Galactica Spin Off

mcgarnicle

Apparantly there is a new series in the works that will take place on Caprica 50 years before the current series, it will focus on the Odama family and the creation of the Cylons.

http://www.gateworld.net/news/2006/04/scifiannouncesigalacticais.shtml

Ivan

hmmm... I dunno about this...

We'll see. Who's producing it?

tvnutz

'CAPRICA'

From executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick ('Battlestar Galactica'), writer Remi Aubuchon ('24') and NBC Universal Television Studio, this new series is set over a half a century before the events that play out in 'Battlestar Galactica.' The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high-technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better. But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot - a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the 'Battlestar Galactica') 'Caprica' weaves corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television's first science fiction family saga.

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/cgi/pr.cgi?id=20060426scifi02

monkeyfudge

Won't the Cylons just be the old chrome toaster models that were in the original series? As they were shown in the historical display and have been referenced several times.

lostexpectation

where did the cyclons go to come and attack?

Fenster

Battlestar: Atlantis

quad_red

Fenster wrote:

Battlestar: Atlantis

Exactly. That's what I thought straight away. Stargate good - Atlantis a corny, slow, clunky, poorly acted, poorly cast, boring steaming pile of turd.

I hope 'Battlestar: The Last Generation' works out better.

sprinkles

This could be good, they have some quality behind the scenes already so provided they take it seriously then I don't see why it wouldn't be good.


That said I'm only slightly optimistic

mcgarnicle

I think it's a good idea. I think the original plan would have been to make galactica a short run, maybe one season. There is only so long a ship running away can be made interesting (Just look at Star Trek Voyager). I think that, given the popularity of the show, this could prove to be a more long term option.

Khannie

Voyager lasted 5 or 6 seasons and it was quality the whole way through (IMO). The current series could be played out as a pitched battle with earthlings helping out (if they ever reach earth), etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

This could be a bit like enterprise. I'm hopeful...but only because the current series is so quality.

sprinkles

Voyager was a great idea that was implimented badly.

Kes, Nelix & Janeway were terrible characters and should have been killed off at the first chance.

I think BSG, which is a far better premise - on the verge of extinction etc, is being driven by interesting characters and a gritty sometimes dark subplots which really makes it such compleeing viewing IMO. This spin off seems like a cash in but with a good writing team they may make a decent show. It'll be very interesting to see what the old cylons look like - did they actually show an old cylon in the new series (can't remember).

Johnny Storm

Khannie wrote:

Voyager lasted 5 or 6 seasons and it was quality the whole way through (IMO).....

:eek: :mad: :cool:

monkeyfudge

sprinkles wrote:

did they actually show an old cylon in the new series (can't remember).

Yes they did. In the original mini series.. and Six even referenced them by saying that those models still had their uses.

lostexpectation

Khannie wrote:

Voyager lasted 5 or 6 seasons and it was quality the whole way through (IMO). The current series could be played out as a pitched battle with earthlings helping out (if they ever reach earth), etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

and like Voyager if all else fails they can bring in a sexy blonde cyborg to spruce up the show...

Khannie

Johnny Storm wrote:

:eek: :mad: :cool:

Ok, ok....it did get a bit tedious towards the end. But I thought it was pretty decent for the most part.

mcgarnicle

Khannie wrote:

Voyager lasted 5 or 6 seasons and it was quality the whole way through (IMO). The current series could be played out as a pitched battle with earthlings helping out (if they ever reach earth), etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

This could be a bit like enterprise. I'm hopeful...but only because the current series is so quality.

They reached earth in the original series, only to find that it was just 70s earth so they left it alone to prevent the cylons attacking it.
Just had a crazy idea, what if the survivors in the galactica fleet are really the Alterans from Stargate and the cylons are the Ori, the story sounds similar, one group fleeing across the galaxy on board a big ship. Maybe Battlestar Galactica will emerge as a Stargate prequel, charting the rise of the Ancients millions of years ago in our galaxy. Then again, maybe not

aidan_walsh

mcgarnicle wrote:

Then again, maybe not

So say we all.

Khannie

Noes! I started reading the spoiler because I was being stupid and thought it was something to do with voyager. SH*TE!!!!!!!!

aidan_walsh

The more I think about this, the more it sounds like it could possibly be a pretty good series. I'm not wild about it focusing on the Adamas - it feels a bit like its giving them a far larger role in the universe than they deserve, a bit like the droids in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, I think the show might be better served if it created a whole new lineage.

But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot -- a Cylon.

When put like this, and if created in the same style as Battlestar, this feels like it could have a kind of an Asimov feel to the storyline, which IMO can only be a good thing.

monkeyfudge

Khannie wrote:

Noes! I started reading the spoiler because I was being stupid and thought it was something to do with voyager. SH*TE!!!!!!!!

Don't worry.... he got it wrong... it was the 1980's not the 1970's.. it was the horrible spin off of the original series called Galactica 1980... you never EVER want to watch it.

quad_red

I think the makers of BSG have been spot on moulding interesting characters, casting them properly and writing good storylines.

So I'd have hope for a new series.

But I'm going to stop reading this thread cos mentally I'm associating this new series with Voyager.

What the hell was with Voyager anyway? The characters were absolute rubbish. Janeway, Chakotay with stereotypical indian spiritual mumbo-jumbo attached, Paris (even more irritating than Wesley Crusher), Neelix (even more irritating than Paris).

The 'fierce' Belanna Torres.

Ok, Tuvok had his moments. The doctor was usually a laugh and Seven's costume did the talking.

The premise was actually very good - but SO badly executed. The almost total lack of continuity or detail when it came to characters (all the Macquis are dead lads. Wiped out. Totally. The Jem H'dar danced on their heads. What reaction does this elicit? Ah, Torres has a bit of a brain fart and that's it. Rubbish. And lazy)

The most interesting character in the bloody thing was the psycho telepath guy with the cool eyes who helps the doc take back the ship off the Kazons. A dark, textured character whose story was not easy to resolve.

Unless you just kill him of course.

How I'd love to have seen Janeway with her helium balloon voice and drunken stare blown out an airlock.

Ahem.

Jack B. Badd

Is this spin off a definite or just a maybe at the mo?

monkeyfudge

quad_red wrote:

The most interesting character in the bloody thing was the psycho telepath guy with the cool eyes who helps the doc take back the ship off the Kazons. A dark, textured character whose story was not easy to resolve.

Unless you just kill him of course.

Oh yes, Brad Dourif was great... although he had already played a very similar part in the X-Files.

Seska was a pretty interesting character too.... but I've always found Cardassian women attractive... oooh.. Tracy Scoggins and Ducat's daughter... nice...

Khannie

monkeyfudge wrote:

Don't worry.... he got it wrong...

Nice one. You just rescued my day a bit. I only got about 5 words into it....then realised that I was a twat (have another look over it and you'll get what I mean). I remember that from the original series allright. Don't think I ever saw that Galactica 1980 thankfully.

D

monkeyfudge wrote:

Don't worry.... he got it wrong... it was the 1980's not the 1970's.. it was the horrible spin off of the original series called Galactica 1980... you never EVER want to watch it.

Yeah what was the story with the kids in that? They were supposed to be superhuman...

Nukem

Thinks the writers suddenly went "oh crap,people are becoming fanatical about BSG" and now they need more story lines from prvious to tie in. Wait and see i bet you any money that there will be a evere story relation.

*any money does not mean money at all.nukem=student :<*

cyrusdvirus

D wrote:

Yeah what was the story with the kids in that? They were supposed to be superhuman...

It was to do with the gravity or some such. Think the artificial gravity on Galactica was stronger than out own.

The kids were bad, that little blond doctor boy, the inspiration for Dougie Hauser M.D. (Starbucks kid?? Have vague recollections of an episode where this was laid down) was worse... but for complete biscuit taking the flying stealthy cloaking motorbikes did it for me...... Trying to mix Galactica and CHiPs

GerardKeating

monkeyfudge wrote:

Yes they did. In the original mini series.. and Six even referenced them by saying that those models still had their uses.

They also appear in the season two finale, quite a lot of them actually.

monkeyfudge

GerardKeating wrote:

They also appear in the season two finale, quite a lot of them actually.

Those are the new ones... I'm talking about the old, old ones that were used in the orignal Battlestar Galactica series from the 70's. They have also been talked about in this series as what the cylons looked like the last time humans saw them.

cyrusdvirus

monkeyfudge wrote:

Those are the new ones... I'm talking about the old, old ones that were used in the orignal Battlestar Galactica series from the 70's. They have also been talked about in this series as what the cylons looked like the last time humans saw them.

there was an inactive one aboard Galactica as a museum piece for the decommissioning ceremony

_Kaiser_

gatecrash wrote:

there was an inactive one aboard Galactica as a museum piece for the decommissioning ceremony

There was a model of an old-style base star as well if I remember right. Would be kinda cool for nostalgia purposes if they ran across one complete with old-style raiders and centurions - I miss the "By your command" - the new models don't seem very chatty

cyrusdvirus

Kaiser2000 wrote:

There was a model of an old-style base star as well if I remember right. Would be kinda cool for nostalgia purposes if they ran across one complete with old-style raiders and centurions - I miss the "By your command" - the new models don't seem very chatty

Can't do that...old style raiders had lasers!!! They'd blow the bejaysus out of Galactica, Pegasus and the whole fleet!!

Rollo Tamasi

friggin spoilers, why do i always read them? :mad:

_Kaiser_

gatecrash wrote:

Can't do that...old style raiders had lasers!!! They'd blow the bejaysus out of Galactica, Pegasus and the whole fleet!!

lol... Good point!

User45701

Voyger Was good and it got 7 seasons not 5 or 6

iguana

While I think this has a lot of potential, I am worried that having the Galactica producers divide their time between two shows will lead to a drop in quality on BSG and the new series never realising it's full potential.

For example, while Buffy season 4+ and Angel had some very good episodes, they never matched the earlier Buffy seasons as consistently good, moving tv. The main reason for this would be due to the fact that the writing and producing talent was too unevenly divided.

I'd quite like to see this new series, but I'd prefer to see it after BSG runs it's course. With maybe a year off, to let the writers re-charge.

Romo

An episode from the first series called "The Hand of God" gave some of the back story. Apollo is about to lead an attack on the cylons when Adama comes to visit him. He gives him a lighter that belonged to his father, a lawyer by the name of Joseph Adama.

I presume one of the main characters will be this Joseph Adama. Also, if its 50 years before the current series expect William Adama to be a 14-15 year old kid as he's 64-65 (he was on the verge of retirement when the cylons attacked) in the present series.

iguana

Interview with David Eick here about the Caprica series. There's also a few series 3 spoilers so thread carefully, but I found them easy to avoid.

http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=1487

TerrorFirmer

gatecrash wrote:

there was an inactive one aboard Galactica as a museum piece for the decommissioning ceremony

I must go back and watch that, didn't notice it, or if I did, it was at a time I wasn't as bothered with BSG and didn't care to notice.

The old Cylons were so cheesy and shiny....in the decommissioning in the miniseries, are they, if you know what I mean, the same look but a bit less tacky looking? Or the very original ones....complete with tacky 70's metal look?

I can't imagine the shiny-obviously-guy-in-suit Cylons fitting in all too well in the new BSG...:D

I think the spin off could be great. I don't think I'm crazy about the Adama family but the creation and rebellion of the Cylons should be extremely interesting....

Scráib

What I think would be a nice touch in Caprica would be if current Cylon models of Boomer, Number Six and the rest could actually be introduced into the series for about one episode as real humans who get captured then have their DNA copied, making the models we know in BSG today.

Can you imagine how cool it would be to see the 'real' Boomer serving on Galactica when the ship was just launched 50 years in the past then get captured? T'would be deadly!

TerrorFirmer

That would be cool, but, I don't think the Cylons would risk cloning military personel that had already been serving with Colonial forces....especially not when their ultimate goal of infiltrating the ministery of defense and exterminating the human race was completely dependant on the Cylon models being completely undetectable...

quad_red

You can see Adama sitting there thinking Boomer must have some great face cream to look the exact same as when he met her during the first cylon war.

What I think would be sort of cool would be seeing Galactica in her pomp - when she was one of the top of line Battlestars.

Scráib

That would be cool, but, I don't think the Cylons would risk cloning military personel that had already been serving with Colonial forces....especially not when their ultimate goal of infiltrating the ministery of defense and exterminating the human race was completely dependant on the Cylon models being completely undetectable...

True. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of the models maybe being, say, social rejects or something. My main point is that it would be a nice touch if we could discover that the cylon models are in fact copies of actual humans.

You can see Adama sitting there thinking Boomer must have some great face cream to look the exact same as when he met her during the first cylon war.

What I think would be sort of cool would be seeing Galactica in her pomp - when she was one of the top of line Battlestars.

Adama will only be what, 15 years old in caprica. That means that he won't be serving on Galactica, he'll probably only be joining the military, and that will only happen if the series lasts a few seasons to let him get old enough.

But yes, seeing Galactica in her prime would be cool! I can't see the series leaving Galactica herself out, in that sense I can't wait for it.

cyrusdvirus

HavoK wrote:

I must go back and watch that, didn't notice it, or if I did, it was at a time I wasn't as bothered with BSG and didn't care to notice.

The old Cylons were so cheesy and shiny....in the decommissioning in the miniseries, are they, if you know what I mean, the same look but a bit less tacky looking? Or the very original ones....complete with tacky 70's metal look?

I can't imagine the shiny-obviously-guy-in-suit Cylons fitting in all too well in the new BSG...:D

I think the spin off could be great. I don't think I'm crazy about the Adama family but the creation and rebellion of the Cylons should be extremely interesting....

Oh no, them be the exact same as they were apart from no whhmmm whhmmm noise as the red eye lighty thing..... Probably cos he was turned off.


I'll always remember as a nipper watching the A-Team one saturday evening. RTE were showing the original series of BSG at the time, and Face and the boys were at a fancy dress. Next thing this shiny guy in suit walks by, complete with whhmmm whhmmm and Face goes " Hey that guy looks familiar" Many giggles from me and confused looks on my Dads face

TerrorFirmer

I'm putting on the Miniseries now just to see that part...

cyrusdvirus

HavoK wrote:

I'm putting on the Miniseries now just to see that part...

Standing on the left hand side if memory serves.

TerrorFirmer

Can't see it. Trying to flick through the thing on my pc but don't see it...where exactly? The ceremony takes place on open landing bay, is it before or after that scene?

Have to say, the special Effects in the miniseries are dreadful....amazing how far they came on since then, obviously popularity and large budget allowances will do that to a show but still...

cyrusdvirus

HavoK wrote:

Can't see it. Trying to flick through the thing on my pc but don't see it...where exactly? The ceremony takes place on open landing bay, is it before or after that scene?

Have to say, the special Effects in the miniseries are dreadful....amazing how far they came on since then, obviously popularity and large budget allowances will do that to a show but still...

Think it's when Adama is walking through with Roslin. Been a while since I saw it.
http://www.genreonline.net/Battlestar_Galactica_Photos_Sci-Fi.html

quad_red

HavoK wrote:

Can't see it. Trying to flick through the thing on my pc but don't see it...where exactly? The ceremony takes place on open landing bay, is it before or after that scene?

I had it in my head that it was when Adama tells Kara & the other pilots to take the Mark 2 Vipers out of mothball.

HavoK wrote:

Have to say, the special Effects in the miniseries are dreadful....amazing how far they came on since then, obviously popularity and large budget allowances will do that to a show but still...

I suppose the initial effort in sfx (both in time & money) went on testing, designing etc. whereas when the series started it was constant refinement.

Praetorian

They'll be able to bring back the old school tin can cylons. This I must see. "By your command"

cyrusdvirus

Praetorian wrote:

They'll be able to bring back the old school tin can cylons. This I must see. "By your command"

Doubt it. If you think about it the old school cylons were attacking the Galactica on its way to earth from the colonies, same as these cylons are. Just gotta see it as 2 different timelines, so the old school cylons weren't a technologically inferior version to the new ones, just different experiences in different timelines led to different design parameters. Strictly speaking the old school cylons are at exactly the same time level as the ones on the current series, so i wouldn't go hoping for shiny suit guy with his whhmmmm whhmmmm red eye. It's set years before Galactica needed to haul ass away from the colonies.

Just as a question though, when according to Galactica/Colony history was the first cylon war? will there be bits and pieces of it in the spin off series or is the spin off gonna be about the split. Can't remember what the narrator said when the ship was approaching armistice station in the mini series