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Lexxlurker has added his anotehr great review to the database.
Here it is: Hand of God.
Headgehog wrote:Lexxlurker has added his anotehr great review to the database.
Here it is: Hand of God.
Great pics!
I was very happy with this weeks pics, and the source video I used. This time I used a divx .avi, which gave me a much crisper, and colourful image. Ohh and it takes up less memory too. The images were so clear in this and Colonial Day, that I was able to grab some really nice images for future essays and culture reviews. Plus it allowed me to see some things I hadn’t spotted before.
I’ve uploaded the transcript, this time its actually easy to read and it was proofread!
This review really had me laughing (with the reviewer, not at him.) Oh where to begin? How about the new pilots:
“Meanwhile Starbuck is debriefing the new pilots, who are in dire need of personality and a name like Black Widow Squadron, or Hells Hornets, or heck anything! Adama approaches Starbuck and promotes her from Sniper/Interrogater/Pilot to unofficial Lt. Colonel/Military Advisor position by asking her to join the tactical briefing.”
I agree that the new pilots need more pizazz. I think even in TOS the squadrons had “color” designations like gold, blue etc (someone please correct if I’m wrong on that.) I guess since they’re newbs we’ll have to settle for anonymous pilots and Starbuck busting there balls at every turn.
This leads me to ask: What do we know of the other pilots? All I know are Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Crashdown, Hot Dog, um, er, uh… I seem to forget the others but what about you guys? Oh, of course I cannot forget Helo. Also, I’d like to nominate “Chuckles” for coolest death-scene so far. Way to go, Chuck. Hell’s Hornets, indeed.
Also one of my biggest beef’s till this point is how far they (Moore/ the powers that be) have stacked the odds against the good guys. I honestly don’t see how much longer the viper fighters can last before they are all wiped out. Take this last ep, for example. BSG sends Strike Force 1 (or whatever it was called) which consisted of what? 7 – 10 vipers? The cylons counter with 50, plus another 40 or so for the decoys. I have a feeling my details may be somewhat off but you get the gist. And on top of all that Cyclon technology is superior and continues to frustrate the colonial fighters. And further still, you have guys like “Chuckles” and “Fireball” (not a good name, BTW) as your wingmen. Ok, Ok. So I’m riding “Chuckles” a little too hard, and no, I don’t blame all this on him. Anyway, mabe the colonials will start cranking out vipers left and right or perhaps come into some new technology that will give them an edge.
YOWAYYO wrote:This review really had me laughing (with the reviewer, not at him.) Oh where to begin? How about the new pilots:
“Meanwhile Starbuck is debriefing the new pilots, who are in dire need of personality and a name like Black Widow Squadron, or Hells Hornets, or heck anything! Adama approaches Starbuck and promotes her from Sniper/Interrogater/Pilot to unofficial Lt. Colonel/Military Advisor position by asking her to join the tactical briefing.”
I agree that the new pilots need more pizazz. I think even in TOS the squadrons had “color” designations like gold, blue etc (someone please correct if I’m wrong on that.) I guess since they’re newbs we’ll have to settle for anonymous pilots and Starbuck busting there balls at every turn.
This leads me to ask: What do we know of the other pilots? All I know are Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Crashdown, Hot Dog, um, er, uh… I seem to forget the others but what about you guys? Oh, of course I cannot forget Helo. Also, I’d like to nominate “Chuckles” for coolest death-scene so far. Way to go, Chuck. Hell’s Hornets, indeed.
Also one of my biggest beef’s till this point is how far they (Moore/ the powers that be) have stacked the odds against the good guys. I honestly don’t see how much longer the viper fighters can last before they are all wiped out. Take this last ep, for example. BSG sends Strike Force 1 (or whatever it was called) which consisted of what? 7 – 10 vipers? The cylons counter with 50, plus another 40 or so for the decoys. I have a feeling my details may be somewhat off but you get the gist. And on top of all that Cyclon technology is superior and continues to frustrate the colonial fighters. And further still, you have guys like “Chuckles” and “Fireball” (not a good name, BTW) as your wingmen. Ok, Ok. So I’m riding “Chuckles” a little too hard, and no, I don’t blame all this on him. Anyway, mabe the colonials will start cranking out vipers left and right or perhaps come into some new technology that will give them an edge.
I remember wondering the exact same things. Initially I assumed they would pick up refugees over the course of the season, but alas it was not to be. Headgehog can be more specific, but I think this entire first season takes place over the course of 30-60 days. It’s really really been a short time since the evacuation. Next season I expect things will get dragged out more (time-wise) and they’ll pick up a few squads of both pilots and marines.
They HAVE to give them better names though. Just take a gander in the Wing Commander books/games for some ideas. Names give personality, and to be honest when “Chuckles” or “Hot Dog” comes gunning for me, I’m not exactly intimidated by the name. The Squad names are even more important because this allows the pilots to differentiate from each other, and have something to compete against. In WC everyone wanted to be a “Black Widow”, the name itself spoke of the Elite, they even had special black leather jackets. But in a 42 minute show it’s tough, hopefully with all those extra episodes in Season 2 we’ll get a bit more into the individuals who blow Cylons out of the sky.
This is a review I wrote for the episode “The Hand of God.”
Wow!
Where do I begin?
Do I start with the weird press conference with Laura Roslin seeing the prophecy of the twelve snakes of Pythia?
Do I stay with her weird Moses/Aaron scene with the priestess, Elosha, who explains to her, the Pythian prophecy?
Do I point out the serendipitous heroics of Galactica TOASTER Mark IV, and her amazingly lucky CM/CCM rider, Crashdown, in finding the Tylium asteroid?(^1)
Do I go with the collegiate planning of the raid on the Cylon fuel refinery by the staff of the Galactica?
Do I go into detail; how Adama finally picks on poor little, Kara, and dumps her in the hotseat of operations to come up with the plan?
I loved the scene where Adama gives her a physics and physiology lesson, when she exercises her knee on the weight bench.
Do I rejoice that the Table Lamp has finally joined the cast as a “good” actor, worthy of the name “Apollo”?”(^2)
Do I admit that Zachary/Baltar(^3) when the crunch comes; just like his template namesake of Lost in Space fame, when the chips are down, pulls one out from between his ears, and does show(whether it is out of fear of death; or fear of discovery of his cowardice) a small shred of that quality we Humans call courage?
Do I admit, for once, that Six(^4) didn’t stink up the screen, as she leads Baltar/Smith into complete religious psychosis/conversion(“Was/is an instrument of God’s Will.); as she parallels the explanation of the Pythian Prophecy, like Elosha does for Laura: to Gaius, a prophecy that Gaius/Zachary hasn’t paid any attention to since the Sixth Grade?
Do I describe the hammer and scythe plan; where the Colonials use freighters simultaneously as decoy and Trojan Horse to CM/CCM yoyo the Cylon raider defense force between points A(the freighters and B(the Galactica), taking the Cylons out of the fight; so that Lee Adama can get his strike package into the(Moore cliche of the week)(^5) narrow almost impossible to steer through maze of asteroid canyons and fuel processing plant tunnels; where the heroic “Apollo” lays the missile charges(as mines-see the technology discussion below) right where Gaius/Zachary Baltar/Smith finger-stabbed on a Galactica Boomer supplied recon photo earlier when the operation was being planned?
How do I describe the fight to take the Tylium plant?
How do I describe Caprica Boomer’s hopeless desperation, or Agathon’s discovery that there is more than one Heifer(^6) running around loose? It gives nothing away at this point to say that Caprica Sharon has a little cylon in her abdominal assembly plant.(Courtesy of Helo no doubt). Now there is DESPERATION!
Writing.
Compared to Tigh Me Up; Tigh Me Down, or anything I have seen in this series so far, this was outstanding! This episode was almost as good as anything I have seen in Science Fiction television. It almost reminded me of Endgame of Babylon 5 for the scale of heroics and sheer plot development and character interaction.
The troika of William, Kara, and Lee(especially Lee-[It turns out that wimps can be heroic!]) was the heart of this episode. Each slotted in nicely to his and her slots as commander, staff officer, and strike leader as it is in “real” life during war.(personal experience speaking).
The President(Mary McDonnell) played her part as the political leader(Churchhillian) during the crisis giving the necessary support to her military in the hour of desperation as one would hope the real world clowns would.
Poor Kara Thrace. Not only is she the only Viper pilot instructor in the fleet, charged with training the “nuggets”, but now Adama saddles her with the responsibility of planning the operation that gets half of them(See the ready room pilots she briefs in this episode, for the faces of the dead) killed in battle just to obtain fuel!
The Kicker is that Adama won’t let her lead the strike. Katee Sackhoff captures the inner-despair just right.(Welcome to the Big Leagues.)
How about a kudo for the dependable Colonel Tigh, who points out the real world risks and costs of the operation? That actor talked like a veteran who understands the industrial statistics behind the “glory” of war.
Buried in this wealth of action is the Lee/William father/son story. It was only three minutes of screen time during the whole episode. It was a well spent three minutes between Olmos and Jamie Bambir that rescued the Table Lamp and confirmed Jamie’s hold on “Apollo”. Olmos must have taken that guy to acting school this episode, because for the first time I believed the character. What a good actor can do with a lighter is remarkable.
Grace Park got an entire whole episode to be heroic. She played Galactica Boomer with a light touch that was exactly right and pitched an undertone of desperation in Caprica Sharon that was just a little underplayed; but all the more effective for it. As Battlestar Sharon she pitched the heroics right to the end, flying Raptor cover for Apollo’s strike package and supporting the decoy package with CM/CCM all during the same battle!
Goofs.
The lighter has Josephus Adama quite clearly labelled on it, but Lee says he can barely read the inscription when William tells him, that his, Lee’s, grandfather’s name is inscribed thereon. Supposedly Lee is tearing up and bleary eyed to explain this gaff, but there is no evidence of this in the closeup camerawork on the actor.
Bad things.
The CGI or the prop work with the snakes was dreadful. It looked plastic. Mary McDonnell during the press conference acted stiff, as if she didn’t know what a typical real world reaction to an obvious psychotic episode was supposed to be.
I can’t really dump on the Heifer this episode. It wasn’t her fault: it was the clumsy lines of the dialogue written for her character. Tricia Helfer needs easy flowing rhythmic phrasing that will keep her from tongue tying over her dipthongs and spraying her sibilants. You can correct for this in the writing.
The sound mixing for the episode was shockingly bad. You had to listen closely to catch some of the words that Colonel Tigh and Baltar said. Baltar also needs a speech coach.
He has an outrageous accent that fogs his delivery.
Good things;
The battle, despite the Star Wars Canyon Death Ride ripoff sequence, was some of the best television CGI I have ever seen. It was B-5 crisp and not as muddy and washed out as the earlier CGI work.
It was also contemporary air battle modern and accurate.
Somebody in their art department has flown an A-10 and seen the elephant.
The Vipers flew like ROCKETS!
Aside from the Heifer dialogue problems, the writing and the acting was as Homeric as you can get for this debased age of television. Even Gaius/Zachary and the Heifer, for once, measured up to the standard.
The music, while not American Martial(see John Williams for an example) was still powerful and episode supporting, with a mix of Scotts and Welsh lays selected for the proper dramatic underscore.
curiosities;
The Heifer tells Zachary/Gaius that this has all happened before in reference to the Pythian prophecies. What is she referencing?
What happened to the Colonials 3600 years ago?
What are the Pythian Prophecies, and what is the oncoming confrontation, that the prophecized Colonial “victory” in the Pythian Prophecy at the Tylium asteroid, portends?
Tylium(pronounced like helium) has an outrageous energy density(In far excess of 100 million joules/cm^3). What is it? Exotic matter?
Assuming that the rock was a 15000 meter in diameter lump and five percent of it was Tylium, just how much fuel does an average Colonial ship use over two years?(There are forty “freighters” and the Galactica. Assuming a 20/80 ratio and an even distribution of the eighty percent among the freighters.
Such a rock has approximately 1,767,145,868,000 cubic meters of volume.
So 5% of the asteroid is the volume of refined fuel after mining(I’m using coal out of a coal mined mountain as a model, here, folks) that is 88,357,290,000 cubic meters.
Eighty percent of that allocated to the freighters is about 70,685,833,000 cubic meters of fuel.
Current canon, puts this ragtag fleet at forty freighters.
Dividing the Tylium equally means an average freighter gets 1,767,145,800 cubic meters of fuel.Assuming an iron mass for value for exotic matter fuel density(not unreasonable): that is 8,000 kg/m^3; each freighter is taking on board a staggering 14,137,166,000,000.0 kgs or slightly more than 14 billion metric tons of fuel!
Technology:
We have confirmation of what I now call Dodo’s thesis in honor of the individual who originally pointed it out.
Quote:
——————————————————————————–
Dodo’s ThesisDodo hit it, precisely, when he said that the reason for guns and ballistic weapons in general(at least on the Colonial side) might be the fierce CM/CCM, that the Colonials and the Cylons possess and practice against each other.(This explains the Raptor’s presence as not only the general purpose shuttle but as a support ship in a Viper CAP. Its the Colonial Space Borne Warning and Control Shuttle as well as their EW bird. It is similar in function as to what used to be the EA 6B Prowler’s; used by the U.S. Navy.). That even explains why the Cylons use missiles so much and the Colonials rarely. The Cylons have better CM/CCM warfare capability and thus they have more confidence in their active targeting systems. It certainly explains the short-ranged ship combat.(The further away you launch the longer the CM/CCM has to work.).
——————————————————————————–The Raptor is far more important than I had realized. It is all of the above and it is the necessary support vehicle for any Viper strike to jam and spoof Cylon anti-spacecraft missile and flak defenses.
Without Raptor support the Vipers get slaughtered by the superior Cylon missile technology as is evident in the death-or-glory-ride of Lee’s strike package. Did you see the Colonial missiles spool off from their target locks when the Vipers launched from beyond effective Raptor CCM cover?
I guess the screen cap jockies will have a field day with this battle to determine G loading, missile ranges, gun ranges and weapon yields shown.
Let them have their fun.
It looked to me(without doing the comparisons in depth) about right for close air support as it is in the real world. The only quibble is that the charges that Lee Adama skidded under that Tylium processor were a little small for conventional bombs(200 kg TNT?).
All in all it was an IMPRESSIVE episode.
Notes;
^1. Keeping score on the Biocylons;
Harbinger of Doom-TOASTER MARK I
Cylon gunhand toting Centurion-TOASTER MARK II
Darlow biocylon-nickname “Wiseguy” TOASTER MARK III
Sheri Valleri biocylon-Callsign “Boomer” TOASTER MARK IV
Shelley Godfrey biocylon-nickname”the Heifer” TOASTER MARK VI
Leoben biocylon nickname “Bozo” TOASTER MARK IX^2. Jamie Bambir has up to this episode been inconsistent with his portrayal of Lee Adama. He has either shined or he has failed to illumine the character at all. Hence he earns the Table Lamp tag.
^3. James Callis portrays Gaius Baltar, up to this point, as if he was a comedic psychotic. This is too like the character that Jonathan Harris played on the execrable Irwin Allen TV project “Lost in Space” to escape the obvious tag.
^4. Tricia Helfer(to me) was clearly playing a stiff one dimensional character up to this episode. She reminded me of a guernsey-hence “the Heifer” became her tag.
^5. For those keeping score, Moore has ripped off:
–The Matrix
–In Harm’s Way
–The West Wing
–Patton
–Crimson Tide
–Star Wars; The Return of the Jedi
–Star Trek DS9
–Babylon 5
plus dozens of references that I’ve probably missed.^6. The Heifer is covered in ^1. and ^4. Tricia Helfer tries very hard and she is improving dramatically(Yes that is a pun!), but she is so outclassed by Mary McDonnell, Grace Park and Katee Sackhoff that it is embarrassing and painful to see her act-especially opposite James Callis,(Who has his own problems in character portrayal-though in his case it is a complete misread of the role of Gaius Baltar as the complete narcissist instead of a comical psychotic as Gallis has chosen to play him.)
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