BobO'Link

May is upon us, so it's time, once again, to take a look at your dusty, unopened box sets, your unwatched stacks of Blu-rays, DVDs, HD-DVDs, LDs, VHS or Beta tapes, your DVR, your Netflix queue, etc., and decide what you think you should spend 31 days watching. Now's your chance to finally watch all the stuff that didn't fit, or that you just didn't get around to, during the other Challenges.

Since you choose your own Challenge theme, you make the rules.

There are, however, a few guidelines which everyone should follow.
The Challenge runs from April 30th at dusk to June 1st at dawn.

Please state your challenge theme and your challenge goal and rules (if any) at the top of your list(s) in the list thread so others can tell what you're doing.

Please don't duplicate an existing "Official" DVD Talk Challenge.

This guideline is mainly here so we don't subtract from participation in any of the other Challenges, and to encourage participants to focus on genres not already covered by a Challenge, but since everyone's "need to watch" list is different, and you're able to watch stuff that qualifies for one or more of the other Challenges during every other Challenge, you're free to narrow the focus of one of the broader "Official" Challenges.

For example; Say you only collect horror, then you could make your Challenge to watch just horror films, or just horror TV shows, or just zombie films, etc. Or if you have lots of unwatched Sci-Fi, then your MYOC could be just watch Sci-Fi movies, or watch Star Trek shows, or watch TOS, etc.

Since we already have Monthly "Unwatched Media Pile" Threads, please do not use that as a theme.

During past MYOCs people weren't happy with this being used as a theme, and I tend to agree that it is a little lazy, so please give a little thought to your theme and come up with something a little more creative.

Check out the previous threads for ideas:
2010 discussion thread.
2010 list thread.
2011 discussion thread.
2011 list thread.
2012 discussion thread.
2012 list thread.
2013 discussion thread.
2013 list thread.
2014 discussion thread.
2014 list thread.
2015 discussion thread.
2015 list thread.
2016 discussion thread.
2016 list thread.
2017 discussion thread.
2017 list thread.
2018 discussion thread.
2018 list thread.
2019 discussion thread.
2019 list thread.
2020 discussion thread.
2020 list thread.

TheBigDave

Thanks for doing it again this year. This is always one of my favorite challenges (along with Halloween & Christmas).

I usually do 80's movies. But this year I think I'll do 70's & 80's. That'll cover my childhood.

Cardsfan111

I love this challenge and try to be creative. I'll probably copy what I did last year, however. I spent some time going through special features (commentaries, making-of-docs, etc)

Dimension X

Thanks for running it again. I have more time this year than I did last year, but it's nice to have no responsibilities.

I'll probably just do comic book movies (and TV shows) again. I have a bunch of those sitting on shelves unopened and unwatched.

davidh777

I’ve been watching Star Trek all year and shoehorning it into whatever challenges I could, so this will be easy.

BobO'Link

Right now I'm planning to do a Battlestar Galactica rewatch by watching the original series and then finally cracking open my BR set of the newer version for a viewing. I keep putting off watching it and this is as good an excuse as any to finally get that done. It's not because I don't like the series but more that I really like it and tend to save favorites for "special" times. Kind of a "save the best for last" mentality. I really need to stop doing that with movies and TV shows...

davidh777

Trevor Please contact a mod about your multiple accounts

WallyOPD

I think I'll go with a sports theme this year. I've never watched the Friday Night Lights TV series so I can use this as an excuse to start it.

Indy24LA

Per usual, I have no idea what challenge I wanna do. Hopefully something will come to me.

Crocker Jarmen

Hmm, I'm thinking of doing a "Films In Which Nobody Is Killed" Challenge, because it'll make picking movies more difficult. Unless it's a movie I know really well, I won't know if a movie qualifies for my list until I've watched it. I like the idea of just watching whatever I feel like, and then seeing at the end of the month how many movies didn't have a killing in them.

shadokitty

It might change in the future, but I will likely work on action/adventure and documentaries. A lot of my DVDs are action shows, especially 80s cartoons.

popcorn

I'm trying to decide if I should do the Nathan Jones' ABC Challenge (pick a title from your collection for every letter of the alphabet... I need an X and a Y) or finally watch all of Breaking Bad. Decisions...

shadokitty

For my first official watch of my challenge I got in a double credit viewing. I just finished watching Battle Beyond The Stars on Comet. That might be a good channel for my Challenge.

lisadoris

I think I'm going to make my way through the films in my collection that I haven't watched in a few years.

Cardsfan111

A more specific motivation for this approach is to open up the Shout Factory set of Friday the 13th I bought a few months ago. I didn't want to hold off doing so until the horror challenge in October. There's so much extra content, I could probably make this my entire focus for May.

I watched the uncut version of the original film with commentary this morning and the extras on that particular disc. I think I'd seen all these special features on other releases, so I'm more anxious to get to some of the "new" stuff soon.

BobO'Link

I watched the first 4 episodes of the original, 1978, Battlestar Galactica. This is the 3rd time I've watched the series since its original airings. In 1978 I pretty much gave up on the series after the 3rd or 4th episode as I felt it was poorly written and quite cheesy. I can safely say that my opinion of the series hasn't changed - and I'm seeing even more cheesiness. The "4th" episode, "The Lost Warrior," being especially bad. It's only 4 episodes in and they have a throw away episode of a pilot "lost" on a world that's like the old west. It's quite likely this was the episode that convinced me to stop watching the series - that and "Boxy" and his "daggit."

With this viewing I realized the open narrator sounds a bit like Alex Guinness (Obi Wan in Star Wars) and is delivered in his manner of speaking in Star Wars. I am positive that was intentional since they also duplicated many of the effects shots (not unusual as the same visual effects team worked on both) and the score does its best to sound like it came from John Williams. The premier episode even has the 4 eyed, 2 mouthed, singers, somewhat reminiscent of the bar scenes in the original Star Wars. In spite of all that, the similarities pretty much end there though the character of Starbuck does feel and play quite a bit like Han Solo.

Then, as now, I feel Lorne Greene was somewhat miscast as Adama. He does a good job but his long association with Bonanza tends to take you out of the story a bit if you're familiar with that classic series.

Surfinhank

Thanks to the past challenges I've whittled down my unwatched pile to a manageable level, so I'm going to take a second look of some of the films I've bought over the years but only watched once. I can already tell just by looking at some of the titles that a lot of them are headed for the chopping block.

lisadoris

I think I'm gonna do weekly mini challenges for this. I'll start (a day late) with the films I haven't watched since 2017 that aren't eligible for the sci-fi or animation challenge. Then I will move to my unwatched pile.

BobO'Link

My voyage with the original Battlestar Galactica is nearing the end. It's been somewhat a rough ride. While there are some episodes that are very good and move the main story along there are just as many side journeys into cliche' territory with scripts that were seemingly written for other shows and retooled for Battlestar Galactica (my main complaint with many SF shows). Writing is often sub-par with actor's deliveries that don't quite work and/or poorly done. Sets look more and more inexpensively built with several of the scripts seemingly existing primarily to utilize less expensive planet side locations (i.e. no sets are needed other than things that would work for any of a dozen of series, SF or otherwise). Directing is mostly rather pedestrian with stock footage of pilots on carts being taken to launch areas and the ships launching plaguing the series.

In the episode I'm currently viewing there are Nazi like forces (German accents, SS style uniforms, and called The Eastern Alliance), apparently from Earth but that's not exactly said, who were introduced in the prior episode. That prior episode had a pair of "humorous" robots on a planet to which a quintet of travelers the Galactica found in hibernation on a ship were headed. They'd apparently been launched from a satellite of "Terra" but made it all quite vague. That episode was pretty lackluster itself with lots of contradictions and events that didn't work within the overall story. It's been a pair of episodes with very non-creative and unoriginal plots.

Mr Awesome

Still kinda new here, but was thinking of dabbling in 80s movies.

BobO'Link

Welcome! Just grab a spot in the list thread and start watching!

BobO'Link

I finished the original BSG and am now on the 1980 series. The first just kind of petered out but at least brought back the Cylons. They'd apparently made it to Earth so you'd think all that activity, no matter how far out in the solar system, would have been observed. In spite of the overall cheesiness and poorly written scripts I'd have liked to have seen it go at least another season just to see what they'd do with the series.

The 1980 series is even more cheesy and introduces technology they didn't have in the original series, including time travel. They could, arguably, developed some of this en route (after all - it's been ~30 years since the last episode of the original series). But that 30 years can't be accurate as they plainly state it's 1980 yet in the original series they'd picked up a TV transmission showing the moon landing. If 1980 is correct then that would have happened in 1950 at the latest (they were obviously more than a light year from earth and TV signals travel at light speed).

So... the first episode is a rather standard "alien lands and attempts communication" type episode and contains "gags" from classic SF films (notably leaving a modified math formula for a professor as a method of communicating with him their need to see him - almost identical to "The Day the Earth Stood Still"). And the Galactica, a very large ship, is not seen on any telescope or radar system in spite of being not that far outside the moon's orbit. It's possible they hid themselves behind the moon but that's not mentioned.

davidh777

I’ve considered a rewatch of the BSG remake but the memories of watching it “live” (partly because of the broadcast schedule) are so painful that I haven’t jumped in, even though I bought it on both BD and digital in anticipation. I’ve never considered a full franchise watch. I saw hardly any of the original series.

BobO'Link

I finished Battlestar Galactica 1980. I'd forgotten just how average it really was with scripts which would have worked for just about any show. The SF part consists mostly of the citizens of Galactica being somewhat "superhuman" with stronger muscles - able to run faster, jump higher, etc. - and the absolutely lame flying motorcycles. A group of 12 kids were transported down at one point and are the focus of several very cliche' episodes with them jumping around into trees, etc. to elude law enforcement or hostile land owners (they go into business with a small land owner who's being oppressed by a large land owner - denied water and terrorized - and the kids do the jumping around bit to "seed" the property late at night). The best episode is the last in which the original Starbuck is shown to have gotten lost and hooked up with a Cylon who also crashed (similar to a reworked new BSG episode plot).

I started the *New* Battlestar Galactica yesterday. This one is treated more seriously in almost every respect. Stories have weight and meaning with consequences and not just "alien of the week" type goings on as in the original series. I'd forgotten how early we learn that Cylons can look human and the identities of some of those on the Galactica. I'm really enjoying this rewatch. For me, *everything* has been improved, right down to the appearance of the metal based Cylons. They're not all polished chrome with heavy star filter effects applied. If I didn't know better I'd swear J.J. Abrams had a hand in the overuse of star filters on the original series. The updated metal Cylons are actually menacing and don't look like someone in a metalized plastic suit. It's a vast improvement over the original series in almost every way.

MrTerrific

I loved the "new" BSG and have wanted to watch the 1980 BSG at some point. Reviews like yours seem to be the consensus for most. One day I'll try it out though.