The line in the title of this post comes from a TV science-fiction series the boys from the Foo clan loved when young. Not all the three boys at home, but just my elder brother and myself. The series was Battlestar Galactica, and concerned a space battleship leading the remnants of human colonies after getting pwned by a nasty robotic race called the Cylons. The series first began as a movie (which my dad brought us to watch on the big screen in 1979), and then as a TV series showed and repeated several times on the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Channel 5 in the early 80s.
How did the Foo boys get into this sort of thing? Well, it sort of started with Star Wars actually, which our dad had also brought us to see at the then Odeon cinema just a few years earlier in 1977. I still have vivid memories of walking along Bras Basah road and getting awed by the huge canvas painting of the cinema poster. Battlestar Galactica was one of the several productions that was created to satisfy the new demand from Star Wars nerds who wanted more of this new space-opera phenomena and spectacle of space fighters darting around their foes with laser beams. OK, so the series wasn’t that great, what with the cheesy acting and the often recycled dogfighting scenes. But I loved it. So much that I even spent my time drawing space fighters during my PSLE exam paper (I remembered my invigilator stopping to look at my doodles!), and even comic strips featuring characters and objects from the series.
It’s funny, because 25 years later when I watch these movies and productions I still feel as giddy as I was a 12 year old boy back then. Oh, the old Battlestar Galactica series hasn’t aged well at all, but the series was ‘reimagined‘ (i.e. remade) for the new generation of sci-fiction movie lovers in 2004. The general plot outlay remains the same – a space battleship leading the remnants of human colonies after getting pwned by a nasty robotic race called the Cylons – but all other sensibilities have been given a 21st century makeover. The visuals have improved with CG, the plot is much thicker with all the shades of grey, and the good guys this time don’t win all the time.
I don’t as a rule watch episodic productions on broadcast since they require the regular time slot commitment that’s difficult when you hold a job. I follow this series, like the other TV dramatic series I adore (X-Files, Star Trek Voyager, The West Wing, Rome, Grey’s Anatomy etc.), almost exclusively on disc. The new Battlestar Galactica series has finished its third year of episodes not too long ago, and will begin its fourth and final season shortly. I figure a part of me will feel the same closure when the series ends since it’s been a journey that has sustained the fascination with fantastic story-telling from young. But there’ll always be new stories that’d be told, and I for one will continue to be the giddy school boy when I follow them.:)
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