Why is the quality so bad?


I'm a big fan of BSG 2004, and decided to try to watch this original BSG, but had to quit after a few episodes, as it was so bad.

I've read that this show had 100,000 dollars per episode as a budget - which was a record for any TV-show at the time - and still it sucked big time. It looks like something from the 50's or 60's.

The special effects were horrible and they kept re-using the same shots in all the episodes I watched (for instance when the fighters were launched).

For comparison, Star Trek: The Next Generation had the same budget (100,000 dollars) per episode when it first started, and it was 10 years later! Estimating inflation, Battlestar Galactica probably had 200,000 dollars or more to spend on each episode compared to ST:TNG.

Granted, there were several technological advances in that decade, but not enough to compensate for this huge difference in quality.

Where did all the money for BSG go? Up the producers's noses?

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1978 television budget wasn't enough for even John Dykstra to be able to produced Star Wars-like effects.

"IMDb...you will never find a more wretched hive of trolls and douchebaggery"

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$100,000 an episode, even in 1978/'79/'80 when Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980 were on television, was not a lot of money relative to the cost of shooting. It may have been the most ever for a television show at that time, but you have to consider what other shows were on prime time in 1978-80: Mork & Mindy, Three's Company, WKRP in Cincinnati, Fantasy Island, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Taxi, Diff'rent Strokes, CHiPS, the Love Boat, Dallas, etc. How many of those shows had high production expenses? With Three's Company, 95% of the show was shot in the the kids' apartment, or the Ropers'/Furley's apartment, with the occasional shot at the "Regal Beagle". Dallas? Southfork Ranch was built in 1970, so there was no production expense for building it, just a contract which allowed them to use the residence for external shots. Diff'rent Strokes? Most of the show existed in Phillip Drummond's house. The other shows I listed had an apartment, a house, or a squad room or something similar where much of principle shooting took place. Battlestar Galactica was not like that. Models had to be made. Effects had to be shot. Life size replicas of the vipers had to be created. Glen A. Larson and his production team had to create a whole new world far more advanced than anything ever shown on television before, including the original Star Trek. If you watch the extra disc that comes with the Star Wars original trilogy set, it shows in great detail how George Lucas and his special effects team had to create what they needed to shoot the movie on the fly. The original release for Star Wars was pushed back substantially because though principle shooting had all but been completed, the special effects team had only come up with one or two shots that Lucas considered even acceptable. Battlestar Galactica was using the same technology. It was new, and very expensive.

As Samclyde2 alluded, Battlestar had one of the best special effects artists to ever work in Hollywood in John Dykstra. However, as talented as he was back then (and still is), he had to make sacrifices, hence the reuse of shots in battle sequences that the original poster alluded to. And if you know anything about the original Battlestar Galactica series, you already know that the episodes were shot at a breakneck pace. The actors would get the script or rewrites the same day as the shoot, and the episodes would be on air in a couple of days. To quote Chip Douglas' review of Remembering Battlestar Galactica:

We learn that Glen Larson originally intended Battlestar Galactica as a mini-series and did not want to rush into production, but that's exactly what ABC ordered them to do as soon as the heavily hyped tree hour pilot episode's ratings were in. So during the production of the 24 episode season, rewrites were arriving every day (sometimes after the previous version had already been shot), different episodes were being shot at the same time and (although this goes unmentioned) guest stars like Anne Lockhart (Sheba) became part of the regular cast while others like Maren Jensen (Athena) were unceremoniously phased out. Richard Hatch (Apollo), who is clearly the most knowledgeable and committed cast member erroneously mentions that John Dykstra did the effects for the entire series while in fact he only worked on the pilot and the next four episodes (though it's true that these shots were reused up until the final episode). Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) and Herb Jefferson Jr. (Boomer) join Hatch in explaining the difficulties of filming scenes in the Viper cockpits, having to line up their dialog to the back projection of Dykstra's effects work.


It sounds to me like the original poster is holding Galactica to an impossible standard. Why did Star Trek: The Next Generation, with a similar budget looks "so much better" in your opinion just ten years later? I'll use an analogy here. How much do you pay for the internet today? How much speed do you get for that money? If you were to go back 10 years, you'd likely spend about the same amount for internet service. But instead of the spectacular connection speed that you get today, you'd get dialup. Well, special effects are much the same. Star Trek: the Next Generation benefited from a decade's worth of special effects development, including CGI (which TNG did use). Instead of creating technology for the first time, they were using established procedures, and machines. Production costs would have been lower comparatively for that show.

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Brilliant!!! One of the best explained answers in Imdb threads ever. Thnx for the references also.

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As a VFX Artist who has struggled with trying to explain to others exactly what we do, and at times how difficult it is to do, and then to have your name nowhere in the credits due to studio/productions agreements I salute you for this well thought out and accurate explanation! Thank you!

I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but I prefer sitting...

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I can't believe I've forgotten to say thank you for this excellent reply until now. I'm very sorry for the delay, and thanks so much again for taking the time to post this excellent and clarifying reply!


What we do in life echoes in eternity Russell Crowe as General Maximus in Gladiator (2000)

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"..though principle shooting had all but been completed,"

What kind of principles did they shoot?

Unless you mean principal shooting.

These things are SO easy to check, especially nowadays! Why do people do this instead..? I can't understand.

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Nothing from 50's or 60's science fiction television looked as good as BSG did in '78. I can't even think of anything from 50's or 60's films that looked better. Maybe, 2001.

The best looking science fiction TV show from the 60's was probably Star Trek, and the sets and effects on it where not nearly as realistic as BSG.

Of course BSG does not look as good as shows made 20 to 30 years later, but it was first rate for its day. Especially, the two hour and multi-part episodes. They did skimp on the budgets for some of the one hour stand alone episodes, but if you quit after a few episodes you didn't even get to those.

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You know, reading a "review" like this makes me want to scream. The op obviously has very limited knowledge of special effects and how they evolve over time.

First: the original Star Trek (as great as it is) did not look better than this. Star Trek holds up because of the great writing not because it has "timeless" special effects.

Second: Star Trek the Next Generation looks completely fake (CGI was in its infancy back then and it shows). Again, like its predecessor Star Trek the Next Generation holds up due to strong characterization and good (while not as good as the original series) writing.

Third: I am a fan of 50s and 60s sci-fi and nothing in the 50s or 60s (aside from 2001 and maybe Forbidden Planet) looked as good as Battlstar Galactica.

Fourth: The only thing I will agree with the original poster about is the annoying reuse of special effects shots, but that was due to monetary constraints. A weekly television show with special effects of this caliber had never been done before and even though it had (at the time) the highest budget on television it still wasn't enough to produce a show that continuously had the same level of special effects as the first few episodes. This was common for Sci-Fi from this period. If the original poster thinks the reuse of stock footage in this was bad he should check out V the television series. It was a million times worse.

Fifth: The reason that this show was cancelled was due to its (at the time) extremely high budget. It was too expensive to make despite being a highly rated show. Despite its rather abrupt cancelation the show had developed a very loyal fan base and due to that fan base the studio decided to bring it back a year later. However, the less said about Galactica 1980 the better.

Memories, you're talking about memories.

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Fourth: The only thing I will agree with the original poster about is the annoying reuse of special effects shots

I'm sure they did this a lot, but the only time I ever notice it is the shots of launching the vipers, and that never bothered me because how different would it really have looked if they used a different shot of each? If you've seen one viper launch, you've seen them all.

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While new shots were filmed for every episode, the battle scenes (particularly from the Vipers' perspective firing on Cylon raiders) were continuously re-used. This was very annoying even to a junior-high-age viewer watching the show in its original broadcast. One could easily explain it away by saying that the Cylon pilots were programmed to fly in certain formations and use particular evasive actions, but at the time it just screamed out, "PRODUCTION SHORTCUT!"


And though the world may turn too fast - if it should seem like paradise
Don't let the moment pass.....

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I guess I did notice the Cylon ships doing the exact same roll over and over and over again. But I think a lot of re-used shots I just didn't notice that much so long as they weren't used close together.

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Go back and watch the shows again. The reuse of the same special effects shots episode after episode is very noticeable. Still, despite that, I like this show a lot more than the remake. I tried watching the 2004 version a few times, but they changed so much about the characters that I couldn't get into it at all.

Memories, you're talking about memories.

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Wow I didn't know this would create such a response. Would be nice of IMDb to send an email-notification of all the posts in the threads we're participating in (or at least have it as an option) instead of only the post directly responding to yours.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

I do indeed have very little experience with older sci-fi, as it has never been very popular in Norway. I was just kind of expecting better quality from a show this popular and with such a big cult-following.

I've seen a few episodes of Star Trek (TOS) as well though, and I find it much better, but that's maybe because I'm a big fan of Star Trek. But I had to stop watching that as well after a few eps though, for the same reason: too cheesy.


And don't dare to campare 2001 with a TV-show! :D I love realism in sci-fi, and what Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick do in thia film has never been surpassed either in film nor TV, in my humble opinion.

BSG 2004 is also very realistic compared to Star Trek and virtually any other sci-fi show before and after, but it has some annoying moments. But it's very good!

I liked the old 'V' though... :)

Anyway, whatever rocks your boat is good, unless you're kayak'ing some river in Norway.

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Hello Norway.

IMDB will send you a notice when someone replies to your post. You have to go to the "my profile" tab then "my account" and this will bring you to "site preferences" then click "e-mail notification when someone responds to my post".

For a Sci-Fi television series in the 70s to look as good as this did was rare. To be honest I don't think any of the other ones did (and I am a very big fan of this era of Sci-Fi).

If you find the era too cheesy I can understand that. It took me a long time to warm up to pre 1970s Sci-Fi (I was born in 1975 and I can remember back to when I was only one. So, these shows and how amazing they were upon their arrival is still very fresh in my brain). What I did to overcome my distaste for earlier Sci-Fi was to watch the earlier shows and movies in small doses here and there and eventually the dated special effects and "cheesy" plot lines no longer bothered me. Recently I have been watching "Men into Space" which is a very old black and white television series that (for the time) was fairly realistic. My advice to you is to either forget about this era completely or do what I suggested. I actually had to do this with a great many genera's that were prior to the time that I grew up in. That includes horror, westerns, dramas, music, etcetera. As a result the majority of what I watch (and listen to for that matter) is not from this time period and fortunately or possibly unfortunately (depending on your point of view) I stay clear of most modern television shows and movies. The overuse of phony looking CGI, the stressed immorality, the (most of the time) poor writing, terrible actors and the fact that almost everyone is trying to get one over on someone else and how they are almost universally praised when they do really bothers me. Unfortunately, that's what most of American television is like these days :/ I don't know what television is like in Norway... hopefully better :)

And starting a thread like this is good sometimes. It gets people on here talking. No one usually responds to positivity. It's usually "Screw you if you don't like it!" I may have even said that to you too. I was in a bad mood when I first replied.

There is a blog (it is quite good, informative and lengthy)that is solely devoted to this era that is called Space 1970. It has been running for quite a few years. You can visit that sight here http://space1970.blogspot.com/ That way you can see exactly what this show was running against and how much better looking it was than most of the other stuff. I like the charm of that era. It was meant to be fun and (for the most part) was not to be taken so seriously.

Memories, you're talking about memories.

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Thanks!

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You have Eidetic memory? That's awesome,if you do. I've heard it's extremely rare. Supposedly Jim Parsons of "Big Bang Theory" has it. Marilu Henner of "Taxi" and "Unforgettable" also has it.

As for what you said about shows back then not taking things too seriously,you're absolutely right. Families watched TV together,so most shows targeted families as a whole. Since then,many families have split up,both parents work,many parents drink booze or do drugs,..and most studios target their programs towards 18-46 year olds,because they do the majority of the shopping. Due to this,most shows try to be as realistic as possible,even if it means showing bloody gore,for this seems to attract the ideal age group. Many shows tend to be more jaded/perverse as well,for most young adults are either single or in immature relationships obsessed with lust,instead of love. This explains the overuse of attractive men and women in shows,saying and doing things that would never have been allowed in the 50's,60's,70's or 80's. Even my favorite show,"The Big Bang Theory" gets away with more than it would have if it existed 20 years ago,and that show is tame compared to the vulgar "Two & A Half Men"(with Ashton Kutcher;before he joined it was raunchy once in a while,but pretty clean most of the time).

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You have Eidetic memory? That's awesome,if you do. I've heard it's extremely rare. Supposedly Jim Parsons of "Big Bang Theory" has it.


I could be mistaken, but I think it is only the character that Jim Parsons plays on TBBT that has eidetic memory. :)




Now if that bastard so much as twitches, I'm gonna blow him right to Mars.

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A bit late reply, but since I'm re-reading this thread now since I started it: I've also heard that the late Harry Morgan (most famous for me from M*A*S*H, a show that I still love and watch regularly on DVD) also had eidetic memory. That would have been so awesome to have! He was also mentor to a lot of actors, and had a huge amount of (famous) friends, so apparently he used that memory of his not only to remember lines, but to keep in touch with his friends :)

What we do in life echoes in eternity Russell Crowe as General Maximus in Gladiator (2000)

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"Cylon pilots were programmed to fly in certain formations"

That's exactly how I reconcile myself to the recycled images. Further, it makes sense that the colonial warriors had developed tactics against the standard cylon manoeuvres and practised them to the point where any pilot performing them would look the same.

I know the real reason, but if it can be made part of the story it's not so bad.

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This was a very good reply. Sorry I stayed away for so long. Thinking about revisiting now :) Getting ready to watch the 2004-edition again now, but wouldn't hurt to be properly ready :)

I have both the original edition and the 1980 edition ready now, no no harm in seeing them I guess.

What we do in life echoes in eternity Russell Crowe as General Maximus in Gladiator (2000)

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You're going to watch Glactica 1980?! Oh man, that one IS bad! LOL. The 1978 version of Galactica actually had a budget. The 1980 Galactica was simply a cash grab... of course I own it and enjoy it for the terrible mess that it is, but Galactica 1980 was TERRIBLE! It's pretty much a bad sci-fi version of Chips. I don't know if you know what Chips was, but it was a late 1970s television seies about the California Highway Patrol. Hence the name C. Hi. Ps.


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It's pretty much a bad sci-fi version of Chips.


More like Adam-12.

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I love galactica 78 better then 2004 but its no star trek twilight zone. Patrick Duffy would of been good in the Apollo role.

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Come on, it was at least worthy of being held in that group of sci-fi iconic shows when it first started out. Battlestar was the Star Trek, when Star Trek wasn't on TV anymores as a new show.

Its such a pity Glen Larson didn't revive or support Battlestar Gaalctica as much as Roddenberry and Lucas did their creations with both Star Trek and Star Wars being revived under their guiding hands. Although Roddenberry later being a more of a consultant than actual writer or producer of Star Trek TNG and the theatrical Star Trek movies.

The fact TOS Battlestar gets mentioned by science fiction fans is paramount to how well it is remembered within the pop culture and what an impact it had made on sci-fi in general!

ST4


Name's Django, The "D" is silent.

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I dont think it is bad at all. its not up there with trek or twilight zone but if it had more episodes like the Pegasus one it would be in the top ten. Galactica is better then space 1999 which was hard to like. I like this galactica is better then its spinoff and remake,

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I thought it was decent for when it came out. The only thing that bothered me as far as special effects go was using stock footage in the Cylon battles. But for the late 70s it was pretty decent. They put a lot more money into than G80.

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It was a rushed out series. had the executives waited and done those several TV movies of Battlestar. Then waited a year for Larson and co to develop more solid stories around a weekly series. both the SFX of Apogee under John Dykstra and the BSG stories under Larson would've made the show shine way brighter than it originally did.

Because it was rushed though and ABC interfered with the daily running of the series too much. Galactica slipped in the ratings and also lost some steam as it was chugging along and then foolishly cancelled because the SFX were too expensive to produce for television at the time. Which is so friggin ironic given so many television shows today that aren't even science fiction, are done on $1 million dollar budgets or more.

The reuse of so much stock footage in the show, was the and result of a rushed out series using many shots that were intended for its pilot and followup TV movies only?! If you were to count all the later new SFX that showed up in later episodes against the always reused stock footage, you'd see barely a dozen or more shots were filmed and made after Galactica went from several TV movies to a full fledged TV series.

But you're right for the late 70s it was pretty decent. yet even more incredible fans have kept their incredible love for TOS Galactica alive for so long (decades) afterwards. Even though it had a ton of problems in getting it to even have a full show, that only lasted a single season on the airwaves.

ST4


Name's Django, The "D" is silent.

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As a Space:1999 fan, I must take exception. I liked both shows, and still do. Even have written my own Xover Fics.

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Buck Rogers from the same year looked better then BSG

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It did actually. Buck Rogers is highly underrated, the stories are exciting and never dull. Most seem not to like season two but I think it was the best season; at least for me. Very enjoyable show.

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Since you mentioned Buck Rogers here is a bit of trivia for you. The star fighters in Buck rogers were originally the fighters they were going to use for BSG but they changed their mind and created the Vipers and since they already had the other sets and ships they used them for Buck Rogers. Funny thing is I liked the Star fighter look better than the Vipers but that;'s just me.

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Buck Rogers from the same year looked better then BSG


Buck Rogers was not from the same year. It was from 1 year later and from the same producer. The Buck Rogers production staff got to build on everything that they had done right & wrong in Galactica.

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$1 million per episode, on average.

Multipart stories help lessen the monetary burden.

Special effects cost much more to do in 1978 than in 1987. The technology was primitive and required a lot more labor - and mistakes that prompted re-shoots.

The f/x in the original BSG are multi-layer, with masking so you don't see underlying layer content (e.g. stars shining through spaceship bulkheads).

Television was not seen as a device of value. Most shows then did not get big budgets. BSG was no exception.

Compare these shows to other shows OF THE TIME or earlier. And to feature films made in the same time period.

And keep in mind, Star Wars had $10 million to play with. For a 2 hour movie. Not for 24 episodes. And we all know the rumors and claims that a lot of people who made that movie did snort the money up their noses.

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Lol thanks for that info. Was it really 1 million per episode? In that case it was a REALLY big budget back then.

I read somewhere that it was 100,000 dollars, and that Star Trek: TNG had the same when it first started, so that's why I started this thread in the first place. If they really had 1 mill to play with while TNG only had 100,000, that makes it even more incredible.

But at least the article I read said that BSG had the biggest budget in history for a TV show.

Anyway, I didn't know the rumors about the crew working on Star Wars snorted up the money, although Carrie Fisher openly admits she was a total cocaine addict at the time when they were shooting the 2nd movie.

But I do know (or at least according to the articles I've read on the subject) that the production of Star Wars ended up costing a lot more than budgeted and took a lot longer time to complete than scheduled, and it was almost cancelled by the studio (and virtually everyone - including the actors - found the whole story ridiculous and never thought it would catch on).

George Lucas saved it by giving up his rights to any royalties from the movie. But he claimed the rights to any Star Wars novelty items like action figures, toys and posters etc, which made him a very rich man.

Anyway, I'm drifting off the topic I guess, but thanks for an interesting post!

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Also take into account that this was not suppose to be a series. It was suppose to be a mini series and at the last minute the film studio changed their mind. So, it was turned into a weekly episodic television series. It's ratings were high enough for the series to warrant a second season, but the cost of sustaining the show was (at the time) beyond what the studio was willing to pay. So, they gave it the axe.

Want proof that we are doomed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH68bSJXGE8

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Thanks for that! I didn't know it was intended as a mini-series.

However how bad I thought it was, I've read that it had a great many fans in the the US, even to the point of fanaticism. I even read some 15-year old or something committed suicide when the show got cancelled. That is quite sad.


Want proof that we are doomed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH68bSJXGE8


That is just unbelievable... ehm unbebiebable

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I thought it was planned as a series of TV movies but the network decided to make it a regular series instead. That's how it felt watching it. The multi-part episodes were always good, but most of the stand alone episodes were cheap and thrown together. I just assumed that the two parters were what would have been the movies and the stand alone episodes were just filler.

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I just assumed that the two parters were what would have been the movies and the stand alone episodes were just filler.


I've been reading up on Star Trek episode comments on 'Memory Alpha' as I've been watching them recently, and apparently what you call 'filler' is referred to there as 'bottle shows', meaning they basically use the same sets already built for previous episodes and they don't hire any guest stars. They (the bottle shows) are meant to save money so that they can spend more money on certain other episodes, in short. I never found out why they call them bottle shows though...

Anyway, many of those 'bottle shows' were very well written and produced none the less. Many of them stand out as being the best Star Trek-episodes ever produced.

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Yes much like the original "V" series "Battlestar Galactica" was intended to be a series of mini series. At the last minute the executives in charge thought that the concept would make more money if it was turned into a weekly series. Unfortunately that led to a lot of (as we have discussed) reused footage. The show quickly began cutting whatever expensive special effects shots that it could. It was a part of the reason that Jane Seymour bailed out of it so quickly.

I just started watching the original Star Trek series on Netflix (I haven't watched them in around 15 years). I will look out for the "bottle" episodes as I had never been aware of that term or concept.

It's pretty sad that someone would kill themselves over the cancelation of their favorite television series. There was probably a great many factors that led to that persons demise. The shows cancelation was probably the proverbial final straw that broke the camels back. I believe that there was probably a lot of mental instability going on there to begin with.

Want proof that we are doomed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH68bSJXGE8

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Yes much like the original "V" series "Battlestar Galactica" was intended to be a series of mini series. At the last minute the executives in charge thought that the concept would make more money if it was turned into a weekly series. Unfortunately that led to a lot of (as we have discussed) reused footage. The show quickly began cutting whatever expensive special effects shots that it could. It was a part of the reason that Jane Seymour bailed out of it so quickly.


You need to get your facts straight about the trivia details as your spreading false information fella.

Jane Seymour's character was killed off in the pilot movie, she wasn't ever contracted to do the series once executives made that decision. And was currently had a movie career and already had a schedule to complete, her next film after doing Battlestar Galactica for Universal was; 'Somewhere In Time' with Christopher Reeve i do remember.

Seymour came back as Serina because her character's death was cut from the final aired TV pilot and shown theatrical movie. Thus in the two part; Lost Planet Of The Gods episode she's seen serving dinner or banquet in Adama's quarters with Captain Apollo and guests (Starbuck, Cassie, Athena and Boxey) like nothing happened and is bound to be wed/sealed to Apollo in marriage. And goes from a mere shuttle pilot to a Colonial Warrior as a means to contribute and also be serving in the fleet next to Apollo her husband. But because Seymour wanted a film career and not to be stuck on television at the moment back then. So she asked to be killed off by the story's conclusion, and this move also gave the first couple of episodes a certain level of 'gravitas' as anybody in the main cast of characters could be unceremoniously killed off if folks weren't too careful. Just like Zac in the pilot and Apollo later (although he was revived under different circumstances).

Then there was news of Battlestar Galactica being revived in the late 90's and early 21st century. Jane Seymour asked both Bryan Singer & Tom DeSanto (Apt Pupil, X-Men & X2), and former show star Richard Hatch when she heard of their individual Galactica revival projects in the early 2000's. She wanted to know personally herself, if there was any small possibility she could ever come back to the franchise again? So hopefully this clears up any supposed business of actress Jane Seymour wanting to bail out on Battlestar Galactica doesn't it?

It's pretty sad that someone would kill themselves over the cancelation of their favorite television series. There was probably a great many factors that led to that persons demise. The shows cancelation was probably the proverbial final straw that broke the camels back. I believe that there was probably a lot of mental instability going on there to begin with.


Oh yeah the young kid that killed themselves over the series. I didn't hear of that little trivia myself until many years later. But that must've been one of the big tragic factors that made Universal suddenly panic when plenty fans were campaigning outside their studios as they picketed to save the show. And Uni mistakenly rushed to revive the series as; Galactica 1980. Although under all the wrong pretense of making it even more cheaper to produce yet still with hardly any of the original cast.


ST4


Name's Django, The "D" is silent.

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Thanks for the reply. Is 'Galactica 1980' worth trying to get these days? I mean is it any good?

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Is 'Galactica 1980' worth trying to get these days? I mean is it any good?



^Only for the 'Return Of Starbuck' episode which has always stood out as G80's best episode. And some sequences from the others like the Daggit Squadron helmets seen in the previous episode 'The Space Cropper' or the flying Galactica cycles (meant for an unfilmed BSG first season episode) from the first 3 episodes and the superscouts 2 parter.


ST4


Name's Django, The "D" is silent.

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Do any of you not look at the Estimated Budget on this IMDB page for the series? It says estimated budget is $750,000 per episode. Which was A *beep* load of money in 1978.

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Do any of you not look at the Estimated Budget on this IMDB page for the series? It says estimated budget is $750,000 per episode. Which was A *beep* load of money in 1978.


Must confess I didn't read that before starting this thread. If I had I'd probably been in even more of an 'uproar' over the costs :)

But there has been another guy here on this thread saying the average budget was about 1 million dollars per episode, which is even scarier :o


What we do in life echoes in eternity Russell Crowe as General Maximus in Gladiator (2000)

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Technology as a whole hadn't changed much from the 60's to the 70's,but COMPUTER effects/tech grew rapidly and is still changing. The Amiga computer system introduced graphic tech that was superior to all other systems at the time(early 80's). The system didn't last(not sure why) but the tech lived on in other systems and was improved nearly every 4 to 5 months. From 1980 to 1990 computer tech advanced about 2000% or more,so special effects in 1987 was much better than 1980.
Another factor is prop design. The tech & sets in ST:TNG looked better than the original BG because of streamlined designs. Sort of like taking a Gremlin car,reshaping it's edges and coming up with the Volkswagen Rabbit. It's also possible the set designer for the original BG may have wanted it to look similar to the original Star Trek,to get Trekkies interested in the show.

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Thanks for the reply.

I had some form of Amiga computer for many years after I first had the Commodore VIC-20 from 1981 and then the Commodore 64 later. Even the Amiga home computers blew everyone else away with their high resolution and great graphics (I had first the Amiga 1000 then the 500).

I think I read somewhere that they used Amiga computers up until recently when Commodore went bankrupt to create animated TV-logos and similar stuff.

I didn't swap the Amiga 500 until the PC was at it's Pentium 75 stage, and even then I thought the PC was kind of behind the Amiga :)

Anyway, sorry for rambling about old times here, but your post brought back memories, and it makes sense what you say.

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I just rewatched this and found myself comparing it to Star Trek, although Trek was 10 years earlier.

I find Trek holds up better due to its writing and performances. I think they tried way too hard to make BSG seem alien by using big words like "I'll be in a slumber period" instead of "I'm going to bed" or "he's at the life station" instead of sick bay. Trek was more natural in it's dialogue.

However BSG impresses me mostly with its locations. Trek was either on the ship or on a small set of an alien planet usually surrounded by fog or some infinite sky backdrop or a matte painting to show an alien world. And it worked okay. BSG maybe almost shot too high with a lot of location shooting outdoors for the alien worlds, and it seems like almost every episode had some huge new set of one of the colony ships or a new part of Galactica you hadn't seen before or some guest aliens' ship. Like in "Greetings From Earth" was it really necessary to construct a full-size ship for the guest stars? That could have been a background painting or a scale model shown in rear projection. It seems like there is a ton of money on screen in each episode, except for the space battle shots.

In "Fire in Space" of course I saw the widescreen-squeezed stock footage out of the Towering Inferno or whatever, but they also built a bunch of sets to set on fire, a bunch of uniforms for the Galactica firefighters, and the new rec room set. It seems like they were always spending money on sets and practical effects.

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I agree. BSG was the first science fiction show to really do spectacular sets and it shows. A lot of things from BSG are almost intolerably cheesy today but one area they totally didn't slack on was the sets, the props and the models. They're all great.

Unfortunately the cost of all of that is what killed them.

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I think they tried way too hard to make BSG seem alien by using big words like "I'll be in a slumber period" instead of "I'm going to bed" or "he's at the life station" instead of sick bay. Trek was more natural in it's dialogue.



Well, of course BSG was made to seem alien, because it was.

"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars.


The concept of Battlestar Galactica is life on Earth came from "out there" and the language and clothing emphasizes this. Character names like Apollo, Athena and Cassiopeia could link them to the old civilizations. When this show started I was 12 years old and this concept fascinated me. I loved how the Colonial Warrior's Helmet looked Egyptian.

Star Trek, on the other hand is set in our future so they would be no reason to use different language.

Slightly off-topic, this is the reason why I could not get through the new BSG series. That series basically ignored this concept wan went with more of a Body Snatchers concept. I probably would have liked it but I sort of felt angry that the creators would say "We got an idea for a show but wan to call it something else so that we can get an audience"

I called the new BSG, "Earth 2150" because it seemed more like a show from our future. Not only did they shy away from anything that would indicate they were descendants of an alien civilization but they actively adhered to practices that would make you believe they were from our future. They used the Greek names I mentioned above as Call signs like they were in "Top Gun", Apollo wore a fracking suit as if he were attending a business meeting in Manhattan.

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Here's an old page from Dirk Benedict's website, detailing his thoughts on the new show, and making his old role a woman…

http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-readarticle.php?nid=5

Favourite movie of all time: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan&"

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LOL, nice read. Thanks.

Ironically (at least I think it is irony) one of the changes I had 0 problem with was making Starbuck a female (I love him calling her "Stardoe"). I thought the Starbuck of old had been done so many times the time of the remake that the impact was no longer there.

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Today we are used to seeing visual effects that are created on desktop computers. Remember, desktop computers didn't even exist in 1978. Those shots where the fighter planes are depicted by Xs, that was top of the line computer graphics in the real world. I just started rewatching this after recently watching the new version. I was actually impressed by how good most of the graphics looked.

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"Remember, desktop computers didn't even exist in 1978."

wrong. 1965 programa 101

Spy a fool!

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I thought the sets on TNG were very static and fake-looking, so not sure where all that money went on that show either.

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I really hate todays "CGI" nerds.
Why watch movies like Transformers, Marvell and so on when its ANIMATION!

When scenes are 100% CGI its animation, not film.
The weight is wrong, the camera placement is wrong, the logic is wrong. Still these animated movies make billions of dollars.

BSG TOS had groundbreaking effects. They still look good today. Sure, they had to reuse shots to many times and make mini movies to get the budget for the FX shots. Still. Its better than most of the movies today. (The retarded movie Gravity for example that got an Oscar)

BSG 2003 had exceptional CGI because they rendered just like they shot it with a cameraman. Better than most movies today.

We also have problem with CGI and what format they are renered for. A movie that is rendered for 4K looks really bad on a HDTV. It look very fake. (for example Star Wars Clone wars. Looked great in the theatres and like cr*p on TV)

On the other hand: Take Band of Brothers that is rendered at 720P. It look crap on anything higher than 720P.

Thats why models with CGI touch-up is the best. (Christopher Nolan)

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