A to Z: C is for Cylons
Posted: April 3, 2011 Filed under: A to Z, adventures, aldeboran, monsters 5 Comments
This will probably interfere with my credibility in some people’s eyes, but I am one of those misbegotten assholes who actually prefers the newer Battlestar Galactica to the original series. I know that this is treason. The original aired the same year I started playing D&D (1978) and featured monsters, ray guns and all kinds of other stuff — I just don’t remember it very well, and what I do remember involves a dorky little kid and a robot dog. The original cylons were cool, though. Even when they photographed them through the magic ‘star filter.’ Photos taken through star filters always look cheesey and kind of porn-y… I suppose if robots give you wood, that is a good thing… but speaking of robots giving one wood, have you seen the Svedka Vodka commercials with the dancers and sexy robot? They just freak me out and make me never want to drink Svedka.
C is for cylons. In Aldeboran, I want to have cylons. Why they are there and what they are doing I don’t know yet. But there will be cylons. Some of them will be clanky ones that look like a dude in a suit (see at right) with a red eye that goes back and forth like he is watching a ping pong match. The one in this picture even has a sword! I don’t remember if they had swords or not in the original series. Others will look just like people. Fuck! Maybe they will think they are people and get freaked out when they find out they are cylons! I also want to have a ‘war of the worlds’ bit, but I don’t know if that will be related. Maybe I will wait to talk about ‘War of the Worlds’ when we reach W.
I'm with you in preferring the new show to the original–though I'd say that doesn't say a lot since their really to different things that happen to share some of the same setting material.
I dig the original Cylons though, disco-glam star filter and all.
I try to think of them as two different shows. Being the youngster that I am, I saw the re-imagined series first and it remains my favorite of the two.
C is for Cylons! I'll be honest – I wasn't expecting that.
I enjoyed the original series at the time. Hell, I was ten years old. In those heady years between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, if it had spaceships in it, I liked it: Blake's 7, Buck Rogers, Battle Beyond The Stars, Star Crash, whatever. (C is also for Corman, Camp, and Cheese.)
The “new” Battlestar Galactica is indeed a different beast. The Cylon-as-doppelganger conceit (“They look like us now”) is a stroke of genius and lends complexity and intellectual depth to the show. I don't think it's treason so much as simple sense to prefer it.
And in both series, I kind of sided with the Cylons in the end.
I watched the original religiously, but started missing episodes soon before they reached Earth and the Cylons blew up that big round building in LA. The guy from Adam 12 wasn't in it yet when I started missing it all the time. He had to be way older than Richard Hatch, but was playing his grandson or something.
Awwww man… now I'm going to be awake all night at freexin TV Tropes.
🙂
They did have swords.
Or at least this guy says the did and I trust him on it.