You know Kevin Smith right? The guy who made Clerks and Mallrats and all those other crazy films? He has a big rave on his site about BSG this week:
Without changing much of the original “Galactica” premise, the creators and folks involved with the show have done the equivalent of taking a covered wagon and creating a BMW from the design: it still takes you from place to place, but now it does so while keeping you safe from the elements, getting you there quicker, warming your ass with heated, leather seats, and bathing your ears in audio delights from an iPod-friendly sound-system. With the mini-series alone, these people managed to not simply just teach an old dog new tricks; they taught that bitch to speak, travel to alternate dimensions, fold space, and cure cancer.
How was this accomplished? How did the new “B-Star G” peeps spin straw into gold? How did they make the human beings as interesting (if not more so) than the fucking Cylons? Like all great art, they simply held a mirror up to our culture. “Galactica” V.2 is an allegory for 9/11 and the War on Terror viewed from both sides. It offers a far more complex view of two opposite ideologies in juxtaposition to one another, presenting neither side as particularly evil – just terrifying. Extremely well done Science Fiction has always been most powerfully effective when it lays out humanity naked and shows us ourselves, warts and all. Whether it’s “Planet of the Apes”, “Star Trek”, or almost anything by Phillip K. Dick, the best sci-fi isn’t simply laser-beam driven shoot-‘em-ups between good guys and bad guys; it’s the abyss we look into and see someone awfully, sometimes painfully familiar looking back from. There will always be a place in Science Fiction for the Joseph Campbell-described archetypical hero’s journey of the “Star Wars” saga, but what Sci-Fi does best is allow the author to comment on what it’s like to be a human being – the shame, the miracle, the sacrifice, the desire, the grand heights, and the abject lows. And if an author can accomplish this in stealth mode – be entertaining while not calling attention to his or her loftier goals – so much the better.
It look like we have ourselves another convert! Woo hoo!
Kevin says on his blog that he does "hours of web-investigation on the subject" so if you happen to stop by, HI KEVIN!
Hi.
Oh wait, you're talking to a different Kevin.
This is the Kevin that sits next to you at the office.
-Kevin
Posted by: Kevin | April 16, 2006 at 10:48 PM
Hmm, Kevin Smith would make a cool Cylon guest star.
Of course, there is always the danger that Ben Aflek might tag along, but it takes great risk to make great gains.
Posted by: oopla | April 17, 2006 at 02:33 PM
heads up people, you don't really need to read anymore of that blog entry.
Is keven smith ever gonna get over the fact that he converted a lesbian? God!
Posted by: Aragorn | April 17, 2006 at 08:36 PM