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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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Q: What do you have when you have a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand?
A: Not enough sand.
(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 ...