From: joe@THRWHITE.remove-dii-this   
      
     To: alt.battlestar-galactica   
   You have too much time on your hands man...and I am a Christian and watch   
   the show with no problems.   
      
   "chris"  wrote in message   
   news:1128533781.512300.311940@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...   
   >   
   >   
   > I just watched Sci-Fi Channel's remake of the old series Battlestar   
   > Galactica. Well, part of it anyway. I gave up after an hour and a half   
   > or so. It was too depressing. Too typical of modern Hollywood.   
   >   
   > I'm not particularly a fan of the original 1978 Battlestar series. I'm   
   > not the sort of person who gets so deeply involved in any TV show or   
   > movie that I start to think the characters are real and that anyone who   
   > criticizes them is insulting my personal friends. I'm not writing this   
   > to defend the honor of the "real" Captain Apollo or any such thing. I'm   
   > writing it as a commentary on the pathetic world-view of modern   
   > Hollywood. (I did think it was an interesting series, that it had a lot   
   > of potential but that if often didn't live up to it. But that's another   
   > story.)   
   >   
   > Why did Sci-Fi Channel decide to do a remake of Battlestar? Surely it   
   > was because the series had an enduring popularity. While, as I say, I'm   
   > not a great fan of the original series, there are many many people out   
   > there who are. SciFi no doubt hoped to cash in on this built-in   
   > audience.   
   > Updating the story   
   >   
   > Of course like any remake, they had to "update" the story. We expect   
   > that. What's the point of doing a remake if you don't have anything new   
   > or different to say? You might as well just pop the old one back in the   
   > DVD player. But what was SciFi's idea of how to update the story?   
   > A technical lament   
   >   
   > As a lover of science fiction, I was impressed with the way the   
   > original series didn't look like it was obviously made in California in   
   > 1978. For example, I've always found it a little -- naive, for want of   
   > a better word -- that characters in most TV and movie science fiction,   
   > even when it is supposedly set hundreds or thousands of years in the   
   > future, all appear to be from 20th century California. A particularly   
   > absurd example: There was an episode of Star Trek in which Kirk   
   > realizes that a powerful alien being they have just met is really his   
   > planet's equivalent of a mischevious little boy. And to explain this to   
   > Spock, he rhetorically ask him if when he was a boy he also didn't pull   
   > little pranks, "like dipping little girls' pigtails in inkwells". Ummm   
   > ... did they really have inkwells in the Vulcan Science Academy? These   
   > people have warp drives and phasors and matter transporters and ... and   
   > they write with pens that have to be dipped in inkwells? Even in our   
   > time, such a reference is seriously out of date. Maybe when the   
   > script-writer went to school they still had inkwells; I don't think   
   > I've ever seen one outside a museum. Surely the writers could have come   
   > up with some sort of schoolboy prank that would be consistent with the   
   > technology they're telling us these people have.   
   >   
   > In most Hollywood science fiction, the men wear clothes that look an   
   > awful lot like 20th century Western clothes. Just ask yourself: Which   
   > would stand out more on the streets of a modern American city: A man   
   > dressed as a character from a recent science fiction movie? Or a man   
   > dressed in the style of Victorian England? Or traditional Indian garb?   
   > Or pretty much any time or place other than current America or Europe?   
   > (I use "man" in the non-generic sense here: women in science fiction   
   > have a tendency to wear far fewer clothes than anything worn in public   
   > in real life. I've concluded that warp drive engines must produce a lot   
   > of heat, to make the ships so warm that the women find it necessary to   
   > run around in so little clothing. But that's another story.)   
   >   
   > The original Battlestar did quite well on that score. The people wear   
   > clothes that look different from contemporary Western clothes. They use   
   > rectangular coins for money. They play a card game using octagonal   
   > cards. The characters have odd -- but not ridiculous or unwieldy --   
   > names like "Tigh" and "Iblis". They have different words for many   
   > things, like they talk about a man and woman getting "sealed" rather   
   > than "married", which leaves the audience to wonder if it is just a   
   > different word for the same thing or if it is not quite the same   
   > institution. The series has often been faulted for using a bunch of   
   > made-up units of time -- a "yaren", a "micron", and so on. But I   
   > thought this was a strong point. Our units of time -- years, months,   
   > hours, and so on -- are all based on the motions of the Earth through   
   > space -- how long it takes to go around the sun once and so on. These   
   > people were supposed to not even know where Earth was, it was just an   
   > old legend to them. Why would they be using Earth-based time   
   > measurements? Oh, and in what had to be a clever way to make the show   
   > work for a varied audience, they invented their own exclamations: When   
   > the characters were angry or frustrated they would shout "frack!" or   
   > say "what a bunch of faldercarb". It's never clear just how nasty these   
   > words are supposed to be. Are they the equivalent of "bummer" and   
   > "darn", or are they the height of vulgarity in their culture? That   
   > little move let the viewer imagine the talk to be as mild or nasty as   
   > seemed appropriate to him.   
   >   
   > In the new Battlestar, they tossed all this. The characters wear 20th   
   > century American clothes. They use 20th century American language,   
   > right down to the slang words and obscenities. (Lots of obscenities.)   
   > Their cities all look like Los Angeles. They even went out of their way   
   > to rename the characters with 20th century American names, explaining   
   > that the names from the old series are nicknames and call signs.   
   > Indeed, at one point they refer to the space ship carrying the   
   > president of this interplanetary republic by the call sign "Colonial   
   > One", an obvious borrowing from the American "Air Force One". Are we   
   > really expected to believe that a civilization hundreds of light years   
   > away, that has had no contact with Earth for thousands of years, would   
   > have coincidentally invented such a similar name for the chief   
   > executive's personal vehicle? It's just silly.   
   >   
   > As a lover of science fiction, that would have been enough to make me   
   > dislike the remake. But as someone who observes our culture, there were   
   > far more interesting differences.   
   > The character of the characters   
   >   
   > In the original series, the main characters are all admirable people.   
   > Adama is a wise and decisive leader. Tigh is his practical and   
      
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