One Of The Most Incredible FX Sequences I've Ever Seen.

[jayfish]

Catch the repeat of BSG and you'll know what I'm talk'en about. Hope I get to see it in HD w/5.1 someday.

Jay

[YankeyMCC]

1. That's was excellent

and I knew what you were referring to right when I saw the thread title. :)

[jayfish]

2. SPOILERS AHEAD

The rest of the show was no slouch either. Michael Hogan deserves an Emmy. It was some of, if not, the best TV ever. One of the things that made the Galactica atmo-jump scene so as astonishing was that, to me at-least, it was totally unexpected. The demise of the Pegasus was an amazing scene as well. When it exploded, it just looked right. Not to flashy or overly dramatic. It just was.

Jay

[YankeyMCC]

3. I would like to disagree...

But I can't.

There is absolutely no sign of this show losing any of it's edge. The story and the acting last night was as you say the some of the best TV ever.

[architect359]

4. Oh. My. God. Expect turbulence, huh?

I agree with the previous commet: Michael Hogan deserves an Emmy nom at the least for frak's sake. That scene with both Saul and Ellen - I almost bawled and that caught me by surprise. I sort of saw that plot thread as being the only option left, but still... Also, Leoban will expect no mercy, NO MERCY, I tell you! }( I want to write more - but I'm probably too full of spoilers at this point. In any case, love to hear other viewer reaction to this episode.

[Beetwasher]

5. Awesome Episode All Around

The way it started, w/ Tigh :wow:

The scene w/ Galactica coming to the rescue :wow:

Starbuck...

The best frakking TV show ever...Immenseley powerful stuff...

[jayfish]

7. On Starbuck.

Ya know, I never really bought into Katee Sackhoffs Starbuck. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I was indifferent. All that changed in the last two episodes. She was calculating, cold blooded, ultra-violent, vulnerable, sensual and at the end absolutely devastated. A great character.

Jay

[jayfish]

12. I Left Out Maternal -NT-

Jay

[ContraBass Black]

6. "Hope I get to see it in HD w/5.1 someday."

I just did. :D




Ok, well, it was just a 100" screen and stereo over a 5.1 but still...

[jayfish]

8. Go Straight To Hell.

:evilgrin:

Front projector huh? What channel runs it in HD?

Jay

[ContraBass Black]

9. Not HD, just digital cable and a quality projector.

It was quite clear enough.

[jayfish]

10. I'm Very Jealous.

I borrowed a projector from work a few years back for a boxing/hockey party I threw. I got it a week early of-course and watched a ton of DVDs on it. It was difficult to go back to a 32".

Jay

[ContraBass Black]

11. The entire setup belongs to my roommate.

:D

[Touchdown]

13. Universal HD is showing last season.

The Computer Virus episode where Sharon was blamed for it was on tonight.

I expect it to pick up this season sometime in January/Feb. They're also playing the whole series of Firefly in succession. It's beautiful in HD.:hi:

It can be had with 23 other Hi-Defs (Discovery included) on Dish's $50 package, which includes 60 standard def channels, Sci-fi included, but NOT FAUX SNOOZ!:D

[Ezlivin]

14. Good FX, poor physics

I am a huge (hugh) fan of BSG, so don't start a flame war.

But the "external" shots are always the poorest part of BSG because they make the Vipers behave as if they are flying in an atmosphere: They bank, they bump with turbulence and they don't exhibit the behavior of an object in zero gravity. They also don't need their propulsion systems running constantly.

The last episode "Exodus, Part 1" showed clouds way, way out from the planet and smoke trailing the drones. What gives with that?

[jayfish]

15. I Think Your Forgetting The "Fiction" Part...

in "science fiction". There was also a ton of fire in the vacuum of space. Fire on the Peg fire from the raptor engines, huge fiery explosions. I loved every scientifically flawed minute of it. If ever I get a hankering for real space flight, I'll look at this:





:boring: Wake me up for our first FTL test.

Jay

[Ezlivin]

16. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was fiction, yet was very, very accurate

Accuracy need not be sacrificed on the altar of fiction.

Have you read much science fiction? Accuracy absolutely rules. Many of the newer science fiction authors have doctorates in physics or astronomy. Even when they write about fictional things such as FTL, they use all the current knowledge to paint as accurate a portrait as they can.

I believe the reason that BSG allows their FX to violate physical principles is not for the sake of the fiction, but for the sake of the ignorant viewers. By ignorant I mean that many viewers probably have little or no grasp of flight conditions in zero gravity conditions. If BSG were to show truly accurate space flight it would probably come across as boring to the average viewer. They add the turbulence and banking to add excitement and visual flare. It's too bad that they do this, since the rest of the show is interesting enough without the superfluous Viper movement.

[jayfish]

18. Ever Heard Of A Game Called Elite?

It was a space exploration/combat/trading computer game that was released in the early 80's. The game featured the type of superfluous ,physics based, ship movement and combat that you are referring to. It was a ground breaking game and any gamer worth her/his salt would rank it among the best ever. A funny thing happened to Elite II. It featured reality based physics for it ships that were a huge departure from the original. You know what happened? Gamers hated it. They found it frustrating and, most of all, boring. I thought it was kinda cool but I could see how others found it dull. The game had a FTL system that, post-jump, would often put you .5 AU or more from your target destination. In order to make the game fun you might want to get to your original destination as soon as possible, so you would speed up your ship to it maximum velocity and wait and wait and wait. When you were finally close enough to the planet or star you were heading to you would want to stop right? Wrong, because of the "accurate" physics, it usually took you just as long to slow down as it did to get to the planet. If you dared to used the time-compression feature of the game, you might miss your cue to begin deceleration and end up an AU or more on the other side of the planet. It could be quite tedious and it had little to do with intelligence. Sometimes I watch sci-fi to escape the bounds of reality not wallow in them.

Jay

[Ezlivin]

19. I see your point

But the one thing that's different between a "real-time" game and a fictional series is that you can write around the boredom. For instance, let's say I had a character heading out to a distant star. Instead of showing all the boring transit time, I cut away and go with a different character, then cut back when the transit time is over. For instance, in "2001", there is a flight from the earth to the moon but we don't experience the whole thing, just a few minutes to give us a flavor of what it's like.

Sometimes I watch sci-fi to escape the bounds of reality not wallow in them.

Science fiction means the conjoining of science with fiction. It appears that you lean more toward the "fiction" part and less toward the "science" part. I enjoy both and feel that good fiction is served best by good science. At least we both enjoy BSG and that's what's important here.

PS: Do you play more games than watch science fiction? I'm 49 and play no games but read a lot of science fiction and science books. Just curious.

[jayfish]

20. I Like Both...

the fiction and the science. If I find something in the fiction that grabs my interest, I don't mind if writers take liberties with the science end of the deal. Take FTL travel on BSG for instance. While FTL travel is theoretically possible, it doesn't make a lot of sense that a civilization at the tech level of the Twelve Colonies (closely tracking our own level of advancement)would be able to pull it off. They would be far away from driving around in Hummers, using projectile weapons or having to transport ship-to-ship in raptors. I like the story and I like the characters so I overlook things like that.
I play and watch sci-fi in about the same doses. I'm not really big on reading fiction but I used to read just about any non-fiction I could get my hands on.

Jay

[ContraBass Black]

23. Have you ever played the Independence War games?

Except for the unfortunate tendency of ships to come to a dead halt as they explode, it modeled inertia realistically, but its combat and flight were still fun.

[IndianaGreen]

17. I believe New Caprica is in the middle of a nebula

which explains the wispy clouds.

[architect359]

21. Which opens up another can of worms

As some would have said that New Caprica's sun would have blown most of those clouds clear with it's own solar wind. It nonetheless is a more evocative visual though and serves to provide a cue that this is a world that's "shrouded" from the Cylons - which was the original reason they chose to settle here. That didn't help in the end as we know.

[architect359]

22. True and I agree

However, to be fair, the vipers hew more closer to physics than most of the other sci-fi representations, e.g. their manuveuring thrusters, flipping end over end, etc. See what I mean with the Peggy versus Galactica sequence or the destruction of the res ship or even Starbuck's fight during Act of Contrition. The other show I can think of that tried to respect a bit of real physics was Babylon 5.

Oh, the smoke trails are awesome and is most likely an homage to japanese space anime.

You got to admit that picture you included along with your post is quite evocative, no? :)

[Touchdown]

24. This week was a bit of Unitary Executive action.

Tom Zarek is the Prez. I must've missed the ceremony.:shrug:

[jayfish]

25. He Was VP Under Baltar.-NT-

Jay