Caprica

[Sindatur]

And that, boys and girls, is why NuBSG should have been a continuation, rather than a reboot. Caprica could have been about the events taking place our time on Earth, that leads to the next Cylon War, involving the "New Colonies of Kobol", while NuBSG could have took place 100 years after the original events featured in BSG.

Nobody actually cares about this sort of thing. Caprica failed in large part because it was a muddled mess, not for whatever connections it had or failed to have with its parent series.

Yea, Caprica's problem was they threw out too many arc elements from the beginning, and and tried to advance each one a little each week, so, it seemed to most, that the arc wasn't moving, and didn't know where it wanted to go. If they had stripped it back to 2 or 3 (or even 4) Arc elements to start with, and play them out, and then layered on top of that with more, I believe it would've been much more likely to succeed. I personally didn't mind, I'm fine with a slow burn (I love Babylon 5 Season 1, which many can't get through, their first time through, until they learn what's coming, and can identify what is actually moving), but, yea, to succeed, they needed to better plan their world/Arc building. If you're able to accept that first half season, though, I think it really becomes a great Series by the end, and I was sad to see end (Though the CODA really helps make it a complete Series)

 

[Pauln6]

Thats intentional.

And stated in BSG though can't remember which ep.

That was one of the major problems I had with NuBSG when I found out it was intentional - but for a different reason than was beneficial to the plot. RDM & co. wanted to not make this too alien of a world to make it difficult for the general audience to relate to. So, they threw in things like euro cars, 19th and 20th century small arms weapons in Admiral Cain's ready room on the Pegasus, Starbuck's Humvee, pencils in the CIC labeled "made in China", keyboards at computer consoles with Windows logo buttons on them. There was no deep or hidden meaning behind any of it; no mysterious clues to ancient, hidden ties to the 13th tribe. Just a design choice to make this world more "accessible" to viewers, which I thought was a tremendous cop-out. Caprica followed in that proud tradition. It was interesting that they were using ancient Greek for the Tauron language, for example. Again, it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things - just sounded "kewel".

The worst one was the throw-away line when Roslyn was reading about "He who would not be named" from the Book of Pythia to Adama. No, not Voldemort (that phrase is a common trope in genre literature, shows and movies to artificially enhance a mysterious adversary to the heroes) - possibly a Count Iblis character. Possibly a key into the Grand Chess Game that he and the Higher Powers (Beings of Light) were playing using Humans and Cylons as pawns against each other; one of the best parts about the Original Series that they had an opportunity to introduce and never did. Were the "head people" angels or Beings of Light? Or were they minions of Count Iblis, the one true Cylon "god"? Sadly, we'll never know. Just another idea that was thrown against the wall and left to fall down on its own, with the writers hoping we would forget (and I'm sure most did). I shake my head when I look back at that show. It was great in so many ways and fell obscenely flat in way too many others.

I loved the pseudo-mysticism in NuBSG and in fact the episodes featuring Iblis were among the best out of what was largely fluffy nonsense in the original.

I would have loved to see a new take on Carillon though, introduce some new characters and some funky aliens for half a season. I understand that this would have detracted from their overall allegory for real world conflicts but sometimes I love me some real sci fi. I would have loved to see the Imperious Leader and Count Iblis pop up too.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

And that, boys and girls, is why NuBSG should have been a continuation, rather than a reboot. Caprica could have been about the events taking place our time on Earth, that leads to the next Cylon War, involving the "New Colonies of Kobol", while NuBSG could have took place 100 years after the original events featured in BSG.

Nobody actually cares about this sort of thing. Caprica failed in large part because it was a muddled mess, not for whatever connections it had or failed to have with its parent series.

Yea, Caprica's problem was they threw out too many arc elements from the beginning, and and tried to advance each one a little each week, so, it seemed to most, that the arc wasn't moving, and didn't know where it wanted to go. If they had stripped it back to 2 or 3 (or even 4) Arc elements to start with, and play them out, and then layered on top of that with more, I believe it would've been much more likely to succeed. I personally didn't mind, I'm fine with a slow burn (I love Babylon 5 Season 1, which many can't get through, their first time through, until they learn what's coming, and can identify what is actually moving), but, yea, to succeed, they needed to better plan their world/Arc building. If you're able to accept that first half season, though, I think it really becomes a great Series by the end, and I was sad to see end (Though the CODA really helps make it a complete Series)

Remember they changed showrunners for the back half of the season, and it really shows. I have no confidence that, had Jane Espenson stayed at the helm for the entire season, it would have turned out even half as good as it did. Basically, I think all the credit for how the show turned out by the end is due to Kevin Murphy. I don't know how he managed it, but he wrangled that writers' room into making the show coherent instead of a mishmash of danglers.

 

[Sindatur]

Nobody actually cares about this sort of thing. Caprica failed in large part because it was a muddled mess, not for whatever connections it had or failed to have with its parent series.

Yea, Caprica's problem was they threw out too many arc elements from the beginning, and and tried to advance each one a little each week, so, it seemed to most, that the arc wasn't moving, and didn't know where it wanted to go. If they had stripped it back to 2 or 3 (or even 4) Arc elements to start with, and play them out, and then layered on top of that with more, I believe it would've been much more likely to succeed. I personally didn't mind, I'm fine with a slow burn (I love Babylon 5 Season 1, which many can't get through, their first time through, until they learn what's coming, and can identify what is actually moving), but, yea, to succeed, they needed to better plan their world/Arc building. If you're able to accept that first half season, though, I think it really becomes a great Series by the end, and I was sad to see end (Though the CODA really helps make it a complete Series)

Remember they changed showrunners for the back half of the season, and it really shows. I have no confidence that, had Jane Espenson stayed at the helm for the entire season, it would have turned out even half as good as it did. Basically, I think all the credit for how the show turned out by the end is due to Kevin Murphy. I don't know how he managed it, but he wrangled that writers' room into making the show coherent instead of a mishmash of danglers.

Oh, I have no doubt that the new Show Runner was the reason for the improvement, I was merely saying, it was all there, it just needed to be parsed and introduced/advanced in a more planned out manner. I don't think he changed much more than the pace, by scaling back, and concentrating on a few things at time (that were already there), rather then trying to do everything all at once

 

[DigificWriter]

The only mis-step I think the series made has to do with the character of Clarice Willow, whose story really doesn't start to coalesce until the introduction of James Marsters' Barnabas Greeley in Episode 6 as a 'foil' for her.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The whole young Adama thing was fail, since of course it was the proto-Adama

 

[Saul]

Thats intentional.

And stated in BSG though can't remember which ep.

That was one of the major problems I had with NuBSG when I found out it was intentional - but for a different reason than was beneficial to the plot. RDM & co. wanted to not make this too alien of a world to make it difficult for the general audience to relate to. So, they threw in things like euro cars, 19th and 20th century small arms weapons in Admiral Cain's ready room on the Pegasus, Starbuck's Humvee, pencils in the CIC labeled "made in China", keyboards at computer consoles with Windows logo buttons on them. There was no deep or hidden meaning behind any of it; no mysterious clues to ancient, hidden ties to the 13th tribe. Just a design choice to make this world more "accessible" to viewers, which I thought was a tremendous cop-out.

But we all expected that nuBSG was our future and not our past. I think having it the other way around was something the audience wouldn't expect and I liked that. It's not as mysterious but I thought it worked. They had the idea from as far back as season 2 and it is hammering home the "all this has happened before" thing.

The angels, beings of light thing does fall flat on it's face though. I agree. For a show that didn't want to do aliens it's strange that it would introduce angel like characters instead.

 

[The Old Mixer]

But we all expected that nuBSG was our future and not our past.

I didn't.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Me neither. The original premise of BSG was based on van Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" ancient aliens theories. They were always supposed to be our ancestors. The question was, what was the journey going to be like and what shape would that lineage take? "Life here began out there".

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Given that the original BSG was (supposedly) about our distant past, I know some fans of nuBSG thought it would be clever if that series took place in our future instead, and made guesses to that effect.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Given that the original BSG was (supposedly) about our distant past

Until the final scene in "The Hand of God," of course.

 

[Saul]

Ok, then I guess I had expected Earth to be part of nuBSGs past and humanity had set out from there and thought the various clues which some of you had screen captured and posted in the BSG forum to point to that.

But then again, technically "the real Earth" was nuBSGs past.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Polly Walker, Polly Walker, Polly Walker.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Does she want a cracker?

 

[137th Gebirg]

One of the other major things that muddied the waters for the NuBSG timeline was the planetarium/Stonehenge holodeck on Kobol, showing 12 constellations as seen from our Earth (a.k.a. Earth 2), in current configuration, not taking into account hundreds of thousands of years of stellar drift, nor taking into account Earth 1's position relative to those stars compared to that of Earth 2. Granted, they probably hadn't come up with any of what happened in the finale when they did the Kobol episode, but it really exemplified how, in retrospect, they were just making it up as they were going along and chose to basically "forget" the concepts they laid out in the beginning.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The planetarium also showed all 12 constellations visible in the same night sky, which isn't possible from our Earth...which could in retrospect be seen as a clue that it wasn't our Earth that they were looking for at that point.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Moore did say that he had some plan for how the show would end but apparently he was going to have them arrive in ancient Greece instead of a more distant past.

Looks like he knew that modern man was part cylon from season 2 and stuck to that though. In "Epiphanies", Baltar discovered that Hera (who was a fetus at the time) had no antigens in her blood. She had no blood type. This came as a surprise and by extension, the audience was meant to think that she was exotic. Except that she wasn't. What they found was type O blood, which is quite common today.

The Science of Battlestar Galactica

 

[DigificWriter]

I've never bought into the idea that Moore, Eick, and Co. were completely 'flying by the seats of their pants' on BSG, but that's just me.

Others' mileage may vary.

The whole young Adama thing was fail

Personally, I think that's one of the more brilliant ideas they came up with because it provided a perfect 'fix' for a major timeline flaw that Jane admitted she and others had made (and which still exists in the stand-alone DVD release of the Pilot) vis a vis Caprica's setting relative to BSG.

 

[Sindatur]

^ Does she want a cracker?

Since she's a Walker, I Assume she wants BRAAAIIINNNNNSSSS

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I've never bought into the idea that Moore, Eick, and Co. were completely 'flying by the seats of their pants' on BSG, but that's just me.

No one said they were "completely" making it up as they went, but it's obvious they didn't think through the details in any meaningful way beforehand. Moore had a vague idea of where he thought the show should end and worked out the details as they went. In some ways, it worked. In other ways, it didn't.