Caprica pilot
Aug. 17th, 2009 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieSo I finally got around to watching the pilot for Caprica, aka "Those meddling kids and their frakking Islam monotheism! (We don't really like those Mexicans Taurons much, either!)"
I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be, and I went into it with relatively low expectations. I think I was most disappointed that they decided monotheism came from humans originally, and not from robots, as was presented in BSG. I always thought the Cylons finding God-capital-G on their own was kind of nifty, and lent considerable credence to their claims of, not necessarily sentience (they were obviously sentient), but equality with humans. Not that one needs religion to be a full person--absolutely not--but the ability to create such a religion was, I thought, quite interesting for a bunch of machines. (Well, okay, come to think of it according to the finale the religion was revealed and not created but YOU GET MY POINT. Humans were not involved in its origin.)
Other than that, my main problem was that I hated pretty much every character except for Joseph Adams/Adama. (And Baby!Admiral Adama, of course, but he got so little screentime he barely counts.) And I think my interest in Grandpadama had a lot to do with the fact that he was Papadama's father. Also that he was Tauron, and I was mostly interested in this series because I wanted to find out more about the colonies--their culture, their history, their society. I think I would do better with a textbook than this series, though.
Speaking of such matters, it annoyed me on BSG that, visually, they barely tried at all to differentiate their universe from early 21st century North America, and it really bugged me here. Are bubble skirts really going to be in fashion several hundred thousand years and light-years away? Because if so, there is something wrong with the universe. Everyone driving what were obviously regular Earthican cars was the other really annoying part, although cell phones were up there as well. At least they tried with the hologlasses and the nifty paper. (Speaking of paper and its cut-off corners, I noticed that the defense minister's glasses had the corners cut off. Seriously. Octagonal lenses. Whyyyyyy?)
That all speaks to my third and last issue with the pilot, which is that it is so. very. obviously. our 21st century reality with the names changed. (And I guess thejihadists monotheists are recruiting in North America Caprica rather than the Middle East Geminon, but in the grand scale of things that appears to be a minor change.) I get that they're setting up for a series and will probably differentiate themselves a bit more, but as a stand-alone...I dunno. It felt like it was trying too hard to be Socially Relevant Sci-Fi. BSG seemed more subtle.
I did do a little dance of joy at the "Wander My Friends" Adama family melody from BSG that appeared briefly in the scene with Joseph and William in Willy's bedroom. And the poundy drums returned at the end! Woo!
...Yeah, basically the music was the best part. I dunno; I might watch the series when it airs, or maybe just the Adama-centric episodes. I really could not stand Zoe, and wasn't terribly fond of her parents either. Maybe I'll just wait to see what kind of reviews people give it...
I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be, and I went into it with relatively low expectations. I think I was most disappointed that they decided monotheism came from humans originally, and not from robots, as was presented in BSG. I always thought the Cylons finding God-capital-G on their own was kind of nifty, and lent considerable credence to their claims of, not necessarily sentience (they were obviously sentient), but equality with humans. Not that one needs religion to be a full person--absolutely not--but the ability to create such a religion was, I thought, quite interesting for a bunch of machines. (Well, okay, come to think of it according to the finale the religion was revealed and not created but YOU GET MY POINT. Humans were not involved in its origin.)
Other than that, my main problem was that I hated pretty much every character except for Joseph Adams/Adama. (And Baby!Admiral Adama, of course, but he got so little screentime he barely counts.) And I think my interest in Grandpadama had a lot to do with the fact that he was Papadama's father. Also that he was Tauron, and I was mostly interested in this series because I wanted to find out more about the colonies--their culture, their history, their society. I think I would do better with a textbook than this series, though.
Speaking of such matters, it annoyed me on BSG that, visually, they barely tried at all to differentiate their universe from early 21st century North America, and it really bugged me here. Are bubble skirts really going to be in fashion several hundred thousand years and light-years away? Because if so, there is something wrong with the universe. Everyone driving what were obviously regular Earthican cars was the other really annoying part, although cell phones were up there as well. At least they tried with the hologlasses and the nifty paper. (Speaking of paper and its cut-off corners, I noticed that the defense minister's glasses had the corners cut off. Seriously. Octagonal lenses. Whyyyyyy?)
That all speaks to my third and last issue with the pilot, which is that it is so. very. obviously. our 21st century reality with the names changed. (And I guess the
I did do a little dance of joy at the "Wander My Friends" Adama family melody from BSG that appeared briefly in the scene with Joseph and William in Willy's bedroom. And the poundy drums returned at the end! Woo!
...Yeah, basically the music was the best part. I dunno; I might watch the series when it airs, or maybe just the Adama-centric episodes. I really could not stand Zoe, and wasn't terribly fond of her parents either. Maybe I'll just wait to see what kind of reviews people give it...
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Date: 2010-01-07 10:04 pm (UTC)Also, I felt like they left a LOT of things hanging, like, why did Kid A blow himself up? What are the (Infinity Club) monotheists trying to accomplish - convert? fight the power? gain media attention? What was so special about Geminon/why not run away to a different part of Caprica? What exactly happened to Zoe at the end... she appeared to have been deleted, but not her programming, but wait, just kidding, she survived and escaped and is building her own robots?
Yeah, lot of things I didn't understand. I don't know if I'll be getting into this show... I'll probably give it a look when the series starts, but I have doubts I'll get into it quite the same.
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Date: 2010-01-08 05:32 am (UTC)Yep. Her and the Adamas were the only ones I cared even the slightest about.
I honestly don't remember enough of it to comment on the ending, or lack thereof; I just remember being disappointed in the whole enterprise. Once it starts airing episodes, I'll give it a chance, but I've heard tell online (can't recall where at the moment) that they're having issues with the scripts, or something, and it honestly sounds like it's going to crash and burn pretty badly pretty quick.