The people against the mini have said that it is not BSG because it is missing the important themes. What is odd is that the central theme in Saga of a Star World that is missing in the mini hasn't actually been discussed much (if at all). It is the interplay between the military and civilians, and their different outlook on life.
In TOS the situation was simple. Adama was right and the civilian leadership was wrong. The civilians were even worse than being merely wrong. Their "peace at any price" policy blinded them to the reality that they existed in. Even after that policy led to the total destruction of the colonies and the fleet the new civilian leadership wanted to do it all again. The only two leaders who had a grasp on reality in the show were Adama and the Imperious Leader.
Aside from being totally wrong the civilian leadership was also trecherous and manulipitive. They were basically all vice and no virtue. Even those who were not personally corrupt lived in that dreamland totally divorced from their reality.
The mini did not follow this theme for very good reasons. First, it is idiotic. I thought so as a child when I watched TOS, and I think so now. Second, in the wake of 9/11 that theme is pubicly idiotic. The idea of "peace at any price" is so totally divorced from our reality that no one would accept it. Third, people have moved away from the simple (and always wrong) view of "military = virtous, purity of spirit" and "civilian = helpless, corrupt, decadent". People are far more complex than that and TOS didn't really capture that complexity. BTW I think that is why people really liked Starbuck in TOS. He was easily the most complex (ie real human) character in the story.
I think that Moore did the right thing, but taking out that theme does drastically change things. The cylon attack has to be done totally differently, and the casino planet part has to go away. Remove that theme and suddenly all of the characters have to become three dimensional. A realistic theme cannot be supported by one or two dimensional characters. Baltar could have been done the same, but he would have been ineffective with his trechery. Everyone else had to become more real.
That went longer than I expected.
To sum up I agree that probably the major theme of TOS (the military/civilian conflict) in its original form is missing from the mini. However, given the reality of the world we live in today any show that tries to bring back that conflict in that way will totally fail. That is why I don't like the DeSanto project. From what I've read (from the CA website) he would bring back that theme in total. I would not be able to suspend disbelief at that point.
