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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 5, 2010 6:01:35 GMT -6
This is a pretty simple one. Which do you like, and why? I watched the original BSG premere in 1976 and even remember that it was inturrupted by a Middle-East peace talk treaty signing in the middle of a scene where Apollo and Starbuck were running across an bridge in the underground casino complex. Luckily, when they resumed the movie they started back up where they left off. I hardly ever missed an episode, and we even ran a Traveller campaign with the "Delta Squadron" (This was a combination of Animal House and BSG where our characters were partying fighter pilots. Fun.) Thirty or so years later, I remember watching the new BSG. A darker, more gritty form of the story, but a lot more like what I thought a Traveller game should be like. I struggled with the concept of a female Starbuck, hot babe Cylons with feelings, and some of the other changes, but it was interesting. I'll admit that I'm only through season 3 in my viewing, although I own the rest and eventually will plow through the episodes. I've decided that I like both. I can enjoy the new one a lot more if I forget that it's the same thing as the old one, but pretend that it's called "edgy dark scifi" instead of "Battlestar Galactica" and that the fact that the names of the characters are similar is somehow a bizarre coincidence. What say you all?
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Post by chicagowiz on Aug 5, 2010 12:59:37 GMT -6
I found things to like in both series. I approached them as different mythologies with a similar starting point. I had no problem with either as sci-fi reflective of the times they were made.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2010 15:04:39 GMT -6
They are different but I like 'em both. Early one is kind of cheezy, tho....
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Post by Falconer on Aug 6, 2010 11:52:01 GMT -6
I watched the new one and don’t regret it, however, I wouldn’t ever want to go back and watch it again. Why they thought they needed to take you down an emotional angst-ridden alcoholic/suicidal faux-spiritual roller-coaster ride with each and every painfully unlikable character is beyond me. Or how can costumes from 20th-century earth possibly make it more “realistic”? All in all, a bland and drawn-out experience with no payoff.
Whereas I go back and re-watch episodes from BG:TOS a lot. The characters are lovable, relatable. The ladies are gorgeous and the fellas are swell. The ship designs and costumes are great, the underlying mythology amazing. The episodes are sometimes campy, but always memorable. The music is upbeat and inspiring. The cylons are rightfully iconic. All in all, it’s very fun, and emotionally engaging, too.
I do like the fact that there have now been multiple incarnations of BG, because it makes it somehow like a true mythology, where character names are not tied to any one particular actor and the story moves along the same general lines but the details can differ. Just for me personally, the original is the “essence” of the story in a single season, so that’s how I prefer to enjoy it.
But I admit I prefer “the original” in almost every case. William Shatner’s Star Trek, Adam West’s Batman, Sean Connery’s James Bond, Richard Greene’s Robin Hood... They captured the essence of their characters, and I personally enjoy them and move on to something else rather than rehash their stories. But I also enjoy older TV and movies better than new ones in general, too. I like the slower pace and the swell heroes, and I am not wowed by modern effects. So I can understand that there are people for whom “making it relevant for my kids’ generation” is a serious concern.
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Post by Falconer on Aug 6, 2010 12:26:52 GMT -6
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Post by doc on Aug 6, 2010 18:55:42 GMT -6
I don't remember very much about the original BG as I was still very young when it was on, but I know that I watched it every week, so I know I must have liked it. I was even able to enjoy Galactica 80 which many people avoid like the plague (or a copy of The World of Synnibar).
I loved the new version of the show, although there were some huge plot holes and the ending didn't actually bring everything together at all. The characters were great, though. I could easily imagine Kara Thrace as an RPG character, and Tigh remains one of my favorite television characters. He actually reminded me of my first Traveller character; skilled and experienced but far past his prime and bitter about it.
Doc
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 8, 2010 13:28:43 GMT -6
I much prefer the original. I watched a few episodes of the new series, and I didn't like them. That said, I think that even the original Battlestar Galactica really dropped the ball. For me, only the first two stories told ( Saga of a Star World and Lost Planet of the Gods) are canonical. Everything that happens after the death of Serina strikes a wrong note for me, even though I still enjoy these later stories. I also love those ultra-shiny Cylons. Awesome.
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Post by Falconer on Aug 8, 2010 21:26:20 GMT -6
Gun on Ice Planet Zero was filmed before LPotG, except for the Baltar/Lucifer scenes which were added after (as you can see from Baltar’s limp). Serina isn’t present in GoIPZ because she was originally supposed to have died in SoaSW.
I agree that Serina gave the show an emotional core that was really felt when it was missing. LPotG is definitely my favorite. But I wouldn’t give up The Living Legend and War of the Gods. Sheba was an adequate replacement for Serina—not as elegant, perhaps, rather ditsy, but very likable. I also love the villains: the Cylons, the Borellian Nomen and the Eastern Alliance.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 9, 2010 5:39:42 GMT -6
[I wouldn’t give up The Living Legend and War of the Gods. The Living Legend was probably my favorite episode of the original BSG. With only 23 hours or so of the original series, I'd say definitely watch the whole thing at least once. As with any first-season show there are terrific episodes and some real duds, but overall I think it's worth the view. On the other hand, Galactica 1980 is a steaming pile of crap. There are also a series of novels for the old series -- mostly simple adaptations of episodes but also a few original stories as well. I've never read the Richard Hatch novels, but knowing his passion for the series I'm thinking they may be worth it.
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Post by chicagowiz on Aug 9, 2010 13:33:38 GMT -6
[I wouldn’t give up The Living Legend and War of the Gods. The Living Legend was probably my favorite episode of the original BSG. For me, it would have to be The Hand of God - the series went out on a high note with the interception of the Apollo moon landing. I just thought that was a neat way to "end" it. On an unrelated note, the "Razor" mini-movie/episode of the Reimagined series did feature a brief moment with the Original Episode Cylons aboard an Original Episode ship. My wife was LMAO'ing over my squee'ing and constant rewinding of the DVR - something about that just hit my happy bone...
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Post by Falconer on Aug 9, 2010 13:57:10 GMT -6
Yeah, that was fun in Razor and elsewhere (rarely) in the Reimagined Series whenever they brought back the old Cylons, we got to see the old ship designs and to hear "by your command" or the original theme music. There were a lot of homages in the finale, which was nice. It sounds like they are considering doing a new series about the First Cylon War, which will be neat for those reasons alone. (I haven’t watched Caprica at all, despite my crush for Polly Walker and my hope that there would be some original Cylon goodness. I just wanted less soap drama, not more!)
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Post by Falconer on Aug 9, 2010 14:26:43 GMT -6
BG strikes me as one of the easier space franchises to adapt from the screen to a RPG. I would do it as yet another “reimagining” so that the basic premise remains the same, but the way the story and mythology resolve would be different from how it ended up in both TOS and the RDM series (not to mention comics, novels, G80, and various other proposed TV and movie continuations), which would keep players familiar with either show on their toes. I would make it closer to TOS, though, because it allows for the possibility of way more inhabited planets, alien races, galactic empires, etc. The easiest setup would be to just have all PCs be “Colonial Warriors”, i.e. Viper pilots who handle all the away missions. Since it’s another reimagining, they could even take the names like Apollo and Sheba, and put their own spin on them.
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Post by Malcadon on Aug 11, 2010 9:05:05 GMT -6
I was born the month and year it first came out, and I remember watching it in reruns along with Buck Rogers, Star Lost, and others. I have seen both, and I like the original. The new one takes itself way too seriously, and gets really melodramatic. I like the original one because it played out like a Star Wars adventure, sans the epic lightsaber duels (mostly because the guy who did the special effects also worked on the first SW movie). I also like the style of the whole thing with shinny Cylins, SW-styled spaceships and space battles, the roguish heroes, the female pilots. It was all mindless fun! Later on I seen a post on K&K about how it was going to be a mix of sci-fi and sword & sorcery - with the Frazetta paintings - and that utterly blew my mind!!! It might have looked really stupid even back then, and make it look like an even bigger rip-off of SW, but somehow that make the whole thing even more rad! Imagine Baltar as an evil sorcerer, and Adama as a cleric. I would like to role-play in that setting! ;D
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Post by Falconer on Aug 11, 2010 12:26:46 GMT -6
Commander Adama did exhibit the Jedi-like power to levitate objects in War of the Gods. Actually, this was before The Empire Strikes Back, so actually it was Star Wars that ripped off Battlestar Galactica in that regard! (Also, the Klingons of later Star Trek arguably bore more of a resemblance to Battlestar Galactica’s Borellian Nomen than to the Klingons of Star Trek: The Original Series.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2013 21:17:25 GMT -6
.02
Original BSG was the best for me because it let me use my imagination. Yes Traveller and it's "Mayday..Mayday Free trader Beowulf calling... " let me explore and change what things that I would have like to have seen when I was in my teens.
I didn't mind the religious "mormonism" overtunes and enjoyed what it would be like in the future. I don't know if anyone remembers the T.V. Series "Logan's Run" but I enjoyed that one as well.
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Nov 30, 2013 9:42:59 GMT -6
I dig both of them.
I fondly remember watching the original show on TV and being drawn to the ships and the battles. A friend of mine had some of the toys and we used to mess around with them all of the time. I also remember watching the remake just to see "how bad it sucked" - WRONG! I was blown away right from the start. I was a loyal viewer after skipping the entire first season and borrowing the DVDs.
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Post by tkdco2 on Sept 24, 2015 1:36:03 GMT -6
I like them both but the reboot (along with Firefly) inspired my current science fiction campaign.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Sept 24, 2015 9:39:00 GMT -6
Of course there's a lot more to the new version, but I actually prefer the mechanical designs in the original (including the "toasters"). I also wonder how well the new one will age, as the show was playing up to a lot of the political events of the day.
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Post by jcstephens on Sept 24, 2015 12:36:41 GMT -6
I recall one of the people involved in the new BSG claiming in an interview that fans of the old show shouldn't watch the new one, because they wouldn't like it. I took him at his word and haven't seen a single episode. I WILL NOT be talked down to by entertainers, and I do have other things to do besides watch television.
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Post by talysman on Sept 24, 2015 17:16:50 GMT -6
Don't think I ever caught the original. I mean, the original of this thread, of course. Glad to catch the re-imagining!
I saw BSG when it was first run, as well as Galactica 1980, and saw most of the reboot (didn't see the last season.) Only saw the first half of the Caprica series. I'd say I like the reboot better than the original, despite a couple annoying choices they made in the reboot. I liked both better than Galactica 1980, and Caprica the least. G1980 was kind of ridiculous, but entertaining enough and it didn't take itself seriously. Caprica was pretentious and kind of felt like every other episode was filler, intended to stretch out the material they had to fill available time.
I don't think the original Galactica ages well, because of all the '70s New Age stuff it included. The extreme episodic nature of '70s TV is another significant factor that lowers its rewatch value. The first couple episodes and a few of the later episodes are pretty much all that holds up. In contrast, the reboot has a solid first season, pretty good second season, but then you have to drop some poorer episodes in later seasons, like the boxing episode.
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Post by tkdco2 on Sept 24, 2015 18:10:07 GMT -6
The new BSG and Firefly: How I learned to love slugthrowers in space.
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Post by aldarron on Sept 24, 2015 19:50:15 GMT -6
I think its a great story and love both versions. One thing that irks me to no end about the new show is that they got the card game Pyramid confused with the ball game Triad. Grrr.
Anyway, I always thought Universal Studios was anticipating a link up between Buck Rodgers and BG, because in the second season of BR, Buck goes on a mission to search for "lost tribes". I always assumed the intent was that the show would eventually lead to him finding the Galactica.
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Post by Malcadon on Sept 24, 2015 23:59:26 GMT -6
One thing that annoyed me to no end about the new BG, is all the use of modern military vehicles and hardware. Yes, I understand the simplicity and utility of modern slug-throwers over some made-up light-show blaster, as well as how "realistic" they are, but it looked like they raided the prop department of Stargate SG1. For example, with guns, they used a heavily modified pistol in much of the series, which I did not mind too much, as it looked different enough to be of a different culture, but not so much with everything else. Guns like the FN P90, Heckler & Koch MP5/UMP and Beretta CX4 Storm look fancy and futuristic, but I also see them all over the place — movies, TV shows, anime, cyberpunk RPGs, video games, gun stores, etc. They even made use of a lot of Humvees. What is the point of getting immersed a detailed science fiction setting that is far off from modern Earth, when nearly everything looks like an Iraq War Era army surplus catalog? I like my sci-fi to pull me form this mundane world; not to rub my nose in it!
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Post by tkdco2 on Sept 25, 2015 1:19:21 GMT -6
That's a complaint I've heard from folks both online and in real life. The lack of the standard SF aesthetics, barring space travel, rubbed some folks the wrong way. I actually liked it, on the other hand.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Jan 20, 2016 3:26:27 GMT -6
The original is my favorite. It had a rollicking fun tone with just enough gravitas to make it work. The costuming and set designs were perfect. The physical models were awesome. However, on DVD today the matte lines are glaringly obvious as were the stands on which the Battlestar rested in those shots. The reimagined show had better writing and more emotional resonance consequently, but the costuming and sets were far from convincing -- or impressive. I also did not like the character of Baltar in the latter series.
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Post by ritt on Jan 20, 2016 21:59:19 GMT -6
...we even ran a Traveller campaign with the "Delta Squadron" (This was a combination of Animal House and BSG where our characters were partying fighter pilots. Fun.) Now that idea is just awesome. For a movie, for a game, for anything. The two Battlestars are radically different shows that are interesting for very different reasons. BSG 1 was unique for it's really odd vibe of "What if Star Wars was inspired more by old Bible movies than Westerns & Samurai flicks". BSG 2 was an uneven but sometimes brilliant show for adults that used science-fiction to tell serious stories about terrorism and genocide. I think I'm the only person on Earth who liked Caprica, the short-lived prequel spin-off to BSG 2. A religious cyberpunk gangster soap opera with some great low-budget world-building. As for the whole "The BSG 2 tech was too much like Modern Earth's" controversy... anybody can spend millions of dollars and slather the screen in CGI. Building a new world out of crap that's just laying around is more impressive to me. See also Space: Above and Beyond.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jan 20, 2016 22:03:16 GMT -6
I liked both but voted for the original since I grew up with it. I was at a boarding school that didn't allow TVs in our rooms. I was able to somehow listen to the premiere on my radio. I have no idea how I figured out how to do that now.
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Post by tkdco2 on Jan 24, 2016 3:22:09 GMT -6
I missed much of the first season, but I watched the new BSG regularly after that. I didn't think I'd like it, but it turned out to be a lot better than I expected.
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Post by Maximus on Jan 27, 2016 14:34:46 GMT -6
I think I was in 7th grade when the original series came out. Loved it! When I heard they were doing a reboot, and major character like Starbuck would be different I was skeptical. I ended up giving it a try and liked it. It was obviously different than the original, but still good in its own way. I will say that you can't beat Anne Lockhart as Sheba...
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randyb
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Post by randyb on Jan 27, 2016 17:39:53 GMT -6
I think I was in 7th grade when the original series came out. Loved it! When I heard they were doing a reboot, and major character like Starbuck would be different I was skeptical. I ended up giving it a try and liked it. It was obviously different than the original, but still good in its own way. I will say that you can't beat Anne Lockhart as Sheba... Two words too many at the end of your post.
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