“I was very disappointed with the original “remake” of BG. It went well for a few seasons...I was impressed...then they pulled an ending out of their @$$e$ for whatever reason....I guess they were rushed or stumped for an ending or whatever.....”
http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-readarticle.php?nid=5
Starbuck: Lost in Castration
by Dirk Benedict
Once upon a time, in what used to be a far away land called Hollywood but is now a state of mind and everywhere, a young actor was handed a script and asked to bring to life a character called Starbuck. I am that actor. The script was called Battlestar Galactica.
Fortunately I was young, my imagination fertile and adrenal glands strong, because bringing Starbuck to life was over the dead imaginations of a lot of Network Executives. Every character trait I struggled to give him was met with vigourous resistance. A charming womaniser? The “Suits” (Network Executives) hated it. A cigar (fumerello) smoker? The Suits hated it. A reluctant hero who found humour in the bleakest of situations? The Suits hated it. All this
negative feedback convinced me I was on the right track.
Starbuck was meant to be a loveable rogue. It was best for the show, best for the character and the best that I could do. The Suits didn’t think so. “One more cigar and he’s fired,”they told Glen Larson, the creator of the show. “We want Starbuck to appeal to the female audience for crying out loud!” You see, the Suits knew women were turned off by men who smoked cigars. Especially young men. (How they “knew” this was never revealed.) And they didn’t stop there. “If Dirk doesn’t quit playing every scene with a girl like he wants to get her in bed, he’s fired!” This was, well, it was blatant heterosexuality. Treating women like “sex objects”. I thought it was flirting. Never mind. They wouldn’t have it.
Witness the “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica. It’s bleak,
miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects, in microcosm, the complete change in the politics and mores of today’s world as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama) and Fred Astaire (Starbuck’s Poppa), and Dirk Benedict (Starbuck). I would guess Lorne is glad he’s in that Big Bonanza in the sky and well out of it. Starbuck, alas, has not been
so lucky. He’s not been left to pass quietly into that trivial world of cancelled TV characters.
“Re-imagining”, they call it. “un-imagining” is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and
family dysfunction. To better reflect the times of ambiguous morality in which we live, one would assume. A show in which the aliens (Cylons) are justified in their desire to destroy our civilisation. One would assume. Indeed, let us not say who are he guys and who are
the bad. That is being “judgemental”. And that kind of (simplistic) thinking went out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne and, well the original Battlestar Galactica.
In the bleak and miserable, “re-imagined” world of Battlestar Galactica, things are never that simple. Maybe the Cylons are not evil and alien but in fact enlightened and evolved? Let us not judge them so harshly. Maybe it is they who deserve to live and Adama, and his human ilk who deserves to die? And what a way to go! For the re-
imagined terrorists (Cylons) are not mechanical robots void of soul, of sexuality, but rather humanoid six-foot-tall former lingerie models who f**k you to death. (Poor old Starbuck, you were imagined to early. Think of the fun you could have had `fighting’ with these thong-clad aliens! In the spirit of such soft-core sci-fi porn I think a more re-imaginative title would have been F**cked by A Cylon.
(Apologies to Touched by An Angel.)
One thing is certain. In the new un-imagined, re-imagined world of Battlestar Galactica everything is female driven. The male characters, from Adama on down, are confused, weak, and wracked with indecision while the female characters are decisive, bold, angry as hell, puffing cigars (gasp) and not about to take it any more.
What to do, wondered the Re-imaginators? Keep him as he was, with a twinkle in his eye, a stogie in his mouth, a girl in every galaxy? This could not be. He would stick out like, well like a jock strap in a drawer of thongs. Starbuck refused to be re-imagined. It became the Great Dilemma. How to have your Starbuck and delete him too?
Starbuck would go the way of most men in today’s
society. Starbuck would become “Stardoe”. What the Suits of
yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker. As in, “Frak! Gonads Gone!” And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-imagination, “Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!”
And if you don’t enjoy the show, or the hamburger and coke, it’s not the fault of those re-imaginative technocrats that brought them to you. It is your fault. You and your individual instincts, tastes, judgement. Your refusal to let go of the memory of the show that once was. You just don’t know what is good for you. But stay tuned. After
another 13 episodes (and millions of dollar of marketing), you will see the light. You, your instincts, your judgement, are wrong. McDonald’s is the best hamburger on the planet, Coca-Cola the best drink. Stardoe is the best Viper Pilot in the Galaxy. And Battlestar Galactica, contrary to what your memory tells you, never existed
before the Re-imagination of 2003.
I’m watching the 2003-2009 (calendar time) version of BSG in two months right now (pity the poor souls who tried to follow it for over five frackin’ years). Anyways, I HATE the female and male role swaps as your article mentions. Watching Stardoe smoke cigars and beat up males sucks. So she was abused as a child and had every finger broken (if the Cylon Dr is to be believed). That is the reason by the metrosexuals suits we are supposed to believe I guess for her ‘tough’ character.
I watched Caprica pilot (2009) after Season 1 (2004) for background on the Cylon origin (beauty of time shifting a 50 hour series movie). Looks like all the fundamentalist violence must be laid at the feet of only the monotheistic religions (Christian or Muslim are the only candidates I can think of). Gets quite sickening hearing the Cylons refer to the “one true god’ and the humans referring to pantheism over and over while praying to their Lords of Kobol. That must be why the humans deserve to die-they worship many gods and the good Cylon worship just one god (part of the avatar programming from the 16-yr old girl in Caprica pilot). All quite a stew of no right or wrong and no moral absolutes. Must make the hollywierd types feel quite good about themselves. “Aren’t we the clever ones?”
I’m a big Dirk fan.
Reading that a few years back really turned me off to the new BSG.
I totally gave up on it and never even bothered at all with the last season.
from what i read since it seems missing that last season was a good idea.
I did watch “The Plan” the other night and thought it was ok.
Yes I think new BSG was very good for the first couple of seasons. I disagree with Dirk in that I think it had to be remodelled. Times and tastes change and a direct copy would always have been compared (and unfavorably at that) with the original. But after a while the unremitting darkness and cynicism of the series really began to get to me. It seemed that no matter how hard the “heroes” tried, no matter how they strived, or how clever they were, the cylons were always one step ahead. From that I soon came to realise that my affection for the show was solely based on the initial premises and the very different, very “realistic” type space battle scenes. From there I came to see how very female-orientated it really is - all emotions and “touchy-feely” and dodgy psychoanalysis. I’ve no problems with some strong female characters, but not at the expense of only weak male leads. So I stopped watching, and hey, I didn’t miss it at all. I never even saw the ending. Frankly, by the middle of season two I wasn’t bothered what happened to any of these characters. Did they ever find earth? I don’t know. I don’t care. Does it matter?