In Space No One Can Hear You Moan

REMINDER!!! Dallas Webcomics Expo is this Saturday. I will be there with books and shirts and furtive glances and some sort of advice about webcomicing which will be delivered via panel format.

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Alternate Title: “In Space No One Can Hear You Cream”

If spaceship on spaceship slash exists (please please please), then I really only want to see the NCC-1701 D going to space town on a Star Destroyer (or maybe the Death Star if you’re into that kinky shit).

EXTREMELY MINOR SPOILERS BELOW… MOSTLY JUST OPINIONS

hijinks-ensue-godspeed-you-fancy-bastard-book-300x300So… Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. There’s one thing wrong with that title and it’s not the part that denotes what kind of ship most of the movie takes place on (hint: its the PLAN part… there isn’t one). I would suggest fans of the series PLAN to be super frakking disappointed. The Edward James Olmos helmed “Plan” plays out like spare footage from BSG seasons 1 and 2 (that should have been left on the cutting room floor) randomly stitched together and run through the Boring-O-Tron 5000 a few times.

Before you shout, “CYLON!” and start checking my spine for a certain mid-coitus glow, hear me out. The reason this direct-to-DVD feature feels like spare footage is because at least 1/3 of the film is comprised of… stock footage from seasons 1 and 2. In fact, Kara Thrace, Lee Adama, Helo Agathon, Col. Tight and a host of others ONLY appear in the stock footage. President Laura Roslin doesn’t even show her face in rehashed footage or otherwise.

The concept was sound. I would actually like to see what the Cylons were doing leading up to and after the attacks on the 12 Colonies. The execution is just sloppy, disjointed and ultimately uninteresting. It’s extremely Cavil-centric and he is one of my least favorite characters. His “mommy issues/Oedipal complex drove me to eradicate humanity” just doesn’t resonate with me at all. That sort of motivation would be a great explanation for a single murder or perhaps a series of failed romances and an inability to connect with others on a deep level. As for a reason to exterminate all life on 12 planets? Let’s just say Galactus had a more convincing argument with, “because I was hungry.”

/END MINOR SPOILERS WHICH ARE MOSTLY JUST OPINIONS

If you’ve seen The Plan and have an opinion, share it in the comments. If you haven’t seen it and wish to remain unspoiled, read the comments at your own risk.

WEST TEXAS COMIC-CON in Lubbock, TX was a lot of fun and a big success from a “was it worth it/will I do it again” stand-point. Thanks to everyone that came out to see me and to those that discovered HE right there on the spot. Special thanks to cartoonist and organizer Will Terrell for being such a fantastic host and making me feel so welcomed. Check out his webcomic “Super Zeroes.” Will’s a very talented artist (his coloring and line work are superb), and he’s just started his own EXPERIMENT to try and make a living doing what he loves. He will also be at the aforementioned Dallas Webcomics Expo on Saturday 11/14 and I encourage you to give him some of your money (after giving most of it to me… assuming there is any left… there really shouldn’t be any left if you did it right).

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32 Comments

    • Actually, of course, now that you've invoked rule 34 and have artistic ability you will have to end up being the one to draw it.

      And incidentally, if it were on a 4xl t-shirt, my credit card still has room on it.

  2. That is exactly what I thought !
    A Ton of wasted potential but it did make me want to watch the series again.

    Its too bad no Cyclon boobs )sadface

  3. Agreed, agreed… although it's kinda funny to think of Olmos saying before the project commenced, (In the patented Adama's rougher-than-Olmos'-face voice), "I always felt this show didn't have enough humping… Back when I did Miami Vice, we had a lot of humping… Those were the days… If this doesn't actually air on television, I'm going to make sure there's a lot of humping in this one… maybe even some schlong shots… that's MY plan…"

  4. The real odd match-up would be the death star hitting on the borg cube. (Something about round things and square holes…) With lines like:
    “You want to see how ‘fully operational’ I am?”
    “Contraception is futile.”
    “With one swift stroke…”
    “Resistance is futile, given enough lubrication.”

  5. Upon reading the comic, my expression matched the one in the third panel. Maybe it's because I unfortunately know that there's Transformers slash where the 'bots have "human" forms. I feel like digging that part of my brain out with a spoon.

    I thought "The Plan" was meh. The CG bothered me, especially, as it all looked like CG I myself could accomplish. (Trust me; that's a slam, not bragging.)

  6. If there isn't spaceship slash there will be now.

    Your right about The Plan, I made it 15 minutes in before shutting it off.

  8. The best part about 'The Plan' was seeing how Anders became the leader of the rebellion on Caprica. His character was so undeveloped/such a mystery in the show that it was nice to get that. And for the Simon models too.
    The Dorals are still a waste of space – I guess they are the comatose human model?

  10. I followed some posts about The Plan, so I knew that the majority of the main cast wasn't going to be in the movie. So maybe I was shielded from disappointment in that regard. (It was kind of like the Razor telemovie, where Baltar, Roslin, Sharon etc only made cameos.) Since the movie was about the Cylon perspective, if all the Cylons were featured in the movie, I would be happy. And for that reason, I was disappointed D'Anna didn't have a proper part in the movie.

    Oh Joel, funny Galactica strip as always, despite our difference in opinion 🙂

  11. [Oops, I think I hit a word limit. Part 2:]

    I enjoyed "The Plan" for what it was – a parallel story in the S1-S2 timeline, that explained why the Cylons living amongst the fleet so utterly failed in their plan to extinguish the remnants of humanity. It didn't do so in an action-packed, bombastic way, but through a measured, understated performance by most of the actors. I was initially bored by the goings-on of each Cylon, but when dark-haired Six summed up why they failed, it hit me that the seemingly ordinary failures by the Cylons all had a common, understandable reason behind it — love. (Well, except for Doral, but he was funny even in his failure) Then the mundane parts suddenly added up to a larger, much more powerful point. As with most of Galactica, episodes seem to reveal new layers of meaning as time passes.

    That "The Plan" reused footage from S1-S2 didn't bother me for some reason. I just felt that this added to the continuity of events we were familiar with, in a "oh, so that's what happened behind the scenes while the humans were doing so and so" kind of way. Eddie Olmos did an admirable job matching the color and lighting of the scenes so they meshed together, especially in the Caprica rainforest scenes. Six's hair was admittedly quite different to her S1 equivalent though.

  12. [Part 3:]

    I hate to disagree with Joel, but I totally bought Cavil's reasoning for eliminating humanity. The episode "No Exit" which revealed Cavil as The Big Bad was one of my favorite contemplative, sci-fi heavy episodes. Ellen called him a "petulant, jealous little child" whom she loved anyway, even though he killed the Daniel / Number Seven copies out of jealousy. That Cavil was a cold machine who despised his human form, and humanity by extension, would go even further and nuke the Twelve Colonies because he wanted to be the his parents' favorite, didn't seem like a stretch to me. The Cylons are immature children, their reactions are childlike (only much more destructive, because they have much more firepower). And their amateurish mistakes aboard the Galactica proved that.

    And then to watch a Cavil, slowly diverge from his models' path and come to understand his parents' perspective, and why humanity was worth saving, was just delicious, and his untimely boxing, ultimately tragic.

    And the climactic scene, to have two fundamentally opposed Cavils finally converge to stand side-by-side, in the face of oblivion (temporary, but surely painful), hold each others hands in comfort for however short a while, before they were blasted out into space was sublime. This, topped by Cavil's memorable speech about "not wanting to be human", "seeing gamma rays and X-rays" and "reaching out with something other than these prehensile paws", brought the first and central argument of BSG full circle: "Are you alive?" (Despite your artificial nature, do you have emotions? Can you love, hate, empathize, feel loss?) "Prove it."

  13. Wait a minute, didn't you technically create spaceship slash yourself? That comic about new Kirk wanting to hump the "space tentacles"-thingy glimpsed in the trailer, only it turned out to be the Narada? "Drop the shields, they dull the sensation" and so on.
    You can't say NCC-1701 without the NC-17!

    As for Battlestar, I always thought the Cylon plan was

    1. Nuke the humans
    2. ?????
    3. Profit! (or possible God. I don't know, perhaps they're the same thing.)

    -D

  15. Wow, checking out Will Terrell's comic, this is pretty sweet. Make's Corsetto's linework look like something slightly less profound than the resurrection after all.

  16. from wikipedia re: Farscape – "The protagonists live inside a giant space-dwelling creature named Moya, which serves as their ship". I seem to recall an episode where their ship gave birth to another ship, so as far as "spaceship on spaceship slash exists (please please please)", the answer is most likely 'yes'.

  20. Started reading HE from the beginning around one week ago (I LOVE IT! It's like you GET ME! It's like you have a clone of me and analyze my every action! And then draw about it!) and this is my comment cherry being popped. I, personally, liked The Plan. That is all.

  21. Just found this site, love it, and I'm taking some shirts!
    Face in 3rd Pannel = My face… *shivers*
    I will jump in and give my .02$ on the Plan. I enjoyed…although it should be said that I absolutley love John's character. I hate what he does, but I love the way he does it 🙂

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