Battlestar Galactica

By todays standards it might look naive but this was a groundbraking series at it's time. If you only know the remake take the time to watch this. It's worth it.

Whatever you do, do NOT watch the movies (Specials). They are basically put together from parts of the series.

The first is a shortened Version of the three-part "Saga of a Star World" which starts the show. The second is made of parts from "The Living Legend" and "Fire in Space" which are put together rather clumsy and in a different order, in the end telling a different story through large parts.

review in brazilian portuguese: http://bloge2014.blogspot.com.br/2014/04/reviewbattlestargalactica1978.html

It's the Æneid meets Chariots Of the Gods with a healthy dose of Mormon theology & anthropology set in a swinging '70s milieu.

Battlestar Galactica (1978) is a show that deserves credit for its ambition, particularly at a time when science fiction on television was still finding its footing post-Star Wars. With its high-concept premise—humanity on the run from a genocidal race of machines called the Cylons—it aimed for a space opera with scale, heart, and a sense of mythic grandeur. But while it succeeded in creating a memorable universe, the original series is very much a product of its time—and not always in a good way.

Visually, the show was impressive for late 1970s television. The special effects were ambitious, even if heavily reused, and the design of the ships, particularly the titular Battlestar Galactica, felt grand and cinematic. The tone tried to mix military seriousness with a dash of space adventure, and while it occasionally worked, the overall execution was inconsistent. Performances ranged from campy to earnest, with Lorne Greene as Commander Adama giving the series some needed gravitas.

However, one of the more unusual aspects of Battlestar Galactica—and one that divides audiences to this day—is its heavy incorporation of religious themes and overt parallels to Mormon theology. Creator Glen A. Larson, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, infused the narrative with symbolic elements drawn from Mormon beliefs: twelve tribes of humanity, a lost thirteenth colony (Earth), and a spiritual battle between good and evil. While these themes gave the show a unique flavor, they often felt overt and clunky rather than thought-provoking, and to many viewers, they overshadowed the more engaging science fiction elements.

The pacing is uneven, the dialogue frequently stilted, and while the show had plenty of heart, it often struggled with focus and cohesion. It’s an interesting historical artifact, but not one that’s aged particularly well.

I give Battlestar Galactica (1978) a visionary but thematically heavy-handed 5/10.

I watched the pilot of the original Battlestar Galatica the other night [in 2012]. And then I removed the series from our Netflix queue immediately. Even the completist in me doesn’t care that I haven’t watched the original before I properly watch the reboot of the show. This stuff has not aged well. It just goes to show you how much American TV standards for fictional programs have changed in the interim. Just awful. Here are some of the major problems:

Because the show was well before the golden age of television, there are some really terrible but traditional American TV faults such as:
no back story on any of the characters,
no real character development,
no moral ambiguity to speak of, etc.
one scene is shot exactly like a soap opera, I kid you not.
The effects are also pretty atrocious. The use of models is fine (and honestly no worse than A New Hope) but the moment models of ships are combined with drawings of planets (as opposed to models of planets), it becomes very obvious you are watching something made in the ’70s with a TV budget.
The effects would be excusable (as they are with the original series of Star Trek) if there was something else to gravitate to. But there isn’t. The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. Moreover, until the bad guys did that low-down, dastardly thing, the good guys apparently experienced little conflict outside of what you might experience growing up in a 1950s sitcom.

I really wanted to like it. But I had a lot of trouble getting through the first few episodes, that I decided to stop halfway episode 4.

Where is the movie on trakt? tt007721