Posted on 01/20/2009 8:30:14 AM PST by EveningStar
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...
Witness the “re-imagined” “Battlestar Galactica,” bleak, miserable, despairing, angry and confused. Which is to say, it reflects in microcosm the complete change in the politics and morality of today’s world, as opposed to the world of yesterday. The world of Lorne Greene (Adama), 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com ...
You’re right of course when you look at the character’s long term history, but I was just referencing the nature of her action in the context of that one episode. It totally shook me as I wasn’t expecting them to write her out with such finality at this point in the series. As an aside, I have known a couple of people who committed suicide, and even knowing their mental histories, their deaths came as shocks. Knowing a person’s mental state is no predictor of their actions as I have also known people who were far more depressed than the suicides, yet they refused to give in to their despair. Only God knows why some make one choice and others make a different one when confronted with similar problems.
My favorite part of social studies in junior high were these films shown in class. Even though Cronkite was the host there was no spin!
From 1953 to 1957, Cronkite hosted the CBS program You Are There, which reenacted historical events, using the format of a news report. His famous last line for these programs was: “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there.”
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=99366480424591&item_id=656587&searchID=437031
You should look into the DVDs I mentioned in Post #124.
Even though it was produced in the mid-1990's, during the Clinton years (or perhaps because of them... /g), there has been no more compelling and trenchant sci-fi parable of the real-life dangers threatening us today than Babylon 5, especially Season 3.
With its masterful exposition of how rights and freedom in a Constitutionally ordered society can be destroyed by malevolent forces operating in secret, it completely over"Shadows" the dreck this is the new BSG. Episode 9: Point Of No Return and Episode 10: Severed Dreams blow away anything that has been done in BSG.
In addition, as far as BSG's much-touted focus on religious, moral and philosophical issues, Babylon 5, written by avowed atheist Joe Strascynski, offered the most even-handed, fair, thoughtful and respectful treatment of religion of any sci-fi series that has yet been done.
The new BSG is not even in the same league as B5 or Firefly (which also offered a timely perspective on the issue of totalitarian centralized authority), on any level except in the quality of the acting. The BSG actors are terrific with the roles they have been given - it's not their fault their characters are pathetic and despicable and the concept of the series is so flawed.
The sentence structure is so complicated it's like doing a logic problem. It's like studying, LOL.
Many of you are looking at the original BSG with 2009 eyes not 1978 eyes.
For its day TOBSG was top of the line.
It was the most expensive pilot ever produced to that time. The series was the most expensive ever done to that time. (1 million + per espisode.
When it was cancelled it was still winning its Sunday night time slot. Supposedly it was cancelled to give Mork and Mindy its coveted time slot. M&M never got as good a ratings as TOBSG.
TOBSG really took nothing from Star Wars, more Star Trek. Glen Larson had been pitching the concept(originally called Adama’s Ark) since 1968.
Star Wars only helped finally get it on the air.
Much of the writing was excellent. The ‘Hand of God’ episode was great!
Does it look kind of hokey today? Certainly.
But so does the original Star Wars (Try to find a copy of the original release, not the ones after Lucas got to redo it twice. (Han shot first!)
Did they reuse a lot of shots over and over? Yes, due to cheapening budgets from the studio and network.
I certainly agree with another poster that if they wanted to do the new series the way they did, they should have kept the basic story and done it with a different name, characters, etc. and not tried to ride the coattails of the original, and then change everything.
I have to admit it would be hard for me too, to wipe out those hot cylon womenthings/sarc
Yes, it was. The Federation against the “Evil Empire”. Frankly, DS9 gets a raw deal, it was (to me) the best Star Trek.
There was nearly an entire season that lost me too... It became something of a soap opera... On the other hand, the mini-series and the first season of the new series was stellar. And I'm looking forward to really seeing this last season.
Mark
You should check out the Star Trek TOS episode "Bread and Circuses", about a world of parallel Earth-like development where Rome never fell, but survived to develop Twentieth Century technology, and still persecuted a peaceful sect of "sun worshippers".
From the Wiki description at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Circuses_(Star_Trek):
"Back on the ship, Kirk commends Scotty. Spock expresses curiosity to Kirk and McCoy as to why the slave "Sun" worshipers seemed to adhere to a philosophy of peace; again incorrectly, Spock says that in most societies sun worship is a primitive religion of superstition, with no philosophy behind it. It is at this point that the landing party learn the true meaning of the repeated references to the "Sun/Son". Uhura, who has been monitoring radio transmissions from the planet, informs them that the worshipers are actually referring to a "Son," rather than "Sun," as in, "the Son of God." Kirk replies in realization: "Caesar ... and Christ; they had them both..."
"What time is it?"
"2 buns past a taco."
#6: Hugs a nuke and set it off (Gotta give her points for style)
Lucy Lawless: (Can't remember her number)(she's a #3), Kills herself over and over again do find out who the final five are.
#8/Athena: Blows her brains out in order be reincarnated on board the cylon mother ship.
Since these Cylon women are/were essentially immortal as they are/were capable of downloading their conscience into a new body on the resurrection hubs, can their actions truly be defined as suicide?
Roslin: Contemplates killing herself due to cancer suffering, but is pulled back at the last second.
Roslin, like many cancer patients, and other terminally ill patients, contemplates ending her existence to end her suffering. That she didn't is a testimony of the spirit to want to live,
Cain: Stands there passively while her lesbo-cylon girlfriend blows her brains out.
Cain was a pathological b*tch, and re. her girlfriend, see comment about Cylons above.
Dee: 9mm Divorce.
As poster dilvish noted in another post, Dee suffered from chronic depression, and while suicide can be devastating and unexpected, the possibility can not, and should not, be ignored in the chronically depressed.
Ellen Tigh: Drinks poison (Possible murder) and blows up a planet with herself on it.
I think Ellen was killed, but after last weeks big reveal, we can't even be sure of her current status.
Cally: Trys to flush herself out an airlock with her kid, Cylon saves the kid, then flushes Cally.
Cally had just discovered she had mated with a Cylon skinjob and had had a child by him. She was confused and distraught and wasn't thinking at that point, just reacting. Cally didn't commit suicide, she was murdered by Torie(sp).
Given my reasoning above, I would have to disagree with your assertion that Dee was just trying to be one of the girls. But, I can understand your point as well because women in sci-fi/comic book material are never treated as real people. They are either lionized, ala the Wonder Woman syndrome, or victimized as seen on the website Women in Refrigerators.
Uum I don’t mean to sound condescending but Expressionism is an apolitical aesthetic strategy. Mann’s films are apolitical in general.
Of course I'm not disputing that ref in "Bread and Circuses", however, Roddenberry the human being in the real universe is on record as saying he himself, the producer, saw a future universe largely without religions. Certainly the individual authors of each episode would put their own thoughts into them, and as a Zinger/surprise Ending, that use of it would be integral.
[/UBERNERD]
Is that a Borg implant on the left side????
Or is she just glad to see you?
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