Caprica DVD movie/Pilot

Don't bother, dude. I started a similar thread and it got deleted.

Probably because you started the thread before it was out on DVD.

Fair enough, but in my defense I didn't know it was coming out on DVD. I thought it was a TV pilot. A lot of the TV threads get started when someone catches a leaked pilot.

I thought it was awesome. I'm now pissed beyond belief to have to wait till 2010 to see what follows though.

Just finished this and I'm really impressed. They did a great job of giving the show its own big arc set-ups, without having to rely on all the stuff we know about the Final 5 and BSG's extensive backstory. (Having Bill Adama in there is almost distracting.) Spin-offs have a tendency to look and feel a lot like their sister shows to the point of deja vu, but this doesn't. The planet-bound setting and genre switcharoo are certainly a part of that.

They've also done a good job of making the world in and around Caprica City a lived-in place. It's not at all just the helicopter fly-by shots we know from BSG, or a Cliff's Notes version of an alternate culture that we get from most sci-fi. There is a texture to the society that we only got glimpses of during Battlestar Galactica. That's a pleasant surprise for this fan.

It's a good sign for a series when the pilot doesn't seem to be losing much of the sophistication and thematic murkiness that made it's predecessor so much better than most anything else on TV. Whether they can sustain it (and the dramatic propulsion) for Caprica's entire run is another story, but they're off to a great start.

If there's anything I want to knock it for, it's an over-reliance on the religion issue here. It could be argued that BSG said all it needed to about mono vs poly-theism during that show's run. I'm not sure how much more they can mine it for material. That said, I'm totally rooting for show-runner Jane Espenson to rule this shit.

I just noticed this on Amazon On Demand but you can only buy it (which is the same way it was with BSG Razor). I'd like to watch it but not for $20. I'll check out Blockbuster next weekend to see if they have it in stock.

I'm glad there are good things being said about it. Maybe by the time the regular show airs my cable will have SyIFieyeI in HD.

Question: Because I'm the last person on the planet to watch Battlestar Galactica (currently on Season 2.5), should I wait until I finish the series to watch this? Or have the episodes I've seen up to this point given me enough of a foundation to understand what's going on?

You can appreciate this DVD just fine, but it might be a good idea to watch the whole of BSG before watching the actual Caprica series.

My big problem with it was that, so far at least, it seems to be really similar to BSG thematically - all the questions of religion, intolerance, the difference between the humans and the cylons etc. were handled so effectively by Battlestar that I wonder what an entire series of Caprica could add to the discussion.

I did read somewhere though that it eventually turns more into a parable about slavery which would at least set it apart from BSG.

This was much better than I expected
I like that it's more leisurely paced than Galactica.
Also I generally liked the political side of Galactica (e.g. Pegasus saga, Downloaded, New Caprica, and the mutiny) more than the gnostic mystical angle (gnosticism in scifi seems a little played out anyway, after Phil Dick what is there to say?), and this seems not only more politically oriented, but has the potential for a more complex political situation.

I'm watching this right now -- I'm a little hazy on my BSG trivia, but did Adama ever mention that his mom and sister were killed in a suicide bombing?

Don't think he did. But the fact that his dad may try to bring back his sister and mother would add another layer of complexity to his hatred of the Cylons.

I quite liked it, although you can tell that they're really trying for more female viewers. I much prefer the stuff with the adults than the teens. It's not boring, but I'm not sure I will be gripped by the 'teenage girl in a Cylon body' stuff.

On the plus side, I liked all the performances, it sets up an interesting world, and I liked the foreshadowing of Galactica. And you gotta love the Adama moment with his son, complete with the Bill Adama theme.

So the premiere on Thursday is basically a rerunning of the pilot that's available on DVD/on demand?

I started watching this the other night. This is a stupid question, but what exactly was Eric Stoltz's daughter doing in the virtual reality program in school? Was she trying to clone herself, implant herself onto someone else?

It is a stupid question. :P You should finish the movie.

I watched it, and while the adult cast was great, the kids were groan worthy and the entire enterprise seems ill conceived and more than a little sordid.

Loved, loved, loved this.

I do hope that the Battlestar references are kept to a minimum, and that the show continues the focus on the Grayston and Adama characters. Stoltz and Esai Morales do really great work in the pilot.

That preview was interesting as well.

Battlestar Galactica, James Marsters, Patton Oswalt, so many of my favorite things rolled into one.

So the Taurons are, like, Italians?

Aside from the fact that every Tauron was cast as a Latino.

I don't know why I wasn't really optimistic about this, but I loved the pilot. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this is all headed.

It pretty incredible they took that little ol' series from the 80s and made something this epic.

Now why can't they do this with Hardcastle and McCormick?

I love that they had the balls and confidence to make a show so different from BSG.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how sci-fi(SyFy) fans, and Battlestar fans react to this, since it's so much different than any Science Fiction on TV. Also, did anyone else think that the view of the lake from the Graystone home looked very similar to Baltar's?

Pretty good reason to stay home on Friday night I suppose:

I liked this alot. It does what any prequel series should do. With "Caprica", the show is more interested in fleshing out the planets and politics on the different worlds. Also, Zoe creating the first sentient artificial life form might offer some insight to the whole "Head Six" and "Head Baltar" deal.

But, like, metaphorical Italians.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I guess I kept reading all the stuff about how it was going to be more of a soap opera and such, but it seems that didn't mean that they were going to dumb down the thematic complexity. I'm totally onboard with this for the near future, anyway.

Latinos acting like Italians! Space Italians!

I have high hopes for this series based on the movie. Moore, just have a real story arc this time! Don't just throw shit out there and not know what to do with it!

I would say they are surpost to be like mayans

Wut?

And I think they were speaking some form of Greek too.

Exactly. BSG was like a lot of other scifi TV shows, but the best of its kind. Caprica on the other hand is a kind of scifi TV show we haven't really seen before (not in serial format anyway). I hope it succeeds.

BSG wasn't like any other scifi shows. At least no Scifi TV shows I've seen. That's one reason why it was so great.

I imagine it's gotta be hard for any show to get picked up by Sci-Fi (Sorry, I refuse to call is SyFy) that doesn't start with a pitch like: "Ok, see, there's this Stargate thing, and it leads to other dimensions - space dimensions!"

Will hulu be re-airing these episodes? I'm never home friday nights to catch them.

Finally watched the DVD, so I don't know if it differs much from what was shown.

As one who was disappointed in BSG season 3, and watched the flicker of hope that was the beginning of season 4 completely die by its end, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Caprica.

I agree that we've pretty well trod the religious stuff already, so I'm hoping they do broaden the thematic reach.

I watched the 2 hour premier for Caprica on Hulu. I liked it well enough. I hope it goes to some freaky places with identity and/or souls and such.

Hopefully the show will address why the population would be willing to abandon all technology to live hand to mouth as hunter/gatherers without even so much as a spirited debate or a hint of dissension.

I'm sort of trying to forget about that altogether.

I'm sure the Caprican inhabitants of New Earth wanted to forget it also. Particularly once they started dying off due to easily preventable diseases such as dysentery, found they couldn't communicate with settlements they ridiculously spread across the globe, and struggled to master primitive skills such as wiping their asses with leaves, hunting with sticks, and having large numbers of women and babies die in childbirth.

Call it a hunch, but I'm getting the feeling you didn't care for the end of BSG any more than I did.

The ending basically defecated ruinously over a show that was great for 3.33 seasons, good for about 1 more season, then devolved into awfulness for .66 seasons.

Because then they would have not been able to live on that planet (our earth) without causing serious problems with the indigenous population.

Eh, the pilot is interesting and Caprica isn't meant to be BSG so I'd recommend leaving most of that baggage behind.

but he is still right.

See the preceding four seasons of Battlestar Galactica.

Come on. They didn't throw away all their knowledge. Just their technology. And I'm sure they kept some of their equipment, especially medical supplies. Probably some shuttles. Just because the show didn't show it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Although I agree that they should have showed some debate about it, rather than it happening on the whim of Lee.