Battlestar galactica original series

Just to be clear:

You favor the series with Lorne Greene as Adama over the new series with Olmos as Adama??

Glen Larson had some fantastic tv shows back in the day, but his BSG PALES in comparison to Ronald D Moore's version. I SAW the original BSG as a kid. I also saw syndicated shows of the original Trek---not technically appealing but the story line and character development were always strong. Moore stays true to the vision of Rodenberry whereas Larson chooses to eschew social commentary in favor of flash sci fi effects of the time thereby creating something distinctly vapid.  The cast of the original version also lacks pathos, ethos, gravitas etc to make it anything more than a passing fancy. See Rome/HBO v Spartacus/Showtime.....IMHO.

Perhaps I have misunderstood. I always thought the original BSG was drivel-after Moore's version came out. I KNEW it was. Please clarify.

The question was why BSG was good, but BSG 1980 was crap. The second "old" series, not the Moore one.

I contend that the premise was horrible.

I mean... this line right here (from the wiki): "After an initial, epic time travel adventure to Nazi Germany in the 1940s (to stop rebel Galactican Commander Xavier, trying to change the future to improve Earth's technology level), the three friends devise ways to help Earth's scientists and outwit the Cylons in the present day."

Yeah...

Most shows have a rocky time surviving the cheesy "Nazi spacemen" shtick (see the various moments in Star Trek), and this show opened with it. Yikes.

Kaisoku got it.

with regard to the disastrous 1980 series, apparently they wanted to continue the show from where it left of but certain actors were not available so they went bonkers with the storyline instead!

On a side note, Olmos is a genius as Adama, and pretty much every aspect of the new series is beyond outstanding! It is just that one aspect of the main plot that made the whole thing crash and burn for me. That aspect being the idea to turn the humans into mice and the Cylons into cats that play with the said mice and could kill them at any time if it so desired but are too busy playing mind games with each other and the mice! I mean who want's to watch that shit really? Not me!!!

Do you contend that the original Trek over used the Nazi theme? Idk. Your point is not clear to me; at the same time, I would assert that Trek presented many different social issues throughout  history. Roman/American Imperialism, Racial tension, Environmental Issues etc. The Nazis angle only reflects one facet of that brilliant series. "Nazi Spaceman," imo..could easily be substituted as Machiavellian A-hole. Slap whatever oppressed ethnic label you will--it usually boiled down to strong v. the weak. It seems to me that the Nazis were able to capitalize on the fear of the masses to motivate the public---not that anything like that is happening or ever has happened  in the US;)

Isn't that what the Romans/barbarians experienced/? I don't think that it is a diminishing of humanity as much as it is a caveat on the consequences of arrogance v. "mother nature."

The US interceded in Vietnam where the French were humiliated.They fared no better.  M-5--Daystrom's creation in the original Trek turned on his creator---Terminator? Shelly's Frankenstein? Are you suggesting that humans posses a level of intelligence that excludes them form being duped or exploited?

Humans are their own worst enemy. That we have "Reality TV" at all suggests that we are prime to play the mice role.

As far as who wants to watch, I found it an intriguing foray into existential  not usually associated in pop culture....just saying, i could be wrong.

The significant thing about being the mouse, is that none of your actions, none of your brave acts of courage and heroism, none of your cunning plans or anything you do matters. I'm sitting here watching the people on the Battlestar Galacta doing all these things, but it is all made meaningless because the Cylons are a million steps ahead of them and dancing the hoochie coochie while making a total mockery of the humans pointless efforts.

I don't know if you have ever seen the series Dark Skies? I was spewing towards the end of that series after thoroughly enjoying it for so long! Because they turned around towards the end and turned all of the main characters adventures in the entire series into complete and utter pointlessness. I don't like that!

Edit: oh yea, and the humans victories are bottle fed to them by their overlords

I believe the only thing he was saying was that it was his preference that he didn't find watching that enjoyable. Not that it wasn't realistic, or bound in historical premise.

The show was good, but it did have an overrall theme and flavour that some people might just not like. I don't think this is something that can be argued (as it's his opinion if he likes it). It's like arguing that vanilla is better than chocolate (or whatever).

Re Larson's original BSG (not 1980), the project wasn't entirely without some efforts at the kind of SF social thinking that made the original Trek so good for so many viewers. True, there was crass reaching for the family audience with that horrible robot dog and the annoying little boy. But there were little background touches like the polytheism that Moore paid much more attention to and the legitimate work role for the 'socialators' (geisha). They also tried to work the female combat pilot thing, albeit they were light-millennia behind Moore's version of Starbuck.

I tried watching the 1980 show when it was broadcast, but it just seemed like someone had hired a bunch of folks who were running CHiPs and forced them to pretend they could do sci-fi. The acting and dialog were so awful that I hardly had a chance to loathe the crappy plot lines before I gave up on it. In retrospect, the thing seems entirely driven by money decisions, including Lorne Greene's retirement fund. Hope the pay packet was worth putting such felgercarb on record for his fans.

"hired a bunch of folks who were running CHiPs and forced them to pretend they could do sci-fi"  Oh i like that analogy of Galactica 1980, spot on!

All was money decisions :

"Because letter writing campaigns in favor of restoring canceled television programs were uncommon in 1979, it prompted ABC to re-think their reasons for canceling the show. After some deliberation, they contacted Glen Larson to see about reviving the series, albeit in some modified and less-expensive format."

"This would allow them to weed out many supporting characters who were now considered superfluous - Colonel Tigh, Athena, Cassiopea, Boxey, etc. - which would bring down production costs."

In 1999, there was a good project for restart the Galactica show, based on the end of the 1978 show and having several of the original actor... a trailer was released... can be see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQNk6VMg9xs ... First episode was already filmed ( 40 minutes, never released )... fan have like very much the trailer but Universal have refuse it since they was already busy with a other project, the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica  from Ronald D Moore...

Thanks for the link Thoumsin.

That preview actually gave me chills it was so awesome!!

WOW! That trailer was 1000% better than the whole BSG series with Eddie Olmos.

I like him and his version of Adama very much. But the series was as crappy as can be. Except for the ending with Baltar and Six watching the japanese robot, saying it's gonna happen all over again...

I think the new Galactica is slightly overrated... do not get me wrong, i love its base story, characters, music, ships, the overall atmosphere of the show and there were some brilliant moments, especially the first half of the 4th season was jawdropping for me....

but i still prefer Babylon 5 and DS9 to it. Although these shows i believe were as good as BSG, when it comes to acting and character development, i think they dedicated themselves more to the sci-fi part of the show, while BSG seems to be primary "soap opera" and sci-fi is in the second place.

Regarding old BSG, have not seen it yet, so cant comment. Somehow i doubt it can be better than the new one though.

The new series should've went with more battles and survival & less with tha-DRAMA. 

Ok, I'll grant you DS9--but Babylon 5?? .

okokok---I never saw B-5 coz the trailers were distinctively uninspiring (it is like Star Gate or other similar poser fluff...) Normally, i would not consider it but if you like DS9 maybe there is something there that I had not considered. I'll check it out but trumping R Moore is no easy task IMO....

The budget didn't allow for more battles. I thought the drama was rather immersive. I have to say that the latest BSG probably beat out the last 3 star wars movies as far as space battles go. Of course to compare you would need to compile every BSG battle separate from its 42min drama precursor. 

Both new and old series started well but lost the plot after a few seaons.Babylon5 had a much better story arc that was planned out from the start.I think the new BSG was written on the fly.

Amen. Listen to the pod casts of the new BSG and you know they wrote it on the fly. I liked the new BSG but Starbucks story made no sense at all.

She is the harbinger of death. They must not follow her.

Her ship is crushed and she dies in The Maelstrom.

She shows back up in a gleaming new viper.

They find her crashed ship on Cylon Earth and her dead body and that is the signal that lead the fleet to "Earth"

Ron Moore not knowing how to tie all that crap up then has her disappear in thin air and then is really proud of how he brought the story together.

None of that makes any sense at all.  I liked the series but the continuity was lacking.

Yeah, action was great, the drama was ok, the camera stuff was great, but the story was all over the place. It's like someone sat down and did some super-intelligent analysis and arrived at the conclusion that we can "make money off of this for exactly X seasons, after that the viewers get bored and the actors want too much payment". Like Lost.

Okay the Starbuck thing was a little ridiculous. There was a moment at the end of every episode where they stopped the real story and played their special what will happen to Starbuck music. Then they spewed out some random hokey just to what convince everyone that they should watch the next episode. It got a little annoying. I have been watching for 3 years and you think I need some Lost hook at the end to remind me to watch next week? 

Then at the end of it all they simply said, "Angels saved her." Great... 

I love the opening episode of the original BSG, and I especially love the orchestral theme.  But once it gets into the series itself, it sinks into some common cheesy storylines of the time.  You know, like 2 people are going to infiltrate the enemy installation and evade the guards, but even when they get discovered they take on everybody in the installation and win.  Or one of the main characters falls in love with an extra on the cast, but they part ways at the end of the 30-minute episode as if nothing happened and we never see the extra again.  Or aliens who look just like humans.