human like now" thing is just a way to make the show cheaper, and you can throw in the cylon hookers. Big whoop. Make an interesting alien, and the world will beat a path to your door.

People are just out of ideas these days.


209 posted on 01/20/2006 12:44:39 PM PST by warpcorebreach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 205 | View Replies]

To: Centurion2000

She was the reporter that did the documentary about Galactica, in the end they show another version of her along with some of our "known" Cylons somewhere undisclosed viewing the documentary and the footage of pregnant Boomer that she supposedly turned in to Adama.


210 posted on 01/20/2006 12:44:42 PM PST by discostu (a time when families gather together, don't talk, and watch football... good times)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 208 | View Replies]

To: warpcorebreach
Bingo!

Starship Troopers is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi flicks. I could enjoy the background social commentary and laugh my @ss off at the boot camp antics, all the while being awed by the superb CG visuals of hordes of alien "bugs" going gun-to-claw with the Mobile Infantry!

Denise Richards was icing on the cake! :)

211 posted on 01/20/2006 12:46:28 PM PST by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 198 | View Replies]

To: discostu

Damn, now I remeber. thanks !


212 posted on 01/20/2006 12:47:00 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Governments want to copy all the data on you in existence, but will prosecute you for an mp3 copied.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 210 | View Replies]

To: warpcorebreach
RE post #209:

Bingo, again!

213 posted on 01/20/2006 12:48:43 PM PST by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 209 | View Replies]

To: AngryJawa

"I spend Monday evening in the garage. Problem solved"

What!?!? Monday night MUST BE for '24' of course!!!
Aren't you a 'clock head' like the rest of us?


214 posted on 01/20/2006 12:52:57 PM PST by Sneakyuser (Sneakyuses.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Centurion2000
Lucy Lawless is a clyon as well. Veddy yumtastic.

She is ???? did I miss something huge?

Yes you did. Lucy played the yummy reporter doing a story on life on the Galactica. You thought she was a reporter trying to undermine the intelligence efforts of the crew (revealing the fact that they had a pregnant cyclon as a prisoner) - kind of like the MSM and the war on terror. At the end, it shows she did a really good and accurate presentation of the Galactica. The shot pans back and you see the audience is all reconizable cyclons. The journalist story was really cover to get intell on the humans and to get info on the status of Boomer's pregnancy. The cylons are likely holding back from attacking the fleet because that baby is the most important element of their plan. They cannot risk losing it. Even the No 6 in Baltar's head kept calling it 'our baby' Baltar was confused, thinking it was to be his and hers. She meant 'our baby' meaning 'the baby of the Cylon race.'

It even plays into the attack on the Ressurection ship. The two battlestars blew the heck out of the cylon fleet. The cylons could have mopped the floor with the colonials. I think they held back and sacrifieced themselves so the Boomer's child would live.

215 posted on 01/20/2006 12:53:08 PM PST by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 208 | View Replies]

To: Alkhin
That should have read "she likes meN" !!! was distracted by a telephone call

Yeah, right, we believe you. Freudian typo.

216 posted on 01/20/2006 12:53:29 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 173 | View Replies]

To: DTogo

The movie stank on ice.

The book was about individual responsibility; the movie reversed it. Worse, the tactics of the MI were absurd - why run around in mobs risking confrontation with bugs when a few decent tanks (or flying gunships) could do most of the work?
The book had power armor troopers operating kilometers apart against technologically advanced bugs. The movie had little to do with the book.


217 posted on 01/20/2006 12:55:00 PM PST by Little Ray (I'm a reactionary, hirsute, gun-owning, knuckle dragging, Christian Neanderthal and proud of it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 211 | View Replies]

To: antiRepublicrat

ROFL!!!


218 posted on 01/20/2006 12:57:06 PM PST by Alkhin (Double polaroids?! What were you thinking of at the time?!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 216 | View Replies]

To: isaiah55version11_0

Tivo is my friend. I'll see it tomorrow or Sunday.


219 posted on 01/20/2006 12:57:50 PM PST by mhking (Tell me what you don't like about yourself...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GOP_Party_Animal

No, it's some sort of Enya thing going on, then some martial
sounding music--I think every once in awhile I hear tidbits of the original theme mixed in, though.

Original theme can be found here (lots of BSG -old and new- stuff here):
http://battlestargalactica.jouwpagina.nl/

Some soundbites from the original:
http://www.sciflicks.com/battlestar_galactica/sounds.html
"Lucifer" quote (old series):
http://www.dailywav.com/0303/anythingispossible.wav
Starbuck (Dirk Benedict):
http://www.dailywav.com/0803/felgercarb1.wav

New theme: still looking!
New BSG:
Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch):
http://www.dailywav.com/0205/nodifferentthancylons.wav
Bill Adama (Edward James Olmos):
http://www.dailywav.com/0204/thedaycomes.wav
http://www.dailywav.com/0106/beenahardday.wav
http://www.dailywav.com/0805/outoftheboxiswhereilive.wav
Starbuck and Tigh:
http://www.dailywav.com/0305/professionalflaws.wav
Gaius Baltar:
http://www.dailywav.com/0104/chrometoasters.wav

And the best for last:
How Dems/Libs Feel About Freepers (Lorne Green):
http://www.dailywav.com/0203/theyhateus.wav

(source: http://www.dailywav.com/ba.php)


220 posted on 01/20/2006 12:58:25 PM PST by pillut48 (CJ in TX)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 133 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 181-200201-220221-240 ... 301-309 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson