Battlestar Galactica - 1978 movie and tv show followup question

I re-watched the 1978 movie. Very corny at times and glosses over details that the 2003 remake spent hours on (such as who got chosen to survive and who was left behind)... but if you can overlook the cheeze factor, then I'd say this is a decent movie that's clever when it isn't trite. And even when it's trite and predictable, I found there's something that still made it watchable.

But here's what bothers me:

1. Baltar's throat is slashed by a Cylon in this movie. How'd they explain his high position in the subsequent tv series? It was quite clear the idiot was killed.

2. The announcer at the start of the movie who rambles on about humanity being the descendents of the Toltecs and all that happened to have the same voice as the shadowed Cylon leader who kept telling his robot underlings to attack the humans. I find that to be rather odd... the whole speech about mankind's forebearers is a bit pointless too...

3. The military reveal that they had originally helped the Cylons because the Cylons were at war with another species that humankind also hated. But now the Cylons were out to wipe out humanity, now that the other foe was driven off. (This was 1978. 26 years later and it's like the writer was the next of kin to Nostradamus!! :scared: We helped Afghanistan and Iraq to drive off our enemy's enemy, thinking those we helped were our friends... oops.)

:shrug:

1. The movie was made from the TV series pilot. In the series, Baltar was not killed, but told 'Deliver the Galactica or your head'.

2. The Narrator and the 'Imperious Leader' are both Patrick McKnee. Apparently, they could only afford one good voice actor, and used him for all the faceless voices.

3. I don't recognize that plot line, I bet it was in the movie version, not the original series. The series stated that mankind and the Cylons had been at war for 'A millinia' with no mention of how it started.

1. The 1978 movie reeked of "potential tv series". It didn't have a theatrical feel to it. Even Star Wars did, and its concept is far less interesting (but Han Solo just about made up for it).

2. Ah. Steed. John Steed. Doesn't sound like him, oddly.

3. Yes, it was definitely in the movie - the movie itself also plays the "peace begets peace" philosophy and its followers (the Council of 12) as being blind idiots who keep doing the same dumb things (which is easy to do). The TV version was a tad different, or so I've read... I wonder why they made such a big change...

I am tempted to buy the TV series if I can find it for $50. I'm not sure it's worth the $100 they want.

And why they didn't include the Galactica 1980 story about Starbuck's fate (the final G-80 story aired, I forgot the title) is beyond me - that was a classic of classic.

and I'm not sure I do...

The movie came out after the series, at least in the U.S.
AND it was the first two episodes of the series.

In the book (based on the series), Cylons tried to conquer another, third race and the Humans interfered, preventing the conquest... which doesn't explain why the Humans had no allies.

whenever I see your sig I feel this sudden urge to rush to a toy store and buy a couple dozen WW2 fighter 1/72 Revell models.

By the way, I liked the Tempest better, but the HH was one of my favs too.

spent my allowance on a lot of them... I especially liked the ones in the 1/48 scale for WW2, with the moving parts... I used to dive bomb my toy soldiers with my Dauntless...

The Typhoon was a better plane, but weren't built until after the Battle of Britain... 'Hurris' held the line, along with the 'Spit'... The Spitfire was a better plane, but there weren't enough of them.

...or why they would destroy twelve planets' worth. Are they seeking new territory? Are they hunters by nature? Did they get annoyed with humans for all the times we taunted them for being really bad shots?

No, they just hate humans, "with every fibre of their existence," Adama says. Later, he mentions some early run-ins over the Cylons' attempts to conquer other species, but these don't really explain a thousand-year genocidal war.

Some of the pre-movie publicity, suggested that they were lizards (as the Cylon Imperious Leader is) in armoured suits, rather like the Imperial Stormtroopers. The movie itself suggests they are lizards who have been cyborgized, and they often behave like living organisms, mechanically enhanced, save for their inability to hit a moving hero, with precision weapons, in a small room (also rather reminiscent of the Imperial Stormtroopers). Later, concerns about violence, and the killing of living beings led to the series, at least, declaring them purely robotic creations of the long-dead lizards.

...was that I thought that Maren Jensen & especially Laurette Spang (spelling on those?) were MAJORLY HOT!

I was in my early-mid 20's at the time. Of course today I'm married to the most wonderful and beautiful woman in the universe, so I'm more than satisfied. The great thing is, she feels the same way about a pudgy, buck-toothed, gray-haired (what's left of it) old fart like me. I'm a lucky guy!

...appeared in American theaters, in SENSURROUND!

If any remembers, Sensurround was one of those movie gimmicks that caught on about as well as 3-D glasses or scratch-n-sniff. The studio supplied the theaters with enormous subwoofer speakers, which the theaters stacked next to the screen and plugged into their sound system. A secret handshake hidden in the movie's soundtrack told these giant subwoofers when to turn on and when to turn off. When on, the subwoofers would emit these really loud rumbling noises that drowned out all other sound in the film and were powerful enough to cause your seat to vibrate. The movie Earthquake! was the first to use this technique, and we ALL know what an artistic masterpiece and box-office smash Earthquake! was.

And if the Cylons hated humans so much why do they have one as leader?

Yes, the funny shaped underling to Baltar did seem rather strange...

In the BG books from 1978, the Cylons are not robots.

They are totally alien critters, with the warriors having one brain, officers get a second brain implanted, and Imperious Leader is the one with 3 brains.

Apparently according to the books, Cylons need three brains to equal humans' one.

Poor dumb creatures with only a 1/3 of a normal brain.

Nope.

Freepers function with 1/10 a normal brain. :-)

whatever happend to the latest movie version...wasn't that supposed to be a series...?