Battlestar Galactica

Check out this great Battlestar Galactica Etch-a-Sketch portrait, created by The Etch-a-Sketchist, a blogger who creates a new scene every day using the famous toy. This one shows Admiral Adama, Lee “Apollo” Adama, Starbuck & Boomer, but other scifi tributes have included Chewy & Han Solo and (of course) Mr. Spock.

Battlestar Galactica, Etch-A-Sketch, picture, toy, Adama, Boomer, Apollo, Starbuck

Tricia Helfer was in Toronto this weekend to promote Walk All Over Me, the film where she plays a dominatrix who finds hijinks with roommate Leelee Sobieski.

Here is a lovely picture of Tricia that was taken on the red carpet for the Toronto International Film Festival’s IFC Dinner. Tonight Tricia will be at the The Boiler House, where Audi is sponsoring a party in honor of the film:

Kindled by the dark new Leelee Sobieski flick “Walk All Over Me,” The Boiler House in Toronto’s Distillery District presents a wittily wicked party on September 11, where dominatrix drama meets urbane elegance. The stars will shine at this quirky, cosmopolitan TIME Style and Design event.

Stay tuned for more Tricia, and more news about the film, later this week.

Tricia Helfer, Walk All Over Me, Toronto, premiere, Leelee Sobieski, Audi, Toronto, film festival

Katee Sackhoff is up for SciFi Siren at the Spike TV Scream Awards this year, and Battlestar Galactica is up for Best TV Show and “The Ultimate Scream.”

Webcomic Hijinks Ensue presents its take on what an episode of Battlestar Galactica directed by Kevin Smith would look like … the panel of President Roslin saying “Snooch to the Nooch” alone makes it worth checking out.

Starbuck as Han Solo? Gaeta as Chewy? Check out this intriguing recast of Star Wars featuring BSG characters in the traditional roles. Six, of course, nabs the Darth Vader part. Katee Sackhoff, Allessendro Juliani, and Tricia Helfer should be so lucky!

Tahmoh Penikett brings a new fan to BSG … something tells me this is not the first time this has happened.

Starbuck, Han Solo, Gaeta, Chewbacca, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Six, Darth Vader, Katee Sackhoff, Allessendro Juliani, Tricia Helfer, Roslin, Kevin Smith, webcomic, Spike TV, Scream Awards, Tahmoh Penikett

On a good day, my overarching thesis of Battlestar Galactica is one of hope. Hope that the humans will learn something from all they have been through, that they will look up from the day to day struggle to survive and hope for more from human nature in addition to their hope for a home on Earth.

The complex interweaving of pity and pain, hatred and hubris, and similarities with sabotage that we saw in Season Three of Battlestar Galactica seemingly reinforced my theory that only way the human race will survive is if the members who sympathize with the Cylons strive to form a mutually cooperative peace with the “toasters.” The plotlines about genocide, the mutual quests for answers, these things and so many others seemed to reinforce my theories. And of course the revelations of the four Cylons in the final episode of the season, All Along the Watchtower, made me even more firmly convinced I was correct.

But I still wonder. And leave it a comic strip, that simple yet potentially provocative medium, to succinctly express one of my primary doubts about this idea.

The blog Galactica Sitrep recently linked to Frakking Toasters, a very cool BSG webcomic. And the December 8, 2006 panels described many of the reasons why this hope of mine may be futile. The Cylons and the humans hate one another, and even the members of each group that sympathize with the others tend to so on an individual, not a mass, level.

If one of the ongoing themes of the series is that being self-destructive and prone to mistakes is what makes the humans so gloriously, imperfectly, human … then perhaps it is too much to expect them to set aside mass murder for an ideal. Perhaps it would be very BSG for the audience to realize there is potential for peace and continued existence, but the characters on screen do not. The character development certainly supports this idea, taking the human characters to increasingly darker and more desperate places as the series progresses. President Roslin’s slow deterioration from idealist to angerball is fairly strong evidence that hoping for peace between the groups may be hoping for too much … this generation, anyway.

Webcomic, toasters, cylon, armistice, peace, Battlestar Galactica, Roslin

DragonCon was last weekend, and in addition to revealing some depressing news about Season Four’s schedule Jamie Bamber and Aaron Douglas revealed a couple character development spoilers as well. Click the link if you are interested in learning more.

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Inde and scifi “it boy” Kevin Smith set off a media frenzy two weeks ago when he revealed he would be directing an episode of Battlestar Galactica during the show’s final season. But faster than you can say “yes!” (or, depending on your perspective, “noooooooo!”) the news was revealed to be false. Smith will not be scoping BSG due to “scheduling conflicts.”

What sounded like a euphemism was actually revealed to be true according to SyFy Portal. That site has links to Smith’s explanatory blog post and to BSG producer David Eick’s expletive-laden apology e-mail, describing his embarrassment about the scheduling confusion.

Battlestar Galactica, Kevin Smith, direct, episode, BSG, David Eick

Been wondering why the Battlestar Galactica producers think of Season Four as two seasons? Jamie Bamber (above) confirmed the answer this weekend at DragonCon, and it is not good: the final season will be broken up into two 12 episode seasons, meaning the series finale will not be shown until 2009. Bad news for fans, and based on the stories the actors are not that thrilled about this development either.

WatchingBSG.com speculated about this in June, based on a blog post from Leo Li Chiang. At the time we were hoping that the concept of two seasons would be a good thing, and that was clearly overly optimistic on our part. Instead it turns out part of the final season will be shown in early 2008, and the rest withheld by the SciFi Network until February 2009. In a summer that is filled with bad news for BSG fans, this revelation is one more depressing blow.

Battlestar Galactica, Spoiler, BSG, Jamie Bamber, DragonCon, Leo Li Chiang

Fans who were wondering if Edward James Olmos would be in Venice for the premiere of the 25th anniversary of Blade Runner were pleasantly surprised this weekend, as Eddie took a break from filming Battlestar Galactica to attend the glamorous festivities across the pond.

The photo above shows Blade Runner stars Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, and Edward James Olmos at the premiere event. The photo below shows Edward James Olmos, director Ridley Scott, Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer at another Blade Runner event in Venice.

Eddie also found time to attend the premiere of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Sam Shepherd while he was in town. More photos after the jump.

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