Battlestar Galactica



I remember watching Battlestar Galactica as a kid. Even then I knew it was a pale rip-off of Star Wars, with hammy acting and way too much stock footage. Seriously, that show had about seven good special effects shots, and each of them showed up twice per episode.

So I wasn't expecting much from SciFi's new mini-series. Boy, was I surprised. The new Battlestar Galacticais remarkably similar to the old show, but with more intelligence and a much darker tone. So dark in fact, that you could call it downright depressing. But that's not inappropriate for a series that's supposed to be about the end of the human race. The old series used to get unbearably maudlin if a couple of orphans were having a bad day. In the new series characters are constantly being forced to make decisions where the best possible result is that hundreds of people die so thousands can live.

The plot is nearly identical to the old show. After forty years of peace, the Galactica is being decommissioned. But on the day of the ceremony the Cylons attack all 12 human colonies, wiping out nearly all of humanity in hours. The Galactica is the only ship left to fight back, and ends up as the head of convoy of hundreds of civilian ships looking for refuge. Just like the original series there is conflict between the military and civilian government, and two hotshot pilots named Starbuck and Apollo.

A lot of press was given to the fact that Starbuck is a woman in the new version. The other big change is that other than their spaceships, the Cylons only appear as androids indistinguishable from humans, adding a touch of paranoia to the proceedings. Apparently there wasn't enough of a special effects budget to do much with the actual kick-ass robot Cylons, who appear only briefly at the beginning and ending of the miniseries, but the writers make the most of the human-cylons, coming up with three nice plot twists.

Perhaps my only concern with the series is that so much is happening in the big picture that Starbuck and Apollo and the other pilots get shortchanged. Sure, they fly around a lot and blow up Cylon ships, but I didn't get much sense it would make much of a difference to the war if they lived or died.

That's a petty complaint, though, considering how much I enjoyed the series. Good writing can even make an old Star Wars rip-off look good.

Posted: Sun - December 14, 2003 at      

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