Thursday, July 14, 2005

Battlestar and Firefly

I think Sci-Fi's new remake of Battlestar Galactica was one of the more underappreciated TV shows of last season. Season two premiers tomorrow, and I have to say that I'm looking forward to it. I don't think it has the quirkyness or the personality of Firefly or Buffy, but it more than makes up for it in excellent acting, an engrossing plot, and a deep backstory (of which we have seen only a taste).

For the space footage, the show doesn't have the grand, sweeping, majestic cinematography that we came to expect from shows like Star Trek, but rather a shaky camera, rack-focus shots, and it just looks much more like you would expect from something a ship's crew running for their lives threw together. I kept being struck last season at how much the effects reminded me of those the much-lamented Firefly.

It turns out that there's a reason for that. The same shop that did much of the effects for Firefly, is now doing them for Battlestar. I'm glad to see they're getting work. And they have a bit of a sense of humor, too. Here's Serenity in the first episode of Battlestar:

(Pic shamlessly stolen from Fireflyfans.net.)

2 comments:

David said...

You'll be glad to know that Battlestar Galactica received two Emmy nominations for Special Visual Effects, for the episodes "33" and "The Hand of God." (Those don't mean anything to me, since I don't get SciFi Channel, but maybe they will mean something to you). And if it's the same team that worked on Firefly, more power to them, because they sure as hell didn't get the props they deserved for that show.

Anonymous said...

I realized recently that Mirror Mask and Serenity are coming out on the same day. Ulp! I may have to call in sick that day.
Manya