BattleStar Galactica: Caprica

There seems to be a need seated in the core of our humanity for some form of structured mythology. Now that scientific advancements has supplanted one of the fundamental uses of myths; explaining the natural mysteries of the universe, the one function that will continue to persist is the morality play. Good has always been pitted against evil in all types of storytelling but what is special about most mythologies is the detail afforded to the back stories of the characters and situations. This level of granularity is often omitted in modern story formats such as television and film mostly for the sake of brevity and economy. Still, the need to know how things began is deeply rooted in our species and one genre stands out in addressing that need; science fiction. The typical fans of this genre are both intensely interested in the smallest details of a back story and intense enough to make their demands well known. Recently one of the most popular series on the SyFy cable network is re re-imagined ‘Battlestar Galatica’. The fan base is nearly as dedicated as the Trekkers as Star Wars loyalists as a brief walk around any Sci-Fi convention will reveal. The great thing about such recent works is the way the creators can interact with the fans through these conventions and the net and provide the most requested stories set in the same universe. This lead to the tale of what occurred before the robotic Cylons rebelled against their human creators. Caprica is slated to be a follow up s on the SyFy network but the pilot movie has been released and by the looks of it the network has another winner on their hands. What had always been omitted were the evens that lead up to the initial creation of the Cylons. This new series will not only relate that story but also provide a glimpse at colonial before the attack and some much appreciated information about the Admiral as a boy.

Although the re-imagined movie and TV series has become increasingly popular most people employing this methodology forget the inclusion of the word ‘imagine’. But fortunately Roger D. Moore did not overlook this, he took the most fundamental elements of the original, campy series and completely rebuilt it as one on the most textured, intricate and gripping series I have ever seen. This made for cable movie was a near perfect example of how to construct a pilot for a television series. It answers just enough question to completely hook even the most loyal fan of the series and leaves on a note that is practically dripping with potential making the viewer demand more. This is what set the previous series apart and is certain to perform a similar miracle here.

Set 58 years before the fall of the colonies the story is told through the viewpoint of two families. The first is the Graystone family Daniel (Eric Stoltz) is a multi-billionaire who made his money by inventing a virtual reality that allows the users to project an avatar of themselves into a hyper real environment. His wife, Amanda (Paula Malcomson) was a high successful surgeon so it is little Zoe (Alessandra Torresani) was an incredibly gifted genius who has covertly taken her father’s technology far advanced from anything he could imagine. She discovered a way to infuse the totality of a human being’s personality into an avatar. When Zoe is killed during a terrorist attack her father gets the idea to install her personality into a robotic soldier he has been working on. That prototype was called a cylon. The trouble is he needs an artificial brain to hold it. The only one in existence is owned by a corporate rival so Daniel approaches a lawyer with known ties to organized crime, Joseph Adams (Esai Morales). He had lost his wife and daughter in the same attack and initially went along with the hope of seeing them again even if it would be their reconstruction. It also turns out that Zoe and her friends were part of the group responsible for the attack; ‘Soldiers of the One’, a militant monotheistic group intently opposed to the polytheistic religion believed by the colonies. The pilot concludes with Zoe’s mind successfully installed in a powerful robot body. Joseph turns away from his mob roots and embraces his lower class roots by restoring the family name to Adama. This series will focus on a deeper level of artificial intelligence than usual probing the all too human way such a drastic technology was permitted. The seeds that would lead to humanity on the brink of extinction didn’t occur through so complex socio-political chain of events. It started in the mind of a brilliant yet rebellious teenage girl getting back at her parents. This is what makes a series by RDM so exciting and well done. He concentrates on humanity and its emotional motivations instead of the special effects. This series is planet bound yet just as intriguing as its set in space older brother.

Posted 11/24/09