Battlestar Galactica

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drnewel
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Battlestar Galactica

Post by drnewel » 04-15-2006 10:39 PM

Dr Newel
Marxist Analysis of a TV Show
30 March 2006





Battlestar Galactica


The Sci Fi cable channel (Jan 14, 2005) debuted a new series Battlestar Galactica: Battlestar Galactica . The description of the show indicated that “An interstellar warship,” named Galactica “protects survivors of a decimated civilization,” (http://www.tvguide.com). What we find is the typical military style uniforms and hypothetical button pushing to spaced based nuclear generators. The set up is on board a ship where a democracy form of government and a military rule by force. They essentially have a civilization based upon hunting and gathering in space.

I have always thought about the American Military structure as a Marxist regime because there is a struggle between the Bourgeoisie being the officer class and the Proletariat the enlisted class (Berger 2005, p. 51) and in many types of Science Fiction genre shows we see the relentless use of these classes with their uniforms operating non functioning buttons that are never clearly labeled being the same as their American Military role models: the science fiction military regime model of officer and enlisted structure on board a space ship seems to be a formula for these shows. Never do we see a gradation of ranks to Captain of a space ship or do we see a collective of independent personnel all working together to operate a space ship or never do we see a completely automated space ship. I think that the most “science fiction” type of future projection of how a space ship would operate would be completely automated operations of the flight controls. What we see and what Battlestar Galactica shows us is “a decidedly grim saga” of a future of Military Gestapo types running around the galaxy saluting and goose-stepping against a relentless enemy named The Cylons (http://www.tvguide.com). The show sets us up in to a world of a class struggle between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat officers and enlisted crew of a flying flight deck operations control center precisely as described in a class struggle of classic Marx (Berger 2005, p. 51) where they use these classes to perform the work of a typical operations of flight sorties.

The basic model of civilization of the butcher, baker and cobblestone maker under study is basic: the base of any civilization under study by Marxists would include an owner of something where the raw materials are distributed in a system of symbolic wealth to the classes in a few industries where for example the owner of the bakery would be the upper class manager. What we have in Battlestar Galactica is a way of production of a type of hunting and gathering going on in a chaotic flight analysis path through out the Galaxy. In the parallel debut episode Battlestar Galactica: 33:

Adama (Edward James Olmos) pushes his exhausted crew to the brink to keep the fugitive fleet out of the Cylons' clutches. Meanwhile, Baltar (James Callis) fears President Roslin (Mary McDonnell) will learn of his role in the Colonies' destruction. Starbuck: Katee Sackhoff. Apollo: Jamie Bamber. Number Six: Tricia Helfer. Boomer: Grace Park (http://www.tvguide.com).

We see that in their running from the Cylons they jump through hyperspace 33 times and try and search for water along the way where their source of raw materials is from the aspect of that of a gathering and wandering type of civilization. They eventually discover that the automatons (robots), “the Cylons as creatures that rebelled against their creators… can infiltrate their `ragtag fugitive fleet' by taking human form,” have penetrated their flight operations and have spied upon their destinations in that they thought were confidential in nature thusly sets up the plot of jumping around to the point of exhaustion while trying to outrun their enemy whom are the Cylons. The military on board the space ship eventually find a planet with water and then distribute the raw materials in a kind of rationing amongst the fleet of the decimated civilization flying along side them. In the episode Battlestar Galactica: 33 once they discover the spy, they are free to roam around the Galaxy exploring and finding their way to earth.

Premise: An interstellar warship protects survivors of a decimated civilization with a race of android predators in hot pursuit in this dark update of the 1978-80 space adventure. Unlike its `Star Wars'-influenced predecessor, this `Galactica' is a decidedly grim saga that portrays the Cylons as creatures that rebelled against their creators, who soon discover their foe can infiltrate their `ragtag fugitive fleet' by taking human form. (http://www.tvguide.com).

The owner of the raw materials would thusly be the military on board the space ship where they then distribute the water to the bored and helpless working class of Proletariat people that are being Alienated (Berger 2005, p. 53) - Bourgeoisie and Proletariat (Berger 2005, p. 51). There is no system of capitalism of where money is exchanged for example to a baker for the day’s bread on board the Galactica because the collective of space ships is under constant running orders from the flight operations control center ordered around by their President left over from their home planet that once had a democracy before it was attacked by the Cylons.

Battlestar Galactica is a show in the science fiction genre where the center of action is the future military section of the flight operations control center of one of the flag ships of a space ship armada. The military of the ”grim future” is on board the flight operations control center and is given democracy type orders by a left over president from a “decimated” civilization on the run from essential doomsday-robotic-automatons whom can take human form and relentlessly try and destroy them by the political betrayer’s orders of Baltar. The Bourgeoisie of the Officer Corps from the Galactica alienate the civilian fleet, and the lower ranking enlisted classes that comprise the Proletariat. The world view from the creators seems to be that a military Fascism is going to be our future and that in the future the only way to survive would require an embracing of the military based production of goods and services that would place us in the gracious protection of an oppressive military officer corps. A superstructure exists of a democracy from the former civilization that had been destroyed and we see the sharing of power between that and the military flight crew.


Bibliography
Berger, A. (2005). Media Analysis Techniques. California: Sage Publications, Inc.
Last edited by drnewel on 04-15-2006 10:45 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Dr. Newel

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Some people don't like this show..

Post by Lord Moon » 04-16-2006 01:50 AM

And I'm one of them, I remember when the original series came out.. Harlan Ellison called it Battle Star Galaxative...

The only thing this show has going for it is better acting, and the filming technique which tries to make it look more realistic, live action video...changing every few minutes to be in sync with the average y generations attention span....

But otherwise it's a Babylon 5 on Wheels.....the Science fiction network has really gone down.... while I'm at it they also destroyed Stargate, and Stagate Atlantis, I can't watch either one of them for 5 minutes without getting a headache.... ouch....

If they were going to revamp some other series, since they can't come up with anything original, I wish they would have chosen the Invaders, the one with Roy THinnes... anyone remembe that?

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