"What is it, human dude in a giant cat dude's body? Is something wrong?"

By now, you’ve heard the murmurings. You’re polite, so you don’t want to believe it. You have faith in James Cameron. You haven’t seen the movie yet — almost nobody has, and they might still be putting in a few tweaks here and there. It’s not fair to condemn a film before you see it, right? But you probably feel it somewhere yourself. As Galadriel said in her own huge-budget fantasy-fest, “I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.” As the biggest movie of the winter approaches, I think we all feel a little like Galadriel – or at least that we hear the whispers of prophesy.

Avatar is going to suck.

Maybe it will be entertaining. Maybe it will have fun parts. Maybe, in the end, it will be worth the $11.50 or whatever it costs for you to see a movie these days. But it’s still going to suck.

Like me, I’m sure you hope you’re wrong; but it’s time to discount the possibility — roll it around in our minds and get used to it — so that, when the movie actually comes out, if it turns out to be about as good as it probably will be, it is met with pleasant surprise rather than crushing disappointment.

This process seems to already have begun in the Jungian collective subconscious, but I don’t mind jogging it along a bit.

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the Blue Corn Moon? Have you ever watched the lesser Gundam properties? The top five reasons why Avatar will suck await . . .

As I’ve mentioned several times before, I like the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series—but I don’t love it.  Yes, yes, I know.  I’m wrong.  BSG is the best TV show ever.  I fracked up.

This week on Overthinking BSG (a.k.a. Mlawski’s fortnightly attempt to discover why she doesn’t like the show as much as she theoretically should), I’m going to talk politics.  My theory for this week: I’d like the show better if I were a neo-con living in 2004.  Which I’m not.

Warning: politics within.

Preface

I’m a BSG virgin.

Which is weird, I’ve gotta say, especially when you consider what a big nerd I am.  You know what’s sitting on my nightstand right now?  Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama.  Yes, friends.  I’m that nerdy.

Going into this new series, I only knew these few facts about BSG:

1. It was about robots,
2. one of the robots was Tricia Helfer,
3. and basically everyone on the Internet hated the series finale.

So, yeah.  I have that to look forward to.

Naw, to tell you the truth, I was super-excited that you folks picked Battlestar Galactica for me, and it was with gleeful anticipation that I snuggled up on a friend’s couch to watch the miniseries.

That glee was immediately dashed to the ground, its blood-glistening brains left to dry up on the floor.  Because, my friends, Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries may be the bleakest, most misanthropic piece of television I have ever seen.*

That isn’t to say I don’t like the show, of course!

But that’s what I want to talk about today, in this first of a many part series on the new BSG.  Bleakness.  Depression.  Ennui.  Despair.  Misanthropy.

Mmm!  Sounds fun!  But first, let me recap the miniseries for those of you whose minds haven’t been colonized by Cylons lately.

*Well, except for Neon Genesis Evangelion, maybe.  Anyway, the race is close.

Matthew Wrather hosts a panel including Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes to Overthink:

• Series Finales (real and imagined)
• Battlestar Galactaca. Spoiler Alert: There will be no more episodes.
• The Blunders and Successes of SyFy
• Allegories of the Book of Mormon
• The Twilight Movie: The nuance of pornography, the subtlety of horror, the sexiness of melodrama.

Links Mentioned in the Podcast:

• Sandglass: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CNSAXO?ie=UTF8&tag=overtit-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000CNSAXO
• SyFy’s original Films: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sci_Fi_Pictures_original_films
• Battlestar Galactica and Mormonism: http://www.millennialstar.org/2006/02/12/battlestar-galactica-and-mormonism/
• Turbo Boost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arL04K3HLMw