Amy forwards along this New York Times piece on the new SciFi Channel incarnation of Battlestar Galactica. It’s frankly a little mindblowing to see that old BG fans were (and apparently some still are) hostile toward what is now clearly one of the smartest, most richly textured things on TV—a data point in support of the Steven Johnson “everything bad is good for you thesis” if anything is—on the grounds that “Starbuck is a MAN! A MAN!”
The Cylons Were Created by Man…
July 18th, 2005 · 2 Comments
Tags: Art & Culture
2 responses so far ↓
1 fling93 // Jul 18, 2005 at 3:29 pm
I think some people just don’t like having their happy memories messed with.
For instance, we just watched the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. I’d never seen the whole 1971 film with Gene Wilder when I was a kid. Just the ending somewhat recently on television (and I’ve never read the book, though I did, oddly, read the sequel, “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”).
I thought it was a fantastic film, especially the songs (each kid’s departure is accompanied by a song from the Oompa-Loompas, and unlike the older film, these are the only songs in the new film). They were beautiful, catchy, and well-produced, and I want to get the soundtrack. These songs were not, however, the original Oompa-Loompa song, which many people thought were the best part of the older film. Including my wife, who hated the new songs.
If only there were a way to, at least temporarily, wipe memories that keep you from enjoying something. Just like how reading the book first always spoils the movie.
Oh BTW, I love the new BG, even though I enjoyed the original as a kid. Of course, I’d watched some episodes again as an adult and was quite disappointed at the things I noticed now, especially how it reused its stock footage a lot, plus its simplistic treatment of issues such as the tensions between military and civilians. And the characters were pretty dull, especially Apollo, Boomer, and Tigh.
2 Caliban // Jul 18, 2005 at 4:03 pm
See, I thought the original BG was terrible. It looked like someone just saw Star Wars and thought that spaceships and cocky fighter pilots were all it took to make a blockbuster.
Which is why I was extremely pessimistic about the new one when it came out. I didn’t particularly enjoy the first part of the original miniseries, and so wrote the show off. How wrong I was. My TiVo recorded the whole season and I now admit my wrong. It really is the best thing on television.