Caprica (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Josh Dial

nor any shots where someone would walk across the frame (or the camera would pan behind someone) and Six would be there one minute and vanish the next (or vice versa).
This happened all of the time. The only reason it wasn't quite as blatant was because both Baltar and Head Six occupied the same reality. Whenever Baltar and Head Six were sharing space with other characters, the cutting would always jump between shots where Head Six was in the shots and shots where she wasn't.

Maybe I'm just not getting what you mean by rhythm, but I see the two as completely different tools, unrelated in both style and substance. I don't even think it's a case of subjective perspective, because anytime we are viewing the world from Zoe's POV, she clearly sees a Cylon body--the same goes for Lacy.

I don't mean that literally we are seeing what the Zoe avatar sees. I mean that when we are experiencing the world with the Zoe Avatar, we see the girl. When we are experiencing the world with the other characters, we see the robot. The girl allows the character to act out emotions that the Cylon body is incapable of expressing. The body language of the girl is an expression of what the Zoe avatar is thinking and feeling.
Getting back to the episode itself, I thought it was a nice surprise to see the Uncle as a major character. I had figured he would be on the periphery at best--someone Joseph would share a scene with now-and-then, or a tool used to reference the criminal skeletons in the Adama closet. It makes me wonder, where is the Admiral going to get his personality? The military (which we won't see, of course), his father, or his uncle?

My only problem with the relationship with the uncle is that it dilutes the father son relationship, which is one of the main reasons for taking on this concept to begin with.

 

[Britton]

Originally Posted by Bryan X

I had never watched BSG until about two weeks ago when I picked up the first season on blu-ray on a whim. I love it. I'm just about done with the first season and looking forward to season two. Although I have to wait until April until it is out on blu-ray. I almost gave up on it after the first part of the mini-series. The second half of the mini-series was better and by the first weekly episode, I was really into it. I thought about getting the entire box set on blu-ray but the packaging seemed lackluster. So I'm just waiting and getting the single seasons as they come out.

There is going to be a reissue of the complete series on Blu-ray this April. It will come in better packaging and will also include "The Plan", which the current set does not have. The MSRP will be $50 less than the current set. It may be cheaper for you to buy that despite the fact you already picked up Season 1.

Here's a link to my source: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Battlestar-Galactica-The-Complete-Series/13278

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

I mean that when we are experiencing the world with the Zoe Avatar, we see the girl. When we are experiencing the world with the other characters, we see the robot. The girl allows the character to act out emotions that the Cylon body is incapable of expressing. The body language of the girl is an expression of what the Zoe avatar is thinking and feeling.

We agree here--this is pretty much exactly what I wrote about the two POVs in the hugging scene between Zoe and Lacy.

I fully understand what you are trying to say about Head Six and Baltar. I just don't agree

The best line of the series so far goes to Serge: "And the crowd goes frakkin' wild, sir. They are tearing up the seats. It's Bedlam."

 

[Bryan X]

Originally Posted by Britton




There is going to be a reissue of the complete series on Blu-ray this April. It will come in better packaging and will also include "The Plan", which the current set does not have. The MSRP will be $50 less than the current set. It may be cheaper for you to buy that despite the fact you already picked up Season 1.

Here's a link to my source: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Battlestar-Galactica-The-Complete-Series/13278

Thanks Britton. I actually have already bought Season 1 and The Plan. But even so, I think you're right. It still may be cheaper for me to buy the new box set (provided the packaging is improved). Amazon lists the new set for $209 right now. If I had to buy seasons 2, 2.5, 3, 4, and 4.5 separately it would probably set me back around $250 (seasons 2 and 4.5 are listed at Amazon for a total of $105).

 

[nolesrule]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

The TV movie, Razor, is included as the first disc of the Season 4.0 set. Razor takes place in the middle of season two, but it reveals information that would spoil season three, which I think is why its on the Season 4.0 set instead of one of the season two sets.

Nah. It's the first Disc of the Season 4.0 set because production-wise it's the first 2 episodes of season 4. The season 2 sets had long since been released at that point.

 

[Sam Favate]

Here is a question I have: Caprica takes place 50-60 years before BSG. So how does that jibe with the fact that Cylons looked human and


had their own culture thousands of years ago?

 

[Josh Dial]

I'm not sure if you are joking, Sam, or asking a real question, but I'll assume it's legit (also, you may want to spoilerize that question, as it seems that's the way we're doing things in the thread for the time being.)

Warning: don't read this spoiler if you haven't seen ALL of BSG, or it will be completely ruined for you

One of the dominant themes of the BSG series was the circular nature of history--this has all happened before, and will happen again. It's impossible to know how long this repetition of events has streched back. All we're told is the most recent iteration, where"life here began out there," which is to say Humanity began on Kobol.

At some point, while still on Kobol (this is over 4000 years before the series), humanity created the Cylons. It's not known if they made robotic models *and* organics, or just organics (assumed just organics), but at some point organic models and humans were living side-by-side. Eventually, for reasons not known (though it's assumed racism), the Cylons left Kobol, for a planet called "Earth." Note, this Earth is *not* the same one we live on. For some time, this so-called thirteenth tribe of Cylons remained in contact with Kobol, although these communications eventually ended. This all happened about 4000 years before the BSG series.

Ther remaining 12 tribes of humans on Kobol eventually forgot the Cylons were their creation, and history mistakenly held them to simply be a "lost tribe" of humans. Around 2000 years before BSG, the 12 tribes left Kobol, and headed for new worlds--these are the 12 Colonies of which Caprica is one. At the same time as the exodus, the Cylons of Earth, who had constructed centurions of their own, were involved in a nuclear war with their own creations (despite both being technically machines). Seeing the bigger picture--that abusing your robotic creations eventually leads to war/destruction--five Organic Cylon scientists decided to find their 12 colonial brethren, and warn them. It needs to be pointed out that these same scientists re-discovered the resurrection technology, which had been abandoned at some point in lieu of sexual reproduction between skinjobs.

Earth is nuked into relative oblivion, and the 5 scientists die, only to be resurrected on a ship in orbit. They head out for the 12 Colonies, however they are travelling at relativistic speed, due to a lack of jump technology. They arrive 2000 years later, only to find the colonists (recently united under a single government) embroiled in a war of their own, with robotic Cylons--Daniel Graystone's creations.

The colonial Cylons are not organic, and do not possess resurrection. This means that at some point in the show Caprica, the ability to download a personality, the one essentially invented by Zoe, is lost (or perhaps it is already lost, and only worked the one time). However, the colonial Cylons have been trying to make both resurrection and organic bodies (as seen in the failed attempts at hybrids in Adama's flashbacks in Razor).

As stated above, the 5 scientists arrive at the colonies, and find war. Despairing for the colonists and cylons alike, the 5 contact the colonial Cylons with a proposition: end the war, and in exchange they will be shown resurrection. The colonial Cylons agree, and the war ends abruptly. The peace lasts over 40 years.

The 5 scientists make 7 more organic models to help them (it's unknown if they planned on making more models eventually, or simply repopulate sexually, or not at all). However one of these 7 models, "number one" (a misnomer, as he was really the 6th organic, if you count the other 5) was both jealous of the attention another model got (number seven) and that the organic cylons would choose to limit themselves and their "children" by placing their consciousness in human-like bodies. He rebelled against the 5 scientists, killing them, and blocking their memories before they resurrected, instead planting false memories into the new bodies, and placing these bodies in the colonies. This pretty much brings us to the start of BSG.

So, essentially the robotic Cylons that Graystone is working on in Caprica are unrelated to the Cylons on Kobol/Earth, though the two groups eventually "join up" so-to-speak.

Of course, that raises the question as to whether the One True God had a part in the creation of the Caprica Cylons...
I hope that answers your question, Sam.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by Sam Favate

Here is a question I have: Caprica takes place 50-60 years before BSG. So how does that jibe with the fact that Cylons looked human and had their own culture thousands of years ago?

The key is the saying the echoed throughout BSG: "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." Humanity was trapped for thousands of years in a cycle of apocolypse and ressurection. Originally, the human race was on Kobol. It created the Cylons. Eventually, the Cylons rebelled and Kobol fell under the shadow of war. Finally, both the humans and the Cylons parted ways. The humans went one way, to found the twelve colonies, and the Cylons went another way to found the thirteenth colony -- Earth. Thousands of years passed until Kobol was only a myth, part of the colonials' pagan religion, and the Cylons had been forgotten entirely. What Daniel Graystone did was start another cycle. The centurions of BSG are descendants of the Graystone Cylons. The skin jobs are creations of the Earth Cylons. After the first Cylon War, the centurions fled the known planets and at some point ran into the Earth Cylons. The two groups merged, and formed the Cylons of the second Cylon War that nearly wiped out humanity.

 

[Sam Favate]

Josh & Adam,
Thank you for your answers. I guess I should have know that, but the other night when my wife asked the question about the Cylons in Caprica, I couldn't answer.

However, all of this IMO is complicated by the fact that

"Daniel" was named as the Cylon model that Cavil boxed and "killed." The relation to Caprica's Daniel seemed too much to be a coincidence - especially given Daniel Greystone's occupation - but I suppose that is exactly what it is. Or maybe we will find out differently in the course of the series.

 

[Josh Dial]

Sam,

Take this for whatever you will, but according to Moore, the "Daniel" model was never meant to be anything other than a name given to one of the twleve models--completely unrelated to Daniel Graystone. Of course, Moore could have easily just been setting up a smoke screen, and the two really are related, somehow. I guess we'll see

 

[Parker Clack]

Thanks for the heads up. I found that Amazon has them for pre-order for the new sets without the box.

DVD Series Set

Blu-ray Series Set

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Sam, your observation wasn't lost on me either.

Originally Posted by Josh Dial

Take this for whatever you will, but according to Moore, the "Daniel" model was never meant to be anything other than a name given to one of the twleve models--completely unrelated to Daniel Graystone. Of course, Moore could have easily just been setting up a smoke screen, and the two really are related, somehow. I guess we'll see

RDM also stated that Head Six was nothing more than Baltar's hallucination, but as we found out in the BSG finale she was very much more than that. Naming Daniel Graystone "Daniel" doesn't mean that he has to be the failed skinjob model, but it does leave them the possibility that he is the failed skinjob model. Which in turn would make Zoe, not Hera, the first human Cylon hybrid.

 

[Josh Dial]

Adam,

(this thread has already quickly turned into what I figured it would: a bunch of black boxes)

There is also the chance that back on Kobol, there was some breeding between Cylon and Human. Obviously we'll never know (I doubt Moore would ever go this far back for anything, even comic books), but considering Humanity forgot they even constructed the 13th tribe, it's possible they (along with the Cylons) forgot they bred with them.

Getting back to Daniel Graystone, just so we're all clear, he can't be the skinjob Daniel that Cavil corrupted, because those events haven't taken place yet (they happen during the peace following the First Cylon War)--at this point in Caprica's timeline, the Final Five are en route , albeit close, to the Colonies.

However, the Daniel that the Final Five create *could* be somehow related to Graystone, in that as a memorial to one of their creators, the Centurions want a piece/all of Graystone's personality to live on in an organic model. Remeber that Ellen said Number Seven Daniel was an artist, a dreamer. Didn't one of Graystone's techs (were their names ever given?) call the U-87 "a work of art?"

Also, given the mystical nature of the show (of which I am a fan, despite its many detractors), there's a possiblity of "Daniel" being an aspect of the One True God, in the same way Baltar and Six and Starbuck are Angelic in nature (or whatever they are). Daniel lives "out there" in the ether, along with God, the Angels, and All Along the Watchtower.

Frak, Moore and crew have made an amazing piece of entertainment...

 

[Josh Dial]

Oh one more thing I forgot to mention, regarding Daniel Graystone and his ties to BSG:

If what I wrote above rings true,and Number 7 is related in some way to Graystone (in memorium), then fact that Graystone plays the piano is a pretty important scene--he's playing "Nomion's Third Sonata, Second Movement," the same one Slick/Starbuck's Dad the piano player is playing in BSG.

 

[Hayes Preston]

Originally Posted by Josh Dial

Oh one more thing I forgot to mention, regarding Daniel Graystone and his ties to BSG:

If what I wrote above rings true,and Number 7 is related in some way to Graystone (in memorium), then fact that Graystone plays the piano is a pretty important scene--he's playing "Nomion's Third Sonata, Second Movement," the same one Slick/Starbuck's Dad the piano player is playing in BSG.

Not to continue the "thread of black boxes" but WOW, Josh, I did not realize that point, although it raises a lot of questions. I am really liking where this show is going.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The musical piece in question was also the theme song for the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series back in the 1970's albeit in a dramatically different orchestration.

Speaking of music, series composer Bear McCreary mentioned in his blog that he uses the same musical cue when the Cylon appears as Zoe as he used when Six appeared to Baltar. That furthers the comparison.

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

Speaking of music, series composer Bear McCreary mentioned in his blog that he uses the same musical cue when the Cylon appears as Zoe as he used when Six appeared to Baltar. That furthers the comparison.

To be fair, he didn't use the word "cue," but rather said it was a cymbal scrape. It's not that I don't agree that the two devices are similar, it's just that I don't think they are meant to mirror each other, or even suggest each other in any meaningful way. They are just as Bear writes, characters who appear under "unsual circumstances."

Either way, Bear's Blog is amazing. I've been following it since the beginning, and it's really interesting to see the show (or shows, if you watch some of the others he composes for, like Human Target) from his perspective. The extras in the BSG series boxed set that deal with Bear and the music are easily the best of the bunch (and quite lengthy, which is nice).

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

Josh, that BSG overview was excellent. For a small time after the series ended, I had this all straight in my head, but only for a small time. I've now saved that to "Battlestar Galactica Overview.doc"

 

[TravisR]

Yeah, Josh, I always had trouble keeping all the BSG history straight so that was a big help. I could go on and on about the Dharma Initiative but when it comes to the lords of Kobol or the Pithia, my brain starts to leak.

 

[Chris Will]

Originally Posted by Lou Sytsma ">[/url]

I get that. Just don't approve of using the actress as the visual representation. BSG did it to death. An aesthetic issue.
[/QUOTE]I'd much rather look at the actress some of the time instead of only a tin can all the time. That's just me though.