[Poobah]

I'm increasingly inclined to believe that once their show is popular enough that they can get away with it they just sit around smoking pot and making shit up.

[mcbigski]

Bronn Stone, on 27 March 2010 - 04:43 PM, said:

I don't believe Amanda Graystone is dead. The fall was only 100m (according to the background broadcast) - less than half the height of the Golden Gate Bridge and into waters nowhere near as dangerous - and people do survive the GGB. The voiceover indicated that there are 'few' survivors, but not none.

Unless someone has heard a definitive spoiler to the contrary, I strongly suspect Amanda will survive.

The latest podcast has 'definitive' answers to that question, but they might just be bullshitting.

[Relic]

mcbigski, on 28 March 2010 - 12:29 PM, said:

The latest podcast has 'definitive' answers to that question, but they might just be bullshitting.

what are their answers?

I could have done without the silly cliff hangers but over all i thought the episode moved very well and i enjoyed watching it. Daniel Greystone is getting pounded and im curious to see how where his character goes from this point on.

Oh, and the CGI in this episode was atrocious.

[Jaxom 1974]

Bronn Stone, on 27 March 2010 - 04:43 PM, said:

Unless someone has heard a definitive spoiler to the contrary, I strongly suspect Amanda will survive.

red snow, on 27 March 2010 - 05:12 PM, said:

The tv voice over did make me wonder whether that might happen as well.
Even if she dies there is the possibility that GRaystone would try and ressurrect her as i think he's feeling pretty guilty right now and it's clear he loved her. I kind of hope they leave her dead though. Unless the rival company guy ressurrects her as some part of his "I'm going to take everything you care about" pledge - that could be cool/sinister.

THe very first thought I had was, "Well that was all kind of pointless..." Then I thought, "Well, they're probably just going to bring her back in the V-R world and then she can be the one to interact with Tamara, because, we got to keep that seemingly pointless story going, don't we?"

[Werthead]

Relic, on 29 March 2010 - 06:18 AM, said:

Oh, and the CGI in this episode was atrocious.

The CGI in Caprica has been dubious since the first episode. Some of the establishing shots and some shots of the Cylon work, but that's about it. I still really don't get why the CGI in Galactica was excellent in the first two seasons (reaching a height with the shots of Galactica and Pegasus pounding the Cylon basestars in the Cain trilogy) and then dropped off in quality quite seriously. I won't put it down to them losing Zoic as there is no reason why the in-house team should have inferior rendering power and we are now five years on from that point. There is no reason that the CGI shouldn't be blowing our socks off, but instead it's a bit meh.

The worst bit was Daniel in the pyramid arena. It looked considerably faker than Sheridan and Garibaldi on B5's baseball pitch (in the B5 Season 2 episode Knives) and that episode aired fifteen years ago.

[Ran]

Money. Caprica has a smaller budget than BSG, which was obvious from the time they decided to cut a couple of episodes to try and have a workable per episode budget. That said, I think a lot of the CG is in fact pretty good, egregious examples aside. I was actually rather amazed that they created so many different cityscape establishing shots.

[Relic]

Ran, on 30 March 2010 - 04:54 PM, said:

Money. Caprica has a smaller budget than BSG, which was obvious from the time they decided to cut a couple of episodes to try and have a workable per episode budget. That said, I think a lot of the CG is in fact pretty good, egregious examples aside. I was actually rather amazed that they created so many different cityscape establishing shots.

It hasn't been bad until that last episode. The arena scene and the chase scene stand out as being particularly terrible. It looked like a PS2 game in a few shots that involved the pursuit crafts.

[red snow]

Werthead, on 30 March 2010 - 09:40 PM, said:

The CGI in Caprica has been dubious since the first episode. Some of the establishing shots and some shots of the Cylon work, but that's about it. I still really don't get why the CGI in Galactica was excellent in the first two seasons (reaching a height with the shots of Galactica and Pegasus pounding the Cylon basestars in the Cain trilogy) and then dropped off in quality quite seriously. I won't put it down to them losing Zoic as there is no reason why the in-house team should have inferior rendering power and we are now five years on from that point. There is no reason that the CGI shouldn't be blowing our socks off, but instead it's a bit meh.

I'd guess time, or the money required for the time, is the big problem in these cases. The other team was either larger or allowed more time than the new team. You can be given the best paint set and canvas available but if you only have 10 minutes to draw something rahter than 10 hours it's going to be inferior unless you're a genius.
I don't think BSG was that shoddy afterwards really, the exodus episodes looked great still.
The CGI in Caprica is the least of my concerns with the show. B5 proved that SFX aren't essential to the enjoyment of a sci-fi but more icing on the cake.

[Ran]

The arena was bad from the very first time they showed it. The crowd multiplication was terribly obvious, to the point where I easily spotted the same dude waving a banner in three different places in the same four or five second shot, and that was on the first go at seeing it. Never had that happen before.

[Bach]

I think it could maybe get good again if they focused on the cylon/terror stuff and the daniel plus tauron mob elements, and got out of the holodeck.

[mcbigski]

Relic, on 29 March 2010 - 01:18 AM, said:

what are their answers?

Spoiler

The actress playing Amanda was on the podcast and Eick gave her the 'it was great working with you' speech. They pretty much said straight up that Amanda was dead. (Not that that precludes flashbacks or v world Amanda in the future - actually it would make sense if the Cylons were partly her personality, because they do seem to over react some.)

[red snow]

Bach, on 31 March 2010 - 12:32 AM, said:

I think it could maybe get good again if they focused on the cylon/terror stuff and the daniel plus tauron mob elements, and got out of the holodeck.

Totally agree with keeping adama in the mob and not in the holodecks. I'd like to see some more on Caprica itself as the taurons and the prejudice they face is one of the more interesting parts to the show. Maybe look into some of the other cultures from the rest of the planets as I always thought Caprica was supposed to be like new york/london as an international (planetary) hub.

[Ashara]

Loved the final episode! Finally, finally we are rid of Amanda Greystone and her boring, boring, boring story of poor rich middle-age suffering. I am hoping she is not back in any shape or form! Is there a petition I could sign?! Like: "Please, be DONE with Amanda Greystone!" Too bad Sister Clarice survived. But having two most annoying characters offed in one episode would have been too good to hope for. I am soooo happy about Amanda being dead. And yeah, baby, it's coming for Daniel!

I am also hoping that the silly twist suggested by someone based on the wrong eye-color and timeline difference is not true, and Billy Adama we see in Caprica *is* Bill Adama from BSG, not the kid that gets killed off, and then Evelyn has another son called Bill. Heh. Now, if all episodes in Caprica were so satisfying as the finale, I'll be a happy camper. Loved Tamara shooting her dad. Now, that was wicked fun. I am also looking forward to visiting new places in new season. Hope they don't look like Richmond, BC, Osoyoos, BC, Kitmat, BC, etc.

This post has been edited by Ashara: 31 March 2010 - 07:59 AM

[Aemon Stark]

Ashara, on 31 March 2010 - 09:53 AM, said:

I am also hoping that the silly twist suggested by someone based on the wrong eye-color and timeline difference is not true, and Billy Adama we see in Caprica *is* Bill Adama from BSG, not the kid that gets killed off, and then Evelyn has another son called Bill. Heh. Now, if all episodes in Caprica were so satisfying as the finale, I'll be a happy camper. Loved Tamara shooting her dad. Now, that was wicked fun. I am also looking forward to visiting new places in new season. Hope they don't look like Richmond, BC, Osoyoos, BC, Kitmat, BC, etc.

Well, surely we'll go back to the quad at Simon Fraser or similar locations that frequently appeared on Stargate: SG1.

[Ashara]

Can't build a campus with a futuristic look without the SciFi shows jumping on it, heh. My husband asked for a photo when we went on a cruise with Vancouver in the background and we kept refering to it as Caprica. (sigh)

[Werthead]

I've been looking further into the Adama age controversy and it does seem bemusing whichever way you cut it.

According to the dossier produced in the episode Hero, Adama should be 66 at the time of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies (the start of BSG), which would make him 8 at the time of Caprica, which clearly is not the case. Taking it as read that Adama is 11 as shown in Caprica makes him 69 at the time of the Fall, which is probably pushing credibility, but then if we assume the Colonials not only live longer but are relatively healthier for longer (so a 70-year-old Caprican would be as healthy as say a 55-year-old human) it's not too much of a stretch.

Eddie Olmos, for what it's worth, was 56 when they filmed the mini-series.

There is, however, a big problem with both the dossier and Caprica ages, namely that they screw over Adama's age during the First Cylon War. Razor establishes that Adama qualifies as a Viper pilot just in time to take part in the final battle over the ice planet, which is his first combat mission. It's also the last battle of the war, taking place 12 and a half years into the conflict and roughly 18 years after the start of Caprica. Based on the Caprica data that makes him 29 at the time, whilst the Hero dossier would still make him 26. Both seem unusually old for a combat pilot flying his first mission in wartime. If we go with the Willy isn't Bill theory, those ages would now make him 17 or 14 when the war started, in the first case able to fight immediately and in the latter just a few years later. In neither case is it clear why he would have to wait right until the very end of the war to fight.

This supports the hypothesis that Willy isn't the more familiar Bill Adama. If Bill is born say a year after the start of Caprica, that would make him 17 when the war ends and during the events of Razor (and 57 during the events of the mini-series), which makes more sense.

However, some fans have interestingly suggested that Bill Adama served either as a Raptor pilot (and never fired a shot in anger) or as a battlestar crewmen before moving to become a fighter pilot and qualifying only right at the end of the war, which I suppose is possible.

There is another odd issue over his eyes as well. Olmos chose to wear distinctive blue contact lenses over his eyes to better match him up facially with Jaime Bamber playing his son, and the make-up team were careful to give similar contacts to the actor playing Young Adama in Razor. Given the detail and time they poured into this, them not giving the same contacts to the actor in Caprica seems weird.

In conclusion, I think the idea of Willy not being our familiar Bill Adama is kind of nice, as it would wrong-foot the audience and clear up a load of these (mostly minor) continuity issues (also explaining why he never mentions Tamara, Shannon or the Tauron stuff in BSG, as he's more distantly removed from it), but it does feel a bit pointless and fanwanky as well, although that's never really stopped the producers before (as seen in No Exit, although it is nice that they at least tried to deal with the #8 numbering screw-up).

[Calibandar]

I was checking this series out in search of a new SF series that might be worthy my time. Maybe it's not, from the comments I read here, but in any case, they seem to have only aired 9 episodes, there is no dvd release planned that I can find on Amazon, and tv.com says they are due to air season 1.5 in October 2010, which is all a bit strange, cutting it in half like this in the first season.