My beef with New BSG

[lady_maneth]

Being cut off from Earth has been done before, more or less successfully. SGA did it for its first season (IMO could have gone on longer), as did Voyager and both BSG versions (as in the people in the fleet were thought to be the only ones left alive), and I suppose Red Dwarf, although I haven't seen that one yet.

The stones may have been "magic", but so's any sufficiently advanced technology, to paraphrase Clarke. Still, to me the stones were the most interesting piece of Ancient tech, except perhaps the gates themselves.

The complaint about not using the gates enough is mirrored on SGA, where many fans complained that they didn't explore the city enough, although there they used the gates to go off-world in the vast majority of episodes. You can't have it both ways...

BTW I'm really enjoying this thread, where there's room to discuss different POVs without throwing insults at one another. More threads like this, please!

 

[Overmind One]

Being cut off from Earth has been done before, more or less successfully. SGA did it for its first season (IMO could have gone on longer), as did Voyager and both BSG versions (as in the people in the fleet were thought to be the only ones left alive), and I suppose Red Dwarf, although I haven't seen that one yet.

The stones may have been "magic", but so's any sufficiently advanced technology, to paraphrase Clarke. Still, to me the stones were the most interesting piece of Ancient tech, except perhaps the gates themselves.

The complaint about not using the gates enough is mirrored on SGA, where many fans complained that they didn't explore the city enough, although there they used the gates to go off-world in the vast majority of episodes. You can't have it both ways...

BTW I'm really enjoying this thread, where there's room to discuss different POVs without throwing insults at one another. More threads like this, please!

Of course! We are not like the site which spawned us at all. There are rules here to prevent insults and harassment. Bring your friends!

 

[shavedape]

Being cut off from Earth has been done before, more or less successfully. SGA did it for its first season (IMO could have gone on longer), as did Voyager and both BSG versions (as in the people in the fleet were thought to be the only ones left alive), and I suppose Red Dwarf, although I haven't seen that one yet.

Yes, they should have remained cut-off from Earth longer in SGA. When it got to the point that they were flying ships out to the Pegasus galaxy it became too Star Trekky and lost some of the tension and excitement of their isolation. I didn't mind so much in Voyager because it seemed to take them awhile to reach that point of communication, plus they weren't able to physically interact with Earth the way they did on SGA.

The stones may have been "magic", but so's any sufficiently advanced technology, to paraphrase Clarke. Still, to me the stones were the most interesting piece of Ancient tech, except perhaps the gates themselves.

Agreed. I didn't hate the stones the way many people did, but I didn't care for the way they were used. They seemed to use them mostly for the sake of manufacturing melodrama instead of more science based stuff, like bringing people onboard Destiny who could help with piloting and operating the thing. It would seem that that would be the first thing that that would have happened. Plus, again, the use of the stones established immediate contact with Earth which deflated much of the tension of being lost on the other side of the universe. If they were gonna have the stones they should have introduced them much later in the series.

The complaint about not using the gates enough is mirrored on SGA, where many fans complained that they didn't explore the city enough, although there they used the gates to go off-world in the vast majority of episodes. You can't have it both ways...

Yes, I had that complaint about SGA too. The show ran long enough that they could have focused more on the city, after all, it was a city -- it was huge! Instead we got a couple of episodes where they discovered an ancient lab and blah blah blah. Those rooms all looked the same and were boringly generic. Since they were using CGI to flesh out the city they could have come up with some really cool and different looking areas to explore. It's a shame that they didn't.

The problem with SGU in this regard is that they didn't use the stargate that often nor did they explore Destiny either. This gets back to my point about how the ship's stargate and Destiny itself were just window dressing for the melodrama. I only recall one episode where they searched a bit on Destiny and found those repair bots in storage. It would have been exciting to see them focus on exploring the ship as that would only be natural both out of curiosity and the basic needs of survival.

BTW I'm really enjoying this thread, where there's room to discuss different POVs without throwing insults at one another. More threads like this, please!

Glad you're enjoying it! I meant what I said in the "Goodbye" thread. We aim to please.

 

[YJ02]

dont forget to mention the stupid god will lead us to salvation Crap and OVER dramatisation VERY reminiscient of SGU,
the sole reason i watched was for the CGI and spacebattles the rest pretty much sucked and as such i am in agreement with you bro.

Some say SGU was 'copying' BSG as BSG was on first--just saying.

So, you into Skylanders or just picked up the Avatar? My son is a committed, hardcore skylanders sqee (well he is 11).
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 3:40 PM ---

To this day, I still haven't a clue what the hoopla was all about with the latest incarnation of BSG. It was soapy as hell, added shaky cam that was cute in the mini-series but was used to a nauseating degree in the series. Yes, we get it, you like cinema verite and thought it would be cool in scifi but 5 years of that shit?!? Enough already!

The show was slow paced. It took characters where scifi has never done before, into complete boredom. It destroyed the original BSG. Re-imagining, my ass. If you're going to "re-imagine" an old show by putting all that made it endearing through the shredder then MAKE A NEW SHOW and CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE. What's the point of shredding up an old show and keeping the show's name? To capitalize on that show's legacy.

Re-imagined characters. Oh, so much fecal matter tossed into the back of a high speed fan and shred up all over the room just right there. Where do I start?

Colonel Tigh.

Here is a man who was Adama's trusted right-hand man, a voice of reason and the one Adama consulted on the hard decisions. He was a decorated soldier who flew Viper missions with Adama on the same squadron. A very strict, by the book disciplinarian who has proven himself a very capable fleet commander on several occasions and key to Galactica's success and survival.

That was the original Colonel Tigh.

Apparently, the writers of the new BSG thought an old, drunk, one-eyed fool who spent a good part of the series in his quarters with a bottle of booze in one hand and a gun in his mouth was a better choice for second in command and more trustworthy than a black dude. They wanted to be more politically correct by forcing certain major characters through sex changes but erased minorities from command. The hypocrisy is just magnificent. Oh, he turned out to be a Cylon.

Starbuck.

A gambler and a womanizing prick with a fantastic sense of humor and charm. Starbuck was the fleet's most skilled pilot. Starbuck was a chauvinist but everybody loved the guy. New BSG thought it would be cool to turn Starbuck into a swashbuckling bitch with a primate's temper and the manners of a drunken sailor in a Bangkok strip bar who was also no stranger to crying into tissues. Why? Seriously? Why the hell turn Starbuck, a central character that helped define BSG into just another bland character with contrived attitude and give the character a sex change?

Boomer.

Yet another leading black character totally mangled in the meat grinder, this time turned into an Asian woman. I have no problem with leading women characters. Samantha Carter was the quintessential leading woman in a scifi series. Yet, here I am, completely baffled by this change. Sharon "Boomer" Valerii was a completely unnecessary character who had no special appeal. She was no different than any of the other background props in the show. Another whiny crybaby who's sole purpose in the show was to bring shock and awe as being the first discovered Cylon in the fleet's ranks.

Apollo.

What can I say. Interesting character until, for some odd, unexplainable reason, traded his gun and stars for a suit and tie ... TO BECOME A POLITICIAN?!? WTF? This was the point where I threw my hands in the air and figured this show was toast.

Baltar was a pussy. The tall blonde Cylon chick in his mind, number six, was absolutely useless. Her very presence throughout the entire series stank of number 2.

Cylons as humans.

Yeah, I get it, they wanted to save dollars, so, they "re-imagined" Cylons as having evolved into meat sacks. So many beefs on so many levels with this. They're apparently completely human meat sacks like the rest of us, since they're undetectable, yet possess the speed and strength far beyond what is even remotely physically possible with humans. How convenient. The whole human Cylon bullshit turned me off completely and made this show not about robots having turned on their human creators but more like a civil war between two human factions.

Then there are minor details, like GLASS VIEWPORTS. Seriously. An evolved race of space faring beings with warships built to engage in fierce battle would have the silliest weakness any war vehicle can have, glass windows. Vipers are most susceptible to this weakness because the entire cockpit dome is a big giant window. At the speeds Vipers fly, drifting, pebble-sized space garbage would damage those domes. Even assuming they're some sort of really, really super-duper strong special magic glass, we've seen them crack when they hit debris and we've seen them changing these windows in the ship hanger. Proof that they are susceptible to impact, therefore would do little against a pebble hitting it at mind-boggling speeds.

Let's not forget the whole political nonsense inserted into the show. They're in a state of war. Galactica is their last, best hope and the rest of the fleet is a convoy of civilian vehicles carrying the survivors. This is really not the best time to start playing politics and expressing dissent with the military leadership who has kept everyone alive and defended the fleet from the Cylons. It was like they tried to shove every possible bit of modern day human fallacy into a single show. That's not entertainment, it's mass confusion on the part of the writers trying to cram too much garbage into a single series without realizing that garbage can only be deodorized for so long before even Lysol won't defeat the stink anymore.

So, they wanted to add woman in lead roles yet completely wipe out the cultural diversity of the original BSG. Here's an idea. Why not just make a new show and call it something else? New BSG has absolutely nothing to do with the old show except for the characters' names, the planet they came from and the ships. Other than that, it's got nothing to do with the original BSG.

Why couldn't they leave BSG well enough alone and just give this show a new name? Maybe name it SSHIS (Some Shit Happening In Space) or whatever and call it an original show. Calling it a BSG reboot and using contrived ties to the original is misleading and disingenuous and pretty much spits in the face of hardcore scifi fans.

On the upside? The didn't migrate the kid and his barking toy bear from the original. Ok, so they get a point for that.

Edit: OMNI brought up a good point about the overuse of religion.

Religious Cylons. 'Nuff said.

In the original BSG, the entire mythology was clearly ancient Egyptian. Scifi loves to link ancient Egyptian culture to extra-terrestrial life. There is a lot of intrigue in ancient Egyptian history and much that lends itself to the possibility of ancient extra-terrestrial contact and influence. Of course, that's up for interpretation. It is, nonetheless, a very interesting angle to explore that should not have been dropped from NuBSG.

Dude, ease up on the Anabolics

 

[shavedape]

Some say SGU was 'copying' BSG as BSG was on first--just saying.

So, you into Skylanders who just picked up the Avatar? My son is a committed, hardcore skylanders sqee (well he is 11).
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 3:40 PM ---



Dude, ease up on the Anabolics

Oh my dear Lord...

 

[YJ02]

To me, basically, the mini was not bad and season one and the first half of season two were not bad. After that it just spiraled down into a bad soap opera. I concur with Bluce that overall it did not treat its characters well, especially the women. Too much emphasis on showing people as flawed and not enough on showing people rising to the occasion.

Now that is not to say it NEVER showed people rising to the occasion - there were a couple of times it did. but the overall tack was just too focused on peoples flaws.

As to military matters, again it started out pretty well but got worse as the show progressed. The mini was actually refreshing in this regard, as they showed things happening on the Galactica that FELT military and lined up with experience and knowledge of things - like how the hangar bay operated like a carrier flight deck. Also, the battle of Ragnar was really well done - we got to see a battle "military style" instead of a bunch of silly cowboy style antics (although they had to give us one with Kara's rescuing Lee by joining their vipers). We saw a plan formulated and executed and the Cylons despite superior numbers got chewed up because Adama's plan put them in a poor position. We even got to see this happen again in the battle for the Tylium planet.

Sadly, as the show progressed the accuracy of its depiction of the military also went into the tank. The real start of that decline (and also the first place where a lot of military folk - I know from discussions - started to become ex viewers) was the Pegasus two part episode. Moore just had to give in to Hollywood stereotypes of military commanders and depict Admiral Cain as a psychopath and the crew of the Pegasus as a bunch of pirates. And the Razor movie made it worse by making Cain a spurned lover and leading us to conclude that she wasn't just nuts - she was petty too.

I could go on and on - the totally illogical "final five" storyline that necessitated a LOT of retconning both in the last few episodes and the "Plan" movie; the ridiculous series finale; characters whose personalities actually changed from episode to episode and so on. Overall Moore did drop the ball here.

After reading the transcript of Eick's interview for the B&C launch and is addressing questions of whether or not the F5 were scheduled to appear in it, Eick seems to throw Moore or someone under the bus and distances himself from the whole F5 thing. That together with other interviews/info just leads more to the belief that the F5 thing was just a hastily contrived hodge-podge to bridge us to an ending. I mean the characters picked as the F5, I think only Tyrol and Anders were believable. Why would Tory-some next to no line stand in, be a cylon? Or Tighe? maybe Ellen. But later we are told via plotline, that this is because Cavil just placed them at his whim--but really, they all ended up on one ship?

As a Army retiree-and I have said it before-Hollywood/Vancouver/wherever, doesn't care that they do not portray military characters/customs correctly. They are part of the 'elite' in our society who still thinks that anyone who joins the (US) military are scum and stupid and that no one will question there portrayal. I saw this in SG1, SGA, SGU and in parts of BSG (I say parts because I only refer to parts where RDM decided to use same phrases/customs/courtesies as the real military. If he ws going to go 'bs' then he should have gone all the way).
The same thing happens, I am sure, in cop shows. Take law and order for one, all the rounds just one officer fires throughout the series is said to be more then what the entire NYPD uses in a decade. But hey, its what THEY think WE want to watch.

And as far as Starbuck and the whole "little girl" being able to knock out a big guy-I have seen it happend several time. Again, while in, at bars, I have seen some quite 'tiny' women lay out guys her size and bigger..just sayin, where there is a will there is a way...
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:12 PM ---

Thanks for explaining your thoughts LM.

I, too, can enjoy a show that isn't original (in premise, characters, style, etc.) but I find it's best if those productions try to update the material and/or make it a fresh take on the story. To me SGU did none of that. For instance, it was like they were playing catch-up by using the dark interior/shaky cam style of filming that many shows had done before (BSG for one). They didn't do anything new with that style of filming, they just cynically used it (don't get me going about the fact that they didn't turn the lights on inside Destiny, oy!).

And instead of updating the "lost in space" premise they simply used Destiny as a backdrop for melodrama. If you think about it SGU could have played out on an ocean liner or a desert island, etc. The discovery of new, futuristic technology (Destiny) and its effects on humans wasn't explored in any new fashion as scifi demands. Hell, even the stargate was relegated to window dressing status. They hardly used it. And when they finally showed us one of the seeder ships and the "factory" where the the stargates were manufactured and placed on habitable planets Dr. Rush just waved it off as being unimportant. This told me that they weren't interested in doing anything new with the premises the show was based on, rather, they just wanted to use those premises as a vehicle for what they erroneously (and cynically) believed to be the safe bet of melodrama.

As for the stones there are a lot of flaws there but I do agree that they could have been used as an original device. Although I think most people would have preferred that they not have a way to communicate with Earth because that takes away a lot of the loneliness and fear that underscores the intensity of the situation. Plus they were magic, which doesn't belong in scifi.

Didn't DESTINY and the "roundabout" shuttles have glass windows as well?
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:17 PM ---

So you find a homeless man who looks like he wants to attack you with a carpet knife just to get $5 in order to buy a pint of grain alcohol "sexy"? M'kay, to each his or her own I guess.



I admit I would be hard pressed to find things "good" about SGU, mostly because it lacked originality in terms of premise, plot, characters and even cinematic style. (At least nuBSG had some original elements.)

Now if you want me to list something "good" about SGU I'd say that the acting was generally good. I didn't have a problem with the actors, rather, it was the nonsense they were made to spout that was atrocious. And specifically I don't hate Carlyle as an actor, in fact, I think he's quite talented ("good"), but the character of Rush was lame and offered nothing in the way of a vehicle to show his acting chops. I offer his work in Once Upon a Time as a contrast to the work he did in SGU -- there's no comparison. He's a damn good actor and when given a truly worthy character to portray he rises to the occasion. Rush was not that character because Rush was nothing but a poorly disguised copy of Gaius Baltar and Dr. Smith (and no, I'm not kidding about Dr. Smith).

And as for the conditions on Destiny affecting how people looked it sure didn't make the other people very unkempt and slovenly. The other males on Destiny managed to shave (somehow, magically). The other members on Destiny managed to bathe (remember, they discovered showers, Eli even perv'd-out with the keno ball in them).

So, yeah, I can't find much "good" within SGU. Like I said it was nothing but a cobbled together mish mash of stolen premises and stolen characters and stolen dialogue and stolen shaky cam, dark cinematic style. What's "good" about that? Perhaps you can enlighten me? I eagerly await your list of all that was "good" about SGU.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 8:30 AM ---


SGU's premise was blatantly stolen from ST Voyager. "Innocents flung far across the universe with no way to get back home." I don't know how promising that was since it had already been done by another show (and clearly done better). Plus the Ancients story line had been done to death on SG-1 and SGA so I wouldn't say that aspect was promising as what more could be done with it?

Clearly at that point Wright and Cooper were operating on several premises that had lost steam. They were lazy and couldn't come up with anything new for the original Stargate premise and they cynically plopped it on top of a pile of other people's ideas with the hope that fans wouldn't notice. They failed. Had they been more honest with themselves they would have seen that there was nothing promising about SGU at all. It was a cynical attempt to exploit the established SG-1/SGA fandom. Based on this SGU was destined to fail.

On SGU; at least it wasn't "haunted collector" (all day marathon today)

 

[Joelist]

Plus if I want to watch a "lost in space" type show I'll just watch Voyager - FAR superior to SGU.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Some say SGU was 'copying' BSG as BSG was on first--just saying.

So, you into Skylanders who just picked up the Avatar? My son is a committed, hardcore skylanders sqee (well he is 11).
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 3:40 PM ---



Dude, ease up on the Anabolics

 

[shavedape]

After reading the transcript of Eick's interview for the B&C launch and is addressing questions of whether or not the F5 were scheduled to appear in it, Eick seems to throw Moore or someone under the bus and distances himself from the whole F5 thing. That together with other interviews/info just leads more to the belief that the F5 thing was just a hastily contrived hodge-podge to bridge us to an ending. I mean the characters picked as the F5, I think only Tyrol and Anders were believable. Why would Tory-some next to no line stand in, be a cylon? Or Tighe? maybe Ellen. But later we are told via plotline, that this is because Cavil just placed them at his whim--but really, they all ended up on one ship?

As a Army retiree-and I have said it before-Hollywood/Vancouver/wherever, doesn't care that they do not portray military characters/customs correctly. They are part of the 'elite' in our society who still thinks that anyone who joins the (US) military are scum and stupid and that no one will question there portrayal. I saw this in SG1, SGA, SGU and in parts of BSG (I say parts because I only refer to parts where RDM decided to use same phrases/customs/courtesies as the real military. If he ws going to go 'bs' then he should have gone all the way).
The same thing happens, I am sure, in cop shows. Take law and order for one, all the rounds just one officer fires throughout the series is said to be more then what the entire NYPD uses in a decade. But hey, its what THEY think WE want to watch.

And as far as Starbuck and the whole "little girl" being able to knock out a big guy-I have seen it happend several time. Again, while in, at bars, I have seen some quite 'tiny' women lay out guys her size and bigger..just sayin, where there is a will there is a way...
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:12 PM ---



Didn't DESTINY and the "roundabout" shuttles have glass windows as well?
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:17 PM ---

Yes, they did. They also had a nice, gigantic viewing deck in the Ikea lounge and coffee bar. Seriously, the ship had loads of glass.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

Yes, they did. They also had a nice, gigantic viewing deck in the Ikea lounge and coffee bar. Seriously, the ship had loads of glass.

Destiny also had shields though, which I don't think they had in BSG.

 

[OMNI]

Some say SGU was 'copying' BSG as BSG was on first--just saying.

So, you into Skylanders or just picked up the Avatar? My son is a committed, hardcore skylanders sqee (well he is 11).
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 3:40 PM ---



Dude, ease up on the Anabolics

nope not at all, my change to this new avatar was just a responce to a joke by gatefan76.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 6:12 PM ---

After reading the transcript of Eick's interview for the B&C launch and is addressing questions of whether or not the F5 were scheduled to appear in it, Eick seems to throw Moore or someone under the bus and distances himself from the whole F5 thing. That together with other interviews/info just leads more to the belief that the F5 thing was just a hastily contrived hodge-podge to bridge us to an ending. I mean the characters picked as the F5, I think only Tyrol and Anders were believable. Why would Tory-some next to no line stand in, be a cylon? Or Tighe? maybe Ellen. But later we are told via plotline, that this is because Cavil just placed them at his whim--but really, they all ended up on one ship?

As a Army retiree-and I have said it before-Hollywood/Vancouver/wherever, doesn't care that they do not portray military characters/customs correctly. They are part of the 'elite' in our society who still thinks that anyone who joins the (US) military are scum and stupid and that no one will question there portrayal. I saw this in SG1, SGA, SGU and in parts of BSG (I say parts because I only refer to parts where RDM decided to use same phrases/customs/courtesies as the real military. If he ws going to go 'bs' then he should have gone all the way).
The same thing happens, I am sure, in cop shows. Take law and order for one, all the rounds just one officer fires throughout the series is said to be more then what the entire NYPD uses in a decade. But hey, its what THEY think WE want to watch.

And as far as Starbuck and the whole "little girl" being able to knock out a big guy-I have seen it happend several time. Again, while in, at bars, I have seen some quite 'tiny' women lay out guys her size and bigger..just sayin, where there is a will there is a way...
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:12 PM ---



Didn't DESTINY and the "roundabout" shuttles have glass windows as well?
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 4:17 PM ---



On SGU; at least it wasn't "haunted collector" (all day marathon today)

bolded completly agree, and ill addd something that personally gets to me and pisses me off to the point that i stop watching everytime i see it in either a military, cop or other show is HOW they handle their weapons anyone and i mean ANYONE trained to use firearms would never handle a gun so recklessly and carelessly as they do on tv and in movies and me having had correct weapon handling drummed into my head it just kills whatever im watching instantly and i cant take it serious anymore and i stop watching.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 6:29 PM ---
and dont get me started on how they treat injouries and bullet wounds in movies and tv....

 

[YJ02]

nope not at all, my change to this new avatar was just a responce to a joke by gatefan76.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 6:12 PM ---

bolded completly agree, and ill addd something that personally gets to me and pisses me off to the point that i stop watching everytime i see it in either a military, cop or other show is HOW they handle their weapons anyone and i mean ANYONE trained to use firearms would never handle a gun so recklessly and carelessly as they do on tv and in movies and me having had correct weapon handling drummed into my head it just kills whatever im watching instantly and i cant take it serious anymore and i stop watching.
--- merged: Nov 21, 2012 at 6:29 PM ---
and dont get me started on how they treat injouries and bullet wounds in movies and tv....

yes, they seem to act as the weapon is just another prop, which of course it is, but to your point and mine, if you are going to act the part then try to get it right.

the thing that peeves me probably more then others is the customs and courtesies thing (saluting, rank structure, chain of command) i just stick to sg and bsg:
in like the 1st or 2nd ep of SG-1, when O'Neill is brought back to active duty--which in itself gets me-can it happen yeah, and I would agree that the circumstances may have warranted it, but it is a stretch--in the elevator going down to the SGC he is accompanied by a man wearing both Major and- I thing USAF Staff Sergeant rank.

When O'Neill gets promoted to General we see him sometimes wearing 1 star sometimes wearing two. but we don't hear of him being promoted then demoted then promoted again.

In the outside shots of 'the Mountain' the gate guards--always the same shot by the way--are clearly out in the open, smoking and joking in front of the gate. That is not how guard duty-especially at a high security site is done. the best security is the security you can't see.

In BSg: it is mostly Roslin and the civilian leadership-military follows thing..so in an 'end of the world' scenario Adama takes the lead-good. Then he submits to Roslin's control. The problem is he does it begrudgingly. A professional officer would not act in that way-regardless of the situation. Then when Cain comes around-Roslin melts into a worm and exerts no control over her. But again, the people who write the scripts probably think that our real military is out there just itching to take over the country. Pure fantasy... And of course all of the other issues with the Pegasus thing. Granted they were stepping up Glen Larson's whole "Admiral Cain is not insane" thing and trying to show-I think-that Helena Cain's focus on military training and the war effort has allowed her to totally miss just how bad the conduct of her people is becoming--so long has they can get the vipers out of the tubes quick enough is good for her.

And someone said it before. An officer of any rank, or enlisted, shooting a subordinate (or superior) (minus criminal or treason aka "tent bomber" in 2003) would be shot or taken down themselves before any one shot anyone else. To just show the marines standing by as if they are nothing more than the commander's personal guard is stupid. This is based, of course, on marines being stationed on Aircraft Carriers and other ships. They are there to secure the ship, not just one person.

and then there is the issue of all of those head shots in the walking dead. moving targets, moving shooters...it's not like the group is a bunch of survivors from the Army's marksmanship unit not to mention any kind of distance shot with most handguns to be able to hit a tgt as small as a head, well-you know what i mean
just sayin

 

[OMNI]

yes, they seem to act as the weapon is just another prop, which of course it is, but to your point and mine, if you are going to act the part then try to get it right.

the thing that peeves me probably more then others is the customs and courtesies thing (saluting, rank structure, chain of command) i just stick to sg and bsg:
in like the 1st or 2nd ep of SG-1, when O'Neill is brought back to active duty--which in itself gets me-can it happen yeah, and I would agree that the circumstances may have warranted it, but it is a stretch--in the elevator going down to the SGC he is accompanied by a man wearing both Major and- I thing USAF Staff Sergeant rank.

When O'Neill gets promoted to General we see him sometimes wearing 1 star sometimes wearing two. but we don't hear of him being promoted then demoted then promoted again.

In the outside shots of 'the Mountain' the gate guards--always the same shot by the way--are clearly out in the open, smoking and joking in front of the gate. That is not how guard duty-especially at a high security site is done. the best security is the security you can't see.

In BSg: it is mostly Roslin and the civilian leadership-military follows thing..so in an 'end of the world' scenario Adama takes the lead-good. Then he submits to Roslin's control. The problem is he does it begrudgingly. A professional officer would not act in that way-regardless of the situation. Then when Cain comes around-Roslin melts into a worm and exerts no control over her. But again, the people who write the scripts probably think that our real military is out there just itching to take over the country. Pure fantasy... And of course all of the other issues with the Pegasus thing. Granted they were stepping up Glen Larson's whole "Admiral Cain is not insane" thing and trying to show-I think-that Helena Cain's focus on military training and the war effort has allowed her to totally miss just how bad the conduct of her people is becoming--so long has they can get the vipers out of the tubes quick enough is good for her.

And someone said it before. An officer of any rank, or enlisted, shooting a subordinate (or superior) (minus criminal or treason aka "tent bomber" in 2003) would be shot or taken down themselves before any one shot anyone else. To just show the marines standing by as if they are nothing more than the commander's personal guard is stupid. This is based, of course, on marines being stationed on Aircraft Carriers and other ships. They are there to secure the ship, not just one person.

and then there is the issue of all of those head shots in the walking dead. moving targets, moving shooters...it's not like the group is a bunch of survivors from the Army's marksmanship unit not to mention any kind of distance shot with most handguns to be able to hit a tgt as small as a head, well-you know what i mean
just sayin

couldnt agree more.

as for the headshots thing YES also an issue i can relate to in most everything, i mean those kinds of shots with a HANDGUN? heeeeeell no those things are flimsy as shit and hitting anything that isnt 5-10ft in front of you and moving with a dead on headshot? no way.

 

[YJ02]

couldnt agree more.

as for the headshots thing YES also an issue i can relate to in most everything, i mean those kinds of shots with a HANDGUN? heeeeeell no those things are flimsy as shit and hitting anything that isnt 5-10ft in front of you and moving with a dead on headshot? no way.

In the US Army, the furthest away the target on both the .45 cal and the 9mm (Beretta) is only 25meters. And for part of the 'circuit' you move downrange closer to the target.

Oh, I just remembered, and it's nothing to do with SG or BSG, but another pee-me-off thing is how they will show military people ALWAYS having a weapon and that somehow EVERY soldier/marine brings a Army issue 9mm back to his barracks or home with him to use as they want! You can't even have a personally owned firearm under your control and storage in the barracks--it has to be stored in the unit arms room and can only be signed out with the permission of the unit commander. I cant think of a specific show right now, but an example-of a type-of this thinking was when Maj Hassan shot up and killed all of those soldiers at Ft Hood; a CNN reporter asked a military spokeswomen "Well why didn't the soldiers shoot back, where were their weapons were they not prepared?"

ULTIMATE OBNOXIOUS STUPIDITY! Once again the "know it all" elite of Hollywood/Media shows just how disconnected they are from reality.

 

[lady_maneth]

Do you then think that the military in SGU should have submitted to Wray's authority? I expect the rules are somewhat different when you're out of touch with Earth, and can't have elections to vote someone into office... not enough candidates.

I liked that SGU had a lesbian character, but why did Wray have to be a power-hungry bitch? That's pandering to stereotypes if anything is. Now, if TJ had been lesbian, it would at least have been reasonably original.

 

[shavedape]

Destiny also had shields though, which I don't think they had in BSG.

Right, but the efficacy of shields is questionable as we know. Remember that SGU episode with Park getting caught in the nursery when the glass dome blew out and there was all that fire and she almost got sucked out into space but she didn't but instead she went blind and OMG?!!! ...

Anyhoo, yeah, I remember BSG had blast doors that would come down and close when Galactica was in combat. I guess if you're gonna have glass on an inter-stellar craft you'll have to do something like that instead of just relying on shields, whatever those are (has any show ever told us?).

Incidentally, BSG was a bit more realistic in this regard as we know the efficacy of metal blast doors in combat verses the imaginary strength of shields, which are just that at this point -- imaginary (not unlike the voices in my head, or so the docs have told me ).

 

[Joelist]

We actually talked about Wray among others here:

http://www.gatefans.net/gforums/threads/lou-diamond-philips-needs-a-job.24068/page-2#post-768550

 

[shavedape]

yes, they seem to act as the weapon is just another prop, which of course it is, but to your point and mine, if you are going to act the part then try to get it right.

and then there is the issue of all of those head shots in the walking dead. moving targets, moving shooters...it's not like the group is a bunch of survivors from the Army's marksmanship unit not to mention any kind of distance shot with most handguns to be able to hit a tgt as small as a head, well-you know what i mean just sayin

Not to thread drift, but...TWD does a terrible job with weapons handling. It's bad enough that they use CGI to simulate gun fire but we're also asked to believe that every one of them can pick off zeds with one shot to the head when they're 50 yards away. Hell, half of those characters couldn't find their own butts with both hands and a flashlight yet we're just supposed to swallow that they've become crack shots. M'kay...


To get back on track a bit I don't recall anything too egregiously wrong with small weapons handling in nuBSG. I liked that they didn't use "pew pew!" laser guns and kept the weaponry with actual bullet-type ammunition. There's something more sinister and scary about that; something more believable than a pretty laser beam that puts people to sleep.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

Right, but the efficacy of shields is questionable as we know. Remember that SGU episode with Park getting caught in the nursery when the glass dome blew out and there was all that fire and she almost got sucked out into space but she didn't but instead she went blind and OMG?!!! ...

Anyhoo, yeah, I remember BSG had blast doors that would come down and close when Galactica was in combat. I guess if you're gonna have glass on an inter-stellar craft you'll have to do something like that instead of just relying on shields, whatever those are (has any show ever told us?).

Incidentally, BSG was a bit more realistic in this regard as we know the efficacy of metal blast doors in combat verses the imaginary strength of shields, which are just that at this point -- imaginary (not unlike the voices in my head, or so the docs have told me ).

I think all rules go out the "window" when you decide to dive your spacecraft into a blue supergiant star.

As long as those voices in your head aren't speaking Dutch you will probably be OK.

 

[shavedape]

I think all rules go out the "window" when you decide to dive your spacecraft into a blue supergiant star.

If only I could get it out of second gear, oy!

As long as those voices in your head aren't speaking Dutch you will probably be OK.

Not Dutch this week but Swedish. Good thing is I have no idea what they're saying, although I suspect it's something about starting a riot or, at the very least, a fist fight (preferably at a Black Friday sales event).