Battlestar to get a more colorful upbeat reboot?

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Singer, whose credits include The Usual Suspects, The X-Men and its sequel X2, Superman Returns and the recent Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie, will have to contend with the legions of Battlestar fans from both the original series and the new show. Makers of the recent Galactica had to overcome the "GINO" (Galactica In Name Only) campaign which argued that the new version, with its introduction of Cylons who appear human as well as other variations, was not worthy of the moniker.
Universal will, however, have been encouraged by JJ Abrams's recent reboot of the Star Trek series on the big screen, featuring an entirely new cast playing the iconic original crew of the Starship Enterprise.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/14/battlestar-galactica-film-bryan-singer

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I'd certainly be interested in another re-imagining of the concept ... but the timing seems questionable to me ... particularly with the "prequel" BSG movie due this fall and the Caprica series premiering early next year.

 

[Scout101]

Seems too soon for another reboot, seeing how we JUST finished the last, well received, version.

They can kind of wink and say they cover it with the "all this has happened before" thing, but then when they start borrowing everything, it's just going to feel like it's coming up short...

 

[ManOnTheWave]

So this appears to be moving forward. Slightly.

Cool.

 

[backstept]

so when's the more colorful and upbeat LOST remake coming out?

 

[Checkmate]

It's amazing how oblivious execs can be about things like this. Absolutely amazing. It's like they live in their own little words, completely unaware of anything around them that's not a number on a piece of paper.

 

[Mysterion]

so when's the more colorful and upbeat LOST remake coming out?

Been done. Was called Gilligan's Island. Or Lost was the "dark and gritty" Gilligan. Either way.

 

[Mistral]

Ok, No! just No! Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not a dime-no matter how good it looks!

 

[davejames]

I'd certainly be interested in another re-imagining of the concept ... but the timing seems questionable to me ... particularly with the "prequel" BSG movie due this fall and the Caprica series premiering early next year.

Same here. I'm ALL for reimaginings when they're done right, but at least wait until fans are hungry for more BSG first. Most of us are still digesting the series finale.

That said, if they can make a BSG movie as cool and fun as the last Trek was, then bring it on.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'd certainly be interested in another re-imagining of the concept ... but the timing seems questionable to me ... particularly with the "prequel" BSG movie due this fall and the Caprica series premiering early next year.

Same here. I'm ALL for reimaginings when they're done right, but at least wait until fans are hungry for more BSG first. Most of us are still digesting the series finale.

I'll give it a shot. Singer is unlikely to do anything very similar to RDM, so frankly besides the name, there wouldn't be much of a connection and no reason to consider the two to be linked in any meaningful way.

 

[Christopher]

I'd certainly be interested in another re-imagining of the concept ... but the timing seems questionable to me ... particularly with the "prequel" BSG movie due this fall and the Caprica series premiering early next year.

The timing has nothing to do with SciFi's Galactica-verse and everything to do with Star Trek. For all its critical acclaim, Moore's BSG was a niche show; even by the low standards of a cable network, its ratings have not been spectacular. Universal isn't thinking about that. Universal is looking at Paramount's huge success with an upbeat reboot of a classic SFTV franchise, and they're saying, "Hey, is there a space-opera property we own that we could turn into a reimagined big-budget tentpole too?" Because that's how studio executives think: in terms of copying whatever's big at the moment. In this case, Universal execs discovered that they owned a franchise called Battlestar Galactica and that noted feature-film director Bryan Singer had been attached to it at one point in the past. The movie execs we're talking about may not even have been aware of the BSG television revival, since after all they're movie execs. All they pay attention to is what's going on in movies. (I've heard a book-editor colleague tell tales of studio executives who weren't even aware that the films they were producing were adaptations of pre-existing books.) Even if they know there was a recent BSG TV show, they don't care, because they're making movies. If they can get Bryan Singer attached to a space-opera franchise that they can pass off as resembling the Star Trek movie, then that's what they're going to do.

 

[S. Gomez]

I haven't even seen the first remake yet (fixing that soon...hopefully).

 

[The_Emperor]

I was never really much of a fan of the original, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that series also start with the human race suffering a massive holocaust? In which case... how upbeat can you possibly get?

 

[Pilot Ace]

I was never really much of a fan of the original, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that series also start with the human race suffering a massive holocaust? In which case... how upbeat can you possibly get?

You've never been to the Casino Planet, have you?

 

[davejames]

I was never really much of a fan of the original, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that series also start with the human race suffering a massive holocaust? In which case... how upbeat can you possibly get?

It did, but the writers still went for something light and cheesy anyway-- which is what prompted Moore to want to try a more serious version.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

The timing has nothing to do with SciFi's Galactica-verse and everything to do with Star Trek. For all its critical acclaim, Moore's BSG was a niche show; even by the low standards of a cable network, its ratings have not been spectacular. Universal isn't thinking about that. Universal is looking at Paramount's huge success with an upbeat reboot of a classic SFTV franchise, and they're saying, "Hey, is there a space-opera property we own that we could turn into a reimagined big-budget tentpole too?" Because that's how studio executives think: in terms of copying whatever's big at the moment. In this case, Universal execs discovered that they owned a franchise called Battlestar Galactica and that noted feature-film director Bryan Singer had been attached to it at one point in the past. The movie execs we're talking about may not even have been aware of the BSG television revival, since after all they're movie execs. All they pay attention to is what's going on in movies. (I've heard a book-editor colleague tell tales of studio executives who weren't even aware that the films they were producing were adaptations of pre-existing books.) Even if they know there was a recent BSG TV show, they don't care, because they're making movies. If they can get Bryan Singer attached to a space-opera franchise that they can pass off as resembling the Star Trek movie, then that's what they're going to do.

I completely agree that this is an example of studio execs trying to "Strike while the iron is hot" kind of a thing. From that perspective, I can understand why they'd want to move on the idea before "reboot" films go out of fashion (I doubt they'll ever go away, but they certainly seem all the rage these days).

My comment, though, was that from a fan perspective, even one who didn't like how Moore's BSG ended up, it feels too soon. Perhaps "questionable" wasn't the best word to use ... I'd still go see a Singer interpretation of BSG. But this does feel a bit like the Trek overload from a few years back ... which makes me "question" the decision.

I was never really much of a fan of the original, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that series also start with the human race suffering a massive holocaust? In which case... how upbeat can you possibly get?

Yes, indeed, the first one did start off with a very similar holocaust (the difference was in the details). But the first series had a large amount of very campy humor. In fact, in one of the earliest episodes of the series (after the movie established a food shortage), there's even a scene with the Adamas having a sit-down dinner to celebrate the engagement of Apollo and Serina. They tended to ignore the holocaust in favor of a more western-style shoot'em up with the Cylons.

 

[David cgc]

I was never really much of a fan of the original, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that series also start with the human race suffering a massive holocaust? In which case... how upbeat can you possibly get?

Robot dog. Space-basketball in colorful spandex uniforms. Going AWOL while on a recon mission to manage a touring group of freaky alien singers who really weren't that good. Enough surrogate children to fill a schoolbus. Relaxed attitudes towards technical issues, to the point where it was obvious that they couldn't remember if a "centon" was a second, a minute, or a century, and, in context, none of those possibilities made sense when parsing the dialogue. A really slutty voice-activated Viper auto-pilot.

Oh, and I think Starbuck knocked up an angel at one point. Guess ol' Gaius was shooting blanks in the remake.

 

[The_Emperor]

You've never been to the Casino Planet, have you?

Nope. And I count my blessings every day because of that.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

"It's Love, Love, Love"

 

[FPAlpha]

Dear god.. my head hurts just thinking about what acronyms people are going to come up with

oBSG, nuBSG, BSGTNGWHTS.. *head explodes*

Why? The show was good (at times one of the best shows ever), the old show was camp at its best so what do they want to gain other than making a buck (i know that its the primary reason in Hollywood but still..).