[dylan604]

>with some deep religious and philosophical elements that I'm not sure everyone is ready for.

This is how I felt about Battlestar. I barely remember watching the original series as a kid, but I just remember a couple of character names, Cylons (which I thought were cool), the space ships, and the human in the dark room ontop of the pyramid shape the Cylons talked to. That was it. Then I watched the reboot, and was shocked by the religious overtones. Clearly, I never researched anything about it until that point, and then it all made sense.

I'm nervous about Buck Rogers (biddybiddup, what's up Buck!) might turn out the same way on a reboot.

[bigmattystyles]

Religious overtones or are ancient religious texts the original sci-fi where its adherents a few generations removed never got the memo? Only kinda joking. I too picked up on battlestar, resurrection, the twelve tribes (or colonies?) lords ok Kobol and so on. I think someone told me at some point the original was Mormons in space.

[Galacta7]

The original show's creator, Glen Larson, was a Mormon - so it tracks that the show incorporated a lot of that theology. Also, one of the main antagonists is Count Iblis, someone who seeks to lead the colonists to follow him, though he is revealed to be essentially a prince of darkness. "Iblis" is the Islamic name for Satan, so another religious element. Even his backstory is similar to the Abrahamic view of the devil, "he [Count Iblis] was previously a Being of Light who fell from grace after using his powers for evil purposes."

Ron Moore's reimagined version of Battlestar includes strong themes of reincarnation and life being a cycle, which also tracks with Moore's past interest in Hinduism and other Eastern religions.

[WalterBright]

You can never reboot Max "perhaps you should execute their trainer" von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. Melody Anderson. Queen soundtrack. A true masterpiece.

[geoelectric]

That’s Flash Gordon.

[WalterBright]

Flash! Ah-aaaaaa!

[RajT88]

GORDON'S ALIVE?!?!

[WalterBright]

Bring me back his body!

[drewcoo]

BSG was always "Mormons in space." With recycled props from Buck Rogers back in the 80s.

Buck Rogers was not religious. It was pure episodic adventure. The TV series has nothing on the (or any) Buster Crabbe serial from the 30s.