BSG podcast recap: Episodes 408, 411 & 412 commentary
Now that the show is over (for the time being), Ronald D. Moore got back with releasing podcasts this week. However, he seems to have skipped a couple in the middle.
As I’ve done in the past, I’ll just summarize some of what I thought were the more interesting parts of the podcasts. If you’re interested in learning more about Moore’s insights and details about each episode, you really should take the time to listen to the podcasts yourself. Now if only someone could sync up these podcasts with the Hulu videos, that would be awesome.
Here are the highlights …
#408 (’Faith’)
- The audio quality in this podcast is awful. He really needs to consider re-recording it for the DVDs, though in the next two podcasts he remarks how badly it was recorded and moves to doing them elsewhere.
- One of Moore’s favorites of the season.
- Originally Kara and Athena had guns drawn on each other during their confrontation.
- There was discussion about how bad Gaeta’s leg would be, which seems to me to say that it’s not entirely significant, leg or no leg.
- Mary spent three hours in a makeup chair for the bald cap.
- This episode marked the first time we saw a jump while looking out the window.
- Originally this episode had Baltar in it, spouting off politically. Instead they went with the radio.
- Moore considered the scene of the Six’s death a tribute of sorts to Lawrence of Arabia. If you know the movie you know what he’s talking about.
- Moore had a lot of good things to say about the hybrid actress, how she was able to stay immersed in that tub for hours on end without a complaint and memorize those complicated lines with ease.
- The network wanted the episode to end with the hybrid getting unplugged, before the patient dies.
- Moore goes on about Mary’s performance, not getting the Emmy, calling it a “fucking crime” that she hasn’t gotten a nod for her role yet.
- He remarks that the scene on the boat was clearly a dream, not a vision or from the afterlife.
#410 (’The Hub’)
- Much better recording, as he did it in the show’s editing room. This time he had writer Jane Espenson with him, along with editors Michael O’Hallorann and Andrew Seklir.
- Here’s a really interesting tidbit that might further put Billy out of the running as the fifth Cylon (as if there needed to be more reason). Billy was originally going to be in this episode as Roslin’s guide instead of Elosha but there was a scheduling conflict with Paul Campbell.
- Something like 20 minutes were cut. A scene in the opera house was cut, for one.
- Lucy Lawless had a caveat that she would come back “wicked” and not nice — unaffected now that she has seen the final five.
- Moore pointed out that this was the first time Cylon flight suits were shown.
- Lots of good production talk that’s better to hear for yourself.
- Baltar’s wound was not meant to be “Christlike,” as many people seem to have commented.
- Moore hated that Sci Fi put D’Anna’s “you’re a Cylon” comment to Roslin in the previous week’s teaser.
- Elosha won’t be “head Elosha,” as Ron put it.
#411 (’Revelations’)
- This time Ron was joined by writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, and editor Julius Ramsay.
- This podcast was recorded the day after the early premiere shown to a crowd on the Wednesday before it aired, in L.A.
- They remarked how it was convenient that they were allowed for Athena to “slip out” of jail, due to the circumstances.
- People in the audience (of the premiere) cheered when Tigh said he wanted to go out the airlock, which Moore said he thought was great.
- There was a much longer scene with Adama going bonkers over the news of Tigh being a Cylon; puking in a toilet, Lee pulling him off it, and him saying he “knew for months.”
- Kara was originally going to kiss Sam at one moment but they cut it out, during the moment of her finding out he was a Cylon — not putting a bullet in his head. The actors didn’t feel it felt right.
- Moore remarked how he and the other writers have a talent for painting themselves in corners and getting out of them. I can think of a few instances they’re surely talking about (”they have a plan” anyone?)
- Ron defended Starbuck not picking up a phone and instead running to stop the final four Cylons from being jettisoned. It was just more dramatic and felt right for the moment.
- First draft of the script had raptors going down to investigate the planet, to do recon, before sending down everyone else. Moore just wanted viewers to get that “boom” from hopeful to distraught — no time to wonder, just time to cheer and have the rug pulled out from under you.
- The music the final four Cylons heard was the rhythm to ’All Along the Watchtower.’
- Ron said this should play like it’s the final episode; yank the run out from under the audience and leave you hanging, but without that hopeful “to be continued” at the end (which he was adamant to Sci Fi not to include).
- Stole some scenes from ’Dirty Hands’ in the celebrating.
- The final scene originally had very definite looking skyscrapers still standing, much more “Manhattan looking.” More of the bridge showing, even. He made no mention of it definitely being Earth or it being purposely vague. It just wasn’t a subject he entertained in the podcast other than the mention of the original cut.
Movie Playlist: Andrew Stanton
Welcome to another edition of Movie Playlist, where we talk to the writers, directors, and stars about their favorite films. I’ve always found the celebrity playlists on iTunes to be interesting. Most everyone in the film business moved to Hollywood after discovering their love of films. And I’ve always love talking to people about their favorite films. So talking to the people who make the movies about their favorite films just seemed like a natural idea.
This week’s edition is with the Academy Award winning director of Finding Nemo, Andrew Stanton. The second animator and ninth employee to join Pixar Aniamtion Studios, Stanton is credited as a writer on Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, and Monsters, Inc., Stanton also served as co-director on A Bug’s Life. His new film WALL-E hits theaters on June 27th 2008. You can tell instantly that Stanton is a hardcore film geek. If I didn’t stop him, he could have talked about all of his favorite films, and the conversation could have lasted hours.
“It starts right off the bat with Lawrence of Arabia, that’s always been my favorite movie. I get something out of it every time. I’ve seen it maybe over two dozen times in the theater, and I just get something out of it every time I didn’t get before and I think Lean was just a master at cinematic storytelling. He just – every frame told you something in a way it was staged and how, and he was such a master editor, I just learned how economical to be with storytelling and cinematically from his work, and I just think that’s just the greatest film of all.”
“The next film for me is Lion in Winter which a lot of people don’t know, but I think it’s one of the cleverest – it’s actually from a play and it probably comes across not that cinematic, but that the interplay between the relationships of Henry the II and Aquatine and all their kids, the dialog is the best dialog I’ve ever heard in any movie, it’s just an amazing movie.”
Cool Hand Luke – loved that movie, it’s just, that’s a great allegory and it’s just, so much of that film is iconic.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind I was a huge fan, I don’t think Spielberg has ever topped himself with how much wonder is in that film. It just oozes wonder and I just loved that film.
Peter Sciretta: It’s funny you even say that because in E.T. there is that moment where they’re flying over the moon reminds me of the moment in Wall-E where he’s he’s going through the rings of Saturn, for some reason I got that same moment of wonder…
Andrew Stanton: “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment because I was a junkie for that stuff, to me that was the best, Spielberg at his best and Disney at its best really tap into that ingredient of wonder which is really hard to come by in films I feel. And even overall, just historically.”
“Now you’ve got me thinking Cinema Paradiso, I’m a huge fan of, just because I’m such a movie buff and I used to be an usher for a small art house theater in my hometown and that sense of being part of a little film house with all the quirks and eccentricities of all the locals and just seeing film after film all the time even if there were films you didn’t like but you could appreciate it just spoke to me in so much.
What kind of films influenced Wall-E?
“Pretty much it’s the overall amalgamation of sci-fi movies that I saw from the late sixties to the early eighties, it’s sort of a mishmash of just how they all felt to me, I mean they were all very different, they’re all over the map, but there was just… I don’t know I just felt like I was – from 2001 on I always felt like I was in good hands when the next great sci-fi film came and it always felt like you were guaranteed there was one coming either the next year or the year after that, you know, then because you had films like Star Wars, and then you had Alien and then Blade Runner and Close Encounters, and Silent Running and you can even go back a little earlier and go to Planet of the Apes, I mean they all were so awe inspiring, I just believed and I was so transported in each of those movies to whatever worlds and whatever characters were involved and I just loved it, I couldn’t get enough of it.”
“And I kind of felt like that went away, like somewhere in the late eighties into the nineties, I just wasn’t feeling like that anymore or I don’t know if they were making movies like that anymore. … They’re all over the map, all I know is that I felt transported in each of them and it felt in a specific kind of cinematic way and heck, I even loved Outland, you know, I was just you know, and I just wanted – I remember telling my crew when initially I was bringing them on. My D.P.s I said, and my Production Designer, I said, I want it to feel like we found Wall-E, the movie in a film can and it was made in the seventies and we just soft unearthed it and re-mastered it, so I said, I know that’s kind of an abstract thing, but that’s what I’m shooting for and then we just did a lot of analysis of what that meant, you know, down to like the kind of cameras and lenses that were used commonly on those movies and things like that.”
WALL-E hits theaters on June 27th 2008.
The Favorite Movies of the Presidential Candidates
We’re not a political site, so I won’t bore you with the important issues involved in the upcoming 2008 elections. Instead we have at some real hard facts which might help you decide who to vote for. That’s right, we’re taking a look at the leading candidates favorite movies.
H
illary Clinton (D-New York)
Favorite Movies: The Wizard of Oz (“When I was much younger [it] was my favorite movie. I just loved imagining myself being there with Dorothy and being part of that great adventure she had.”), Casablanca (”When I was in college and law school…””I watched it I don’t know how many times. It was always so much fun. By the time we watched it over and over again, we were actually reciting the dialogue.”) Out of Africa (recent years).
Favorite Actors: Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
B
arack Obama (D-Illinois)
Favorite Movies: The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Lawrence of Arabia
Favorite Actors: Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and Angela Bassett.
J
ohn McCain (R-Arizona)
Favorite Movies: Viva Zapata, Letters from Iwo Jima and Some Like it Hot.
Favorite Actors: Marlon Brando, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe.
Recent Movies: The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible, (”I like those kinds of things, the car chases”) The Departed, (”It’s pretty rough, but I kind of liked it. Nicholson plays too much Nicholson”) and Syriana (”I enjoyed ‘Syriana,’ although a lot of people didn’t”).
Discuss: Isn’t it strange that McCain was the only candidate with a movie made in the last 20 years?
Michael Pitt Disses Saw Fans, Soldiers, Funny Games Detractors
“Saw films are below par.”
Brooklynite actor Michael Pitt has come a long way from starring on Dawson’s Creek, and in the current issue of Giant magazine he delivers, in context, some particularly vapid-funny-traditionally-hipster quotes about the Saw franchise, U.S. soldiers and people who won’t/don’t “get” the March remake of Funny Games.
On his film preferences…
“I don’t even know what Saw or Hostel are. Are they like Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I guess I’m drawn to things like Lawrence of Arabia.”
And then he adds…
“[Audiences that don’t like Funny Games] can kiss my ass. I hope they do [get angry with] Funny Games. It challenges you. If you’re not up to the challenge, go see Saw.”
And not to get Fox News-y, but coming from Pitt, “one of the faces of Emporio Armani and a friend of author J.T. Leroy,” this quote equating being a soldier to regression is ridiculous…
“People think that, until you’ve killed someone or had someone shoot at you, you’re not a grown-up. Going to war isn’t growing up; it’s moving backwards.”