larocque6689
December 21st, 2003, 05:54 PM
I plan to write up a detailed review after my second viewing. For now, I'll say that I'll simply say that enjoyed what I saw and am giving it a guarded thumbs up.
The characters that I liked the best were the Cylons: Baltar, Number Six, and sleeper-agent Boomer. Tyrol was the most "human" of all the Colonials and my favorite Colonial character of the entire piece, and as an ordinary crew member, the one I related to the most.
Olmos and McDonnell were good casting choices especially in their tete-a-tete talks in the latter half. Lee "Apollo" Adama was OK - but I wanted to strangle him in the first confrontation with William Adama in his ready room. My views on Kara Thrace parellel those of TBC in his rough cut review - just when I started to really like her (especially before the final pre-jump), she calls Tigh a drunken bastard and a weakling, this at the point when the rest of the fleet were reuniting and reconciling with each other. Tigh's character might actually grow on me in a prospective series, although he spent the first two hours lifeless and reduced to a whisper.
Some of the expected contentious elements didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I confess that I laughed during the two Baltar sex scenes with Number Six, especially when the President's PR guy caught Baltar in a stimulated moment with his implanted hologram.
While I found some of the comments surrounding the babykilling scene beyond defence, the scene itself, while it did not advance the story, was thankfully not graphic. All in all, I found Number Six the most interesting character in the piece and after her, Baltar. In a prospective series I would like to see more of those two.
I was stunned that Adama was founding the Colonial's hope on a lie based on the Scriptural legend of Earth. He then gets Roslin to cover up for him. Even if Earth really exists, the idea that neither of them really knew where it was and claimed otherwise disturbing.
I hated the roving eye on the Cylon ships and wished they'd discard the CGI insectivoid Cylons as they added nothing. The change in the overall Cylon ship designs grew on me notwithstanding. All in all, the F/X on the whole were great and kudos to all involved. On the sound in space issue, the producers cheated by muting sounds during missile launches, bullets and jump sequences. However, this was not too distracting.
I approve of the decision to focus on the people and away from the emotional satisfaction of - for example - seeing 20 Battlestars destroyed, or the deaths of a billion civilians accompanied to the tune of lush, moving, orchestral music. I think what they achieved was a qualified success along the lines of keeping things "realistic", though I would hardly qualify this as a re-invention of the science fiction genre. It certainly could have been a bit livelier in execution, but on the whole, I didn't hate it.
The characters that I liked the best were the Cylons: Baltar, Number Six, and sleeper-agent Boomer. Tyrol was the most "human" of all the Colonials and my favorite Colonial character of the entire piece, and as an ordinary crew member, the one I related to the most.
Olmos and McDonnell were good casting choices especially in their tete-a-tete talks in the latter half. Lee "Apollo" Adama was OK - but I wanted to strangle him in the first confrontation with William Adama in his ready room. My views on Kara Thrace parellel those of TBC in his rough cut review - just when I started to really like her (especially before the final pre-jump), she calls Tigh a drunken bastard and a weakling, this at the point when the rest of the fleet were reuniting and reconciling with each other. Tigh's character might actually grow on me in a prospective series, although he spent the first two hours lifeless and reduced to a whisper.
Some of the expected contentious elements didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. I confess that I laughed during the two Baltar sex scenes with Number Six, especially when the President's PR guy caught Baltar in a stimulated moment with his implanted hologram.
While I found some of the comments surrounding the babykilling scene beyond defence, the scene itself, while it did not advance the story, was thankfully not graphic. All in all, I found Number Six the most interesting character in the piece and after her, Baltar. In a prospective series I would like to see more of those two.
I was stunned that Adama was founding the Colonial's hope on a lie based on the Scriptural legend of Earth. He then gets Roslin to cover up for him. Even if Earth really exists, the idea that neither of them really knew where it was and claimed otherwise disturbing.
I hated the roving eye on the Cylon ships and wished they'd discard the CGI insectivoid Cylons as they added nothing. The change in the overall Cylon ship designs grew on me notwithstanding. All in all, the F/X on the whole were great and kudos to all involved. On the sound in space issue, the producers cheated by muting sounds during missile launches, bullets and jump sequences. However, this was not too distracting.
I approve of the decision to focus on the people and away from the emotional satisfaction of - for example - seeing 20 Battlestars destroyed, or the deaths of a billion civilians accompanied to the tune of lush, moving, orchestral music. I think what they achieved was a qualified success along the lines of keeping things "realistic", though I would hardly qualify this as a re-invention of the science fiction genre. It certainly could have been a bit livelier in execution, but on the whole, I didn't hate it.