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Happy 30th Anniversary BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!!
Merrick here...
On a Sunday evening thirty years ago today, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA premiered on ABC.
Opening "somewhere beyond the heavens", the series dramatized a genocidal attack on twelve human homeworlds by "Cylon" aggressors. The human survivors gather a "rag tag" space fleet, and begin an exodus towards Earth...where they believe they'll find long lost brethren.
The series ran for 24 episodes before being canned by the network. Wobbly ratings and, above all, cost overruns during production made a second season undesirable to The Powers That Be.
Had a second season been put into play, many changes would've been brought to the show - most notably the appointment of Isaac Asimov as the show's creative consultant. More information about the directions a second season might have headed can be found HERE.
The last sequence of the original series was set in one of the Galactica's celestial observation domes...where an Apollo 11 transmission telling us "The Eagle has landed" is received, unnoticed by the Battlestar's crew. This would (somewhat inadvertently) portend the coming of GALACTICA: 1980, a subsequent rethink/relaunch of the concept by original series creator Glen A. Larson and ABC.
In GALACTICA: 1980, the "rag tag" fleet finds Earth, and immediately encounters a shit load of dicey scripts. Intriguingly, the underlying premise driving G: 1980 didn't altogether suck: the Galacticans find Earth, but are shocked to learn that us Earthlings are nowhere near as developed/advanced as they thought we'd be. This is quite a problem given that the the Cylons have followed them here, and are still bent on destroying all humans.
G: 1980 offered flashes of conceptual smarts that were never supported by the series' overall vibe, style, or budget. For example, one intriguing conceit found the Galacticans considering time travel to seed higher technologies into our past...thus altering our timeline & forcibly evolving Terran tech to a point where we might feasibly fend off the bad guys in our reinvented present. Kind of cool, but underplayed and shoddily executed. G: 1980 is mostly remembered for appearances by Wolfman Jack and MEGAFORCE-like flying motorcycles.
Over the decades, various relaunches were attempted, including a Tom DeSanto produced continuation that Bryan Singer was set to direct (details and designs HERE). This spun apart in the wake of 9/11, which caused shifting schedules that made viability wain.
Original series star Richard Hatch also made a noble run at revitalizing the franchise (more details HERE) with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE SECOND COMING, a lavish, effects-filled trailer he hoped would galvanize a direct continuation of the original series. Despite his best, impassioned efforts, THE SECOND COMING never happened. Although, Hatch was later cast as Tom Zarek, major and recurring character in...
The Sci Fi Channel's BATTLESTAR GALACTICA - a spectacular, bold, and often peculiar reimaging of many of Glen Larson's conceits, masterminded by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. Currently at (roughly) the mid point break of its fourth and final season, BG will conclude its run sometime next year. CAPRICA, a spin-off TV movie prequel & backdoor pilot, has already been shot - and a companion movie set parallel to the Eick/Moore series is in production. Further stand alone films may follow.
People often knock around the original series...sometimes justifiably so. Although, personally, I have a very warm place in my heart for it. As misguided as it often was, I find myself inexorably drawn to its spirit and spirituality, both of which are interpreted quite differently in the franchise's current iteration.
And, I'm sure simple nostalgia plays no small part in my affection for GALACTICAs both old and new. I remember the kid I was back in '78. I remember the excited chatter in my school's lunch room on September 18th, the day after the premiere. Kids were talking about how cool it was that some space fighter explosions folded in on themselves - "I guess it has something to do with vacuums and decomprssion and stuff" they postulated while eating Cheetos. It was awesome that some of the ships could fly through the debris clouds of disintegrating enemy craft, which made it "way cooler than STAR WARS". It was magical that the laser hand guns emitted a really pretty star burst/pulse effect instead of a regular old ray beam. But all of this is the stiuff starry-eyed kids love. Clearly the show offered more than 'zip-pop-bang', or it would never have endured. Oh, even then, everybody hated Muffy the Daggit. It seems some things never change.
Most of all, I remember the red-faced jealously of the kid who sat across the lunch table from me when he saw the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA lunchbox my mom had bought for me as a surprise. Funny how such small, cosmically insignificant moments resonate through so many years.
That kid's name was Paul. He had red hair and freckles, and sometimes I wonder what happened to him. And often I wonder where I put that lunch box...
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That fucker Paul stole it!
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are undeniable classics. Buck disco dancing and Muffit are one of the many things that make them great. We don't get great sci-fi shows very often, and when we do it's stuff like these and Star Trek and Farscape.
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Wasn't the pilot originally released theatrically? If so, when?
I'd swear on my left nut that I saw this at the drive-in when I was 7. In fact, I remember being shit scared when the Cylons decapitated Baltar then totally confused because he was alive again on the series.
The Ovion lair was some pretty potent nightmare fuel as well.
No matter, happy B-Day BSG! -
I was nine years old and I was at my grandmother's house, which had terrible TV reception, and it drove me crazy that I had to watch the first BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA in a haze of static. :-)
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This show used to be so awesome... now it's just fraking weird.
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Has it really been thirty years? I was only seven when it first appeared. I remember Lucas got his panties in a wad over it, claiming copyright infringement...which got tossed.Happy Frakkin' 30th BD!
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I like both BSG series for different reasons. While the original BSG is considered campy and even corny, I enjoy it for it the themes the show dealt with, as well as the stories it told and the production design. While at first I was against the new BSG, when I first saw the movie and then the first episode, I was blown away. BSG is not just some typical SCI-FI show on TV, it is a well written and engaging television show with tons of great themes. Sad to see it ending so soon.
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Am I old?
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Far and away the best thing about the show, and not because the rest of the show was bad -- it's just that theme was so heroic and iconic. Still gives me goosebumps.
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on video tape. We were living in Germany and only got one channel in English, AFN.
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Also known as Fanboy Hanukah. Because compared to the anniversaries of other sci-fi/fantasy franchises, like Star Wars, Star Trek or LOTR, nobody in the real world really gives a shit.
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that the premiere was interrupted by a public address by Jimmy Carter, and it pushed the ending late, and a lot of kids had to go to bed before it was over. I was allowed to stay up and watch it, but a bunch of my friends were royally pissed the next day, Carter was lucky they weren't old enough to vote, he probably would have lost even bigger.
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Sep 18, 2008 12:31:24 AM CDT
Dagget is now being served on the Korean Colony survivors ship.
by kdoc13
Mmmmn, Dagget.
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my buddy bought it for me at some thrift or antique store in clarksville, tn. i think. is this YOUR lunchbox, merrick?
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Haha what's worse: Battlestar Galactica being interrupted by Jimmy Carter, or Star Wars Clone Wars being interrupted by George Bush the 2nd?
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As a kid who grew up in the 80s I only remember the 70s for Star Wars, Superman and BSG. Like many kids on my suburban street, I was a HUGE Star Wars fan and very much enjoyed the small screen Star Wars-ish Battlestar Galactica. Although BSG was never on par with SW, I did have action figures for both. Further, my posters of Darth Vader and Christopher Reeve as Superman did hang next to a poster of 3 Cylon Centurions. And for some reason my sister was given a BSG lunch box which I eventually inherited when she moved on to more girlie fare like Barbie, ET, My Little Pony & Jem. Fast forward to 2003 and we are on the cusp of a new BSG series by Ronald D Moore... Out of morbid curiosity I tune in to see how badly they would screw it up and by the second commercial break I remember thinking to myself: "WOW... this is REALLY well made?! Sort of what I had expected the Star Wars Prequels to be like." Now the circle is complete - as a kid I was all about Death Stars and X-Wings and in my late 20s, early 30s I'm all about the 12 Cylon models and some chick named Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. Once a SF geek, always and SF geek ;-)
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LOL you are one funny dude!
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I'll never forget it myself. Our beautiful 25" color console TV decided to die like two days before, and all we had was a black and white TV! The horror! Luckily my father was the kind of dad that seen to it we found a relative with nothing better to do than have us over to watch it. I love them both, like Gungan Slayer, for different reasons. The original had heart, and an atmosphere that was very Star Wars without being Star Wars. A big part of it for me has always been the music as well. Star Wars got me hooked on the classical score when I realized just how much of the emotion the movie made me feel at different times, was evoked and enhanced by that wonderful score. There really is nothing else like it...and then Stu Phillips wonderful score came out for the original Battlestar. I still have a vinyl copy of it. The marches, the theme for Cassiopeia and Starbuck...but I could go on and on.
There are actually two cuts of the pilot out there, and it was released theatrically after the original television broadcast. The theatrical release depicted Baltar's beheading, while in the television broadcast, Baltar connived his way into 'helping' the Cylons.I remember reading a few years after the series was canceled, and the network admitted their mistake with an even bigger one in Galactica 1980, that the original BSG's cancellation set back Science Fiction on television in a big way. Can anyone else out there think of a Sci-Fi based prime-time show that was a bigger hit from the time the original was canceled until Star Trek: The Next Generation made its splash? Maybe I just stopped paying attention, or I'm too damn old now to remember. And now there's the new BSG...and it has the biggest balls of anything out there! And, you know? I get off totally on the new show's score as well. I had no idea it would grab me the way it has. If you've never listened to any of the music, but love the show, you MUST have at LEAST the Season 3 soundtrack; you really should check it out.
So YEAH!! ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! !
BATTLESTAR GALACTICAThank you Glen Larson, and Stu Phillips! -
Not some crappy reimagings! reimagings must pay! Continuations rule!!!
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Battlestar Galactica (1978) Cylon Screen Test - http://tinyurl.com/42jpt2
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Warts and all, the original BSG has a lot of charm, though the remake is a far stronger work. If the region 1 DVD ever comes down in price, I might just get it (the Aussie Region 4 release is very disappointing in comparison), though a full digital restoration and cleanup would awesome.
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Looking at the original show now, sure its cheesy with some pretty dodgy effects, but it still is a brill piece of sci fi. I know a lot of people still don't get the new show, but I really love it and can't wait to see how it ends.
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i can still do an impression of him
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I am not a big fan of science fiction, but the original Battlestar Galactica I really enjoyed. Star Wars just sucks seven shades of suckage. I also don't follow the current BSG, because I don't expect it to be better than the original. Original BSG for life.
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Is still fantastic. Love the theme to the original. I remember one episode of the new series when they slowly incorprated it in, during an important moment. Seriously rocked!
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Please
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I second that emotion. I still have my original Mattel Viper toy. It's one of my toys that gets the most WOW reaction from people who see it. I was eight years old in 1978, too, and I wore the grooves out of my Original Stu Phillips soundtrack LP. I had the Colonial Warriors Battle Jacket from Starlog magazine (and recently bought one on Ebay for $90...worth every penny). I was heartbroken when it didn't come back, too, and I try to forget the G:1980 shows. Happy Birthday Galactica, I'm gonna watch my DVDs and raise a glass of Ambrosia to y'all today!
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Something called Galactica 1980. It's one of those urban myths like Highaner II: The Quickening. It didn't happen.
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Battlestar Galactica was released theatrically. However, I do not recall if it aired on TV first, and then they pulled a Lucas, and popped it on the big screen to make more money, or if it went from big screen to small.
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Baltar betrays his people. His reward is to get this throat cut by a Ceylon. Forward to the first episode, and he's in charge of the Ceylons. Annie Wilkes would got nuts on Glen Larson for that.
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Gone before his time.
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and i remember it. I had the lunchbox, and I also had a very cool model of the Cylon fighter. Took me all of 45 minutes to glue together (ahh that wonderful modeler's glue). It even had spring-loaded plastic "laser missles" that shot out at the push of a button!
Then one day my cousin Tina came down from Cincy to spend a few days. We were sitting on the floor of my living room watching BG and she loudly exclaimed "They're just sitting in a fake spaceship with some blue screen behind them! They're not really flying around in space!"
To which I replied "shut up!!" -
I also told her to shut up. She was too busy with her Bee Gees music to appreciate true art.
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In a place where Starbuck is not a cup of coffee....
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how could Skiffy let this date pass without 1 special night celebrating their series and its history.
should have played the new bsg all day long for its daytime block, then had the mini-series cued up to play. followed by a cheap to make clip show that featured everything from the original to the new series.
instead skiffy played shitty reality tv that nobody watches. -
My favorite episode and pretty much the only episode I remember from G-80 was the one where Starbuck, somechick and a Cylon were marooned on a planet and all lived together...chick had a baby who I believe was Oliver from the Brady Bunch and was found by Lorne Greene's Adama in a ship made out of a raider and a viper. Sticks out in my head as a great episode.
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The original TV show is the only Battlestar Galactica that I recognize in my universe. Loved it as a kid, although the Cyclons seemed like a Darth Vader ripoff, even back then
It was cool just hearing that theme song again -
in 1979.
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It does.
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sits on my desk right now. no lie -- probably about 16 inches from my left hand as i type. i was 11 in 1978, and star wars and BSG ruled my universe. i was against the scifi channel's reboot at first (i admit it), but holy frack do i love this show now. i, too, love how the old theme music was made into the "anthem of the colonies," played at official functions. nice touch, and it gave me chills when i first heard it in the miniseries.
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Yup, I still have mine.
I have the 35mm Trailer for the original BSG too -
A colonial viper launcher. In the 70s and 80s when we had real toys (anyone remember richochet racers, the gun that shoots cars?) there was this toy that shot foam jets like the Thunderbirds (Air Force, not the cartoon) Blue Angels, or just plain old ordinary jets. Well, when BSG came out they made a version that shot Colonial Vipers. The "gun" was like this big model of the Galactica hangar bay, and it came with Ceylon targets you could shoot at.
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best TV theme music ever.
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...still sounds great. When you see the clip of the three cylon raiders peeling off into the atmosphere and you hear the strings play the melody still gives me chills.
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Check out the BSG section. I had the Colonial Viper launcher.
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I love when it's used in the new show as the colonial anthem (sorta like the US' national anthem). It's too great of a piece of music to let go. And like everyone else here I was glued to the TV for the original show. I remember I had Battlestar Galactica binoculars.
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I was a big fan of the original series (and a HUGE fan of the re-boot). I remember playing with my Colonial viper when I heard on the news that the toys were being redesigned because some kid swallowed the little red "missiles" that shot out of the side launcher. Dumbasses!
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He utterly frackin' DESPISES it:
http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-readarticle.php?nid=5 -
http://tinyurl.com/32zn8k
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Please someone online must have it??? i am dying to see what Richard hatch did to promote his version of bsg...please, i have ben looking for it for years
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What a unique concept!!
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Glad you singled out that shot of the cylon raiders peeling off in a formation barrel roll to the trumpeting theme. It's obvious they just used the same (still cool) photo element three times over, but man, that shot makes my vertebrae tingle every time, 30 years later. For a show that re-used WAY too many special effects shots, at least the shots they had in the can were built to last.
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yeah... seriously. Where is this? This thing's harder to crack than a governor's email address.
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I think that was the name of the G1980 episode that famously didn't suck, because it was mostly an episode of the OLD show. That show should be eeked gently into semi-cannon while jettisoning everything else. Except that means accepting Dr Z as cannon. Hmmm.
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I recall that the TV premiere of the 1976 KING KONG was also running during part of that time, and that part of the GALACTICA was prempted by the mideast peace agreement.
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Say what you will about the cheesiness of the original, they never forgot it was supposed to be an adventure. It was supposed to be fun. The new one is so leaden with mythology and moralizing that it quickly becomes airless. I last watched a couple of episodes before the currently break and am not going back. I'll be mildly curious to find out how they wrap it up but I can just read that on some fansite.
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Only old-timers like me will get that joke.No beef by-products...
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I remember the movie (opening pilot) premeiring at the old ABC Cinema in Harlingen, Texas in Sensurround. A friend and I were dropped off by our parents and we went nuts. Did they release it in theaters everywhere, or just in certain regions? I remember the credits had the names fly towards the camera and go out of focus then dissapear and then the narration began ("There are those who believe...")
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Yep, I saw it in Frederick, Maryland in 1978, and I remember being freaked out when Zac got blown up...that was intense on the big screen.
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It's a shame it was only used in small part in a couple of the new BSG epiosdes. I really miss that music in something BSG related.
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The new series is just dreary nerdbait. The original has a certain amount of cheese, but it also has a great mythology, great characters, great music, and great visuals. The pilot movie was released theatrically outside the USA prior to it being shown on TV. The movie (which is a different version to the first TV episode) was released in US theaters after the series aired. There is a second film, Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, which was made from the episodes The Living Legend Parts I & II and Fire in Space. Also, there is a bizarre movie cobbled from Galactica 1980 episodes called Conquest of the Earth. From around the same time, three feature-length episodes from the Spider-Man TV series with Nicholas Hammond were released in cinemas outside the US. Buck Rogers premiered in theaters (including America too, I believe).
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I had that lunchbox too, back in first grade, and it's still sitting on a shelf at home filled with baseball cards from the 1980s. The thermos sprung a leak by the end of the school year, though, so that's long gone.
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Yep, I got it. I remember the big premier night. I had already seen it in the theater (in Canada), but that really made me more pumped up for the series to start. Since VCRs were still a major luxury then (and were about the size of a Buick), I set my cassette recorder up next to the TV and recorded the whole thing (paused during the commercials, of course) and listened to it most every night as I was getting ready for bed. I had a few of the toys, but all the models-Viper, Cylon Raider, the Galactica and Cylon Base Ship. It's really a shame that model kits like those have almost completely disappeared. They were more fragile than regular toys but there was such a great feeling of accomplishment when you got the things built & painted up. I would even customize some of mine (gave the Viper some battle damage). Good times, good times.
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As a kid I saw it on tv when it came out. Also saw Star Wars when it first came out, and I fell in love with both, but Galactica really did something huge to me. Saw the Galactica movie in the theater, and watched the reruns over the years. Now with the Internet, I managed to collect the novelizations that Glen A. Larson did (the last 4 are originally stories and are awesome, especially the last one #14), as well the novels Richard Hatch wrote, the dvd's of the show and even the Soundtrack cd. I cant begin to describe how much this show has meant to me over the years. When the new series came out, they stabbed everyone in the back who had worked for years to bring the original show back. The original Galactica change my life as a kid and I'm forever grateful. Its seen me through sickness, loneliness, depression, good times, bad times, you name it. My wife loves it too. It aint perfect, but its got a hell of lot of heart.
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Viper launcher, a toy Viper and a Raider (they actually had some cool toys), and I'm pretty sure a Raider plastic model kit at some point...plus the comics (the Marvel series that ran 20 or so issues) and the probably ghostwritten novelization credited to Glen A. Larson. Come to think of it, I actually had quite a bit of Galactica stuff.
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Should have put those writers on the actual show crew....
I remember picking up the entire 21 or so issue run for 10 cents a pop in the bargain boxes years after the fact. Those were some good stories, especially towards the end of the run. It's a pity Marvel's BSG and Star Wars run didn't keep going.
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When the fuck is Scifi going to run the rest of the episodes that it has had in the can for a year? Why cant they even tell us when they will air?
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Hey guys,
I think we'll probably never see it anywhere other than at a convention. Hatch supposedly put his own $ up for it, and I can't see him giving it up for inclusion as a DVD extra or something. Plus, it has soundtrack music from 'Crimson Tide' and ID4 as its themes, and I'd doubt Hatch paid anything for them, given the trailer was a personal project. Think Universal will pick up the tab for a DVD release? Uh, don't think so. But, if you'd like a sense of what the trailer looks like, there's a celphone grab on Youtube. Search 'Battlestar Galactica The Second Coming Trailer' or go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLvHK-hOJKo
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Uh, yeah...that's not very good...
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HA! I used to do the same thing! I would take a cassette recorder to the drive-in and record movies! My mon and dad laughed their asses off. I had some nice cassettes of Star Wars, King Kong (hey, sue me...it had a great John Barry score) and Galactica among others.Yeah, I had those great Viper and Cylon models. I'd love to have them now.
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The Marvel stories were great. I remember one about Boomer going aboard a derelict ship (SPOILER, I say, SPOILER) and finding the dying wife of Commander Adama. He promised her that he would not tell Adama that she survived, only to die of a horrible disease that the Cylons released on Caprica to make sure all were dead. I also liked the one where Apollo faced a super Cylon called Mark IV or something like that. He was designed like a Samurai, with a Katana vs. the Greco/Roman Cylons with their gladius like sword. Great Walt Simonson art too!
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Pretty good. True, also.
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how new school BSG uberfans like Mr. Nice Gauis or chromedome can't be bothered.
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I watched the original "Battlestar Galactica" when I was seven years old, and enjoyed it. "Buck Rogers" was the only other close-to-Star-Wars space show with lasers and explosions at the time, so I tuned in.
I must admit, I like the new BSG much more than the old, but I remember the original well for its creative place in television history.
Happy 30th! -
Saw my first episode at a neighbors' house, and it was like 'Neato! Star Wars on TV!!!' It became so important to me it was almost like a religion. That was how I felt when I saw and heard the opening credits. . .when ABC cancelled it I boiled over with hatred for the network president. . .
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It seems I was a bit older than many of you when BSG premiered. 17 years old. Knew it was cashing in on Star Wars but that didn't bother me as I was happy to have another SciFi show on TV. I remember thinking that the vipers looked a little too much like an X-wing in design and color scheme but liked the turbo. Thought the Cylon raider design was cool. I tried not to miss it and still will watch it when it hits the SciFi channel some days. I work from home so can have it on while working. Space ships and Maren Jensen! Ahhh, the memories.....
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