Battlestar Galactica getting rebooted (again) for NBS's streaming service

[Skipper]

Just for the sake of curiosity I fast forwarded the pilot episode:

1. Battle of Cimtar
   
2. Galactica flights to Caprica
3. Cylons wipe out Caprica and the other colonies
4. Adama tells the colonists to assemble the people in every ship that will carry them. In all, 220 ships leave the ruined worlds to gather behind the last battlestar but there is shortage of fuel and food
   
5. They debate what is their next destination and they decide for Carillon
6. Apollo suggests a mined shortcut near a Nova.
7. They succeed in destroying the mines, and the fleet reaches Carillon.
   
8. Adama orders landing operations to begin at once.
   
9. Wacky adventures on the Casino Planet!

Now, obviously we don't have a timestamp on screen for every event, but you get the impression that things happen in short space of time (because it's clear that they have a big problem of food and fuel). And you see that while the fleet is gathering, Cylons are exterminating survived humans on some planet. In my opinion, no more than 7 days (sorry, "cycles") have passed between the Battle of Cimtar and the arrival on Carillon. And I'm probably overestimating. I repeat, you get the impression that things are happening very fast. And you get the urgency of escaping from Cylons.

 

[Skipper]

By the way, in the context of the episode, it's clear that they can't be absolutely sure Cylons aren't chasing them. So, putting aside the insensibility of it, why should they concede to every one free time for R&R, and organizing an award ceremony for ALL the Warriors, leaving the fleet completely unguarded??? (I'm sure that people are so incredulous of the "Casino Planet" thing that didn't notice the other idiotic plot points)

ETA, yes yes, it's all Uri's fault, but really, everyone is an idiot except Adama. It almost seems written by some military-loving liberal-bashing right extremist.

 

[The Wormhole]

It almost seems written by some military-loving liberal-bashing right extremist

Well, later on in the series you did have everyone espousing the benefits of martial law. Hey, maybe we can work with that. At the start there was a brief tenure of civilian leadership making decisions, which is how they ended up at Casino Planet. After that and the ensuing covfefe, Adama was all, nope, martial law from now on.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

How does this exactly justify, I don't know, Starbuck behaving like a sociopath who, after learning that he is one of the last living human beings, the first thing he does is to go to a casino and try and arrange to get singers aboard the Galactica so he can make a buck (ah!) in order to leave the army?

Didn't the writer realize how tasteless it was? And he was one of the good guys!

Exactly.

It's still the same episode! How is that "forever"?

Let me put it this way; based purely on the amount of time that's passed since you first started sticking up for the Casino Planet plotline not being silly in this thread versus the amount of time in-story that passed between the Cylon attack and the Fleet arriving at Carillon, you're saying you're having a more deeply felt emotional reaction to people not liking the original Battlestar Galactica than Starbuck should have to his home and nearly everyone he ever knew being wiped out.

Exactly.

Because it makes the arguments of "Our planets were destroyed, let's go have fun at a casino." moot. There was a horror element to it. It's not campy at all.

Nope.

"There was a horror element to it" does not cancel out the fact that the characters were written badly. Characters do stupid things in horror movies to create opportunities for bad things to happen to them, but the fact that it happens in a horror movie doesn't make the character behavior any less stupid.

 

[Skipper]

Re-watching it, I noted another thing. Putting the idiocy of the characters aside, from a narrative point of view the Casino Planet ruins the flow of the story. It would be as if in the last third of A New Hope, after saving the Princess Leia and the Death Star was about to destroy the rebel base, our heroes were engaged in some wacky adventure with the Jawas that has nothing to do with the main story.

 

[EnderAKH]

He adressed the destruction earlier in the episode. What are you saying, that he must wallow in angst and misery forever?

The effects of 9/11 were in the psychology of New Yorkers for YEARS, it was 3 weeks before SNL went back on the air, and when they did the show was tinged with sadness and patriotism, and that was for 5000 people. Here their ENTIRE CIVILIZATION was wiped off of the map, psychologically they would be on their heels for potentially months before settling in to some kind of new normal.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In pre-Corona times, the idea that people's reaction after watching the near genocide of the entire human race and the obliteration of twelve planets being "well, that sucks, let's go hit the Casino Planet" was absurd to the point of silly.

Granted, in post-Corona times, it's a bit more believable.
"People die every day. Planets get eradicated eventually anyway. Why should any of this stop us from enjoying the casino?"
"The Ovions are eating us!"
"The Articles of Colonization entitle me to the freedom to be eaten by an Ovion. Don't tread on me!"
"We can't be expected to run from the Cylons forever, anyway."

There's a big difference between being willing to take your chances with a virus that has a very small chance of killing you when hundreds of thousands have died, and thinking about entertaining yourself when your whole civilization was wiped out and there are things out there with a 100% chance of killing you.

 

[Marc]

Re-watching it, I noted another thing. Putting the idiocy of the characters aside, from a narrative point of view the Casino Planet ruins the flow of the story. It would be as if in the last third of A New Hope, after saving the Princess Leia and the Death Star was about to destroy the rebel base, our heroes were engaged in some wacky adventure with the Jawas that has nothing to do with the main story.

If they wanted a story to keep the fleet at Carrilon, that it was a big source for tylium would have been a good starting point.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ That was the main driving force for stopping off there. As they were rolling around in their LandRams looking for Tylium ore to mine, they just happened to stumble upon the Casino. They definitely weren't looking for that. The allure of the place, IIRC, was referred to as an "oasis" by Adama, an ostensibly welcome refuge to escape from what just happened, and a place for people to chill while they set up their extraction operations. They really had no idea the Ovions were actually a part of the anti-human Cylon Alliance. It wasn't until people started disappearing and the main characters discovered the half-eaten bodies in the lower levels that things started going all pear-shaped.

I do wonder if the other aliens that were hanging out there suffered the same fate, or if the Ovions were just strictly culling the human population that showed up from time to time. There were a lot of bodies down there, but they all looked human, and many of them look like they'd been there a while.

In short, less-than-ideal premise, but not entirely unbelievable. They really were blinded by their trauma and didn't immediately see how weird this all was. Adama and Tigh had a suspicion, which is why they were playing games with the uniforms and furlong assignments to keep a ready reserve of warriors in case shit went bad.

That's my head-canon and I'm sticking too it, anyway.

 

[Skipper]

^^^ That was the main driving force for stopping off there. As they were rolling around in their LandRams looking for Tylium ore to mine, they just happened to stumble upon the Casino. They definitely weren't looking for that. The allure of the place, IIRC, was referred to as an "oasis" by Adama, an ostensibly welcome refuge to escape from what just happened, and a place for people to chill while they set up their extraction operations. They really had no idea the Ovions were actually a part of the anti-human Cylon Alliance. It wasn't until people started disappearing and the main characters discovered the half-eaten bodies in the lower levels that things started going all pear-shaped.

I do wonder if the other aliens that were hanging out there suffered the same fate, or if the Ovions were just strictly culling the human population that showed up from time to time. There were a lot of bodies down there, but they all looked human, and many of them look like they'd been there a while.

In short, less-than-ideal premise, but not entirely unbelievable. They really were blinded by their trauma and didn't immediately see how weird this all was. Adama and Tigh had a suspicion, which is why they were playing games with the uniforms and furlong assignments to keep a ready reserve of warriors in case shit went bad.

That's my head-canon and I'm sticking too it, anyway.

I would have used "Casino Planet" for the fourth or fifth episode. Was there really any need to use it for the pilot?

 

[Marc]

^^^ That was the main driving force for stopping off there. As they were rolling around in their LandRams looking for Tylium ore to mine, they just happened to stumble upon the Casino.

damn casino. distracted me so much I forgot why they originally landed

 

[David cgc]

ETA, yes yes, it's all Uri's fault, but really, everyone is an idiot except Adama. It almost seems written by some military-loving liberal-bashing right extremist.

President Adar does come off as a take-that to Jimmy Carter being a kinder, gentler president with his unbelievable naiveté in the face of the Cylons suing for peace.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I would have used "Casino Planet" for the fourth or fifth episode. Was there really any need to use it for the pilot?

Likely not, aside from filler to make it a two-plus-hour pilot and, later, a theatrical release. At the end of the day, I chalk it up to 70's kitch.

 

[Saul]

As they were rolling around in their LandRams looking for Tylium ore to mine, they just happened to stumble upon the Casino. T

Same thing happened to me when I went out to buy some bread.

 

[JD]

What you guys are saying makes me think it might have been a better move to just cover the attack on the colonies in an opening narration, and then just jump a head a while, like maybe a few months, before they arrive on the casino planet. At least that way they would have had time to grieve and deal with the attack before partying on the casino planet.

 

[Skipper]

^^
Even the most benevolent reviews out there say that the Casino Planet was totally incongruous.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always thought that they thought they had to one-up the Star Wars cantina, and that was the whole reason for having the casino.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Pense has to be thinking about 25.

 

[Skipper]

Likely not, aside from filler to make it a two-plus-hour pilot and, later, a theatrical release. At the end of the day, I chalk it up to 70's kitch.

The pilot is 2 hour and 15 minute long. If you consider ads, it becomes three hours long (confirmed by the wiki). They padded it too much.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The pilot is 2 hour and 15 minute long. If you consider ads, it becomes three hours long (confirmed by the wiki). They padded it too much.

The original plan was to make 3 or 4 TV movies a year.

The first three episodes were a movie, that eventually got cleaved in three, when the network decided that it wanted a weekly show.