Ramp Me Up, Tigh Me Down

One of the locations we’ve known about for some time but just haven’t got to yet is what we call the Cordova Ramp. In Season One’s “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down,” Six and Doral and walking down an empty street in Caprica City, talking about love.

Located on Cordova Street, near Thurlow, the ramp is the main access to traffic coming and going from Canada Place. I’d already learned how dangerous it is to take photos without the benefit of a film crew closing off the street, so the angle of our matching shot is a little off…but spacepug lives to keep scouting another day! More pictures from our downtown location scouting trip here.

BSG’s Final Location

Don’t worry, the 13th Colony hasn’t given up on Battlestar Galactica location scouting. In fact, we’ve been very busy over the summer and will be bringing you our findings over the next several weeks. First up is the last one. Our most recent mission was to the very last location seen in the series, the downtown modern-day New York locale where the “angels” Six and Baltar watched Ron Moore read a National Geographic magazine article about Hera. As it turns out, it’ was shot in a plaza near the corner of Hastings and Hornby in downtown Vancouver.

Over delicious hot chocolate at Mink, a chocolate cafe, we discussed what we thought of the final scene. More pictures here.

Because it is an Eloi-Nation

Apologies to AJ & Teddy, but here at 13th Colony, we consider Nat to be “one of us.”

Space Channel’s Natasha Eloi (seen above at the 13th Colony’s Frakkin End Party earlier this year) is in a fierce competition with her fellow Inner Space hosts to see who can sign up the most followers on Twitter. Her tag is EloiNation.

Caprica back on Location

by spacepug

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to see this empty chair in the midst of a crowd of extras and film crew today.  Caprica is back in Vancouver and was shooting today at the Central Library in Downtown Vancouver.   Polly Walker is the main reason I’m wishing January 22, 2010 would get here faster.  Not only is she an extremely talented actress (watch Rome if you are unfamiliar with her work), but she did so much with so little screen time in the Caprica pilot.  She made the character of Clarice seem sinister yet sympathetic, and absolutely fascinating.

Here’s a link to a few pictures I took of today’s shoot.  Nothing spoilery except for some costume items that give a sense of atmosphere.  Oh yeah, and some random guy in the crowd who I didn’t even notice was there until I got home and checked the pics…leave it to spacepug to miss the handsome leading man!

Since Caprica will be shooting in Vancouver for several more months, I want to make a couple of  things clear.  I will not publish shooting locations in advance.  I will not publish any photos that I believe are spoilers.  In general, I think true fans are much more careful of not spoiling something for their fellow fans since they themselves want to enjoy the show completely when it finally airs….many months from now.   What I will do is pass along whatever snippets I think will help keep fans excited and interested in what is coming.  Clear? Maybe not.  We will see…

We Are Coming, We Are Coming…

…to Atlanta!  Several members of the 13th Colony will be on hand for this year’s Dragon*Con in Atlanta.  We’re not just coming from Vancouver, but places across the globe, including bloggers spacepug and gem, as well as our excellent reviewer millari.

If you’re a reader of this blog and plan to attend, let us know in the comments below.  We’ll be pretty easy to spot thanks to the spiffy new stickers Frik and Frak are showing off below!  If you see us around the con, come up and say  “hello.”  The best part of these last couple of years running this blog has been meeting fellow BSG fans from all over the world, both virtually and in person, and this is just another great occasion to do so.

And what a great year for BSG fans to gather at Dragon*Con.  Guests this year include:  Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta), Dirk Benedict (Starbuck, for the original fans), Edward James Olmos (Adama), Kandyse McClure (Dualla), Kate Vernon (Ellen), Luciana Carro (Kat), Mary McDonnell (Roslin), Michael Trucco (Anders) and Richard Hatch (Zarek, Apollo).  Also attending (just not “officially”) will be Aaron Douglas (Tyrol).

Hope to see you there!

True North Strong and Geek

July 1^st is Canada Day, and 2009 marked our 142nd anniversary as a country.  We do much the same as everyone else around the world on their national holidays, we celebrate with parades and fireworks.  This year though, the sci-fi fans of Vancouver did something a bit different.  We banded together as a nation of geeks and marched under one banner.

North Vancouver’s Canada Day parade featured a contingent of science fiction fans dressed as characters from a wide range of genre favourites: Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, BSG, Firefly, Harry Potter, Men in Black and Watchmen.  A special acknowledgement has to go to the Greater Vancouver Stargate Meetup Group, whose members built a Stargate on top of  a van, making it appear as though the van was a makeshift puddle-jumper stuck mid-transit.  They did an awesome job.   So Say We All!

Off to See the Man on the “Moon”

Thanks to Mongrel Media, a group of ten 13^th Colonists are off to see an advance screening of Duncan Jones’ indie film Moon tonight at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas in Vancouver.  In order to select our attendees, we held a contest.  People were asked to submit a story of 100 to 300 words on the topic of “All robots are evil.  Agree or disagree?”

Once again, a huge thank you to all who entered.  It’s a joy to read the results of your creative efforts.  And let’s just say, I think the BSG fans must be missing our evil robots.  The winning entries are behind the cut.

The Robot on the “Moon” Might be a Cylon

Ok, perhaps that is stretching the point.

Moon is a sci-fi thriller about a man who has been alone on the Moon for almost 3 years, mining for Helium 3. As the end of his contract nears, there is an accident and he finds….himself. Sound like a familiar scenario? Familiar enough that Mongrel Media contacted us with the offer of free tickets! (Guess there are benefits to getting some national TV exposure!) And guess what, in addition to Sam Rockwell as the lead, Kevin Spacey provides the voice of GERTY, the robot on the lunar base. An artificial life form with Spacey’s voice cannot be good….presto…another BSG angle! This is the first film from director Duncan Jones, and it’s got incredibly good buzz in a lot of places.

There will be an advance screening of Moon at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas in Vancouver on Wednesday, June 24th at 7pm.  If you want to get your hands on a double-pass (Admits Two), you have until Wednesday June 17th at 10pm to write 100 to 300 words on the following subject:

”All robots are evil. Agree or Disagree?”

Amuse me, annoy me or entertain me.   Submit your entry by emailing me (Val, aka spacepug) through the Meetup page, or through our Facebook group.

Good Luck. I can’t wait to hear what you hear what you come up with!

Space Channel streams the “Frakkin’ End”

It’s almost old news by now, but I thought I would post this one anyway…

As part of their coverage of the finale of Battlestar Galactica, Space Channel (Canada’s science fiction channel) did a one hour Fandom Forum, a live broadcast featuring an in-studio audience of Toronto BSG fans, and some “live hits” out to Vancouver for the 13^th Colony’s Finale Party.  The complete one hour program is now streaming online, broken into seven segments.

In my admittedly biased opinion, here are what I think are the best bits:

Part 1: 2:08 to 3:13 (intro to the Vancouver party)

Part 2: 4:30 to 6:11 (Ahem…Spacepug, aka Madame President, and the Hybrid)

(Parts 3, 4 and 5: Alas, no us.)

Part 6: 3:10 to 3:55 (RDM, MM & EJO thank the Canadian fans)

Part 6: 3:56 to 5:36 (Natasha interviews our Six, Baltar, Starbuck and Tyrol, plus the Hybrid)

Part 7: 3:45 to 4:41 (Wrap up from Vancouver)

Congratulations to everyone who participated, on both ends of the country.  Space was thrilled with the ratings for the show, and with their first ever fully live broadcast.  We’ve extended the invitation for them to come back to Vancouver for another special in conjunction with “The Plan” in November or “Caprica” next year, so keep your fingers crossed.

One Night on Caprica

by spacepug

As expected, our Caprica viewing party was a big draw.  43 of Vancouver’s 13th Colonists  came out, eager to see if they’ll have a new show to follow next year, one that will capture their imagination and loyalty the way Battlestar Galactica did.   The reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with most people saying the pilot either met or exceeded their expectations.

I didn’t give in to the urge to watch the bootleg version of Caprica when it appeared online prematurely, though I had seen a couple of scenes that were leaked months ago.  I figured I had seen just enough to help me choose decorations and a theme for the 13^th Colony’s Caprica viewing party.  I was quite proud of the glowing blue infinity symbol we suspended below the TV and the paper lanterns dangling from the ceiling to represent the 12 colonies.

Then I got the brilliant idea to turn the viewing party into a dance party….since I had seen a couple of flashes of what looked like a nightclub scene.  I told my members “we’re going to show those crazy Caprican kids that we also know how to get down.”

If you’ve seen the show, you’ll know why I have since decided we have nothing new to show “those crazy Caprican kids” and quite frankly, I would prefer not to mix my dancing with v***** s********.

So, even though there will surely be more Caprica in our plans, there won’t be any more Caprican dance parties.  But it was kinda fun to spin “Mr. Roboto” by Styx just one more time…