Author Topic: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread  (Read 75527 times)

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Offline YIIMM

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Re: [Spoilers]Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
According the webmaster for the Battlestar wiki, he's spoken to people involved with the show (including the script) and the Vipers on Galactica aren't retconned MkII's but are actually MkIII's. I'm taking that with a pinch of salt seeing as it flies in the face of Adama being established as a MkII pilot during the war.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: [Spoilers]Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
C'mon guys, some of you are being too harsh. It's new Battlestar with some decent effects and story. Just finished episode 2 and I'm already loving it. The acting isn't great (I like Adama's copilot), but you have to remember it is a glorified web series....

Battlestar was important (to me, at least) because it was science fiction TV that could swim in the same pool as 'real' dramatic television. By that metric Blood and Chrome's first 24 minutes are decidedly unimpressive - even Caprica came out of the blocks a little stronger. It certainly wasn't shot as a web series, so that doesn't earn it any forgiveness.

Quote
Overall I'm impressed AND slightly perplexed. This is a decent product of an established and well loved property, why the hell did Syfy avoid showing it as long as they did? Somebody over there needs to be fired.

They avoided showing it because the effects took forever to finish, and apparently used up so much money that some of the shots are lifted straight from other BSG products.

 

Offline Ace

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Re: [Spoilers]Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Well we got a good shot of first war era Archer AA missiles :)

edit-
Also:


Although this confirms what some people have said since the miniseries that the ship was stripped of armor, there's an issue in that the PD guns on the nose are covered by armor plates!

Unless sometime between year 10 and 12 of the war (Razor) a refit was done that scrapped some armor and artillery in favor of more PD guns.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2012, 07:55:30 pm by Ace »
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Re: [Spoilers]Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
According the webmaster for the Battlestar wiki, he's spoken to people involved with the show (including the script) and the Vipers on Galactica aren't retconned MkII's but are actually MkIII's. I'm taking that with a pinch of salt seeing as it flies in the face of Adama being established as a MkII pilot during the war.

That's kind of weird. I mean, the cockpit is exactly the same (because it's the same set), almost all of the shape and details are the same, just slightly altered (it's a lot less drastic than differences in the Mark VII or the Zephyr retcon models. Heck, it's less drastic than the difference between the six-foot and four-foot models of the Enterprise-D on Star Trek). And Galactica is obviously the same ship, and it's not even a retcon. We're supposed to believe they ripped off half the guns and walled off three levels of hangar bay.

On the other hand, a borderline-imperceptical model change like that does make me feel better about my headcanon that that sketch from the SDS revival that became the Mark VII was the Mark VI.

They avoided showing it because the effects took forever to finish, and apparently used up so much money that some of the shots are lifted straight from other BSG products.

That's how it seemed at first. IIRC, set photos of them shooting were leaked around February, 2011. There was silence about progress until November, 2011, when Doug Drexler said B&C had just wrapped. Bear McCreary revealed he was scoring it sometime within the next two months, and by February of this year, he said he'd finished recording. Music is pretty much the last thing done, so at that point, it was ready to go. That was confirmed in March, when the leaked teaser came out, showing a bunch of completed scenes.

So, yeah, they've been sitting on this for at least eight months since it was ready to air. Possibly as much as a year, since Bear reported it as something he was now allowed to announce, not something that had just happened, so it might've really been finished-finished, editing, sound, music, the whole shebang, when Drexler made that blog post.

The interesting part is the lengthy gap between photography and wrapping post. The apparent answer was that B&C was biting off a lot more than they could chew and it took almost a whole year to do all the 3D work. That's ruled out by the CGSociety article on B&C which mentions that post took up five months (which, yes, is a lot, but it's a lot less than the eight months Drexler's post suggested, and a hell of a lot less than the two year total between shooting and release). My guess is that there were delays during production caused by Universal and SyFy constantly going back and forth on if it was a webseries, if it was a movie, if it was a pilot, if it was cancelled...

As for the stock footage, so far the only incidences of that were in the opening narration, and there wasn't any stock footage beyond that in any of the trailers. My suspicion is that it was added in fairly last-minute, mostly stock footage and a couple of new or refurbished shots that could be banged out quickly. I'd bet the Cylon carrying the kid was originally shot for the montage/trailer in the Caprica finale, and cut out or never finished.
« Last Edit: November 09, 2012, 09:18:18 pm by David cgc »

 

Offline The E

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
So I watched the first two episodes.

My general impression is .... well, it's not as bad as I feared and not as good as I hoped. The microepisode format is irritating as hell, with each episode being constrained to one or two scenes, and each episode having to deliver some sort of big moment. Not my favourite sort of forced storytelling; I really hope that whenever they get around to recutting it for TV, the pacing works better.

Also, lensflares. I likes me some sprinkling of nice lensflares, but this.... it'S way too obnoxious.
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Offline NoSpin

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Re: [Spoilers]Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
C'mon guys, some of you are being too harsh. It's new Battlestar with some decent effects and story. Just finished episode 2 and I'm already loving it. The acting isn't great (I like Adama's copilot), but you have to remember it is a glorified web series....

Battlestar was important (to me, at least) because it was science fiction TV that could swim in the same pool as 'real' dramatic television. By that metric Blood and Chrome's first 24 minutes are decidedly unimpressive - even Caprica came out of the blocks a little stronger. It certainly wasn't shot as a web series, so that doesn't earn it any forgiveness.

Quote
Overall I'm impressed AND slightly perplexed. This is a decent product of an established and well loved property, why the hell did Syfy avoid showing it as long as they did? Somebody over there needs to be fired.

They avoided showing it because the effects took forever to finish, and apparently used up so much money that some of the shots are lifted straight from other BSG products.

Well made points. But c'mon, don't tell me you didn't get chills when they showed the old girl (or in this case, the young girl) for the first time?


As I understand it Syfy has been sitting on the finished product for a LONG time. My point is they could have easily shoved aside one of their crappy "original" movies on a Saturday and aired this in its entirety. Unless I'm speaking too soon and the quality drops off significantly, this seems more than good enough to air and pick up some ratings full of Battlestar starved fans.

 

Offline Dain

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Wonder if it's worth waiting for the full "unrated" 2 hour version next year. The way they are broadcasting this is really bizarre.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Well I've told people to keep the spoilers in here, but it only takes one halfwit to ruin the plot for you between now and February (or whenever they air the whole thing).
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Yeah, I won't lie it's good just to see the ships and hear Bear again.

 

Offline starbug

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What do you think of BSG blood and Chrome?
So what do people think of the BSG Blood and chrome pilot series being shown on Machinima Prime you tube channel?

So far i think its ok but i have one huge complaint and some minor ones. Biggest one of them all, is that every light has a huge lens flare effect on it and in some scenes it nearly covers up the actors! It just ruins the shots if you ask me, that was one thing that was drilled into us at uni during the Film & Tv part of my course. Lens flares as good if you keep them to a minium and when there is a reason to use them but to just use them on everything is bad and ruins the film. I know for a fact if i handed in some like blood and chrome to my tutors for an assigment i would fail. I remember they used Star Trek as prime example of this during lectures.

Also why are all the swear words, even the mild ones which can be aired before the watershed(well here in the UK anyway) all bleep or somebody dropping spanner when the word is said.

Apart from these its a pretty good show, get to see some classic Cylon raiders and Baseships!
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Offline An4ximandros

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Re: What do you think of BSG blood and Chrome?
Your first complaint, which I share, reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAaX8Aq6smQ


So far I think it looks ok, but I really hope the storyline picks up, maybe even discreetly continue what started on Caprica, but that's just me.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: What do you think of BSG blood and Chrome?
There's a thread about this in the Diaspora forum

 

Offline The E

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Merged the topics.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline Dain

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Well I've told people to keep the spoilers in here, but it only takes one halfwit to ruin the plot for you between now and February (or whenever they air the whole thing).

Not too worried about spoilers, just wondering if it might feel like a more coherent experience.

I find the massively expanded CGI sets really disconcerting. CIC is pretty unrecognisable. Also I guess the greenscreen set up means they can't have corridors, hence all the fancy lifts and a.. tram?
« Last Edit: November 11, 2012, 05:21:20 am by Dain »

 

Offline Lt.Cannonfodder

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
Although this confirms what some people have said since the miniseries that the ship was stripped of armor, there's an issue in that the PD guns on the nose are covered by armor plates!

The new armor plating is a retcon since the original CG model was built as if the ship had always looked like it did. Some of those new guns also clip through the hull :P

 

Offline YIIMM

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread



The new armor plating is a retcon since the original CG model was built as if the ship had always looked like it did. Some of those new guns also clip through the hull :P

Not to mention two of those guns are built directly on top of where the missile silos were established to be.

 
Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
So, adding space-to-ground missiles explains why two of those guns were ripped out. Who wants to take a whack at fanwanking a reason they'd remove the other forty? ;)

  
Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
I find the massively expanded CGI sets really disconcerting. CIC is pretty unrecognisable. Also I guess the greenscreen set up means they can't have corridors, hence all the fancy lifts and a.. tram?
I'm gonna pretend that's meant for moving stuff between storage and the flight deck (and The Bucket didn't have anything to put in storage during the series).  I never realized how much I liked the corridor scenes...  I get the feeling that everything we've seen has been cut together to fit the 10min format, mostly based on how the scenes jump around so much, and only like 3 people have names so far.

 

Offline wistler

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
It's a sad day when Forward Unto Dawn, a web-show based on a game has more nuance and character development then a web-show based on a TV show regarded for its character development.

 

Offline Dain

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Re: [Spoilers] Blood & Chrome - The Discussion Thread
I find the massively expanded CGI sets really disconcerting. CIC is pretty unrecognisable. Also I guess the greenscreen set up means they can't have corridors, hence all the fancy lifts and a.. tram?
I'm gonna pretend that's meant for moving stuff between storage and the flight deck (and The Bucket didn't have anything to put in storage during the series).  I never realized how much I liked the corridor scenes...  I get the feeling that everything we've seen has been cut together to fit the 10min format, mostly based on how the scenes jump around so much, and only like 3 people have names so far.


It's just bizzare that they can't even get the money to build a cheap generic corridor set. One L-shape of corridor with greenscreen at either end would have let them do a whole lot more.

 Or why they felt the need in the first place to make all these expansions, which surely take more time and money to set up and render than a CGI version of the original set would. It doesn't feel like the Galactica any more, in fact it barely feels like real ship..  just a selection of brightly lens flared cavernous spaces. Connected by swooshy lifts and trams for no good reason.

I'd really be quite happy with quite a shallow action packed BSG prequel, but having even that be a mess of overly shiny CGI..
« Last Edit: November 12, 2012, 07:08:09 am by Dain »