It looks like Battlestar Galactica is rebooted for a third time.
Universal is ramping up a movie version of the sci-fi franchise "Battlestar Galactica" aiming to develop the film as a complete reimagining of the story.
"Transcendence" writer Jack Paglen has signed on to write the screenplay. Paglen has also committed to Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" sequel for Fox that will start production this fall.
Original series creator Glen Larson will produce the "Battlestar Galactica" film.
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Asking Permission: Running piWik To Get An Idea About Our Usage 83 comments
So, right now, I'm currently sitting with mrcoolbp and martyb in meatspace working out the finer points of incorporation, and the future needs of SoylentNews. One thing that has come up is we really don't have a great idea of our actual usage numbers are. Slashcode has decent internal numbers which give us some rough numbers, but they're only really valid for logged-in users (which bypass the varnish cache), and we're not 100% sure they're accurate anyway. According to slash, we're averaging approximately 50-60k page views per day (I've included the statistics email below), but it doesn't help us in knowing what AC usage look like. According to varnish, we average roughly 400-500k connections per day, but that number is inflated since we're not using keep-alive or HTTP pipelining as of yet.
Furthermore, since we don't log IP addresses in access.log, and IP's run through Slash are turned into IPIDs, its hard to get an idea of where our userbase is (the general feeling is the vast majority of us are based in the United States, but even then, that's more because our peak hours of traffic are between 4 and 10 PM EST). We've wanted to get a better idea of what our traffic and userbase are, so we're asking permission from the community to install piWik, and embed its javascript tag in the footer of each page, which will give us a wide berth of solid information to work from.
Furthermore, since we don't log IP addresses in access.log, and IP's run through Slash are turned into IPIDs, its hard to get an idea of where our userbase is (the general feeling is the vast majority of us are based in the United States, but even then, that's more because our peak hours of traffic are between 4 and 10 PM EST). We've wanted to get a better idea of what our traffic and userbase are, so we're asking permission from the community to install piWik, and embed its javascript tag in the footer of each page, which will give us a wide berth of solid information to work from.
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(Score: 1) by MostCynical on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:36AM
Will we get dark, deep, and moody, like the most recent television version?
Will we get high camp, like the original?
Or will it just be indistinguishable from the "everything goes bang, explodes, then explodes again" Michael Bay/Transformers movies?
(By the time this movie is made Spiderman will have been 'rebooted' for the nth time, Batman for the (n-1)th..)
And yet.. we will go and see it..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by zocalo on Wednesday June 04 2014, @08:04AM
You know, putting the styles of Moore and Bay together might just work: "All this has exploded before... and it will explode again!" - dark, moody and plenty of popcorn. It might not be particularly deep, but it'll almost certainly make a pile of cash, and that's all that Hollywood really cares about.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 04 2014, @08:59AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Wednesday June 04 2014, @10:45AM
The original Duck Dodgers [wikipedia.org] had its moments.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 04 2014, @12:38PM
The problem with sci fi fans following a franchise is not keeping it in perspective WRT greater hollywood trends.
In the late 60s / 70s all hollywood writers smoked weed when they wrote. All of them. All the time. For fun I've recently watched some "classic" ancient TV that reminds me of what was on reruns when I was a kid, and I swear across the board from drama to cop show to sitcom to kids shows everyone involved was baked, didn't notice that as a kid but its obvious "post-teen years"
So yeah, BSG was campy and that because every TV show of the era had both the writers and actors baked out of their minds. Not specifically a BSG thing or even a sci fi thing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by RaffArundel on Wednesday June 04 2014, @01:53PM
I'm pretty sure it wasn't high camp (or intentionally so) but I recall it being pretty poorly written from day one. Even as a kid, I recognized that Shane rip-off and the Cylons (especially when lead by Baltar) seemed particularly not a threat. It was back in the day when characters didn't develop in TV series, but I seem to recall they were particularly inconsistent, changing at the will of the plot.
Don't mistake me, I was glued to the TV when it was on. It was fun. BSG 1980 was horrific and would have been 100% better if it wasn't tied to BSG, but one of those Saturday afternoon live shows after the cartoons.
(Score: 1) by Reziac on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:31AM
I saw it first run... and frankly the premiere stuck in my mind for a long time as the worst thing I'd ever seen (in about every way possible), and I say that as one with some tolerance for bad SF on television, because I'm just not interested in anything else on TV and have to make do with whatever there is. Subsequent episodes rarely did much to dispel that initial impression. I don't remember it as camp, rather as strained and stiff, which by today's standards probably does come off as camp.
I have not seen the reboot, since I live in a cave and haven't had TV in years.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bd on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:45AM
Maybe this time, they take a page off Babylon 5's book and actually have a coherent plot _before_ they start filming? Would be a nice change for the better.
I really hated it when, in the rebooted television series, they actually admitted in an interview that they had just added ominous references to make the series mysterious, while in reality they had _no_ idea what it was supposed to mean. So everything was full of inconsistencies and stuff that makes no sense.
Oh, I also hate Lost, so there's that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by quadrox on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:50AM
This, a thousand times this. There are just too many shows that have gone down the drain because the writers didn't have a clear plot in mind and just kept adding crap to make things "interesting". For a long time I didn't even bother with new shows anymore, as I got tired of all this crap.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday June 04 2014, @10:04AM
Lately it's hot been to make things interesting, but rather to extend a show that's getting successful for another season or two (Lost).
My big complaint with the latest BSG was that by about half-way through, *all* the characters were so unlike-able that I really only kept watching in the hopes that at least one of them would be killed off each episode. I really didn't even care which.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:34PM
I had a Darth Vader moment when they airlocked Cally about 4 episodes from the end. Welp, there went the last character who wasn't wallowing in moral grey areas (that I can remember). Nice how they did it in the most sadistic way possible, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by SrLnclt on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:57AM
Glad I am not the only one that ignores all new shows. Most the shows I have started watching the last 6 or 8 years either have the hype of Lost and Game of Thrones, or the longevity of NCIS or How I Met Your Mother before I consider watching them. Also aids in my preferred watching method - commercial free binge watching.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:32PM
Despite how poor some of the dialogue in Babylon 5 was*, even the die-hard Trekkers I knew at the time grudgingly admitted that the pre-decided story arc gave a huge amount of extra depth to the show that DS:9 just couldn't match no matter how hard it tried in it's later series. It seems now that rather than follow this best practice example, the writers guild has sat all it's people down and said "Fake this, the ratings love it!". I'd love to ask Joss Whedon for his take on this kind of writing and find out whether it's something he does to any degree - the final episode of Dollhouse was just mind-blowing. (Shut up, Sheldon)
*Disclaimer: Loved the whole thing, watched it to death, but it did have more than it's fair share of those bad lines of dialogue that would have my sister and I chewing the furniture. I'm amazed Bruce Boxleitner could drag himself on to set that day knowing he'd have to say "Get the hell outta our galaxy!" and really sell it.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:35PM
Also loved B5, and I have to agree some of the dialog and acting was truly cringe-worthy (some of Ivanova's lines, Lyta's rant about suing somebody, etc). JMS could write epic A-stories, and great speeches to support them (G'Kar's "Though it take a thousands years, we will be free" was tragic and chilling), but he wasn't that good at writing filler B-plots or humour for B5.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:24PM
I was just glad to see Bruce stop incessantly smiling ALLLLL the time...
It made me want to puke.
Finally, he settled in and got, i dunno, sterner, more threatening... then, he started working for me.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:47PM
They don't have a choice, they have to do it that way. They can't have a clear plot in mind, it's just plain impossible. You can't make a TV show that way for the major networks.
The problem is the nature of TV programming and how it's contracted. When some guy goes to some network like Fox or ABC and pitches a show, he's not going to get them to sign up for a 5-season TV show, even though he's come up with a whole plot line that will span that many episodes in a clear and coherent fashion. The networks won't sign up for that; what if the show isn't popular enough and they want to cancel it early? So they only do one season at a time. If the ratings are poor, they might even cancel it early (like happened to Firefly). If the ratings are great, they'll contract for a second season. To avoid pissed-off viewers (Firefly), the writers will make it so the show could go either way: they can end it early and wrap it up, or they can continue on to a new season. But they can't put in a clear end point either, because the network might want to keep extending it if the ratings are good, so you get what happened with BSG: it stretches on way too long and jumps the shark.
Even Game of Thrones isn't immune to this; the writer hasn't even finished the books! It seems like a clear plot line so far, but it could end at any time, with no resolution, if HBO decides to not renew it. This won't happen for two more seasons, I believe, as I think I read they recently signed up for two more seasons of production. After that, there's no telling what will happen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:06PM
As far as I can see, Game Of Thrones is just another soap opera, but with a bit more sex and violence than most of them. Soap operas don't have endings, until they're cancelled.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:31PM
It also has much better writing, acting, scenery, sets, and costumes than any of them, plus dragons and swordfights. It also shows human nature well: that humans are basically self-serving and cruel and usually evil.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RobotLove on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:53PM
Humans are nothing of the kind. In general they want to live their lives in peace, watching their children grow up in safety. Sometimes they self-serving and cruel and evil, but those are outliers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:07PM
The cruel and evil ones become the leaders, and the "peaceful" people back them and willingly go to war for them, so they represent all humans.
(Score: 1) by deroby on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:37AM
Apparently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defying_Gravity_(TV_series) [wikipedia.org] had a rather large plot worked out upfront (several seasons if I recall), but they got shot down after 1 season too... Too bad, I really liked it myself.
And yes, you could say it's full of 'wrongs' (the zero-lag communication to earth; lack of lack of gravity; etc ... ). It sure as hell wasn't "hard-scifi" and the storytelling was 'weird' too ... but IMHO, "different" != "bad". I saw it on DVD and it cost me quite some sleep as I HAD to see the next episode too... I can imagine that it is different with ad-breaks every 15 minutes; but still ...
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:53AM
(Score: 2, Funny) by lil'wombat on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:26AM
Yes the Cylons had a plan, unfortunately it was just as stupid as the writers plan. Ron Moore is dead to me.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday June 04 2014, @08:30AM
Another 'me too' post. The depressing thing is, creating something the show bible from Babylon 5 isn't that much work when compared to writing a season of 22 episodes. For B5, it was a single folder. Admittedly quite a full one, but it's basically a timeline of critical events, character biographies and so on. Most of it is material that you need anyway if you want to avoid inconsistency.
Lost and the rebooted BSG did the same thing, just add lots of random foreshadowing and then retroactively try to work out what it meant. It was annoying, not just because of the inconsistencies later, but because there was no coherent subtext early on. It also dramatically detracts from the re-watch value. The first time you watch Season 1 of BSG, there's loads of stuff where you think 'hmm, I wonder what that means' and then when you watch it again after seeing the rest you think 'Hang on, that can't be right because...' In B5, there's loads of stuff in the early seasons where you wonder what it means the first time you watch it, and if you rewatch it you know. Apparently the people writing episodes would be told to insert little set pieces, without knowing the significance. Later episodes would then reference them. Almost all of the foreshadowing worked, and as a result you can spot the bits where an actor left and they had to rejig the story, because there are dangling references left to that character.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:20AM
Heck - 1 page of bullet points planning the big events of each season and how it was all supposed to end would be an improvement over the usual "make it up as we go along" approach. B5 was impressive, but it was clearly struggling heroically to hold the plot together against actors coming and going by the end (and lets just pretend there wasn't a season 5).
The real problem is that 22-episode seasons and 5-7 year runs are just too long for telling extended stories. I see that Game of Thrones is sensibly sticking with relatively short (for the US) seasons- and they have half a dozen weighty tomes of pre-written material (plus who knows how much unpublished material from GRRM) to work on. (I really, really hope that GRRM knows how its going to end).
(Score: 2, Funny) by pert.boioioing on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:47AM
"In B5, there's loads of stuff in the early seasons where you wonder what it means the first time you watch it, and if you rewatch it you know."
Hmm, Zathras not so sure. Zathras would have to disagree. Zathras was there so he would know. No, not that "Zathras", the other Zathras.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday June 04 2014, @12:14PM
I didn't really mind the endings of either BSG or Lost. Maybe it's because I don't get invested in TV shows anymore, I just accept it as ephemeral entertainment with occasional flashes of insight.
Anytime someone complains about the ending of a long-running TV series, I am reminded of this quote:
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:03PM
Doing hard stuff is what writers are paid for. Throwing characters into a difficult situation is trivial; getting them out without The Doctor pressing The Magic Reset Button Of The Week is what makes a good story.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:11PM
I'm not a fan of deus ex machina either, but I think that's really rare nowadays.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:26PM
You don't watch Doctor Who much, do you?
Well, OK, I haven't watched it for a few years either, because I got tired of the Magic Reset Button Of The Week.
'Doctor! Look! Daleks! Cybermen! Billions of them.'
'Don't worry. I have the Magic Reset Button'
THE DOCTOR pressed the button. The Daleks and Cybermen vanish.
'Doctor! You're so amazing!'
'I know'
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:02PM
Nope, never watched it. I did like torchwood.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:01AM
Good God: seems less stable than even WinME!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by forsythe on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:48AM
And it happened without a network connection, too!
(Or does Universal call themselves a network? Bah, the pun must be made.)
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:56AM
my toaster just rebooted for no reason. Hmmm. Help!!!1!!!!11!!
(Score: 1) by Anonoob on Wednesday June 04 2014, @10:29AM
I had a parking machine reboot on me the other day - cannot remember any of the 6-7 msgs - was interesting nonetheless. Gave my dollar back to (something about purging).
(Score: 1) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday June 04 2014, @12:00PM
My credit card* once made a petrol (gasolene) station's POS** reboot - had to wait around and then pay cash.
* Brand new magic credit card supposed to work all over the world, except that it didn't.
** Point of Sale, but at the time I was using other words.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 04 2014, @08:16AM
This time around Starbuck is a transsexual. At least that would have a story line behind it. *cough*.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 04 2014, @08:54AM
Always did. Starbuck, before it was an overpriced coffee shop, was the First Mate on the Peaquod, out of Nantucket. You know, "from the depths of hell I stab at thee"? Yes, Herman Melville, "Moby Dick". Now the whole Galactica story ark makes much more sense, no?
(Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:22PM
A "Stardoe" complaint? (that's what the original Starbuck called the latest one).
I thought it odd that Starbuck was female at first, then I thought she really made that character come alive. Better than the original, IMO.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 04 2014, @07:53PM
Perhaps, she is after all, a better actress.
But for the second series to just swap her for him with no explanation other than sex appeal (and political correctness) was lame.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Funny) by theluggage on Wednesday June 04 2014, @09:24AM
All this has happened before... and it will happen again.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:23AM
WHat is a Battlestar? I never quite got that other then it sounded cool. Battleship Galactica made sense, but do stars battle? Is there a Peacestar? A Diplomatestar? When put that way it sounds dymb, yet we all go battlestar like it explains everything. Starship Galactica, Hypership Galactica...but not Battlestar...
Side note, wish they would reboot SGU. That was also a great series cut before its prime.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by MozeeToby on Wednesday June 04 2014, @01:24PM
If I were a sci-fi writer, I'd say it's because in real life wartime space ships would never be closer than half a million from each other: i.e. at most they'd look like a not particularly bright star in the sky (at least until they turned their weapons in your direction).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:42PM
Half a million what? Light years? Parsecs? Astronomical Units? Nautical miles?
(Score: 2, Funny) by khedoros on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:06PM
Half a million narratively-convenient units. In this case, it's defined as 1/500,000th of the distance at which a spaceship looks like a not particularly bright star in the sky.
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:18PM
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2, Informative) by bootsy on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:52PM
The original name was meant to be Adam's Ark or Adama's Ark but after the successful of Star Wars Glen Larson was told to be the word star in the name. The source for this is the DVD Box set of the original series where there is an interview with Glen.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:58PM
It sounds much cooler than "battleship", which just sounds like something out of WWII.
Also, it could be shorthand for "battle starship". It's a very large capital ship which can travel between star systems, making it a "starship", rather than a "spaceship" (which could just be some small ship that transports people between planets in a star system).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by forkazoo on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:11PM
A - It does sound really cool. B - If you want a 'plausible' in universe answer, remember that "Dreadnaughts" are all named after a particular ship that was named "HMS Dreadnaught." These days any giant superbattleship can get the name, even though at one point it was just a single specific ship. So, in universe it is possible that there happened to be an impressive warship of some advanced configuration named "Battlestar." It essentially created a new classification of ship, and that class got named after the first ship of the type. If the second ship of the type was the Peacedaisy, then by the time of the show we would have been watching the Peacedaisy Galactica fly around the galaxy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:46AM
Are you kidding!
Prometheus sucked so bad, it should be illegal to make another one.
But then again, we should view these movies as 'B' rated.
We need more scenes with people getting their bellies laser-ed open, stapled and then having them run around jumping of cliffs and dodging falling cows.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:47PM
Ridley Scott's run out of ideas and now gets to keep milking 'Alien' until he dies.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:02PM
Everyone's run out of ideas. There haven't been any really, really good sci-fi movies in ages, not like the classics Alien, Aliens, ESB, etc.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:25PM
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:37PM
Moon was good, but a big-budget blockbuster it was not. Contrast it to Alien, Aliens, Terminator, The Abyss, any Star Trek movie (even the lousy ones), etc. It just isn't very expensive to make a movie with a single actor talking to himself, with only a couple of rooms for a set and a talking box. A movie with a sizable cast, a big-ass spaceship, giant alien monsters, giant mechanical walking suits, an android, scenes on a dreary planet, a gigantic artificial habitat with many rooms and corridors, a big military car driving around inside that building, lots of machine guns, robotic machine guns even (cut scene), flamethrowers, flying landing craft, alien babies bursting out of peoples' chests, etc. add up to a big, big budget.
(Score: 1) by deroby on Thursday June 05 2014, @12:01PM
I might catch quite a bit of flack for this because it seems you're either very much in favour of this movie or you're plain against it, but in my opinion Oblivion was pretty good.
Not knowing a single thing about the movie I liked how I got into this premise of how Jack is one of the last people on earth "cleaning up the mess" after defeating the aliens and how it gradually crumbles down to the realisation he's suckered into playing the bad guy's puppet.
Sure it's not all perfectly consistent and some things are just too coincidental; but all in all I think the story was well brought, the visuals were STUNNING and the music was a perfect match! (**)
(**: although for some reason I think it had much more of a JM-Jarre 'feel' to it while watching the movie itself than when listening to the soundtrack, weird.)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 05 2014, @02:36PM
I haven't seen it; I just can't get too excited about seeing anything with Tom Cruise in it: because of his wacky Xenu antics, I just can't take him very seriously. I really don't understand why these directors keep putting him in blockbuster movies after he's trashed his reputation so much. When I watch a movie, I don't want to see an actor who's done so many crazy things publicly that all I can think about is that, rather than being able to maintain my suspension of disbelief and see them as the character they're playing. I can't see Tom as his character, I can only see him as Tom bowing before a giant picture of L. Ron Hubbard. And with Scientology's association with bad sci-fi (Hubbard's books, Battlefield: Earth), I can't help but think that any other sci-fi film that Tom stars in will be similarly tainted by Scientology craziness.
(Score: 1) by deroby on Thursday June 05 2014, @09:44PM
Which is understandable, but also a pity. I'm trying not to judge him as a person but yeah, he's clearly a wacko in many respects. Luckily for me, once a movie starts I seem to have a very 'accepting' brain that simply immerses in the story and forgets about the links to reality there may be (**). That doesn't always (fully) work, technical things like nauseating camera-work or 3D will break the spell, as will bad acting or a really sloppy story do. But in all honesty, whatever goes on in his head, Tom Cruise does seem to know his trade and bring believable... I'd almost say "relatable" characters to the screen.
**: consequently I also hate watching documentaries about the movies, or "making off" extras etc... To me it's like reading a great book (I strongly recommend "The Name Of The Wind") and then have the author come over to tell you how all the stuff you just enjoyed is all nonsense and doesn't even make sense so they had to swap pages 45 and 96 around etc..aarrgggg ... the horror =)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:47PM
Why did Prometheus supposedly suck so bad? And do you hate Resurrection more, or less?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:51PM
Okay, yes, the running around following the c-section scene was ridiculous, but the scene itself was dramatically effective.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04 2014, @11:50AM
I can understand the appeal of trying to milk "Battlestar Galactica" when it looks like with Star Wars VII there will be an sf movie push, but BG is such a marginal property that success seems unlikely. The original BG movie/TV show has little nostalgic appeal (not anything like Star Wars!) and too small of a cult following to really get much momentum behind it as a cultural thing.
I remember seeing the TV show when I was growing up - it seemed like there were only 3 episodes, because I saw the same ones over and over and over and over and over, which cured me of ever wanting to see BG again. The thing about Star Wars is that, until very recently, people my age saw it once or twice and had a sudden, sharp, profound impression that lasted a lifetime. You didn't have a Star Wars TV program on a UHF channel.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday June 04 2014, @02:36PM
Not much more to say.. it's too soon for a reboot. At this point the actors from the last one still look like their characters and people who were BSG fans for the last reboot will be looking for a continuation of the story, not a retelling. They should go away and come back in 15-20 years.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @03:58PM
Maybe they could, you know, try making a good show this time.
Or they could do a reboot of 'Galactica 1980' with the new cast. That would at least be funny.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:06PM
I have a better idea: how about they come up with a totally unique idea for a story, instead of continuing to milk franchises from the 70s and 80s?
Joss Whedon didn't have much trouble coming up with something new and unique when he created Firefly, and didn't have to do a remake of something decades old. But of course that was short-lived because media executives are morons. So all we get is endless sequels, remakes, and reboots these days. I guess this is just another sign of the decline and collapse of American civilization and culture; instead of creating new things like we used to, all we do is mine the past greats.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 04 2014, @04:43PM
Somebody should find a series about producing TV to reboot. Then they can drop constant references to how much rebooting is taking place in-continuity.
Sup dawg, I heard you like reboots, so I put rebooting in your reboot so you can reboot while you reboot while you reboot while you reboot while you...
Come to think of it, isn't the whole term flawed? If I reboot my computer, I don't want it to come back up somewhat similar but all fucked around in the interface.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by forkazoo on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:16PM
You are right. Somebody should reboot "Action." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206467/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_48 [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:15PM
that was short-lived because disgustingly rich media executives are morons ftfy
Consider which is worse, these morons are rolling in hot tubs of money or we continue to hand our money to them by watching the tripe they produce.
I stopped watching MS TV a while ago, but for a few exceptions, some of them are slipping away as well. I'm close to being a cord cutter, choosing to watch past series that had actual meat in the acting and writing then most of the sugar candy spoon fed to us today. I'm about to finish up the whole Stargate series, halfway through season 2 of SGU and it makes me both sad and mad that this series got killed the way it did. At least BSG (II) was able to come to some conclusion. Between books and an active life I am thankful to be mainly free from those sickeningly rich morons.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:36PM
Consider which is worse, these morons are rolling in hot tubs of money or we continue to hand our money to them by watching the tripe they produce.
"We"? Speak for yourself. My TV-watching time is dedicated to Netflix and Game of Thrones. I don't spend any money on cable subscriptions and I'm not a Nielsen family.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:31PM
My apologies. I was using the more formal definition which was potentially too generic and encompassing. Perhaps "...we^H^Hthose mindless sheeples or brainless syncophants...their", but that did seem harsh; so I stuck with we
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:39PM
Yes, unfortunately, the American public collectively does continue to enrich these companies and their executives. The tide is turning, however, with more and more cord-cutters every year.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:23PM
"Joss Whedon didn't have much trouble coming up with something new and unique when he created Firefly"
Firefly is, rather obviously, a post-Civil War Western with a spaceship instead of a cart.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 04 2014, @05:34PM
No, Firefly was a rather brilliant TV show, because it ties the Western and Sci-fi genres together, and doing so was actually quite sensible. Space is a frontier, just like the frontier days of American history, where there was vast, unexplored land. In the hypothetical solar system in Firefly (with hundreds of planets and moons that were terraformed; yes, it's a bit of a stretch), it makes perfect sense that many of those worlds would be quite lawless, and would resemble the Old West in many ways.
(Score: 2) by emg on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:02PM
Uh, no. There's nothing really 'SF' about Firefly; replace the spaceship with a cart, and you'd still have the same show.
Serenity actually incorporated some SF elements, but the TV show? I don't remember any at all.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday June 18 2014, @05:58PM
I think there might be more to the reboot fad than just a lack of imagination.
Whether they want to admit it or not I think a lot of people LIKE reboots. It gives the story the feel of an older myth rather than just a new one-off tale. It also may appeal to people who like the original and were not ready for it to end when it did. And.. we all just keep getting older. For many (too many) people TV shows are a real part of their lives. Reboots of the shows they watched when they were younger make them feel or at least remember feeling younger. Yeah, that last one is sad. But true!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 18 2014, @06:10PM
Yes, of course all of this is likely true, however it doesn't explain the fact that 20-40 years ago, there apparently wasn't that much of a problem in actually coming up with new ideas and making movies from them. You don't think older people back then wouldn't have liked remakes of their favorite TV shows from the 50s? So why is Hollywood catering to old people all of a sudden?
(Score: 1) by ngc3242 on Wednesday June 04 2014, @06:27PM
Ugh. I'm tired of reboots, but it seems like Hollywood executives are too risk adverse or just not imaginative enough to green light something new. So all we can look forward to is same stories rehashed over and over.