A few days ago, I stumbled on to the 'Star Wars Indexed Triology' whilst looking for a small quote to paraphrase in a usenet posting (as you do!). It's a small section of a site which compares a couple of versions of the Star Wars 'A New Hope' movie to see what's been improved, and highlights some lesser known characters. Whilst that might seem dull, it really is quite cool to see all the little bits and pieces that you missed when watching it - and remember those ones which you did see .

Had to break today to watch Gremlins, too; Dad called me 'cos it was on, so I just had to drop everything to watch it .

So last night's dream was something about going to a dinner at the uni with Chris at which a large number of people were killed. Very strange, but I don't get some things about it. It's a dream so I shouldn't, but hey, you've got to have your fun where you can get it. Anyhow, I don't get why we were dancing with some girls right after a load of people had been killed in the hall accross the way. That's on two levels... well, ok three. Firstly, the blatantly obvious massacre and then dancing doesn't seem right. Secondly there's the dancing - I'm not exactly known for my dancing. Or maybe I am, but only in the sense that I don't. And finally... girls ? with me ? Like... that doesn't happen. Well, um, yeah, ok, it's a dream, but still.

Anyhow, Borland do a trial Delphi 8 CD that you can order online for no cost. So I did. It's here now and it's... well, interesting. I've been too busy being a slob in front of the telly to do much with it at the moment, but what I've seen is amusing. It's all because I want to play with FeedReader, but I'm pretty sure that updating FeedReader and its related bits to work with Delphi 8 will be a pain, so I might not bother - particularly as I don't know it or the language in any way.

One cool thing that did come of this, though, is that the .NET framework is on the CD. Why's this cool ? Because it's a huge download from the Windows Update site and I kept putting it off because I couldn't be bothered to wait that long. Anyhow, done and installed and... well, that's about it really.

The cats brought in a rabbit today, too. Which was alive, thank god. It's only a little baby rabbit but we've taken it back to its 'home' (it's a wild one), and kept the cats inside. Evil things. Yeah, I know they're only cats, and I shouldn't judge them for being cats, but still. He was a gorgeous little charcoal grey rabbit too; he'd have made a lovely pet for someone I'm sure .

I managed to catch the end of 'Ghosts Of Mars' on one of the movie channels. Fun in a Resident Evil sort of way.

You know how things seem so clear when you're dreaming and shortly after you wake up, but by the time you think about them they're just mist on the breeze ? Well, I've re-discovered that today - and you'd think I'd be very used to it by now, wouldn't you ?

Anyhow, last nights involved a small boy who was actually the spawn of satan, and began with this discovery. So, having found out he's pure evil, curiously whilst he was on stage at a concert, having been brought up there because it was his birthday, we then have large chase scenes around the stadium. At one point he tries to get his younger sister involved, but she won't come along, which is explained a couple of scenes later by their mother (who was unaware that the boy was actually the son of the devil for reasons that are not explained) to another women (who appears to be orchestrating things) that his sister was adopted (I think; I wasn't explaining that very well to myself I think so it never sunk in, although it may have just been cloudy).

With the body having set the stadium alight, I and friends evacuate people and run away. The person leading us - hey, it's not me for a change, which is cool, 'cos I hate being to blame (ok, this is my dream so I'm completely to blame but we're not going to worry about it) - is Angela Rayner (for reasons which are unclear) and we need to regroup before we return to hunting for the boy. So she takes us back to her house, for supplies.

This is the point at which things are very memorable, in that 'what the hell?' sort of way that leaves an imprint on your mind. At this point we come in the back door and step through the kitchen toward the living room. I'd like to stress that this isn't a house I know, and it's not the Rayner's family house for sure. Maybe the layout just appealed to me. I dunno, but anyhow it's a smallish house and we're all following Angela.

We walk through to the living room, take in a view of the room - a largish living room, there's stairs on our right leading upward (red and white banister), a table beside those stairs (mid-brown), a door across from us (it's red, with a silver letter box), Angela in front of us (wearing a blue denim jacket), sofa to our left (blue, looks very comfortable), and Helen dancing in the middle of the room (wearing nothing at all).

Helen races over to a corner beside the stairs and hides herself, and I go and stand facing the red door whilst there's a little bit of indistinct talking going on behind me. Oh, now consider that I'm facing the red door; I think I've used the magic of dream movement there, because to do so I would have to have actually crossed the path of Helen running to hide. But anyhow, the assumption was that I did that so that I wasn't watching her. She runs up stairs to get changed and Angela and our group talk briefly. She returns, with a silver-grey nightie on, and explains that her parents were out and she didn't expect a large military posse to come barging in through the kitchen, so she was dancing for her boyfriend.

The team collects some stuff and we head on out. At this point things get a little blurry. I'm pretty sure we were doing very badly and then, for some reason we need the aid of an Elf. Don't ask me anything about this bit because I think after the Helen incident above, my mind had stopped trying to make anything make sense. Apparently in order to get an Elf you have climb up the side of a dockyard with a special type of rope. Oh, and have some money and gems with you - quite what a creature from another dimension needs with money, I'm not sure. Anyhow, I go to get this Elf with someone else, and we find one after climbing the rope and she agrees to come along. We return to the rope and head down and I discover that she's gone and nicked the money and gems as well. And she was being so nice to me, too. Aww. Anyhow, we get another Elf who doesn't seem to want money or gems and return down the rope.

And then I got up. So what am I to make of this somewhat bizarre tale of the supernatural ? And naked Helen ? Well, I think my mind just wanted to spice the story up. In any case, it was odd.

Apologies to Helen for the use of her image without permission.

How weird. I've had a email in my mailbox from Caroline for over 48 hours now and haven't yet replied. I must be getting lax.

But, on the plus side, she's given me Sue's updated email address which I think I must have lost in the last year or so.

In a minor change to the diary which is a little against its general style, I've updated the entries with links in the calendar table to have a very light grey background. Hopefully not obtrusive, but a little more indicative than just having linked text in. I'm not fully convinced by it, but it is a little nicer.

Note that spoilers follow, so stop reading if you don't want to know.

I finally got to see the 'mini-series' of the new Battlestar Galactica today. Interesting. Where do I start picking holes ? Ok, that may not be fair for a start because it was actually quite good. And the prejudice you have to accept is that there were two series (well, one and '1980') of Galactica to get to know the characters. That's a whole lot of extra depth of characters to compare against.

Things you remember from the original attack on the colonies would include the attacks across Caprica and Adama returning home to find what has become of his family and being confronted by a mob. The former is done more 'spectacularly' by being done in the distant as 'nukes' of the colonies. Oddly, though, I felt worse when the Mothership returned back to Karak in Homeworld, having seen the cut-sequence and then seeing the burning planet. Why ? Maybe that's because it's a game that you're playing, so you feel involved. Apologies for the comparison between genres there, but as the planet was bombed that was my immediate thought.

So that's the planet's attack, ok. What about Adama returning home ? Like Kirk before him (ok, a little bit before!) here's the commander going into a dangerous situation... seems wrong. Instead, in the new one, we have Boomer (who's now an asian girl, not a black guy), and her companion (whose name I forget) making repairs on the planet. Very similar scene, but I remember it as much darker in the original than the almost reaffirming version in the new one.

Let's return to the opening. In the original Zak and Apollo (gosh, you'd think I'd not remember Apollo's brother's name, wouldn't you ?) on patrol discover a huge array of Cylons planning to attack the fleet under cover of 'peace agreement'. Zak is killed immediately and Apollo escapes to warn the fleet. In the new, Zak died in an accident years earlier, and was married to Starbuck (who's a woman now). You'll never stop me liking the old Starbuck, I'm afraid. The new one just looks like they transplanted the character without any thought. It doesn't feel right. Plus, of course, the Apollo-Starbuck friendship is much different now, and that dynamic isn't going to give the same kind of environment. Ok, so that may not be a bad thing in itself, but the characters seem isolated from one another in a lot of ways. That may be the development of characters from the original series playing with me though.

Baltar being an accomplice to the invasion has been retained, but he's not a weasely smuggler and trader; he's a genius brought into their fold directly. He managed to give the Cylons direct access to the military systems that let them destroy the colonies. This is actually quite a spark of genius in some respects, because it gives a meaning to his hallucinations as a sense of guilt. Or maybe he's really a cylon. Personally I reckon he's a Cylon 'sleeper' - the phrase was actually used by his hallucination. On the other hand, the crew know that he was instrumental in working on the defense systems and yet he's given unrestricted access to the ship and authority over other people's lives.

Which brings me to a point of confusion in the story; one moment Baltar decides to make someone on the bridge a scapegoat for the cylon data device on the bridge and then he's presenting evidence to Tigh about this. Ok, but are we to assume that he made that information up and imprisoned him just because he needed to ? Or did he actually do the tests ? We find out a little later that the guy was actually a Cylon. Ok. But lucky break, attempt to put off the humans in their search for more Cylons, or attempt at avoiding detection himself ? I don't know. I'm not going to worry about it, but it bothers me a little that we know so little about Baltar (intentionall) and yet this is left opaque - not because we couldn't know, because we've seen sections with Baltar on his own previously, but purely because it was assumed we'd understand or to keep us guessing. I don't like that. Keep us guessing because things are unanswered, not because things are omitted. The "what you didn't know was that Baltar didn't even test the guy's hair" method of plot manipulation is poor - I don't need to see such things most of the time, but when it's actually crucial to the character it needs a little explanation. Especially when everyone around him believes every word he says without question.

Ok, now let's talk a little bit about things that have been carried over neatly. 'cos I liked them. The general ship shape has been retained, but to be honest it's been 'sleeked' too much - why bother ? What's with the hangar bays retracting, too ? In a military ship are you really wanting a 3 minute period to deploy a landing bay ? The ships of the fleet - we never saw the other Battlestars, so I couldn't really comment on them; we did in the original, but there's the magical reappearance of one of the Battlestars in the mid-original series still to come, if they retain that. The convoy, though, was good. They retained a lot of the ships that you knew from the original. As an aside, I do rather like the inclusion of a prison ship in the convoy. It may not be the most appealing of notions for the last remnants of humanity, but it does give a better cross section, I think.

Now, here's a cute (but sad) bit. One of the things you assume about a programme is that the time taken to meet and interact with characters is important. I guess you also get used to it in games. If there's a button, it does something and it's important to the progression of the game. If there's a hallway with no apparent purpose, you probably didn't pay enough attention. It's less true in games now, but there's still something in it. It's more common in series, particularly where you have to introduce the characters quickly to get the watcher 'into' the programme. So, when the President (there's a President in this version; I'll say more in a bit) collects her surviving fleet and they're assessing the state of the ships they come to one of the argicultural ships. From memory these are in the original so you're immediately thinking 'yay', cute. And you meet one of the guys on the ship, and a little girl who's going to meet her parents on Caprica. There's a little time spent on it. Usually this wouldn't have been wasted as the ship's going to be destroyed in about 5 minutes time, but the whole scene and build up is meant to leave you wondering what was going to happen and shake you away from both your comfortable knowledge that the people you have got to 'know' and expect to live will, and also that you shouldn't make assumptions that things will be the same (as if you needed it really). But it was a good one for those that remember the show, because you shouldn't assume that the things you know will be safe.

Ok, the President. It's a woman. No problem with that. She's well down the leadership chain, fair enough. But Adama and she seem set to fight. Or maybe not. In the original, Adama was the fleet commander, and Tigh provided the military viewpoint, as I recall. Adama was adamant that the politics laid down by one of the other ships (this is a couple of episodes in and therefore clouding things) were disruptive. Here, we have the President making plans and, if not calling the shots, taking a reasonable amount of control from Adama. Original Adama could have done with that sort of presence, rather than taking all the weight himself. New Adama doesn't seem to need or want it. It seems intended to give a clash - in this sort of situation, with friends and family dead and fleeing for their lives you can expect clashes over much lesser things so as a plot device it seems a little unnecessary. But ok.

So we come to other unnecessary plot devices. Tigh's an alcoholic who's got marriage problems, and isn't seen to be able to command in the new one. In the old he was solid, and Adama could rely on him implicitly. Actually Tigh does kinda fit with the new series though. The ship's a museum piece and there hasn't been fighting for 40 years so any exec officer wouldn't necessarily have the chance to fight and so they might not be as focused as original Tigh. But anyhow, it doesn't seem necessary to the plot.

Use of sex on the series - unnecessary. Is it to attract an older audience ? Why ? Galactica original never needed it, so why do we need it now ? You don't have to have sex scenes or people fondling one another to show that they're involved. I'm not sure that there's much that the characters (as development goes) get much out of that. Obviously this is Baltar/#6 (she's referred to in other places as #6, but I didn't notice it in the programme).

What about Baltar's amazing appearance where Boomer landed. Ok, so if we accept that Baltar's a sleeper, and we saw at the end that Boomer is a sleeper/plant then the 'coincidence' of landing nearby is reasonable. Another case might be that the #6 Baltar was with informed Boomer of the location, but why save Baltar ? The other case that Baltar is truely accidentally involved as an instrument seems to 'lucky' for him and the fleet. The question 'why tell Baltar anything' when they're alone springs to mind. Like evil geniuses all the way back beyond 'Bond' she spills important information to him. If he's a sleeper then maybe he died in the explosion and his memory was transferred to another that was nearby, but in which case why tell him that.

The cylons are machines. They're logical. They're singleminded. They've chosen to infiltrate their creator's world by creating exact replicas, which makes sense because it's purely an end to a means. They don't care that they look like the people they despise. They just do it as to ensure that the humans are made dead. So why disclose information to Baltar. If he ever discloses any information gleaned from the Cylons he becomes a suspect because he shouldn't know those things as he wasn't involved in the attack. That's been made pretty plain and up front. But, even if he were to admit or be found out, the question of why he should be told anything, or why anything he's been told should be trusted is brought in to question.

Anyhow.

We know there are 12 models because of the dubious information given to Baltar by #6. Ok. We know that one looks like #6. One looks like the smuggler on the ammunition dump. One looks like the guy in the operations room who Baltar found. And one looks like Boomer. That makes four. Do we care ? Not overly, because we know who the primary mole is. And like in 24 (series 1!), we've expecting that there might be someone else after the primary is found out. Which is a pity because I quite liked Boomer (new one).

I've already mentioned the replacement of the male characters with females. Ok. But look again; Tigh was a strong black guy. Boomer was a black guy. Boomer's now asian, yes, but no other black people. I don't recall any other black people in the new one at all. Apparently the guy who plays Adama is Hispanic in real life. Ok. Maybe it's just odd to me that that diversity has been lost. It's replaced by another, but we've become used to, and accept that space series won't just have the token non-caucasian, but that they'll be an integral part of the programme. Maybe.

Or maybe it's me that's prejudiced because I don't see what I'm expecting. After all, there's no russian, scottish, french or any other of the groups that can be more readily recognised.

Technology. Yeah, ok. We're talking about ships that can travel using faster than light drives (nice touch in not explaining 'FTL', by the way - it's assumed that you'll all know - and I'm not even sure whether I'm being sarcastic there). And yet the attack is based on using 'nukes'. Galactica was hit by a nuke in her midships. Now, from what I remember from reading, a 50 megatonne nuke is a lot. 15 kilotonne was used to destroy Hiroshima; 21 kilotonne on Nagasaki. In general we assume that the Galactica is the size of a small city. A nuke around the centre of the ship is probably going to do a reasonable amount of damage, I think. I'm thinking more along the lines of gaping hole, rather than 'few fires'.

Instead of thinking of a nuclear weapon (which should be a trivial design and production problem for they Cylons), think of a FTL drive encased in a projectile / depth-charge weapon. We assume that the FTL drive is small, as it can be fitted to a scout ship like Boomer's, so this isn't unreasonable. There are now three choices; either you use it as an 'overload' system, basically using the energy that would have been dissipated by FTL to direct the attack. You could use it to transport another weapon to its target (why not - you just traverse the distance 'instantly', removing the possilibity of interception). Or you use it to transport another in the manner that it is intended and transport the nearby objects to another location - remember you don't need to define a destination because, after all you're trying to kill people. If you really need to define a destination because of the physics of the universe you're in, then define it as the centre of the planet - you'll destablise the core with an ingress of matter and that can't be good - and set every weapon to use that as the destination.

Personally I like this last option it means that you get many different forms of devastation, which accumulate to remove the possibility of life around the target. You have the fact that you've possibly just transported a city (we said the Galactica had FTL and was about the size of a city) somewhere that it shouldn't be. If that was the centre of the planet then you've just disrupted it and you're going to get earthquakes that are much more ranged than the single point of impact. You've got the effect of a few thousand km³ of matter suddenly not being where it was. That's going to cause a whole big problem for the remaining atmosphere of the planet. Oh and of course there's the fact that the matter I just mentioned included people who, whereever they end up, aren't going to be doing much.

So, after planning the military application of a FTL transport engine, the point is that a nuclear weapon (ok, not in the 50 megatonne range) is 60 year old technology for us. A FTL transport engine is something we couldn't put a timescale on developing because it's apparently impossible (at least to the best of my knowledge of physics). So you'd think they'd come up with something more powerful. Or maybe not 'powerful' but more different than such a weapon we know, and have known for longer than some of us have been alive.

Anyhow... after all that rambling what do I really think. I think it's pretty good. It has its rough edges in places and differences from the original, but it looks interesting. I can see why it would have a bad reception, and I can see why some changes have been made. So long as we ignore the preceeding series, it seems like it could be worth watching. Well, maybe not ignore, but treat it as is intended - a 're-imagining'. You can't say it hasn't been pushed that it's not the same as the original.

Beka: Been there, done that, got the t-shirt Rami: Oh, that explains your wardrobe [ Got the t-shirt; Beka Valentine; Andromeda ]

Well, I've just discovered channel 'nation217' or something or other, which is showing 'Virtual Horse Racing'. This is computer generated horse racing. Which you can bet on. Oh my god. How amazingly silly.

Ah well.

I dropped Helen an SMS or few today. She seems to be quite well, bored at work, but looking forward to going back to uni I think. Nice to speak to her again anyhow.

I'm migrating the entire 'old' movspclr site to gerph.org. Yup, I've finally done it, thanks to a little prodding from Jiggy. I'm, from now on, going to be using gerph.org for 'stuff'. Not sure entirely what stuff it'll be, but it gives me my diary if nothing else.

I was watching Room 101 repeat on UK Gold 2 earlier tonight whilst I was having supper, and it had Mel and Sue on it. And it just got me to thinking how great it was to have Light Lunch in the afternoons whilst we were at Uni. It made a nice fixed point in the day that gave you something to look forward to, and cheered you up to keep you going. Although we're on holidays now, (for uni people, obviously), there's nothing on at that sort of slot. Maybe there is during uni time. I guess I could even fit it in as I still have that kind of lifestyle. But anyhow. A nice reminiscence.

Now 'Blalock' is an odd surname. Not one that you'd forget.

I was watching Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan tonight and in the credits at the end, 'Steve Blalock' comes up at the top of the Stunts list. As I recall, 'Jolene Blalock' plays T'Pol in Enterprise. Two people with the same, odd, surname in Star Trek things ?

On the other hand, IMDB says nothing about any relationship, so I'm guessing it's just an odd coincidence.