Sci-Fi takes a turn in the Big Empty Spotlight

Here in the Big Empty move review series, we mentioned that this is one of the genres that has some difficulty getting respect. Some of your audience comes willing and able to suspend all disbelief. Most of it doesn’t. So you’ve gotta give the peoples a reason to buy in. If you make them feel silly, they’ll never forgive you unless you’re making Barbarella. Everything about that movie is embarrassing and cringey although it has a cult following that we here at the Big Empty doubt would exist were it not for the flesh and the wild imagination about who inhabits it. 

Star Trek tried to be a serious and socially conscious show, exploring all sorts of human concepts combined with adventure. And, it was also the show that had scenes like this.

I have no doubt there is some profound point to be made at the end of this but I’m not sticking around for it. 

In 1978, we all know what George Lucas did to sci-fi and the world was changed. He didn’t stray from bumpy headed aliens as Bill Murray will remind you in his turn as a lounge singer talkin bout those creatures in that Star Wars bar.  So he won us over with excitement and adventure. We bought the illusion of hot dog space battles fought by hot rod pilots. It was exciting enough to get us to pay attention to the parts of the story that serve the plot. And that had enough intrigue to capture our imaginations. 

TV folks took notice.  ABC watched Star Wars and said “get me one of those!”  and Battlestar Galactica, a million dollar a week TV series featuring hot dog pilots duking it out with not just one Darth Vader, but an endless supply of Darth Vader’s clumsy idiot cousins with robotic voices was born. 

It had no shortage of bumpy headed aliens, and pets called daggets, which are exactly like dogs except when they also inexplicably take the form of slow and awkward mechanical teddy bears. And it lasted exactly one season before being scaled way back budget wise. Original good. Expensive copycat, not good. When Battlestar Galactica season two rolled out, they might as well have just made a series of where Lorne Greene and Dirk Benedict made their rounds on the game show circuit. That would have been cheaper and yet still more interesting. 

In 2005, Ronald D Moore and David Eick said “ya know what, it wasn’t all bad.” Genocide of the entire human race save a few thousand and how they respond to it is interesting. Searching for a rumored distant Earth where their long lost brothers and sisters went to is interesting. Operating the equivalent of an aircraft carrier in space that launches fighters to defend itself from those looking to finish the genocidal job they started is interesting. Leave the daggets and aliens behind and explore the human element and you just might have the ingredients for a winner. So they rolled the dice and gave us our second runner up.

Battlestar Galactica (2005 Miniseries)

Cylons were no longer Darth Vader knock offs. Fighter pilots no longer look like they are impersonating an Egyptian Pharaoh. Instead, Moore and Eick borrowed from the Terminator and I Robot. The destruction of humanity would come at the hands of our own technological creation who came to resent us. That’s also interesting because that is exactly what is going to happen and we’re marching willingly to the slaughter. But I digress.  But suffice it to say, I’m bought in on the premise.  Add some realism and how adults react to it for better or worse, and you get:

This series doesn’t just offer realism and action. It also asks the audience tough questions about trust, and how to deal with an enemy you don’t understand, especially when people you trust turn out to be the enemy. The mini serves as a launching pad for a series that ran for four seasons all the way to a satisfying conclusion. That’s not to say that it didn’t hit a few speed bumps on the way, but the mini that started it all had a captivating story, characters worth caring about, perfect pacing, and went on to explore real human struggles. I highly recommend it as a diamond in the rough that still tells a good story with rich character development and no daggets.