More BSG cast in "The Plan", and other shiny stuffs

The Battlestar sequel movie begins filming this Monday, and according to The Watcher, more of the cast from BSG proper will make an appearance, including (but hopefully not limited to) our Cylon friends Tricia Helfer, Rick Worthy, Matthew Bennett, and Callum Keith Rennie. Michael Hogan and Rekha Sharma will also be making minor appearances unfortunately. But you never know until you see the final cut!

Ooh ooh! Maureen also notes that BSG writer Mark Verheiden will be writing for the second story arc in season 3 of Heroes! Additionally, no new word on whether or not Caprica will get picked up as a full series yet.

io9 posted some more info in their Morning Spoilers on Tuesday on some minor characters from the series who will get big parts in the prequel movie, as well as the general fate of the humans. Read more on this info gathered from Dragon Con at DoorQ.com (mild spoilers - not purist friendly! I know of some of you out there who won't be reading this!).

Also check out this entry at io9 for some very minor spoilers about what Olmos said about "the feel" of his character as the series draws to an end, as well as what SciFi EVP Mark Stern said about the final Cylon (from Huffington Post).

Other updates:


If you're an old school BSG fan and enjoy cruises, Galcticruise pushes off next week! I'm wondering what the future may bring us for RDM BSG fans. Space Shuttle tours perhaps?

Old school fans mourn the loss of Jeff MacKay who played Corporal Komma on the original BSG. MacKay died on August 22nd in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

NBCU reports that SCIFI has seen it's best summer ratings ever, and the scifi.com website hasn't been too shabby either with the Battlestar site hitting number 1:

"SCI FI ’s Website www.scifi.com had record traffic for the summer with double-digit increases among all key metrics year-to-year. SCI FI Rewind averaged 2.6 Million streams (+565% vs. last summer) and Battlestar Galactica was the #1 ranked section on the site with an average of 4 million page views (+141% vs. last summer). Battlestar Galactica also ranked first in video with an average of 1.2 Million streams (+343% year-to-year). "

Speaking of NBCU, Prez Bonie Hammer's hottest moment was giving Battlestar Galactica the greenlight at SciFi. (Conde Nast Portfolio)

AskMen.com is holding their own 2008 elections for the top 49 in several categories. You can vote for Ron Moore in the Cultural Icons section by clicking here.

Tricia Helfer adds to her resume of video game voice acting with the upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive Spider-man: Web of Shadows, in which she voices Black Cat (she also voiced the same character in one episode of Stan Lee's TV toon The Spectacular Spider-man). Tricia also voiced in Command & Conquer 3 (Kane's Wrath and Tiberium Wars).

If you don't mind being spammed by the Think Geek newsletter (doesn't sound too awful), when you sign up for the newsletter you can enter to win a sweeet limited edition Cylon Raider model (the base is signed by Katee!). Click here, and while you're at it check out some of their other frakking awesome BSG merchandise like this "What the Frak" tee (hoodie also available), or the ever popular "How to Spot a Cylon" poster. The drawing ends September 30th,

Check out BSGCast's Part 2 of their video coverage (with always excellent commentary) of Eddy and Aaron at Toronto's Fan Expo '08. They have promises of part 3 (the final part) for next week!

There are all sorts of videos up of the Battlestar panel at Dragon Con 08. I haven't watched any yet, or read reviews from the event, so I can't testify for the spoiler content, but one would assume that they are keeping a very tight seal on what they do and do not say about the series finale. I've at least read around enough to be pretty sure there aren't any major spoilers leaked from the con, but there are certainly mild spoilers as to the general feel and content of the series end. I was about to dig in to nnaylime's youtube page for expansive video coverage of all things BSG (and related) from D*C.

Edit - Also found some D*C 08 BSG footage from this post by Livejournalist wisteria.

The after party hosted by The Colonial Fleet seems to have been a smash hit, with an appearance and speech by EJO. James Callis, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett, ad Aaron Douglas also showed up! Here's some video from said frak-down. Look for Part 2 in related video, and be prepared to have a strange desire to chug ambrose!

Whew! Enough for one post already!

Styles that last: elements from the original BSG that are still cool

As I wait for the DVD of the mini-series that launched the new BSG, I checked out an episode of the original series on my DVR. The episode was called Fire in Space, I believe. The story was what I remembered: cheesy 70's greatness that I loved as a five-year old. However, there were some stylistic elements to the original series that really stood out to me as I watched almost 30 years later. There are many elements of the original Battlestar Galactica that may be dated, but are still very cool.

• The opening theme: Decades later it still gets me going.
  
• The clothes: I know, I know. The outfits are really straight out of the 70's. But, there is a sense of style to those clothes that I think is really cool. I love the pilot's brown outfits and the officers blue outfits. While they are products of a very specific time, there is something about them that I think still works. When I watch the original Star Wars trilogy, I get a similar feeling. The hairstyles and costumes in those films are often very dated, but still very cool. I feel the same way about the original BSG.
• The Cylons: They still look incredibly cool and menacing. And those voices are some of the best designed villain voices ever. And the word "Cylon" is awesome as well. As Star Wars proved, a hero is only as cool as the villain he fights. The Cylons were outstanding.
• The starfighter design: I really dig the Galactica's starfighters. That long-nosed design is still cool.
  
• The launch tubes for the starfighters: I had forgotten about this until I was watching this episode. The turbo acceleration down those launch tubes is so very cool. I loved that as a kid.
• Daggits: As a kid, I wanted my own half-dog, half-robot creation. It looked cool and I loved how it sounded as it moved. Watching it now, it's still a cool concept. When I was five, I wanted a daggit and Tweeky from Buck Rogers.
  

Those are just a few things that really jumped out to me in rewatching this episode of the original series. While it is certainly a dated show, I think it stands up quite well to a second look.

Frak from the 70's

I figured I'd use my posting powers for a moment over here. Since I haven't seen any of the new BSG, I'm definitely a newb in these parts. However, I did watch a few minutes of The Story So Far on the sci-fi website, just to get a feel for things. Whoa, that looked really cool. I'm waiting for the original mini-series to come to me from the local library. So, once I've watched that, I won't be so newb.

In the meantime, I watched the beginning of an old episode on my DVR. In it, the original Boomer used "Frak". I didn't realize that Frak came from the original series. I thought it was a new BSG thing. Somehow it seems weird to think of an f-word synonym being used on a show I loved as a 5-year old. And, man, seeing those opening credits of the old series got me so revved up again. It's still cool after all these years.

Once I watch the mini-series, I'll let you know what I thought.