What did this BSG steal from other shows?

jeditemple · December 10th, 2003, 12:03 PM

I've read many posts over the last couple of days, indicating that the BSG miniseries borrowed/stole ideas from other shows. Example: "The Viper maneuvers were ripped off from Bablyon 5."

What elements do you think were heavily borrowed from other movies or television series?

Kaith Rustaz · December 10th, 2003, 12:13 PM

Lets see.... minor nit, but (and I may be wrong) but during the photoshoot scene, I swear one of the medals on Adamas sash was a rank/service pin from Star Trek 2 TWOK.

dec5 · December 10th, 2003, 12:23 PM

I saw a lot of anime influence...Macross comes to mind a lot.

Jeeper · December 10th, 2003, 08:26 PM

The whole "Jump" sequence was a steal from Babylon 5. The Cylon base ships look like angular versions of Shadow vessels. "Six"? Sister of "Seven of Nine"? The Adama character sure reminded me of the commander of the Aggamemnon from B-5, and Boomer acted alot like Hiroki from B-5, IMHO. The Graphics were very similar to the B5 graphics in ship flight. The Cylon attack ships looked like scaled down "Trade Federation" ships from Star Wars II...and if the cylon ships were robotic, can we consider the TV Show Knight Rider? Could have been worse, though...Didn't see a Tardis or the Red Dwarf anywhere in the fleet....

jewels · December 10th, 2003, 09:08 PM

Oh, we must tease Lee about the Tardis, wouldn't that have been funny!

jeditemple · December 10th, 2003, 09:17 PM

I think the Cylon ships favor the Kilrathi ships from the Wing Commander game...I think it was the "Dralthi" fighter? That and a little bit of the Centauri ships from B5.

Plus the ships were totally robotic like the droid fighters from Star Wars.

Sairnath · December 10th, 2003, 09:55 PM

The sound made by the Cylon eye sweeps is a direct lift of lightsaber sound effects from star wars. And the whole Six in Baltars head is pretty much along the lines of Scorpius in Critons head on Farscape.

Jerry Vasilatos · December 11th, 2003, 12:01 AM

Sexy 6 was pretty much ripped off from sexy 7 of 9 from "Star Trek: Voyager". The Borg reimagined as the Cylons. Cylons looking like humans to infiltrate and destroy mankind like the entire "Terminator" series. Borrowing ship designs outright of the ragtag fleet didn't seem so much like homage as much as pandering. The Cylon Raider Fighters were ripoffs of the Trade Federation droid ships from "The Phantom Menace", and the ships from "Wing Commander" and "Stargate". The new Cylons looked like Trade Federation droids from "Attack of the Clones". The "Galactica" looked like a big Trojan condom, screwing fans and ribbed for no one's pleasure. The whole mini FELT like I was also watching "Independence Day".

Funny how people said Glen Larson "ripped off" "Star Wars" when in fact the original had nothing in common with "Star Wars" other than it took place in outer space. Would people say "Shane" ripped off "12 O'Clock High" because it took place in the old west? Of course not. Larson created an entire mythology for the series based in his spiritual beliefs, very different than what George Lucas did in "Star Wars". And he himself has admitted that the success of "Star Wars" got studios to consider something he had been developing for years in his "Adam's Ark" concept.

What we have in this mini-series is more of a re-salvaging than a re-imagining.

JV

dec5 · December 11th, 2003, 12:47 AM

Heh...Glen Larson has a reputation of copying movies and puting it on TV......They call him Glen Larsceny.

Star Wars and BG are basically the same type of drama....And there are a lot of similarities...regardless.....

In fact the Mini series is more serious and way different than both movies in terms of mood and look.

Jerry Vasilatos · December 11th, 2003, 01:00 AM

What do you think the similarities are between "Star Wars" and "Galactica" are aside from the same type of drama (fairy-tale fantasy like) and that they both take place in outer space, feature robotic sidekicks and the effects were done by some of the same professionals (who were about the only people doing these kind of state of the art motion control effects in the 1980's?)

JV

dec5 · December 11th, 2003, 01:27 AM

Vipers and Xwings...almost the same type if fighter. segmented windows and intakes. plus segmented wings.

The bar scene with aliens....

Old wise man.....

A hero and his partner who are both hot shot pilots.

Death Star....Battlestar........

And Old space Republic that is destroyed by a space Empire....

shiny robots....both shows had them.....mind you only in the movie Metropolis did such designs were really used in film....

Both had Space war themes.

Sweeping Orchestra music.....

black laserguns....always was silver before...

Frankly I also enjoyed them both..but I had more BG stuff at the time....records, models...posters...etc...

Jerry Vasilatos · December 11th, 2003, 01:33 AM

I never considered the casino on Caprica a copy of the bar in Star Wars because I never saw any aliens in it aside from the one Boray.

I never thought there was a similarity in the ship designs other than they were created by some of the same modelmakers. By the same argument I could say that the A-Wing from "Return of the Jedi" was copied from the "Buck Rogers" starfighter because they were both flat fighters with cockpits in the middle. But I don't think they were copies.

Adama wasn't an old knight like Kenobi, and although he was the oldest cast member, they are still very different characters.

I think these are kind of superficial similarities but I understand your point.

JV

jeditemple · December 11th, 2003, 07:06 AM

Yeah, but the most important thing was Lucas sued them and lost, because they couldn't find enough similarities to prove it. So really, it's a closed case as far as most fans are concerned.

thomas7g · December 11th, 2003, 02:26 PM

actually they didn't lose. It reached a negotiated settlement.

That's why the blasters pistols in galactica don't shoot out a visible beam of light. That was one of the concessions to Lucas. Even though Captain Kirk had black phasers that had the same effect.

thomas7g · December 11th, 2003, 02:34 PM

I mentined this in another thread. But Galactica was in the planning stages before Star Wars premeired.

The main story was a space version of Moses (adama) leading the jews from the wrath of the egyptian Pharoahs. He parted the red sea (the mines) but when they reached Mt Sinai (Carilon) the refugees strayed from their religious path and did partake of sinful pleasures. But then Moses gathered up his wayward children and continued their trek to the holy land.

So it wasn't Star Wars, but the bible that Galactica is based on. Though they hired the same men who did the Star Wars special effects. So all the space combat had an identical feel.

dec5 · December 11th, 2003, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by conundrum7g
actually they didn't lose. It reached a negotiated settlement.

That's why the blasters pistols in galactica don't shoot out a visible beam of light. That was one of the concessions to Lucas. Even though Captain Kirk had black phasers that had the same effect.

Phasers looked dark grey with silver tips.....the smaller one that looked like a garage opener looked black..but had colored buttons.

Jerry Vasilatos · December 11th, 2003, 05:31 PM

When people say "Galactica" is a ripoff of "Star Wars" and copied many elements, what matters is story elements, not whether laser guns are black, grey, or pink. If that was the case Gene Roddenberry could have sued George Lucas for "Star Wars" because it featured aliens and laser guns and a big ship in space. The author of the Book of Exodus actually has more of a case in court for copyright infringement against "Galactica", not George Lucas

JV

dec5 · December 11th, 2003, 06:00 PM

..... basically said what motivated him to go after Glen and Universal was that the toys of BG was being mixed up with the Star Wars products.... Some of the BG toys were not as high quality as Star Wars, so parents would blame Lucas for BG toys.

It was the Time magazine article that implied that BG was a ripoff.....
They recited Glens past productions.....

McCloud was based on a Clint Eastwood movie.

Alias Smith and Jones was based on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...

BG was based on Star Wars....

And Time Magazine concluded that one cannot deny the similairites.......between the two.

Basically the timing even Glen would admit....made it look that way.

Terayon · December 16th, 2003, 10:58 AM

As far as the miniseries, anybody notice that the President is a Xerox copy of Janeway from Star Trek Voyager? Same mannerisms, same way of talking, same bubbling pool of self-rightous sanctimony ready to burst out at any second? Then there were the missile launches, which looked like something from anime with all their dozens of vapor trails.

There was the XO staring at the bottle, borrowed from the Garribaldi character on B5. Starbuck's haircut, obviously borrowed from Sharon Stone.

And one of the most obvious - the area of space surrounding that munitions depot - that was the "briar patch" from Star Trek Insurrection.

If I might respond to Dec5 -

Quote:

Vipers and Xwings...almost the same type if fighter. segmented windows and intakes. plus segmented wings.

They were both equally stolen from modern-day fighter jet designs.

Quote:

old wise man.....

Dozens and dozens of movies have had old wise men.

Quote:

A hero and his partner who are both hot shot pilots.

That relationship was the staple of all sorts of WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam War movies. The recent movie Pearl Harbor being the latest, and it had a love triangle, just like Solo/Skywalker/Princess Leia. Lucas should sue.

Quote:

Death Star....Battlestar........

How about Star-ship? The galactica looked nothing at all like a spherical Death Star. The idea of a large ship containing lots of small fighters comes from aircraft carriers carrying fighters. And the simple fact that it would be impossible to make a long journey in a small fighter because it couldn't hold much fuel and it wouldn't be pleasant in a single-seat cockpit.

Quote:

And Old space Republic that is destroyed by a space Empire....

In Star Wars the Empire was an evil government that had taken power, they hadn't wiped out all humans. They were humans.

Quote:

Both had Space war themes.

Perhaps the makers of the first war movie should sue everyone who's ever made a war movie since. The idea of war isn't something you can copyright.

Quote:

Sweeping Orchestra music.....

I can just imagine the makers of Battle of the Bulge sueing the makers of A Bridge Too Far for having "militaristic" music.

Quote:

black laserguns....always was silver before...

The most well-know laser guns, Star Trek's phasers, were black. Besides, real guns have always been black, or "blued steel". Maybe Winchester, Smith & Wesson, and Colt should sue Lucas.

The whole story of Luke Skywalker, young kid who is orphaned and sets out to get back at those who did him wrong, is the plot of countless Westerns. What Lucas did was spend a ton of money on special effects, in order to tell a time-worn story. For him to sue the makers of Galactica can only be described as an egomaniac trying to claim he invented the whole science fiction genre. Yet so much of what was in Star Wars - from the Kirk/Spock Skywalker/Solo relationship, to the ships shooting visible beams at each other, to the large spaceship and the smaller ones within it, all comes from earlier sci-fi.

Yminale · December 16th, 2003, 02:51 PM

Aren't you people being a bit harsh about intellectual theft. All you really have is first impressions to judge. Some of things people brought up ridiculous. B5, Star Trek, Star Wars have all borrowed ideas from classical mythology to B-movie and saturday morning serials. What's great about these series is they take these ideas and create an entire new universe. Claiming that the Cylon basestar and a shadow Battlecrab are similar is just silly. Their geometry and texture are completely different.

SpyOne · December 17th, 2003, 07:05 AM

My take on stuff other folks mentioned:

The fighter maneuvers were used on B5, but B5 used them because they make good sense in space if you're using real physics. No fault there.

The uniforms looked highly B5 derived, and the physical and personality/history similarities between Tigh and Garabaldi did nothing but hammer this home. I know there's only so many things to do with a uniform that doesn't look stupid, but this was a bad choice.

The displays looked like TNG stuff. Admittedly, TNG used good, sensable stuff, but the mini provides a good comnpelling in-world reason for everything to be low-tech, then goes all high-tech on the displays?

The Cylon Fighters get to claim the high ground on the Knight Rider issue, since Cylons did that thing with the eye first. While the design bears some resembelance to those Trade Federation ships (and my initial thoughts were "hey, it's the Batplane"), what it most resembles is a mini that has been used as a fighter by several sci-fi games, the earliest of which I know of is Renegade Legion from FASA, where it was called the Manubalista.
And yes, the Cylon Figher being a Cylon (rather than piloted by a Cylon) was cool ... right up until I rememberd the Droid Fighters in Phantom Menace.

Amen to Six and Baltar being Scorpi and Chrighton, except that Crighton really did have a chip in his head making him see things, and my money says Baltar did not.

I'm surprise how far down I had to read in this thread before the word "Terminator" came up. I can't think of enough superlatives to describe how much I think this seems derivitive of the Terminator. Not that you can't have come up with the idea independantly, but someone should say to you, "No, the audience will think you stole that from the Terminator movies."

As for the original, There was a lot more in common than just "space". Somewhere on the internet (a place vaster than outerspace), I found the suit Lucas filed, and many of his "points of similarity" had merit. One I remember is "ships deliberately made to seem old".
Others with less merit included "Good versus Evil themes", "Led by a partiarchal figure", and such. Wile those seem totally spurius, they can be used to establish a pattern of points of similarity. Which is why, when White Wolf was suing Sony over this summer's vampire movie, they listed "Power is divided by generation, with the older ruling the younger" as one of the points, despite the fact that the whole world basicly works that way.

BTW, things in quotes above are not exact quotations, but are good paraphrases to the best of my recollection.

goldcenturian · December 17th, 2003, 08:33 AM

I read one of the Dune novels a while back and in the foreword, Frank Herbert said that his original novel, Dune, and Star Wars had over 100 points of similarity! Desert planet, young boy losing part of his family and is forced to become a leader, galactic empire, emperor and other royal titles, a mysterious source of power that is the young man's birthright, etc. Lucas used everything previously put forth in various entertainment genres. He even admits it, siting various movies and matinee titles as "inspiration." Star Wars was a very simple story overlayed with, for the time, amazing visual effects. It's that simple.
Filmmakers, tv writers, songwriters, playwrites, often "borrow" things from other productions, but I've noticed that this is happening a lot lately. Does the entertainment industry have an original bone left in their collective bodies?
Looking at all of the re-makes and re-imaginings out there, I doubt it! Can they make good re-makes and re-imaginings? Few, very few. Almost everything I've seen has left me feeling that they had somehow been mining for gold but only found fool's gold.
As for the mini, I didn't watch it. I took EJO's advice!
Just my opinion,
Carolyn

Yminale · December 17th, 2003, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by goldcenturian
It's that simple. Filmmakers, tv writers, songwriters, playwrites, often "borrow" things from other productions, but I've noticed that this is happening a lot lately. Does the entertainment industry have an original bone left in their collective bodies?

Contrary to popular opinion it has nothing to do with the lack human creativity and everything to do with cost. The fact of the matter is it's really really expensive to do something new and there is no guarantee that people will like it (TOS BG is a good example). To maximize return on investment, media companies go to the familar and proven hence all the remakes. The only reason we have a BG remake is because BG is a familar "brand name" among the general public.

Terayon · December 19th, 2003, 08:10 AM

Quote:

I found the suit Lucas filed, and many of his "points of similarity" had merit. One I remember is "ships deliberately made to seem old".
Others with less merit included "Good versus Evil themes", "Led by a partiarchal figure"

Sounds like WWII. Here's a picture of a WWII figter plane used by the Japanese: http://www.grafixnpix.com/wwii/d4yjudy.jpg Notice the heavy weathering, chipped paint, etc. How did the plane get that way, considering that WWII happened before George Lucas invented the idea of fighters getting dirty and grimy?

And how was this possible? http://originaltrek.deepspace93.com/...ptos03_185.jpg Lucas hadn't yet invented the giant, spherical space ship yet when this episode of Star Trek aired. How could it have existed?

Just think for a minute about the battle sequences on Star Wars - then tell me, how much should the makers of the movie Midway sue him for? I mean, you've got lots of little fighters attacking a very large ship, they try several times before finally accomplishing their mission, people get shot out of the air on the way to the bombing run, there's Admiral Nimitz as the wise old patriarchal figure, there's lots of young fighter pilots talking to each other via the radio as they make their runs, the folks on the carrier listen in to the trasmissions and look worried, etc. etc. etc. And Midway came out just 3 years before Star Wars! How can anybody write that off as mere coincidence? So how much does Lucas owe them? About 50 - 100 million, by Lucas' standards?

Kester Pelagius · December 19th, 2003, 09:08 AM

Greetings,

Interesting points.

Quote:

Originally posted by Terayon
Sounds like WWII.

<...>

Just think for a minute about the battle sequences on Star Wars - then tell me, how much should the makers of the movie Midway sue him for? I mean, you've got lots of little fighters attacking a very large ship, they try several times before finally accomplishing their mission, people get shot out of the air on the way to the bombing run, there's Admiral Nimitz as the wise old patriarchal figure, there's lots of young fighter pilots talking to each other via the radio as they make their runs, the folks on the carrier listen in to the trasmissions and look worried, etc. etc. etc. And Midway came out just 3 years before Star Wars! How can anybody write that off as mere coincidence? So how much does Lucas owe them? About 50 - 100 million, by Lucas' standards?

Which just goes to show how ridiculous lawsuits have become. Who was it that said there is nothing new under the sun?

If memory serves wasn't the underlying premise of the original BG pilot that the main fleet was lured away (into an ambush) so that the homeworlds could be decimated in a Pearl Harbor like sneak attack, thus forcing the survivors into an en mass biblical like Exodus in search of a promised land (the thirteenth colony)?

Whereas Star Wars is, perhaps, best reduced down to being little more than a "re-imaging" of the Kind Arthur tale (Luke = the Young Arthur; Obi Wan = Merlin, the one who gives arthur the "sword"; et al) with an swashbuckling Space Opera overlay with elements borrowed rather freely from various world myths?

Granted I can understand the desire/need/paranoia to keep ones IP rights sacrosanct. But there is historical lesson to be learned from the fate's of heavy handed dictators. They tend to fall, and their works, if not forgotten, are demonised. One would hope this doesn't happen with Star Wars. . oh, wait, I forgot about Jar-Jar!

Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Raymar3d · December 19th, 2003, 01:15 PM

I agree with many of the comments regarding similarities between the BSG miniseries and other space operas.
To me the Cylon Raiders looked a lot like Batman's jet in the George Cloony version. The space fight scenes resembled B5 and Space: Above and Beyond (a show that I really liked!) The 'I'm In Your Head' gimick from Farscape. The Basestars looked like the Shadow ships on B5.
But for all of the 'borrowing', I have to admit I lliked the show.
The Galactica looked similar to its predicessor only with more of a militaristic battleship look which is okay. The new Vipers looked just like that, new versions of the old Viper. I myself liked the older version and was glad to see it was going to be used. I feel that they tried to produce a more 'realistic' show by stylizing it after nowadays naval life which is also okay.
But, I really wished they would have gone all out and used more special effects especially regarding the Cylons. I mean if they can whoop us so readily just with the work done by one 'terminator chick' model and a wimpy genius who had access to EVERYTHING they needed, why would they waste their time with the other 'human looking' models? And when they say there are 'only 12 Cylon models...does that mean each human version is a model or that all of the human versions are just one model and that would leave 11 other models?
This show can only be loosly be associated with the original BSG and really could have been its own animal with its own different show title.
I would have enjoyed seeing what Richard Hatch had in mind for the series but I guess that will never be now.
Ultimately the question is: Did you like the show?
I would have to say for the most part 'YES'. I eagerly wait to see how the characters develop and stories evolve as all fledgling shows need to do. Remember, this is all just MY opinion.

SpyOne · December 23rd, 2003, 11:25 AM

Got another one:
On the cartoon Starblazers (which aired in the US in the late 70's, and was adapted from the Japanese show Space Cruiser Yamato), in the second series (the Comet Empire), the new enemy aliens had a wepaon which emited a ray that disabled modern technology.
This was a major plot point because the heroes' ship (the Argo in the US and the Yamato in Japan) used older tech. The heroes argued with command about not refiting the ship to the new standard because it created vulnerabilities but were overruled, so they stole the ship to prevent it being refit.
When the enemy aliens launched ther massive assault, only the old ship that hadn't been refit could fight them.