Movie Gadget Friday: Battlestar Galactica (1978)
By Ariel Waldman 
posted February 15th 2008 9:37PM
posted February 15th 2008 9:37PM
Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.
Last time on Movie Gadget Friday, we entered the 8th dimension with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, but this week, we're setting the dial back to the 1978 version of the Seventh Millenia in the original Battlestar Galactica. Filled with feathered 70's haircuts, insect Ovion aliens, and, of course, Cylons, the movie is an underrated, campy classic.
Muffit II Robo-Daggit
Created as a robotic replacement to a daggit, Muffit II is a life-size, artificial intelligence prototype developed by Dr. Wilker on the Battlestar Galactica. Muffit II has an integrated visual response system, designed to help train the robotic daggit. By scanning a picture of a person into its circuits, Muffit II actively responds and interacts with them. The out-of-the-box system is able to handle basic moves such as sitting and wiggling its ears. However, with time, the robo-daggit can learn to be smart, performing such tasks as disarming Cylons by biting them in the leg while humans try to escape rapid fire. We're patiently awaiting a Muffit II vs. Roboquad throw down challenge. More after the break.
Colonial Viper
These triangular fighter probe crafts seem more jet than spacecraft, but their capabilities span both the not-so-friendly-war-torn skies and the vast depths of space. Packed with some serious laser-power, selecting 'FIRE' from the joystick cockpit controller will render an entire enemy ship to explode with just one well-aimed shot. Yep, just like that. The joystick also features 'TURBO' and 'IM' for controlling the three embedded engines. While 'IM' doesn't account for any inter-pilot text chat, pressing it does turn on the reverse thrusters, so as to narrowly avoid incoming attacks. Being green is also important in the Seventh Millenia: Colonial Vipers are said (by Wikipedia) to utilize "commonly occurring gases in planetary atmospheres to power the ship's fusion reactor energy source". With a fighter craft so slick, we have to question why the fleet would ever require such lame attire (like the LED-rope-light-lined fighter helmets).
Languatron
Barely classified as a handheld, this bulky device is designed to translate languages across alien encounters. The gadget comes with a built-in microphone / speaker for input of the spoken language as well as audio output of the translation. Despite its design pitfalls, the Languatron does have an impressive range for accurate translation, which is necessary when being within earshot of a potential enemy is close enough. We're certain the four red lights don't appear to indicate much beyond it being in use, but we'd definitely like to know more about why its UI designer decided it needed RETURN and LTR keys.
Ariel Waldman is a social media insights consultant based in San Francisco. Her blog can be found at http://shakewellbeforeuse.com.
Last time on Movie Gadget Friday, we entered the 8th dimension with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, but this week, we're setting the dial back to the 1978 version of the Seventh Millenia in the original Battlestar Galactica. Filled with feathered 70's haircuts, insect Ovion aliens, and, of course, Cylons, the movie is an underrated, campy classic.
Created as a robotic replacement to a daggit, Muffit II is a life-size, artificial intelligence prototype developed by Dr. Wilker on the Battlestar Galactica. Muffit II has an integrated visual response system, designed to help train the robotic daggit. By scanning a picture of a person into its circuits, Muffit II actively responds and interacts with them. The out-of-the-box system is able to handle basic moves such as sitting and wiggling its ears. However, with time, the robo-daggit can learn to be smart, performing such tasks as disarming Cylons by biting them in the leg while humans try to escape rapid fire. We're patiently awaiting a Muffit II vs. Roboquad throw down challenge. More after the break.
These triangular fighter probe crafts seem more jet than spacecraft, but their capabilities span both the not-so-friendly-war-torn skies and the vast depths of space. Packed with some serious laser-power, selecting 'FIRE' from the joystick cockpit controller will render an entire enemy ship to explode with just one well-aimed shot. Yep, just like that. The joystick also features 'TURBO' and 'IM' for controlling the three embedded engines. While 'IM' doesn't account for any inter-pilot text chat, pressing it does turn on the reverse thrusters, so as to narrowly avoid incoming attacks. Being green is also important in the Seventh Millenia: Colonial Vipers are said (by Wikipedia) to utilize "commonly occurring gases in planetary atmospheres to power the ship's fusion reactor energy source". With a fighter craft so slick, we have to question why the fleet would ever require such lame attire (like the LED-rope-light-lined fighter helmets).
Barely classified as a handheld, this bulky device is designed to translate languages across alien encounters. The gadget comes with a built-in microphone / speaker for input of the spoken language as well as audio output of the translation. Despite its design pitfalls, the Languatron does have an impressive range for accurate translation, which is necessary when being within earshot of a potential enemy is close enough. We're certain the four red lights don't appear to indicate much beyond it being in use, but we'd definitely like to know more about why its UI designer decided it needed RETURN and LTR keys.
Ariel Waldman is a social media insights consultant based in San Francisco. Her blog can be found at http://shakewellbeforeuse.com.
1) gotta love it
2) the 70's sure had a lot of wacky ideas
Does this review come with a free "personality test"?
Sadly, the Languatron will not translate the cultish language of Bushism.
Can anyone remember what night of the week the series originally aired? For some reason I remember it coming on Sunday nights but I could be wrong...
You are correct. It aired on Sunday nights.
Does anyone remember the Battlestar Galactica movie when they finally found Earth, and they came down to the surface and drove around on viper-like motorcycles that could fly? This is literally on the absolute edge of my long term memory, but I could swear that I remember this!
Galactica 1980... A sad ending to an interesting series.
And the footage was used in many a B sifi movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McgzrE6_LnA
My favorite gadget from the original series is Adama's excelent voice recognition system (that used a green phosphor screen).
Of course, my favorite gadget from the new series is D'Anna Biers!
It wasn't a movie - it was a spin-off series (only 10 episodes!). I actually remember watching it when it came out. It was called "Galactica 1980".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactica_1980
I frickin loved the whole Battlestar Galactica thing when I was kid!
Yeah I remember when they found earth. I always remember that a cylon was hauled away in a garbage truck at the end of the show.
I also read George Lucas became incredibly secretive about the Star Wars movie production after Battlestar stole a bunch of spaceship models which would have been used in the Star Wars series.
Thankfully the new series never had Boxy or Muffit on it. Whew. Hopefully they won't find Earth and land with invisible Vipers, or travel in time.........aka the 1979-80 Battlestar Galactica......
Actually, the new series did have Boxy in it, both for the backdoor pilot miniseries, and the first episode of the full series. In the end, most of his scenes were cut though due to the fact the kid playing the role went through a huge growth spurt between miniseries and regular series, and none of the writers could find anything interesting for him to do. Supposedly they killed him off in an early draft of a season one ep, but it was more of a joke and wasn't ever intended to make it to the filming script. I think they blew him out an airlock on accident or something... I forget now but it was hilarious.
Wasn't IM short for "Inverse Maneuver"?
I loved that old series. Starbuck, Apollo, the Cylons... Awesome show.
This was before my time...however, I have seen one movie from 1979 which I can declare to be the absolute greatest sci-fi movie of all-time: Starcrash. Hint: look it up on imdb.com or rottentomatoes.com. I don't want to give it away:)
The rope lighting in the helmet was meant to suggest the activation of a force field over the face instead of an actor obscuring plastic visor.
ericdano, Boxy was in the miniseries and a few episodes of Sci-Fi's series
Hey, Starbuck, you forgot to turn on your Inviso-thingy.
I regret my abortion.
The best thing about the robotic daggit? Inside the costume was a chimpanzee. How messed up is that? They put a chimp inside a costume. They would never get away with doing that today.
Man, beyond the series memories, I was so enamored with Daggit/Muffit in the series that I got a Muffit Xmas stuffed animal when I was kid. Had crazy amber plastic eyes and that cheap metallic material for the cyberne/robotic parts, along with Alf-like fur. I loved that damn thing...*sniff*... my parents have an Xmas story I will never live down cause of it. Tell you about it? Fuck no!
If you have a Netflix subscription you can go to their Play Live section and stream the entire series of the original BattleStar Galactica. Buck Rogers and Seaquest are there too.
Never mind all that -- what about the flying motorcycles from Galactica 1980? Those were the only things that did anything to redeem that show. I _so_ wanted one.
Mattel made the toys which shot small projectiles... they had to recall them and retrofit them with new pieces that only moved a little bit due to a kid getting shot in the mouth with one and choking.
Ah, those were the days.. when toys were realistic! =P
You forgot the LED calculator watches!!!
http://www.ledwatches.net/photo-pages/hughes-battlestar.htm
Don't forget the vaguely Max Max/Damnation Alley video for Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky" featured Galactica 1980 footage.
Yeah I'm a dork.