Battlestar Galactica Movie Back On.

[Christopher]

Basically, I wouldn't expect to see this new Galactica visiting any casino planets any time soon.

I think the casino planet gets a bum rap. Sure, there was some cheesy stuff in the Carillon sequence, but it served a purpose in the story, an allegorical temptation for the survivors. They’d lost everything and were enduring hardship, and here was an evident paradise threatening to lead them astray, like Odysseus's crew in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. There's actually some pretty tense stuff as Commander Adama plots secretly with Colonel Tigh in order to undermine the hedonistic Sire Uri's plans for disarmament. So it's not that they completely abandoned the concept of the struggle for survival halfway through the story, since the space casino was a deliberate counterpoint to that theme.

No, I think where they really started to lose their way was in "Lost Planet of the Gods." That story follows immediately from the pilot, but any sense of struggle or deprivation or loss is pretty hard to find. It opens with the main characters having a cheerful dinner party to announce Apollo and Serina's engagement, followed by the lower-rank pilots' shenanigans as they arrange a bachelor party. There's lip service paid to supply shortages, but only barely. Then, the fighter pilots are taken down by a random disease that spread because two scouts were too excited by the bachelor party to go through decontamination — not because there was starvation in the ranks or because too many pilots were lost in the invasion or anything that would actually remind the viewer of the massive tragedy these people were supposedly recovering from. One of the music cues from this episode was actually titled "Another Day on the Galactica," underlining how mundane things had suddenly become.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

All this has happened before ... and will happen again.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

I do hope we won't have people who only heard of earth from ancient myths called William or Laurel and wearing suits and ties in this one.

 

[Silvercrest]

I think the casino planet gets a bum rap ... They’d lost everything and were enduring hardship, and here was an evident paradise threatening to lead them astray, like Odysseus's crew in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. There's actually some pretty tense stuff as Commander Adama plots secretly with Colonel Tigh ... So it's not that they completely abandoned the concept of the struggle for survival halfway through the story, since the space casino was a deliberate counterpoint to that theme.

No, I think where they really started to lose their way was in "Lost Planet of the Gods." That story follows immediately from the pilot, but any sense of struggle or deprivation or loss is pretty hard to find ... One of the music cues from this episode was actually titled "Another Day on the Galactica," underlining how mundane things had suddenly become.

No argument, mainly, but on Carillon you've also got Starbuck blathering on about pimping out the Space Supremes and putting them on the galactic circuit. (Or whatever.) Apparently he'd totally forgotten about their situation. Yeah, I know, this is Starbuck and we expect him to behave that way — but he's a primary character. His attitude drives the focus of the show.

Let's just say the seeds were planted even before "Lost Planet".

 

[Christopher]

^Sure, I'm not saying it was handled perfectly -- this is a Glen Larson show, after all, and even at his best, he could barely manage to rise above schlock. I'm just saying that there's more substance to it than is generally appreciated, even if the execution leaves much to be desired.

 

[bigdaddy]

I just don't see the market for this. Maybe they'll come up with something good, but I still think it's a longshot that it even gets made.

They have been talk of a BSG movie for 20 years now, so yeah I'd be amazed if it's ever made.

 

[Christopher]

They have been talk of a BSG movie for 20 years now, so yeah I'd be amazed if it's ever made.

There were efforts to make a Spider-Man movie for 17 years before one finally got made. Lots of properties spend ages in development hell before the right combination of factors fall into place.

 

[Marsden]

I think the casino planet gets a bum rap. Sure, there was some cheesy stuff in the Carillon sequence, but it served a purpose in the story, an allegorical temptation for the survivors. They’d lost everything and were enduring hardship, and here was an evident paradise threatening to lead them astray, like Odysseus's crew in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. There's actually some pretty tense stuff as Commander Adama plots secretly with Colonel Tigh in order to undermine the hedonistic Sire Uri's plans for disarmament. So it's not that they completely abandoned the concept of the struggle for survival halfway through the story, since the space casino was a deliberate counterpoint to that theme.

No, I think where they really started to lose their way was in "Lost Planet of the Gods." That story follows immediately from the pilot, but any sense of struggle or deprivation or loss is pretty hard to find. It opens with the main characters having a cheerful dinner party to announce Apollo and Serina's engagement, followed by the lower-rank pilots' shenanigans as they arrange a bachelor party. There's lip service paid to supply shortages, but only barely. Then, the fighter pilots are taken down by a random disease that spread because two scouts were too excited by the bachelor party to go through decontamination — not because there was starvation in the ranks or because too many pilots were lost in the invasion or anything that would actually remind the viewer of the massive tragedy these people were supposedly recovering from. One of the music cues from this episode was actually titled "Another Day on the Galactica," underlining how mundane things had suddenly become.

Great post, Christopher!

Another thing, building on from Lost Planet of the Gods, is how many human "lost colonies" they find. For supposedly the final remnants of humanity, they find about a dozen worlds inhabited by humans, but then reject them because they are not "earth" Further more, the rejection is always implicit because it's never discussed about them stopping there, it's just assumed and move on to the next episode.
Here's a list for anyone that didn't memorize BG like a sane person wouldn't.

The Lost Warrior, 3rd episode, Apollo finds an inhabitable/inhabited planet.
The Magnificent Warriors, 5th again an inhabitable/inhabited planet.
The Young Lords, 6th and again an inhabitable/inhabited planet.

Then we get The Living Legend, where Lloyd Bridges beats the snot out of the Cylons and they don't seem to be that big a threat anymore.

Then they find Terra and the Eastern Alliance. I skipped over some, but there were plenty of humans and planets that they could have settled everyone comfortably and kept the fleet in orbit for defense.


On another point, I would really love to see more about Count Iblis!

Who would have a voice that could compare to Patrick McNee? He was so good. I'm sure they could find someone.


I'll just add, I loved Battlestar Galactica, but never liked the new one, so there's my perspective. I know a lot of people liked the new one better but it just didn't appeal to me. Taking from the original is welcome news for me.

 

[Christopher]

Another thing, building on from Lost Planet of the Gods, is how many human "lost colonies" they find. For supposedly the final remnants of humanity, they find about a dozen worlds inhabited by humans, but then reject them because they are not "earth" Further more, the rejection is always implicit because it's never discussed about them stopping there, it's just assumed and move on to the next episode.

The problem is that they'd only planned on doing the 2-hour stories, basically a whole season of TV movies, but the network wanted more episodes, so they had to slap in some routine sci-fi planet-of-the-week stories that didn't have a lot of thought put into them. That's probably why the ratings plummeted so rapidly after the pilot -- because the lousy one-shot episodes were shown so early in the run and undermined the premise so badly. It probably doomed the show -- although it might've been doomed anyway, given how expensive it was.

Then we get The Living Legend, where Lloyd Bridges beats the snot out of the Cylons and they don't seem to be that big a threat anymore.

Then they find Terra and the Eastern Alliance.

More network meddling... they wanted the show to leave the Cylons behind and introduce other threats. It kept up until the finale, when they brought the Cylons back again.

 

[RAMA]

History repeats itself. Galactica was inspired on tv by sw, and the pilot was shown in theaters.

Deja Vu

 

[Marc]

Great post, Christopher!

Another thing, building on from Lost Planet of the Gods, is how many human "lost colonies" they find. For supposedly the final remnants of humanity, they find about a dozen worlds inhabited by humans, but then reject them because they are not "earth" Further more, the rejection is always implicit because it's never discussed about them stopping there, it's just assumed and move on to the next episode.
Here's a list for anyone that didn't memorize BG like a sane person wouldn't.

The Lost Warrior, 3rd episode, Apollo finds an inhabitable/inhabited planet.
The Magnificent Warriors, 5th again an inhabitable/inhabited planet.
The Young Lords, 6th and again an inhabitable/inhabited planet.

Then we get The Living Legend, where Lloyd Bridges beats the snot out of the Cylons and they don't seem to be that big a threat anymore.

Then they find Terra and the Eastern Alliance. I skipped over some, but there were plenty of humans and planets that they could have settled everyone comfortably and kept the fleet in orbit for defense.


On another point, I would really love to see more about Count Iblis!

Who would have a voice that could compare to Patrick McNee? He was so good. I'm sure they could find someone.


I'll just add, I loved Battlestar Galactica, but never liked the new one, so there's my perspective. I know a lot of people liked the new one better but it just didn't appeal to me. Taking from the original is welcome news for me.

The planets in the eps mentioned about were also known about the by the Cylons who were also still pursuing the RTF so sure they could have settled on those planets and made easy pickings for the Cylons.

 

[Christopher]

The planets in the eps mentioned about were also known about the by the Cylons who were also still pursuing the RTF so sure they could have settled on those planets and made easy pickings for the Cylons.

Which is exactly why those episodes were so dumb. If the Cylons were out to destroy all humanity, why weren't all those human colonies in danger of annihilation? There was one episode out of that spate of early, lame one-parters where they acknowledged that danger and evacuated the colony to the fleet, but in the others, they just ignored it.

 

[Mudd]

Apollonia?

This time around Adama is a woman and Roslin is played by Morgan Freeman.

 

[bigdaddy]

My main problem with the first series, and the main reason why the second is still better, is because there are so many human colonies in the universe that it makes the whole show and threat completely useless.

 

[Christopher]

I think it improves the series if you just skip those early one-parters and ignore the damage they did to the premise. On my blog, I proposed a streamlined viewing order that would leave out the nonessentials and strengthen the core narrative: "Saga of a Star World," "Lost Planet of the Gods," "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero," "The Living Legend," "Fire in Space," "War of the Gods," "The Man with Nine Lives," "Murder on the Rising Star," the 4-part Terra arc, and "The Hand of God." (You could leave out “Fire in Space” without losing much, but at least its first act works quite well.) Unfortunately this still leaves in some weak parts, notably the second and fourth hours of the Terra arc. But they’re necessary to the core storyline.

 

[RAMA]

The biggest problem with a big budget, 2-hour BSG movie? The story!! The humans get massacred and they run like hell! In the newer show, they made dumb decision after dumb decision when running. How will they end the massacre story in the second hour of a big movie?

 

[J.T.B.]

More network meddling... they wanted the show to leave the Cylons behind and introduce other threats. It kept up until the finale, when they brought the Cylons back again.

That's so interesting, could you elaborate? I don't know much at all about BSG behind the scenes.

With my memory as a 9-10 year old, it seemed like the Cylons were so much a part of the image of the series, not to mention the investment in costumes and models, that I'm surprised to hear the network wanted to get away from them (of course, they didn't have a problem using the existing VFX footage over and over and over). Was the idea to get to more of a guest-star driven format? Even as a kid the Eastern Alliance struck me as corny, and Lloyd Bochner was such a ubiquitous heavy back then.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Christopher]

That's so interesting, could you elaborate? I don't know much at all about BSG behind the scenes.

I'm not really an expert myself -- that's just what I read somewhere. Probably here at the Battlestar Wiki. I suggest you browse there to learn more.

With my memory as a 9-10 year old, it seemed like the Cylons were so much a part of the image of the series, not to mention the investment in costumes and models, that I'm surprised to hear the network wanted to get away from them (of course, they didn't have a problem using the existing VFX footage over and over and over). Was the idea to get to more of a guest-star driven format? Even as a kid the Eastern Alliance struck me as corny, and Lloyd Bochner was such a ubiquitous heavy back then.

I'm not really sure, but given how the tacked-on early 1-parters were just stock sci-fi plots with no connection to the series's mythos, my guess would be that the network suits just wanted BSG to be done like other shows, with an episodic villain-of-the-week format. One thing BSG does deserve credit for is a fairly novel use of serialization, something that wouldn't catch on in SFTV for quite some time thereafter. It just wasn't the way things were done back then, having continuing plots or sticking with the same villains throughout, and so there was a push from above for more standalone stories.

Budget may have been a factor as well; human villains were probably less costly than a bunch of robots.

 

[Romo Lampkin]

Ok I'm biased here as some of you might guess by my username but I fracking love nuBSG. I've watched both versions and I was totally resistant to watching the new version for over a decade but I saw it last year and it's completely changed my imaginative universe and reignited my interest in astronomy and space (pretty amazing for a sci fi show marketed as one for non sci fi viewers). Essentially it is the greatest TV show ever made and basically an 80 hour film so the greatest film ever made too. Any reimagining is going to fall flat on its ass, it's like trying to better Robocop or Ghostbusters, you can't! They're already perfect as they are! Gaius Baltar is one of the most amazing 'everyman' characters ever, I rooted for him throughout the whole series, panicky, self absorbed and prone to bouts of hilarity. So many other great characters, Katie Sackhoff nailed it as Starbuck, it's like asking someone to play Captain Kirk, William Shatner is the definitive Kirk because he is the best Kirk, ditto for Peter Weller as Murphy, Bill Murray as Venkman etc. I mean there can be instances where you have two different interpretations of a character that are equally as good such as Ledger/Nicholson as the Joker. Ultimately though RDM made the definitive BSG, I'm open to something new being better but for me it's highly unlikely. And film is so limited for telling a story of this scope, it would need to be a trilogy but if it's going to be made according to Hollywood rules expect explosions and not much else. The new Star Wars was a travesty and reflects how low Hollywood has sunk in its obsession with profits over any kind of artistic worth. The age of superhero films and so on has really ruined mainstream cinema. A BSG film would likely be forced to conform to those rules and conventions and would therefore be mindless and boring.

 

[Chekov's Phaser]

Any reimagining is going to fall flat on its ass

That's what they said about nuBSG. Look I love the RDM BSG a lot. Like I've seen the full series at least 4 times! And I got a chance a couple years ago to meet Edward James Olmos and the first thing I said to him was "I love Battlestar Galactica" and he said "so do I!"

So with that in mind, while I also have doubts the show could work, it just might. Maybe you are right that its highly unlikely, but I wouldn't go so far to say "Any reimagining is going to fall flat on its ass."

The new Star Wars was a travesty and reflects how low Hollywood has sunk in its obsession with profits over any kind of artistic worth. The age of superhero films and so on has really ruined mainstream cinema

Hollywood in it for profit!? That's new! I don't agree at all with your analysis of Star Wars and superhero movies. Star Wars had heart and was not some mindless movie. Superhero movies can be a dime a dozen, but some can be great. But the notion that Hollywood is just in it for the money is not some new concept. It's kinda been that way since the beginning.