There’s no doubting that BSG became a phenomena.  It seems as popular and has as many rabid fans as anything Joss Whedon ever created.  That’s great.  I’m happy when things do well, especially in genres I enjoy and if it makes people happy, more power to everyone.

I got into BSG late and really only watched maybe four episodes, all said, but it never really hooked me.  The space fights looked cool, but despite liking some of the actors cast in the show, I really disliked all the characters, the constant shaky cam (MTV or first season ST:TNG anyone?) and I couldn’t quite figure out why.

So the two hour pilot for Caprica was on recently and I thought “hey, here’s a chance to get in on the ground floor and get invested in what’s going to be the next big step in the BSG franchise.”  What I ended up seeing was confirmation that I really dislike BSG and I’m going to dislike Caprica as well.

I would say that this isn’t necessarily a “this is where they lost me” qualifier because usually I’d say that would be reserved for otherwise great shows (or shows I enjoy, at least) that pulled a WTF or two.. or were just about to jump the shark.  But since this is all subjective and it’s all about ME ME ME! and where *I* got lost, I figured this qualifies.  So don’t count this so much as a wakeup call to the TV producers that they could be losing audience to bad writing/directing as a general statement about what doesn’t work.. for me.. in these two series.  They’re obviously popular, so Caprica/BSG fans need not read any further.  People who have watched these shows and can’t quite pin down what’s wrong with them, or people who may think about watching these shows who want a glimpse into what they’re getting, please continue.

So with BSG, I wasn’t sure what I didn’t like, but I figured I just didn’t know the characters well enough and didn’t get into the intrigue of it all because I had no investment that would have made the situations make any sense or give any dramatic weight to them.  After watching Caprica, a prequal and supposedly “accessible to non-BSG fans with plenty of easter eggs that fans will squee over”, I see what it is that I dislike about both series.

The common element in both is the complete unrelatability the characters have.  The main, human, characters are as fake and unhuman as the cylons.  The reason I loved BSG growing up is because the cylons were ROBOTS.  Not human-looking robots like a scifi series that doesn’t have a costume or CGI budget!  Would Knight Rider (burlesque or not?) have been as good if KITT had been a guy sitting in the passenger seat and NOT a talking car?  It’s like watching events unfold through an inch thick frosted glass.  You can see what’s going on, but it’s distant and unreachable.  And since this is uniform in both series and through all the actors in the series (not just a handful of bad actors who you just can’t “buy into”), I think this effect falls completely on the director and maybe a little on the writing.

Now, admittedly, I’m not a big fan of deep hardcore drama.  I watch “House“, which has won numerous awards in various drama related categories, but I wouldn’t call it a drama.  I think it has many dramatic elements that drive the story and people who are prone to irrational super-empathy, may get drawn in by these dramatic elements, but I wouldn’t count it as a drama.  Anyway, that’s probably the closest I get to liking a ‘drama’.  Caprica/BSG are pure drama driven.  If you took away the special effects and changed the story just a little, it could easily be another “As the World Turns“, just with slightly better story lines (and a finite television run.. none of that 30 years of rehashing the same tired plot twists).

With Caprica, specifically, I found it almost distracting and forced how often they threw “bleeding-edge-technology++” in our faces.  That is, the tech they were showing off and the discussions of technology they were having were all things we’re currently working on (but still a few years out), just taken one step further, to enhance that near-future feel for us techies who are aware of how close some of what they’re talking about are.  It was like they were trying to prove how young and connected they were to be aware of all this stuff.  I love future concept stuff and love seeing people’s ideas for where technology is heading, but this wasn’t that.  There was nothing original or inspiring about what they were showing.  It just looks like concepts from someone who reads too much Wired and Boing Boing and cobbled together concepts from their RSS feed.  Those are great periodicals and websites, but reading their stories and twisting the ideas a little is a far cry from original thought and extrapolating what a realistic future tech is going to be like.  I was almost a little embarrassed for it like when you go back and read those predictions for the future written decades ago and see how wrong they are.

Another thing that drove me crazy with BSG (at least in what little I saw and played a big part in advertising the show and some of the specials) was the gratuitous substitution of fake words for swear words.   I could go my entire life without hearing the word “frak” again.  It was cute/amusing and added a little bit to the show when “Farscape” did it YEARS ago, but it wasn’t overused.  Even the little I saw of BSG and, like I said, the promos for the show and the specials, the word “frak” was used SO MUCH it was frelling retarded.  I’d rather see decent writing be executed with other words, TV safe words, or even censor beeps, than substitute nonsense words and have to listen to fans repeating it.   Even Oxhorn, in his “Inventing Swear Words” series, understands it’s retarded and rediculous and does it BECAUSE it’s retarded and rediculous.  It has no place in a hardcore drama.

Anyway, once again the casting is great, but like with BSG, the heavy drama, unrelatable characters and inaccessibility of the world in general keeps me at a distance and I can’t find any way to enjoy it.  This is dumb scifi trying to pretend it’s smart.  It’s soap opera for teenagers with fancy window dressing to masquerade as science fiction.  Which, honestly, is what Joss Whedon did with Buffy and Firefly (except Buffy was horror, not scifi), but he did it with humor and style and you were actually allowed to LIKE the characters.  They seem to be human, not as fake as a cylon.  Wasn’t the point in Caprica/BSG that the cylons were made to be like humans, not the other way around?

Bonus: Remember when I mentioned KITT as a human passenger and not the car?  Here’s a little taste.  William Daniels, who did the voice for KITT, actually appeared in an episode of Galactica 80 (where the original BSG meets 1980′s earth).  ‘KITT’ is the guy dressed as a clown.  You get a great taste of the ‘KITT’ voice around 2:45.  Thanks to TheWilliamDanielsFan for posting this.  It blew my mind when I stumbled across it on Syfy (then, ‘Sci-Fi’) one day:

I feel obligated to be up front about the fact that I’m an atheist.  I went into this movie, not realizing it’s religious basis (even though the title suggests it), but I don’t think my personal beliefs have any bearing on my opinion of what happened in the movie.  Quite the contrary. Starting from a non-believer’s point of view, I’m not likely to gloass over the things that “lost me” for the sake of putting a “christian movie” (which it wasn’t, really) on a pedestal and making it out to be better than it was.

The next disclaimer I want to make, before I dive right in, is that I enjoyed the movie. A solid 3 out of 5, maybe. It was a visual treat, and I’ve liked the Hughes brothers’ other films to varying degrees (as I did with ‘Eli’) and I think they’re talented filmmakers.

This is where they lost me…

First is casting.  Denzel, good. Oldman, good but a weak role for him. Not as crazy/dynamic/memorable as some, but as always, he did it well.  Mila f’in Kunis?  I like her, in general.  Mostly in comedic roles.  Not my favorite, but not bad either.  The end scene where she goes all Milla Jovovich LOOKED good, but I couldn’t buy it because.. and this is her main failing being cast in this role.. she plays snotty, entitled bitches.  That’s her role.  She could play the fun sexy friend in a summer comedy.  She could play a few other roles, I guess.  But she’s NOT a kid who grew up in a post apocaylptic wasteland, even if she spent her whole life in that town.  And for the love of GOD… she’s NOT a badass and could never grow into that role in whatever shot time passed between Denzel dying and her heading out on her own.   If they think they’re getting a sequel.. a “Book of Solara”… it’ll be lucky if it gets a direct to DVD treatment and does any better than she did in “American Psycho 2” (maybe Bill Shatner can be in Book of Solara!).  Hell, Donnie Darko’s sister in “S. Darko” would have been a small notch better just because she’s not QUITE as snotty and not QUITE as entitled.  Kunis + Sword + iPod = all the sequel you need to see and should ever be made.  Two minutes too much, too wrong.  I do have to say that she’s starting to look like a little Angelina Jolie (see here) but she’s far from raiding any tombs anytime soon.  Grow up some, wear some blood around your neck, adopt a bunch of foreign babies and have sex with Billy Bob Thornton, then you’ll be beat down enough to get that ‘rugged look’ working for you.

Next..  green screens.  We get it.  Some shit’s fake.  No need to go from solid visual decrepitude to obvious CG.  Yes, I know the TransAmerica building is 30 years into the rot of neglect but that looked weak.  The transition between the water and city looked weak.  The light on their hair looked weak.   What’s bad in cases like this is, if it’s glaring on the big screen, it’s going to look like total crap when it finally airs on TV.   I watch old movies and go “wow.. the CG really hasn’t aged well…” but I remember in the movies thinking it looked pretty good.  Same eyes.  Same brain.  Same world view.  All things being equal, I’m guessing the CG at the end of the movie is going to look extra weak when it comes to TV.

Going backwards here…  you found an old iPod (because an iPod Nano never would have survived.. if the world is bombed out, you can only find OLD battery operated tech.  No ZuneHD for Denzel)..  but when the battery runs out, you push a bunch of buttons as if anyone who’s ever used one of these devices ever thought that would somehow get you more juice.  That was a blatant play for the viewers.  Look, he’s got an iPod.  Look, it has power, but it’s run out.  Boo hoo.  How will he ever charge it again?   Since you can’t have newer tech like a solar charger (which can be found a good number of places these days), we’ll just have to trade some beaver pelts for a guy to recharge your battery.

Oh yeah…  fake book = claymore.  Cute. Good idea.  Why was it dropped in the open area, but it makes the whole car explode and shoot straight up as if it was thrown directly under the center of the car?   Maybe I just missed something.   While on topic of that fight.  Do you really stop shooting when the bad guys declare “cease fire” and a guy comes out with an RPG?   The bad guys aren’t shooting at you anymore AND there’s big hurt coming your way.  SHOOT MORE!

But the notes about the fight and iPod are petty quibbles, not really a “where they lost me” moment.

This is what REALLY gets me, and I swear this isn’t coming from my personal beliefs, but it’s the central core (and ‘hook’) of the movie: The world is half destroyed by a war and EVERYONE agrees it was the bible’s fault?  Not religion in general.  Not any other religions.  Christianity.  So EVERYONE destroys EVERY bible in the world?   Ok, I’ll bite.. for the sake of creating a reason for things.  That’s what fiction is about and all.   But that central premise goes well beyond “suspension of disbelief” than any other concept in the movie.   That’s Spiderman suspension of belief right there.   The bible is the #1 most published book in the WORLD, last I heard.  They got rid of ALL of them?   In the panic of the world being destroyed, every hotel was emptied of it’s Gideons?  There weren’t enclaves of fanatics who protected giant storehouses full of bibles?

Ok, so somehow the entire United States (the world?) have gone from roughly 10-15% atheist to 99.999% anti-Christian, maybe religion in general (although not enough to destroy all the other religious texts..unless they did and only mentioned the bible explicitly).   What we get after all that is a showdown between good, honest, faithful preacher and evil, bad, controlling, manipulative, would-be preacher.  And of course a world full of godless heathens (gangs, cannibals, murderers, rapists) who’ve never known the Word of the Lord because it’s been verboten their entire lives.

Then they pull a number from Thomas Cahill’s “How the Irish Saved Civilization” by taking a remote, defendable island and filling it full of the world’s knowledge and turning it into a way to redistribute this knowledge back to the world after the the worst is over.

People bitch about Avatar having a completely unoriginal storyline (see Pocahontas, Ferngully, Dances with Smurfs..err..Wolves, etc.. and if Avatar stole from them, they stole from each other.. or probably an earlier tale, which is more likely) then Book of Eli isn’t far behind.  Lone man wandering the wasteland (Mad Max, Jeremiah, Resident Evil: Extinction), town run by bad guys full of whores at the bar, water rations, etc (all standard devices).  There were enough redeeming qualities to make it interesting (the twist with the book, which I WON’T spoil because it surprised me a little and might still for someone else.. although it’s obvious SOMETHING is up with the book), the fight scenes were pretty badass (taking lessons from Equilibrium’s Christian Bale almost?), but still some WTFWHY moments and things that could have been better if they just tried to keep it simple.