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Old September 5th, 2019, 02:26 PM   #151
martok2112
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Default Re: Battlestar Galactica Movie News

This is good discussion....especially in the context of the current day.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Paddon
For the record, I have never been on the side of advocating that one's subjective reactions to any end product was something someone should be attacked for. All of us old enough to remember the name Languatron have a permanent reminder of what *real* obsessed "fandom" at its worst, leads to. If I still choose to believe subjectively that GINO was a horrible end product that also on an objective level caused permanent damage to the reputation and value of what TOS represented that is a POV that does not carry with it the casting of aspersions on people who liked the other show. If viewing enjoyment is derived from it by anyone, that is their business. But neither however, is holding a POV about what the existence of that show meant to the reputation of TOS, a sign of over-obsessive fandom.
Ach...oy...yes....Langy. Now there was a guy who gave classic Galactica fans who were opposed to the reimagining a very bad name in the public eye. I never had any interaction with this person, thank God, but I was all too aware of his insane ramblings.

Yes, we should all be free to (healthily) like and dislike what we will without any thought of repercussions by others who think oppositely. If anything, good friendly, spirited debate should spring from differing points of view. Those days seem like a century ago.

I always respect those who loved the original Galactica, because I, too, love the original show. I draw the line when they tell me "you like a show that was made by a**holes, for a**holes." I certainly have never told them that they "like a show that was made for young kids". (I got sick of that rhetoric from the more toxic, pre-formed reimagining fans.) I would never dream of it because I loved that show. It rounded out my sci-fi weekends in 1978. (Starting on Saturday mornings with Jason of Star Command, catching whatever Trek, Space:1999, Lost In Space, or other sci-fi shows I could in reruns during the day, and then capping off with Galactica on Sunday nights.)

Despite my aversion to the show, I respect people who like Star Trek Discovery, so long as they like it for legitimate reasons: those being that they've actually seen the show, and appreciate the show for its storytelling, its characters, and its production values. If they're shilling to regurgitate SJW buzzwords and notions, then I dismiss them because nine times out of ten, they are people who do not watch the show...they are simply making some fool hearty stand for nothing burger issues about Social Justice because they heard from some other source that the show espouses SJW ideologies.) Personally, I've seen enough of the show to know that overall, I do not like it, although I did like the classic Enterprise redesign (as much as I love the Kelvin era redesign, I do think STD got it much closer to right with their iteration).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Paddon
I will maintain to my dying day that if TOS fandom had been rewarded with a continuation/closure movie that ended the storyline of TOS in a way we could have been happy with and THEN, five years later a guy named Ron Moore does what he did, hardly any of us would have cared. We might have still called it a bad idea and disliked it, *but* it would not have carried with it the deeper underlying issues of decades of faith not being rewarded and hopes for something that had helped make Galactica fandom a close-knit group for so long, dashed forever. Trek fans who love the original series and hate everything else that followed can't relate to that in the same way because original Trek went as far as it could possibly go with a movie series with the original cast. The emergence of new properties didn't deny them a thing. With our fanbase, we have received little to none in the way of true rewards for our patience. We had a brief shining moment in comic books in the mid-90s that sadly went off the rails, but that would be it. Hatch's novels failed to gain traction with the fanbase because they simply are hopelessly off in terms of remembering basic things that most fanfic writers are capable of grasping. The less said about Dynamite, the better.
I completely agree with this statement, Eric. Yes, I too believe that had we gotten someting closer to the original that we remembered as kids, whilst updating just enough to appeal to the adult in us that wanted a bit more mature storytelling without going overboard, then the negative impact of the arrival of the reimagining would have been drastically less on those who would disagree with the motif of the show. What you said about Star Trek is bang-on, and something I have tried to tell the more self-righteous Star Trek fans....the new stuff denies them nothing. They both make some acknowledgement of the original, whilst going their own way. Also, thanks to DVD and blu-ray, fans of the old-school stuff can watch it any time they wish.

Back on the point of remakes and continuations: Nostalgia is a tricky business. How to appeal to nostalgia without seeming like it is just plastered haphazardly all over the place just to trigger 'membah-berries. It's a balancing act...just like over the top visual effects, nostalgia is something you have to balance with good story telling, and compelling characters, otherwise it is just a big, toothy-smiling husk of its former self.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Paddon
Ultimately, if the failure to see our faith rewarded in official projects motivates me to say, "I can do better than that!" I view it as channeling negative energy into something positive. And if respect is merited for fans who like GINO and can look past the circumstances of how it came to be and what it meant (what a lot of us regard a bad flavor), then at the same time we can read fanfic and look past whatever subliminal context motivates a fanfic writer's motives and just judge the story on its own merits. That's all that counts from my standpoint.
I agree here, again, in the current day. The way that Hollywood is degrading our favorite properties, yes, it does seem to fall to the fans to maintain the original spirit of things like Star Wars and Star Trek. I have always said it is amazing to me, the tools available to Joe/Jane-Average-Filmmaker, to make productions that are practically on par with modest Hollywood films. The ability of fan film makers to make BSG, Star Trek, and Star Wars fan films that pretty much rival current day big screen offerings is beyond extraordinary. Fanfic writers can indeed write stories that blow away the current crop of Hollywood drivel, thanks to the memory of what was, and balancing it out with contemporary sensibility to maintain the appeal of what we loved before. Yes, there are some reimagining fans of a sensible bent out there who do recognize the denial that classic fans received in terms of a true continuation for Galactica, and believe me, they are empathetic.

I have always felt (and seen) that the classics can often receive an all-new appreciation because of someone's introduction to a given property via a remake or reimagining. Classic Trek got a major boost in appeal to a new generation of fans because of the Kelvin era films. I see that as nothing less than win/win. The same thing for Battlestar Galactica. A lot of people I know who had never seen the original show, was turned onto the original via the reimagining...and they've come to appreciate both shows for their differences, and can see why some classic fans were beyond heartbroken that they never got the continuation that Trek and Wars fans got.
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