Battlestar Galactica (2003) Retrospective/Review - Battlestar Galactica Retrospective, Part 2
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
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In the late 1970s, the epic space opera Battlestar Galactica debuted to strong ratings and box office success. However it was largely dismissed at the time as a shallow Star Wars ripoff and was cancelled after a single season. However a cult fan base continued to celebrate the series and over the years they wishes for a continuation. Battlestar Galactica would eventually return in 2003, but not in the form anyone expected.
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00:00 Squarespace Ad
01:06 Intro
02:09 Origins
06:14 Development
08:21 Casting
14:38 Production
16:56 Fan Backlash
19:12 The Mini-Series
29:45 Season 1
32:01 The Hand of God
33:54 Adama and Roslin
37:25 Kobol's Last Gleaming
39:29 Season 2
43:25 Pegasus/Resurrection Ship
47:27 Weaker Episodes
47:50 Downloaded/Lay Down Your Burdens
50:45 New Caprica
55:28 Season 3
57:25 The Son Also Rises/Crossroads
1:02:54 Season 4
1:06:12 Daybreak
1:10:43 Conclusion
1:12:31 Outro
Watch Part 1 Here: • Battlestar Galactica (...
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Should pin this. Hidden deep in the comments
When you're a hot-shot, big-time film producer, I'm gonna miss these Retrospectives. They're the best sci-fi documentary/analysis series going, on TV or Streaming or UA-cam.
One small suggestion, could you add a link to both the previous video in a series and the first video in a series in the description? Makes it easier to find it if we get recommended a video and it isn't the first one. Thanks!
24:22 "It's no wonder Universal opted to make Number 6 the centerpiece of their marketing, as Helfer tackles the truly thankless task of [playing] 'Sexy Robot Lady' with remarkable poise and intelligence." Yeah, that's totally why the marketing centered on that actress: her poise and intelligence. Hard to believe corporate cokeheads choosing to pander to the basest impulses of horny douchebags would have their motives historically revised and morally justified by Mr. White Male Reality over here. Or maybe he believes the actress is so stupid she thinks she was featured because of her acting talents, so he doesn't want to hurt her feelings by suggesting otherwise. Neither explanation makes Rowan look any better.
Maybe don't help the channel grow. No one should have Patreon and ads. If you need both, get a real job.
Exactly which sci-fi space TV Series was better, The 2004's Battlestar Galactica, or Andromeda?
Hiring Edward James Olmos was one of the best casting decisions ever made.
I honestly believed he and James Callis were the only indispensible actors on the show. Everyone else did a great job but I can't imagine Adama and Baltar looking like anyone else.
100%!
It was the equivalent of casting Patrick Stewart for Next Generation
@@justinb2824 I thought Bamber was outstanding as Apollo all through the character arc as well. Frak, pretty much everyone was perfectly cast. Saul Tigh, Doc Cottle were especially archetypal in their portrayal to my experience at least.
OK, I wasn't a big fan of warrior queen as #4, but otherwise, all the main roles were pretty much spot on. And that one may have been down to the character as well.
So say we all
Tigh's "Not all of them" and Baltar's "I know about farming.." lines are delivered so perfectly.
Tigh had so many great lines. "Nobody's a rookie anymore..."
"not all of them" gives me goosebumps every time.
Tigh's what the frak when Kara plays the song in the bar
Gaius's what ti gaeta when he tells him the photo is fake in season 1 (probably the funniest scene in the show)
That farming line left me with a lump in my throat the first time I heard it.
It was 2006 and I was leaving in 3 days for my first tour in Afghanistan. I wandered through the DVD section in Walmart desperately looking for a multi season sci fi series. Battlestar Galactica both intrigued me and made me laugh at the name.
By the end of the tour My family was sending me the remaining seasons in the mail.
Me and a few troops would get back from patrolling the streets of Kandahar and gather around a tiny potable DVD player in my bunk to watch a new episode. On my leave home, midway through the tour, I had a few shirts made that said "your mom's a Cylon" on the back. The boys loved them lol. Great memories in trying times.
I already loved it and got my entire shop into it in Iraq. The Pegasus cliffhanger was in the middle of my tour.
I did the same thing with Star Trek Next Gen. Next episodes by international mail on VHS tapes. I'm glad life isn't that hard anymore. Being retired in America is cool.
@@rdkap42One of the greatest TV cliffhangers of all time.
Got my whole station, AFN Heidelberg, onto BSG and Firefly.
Those little dvd players were a blessing. Me n the boys would do the same with BSG, Entourage, and The Wire.
Felix Gaeta’s character arc over the series’ run is one of my two favorite in all of the tv series I’ve watched in full. (My other favorite is in the Buffyverse.) They took a sweet, naïve young officer and utterly broke him over four seasons, and did so in a completely believable way. Alessandro Juliani was terrific in the part.
Such a shame they killed him at the end, but he did an underrated job.
The way they cut as adama says "Fire" is soo brutal considering what gaeta wenth through.
I think his character arc is fantastic. It really shows how war makes young men old. There is some photographs from WW2 that show Russian soldiers going through a similar experience. I love the show Battlestar Galactica however much like the characters it's draining to marathon the whole show.
Much like a war with no end in sight it is hard to keep a healthy mental and physical health in those conditions.
#Gaetadidnothingwrong
'It stopped' still gets me
Edward James Olmos demonstrating how he would faint on camera if he saw a "four eyed" alien was hilarious
Getting one of the crew to dress up in a alien costume and walk onto the set during a scene was surely a missed opportunity.
You can see how he's an actor
He didn't say faint, he said he'd walk off and never walk back the instant an alien walked onto the set. He took it super seriously lol 😂
@Q Jo These were his exact words:
"The moment I see one four-eyed creature coming at me, I'm going to faint on camera, and I'm off the show"
@@christheghostwriter he said what I quoted to the director when he was approached to do the part.
I think James Callis might be the best actor on the planet and he doesn't get enough credit. The range of humanity that he perfectly played as Baltar is unmatched, from hysterical scenes like "I am not your plaything!" to gutwrenching ones like "I am not a murderer!". Fucking bravo dude
Never liked him as Baltar. Too short and looked nothing like the original Baltar.
@@yeeluvspizza Like who cares! The original BSG was a knock off of star wars! lol Also some of the acting was not the best,
AMEN. I liked him before, But BG made me love him.
What the hell is BG?!
@@user-pu7yl5py1uBattlestar is one word. You could either shorten it as ‘B’ (like BG) or ‘BS’ (As in BSG)
Apollo’s speech on the witness stand is probably my favorite scene of the entire series. It’s so sobering and we’ll written.
it absolutely pulled the whole first half of that season back into focus. I always thought they made a mistake with the stupid "final 5" nonsense, and thought the series really went of the rail a bit with it, but that episode brought everything back together again for the rest of the show.
Yes man watching that episode really brought it home with all that had happened! Really watching this really brought back the amazing scenes like that one and others I have started to forget about until now! Really great emotional beats in this show!
that whole plotline was ludocrous thoughh. Baltar has betrayed humanity repeatedly and is responsible for the deaths of billions. But he is part of the elite and a fan favorite but so consequences cant happen
@@charlesreid9337it was not about his actions as a whole. It was about his actions as president that the fleet knew of. Besides, if baltar was guilty, so were other people who got away with it. The trial was not excusing all the bad things baltar did. Only some.
The trial was really about the double standards and hypocrisy in society. Many parallels to what we see today. It's not new, but once you open your eyes to it, you can recognize it everywhere, including ourselves. Hopefully, with self-examination, we can practice to become a better people.
It's ironic that this version of BSG ended up more mystical than the original.
It’s most likely due to having more time.
@@PraetorPaktu yeah, but I mean the idea of it being more grounded and realistic.
Maybe that's the point
Well he did explain in part 1 how the original BSG was starting to dive into the mystical...
@@Da40kOrks yeah, that's fair enough. I was still annoyed 🤭
Rewatching OG Battlestar now. I think you severely underestimate that shows mysticism. I recommend watching it again.
The finale - Bill and Laura especially - never fails to make me weep like a child.
The only one that creates more tears for me is the end of B5.
Sun's comin' up...
Right up there with the death and funeral scene at the end of Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. They both still get me misty-eyed, even after multiple viewings. What can I say? I'm a softie at heart. 🥹👍
This is the most emotional moment of the series for me. Considering everything they have been through. There is just so much to unpack here that my comment will turn into an essay if I do. Wouldn’t be the first time :)
The only moments that came close to it were from StarGate SG-1’s “Heroes” and “Meridian” episodes.
reminded me of the movie UP especially because both were at their resting place on top of a mountain
I love James Callis's performance in the finale gets me every time
Of all those shows I worked on at Zoic. BSG was the most special and fun. Firefly was endearing and a bit “closer to home” for us as we cut our teeth on it, essentially. BSG mini and then the series was just an amazing experience. Thanks for this series sir!
Was there ever contention on the team about the way the Cylon centurions were rendered? I have to agree with Rowan here: the centurions haven't aged well, unlike all the other CGI in this show, which looks amazing.
@@HoldandModify what exactly was the issue? Why do they not look right? I don't know much about graphic design.
@@verinonrenthar9176 there was issue with their animation. It never quite “felt” right. Their composition was also slightly off.
@@HoldandModify There are shots of the Centurions like in 33 when the rain on Caprica is washing over their metal bodies that look breathtaking, so you guys did an awesome job
@@CielBlanche oh yeah there many great action shots. Those were awesome. Thanks! That team for Cylons did great stuff! I didn’t mean to come off as condemning it all.
“All Along The Watch Tower” being a central plot device to the final five, Kera, and the 4th season is one of my absolute favorite plot devices. They could easily just shoe-horned in the original arrangement of the song like a lot of shows and movies do with their popular music selections. But having a re-arranged version that isn’t fully introduced as a completed work of music with motifs from the arrangements fragmentary placed within scenes, is perfect. I love how Keira sits at a piano in one episode trying to figure out what tune is stuck in her head and trying to bring it to life. I fully relate to her in that moment. And the arrangement by McCreary also makes the composition feel like it was written by an ancient human somewhere in this grounded world the show tried to create. It also helped reinvigorate my interest in the show. Don’t get me wrong, season 3 was great, but the darkness of that season was getting a bit heavy for me and wearing me down and made me want a break (I was binging it). The music plot thread of “All along the Watch Tower” helped me feel like rasch episode of season 4 was a mystery I wanted to try to solve, I.e it made me want to watch the next episode to see if we would learn more about the origin of the music in Kera and the final fives’ heads. Just loved, though being a musician probably makes me biased. LOL
I suspect that Jimi Hendrix would've appreciated the homage to his work, as well. 😎👍
Just thinking about that song and the reveal gives me such chills. I think I’ll go rewatch the whole series for the 6th time.
Not a musician myself, but absolutely agree. Not only a terrific arrangement by Bear McCreary but to integrate it as a puzzle narrative was inspired. I would watch the episodes each week just plodding along but that element definitely reenergised my interest again for S4.
@@Willpower-74205 It is a lot more like the writer of the song, Bob Dylan, version with a mix in of Hendrix. In a way this is the only way one can get the singing of Dylan into Hendrix's rock transformation version of the song. Maybe a nod to the fact that Folk and Rock are two very different versions of music and combing them together into a great remake is like mixing Humans with Cylons as the show entertained.
I was at a small SF con in Massachusetts, with Richard Hatch as one of the Big Guests, just as Season 1 of the reboot was gathering interest.
I was wandering around, and bumped into Apollo himself. We chatted a few moments, and I'd told him I just couldn't pull the trigger on the new show. I'd heard of his fight for Second Coming, and the reboot seemed..... well, 'wrong'.
He sympathised, and agreed, to a point. But he explained that the reboot was as much a labor of love as his sequel. He'd just been cast as Zarek, and he really sold me on the new show.
I mean, hell. When Captain Apollo Adama tells you it's not only okay to like the show, but actively campaigns for it..... well, fuck yeah, you're gonna give it a shot.
Never looked back, man.
BSG (2003) is one of the greatest Sci-Fi series ever made. The writing, acting, and music is all top-tier.
Right? Bear McCreary did an amazing job. It was a genius choice from the writers to incorporate the music actively into the story via the Cylons
That moment when Starbuck decked Tigh at the card game was when I fell in love with Katee Sackhoff in that role. I was a massive sceptic before that, but that scene made me want to know more about that character. It was no longer a role defined by Dirk Benedict and immediately became something new and intriguing. I was never so happy to be proven wrong.
Yeah that's the scene that sold me on a different take on Starbuck. Well also the other scene where she latches on to Apollo's ship and brings him in "from the rain." She's treading that fine line between brilliance and insanity. Lol.
IT had it's moments but them destroying the original characters for no other reason than to swing UnPC-bat was vomit inducing. I had hoped to see old favorites redone in a modern light and was greeted to another earlier version of "Chewy, we're home". Man that entire series screams Kathleen Kennedy and She wasn't even involved.
@@animalyze7120
"Destroying?"
Can’t lie, I was sold hard when Col. Tigh lays the truth on Chief “There’s no rookies after today.”, and the vents the damaged compartments as you do in battling ship fires in space combat.
That and them leaving the little girl to de on her non jump capable ship...
Those moments made me sit up and realise I was watching something that wasn't going to play by the normal rules.
@@michaelgillman2505 yeah, that was a hella good scene. They really did a bang up job for the most part.
Found the FTL player
@@AdrianColley you damn right! :) That game is awesome, play it on the reg.
That said it wasn’t the game that taught me that, it was good old science-fiction books. Or NASA, but many, many moons ago. I love FTL because it lets me do that, it didn’t teach me that.
Bloody heck....
Adama's and Roslin's last moments still breaks me into tears...
Even a decade after I last watched the show.
To this day, that scene where starbuck starts playing the piano with the help of her father and "All along the watchtower" kicks in does not fail to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. The soundtrack was amazing.
I remember binge watching the entire 4 seasons over 2 weeks and having to get up for class in morning. Loved the show.
I did the same, except I had the good fortune to be introduced to it by a friend who had the wisdom to NOT lend me her full dvd set until I was on winter break. 😂
Binged it rapid fire over a long weekend lmao. Didnt regret it a bit
As per usual THE benchmark for proper review of a show/movie. Highly entertaining and yet highly informative and very detailed. Much kudos and a big thanks for another masterpiec for this late found but highly treasured gem of a SciFi show.
"If it was you... we'd never leave" Probably my favorite line in all of TV history.
This series was so wonderfully well done. Easily stands toe-to-toe with Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Stargate.
Andre you wacthed andromdea ever the gene roddenberry series dver with the guy fromnheruce Hercules Kevin sorbo
@@zacharyjochumsen9677
I liked most of Andromeda, even though Sorbo has always been difficult for me to take seriously, after Hercules.
I still dig Farscape, more than any of these shows, because of the excellent practical effects, along with much odder storylines. The character growth , is just really excellent, for all the characters, especially for how the series looks like a Buck Rodgers rip off, when one watches the first episode. It goes far weirder, and has some really interesting scripts, that dealt with limitations of a ship, that is a life form, and how the pilot is symbiotic with it. Scorpius is an awesome villain, to anti-hero, as well.
@@CorbCorbin andvkevin dud get almost csncled by woke mon becuse he was a conservative and was chrstian fsth and I think hsd sone not kind thing to say sbut gsy marriage
If only they didn't screw up final season and the ending.
@@zacharyjochumsen9677
Sorbo is scum, pure and simple, for many reasons.
But in spite of him, I did enjoy the first few seasons of Andromeda quite a lot.
I just finished this series yesterday! Thought it got weird around the beginning of season 4, but brought it back mid-season. It's one of my favorite shows!
It’s hard to express how well this show has held up to time. You could premiere it for the first time in 2023 and there would be very little that you would find out of place for a contemporary series.
It could do with some updated FX, but since it undoubtedly influenced the last two decades of TV drama and scifi it would definitely fit right in. Though if viewed for the first time it might be considered derivative rather than trend setting.
Watched it a year ago for the first time, as I was never into BSG. I was blown away by the pace and atmosphere of the first episodes and started to like the whole Gaius plotline as well as the crew after the first season. Only found out later how connected it was to the original.
@@DrewLSsix yeah the CGI could use a pass, but the in-camera stuff? very little would need changing
It's basically the first "modern" TV series, IMO. It's absolutely bewildering to watch anything that was contemporary with it. A lot of people right around that time could tell that the 80's/90's era of TV was getting stale and change was coming.
One real-world factor not talked about much in this review is that networks were in the middle of switching to HD when BSG premiered. Some networks had been broadcasting in HD for a few years, but some wouldn't switch until the end of BSG's run. That technology change was a huge driver for more "cinematic" television production than what had come before.
The other, of course, is 9/11. BSG was the first major sci fi show to launch after being developed after 9/11. So the cultural mood was just completely different than it had been a few years earlier. There was a trend toward militarism, and a generally terrified mood. It was a shining golden age of gritter and darker re-evaluations.
BSG as a show wouldn't have worked five years earlier, and wouldn't have been as novel five years later. It landed at a very specific moment in television history where the medium and the audience had suddenly changed in unprecedented ways that aren't immediately apparent for a viewer watching it now for the first time.
@@logion567 This show and Babylon 5 over relied on cartoonish CGI. I kind of like old school effects using models and other practical effects better. Maybe the most beautiful special effect in the original was when the viper pilots were destroying the space mines in the red colored nebula to clear a path for the Galactica and the rest of the colonial fleet, a parody of the parting of the red sea. No CGI in 1978 and it just looked beautiful.
While I remember when the show was coming out, I didn’t actually see it until late 2020/early 2021 during Covid, and I became OBSESSED with it. It has some of the best characters, writing, twists and turns, storylines, action scenes, and music in all of television. And while the finale rushed some things, I thought it was an overall satisfying conclusion. It’s one of the greatest TV shows of all time, I love it… So say we all.
Don't say "we all".
Learn to speak only for yourself. Your lack respect for others.
Don't say "we all".
Learn to speak only for yourself. Your lack respect for others.
@@CordeliaWagner "So say we all" is a quote from the show
Certainly was a high point of the 90s
So say we all!
Michael Hogan was AMAZING as Saul Tigh. One of the most well-realized characters put to screen.
The season with the occupation was a masterwork by him.
Anything Helena Cain was fascinating. She brought the tension. That Adama v. Cain storyline was phenomenal.
Yes! And both of them, (Olmos and Forbes) proudly from Mexican descent! Viva Mexico Cab….. ones!!! 👍👍👍
After viewing this retrospective I’m seeing a lot of similarities between BSG and The Expanse in how grounded both shows are.
It would be interesting if you could do a retrospective on The Expanse at some point.
Great content as always 👌
My favorite two shows. Both have so much in common in their approach.
So, the finale. My issue was the "let's give up all our tech and just scatter across the world" speech from Lee. The whole point Adama kept making throughout the show was we are stronger together, so for Lee to go ... but what if we all went off to our own corners of the world to die amongst barely linguistic proto-humans felt like an abandonment of the core tenet of the show. The mysticism, Kara's fate/status, those didn't bother me, but the sudden neo ludditism from Lee did.
Yeah. That was peak Mormonism, unfortunately.
I also hated that we didn't get a final scene between Adama & Tigh
I guess the whole point was to make a fresh start. From scratch, without any of the vices, hatreds and hang ups of the old civilization. After all the 12 colonies ended up making the same mistakes than the original kobolian civilization, so i understand the pitch to start again with a clean slate.
I think after creating an AI that decides to exterminate all of humanity, then running from it for years to find sanctuary on an alien homeworld it's fair to become a luddite. I have the feeling you're going to see a lot more legitimate and fair ludditism in the near future as we proceed to fall for the progressive fallacy that "all change is good" and advance AI to a state that's ultimately more detrimental to humanity than it is beneficial too.
@@RafaelSantos-pi8pythe problem is it goes against a core message of the show/ending about the cycle humanity was involved in which plays off you are destined to repeat history if you don’t learn from it. By starting fresh wiping the slate clean, they forgot their own history and thus the lessons learned, and they ended up repeating history. Kobol - created Cylon servants, rebellion, war and destruction - started anew on colonies. Created Cylons on colonies, got the show canon… Why would they expect a different result doing the exact same thing again on Earth?
The Hand of God is when Bear McCreary became a character and even though 33 had really hooked me, it cemented me knowing I would follow the entire series.
This series was one of my all time favorite shows.
It truly is one of THE best TV shows ever, not just science fiction, but TV drama overall. Oustanding.
Same, though The Expanse comes close to it. Gaius Baltar remains my favorite character, along with Caprica 6. James Holden just isn't multi-faceted enough in comparison. Both shows have so much in common in how they approach things. Both have their issues and frustration points.
So Say We All
@@matfax i really enjoyed The Expanse, but just never felt the same emotional connection to it that I do with BSG. I’m not sure why since it was a great show and I’d love more seasons.
Jamie Bamber was the only English actor to ever fool me with his accent. I had no idea whatsoever that he was from the UK for years after the show initially launched.
I had no idea Stringer Bell was a Brit either
He only slipped once on the show
I didn't know Lee was English at first, and I was watching a behind the scenes video of a table read that James Callis was absent from. Bamber happened to be reading the part of Baltar, and was doing it in a very convincing English accent... that I thought he was doing just for Baltar
that guy that played main part in The Walking Dead also fooled me - also Cumberbatch :)
Same here. I saw him in an interview afterwards and thought, why is he putting on an English accent? Penny didn't drop at first. Then seeing him in Law and Order UK was a weird experience to get used to. 🙂🙂
Just as with Watership Down or The Lord of the Rings, any quote from Battlestar Galactica immediately sweeps me back into this universe. Its reality is one that could be inhabited, and living in it would be meaningful.
So say we all. :D
@@talon2000uk Took the words out of my mouth!
The Chief: A lot of rooks in there...
The Colonel: No one's a rook anymore.
That line still gives me chills.
@@CaptainTripppz Also Col. Tigh: "If the crew doesn't hate the XO he's not doing his job." Spot on.
"If they catch you they will kill you. But first they must catch you."
53:25 - No other sci-fi show has made me legitimately cry. This scene and events surrounding it, however, along with Hogan's fantastic acting, made me cry my eyes out during the first watch and always swell up on subsequent reruns. What a fantastic show.
Richard Hatch is Battlestar Galactica biggest fan. I'm so glad he was invited in the remake series
I saw it late, around 2012-2013 when I was around 15-16. I loved it. It was such a great show.
At the time I was already a huge Stargate fan. I liked how Battlestar Galactica just felt different, more grounded, though from today's perspective the setting does seem weird, like if we somehow created AI and FTL drives in the 90s and didn't progress our technology anywhere else.
Though all of science fiction has this problem, the technology almost always ages badly and having a 90s aesthetic actually aged better than the sets of Star Trek NG.
To this day the BSG reimagining is still the best sci-fi TV series I've ever watched. Sure, there have been great arcs, episodes and moments in other shows, but nothing had as much impact as this. I can remember finishing some episodes with my jaw on the floor. Beautifully acted, beautifully scripted and a real breath of fresh air for the space combat scenes. Crossroads Part 2 is probably one of the best episodes of any show ever. I still get a lump in my throat when the four realise and when Kara shows up. In my last job as a CGI artist, one of my colleagues worked on the BSG CGI. He built small greebles that would fly off when the Galactica got hit. Lucky bugger.
This and Babylon 5 are among my favourite shows of all time, both telling long-form stories, though coming from opposite directions - Babylon 5 had a story planned in advance (though circumstances forced changes on the way), and it's pretty clear, particularly on a rewatch, that JMS always knew where things were going. Meanwhile, BSG was pretty obviously making it up as it went, but does brilliantly at pulling it all together in the end, despite a few rough spots where they'd have done things differently if they knew where things were headed - for example, if they'd known they were going to end up with only 7 regular Cylon models and a Final Five, they wouldn't have made one of the regular models number 8...
It just goes to show that either approach can work :)
I like where you say "BSG was pretty obviously making it up as it went" because this always makes me laugh:
*"... and they have a plan"*
Narrator: They did not have a plan.
I often see this comment on babylon 5 being great, and i started watching it.
But after a few episodes i stopped, cant stand it.
Its to dated for me, i dont like the characters, it really feels fake.
@@erics320 It doesn't help that episode 4 is (in my opinion - others differ) the single worst episode of the entire series (it also happens to be the first episode produced after the pilot, which may help explain things). It also doesn't help that the ongoing plot takes a while to get going - episode 13's the first real sign of what the show becomes, and that's probably a bit too much to ask.
@@erics320
The first season is the set up of things to come in the 2nd and 3rd season.
It's a slow burn but it is worth it.👍
@@dwc1964 when you see the origin of the Cylons in Caprica it makes more sense. Deep down they are basically a rebellious 16 year old girl, or the Chat GPT version of her.
Olmos not winning an Emmy was criminal, he was BRILLIANT!
I just rewatched BSG all the way through since it ended in 2009. It has aged well. I also binged The Expanse recently and I really noticed how influential BSG was on Expanse WRT to space travel and the actual physics of traveling through the solar system.......minus FTL of course.
i first watched the reimagined series as a flu-ridden binge.
when i recovered and took my first bus to work, i nearly
jumped out of my skin when i saw twins crossing the road!
I really liked the central thesis of this. A bunch of my friends have had a hard time getting past the moral compromises of the earlier seasons to see the more hopeful messaging later on. I too am mixed about the Deus Ex Machina ending but seeing everyone on Earth are some of my favourite scenes.
I wouldn't even call it Deus Ex Machina, it was payoff. The idea of divine intervention and a destiny was set up from season one. Then they build upon that.
@@michaelguth4007 I don’t mean it in a judgmental way, but in the narrative it is literally a god handing them the answer - which is exactly what it was named after! (In Greek theatre)
One of the things about BSG is that it was never shy about it ultimately being something of a religious narrative. Which, I mean, the core story is fundamentally Exodus, so it's not like this was a minor or hidden detail or anything. Really, to me it's a case where this just isn't a normal story for the genre, as sci-fi generally ends up in a pretty atheistic, materialist place, so what's ultimately a story about the spiritual in the genre strikes people off guard.
As a result it ends up divisive, and I've even seen people claim that the ending, or even season 4 generally, gets downright "preachy," even though they claim to not have had any issues with seasons 1-3 or seasons 1 and 2 when there was just as much spiritual messaging running throughout the show. Like, the issues of faith and God or Gods is right there from the start once Gaius starts seeing Six everywhere, and only gets strengthened further once Roslin starts seeing visions prophecied in scriptures, so that's what? Episode 2 and 3?
I think a lot of it's just people's anti-religious bias playing a part. Them not wanting to admit that any amount of spirituality can make for an entertaining premise.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe absolutely. The religious themes were there by the end of the miniseries too. It didn’t come out of nowhere, it was a key part of the foundation. If anything I respected them more for just rolling with it, rather than finding some other verifiable explanation like with the Prophets in DS9.
Grace Park's Athena was the standout character for me. Truly noble and courageous. She was far and away the most compelling person of the series. Boomer and Athena were nothing alike showing the Cylons had the potential to grow beyond where they started making them fascinating. They weren't just 2D villains.
Boomer’s redemption is one of my favorite parts of the show.
I know I'm the wet blanket here, but setting the reimagined BSG in the past was a mistake that was amplified by Ron Moore not understanding the concepts he was playing with. First of all, Mitochondrial Eve isn't special. MTE was around about 140,000 years earlier than the most recent common ancestor. Eve is an example of a common ancestor for all living humans, but all the non-childless people living at the same time as MTE were also common ancestors for all living humans.
Secondly, when you consider that the BSG crew was on our earth 100,000 years before the real flowering of our culture it becomes a terrifying finale. Our beloved characters died out without a trace. Despite what Apollo says about teaching the natives their language, none of that came through to today. Their culture disappeared completely. If they started farming, it vanished. If they used better hunting weapons like composite longbows or crossbows, they vanished. All their stories, all the lessons completely gone. Simply put, the crew of the BSG left NO IMPACT.. They didn't make earth better or worse. All their struggling amounted to absolutely nothing.
The show did start to lose me a bit in season 3, mostly due to all of the time spent with the Cylons and Baltar, but the trial at the end of that season won me back. I actually liked season 4-as someone who, even though an agnostic, loves reading about early Christianity, I was tripping out when I realized that Baltar’s theology was very heavily rooted in old-school Gnosticism. The dark depression of that season was very heavy, but very dramatic. The conclusion of Zarak’s and Gaeta’s character arcs with the mutiny made sense for both of them, but it hurt my heart to see them go against our gallant BSG crew. And that finale was, to me at least, just about perfect. I was so happy that Helo and Athena got their happy ending with their daughter, Roslin’s death was appropriately Moses-like, and I loved that it ended with Head-Six and Head-Baltar arguing thematic questions.
The Zarak and Gaeta rebellion reminded me of Noah and the time they spent in the desert. They couldn't go the promised land because he had to wait for a new generation that will embrace the new ideas. They rebelled because they did not accept the human cylons living side-by-side with humans (the new idea) and during this process they ended up killing all members of the twelve consul (old tradition that needed to be abandoned).
@@cleversonsutil4495what are you talking about? Noah and their time in the desert? Do you mean Moses?
As a die-hard fan of the original, it being aired at my prime-time of imaginative growth as a 9 year old, all I can say of the re-imagined series is: "it wasn't what I expected or wanted, but it was still good." I wish it had a different name and mythology and that Richard Hatch's "Second Coming" had happened alongside this show, but it was what it was, and it is what it is.
"We love you Sharon and we always will." Spectacular episode.
Rosalind and Adama's love story is one of my favorite television love stories and is, along with Nathan and Sophie from Leverage, a lovely picture of people finding love in later life.
I hate her character. It's so representative of our modern society and its hypocrisy and addiction to power.
I love it when she's freed from the Cylons and she's like "I love you." and he's like "It's about time." or something like that. lol
I love that he just says the finale was controversial and moves on.
Personally, I liked the ending fine and have always felt the "controversy" was a bit overblown
BSG 2003, was the antithesis of 'its not about the destination, it's the journey. The ending was not as furfilling as hoped, but that was because the series didn't save up a big wow for the end, it delivered the wows across 4 seasons with character lead drama, growth and revelations.
Yet to be bettered....
I used to love this show, for so many reasons, the story lines, the set designs, the acting, but that ending...
To clarify, it's the giving up on their technology entirely, in favour for hunter gathering subsistence, that annoyed me most, as that would have meant death for a lot of them. Imagine having survived so many ordeals across the years, like famine, military coups and being chased by Cylons, only to die of starvation or injury, all because someone thought "primitive" meant the same as "easy".
@Hans Akkerman
Actually it's very unlikely the crew gave up all their technology, thus showing the rnodern age of man showing the cycle starting all over again.😁
My buddies and I were randomly flipping through channels in our dorm lounge, checking out what was on the Sci Fi Channel. The scene of survivors scrambling trying to escape the planet was the first thing we saw. No context, no backstory. We were immediately hooked by whatever this new movie was. Imagine our surprise learning the title. :P
BSG is my favorite sci-fi universe. The detail and love you give to the retelling of the reimagined series is outstanding. I hope you get the chance to do the same to another series that deserves it in The Expanse.
I stayed away from BSG for years precisely because I was afraid it was going to be schlock, but when I finally gave it a chance I quickly became obsessed. The Portlandia sketch about BSG is perfect. Once you start watching you can't stop, even the bad episodes and more convoluded plot points can't bring down the overall quality and tension. Its the gold standard for a reboot. I'd love to see Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in charge of a live action version of the anime Macross, in fact maybe that's exactly what BSG is.
The reason the Vipers seem somewhat similar in aesthetics to the X-Wing is because both were designed by Ralph McQuarrie, the iconic concept artist for Star Wars and its sequels. His unused designs have appeared in Rebels.
Anyhow, McQuarrie designes the ships for BSG, as well. He also designed ships for Buck Rogers. The original design for the Viper was rejected for BSG, but it later became the Star Fighter (Thunder Fighter) on Buck Rogers, also a Glen Larson show.
The SFX for BSG were created by John Dykstra, who also developed the FX for the first Star Wars.
Oh man, the Capcrica music at the end gave me chills. It's such an underwatched series that I LOVED. It wasn't the best, but the fantastic philosophical question it raises are awesome!
Caprica was excellent. I never watched BSG, but I have Caprica on DVD. Watched it in first run and have re-watched a number of times. Fantastic. And prescient in many ways.
Caprica was a show that I love to hate. It was wonderfully acted and very well produced. It was full of wonderful drama and the back stories were just brilliant... Why do I say I hated it? Because it ended. I had high hopes.
@@Deridus If only it had developed, I feel with its broader appeal it could have surpassed BSG in the pantheon of the golden age of TV, but IIRC the last big writers' strike combined with SyFy having no clue what to do with it and thus shifting it around multiple times in the schedule in just a few weeks killed it. They even burned off the last 2 or 3 episodes in like a 2 AM filler slot. From a flagship property to abandoned in only a handful of weeks, shame.
@@matthewbowen5841 There is some truth to that. It annoys me how often studios will go into production without actually having a plan.
@@Deridus Well, that was out of the norm for a cable (or broadcast) network 14 years ago. Now, it's the standard operating procedure in streaming. Netflix and Amazon being the worst.
Oh man! I almost always come away from your videos with the urge to watch or rewatch whatever was covered. This time that urge is EXTREME. This show was just so iconic and satisfying. 🔥💕
SO SAY WE ALL!!!
I was at the comic Con where the 2nd coming trailer was shown. I remember the entire hall ROARING with cheer at seeing it.
If we only knew it was just a glorified fan film trailer. 😭
I saw Richard Hatch's trailer at SDCC. It was fun nostalgia because it was a BSG thing... but the acting/dialog was hideous, and I laughed my ass off at this especially cheesy scene of Apollo leaping through the air firing two-blasters, John Woo style. I respect his dream, but I am _very_ glad Universal went with Moore's vision.
The change to the Cylons having been created by humans was very Camronesque. I liked it.
My favorite line from T2: "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves."
👍
True Story: before Ron Moore decided to tackle BSGs remake, he was given carte blanche after his run on Voyager to do whatever he wanted, and it wasnt BSG.. it was DragonRiders of Pern. No joke. He was in the initial stages of development when he started getting studio notes telling him to change this and to change that. At some point he said if he implemented all the studio suggestions, it would no longer be DragonRiders of Pern, so he gave up. I would also like to point out how on his run of Voyager, he wanted to do many things that Berman simply refused to let him do, that ended up making it into BSG in some form or another. Such as the first season, Moore wanted to make the division between the Starfleet crew and the Marquis take the entire season to resolve instead of the first couple of episodes. He also wanted to make the lack of access to resources much more prominate, no more infinite torpedoes or shuttlecraft.. and then there is the Year of Hell.. which Moore fully intended to be a full season long arc that Berman vetoed immediately, wanting to get back to episodic television and away from the serialized storytelling of DS9. If it hadnt been for Berman and Moore's bad experiences on Voyager, we might not have the BSG we have today.
It's maybe better that Dragonriders didn't get made then, considering that it wouldn't likely have been convincing on a TV budget (though the Dinotopia miniseries from around the same time is pretty decent and involves some people riding flying creatures)...but on the other hand, Ronald D. Moore making it sounds like a brilliant match, and it's a real shame that it still hasn't been turned into a film or TV series. I'd love to see how it would've turned out. Still, good on him for being loyal to the source material.
I think you did a great recapitulation, but the one question at the end of the series that I was disappointed that was never answered was who or what Starbuck was. They made her seem like maybe an Angel and then in her last scene she disappears. That was poor writing and had the feeling that the writers had no idea what to do with her.
They don’t know because they were writing the final season week to week plot wise. That’s why the 4th season goes so far off the track.
Not really. On my first watch I thought the same. However, their are many “clues” and “markers” along the way that indicate she was some sort of Angel. Like the Angelic statuette of an Angel she found and handed to the admiral.
They also never explain why the Cylons want Earth as a new home even though they already gained twelve new homes in the pilot other than the writers ran out of reasons for the Cylons to follow the Colonial Fleet.
@@ManOutofTime913
It was answered clearly. Watch it again!
I mean the series.
Again, this was answered in the show. You missed it? Oh well.
This is my favorite remake of all time. And since I normally dont like remakes cause they normally dont hold a candle to the original IP. This was a breath of fresh air and a prime example of how to rework a property. Man, I miss this series.
Fresh air? It’s depressing as fuck.
Battlestar Galactica was such an AWESOME series. I have binged watched that whole series multiple times.
The music for this BSG was amazing
i actually took a taiko drumming class at the chicago japanese cultural center because of rhis show😊
Bear McCreary (and Richard Gibbs) pioneered the Taiko drum sound which is still very prevalent in current soundtracks. I just listened to the Picard S3 soundtrack yesterday and thought of Bear when the drums set in. Also, Bear's accordion arrangement of "Prelude To War" is just pure joy.
I think this is one of the few shows where the cast were all casted perfectly for the characters, I'm aware that Olmos did ask for some lines to be changed for the character that he thought fit better and I like to believe that a lot of this was the same for most characters. My personal favourite character is Saul Tigh, as someone that suffered for a long time with alcoholism he plays the horrible attitude you can have when you're not drinking so well it made me uncomfortable at first because it's something I felt once, he isn't just played as a drunk idiot, but a functional alcoholic.
The webisodes set on New Caprica between seasons 2 and 3 were *amazing*, IMO, as they explored things such as what would drive someone to become a suicide bomber. Mandatory viewing IMO!
I absolutely ADORED the ending of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Every single conclusion of every plot thread were chef's kiss!
Some viewers claim the inclusion of the supernatural elements-- especially a godlike presence with a strong religious undertone-- was a step too far, for them, in a science fiction series, but I find this to be strange. The presence of supernatural beings, gods essentially, are very prevalent in Star Trek and Babylon 5. Even The Expanse has its version of godlike beings. They're inserted into those stories in ways that atheists and agnostics can more readily accept, but they're there.
@@markvictor8776 - I agree.
As I said in another comment, the mysticism is there from the very first episode and runs through the entire show for the whole of its run. Anyone who complains about it at the conclusion was just not paying attention.
i commented on your old retrospective that if you made a longer video like your star trek retrospectives to BSG id watch it, well im here and i love it. your videos cement the feelings and admiration to these series and i can hear you talk about these shows forever i love your work
After a decade of not watching this series....i recently watched this complete series and for a series over 15yrs old, I'm blown away at how almost timeless the sheer quality of script writing, subject matter, and visual presentation of the sets and special effects. Your usual personal analysis resonates a lot with myself and brings further insight into what i agree to be a game changing benchmark in the space opera style of science fiction storytelling. Continue to keep up the great work you do.....so say we all!
probably my all-time favourite show tbh
This is the show that showed me what good drama, good characters, and good storytelling was. It set the benchmark incredibly high. Since then, I don't think that there are many shows that can hold up to BSG, with maybe the exception of The Expanse. I really feel like The Expanse is a spiritual successor for BSG (or at least the next evolution in amazing Sci-Fi).
Exactly
Now you’ve done it! I will have to rewatch it AGAIN for the ninth time!!! And, shame on you, you’ve made me cry!!! But all joking aside, what a dedication, such love and admiration. Your retrospective is wonderful! Thank you for this condensed and joyful look into the past. And love your voice btw. Thank you so much. Great video!!!
You still remember the number?
The one character-based structural issue I have with the show is that as soon as they bring Helo back to the fleet the writers decide to take half of Lee’s season one characterisation as the morality POV and give it to Helo which leaves Lee with only his personal relationships and dramas related to those for a long time in the show so we get trapt in love triangles and added to all the aimlessness mentioned in the video
(Spoilers) Roslin practically dying in Adama's arms when they had finally found their home, and realizing Thrace had been dead the entire time was just heart-wrenching. Even the short clips here made me cry all over again.
Why even say those spoilers lol jeez, just say you liked the show, why be so specific
One of the BEST shows I've ever seen. I recommend to people all the time to this day.
I remember coming across the UMD for the first 3 episodes of BSG on my PlayStation Portable back in 2005. I had no idea what it was but I bought it and was so confused because started with "previously on..." but I was hooked. So then I had to find the miniseries DVD and then all the rest of the series. 18 years later and I can safely say it's the best series of television I've ever watched. I even loved the ending which I know was a controversial one!
dang, I'd forgotten how much I cried watching this show. And then you go mashing scenes, one moment happy tears, the next sad and usually some mix of both that leaves me confused but so completely in the moment. Made it to minute 35 and now have to take a break and watch an episode. Coleman, this condensation is freakin intense!
Thx for your retrospectives! They honestly help me sleep better! I play them in the background. 🤗🤗🤗👍👍👍
I watched this show from beginning to end as it was coming out and became a big part of me and I actually criedwhen it ended and I didn't know what to do with myself after that for a little while afterwards
Check out Diaspora, a BSG total conversion mod for Freespace 2!
This series was near perfection, from the writing, the soundtrack, characters, my favorite tv show. One major gripe I have with it is the end. They should have came to our Earth at the time of the founding the Greek civilization, which would explain how we got the many Greek god pantheon. I don't believe for a minute that everyone would want to burn their ships, turn their backs on what creature comforts they still had to go live with the primates and go native. I would have been satisfied that the show ended when they found nuked Earth.
I LOVE this version of BSG. Richard Hatch, RIP, had such serious passion for continuation, but I feel the right thing was done. The re-do was much better thought out, and I totally agree that eliminating aliens was the right thing to do.
Honestly, when ANYONE asks me what my favorite TV show is, I tell them THIS Battlestar Galactica is my favorite show. I'm 51 and have never watched a show quite like this. Yes, there are others I like, Firefly being right up there. Unfortunately, they were on Fox. I love that every episode is part of the story arc, and for me, the last 3 episodes were emotionally challenging to watch for two reasons, the show was ending, and the story was outstanding. Love it. Just perfect.
Man you also gotta touch on the BSG: Deadlock game, fleshes out the course of the first Cylon war in the re-imagined universe with a semi-canonical backing. Also, just a really good strategy game.
Great example of what will happen when writers don't have a plan (ironically, despite what the opening says). Intriguing first couple of seasons, going downhill hard after the 3rd.
I agree. I watched the entire first season, butnwotj each episode I began to think they were introducing mysteries without planned exactions. I eventually decided there wasn't a plan, and I stopped.
I remember being really disappointed by the ending of the show but watching this back it really makes me realized how much more satisfying the ending is than so many other shows I’ve watched since
I love that you played most of the entire Apollo speech on the stand. It’s my favorite scene in the season and is one of those truly extraordinary scenes of great acting that everyone really ought to see.
Another one is Tigh's explanation of suicide bombers...
"We send people on suicide missions all the time. Just because you put them in a viper or put a gun in their hand, they're just as dead".
The first two seasons were brilliant and the show peaked with the New Caprica ark, which was one of the first and most daring confrontations in popular American media with the occupation of Iraq (from the perspective of the occupied no less). However after that point the show became to drift around mystery boxes and took a sharp drop in quality. Especially egregious were the failures in confronting its moral and political ambiguity, such as by turning Zarek and Gaeta into villains while excusing the actual crimes committed by the show's protagonists, and the bizarre reactionary turn around a literal deus ex machina and rejection of technology and modernity. But damn is McCreary's score amazing and did it have some of the best scifi tv episodes of all time.
Fully agree. The show peaked with the escape from New Caprica. There's plenty to appreciate in the rest of Season 3, and while not a crash and burn, the final season was the weakest of the four.
While i agree that alot of season 4 was weird and nonsensical, Gaeta and Zareks arc was not only great but made perfect sense for their characters. Gaeta had already tried to genuinely work with the cylons on new caprica, something he was hated for. When it became apparent that the cylons were still antagonistic, he began scheming for a coup like he did in season 4. When the same scenario happens again, i can imagine him of all people feeling particularly disillusioned with the thought of working together again and also feeling quite resentful as he was never really appreciated for his resistance efforts by the same people who then started pushing for the opposite.
Similarly Zarek actions here make sense as he opposed the New Caprica cylon alliance from season 3 and was even willing to face death for it. He of course was going to similarly oppose the same alliance in S4 and even warned of civil unrest for letting baltar off the hook. Zarek was always a means justifies the ends kind of guy so of course he had no qualms in conducting the coup in a brutal and bloody way because he felt a strong sense of justification.
Neither character's choice was arbitrary or villainous and personally I think both went out with their sense of integrity still intact. They just found themselves at political crossroads that were inevitable given an understandably controversial decision to align with cylons. Honestly they could have done no less.
I recall when the New Caprica arc aired that there was a surprising amount (to me) of outrage online at making the humans into terrorists. It was closer to 9/11, and many people were complaining that Ronald Moore was trying to make "the terrorists" look more sympathetic. I know some of the same people were up in arms about Starbuck as a woman (saying he was "pushing a feminist agenda" or words to that effect). The funny thing was, though many called on others to stop watching the show...every week I seemed to see those same voices commenting on the newest eipsodes.
this is genuinely one of the best sci-fi shows i've ever seen! it feels grounded and the characters and their struggles feel real so it becomes incredibly immersive. it also doesn't have the large amount of content and franchise bloat that stuff like star wars and star trek suffer from: it's only 4 seasons, there's not a million spin-offs and sequels, it's as long as it needs to be and doesn't drag on needlessly
Man, this takes me back. Back then, I was first a member and then a manager of at a very special sort of BSG fan community. For the better part of a decade I lived and breathed Battlestar Galactica, organising events and telling stories. Watching this retrospective left me really emotional and I even learned a fact or two I had not know before. I apprechiate that and while I disagree on some aspects of your analysis, I am nontheless grateful for this very interesting and engaging video.
I really loved the series as it was airing, but they dropped the ball with the wrap up.
Even on this retrospective, a lot of time is spent on the superb 1st and 2nd seasons, whereas the 3rd is just the highlist and the 4th is quickly glanced, ironically mirroring the show's downward spiral in quality.
Yes, Season 3 has some very good moments, specially the New Caprica episodes and the Baltar trial. The 4th season really drops the ball and the foreshadowing started with Leoben on the 1st season doesn't really pay off, as well as the final 5 or Hera's supposed destiny.
I wholeheartedly agree with the strong points of the series as described on this video but for me it's very hard to recommend to new comers because of the way it really drops the ball on the finish line.
But yeah, when this show is good, it is amazing.
Eh. It dropped the ball a lot less than other series. Both at the time and definitely going forward into the next decade (I can say now with about 20 years of hindsight). I mean, Lost ended up a lot worse than BSG, and they were super contemporaneous. The ending of The Sopranos was worse, and tried to get off by being extremely vague. Game of Thrones became an utter trainwreck, and none of the new Star Treks even got good enough to have just bad endings.
I get a lot of people were divided on how BSG ended, but frankly, it told its story and told it rather well on the whole. Season 4 definitely has some issues, and I tend to agree that the Final 5 was overall a miss, mostly because by that point in the story it was really an unecessary premise that made way more sense to pay off way earlier when the whole show and the whole world was still in the post-9/11 "anyone could be a terrorist" suspicion mode. That was just a concept they kept in their back pocket way too long and then they scrambled to pay it off and yeah . . . it didn't exactly work. Everything else in season 4 though, I thought worked pretty well.
Give the show a full watch again sometime. I think you'll find the final season a lot less bad once the issue of anticipation isn't there. You'll still have your gripes (I know I do), but at least it does pay off most of the characters and their arcs in mostly satisfying ways. A LOT more than a lot of the other stuff that was out at the time and came out later.
It was fine, the miniseries and the first season were probably the best stuff i saw on TV, the problem was, the showrunners kept hammering the fact that "there was a plan", there wasn't, they made it up as it went on, and they introduced plot lines that never paid off or were underwhelming, they had an awesome concept but they never actually planned an ending and it shows
The thing is they were quite open in interviews as the show aired that the plan tagline was forced on them by a sci-fi channel executive and that they were only really planning ahead about a season at a time.
Granted it would have been better if they could have gotten the dumb plan tag out of the intro once they got further in and showrunners had more authority cos most ppl wouldn’t have heard about the interview clarifications.
Regarding the series finale: While it was never explicitly stated, I've always thought the clues pointed toward "the Cylon God" as being the 13th Lord of Kobol. Of course, we don't know who/what the Lords of Kobol actually were, other than very powerful, Sufficiently Advanced in the vaguest sense. But what I liked about the 13th Lord theory was that it could be viewed at times as a devil, a trickster, or a god/super being pursuing some inscrutable, very long term plan to break the cycle. Its true that spelling things out probably would have been equally underwhelming, though I would have liked a few more clues and hints.
What a fantastic retrospective, great job! This show was the source for many of the greatest moments in entertainment I was allowed to experience. And it still holds up in almost every aspect be it in terms of visual presentation, quality of story telling or acting and direction. Thanks for this opportunity to revisit an essential part of my early twenties ;)
I could have sworn this video already existed.... All of this has happened before
Man I totally forgot about Lee Adama's lawyer monologue, brilliant 👏🏼
Unbelievable but probably quite common. I am a 70s kid. Loved the original.
When this released, like an idiot, I dismissed it pretty quickly.
It not being a continuation put me off the most. Character changes, cgi cylons. I neglected to research deeper.
Roll forward 12 years.
After peripherally absorbing the praise (almost universally) the show received I felt I owed it to myself to give it a go.
Amazing show. Start to finish.
Some iffy episodes and couple character I never quite gelled with. But for me it was close to perfect.
And Most, Most importantly. As someone (TTSCC) who hates watching a show that gets cancelled after a few years; this has a Beginning, middle and End.
I have re-watched it many times, and having just watched this video, I believe it is time to binge it again.
i appreciate the retrospectives, especially this one since I watched the reboot in its original run. One thing: I'm at 11:47, and uh - you skipped Miami Vice in Olmos' filmography? 😅 That was like one of his most prominent roles, he played Lieutenant Castillo almost for the entire run of the 80's defining show 😝
He killed the role of Lieutenant Castillo, amazing onscreen presence and gravitas, stole a lot of scenes for me.
This is a magnificent retrospective on the series as a whole, but I think it glossed over how disappointing many fans found the finale. For me, it was not so much the supernatural element that fell flat, but the emptiness of the main characters' fates. After literally returning from the dead and discovering her own corpse on post-apocalyptic Earth, Starbuck abruptly vanishes, providing no resolution at all. Apollo chooses to demolish everything they have managed to salvage and then wanders off alone into the woods. Roselyn leaves Adama alone in the end with nothing but memories. While there were a few happy endings among the rest of the crew, the unresolved main character arcs, along with the anti-climax of the Cylons' long-promised "Plan", sadly ruined the rewatchability of the series for me. I viewed the highlights in this video with rapt nostalgia, but it was totally devoid of the dread and mystery that made watching the original series so compelling.
The dying leader in the prophesies who would never rest on the surface of Earth was never Roslin like the characters assumed… it was the Battlestar Galactica herself.
Saw it all the first time it aired in the US. I was 12 when the miniseries came out, and remember each episode trailer playing over and over on Sci Fi, then Sy Fy. I jumped out of my chair when Pegasus rescued Galactica over New Caprica. The only part I missed until it appeared on Netflix in the early 20-teens was the second half of the final season due to high school sports, and literally having missed the fact the season continued after finding “Earth” at all. Left me feeling a bit dumb. But it inspired me to write my own concept Sci Fi novel, still untouched from how I left it 12 years ago. I might have to pull out my old thumb drive and run through it again sometime, heh.
I get choked up watching the memorial scene and I can watch it over and over again. I rewatch the series every now and again because it’s just great TV.