Sunday, January 24, 2010

Alessandra Torresani Gets Inside Caprica

This is an awesome interview. This young lady has a huge role to play in the future of humanity. We know how it ends, but she will determine how it begins.

Alessandra Torresani Gets Inside Caprica Prime Cylon

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Monday, January 11, 2010

Reviewed - Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Lots of Hype - Little Punch

I planned and waited with great anticipation for the television premiere of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. It wasn't long into the two-hour movie that I realized this was nothing more than a minor recap with minimal new footage. With the Caprica television premiere scheduled in 12 days, there was strong anticipation "The Plan" would hold lots of good teasers. Having already viewed the Caprica pilot episode at syfy.com, there's certainly allot of missing history to be revealed.

But "The Plan" did little more than show a story we have already been presented. Of the two hour episode, there was less than 45 minutes of new footage, shot specifically for the movie. The rest was borrowed from the series, or pulled from the archived of "deleted" scenes.

The movie opens with the brothers Cavil being put into the airlock on Galactica, 256 days after the attacks on the colonies. The scene then fades back in time to 2 weeks before the attacks. They replay how Baltar is tricked into compromising Caprica's defenses, but with the back story with Cavil and Six planning strategy.

I had just watched several video clips at syfy.com which Eddie Olmos makes direct correlation between BSG and Blade Runner. He also says that after we see "The Plan" we will have to go out and buy the entire BSG series, including the mini-series, on Blu-ray. I think he overstated his case just a tad. I have no desire to see "Blade Runner", and there was nothing in "The Plan" to compel me to watch the whole series from start to finish. But I'm just one fan, and one very loud critic...

One thing that is not so clear is where the Final Five are. They show brief clips of them in the "tank", and apparently Cavil has erased their memories or done something so they do not know who they really are. Cavil knows who the other 11 Cylon models are from square one, including the Final Five. I find it odd that he would never let "the cat out of the bag" during the series, when it could have done so much to undermine the Colonials fight.

What's more is how Ellen was giving sexual favors to Cavil (to buy Saul's freedom) during the occupation of New Caprica, and he knew she was one of the Final Five (and she didn't).

They did a good job of showing how their perfect plan to exterminate all humans (Cavil referred to humans as a cockroach infestation) fell apart at every seam.
- Boomer failed to kill Commander Adama.
- Six failed to discredit Baltar.
- Leoben studied Kara so closely he fell in love with her.
- Simon fell in love, got married and had children. He later committed suicide instead of blowing up the ship to kill his family and many others.
- Doral was a putz who wore ugly suits fashioned moe for the original BSG, but did manage to blow him self up, but really didn't do allot of damage.
- Boomer also would not plant the bomb that would deplete the water supply (Cavil planted it); but she later found allot of water to replace it.
- Anders found himself as the leader of the resistence on Caprica then a maverick of unconventional warfare on Galactica.
- Saul and Tyrol remained true to their uniform in spite of their Cylon heritage.
- Tory had served as the assistant to the president was torn, and managed to kill - Cally, but nothing more.
- As for Ellen, she was always the happy-go-lucky flirt with a drink in one hand and a man on her shoulder.

The main thing in this movie is Cavil's mad obsession with destroying humanity, even when the other models were backing down. For example when he asked Boomer to kill Commander Adama. She pressed him with the mercy of her human emotions, telling him the humans are no longer a threat. And when she failed to kill Adama by shooting him twice in the chest, he asked why she didn't shoot him in the head. She said she couldn't do it (she couldn't make herself do it).

One of my favorite characters throughout the series and again in "The Plan" was the hybrid. It's difficult to know whether her scenes were hard or easy to do while sitting in a whirlpool, up to her neck on water, spouting off random techno-babble gibberish with little or no change in tone or inflection.

"The Plan" ends where it started, on day 256 with the brothers Cavil being shoved out the airlock on Galactica. They are full of hate and rage, anticipating the arriving at download city on the resurrection ship to begin their rampage all over again.


Regards
John Crawford

AutismZone
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Mamas Best Recipes
The Cartouche - Science Fiction Reviews


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Friday, January 8, 2010

Comment on "2010 Prediction: The Year of the Paid Subscription "

Source link http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/techtonicshifts/archive/2010/01/08/2010-prediction-the-year-of-the-paid-subscription.aspx?GT1=43002

This Newsweek article is all assuming that people will simply fork out the money for any online content. They are wrong. Just because it's free now, and a provider decides to charge doesn't mean they will be successful at profiting. It is likely the content providers will spend any profits chasing down every swingin' pirate on the planet. The mere idea that someone can copyright or own information once it's on the open air waves is beyond stupidity.

While there is a certain percentage that will ante up with their credit card to pay for what is free now, most of us will not. We'll simply get by without it. Don't misunderstand, I like Hulu, but I'm not paying for it. We're already paying a kings ransom for our cable or satellite television, our broadband internet connection, and our wireless phones. Do these content providers live with theirs heads in the sand? Maybe. Do they not know the perilous times we live in, many of us no longer have usable credit cards? I'm sure they do, and are experiencing the same financial woes as the rest of us.

If Hulu and others want to start charging, let them. We'll shop somewhere else for free. My guess is within 5 years, they'll be out of business or back to FREE content with content-based advertising to pay the bills. If they hold their breath waiting for me to subscribe they will be out of business much sooner.


Regards
John Crawford

AutismZone
Accokeek Computers
Mamas Best Recipes
The Cartouche - Science Fiction Reviews

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