I am now afraid of the moon

Over the past few months, I’ve finally got on the Battlestar Galactica train. I watched the original series when I was a kid, and even owned those Viper and Cylon Raider toys with Super Child-Choking Plastic Bullets™. I was excited to hear about the new series, but I didn’t get the Space Network so I sort of let it slide. Finally, a friend gave me seasons 1 & 2 on DVD, swearing up and down that I’d love it, and he was right. Fantastic show, as everyone knows.

But I didn’t realize its influence until yesterday, when I read this post on Collision Detection. Someone at NASA apparently likes Battlestar Galactica so much that they’re styling the next moon mission after it.

Check out this animated video pimping NASA’s project to return to the moon:

Doesn’t that look (and sound) just a little like the BSG opening? At first I thought this was a clever joke, posted on YouTube by someone who had recut the animation to look like BSG. But no, it’s right there on NASA’s site, on a page called A Vision for Space Exploration. You can find it on the right, under “Return to the Moon: The Journey Begins Now“.

As a reference, here’s the opening to Battlestar Galactica’s second season:

Look familiar?

The similarity is particularly noticeable when the music changes to the drumming bit at the end. And at around 1:00 into the NASA video, there’s a fake camera movement exactly like they use on BSG. Clive Thompson hits the nail on the head with his assessment of the similarities:

Actually, what really cracked me up was how strangely threatening the video seemed. There’s all this creepy, minor-key horror-movie music, combined with bleed-in text that ominously proclaims: “We took a giant leap … we stopped … we’re going back.” Then there’s a shot of a lunar vessel approaching and impassively snapping pix through its single HAL-like eye. Then boom! It’s all action, with a bunch of rovers thundering across the lunar surface like beetles while launch-ships swirl overhead, all set to unsettlingly thumpy action music. It feels precisely like the trailer to the upcoming Transformers movie … except in this case the invading, marauding aliens are us. Why, yes, we humans are returning to the moon — because we’re gonna dismantle it and SLAUGHTER ANYTHING IN OUR PATH.

“And they have a plan.” Perhaps we now know where the 13th Colony is going?

Posted by: Paul Gorbould | 05-16-2007 | 11:05 PM
Posted in: Television | Blather