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The Old Battlestar Galactica and Seven Days in May

As I noted some time ago, the old Battlestar Galactica movie had its own preposterous political message suited to the atmosphere of 1978 America. In a not-very-subtle dig at detente with the Soviets, the old BSG plot has the bumbling Quorum of Twelve (advised, as always, by the sinister Gaius Baltar) on its way to […]

As I noted some time ago, the old Battlestar Galactica movie had its own preposterous political message suited to the atmosphere of 1978 America. In a not-very-subtle dig at detente with the Soviets, the old BSG plot has the bumbling Quorum of Twelve (advised, as always, by the sinister Gaius Baltar) on its way to make peace with the Cylons, ignoring the urgent warnings of Adama (Lorne Greene), whereupon almost all of humanity is annihilated by a surprise Cylon attack. It was a sort of an inverted Seven Days in May: the desperate longing in some quarters for a Burt Lancaster or Lorne Greene military commander who should have seized power and saved humanity! No more Munichs! Hurrah! The contempt for civilian government (at least when not run by your kind of people) that the original BSG exuded (something the new BSG does not possess, thank goodness) is as absurd as the contempt for the military conveyed by Seven Days in May. They are mirror images of each other, both being hysterical fables embodying the most irrational fears of neocons and liberals, and it is therefore not a surprise that both movies are also really, really bad.

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