I realized when watching all that stuff about how the Cylons could be anyone and we have to find a way to test for it that I'd seen this before. And I did, when it was called Deep Space Nine. Remember the Dominion War when the Changelings could be anywhere? Of course, it aslo calls back any number of "body snatcher" stories too.
In this movie, the President asks whether Adama thinks they should declare martial law. This is actually exactly what happened in the original version. Adama took military control, and it got to be something of a sticky issue late in that series. Essentially, I've come to realize that by introducing President Roslin, they have split Adama into two characters. Certainly the grandfatherly Lorne Greene would be out of place in this world. But it seems they've put all the softness (and political leadership) into the President, leaving Adama a hardened military man. I do like his stance against network computers and things like that. But I think they've also kind of crippled him. He's really not in command now, is he? He answers to someone else.
I like the flags of the Twelve Colonies.
There's something to be said for the way the attack came in the other version. It felt more dynamic. The nuclear explosions isn't bad, and in fact works better to devastate the entire planet, which was an issue for me in "Saga of a Star World". But we really don't see any devastation. Just some refugees in a field, a cloud, and later a flash of white light as a little girl will be killed. These sorts of changes make all the action feel more passive to me. In the other version, people were hopping on whatever ships they could find and leaving. Here, they are just waiting for ships already out there to pick them up. I also have to ask, did they destroy any world besides Caprica? There was not a single mention of it. The point of the series was that all the colonies were destroyed. I hope they were (that sounds terrible, and not exactly how I mean it).
After nearly 3 hours, and all my previously listed aggravations, when Adama got up and asked "Where shall we go, what shall we do?" I wanted to yell "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn!"
There's another little nod to Larson when Adama says the sacred texts begin with "Life here began out there."
Maybe part of my problem with this Starbuck is what a jerk she is. Benedict was a rogue of sorts, but he was never insubordinate. I can't imagine that Starbuck looking Tigh in the face and calling him a bastard.
With the reveal that Boomer's a Cylon, I literally yelled, "Is nothing sacred?"
Overall, I feel a lot of the urgency went out from this story. Some of this action took forever. And ultimately, Larson's Galactica was about hope. Our world may be destroyed, but we will survive. We'll look for Earth. There are more of us out there. This series feels utterly hopeless. Earth is a lie. The major theme of this miniseries was spoken by someone when they said "You can't hide from what you've done." It's humanity's fault that the Cylons are out there because humanity made them. Everyone must live with the guilt over the deaths of the people they left behind. Baltar is responsible for giving Cylon information, and must watch his world be destroyed. Curiously, the whole "lie in the bed you made" thing seems to apply least to Baltar. He didn't consciously do anything. Everyone else is yelled at for the lives they let die. Adama is chewed out for Zack. Tigh is chewed out for the guys in the fire. The President is chewed out for the little girl on the botanical ship (and by the way, if that ship is gone, where will they get food?). I hate this kind of everyone to blame message. It's all part of this modern school of philosophy that there are no absolutes. All our heroes do bad things, and our villains are misunderstood. The original had goods and bads with a couple of grays. This one has almost nothing but grays, with a few dark grays thrown in. It's the same issue I have with Wicked, which I won't rant about here, but when a Wicked Witch is not in fact wicked, there's a problem. I don't feel any hope from this scenario. This isn't realism; it's nihilism. The fate of humanity is hanging on false hope and I simply do not respond to that.
Maybe it's those ideas that permeate this thing so much which are why I ultimately don't like it. That's not to say there aren't good things about it. Despite some of the blandness of the costuming, it's certainly not the silly "space in the '70s" look. The doofy helmets have changed. We do have that silly no-cornered paper, which seems impractical to me, but may in fact be a subtle homage to the pyramid imagery from the original; it reminds me of the octagonal playing cards. Nobody is equipped with "laser guns"; all ammunition is something tactical that needs to be reloaded. Physical bullets and missiles of sorts are a good change. Still, a show can't exist solely on weaponry. I just feel like the soul isn't there. This isn't about how humanity hopes to survive; it's about how the Cylons are slowly killing them. And no matter how much we make the Cylons into Blade Runner-style replicants, or make them seemingly immortal, they are ultimately still just robots, and I think that may be the most disappointing thing of all.
Here's hoping the series is better than the miniseries, because if not this is going to be a miserable experience.
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