The Journey of a Sci-fi Hating Person – Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries – Part I

I love experimenting with my parents because they represent the audience I wanna reach. I don’t have many issues with my dad because he likes movies, television and music as much as I do (I gotta get it from somewhere, right?). He’s into big Hollywood blockbusters and foreign commercial film-making — because he’s so used to subtitles. Thus he’s my guide to measure how successful an arthouse film might be with general audiences.

If he falls asleep in your arthouse film, I would consider your film a niche film. ‘Nuff said.

My mother, on the other hand, I swear she has A.D.D. or something. She has a very short attention span to anything that’s outside her interest. In film, that includes historical films about Word War II (she loves Holocaust movies) or any important historical event on film. She also loves Disney animated movies. I always joke that her perfect movie would be if Disney ever decided to make an animated film (with music) about the Holocaust — which I guess it’s a no-no for society, because it HAS to have the music.

Life has enough drama, why would I pay to see drama in a movie unless it’s real.” – Amy’s Mom.

Her favorite TV shows are CSI (of the Grissom-era), CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Criminal Minds, NCIS, Law & Order — and all its branches. Seriously, the television is stuck on it. She watches nothing else on TV besides that and political news. She watches those shows, but she doesn’t follow them. She doesn’t watch the show by seasons, she just watches them because they’re on TV whenever the TV is on.

The few times I’ve managed to take my mother to watch movies she wouldn’t watch, it’s always been lukewarm, if not downright failures. She fell asleep during Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, waking up when Natalie Portman fell from the ship and the lady in front of us coughed so loud it was heard above all the speakers at the theater.

She’s also fallen asleep on The Matrix Reloaded when she woke up during the rave scene. X2 had a better reception, but she still dismissed it as a special effects movie while calling it “that handsome man movie” for Hugh Jackman. LOL But who can blame her, Hugh Jackman really is dashing, isn’t he?

My mother gets bored with action movies and she has this perspective that sci-fi is the most silly genre of them all, so it was a HUGE surprise when I told her I wanted her to watch Firefly and find out she loved it. But that’s a story for another post, what I really want to do is talk about my mother’s journey while watching Battlestar Galactica.

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

22 Responses

  1. Mirella says:

    Now this seems interesting :D I will definitely stay tuned :D

  2. Camiele says:

    Indeed, this DOES seem interesting. Your parents are hardcore…HaHa. Especially your mom…”Life has enough drama, why would I pay to see drama in a movie unless it’s real.” Really, though…? HaHa!

    • amy says:

      @Camiele, she hates fiction drama. There’s that saying in Spanish – “Para drama, la vida.” I think she hated to love Grave of the Fireflies, because she usually leaves or does something else (A.D.D, remember) when she doesn’t want to finish a movie, but she stuck around to watch all of that – Japanese animation about WWII hahaha, that’s the closest to her perfect movie.

      Anyway, I gotta admit I’m not a big fan of sci-fi either, besides from a passing interest in Star Wars, I find Star Trek boring too (except for the last movie). But I really did love Firefly after my friend took me to Serenity and lent me his DVDs. Similar story to Battlestar, another friend told me to watch the miniseries. Though, it took me wayyy longer to finish season 1 because the broadcast had extra episodes that contained bits of the miniseries and I felt it was repetitive.

      Once I finally went through that first season, it was easy to finish the show. LOL Fan for life~ xD

      • Camiele says:

        @amy, HAHA! I’ve never actually watched Battlestar. I’ve heard of it’s epicocity, though…HaHa.

        Speaking of sci-fi (which I actually happen to love…for the most part. Not a Trekkie and i can do with or without Star Wars), your avatar reminds me of the movie Paprika. I don’t know if you’ve seen it or realise how AWESOME it is :)

        • amy says:

          @Camiele, pshhh – of course I’ve seen Paprika ;)

          It’s one of the most popular animations from Japan from the last couple of years, I think – even got a theatrical release in the US or something because it’s a staple “film blogger” film haha.

  3. Julyssa says:

    Lol, your mum and mine are pretty much the same. My mother has this love for anything with crime. She loves to watch reality shows/documentaries about real crimes – yet she despises CSI! It’s nuts!

    Anyway, I find this whole experiment quite interesting and funny. Lmao, we should make it to a regular thing on YAM xD

    • amy says:

      @Julyssa, I think it’s a “parent thing” to watch all those other crime shows, and I think it’s got to do with no one targeting them as demographic.

      A regular thing to experiment with our parents? I can do that xD I hope my mom watches the whole show, I have interest in seeing what her take on the religious part of it will be haha.

      • Julyssa says:

        @amy, My dad is a huge music lover, perhaps I can experiment with him and some Asian music xD It could be so much fun.

        • amy says:

          @Julyssa, I can’t experiment much with my dad because he pretty much listens and watches anything that’s available to him. His only my measure of mass appeal. xD

      • Rodrigo says:

        @amy, I got my mom into watching American Horror Story – despite my mom not liking the horror genre – and she liked it more than I did, lol. She mostly watches telenovelas. And last time she saw something American was HBO’s Big Love.

        With my dad, it would be nearly impossible to get him into watching TV shows since he’s a busy man. Last I remember him watching a tv show from the last ten years was HBO’s Rome.

        • amy says:

          @Rodrigo, maybe your dad likes historical things xD. How does your mom find the kinky in American Horror Story? My mom used to watch Nip/Tuck on/off because she thought Julian McMahon was hot hahaha.

        • Rodrigo says:

          @amy, My dad is also a Trekkie, lol.

          Mom finds the show fucked up, yet interesting and likes Jessica Lange a lot.

  4. Rodrigo says:

    Your mom reminds me of my bro in tv habits. He pretty much watches CSI (the original, Miami and NY, but not Vegas), 2.5 Men and Simpsons. He likes them, but he watches them when it’s on. And tv news at night.

    I tried to get him into watching The Big C yesterday, but he didn’t care.

    • amy says:

      @Rodrigo, I think The Big C is a tough show to get into. Have you tried Dexter? I tried Dexter with my mom but she thought Dexter talked too much. LOL She has no issues with him killing people, she has issues because he talks too much to himself. xD

      • Rodrigo says:

        @amy, I saw a few episodes of Dexter. Sometimes great, sometimes not.

        And it wasn’t hard for me to care about The Big C. Maybe I could catch up and review the second season later on.

        • amy says:

          @Rodrigo, I found Dexter and general cable shows are better when you start the show from episode one, unlike things like BBT or CSI haha. The first season of Dexter is probably the best one.

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