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The new "Battlestar Galactica" mini-series premiering
on the Sci Fi Channel this weekend could be one of the greatest sci-fi
mini series ever grace the television airwaves. Period. It's nice to
see a show that could have turned out bad instead exceed expectations.
And I didn't even mind that Starbuck was a girl!
It's "Battlestar Galactica" the classic series meets "Saving Private
Ryan" meets "Space: Above and Beyond"
meets the shock that was "The Day After."
This remake is to the original 1970's version of the
series as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is to the original Star Trek
series. They share the same overall plot and character-types but that's
where the similarities end.
The new series is drawn in a much more realistic manner. The characters
are believable and not too over the top. Characters act as normal people
would in those same situations. There's really no chest pumping "Let's
go kick some Cylon butt." It's more along the lines of "We're getting
our asses kicked out here. If we don't run away as fast as we can we
die." Simple as that.
Ships full of people, pre rag-tag, are left behind unable to keep up
with the faster ones during a Cylon attack. Their captains scream into
the radio for help as the other ships jump away. Thousands are left
to die so that many more may live. Tough decisions that would haunt
anyone's soul are made over and over again.
Best of all the plot is excellent. Yes, I know usually
sci-fi shows are plotless. But this show is really an exception. There's
really a plot here, not some loose collection of stories smushed between
long action sequences as standard operating procedures for almost all
other sci-fi out there.
The overall story mirrors that of the original. Humanity is threatened
with extinction when evil machines, the Cylons, come pouring out of
the deep space destroying everything in their path. The same characters
are present too, sometimes in name alone. There's a Commander Adama
and both Apollo and Starbuck are present. However, that's where the
similarities end. In this new version Adama and his son Apollo are at
odds, not really getting along as fathers and sons sometimes do. And
Starbuck's a girl. (Dirk Bennedict would be rolling over in his grave
if he would only cooperate and die.)
When I heard of the gender changes, Boomer's a girl too,
I was a bit suspicious of the series over-all. Why change the characters?
At first guess I thought it was to bring in the young male viewers with
some female flesh. I was wrong. After seeing the show I suspect that
the reason the characters were changes was to shake up the viewers perceptions
of what the character's motivations are. It's difficult to figure out
what a character's going to do when everything about them is different
when compaired to their counterpart of before.
There is the standard sexy Star Trek "7 of 9" character in the show
with her almost popping out of her costume. The Battlestar version of
7 of 9 is called "Number 6" and is an advanced Cylon in the form of
a woman. She differs from her Star Trek counterpart in that her character's
interesting and well developed. At times she's real "flesh and blood"
and others only visible to Dr. Baltar who inadvertently sold out the
humans to the Cylons. (He did it all for the nookie.) It's funny that
she almost haunts him. Taunting him at every turn only visible to him
and no one else.
There seems to be four types of Cylons in the series.
Ones that look human to the naked eye and all but the most advanced
sensors. Ones that look like the Cylons from the original series. (We
never get to see them in action but they are mentioned as still being
around.) An advanced warrior that looks like a cross between the original
warrior and a "Destroyer Droid" from Star Wars. And the Cylon raider
ships that are themselves Cylons. Unfortunately there's no "Imperious
Leader" in the new series and the Cylon ships don't attack in threes.
But there is "God." "Number 6" refers to "God" as a sort of super-intelligence
in charge of the Cylons.
This time, instead of Cylon attackers swooping down on
the human cities and blasting them with lasers (Richard Hatch was EXCELLENT
in those scenes in the original series) the new Cylons attack cities
with nuclear weapons. Many, many, many nuclear weapons. We see these
weapons detonate on the cities from space, from a distance on the ground,
and from ground zero. All the bases of seeing the devastating effects
of nuclear war are covered.
If there's one thing that the Cylons seem to have in quantity it's high
yield nuclear weapons. If they're not obliterating cities with them
then they're using using them in anti-starship warfare.
In one of the most gut wrenching sequences in the series, we watch a
television broadcast as a reporter, on location in a city's rubble,
talks with an anchorwoman in studio after the first waves of Cylon attacks.
We see a flash of light on the screen and the anchorwoman covers her
face as her side of the screen turns to static. A beat later as the
reporter in the field is knocked aside by the wind and debris from the
same nuclear detonation. Yikes!
The only weak points, and these are few and small between, is the acting
of Edward James Olmos. I can't really see him as a leader. He varies
between being over the top and playing the role campy. "Forget about
me, load the bullets onto the Galactica." "Bullets?!" Is that a military
term used in loading ordinance onto a ship? (Still, I'm really reaching
here for any negative. There are one hundred positives for every negative.
And Olmos isn't HORRIBLE in the role…)
Originally I was suspicious about the series. Not that
I had any qualms about remaking the original series as, lets face it,
it wasn't that good story-wise to anyone older than twelve. I just wondered
why anyone would WANT to remake it. (I don't see producers lined up
to remake "Space: 1999.") I think what the filmmakers did
was the right thing to do. They took the core of what was "Battlestar
Galactica" and reinvented it for a new generation of viewers. In this
case they really hit a home run. A+, four stars, thumbs up, and a must-see.
My only concern over "Battlestar Galactica" is that it will be picked
up by the Sci-Fi Channel and turn into a sort of "planet of the week"
series. You know the kind; "Battlestar Galactica: The Wagon Train
to the Stars." Week after week we stop at various planets along
the way to finding Earth. Just the sort of thing that the original series
did and failed at miserably.
My guess, though, is that the creators of the new series will stick
to their guns and do something original with a series of the week. And
amaze us week after week. 12/04/2003
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