New Battlestar Galactica movie from Universal

23 February 2009

John Howell

This is bizarre news. Universal is working on a big screen movie version of the television show Battlestar Galactica, but rather than basing it on the SCI FI Channel's excellent reimagined version created by Ronald D. Moore (2003), the movie will be based on the cheesy 70s original. According to FirstShowing.Net, the creator of the original TV show, Glen A. Larson, will write the script and produce.

Seems like a crazy idea to me. The SCI FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica, like no other science fiction show in the last 10 years, has been a critical and commercial success. To throw out all that new story material and start all over again would be a waste. While the current fourth season of Battlestar Galactica will be its last, the SCI FI Channel has already created a prequel called Caprica, so Universal would have even more material to work with. Why go backwards at all?

The original Battlestar and the SCI FI Channel's 2003 version tell the story of a group of humans who survive a devastating attack by a cybernetic race called the Cylons. The survivors, led by Commander Adama, embark on a journey through space to find refuge on a distant planet called Earth. Battlestar Galactica is the only military vessel left to protect what remains of the civilian fleet. The two major differences between the SCI FI Channel's production and the original (apart from better writing and a massive reduction in the cheese) were that Starbuck, one of the major characters, is female rather than male, and Cylons can mimic humans perfectly.

The original Battlestar Galactica TV series ran from 1978 to 1979 and spawned three movies, including Battlestar Galactica (1978), Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1978) and Conquest of the Earth (1980).

There isn't much news about the new movie yet, but hopefully the next thing we hear is that Universal has contacted Roland D. Moore and asked him to be involved. We live in hope.

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