TetsuoShima Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Is Battlestar Galactica being sponsored by some major liquor company? Is it an ongoing commercial for alcoholism? Is it using alcohol as an alternative for smoking, now that such is no longer 'tolerated' on the screen (except for the obvious exception: the doctor, where it's still acceptable since it's hilarious/sarcastic/satirical to see a doctor as the sole chainsmoker in a series)? In short... What is it with BSG and booze and is heavy drinking replacing smoking as an onscreen addiction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GorunNova Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 If my home colonies had been decimated by evil robots, and I was forced to run through space for years looking for a mythical place of refuge, I'd be a hard drinker too. XD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones2097 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 extra load on the air filters ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 hydroponics, if any, are probably growing food only, not tobacco or similar plants. leftover plants can be recycled into alcohol for many purposes including medical and industrial so... as a stress reliever that is moderately available under the conditions of that fleet, booze works. you can find other things to fight boredom and stress but those include sex, which we already know the fleet is doing, fighting, which we have seen in the boxing episode, gambling, which we have seen as well, religion, which is all over the map with different sects on-board, and family life. families are a problem since so many members are dead. I suppose you could try playing games or starting a hobby. the entire fleet except very young children are probably suffering from constant shock and trauma. alcohol is about the only renewable medicine left to treat people. the overall short term affect is probably saving them more than the liver damage and addictive problems in the longer run. it helps now when they need it. the future is uncertain and they are trying to enjoy the present. ...or they needed advertising and booze companies paid well. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 It's kind of hard to miss. ::) As I see it, it depends on the situation... Most of the cases with excessive drinking has been in a negative way and has not been glorified. Tigh is a good example with a drinking problem. Another might be when Starbuck had to change her patrol which had consequences ("Scar"). There are other shows were they do drink (social drinking) brand liquor (clearly visible) and holding a drink in their hand for 20% of every episode, in situations that would be considered everyday, which is far worse in my opinion. :( Also I haven't "seen" any known labels on any bottles, yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Agrees with Hilander hell even in Star Trek lots of romulan ale was consumed and lets not forget the copious amounts of blood wine drank by klingons. Lets face it the warriors life is a hard one, remember Kat with the stims? so i guess being a warrior in the colonial fleet is all about sex an drugs an rock n roll. and with the jimmy hendrix/bob dylan ref in the final episode/s then hallucinogens are also popular lol. hmmm where can one sign up lol not to keen on rock n roll tho lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted June 18, 2007 Author Share Posted June 18, 2007 Well, what I was referring to, was more the way the drinks are used. Sort of as escapism, a means to escape the hard reality and promoting its use like that. That's quite a bit different from the use in for example star trek, where it's more recreational in use. What's even more disturbing to me however is the replies given by some in this thread, meaning, that people actually accept its use in this manner and see it as a 'good' thing... Now, I only started noticing this the last few epsodes I've seen (arriving at the end of season 2 now), so it may have been a temporary use of the 'stuff' and possibly seen in perspective of the coming episodes may hold some 'bigger' message (though I wouldn't know that quite yet at this moment). However, that still leaves me to wonder about some of the replies in this thread, but that's more a different discussion really. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalith Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Don't get me wrong TS I do not have any alcohol or drug problems, i used to drink quite a lot when i was younger now i barely drink at all. My sex an drugs an rock n roll reference was more a ref to the sex than anything else lol but i won't condone anybody for using alcohol or drugs for recreational purposes. In fact i would say in this age of government nannying some rebellion is essential, It's legal to kill yourself with a letheal injection of drugs but its illegal to smoke a spliff or to have a cigarette in a pub! it's always come across as being hypocritical to me and tbh what people do with there own bodies is no business of any government or media companies. Again i am not advocating or encouraging the use of drugs but I do question the reasoning behind such laws! We are less free now than at any time during the history of humanity and the more governments try to control peoples recreational activities the more people break these laws. During the 1980's in the UK various government organised advertising campaigns were introduced (Just say no, Heroin screws you up etc) the end result was a doubling of people with dependencies on drugs eventually leading to rave culture (which they also banned, government saying people can't party!), but i am going way off subject now huh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 ok, is this a topic about alcohol and life in the BSG universe or our own? one is not real but it's interesting to see what might happen to people under those terrible conditions. in the BSG reality with only a few humans left alive, booze is a good thing, IMO. it seems most of the crew ARE overdoing it a bit but it's a war with an increasing downside to it. the fight to survive is as much against harming themselves as it is against those Cylons trying to kill them. not to say that they all need to use it for stress reduction or escapism from their extremely harsh reality but the military who choose to go up against the Cylons do need something to keep from jumping out of airlocks when their adrenaline is high and no threat has shown up but might at any time. High threat levels cause people to do things they would NOT in ordinary moments. Adrenaline overdoses can cause other problems also: fatigue, grogginess, aggressiveness, cardiac stress, high blood pressure. Those soldiers under constant threat are time bombs. Something has to be used to take the edge off. **************************************************************** in our world, moderation/abstinence is more important. there are more people and we are (supposedly) striving for a better future for ourselves and the children. understanding alcohol and its chemical components as a mild poison and its affects on the genes of humans is something we are only starting to learn about in detail. synthahol is decades away. those with less cash/medical phobias do tend to find alcohol as a simple way to "self-medicate" anxiety, depression, and fear instead of finding a doctor. there are people who simply should NOT ingest alcohol just as there are people who should not eat peanuts. detrimental affects do happen. not everyone is going to have problems with them though. it is a personal choice that as long as it does NOT affect others should be respected and left alone as an issue, IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted June 18, 2007 Author Share Posted June 18, 2007 hehe, seems the topic has sort of evolved into a double spin, BSG + real life. :D Anyway, it wasn't my intention to point fingers or anything should it look like that. imo anybody is free to do whatever they want and whenever too, as long as it doesn't harm or bother anybody else directly (there are too many ways to bother somebody indirectly, so I'll leave that exception out :D ). For myself, I haven't had a more than a single glass of 'alcohol containing beverage' for over a year, I used to really overdo it though. But I grew up in that area and realised that it doesn't pay in any possible way. What I'm curious about now though, is the proposition that in such extreme circumstances people need an escape and that this escape is some form of addiction/drugs and whether or not that this is the best course of action in such a scenario? I wouldn't know, since I've never been in such a situation, but at first sight, I would say that it wouldn't be the best option to take... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 name some other options for down-time and relief considering they have limited resources and supplies. seriously. discuss this. ;) Edit: on a side note and a different but related topic, I noticed that in Jericho, people started to hang out at the bar more often....even after the owner had to start making her own hooch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted June 18, 2007 Author Share Posted June 18, 2007 Sports? Which is used by at least some of the crew as an alternative... Sleep? (LOL, I doubt it would work for many people though :D ) Surfing the web (eh, what web was that exactly? ( :cyclops: ) Well, seems that with 10s of thought, I could only come up with 1 alternative that might work for a majority of people. BSG classic used it too. oh, Building new and exciting spaceships? (forgot the name of the ep where the chief did his thing) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 You forgot... Jiggsaw puzzles! :cyclops: Then again the definition of Alcoholism is not very clear (depends of ones perspective, mine is "public", sometimes "personal" and most often "medical"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Sports? Which is used by at least some of the crew as an alternative... Sleep? (LOL, I doubt it would work for many people though :D ) Surfing the web (eh, what web was that exactly? ( :cyclops: ) Well, seems that with 10s of thought, I could only come up with 1 alternative that might work for a majority of people. BSG classic used it too. oh, Building new and exciting spaceships? (forgot the name of the ep where the chief did his thing) You forgot... Jiggsaw puzzles! :cyclops: Sports: limited facilities but boxing and Pyramid have been shown. Not everybody likes sports but the exercise could be required. Sleep: crew members probably get less than anyone else in the fleet. as skill levels go up, less sleep, more duties. Surfing the wahhh?: seriously, reading would be an option if they saved personal libraries or something on disk. Building new ships: Chief got spanked for doing that with limited/valued supplies. (ep. reminded me of Voyager,lol) Puzzles: good idea, check the fleet and see how many were saved and could be duplicated with the photo-copier. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Escapism is what make Baltar interesting. If it weren't for those frequent "visions" of his involving Number Six to comfort him... I'm sure he would have resorted to drinking instead, considering the huge baggage of guilty he's been carrying around, since day one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TetsuoShima Posted June 19, 2007 Author Share Posted June 19, 2007 Oh, ye, that was something very strange which I still haven't figured out yet, what exactly is going on with that. What makes it even more interesting is the equal and opposite reaction of the 'six model' he was close to when she was reborn and got the same tendencies as him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjnave Posted July 3, 2007 Share Posted July 3, 2007 Is Battlestar Galactica being sponsored by some major liquor company? In short... What is it with BSG and booze and is heavy drinking replacing smoking as an onscreen addiction? The pilots drink so much because pot smoking would make them to "chilled" for viper flying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilander72 Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Then there's the "stims" (amphetamine's sounds "bad" ;)) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amnot Borg Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Then there's the "stims" (amphetamine's sounds "bad" ;)) R.I.P. Cat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebrae Posted August 1, 2007 Share Posted August 1, 2007 It would be pretty unbelievable if people in the kind of high stress situation in BSG didn't have some release - they'd just have a nervous breakdown. It's not like they live on the flying luxury liner like Voyager or Enterprise where they can slope off on shore leave or go to a holodeck or anything like that... pretty much the only time they get to unwind is drinking and I'd agree, it's not as if it's ever portrayed in some glorious way. It's pretty clear that Tigh 's alcoholism has made him a shell of a man who has repeatedly been on the point of utter self-destruction. It's fairly obvious that Starbuck was worse for wear after her bout of heavy drinking. So, basically - it's pretty much showing that alcoholism is a bad thing. Which it usually is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now