Olmos transports from 'Family 'to 'Battlestar Galactica'

Pittsburgh Post Gazette ^ | April 29, 2003 | Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV Editor

[RayBob]

The first season of PBS's "American Family," in which Edward James Olmos plays the conservative patriarch of a Hispanic Los Angeles family, comes out on DVD today.

But it's his role as another patriarch that's bound to get TV viewers in their 30s and 40s talking. Olmos is filming Sci Fi Channel's miniseries remake of the late '70s TV show "Battlestar Galactica." Olmos takes over the role of Commander Adama, originally played by the late Lorne Greene.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I've got one that was positively brilliant - "Morons from Outer Space". It was British, and funnier than hell on so many levels.

These 4 aliens (utterly human) from the planet Blob had rented a space podule to haul garbage. Along the way, these idiots got separated from the one guy who had a little more on the ball, and landed in England. James Sikking plays a Jack D. Ripper part as the American colonel on the scene, who doesn't believe it when the Brits tell him repeatedly how stupid the aliens are.

Terribly funny stuff - basically, its like they put lower class Brits in space. The best moment was when the Defense Minister was told that the aliens were playing with the chess board - and it turned out that they were using it as a at to hit chess pieces with.

[Benrand]

Mah mah mah Mitchell...

Deany? Gallano? Mistretta? No, Deany, not Mistretta or Gallano. Deany.

Joe Don Baker Porkapalooza!

[HamiltonJay]

B5 Was never intended to run "forever" that's exactly the point. The attempts to do so were foolish.. sort of the Highlander 2, 3, 4... etc

B5 had a distinct begining middle and end... you could play around in the "b5 universe" aftewards, but never top the story.

ST because it was so formulatic and unchanged, could be played around with forever. So much so that horrible spin offs like Voyager could get to the air and run for years just off the name recognition.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You called me an idiot.

You insulted me first.Then you came up with some jackass crack that because of my musical taste I "wouldn't understand" a stupid movie like the Matrix. Exactly how am I not supposed to take that personally?

You stated on previous thread on the FR to the effect that if music was not owned and release by the RIAA that it was not real music.

The Matrix ISN'T original because the story line is as old as sci fi.

No according to you below statement.

The only original part about the whole thing was that the backplot the constructed for why the world was an illusion made it so there was no concievable reason why the hero would want to break the imaginary world,

Wanting to be free from the chains of an illusion that make you into being a slave, matter how nice the illusion is, is a rightious quest indeed.

Let me guess, you favorite charactor from the Matrix is Cypher.

SAAB wasn't fun. SAAB was painfully boring and the characters were incessant whiners that made me wish somebody would space them.

That's just your opinion. I found the series quite enjoyable.

I can do braindead fun

You must love Reality TV Shows. Personally, I think Reality TV Shows are the worst of the worst of bad tv.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You called me an idiot.

You insulted me first.

Then you came up with some jackass crack that because of my musical taste I "wouldn't understand" a stupid movie like the Matrix. Exactly how am I not supposed to take that personally?

You stated on previous thread on the FR to the effect that if music was not owned and release by the RIAA that it was not real music.

The Matrix ISN'T original because the story line is as old as sci fi.

No according to you below statement.

The only original part about the whole thing was that the backplot the constructed for why the world was an illusion made it so there was no concievable reason why the hero would want to break the imaginary world,

Wanting to be free from the chains of an illusion that make you into being a slave, matter how nice the illusion is, is a rightious quest indeed.

Let me guess, you favorite charactor from the Matrix is Cypher.

SAAB wasn't fun. SAAB was painfully boring and the characters were incessant whiners that made me wish somebody would space them.

That's just your opinion. I found the series quite enjoyable.

I can do braindead fun

You must love Reality TV Shows. Personally, I think Reality TV Shows are the worst of the worst of bad tv.

[yarddog]

Glad to see I am not the only person who thought "The Invaders" was really good.

I personally thought it was the best scifi series of all time with the possible exception of the original Star Trek.

I remember it was a Quinn Martin production and they all had a similar appearance. Also true that it was not a big budget show but they really don't have to be as long as there is enough to do what has to be done.

[discostu]

I didn't insult you first. You're idiot line was the first insult in the chain, that's why I responded to it the way I did.

I never said that at all. I've said that without the music industry music as we know it will disappear because self publishing via the internet can't possibly reach as many people. Given that the RIAA is a lobbying organization funded by record labels and doesn't actually own anything I couldn't possibly have said that because it would be self contradictory.

Putting an amazingly stupid plot twist in a movie doesn't make it original. Original means going someplace nobody has gone before but they SHOULD have. No one should have gone down the alley the Matrix went down, not even them. Being "freed" from the chains then results in them being without food or shelter on a planet they can't live on outside the pods. That's why I say it was an incredibly stupid plot direction, the choice was remain in the illusional world or kill everyone, he made the stupid choice. Really watch Dark City, it's got nearly the same setup (1 year before Matrix BTW, another blow to Matrix's "originality") except they made it so the aliens were going to kill everybody when they got to the destination and breaking the machine was the only way to get the people in a position to defend themselves, see they don't all die by breaking the machine so the plot actually makes sense. I have no favorite character in the Matrix, they're all stupid.

It wasn't just my opinion, check out Jump the Shark, some liked it many didn't, the show got crappy ratings, my side won.

Actually I do love reality TV, I especially like the ones on Fox because they so horribly torture the participants. Making people pay for their 15 minutes with shame, degredation and emotional pain is funny. Especially because they volunteered.

[Question_Assumptions]

B5 Was never intended to run "forever" that's exactly the point. The attempts to do so were foolish.. sort of the Highlander 2, 3, 4... etc B5 had a distinct begining middle and end... you could play around in the "b5 universe" aftewards, but never top the story.

I think we are losing track of my original comment, which was that (A) I don't want them to bring back B5 because it is "done" and (B) the 5th season was a taste of what B5 would have looked like had it kept going. The reason I said that B5 may have run a season too long is that the arc was over by the end of the 4th season. This was a conscious decision on the author's part. The 5th season was decidedly more episodic and not as strong as the seasons for the reasons that we are discussing. The arc was largely over, as was the epic feel.

ST because it was so formulatic and unchanged, could be played around with forever. So much so that horrible spin offs like Voyager could get to the air and run for years just off the name recognition.

But, sadly, they aren't really following the formula. The orignal Star Trek was about seeking out new life and new civilizations and boldly going where no man has gone before. Now Star Trek is written by fanboys (and fangirls) who simply want to write stories about previously explored aliens, situations, and pay homage to their fandom fetish du jour. It's almost as bad as fan fiction. Almost. Actually, sometimes it is as bad.

[discostu]

But 5th season had View from the Gallery which is one of my absoulte favs in the series.

[RayBob]

Geez, guys, light en up! What I find utterly amazing is that I can post a silly little article about the remake of a really bad sci-fi show from the 70s (that I loved, by the way) and get over 200 replies and a flame spat (doesn't qualify as a war) in the space of about 5 hours.

[mvpel]

Bring back Firefly!

(Jos Whedon seems to be keeping the principal actors gainfully employed over on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so perhaps he's thinking ahead.)

[Petronski]

Screw Galactica, bring back "Space:1999".

I'd watch. Talk about campy! Martin Landau as the commander, and then that transmorph Mia...whoa.

[Question_Assumptions]

But 5th season had View from the Gallery which is one of my absoulte favs in the series.

The 5th season also had Day of the Dead. But that doesn't change the fact that the 5th season was quite different in tone from teh previous seasons and that had the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th seasons continued in the same veing, that B5 wouldn't have ended in the fairly high note that it did end on. Again, this is my reaction to the idea of "bringing back" B5. I don't want to see B5 milked to death like Star Trek or Star Wars. There is a quote from a role-playing web board that puts it well:

"F*** Lucas with a pine cone, he managed to think up new movies so stupid he actually leeched the enjoyment out of the rest of the movies... Like a black hole of plot development."

I don't want to see the enjoyment leeched out of B5 the same way. I'm not saying B5 was bad. It was great. But let it go. Too many science fiction fans just can't do that.

[discostu]

I'm light baby ;) The fandom community is home to great passion, I do the convention thing this isn't at all unusual. Try telling one of your favorite authors that you think his new series blows, it's even funnier when he says that he hates it too but the publisher rejects every idea that could make it not suck and they're paying really well so he stopped arguing. What's fun is that within hours of the Galatica remake there will be somebody on the net (maybe on FR, probably on Ain't It Cool) saying it was the best thing ever they should have given it an original name so it didn't have all that crappy 70s baggage to drag along; and this is no matter how bad the thing sucks. Somebody loves everything, somebody hates everything, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle (except with SAAB which totally sucked... kidding... sort of).

[CathyRyan]

When I said bring back B5. I just want to see more good science fiction on TV. and Marcus ;)

[discostu]

That's right, Day of the Dead how could I forget that. Actually B5 ended in much the same way it began. Season 1 was very episodic too, the elements for the arc were getting put in place, but one of the cool things was that JMS was almost training us for this arc thing (note, he didn't actually write much of season 1 either) dropping in things that would be important until season 2 or 3. Then with 5 it went back to being episodic picking up occasional loose threads and tieing the story off.

Bringing back B5 would be a mistake, we just need to look at the TV movies and second series, none of them were any good because B5 was done it was over and there really didn't need to be more. That's why i'm thankful for the new era of selling TV shows direct to the public. No more having to hope somebody shows it, I can watch it when I want. There doesn't need to be more which has the primary goal of keeping the old stuff around in reruns because we can do our own reruns at will. It would be nice to have more of seasons 2-4 but adding more to the series now or in the future won't do that.

[steve-b]

In the new version, Olmos said, it's impossible to tell Cylons from humans, "which poses a tremendously difficult problem that's speaking directly to cloning, which we face in this world today."

The theme of stealthy infiltration by an enemy who wears the face of a friend was popular in the 1950s (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders From Mars, et al), and was clearly a metaphor for Communist subversion. How hard can it be to figure out that the same theme would resonate in a country that just created a Department of Homeland Security?

"Cloning", indeed.

[Petronski]

Did you know the DVDs are available from A&E?

[Charles Martel]

SciFi.. you are going to take it on the chin for this one... you are going to make BG 1980 look good if this is all true.

So far, it does seem to be true. Do a quick Google search for Battlestar Galactica and you'll find a number of websites which have been following the revival of the series for several years. I don't see many positive (or even hopeful) comments there.

I just hope that once the new show bombs, someone interviews Richard Hatch. He put his heart into reviving the show and the Sci-Fi Channel pulled the rug right out from beneath his feet. He deserves to have the chance to say: "...And people thought the *old* show was bad. HA-Ha"!!"

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

People keep saying that but I don't see the similarity at all. Not even in the most superficial sense.

I will quote you only one of many examples:

"Fellowship of the Ring"; Gandalf falls to his "death" into the the crevass in at the bridge at Kazak-Dum (spelling?) while being pursued by the beastly Balrog. Later he returns in a somewhat altered form to help his friends defeat the forces of Darkness.

"Babylon 5"; Sheridan leaps/falls to his "death" into the crevass on the Shadow's home planet of Zaha'Dum while being pursued by the beastly Shadows. Later, he returns in a somewhat altered form to help his friends defeat the forces of Darkness (The Shadows).

Ok. Here's another:

"LOTR"; The last time the forces of Light and Dark battled in LOTR was thousands of years ago when Light won out in a final, pitched battle where all was but lost except for the efforts of one valiant warrior who then goes on to lead men as King.

"B5"; The last time the forces of Light and Dark battled in B5 was thousands of years ago when Light won out in a final, pitched battle except for the efforts of one valiant warrior (Sinclair on Babylon 4) who then goes on to lead men as King (Valen).