Battlestar Galactica is a GO!

[Chiana's Frell Toy]

Word has come down the pipe that the new Galactica has been given a green light from Sci-Fi. No there's nothing official from Sci-Fi but the cast has been notified and union crew members in Vancouver are being hired.

Bonnie Hammer is being forced. LOL The legions of "space based" sci-fi fans will have it no other way. We are being heard.

"So say we all!"

[zap]

thats...um....great and all, but shouldnt this be in the OT-tv/movieville forum?

[scaperbuddy]

No offense, but I didn't really like the remake as much as I liked the original.

[haesan]

Well, I never saw the original BSG, but I really liked the remake -- far more than I expected to. I, personally, would be thrilled if it were continued as a series.

[Darth Buddha]

I'd think a mini-run/mini-series each year would make it easier for them to shoot for that "epic" character they are shooting for. So far I'd say with mixed success.

[waltersgirl]

Bonnie Hammer is being forced. LOL The legions of "space based" sci-fi fans will have it no other way. We are being heard. if you want to believe that, go ahead. the Galactica mini-series was conceived from the beginning as a backdoor pilot.

[bouyantman]

i thought it was ok....http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys_1/daumen.gif

[Under A Dying Sun]

yup.

awful.

[DRD2001]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they kill "Starbuck". Quickly. Otherwise, I doubt I'll watch. But I will give SFC a thumbs up that at least this is science fiction and not some new age mumbo jumbo.

[Clarsax]

I'm glad they're doing some actual science fiction now, but I probably still won't watch it. The mini series was okay, but I thought it was kind of boring. I don't have any interest in seeing a series out of it.

[NebariNookiee]

If we really were being heard over at Skiffy Farscape would be nearing the end of Season 5 by now.

First they say they want to move away from the typical space-based shows -- then turn around and give BSG the green light.

I'm really getting tired of being lied to.

[NYPinTA]

I thought this is what went wrong with the original series. It was just supposed to be a mini series, but the executives wanted to stretch it out and make a series out of it, but the stories weren't there because it was never intended to be a series.
Now, Skiffy reimagines it, says they were trying to get back to the original intent of the creater of the show, and yet they are doing the same thing!
They should have made it a mini series with a complete story and left it at that. A beginning, a middle, an end. And then for goodness sake leave it alone!!

[TechnoBoY]

I hope it doesnt suck. But it prolly will.

[Under A Dying Sun]

it still isn't an original.

just another silly remake.

why won't this channel dissappear.

[waltersgirl]

I thought this is what went wrong with the original series. It was just supposed to be a mini series, but the executives wanted to stretch it out and make a series out of it, but the stories weren't there because it was never intended to be a series.


it was the time crunch from miniseries turnaround to series that made the transition a problem. the network gave them no time to prep. this time around, the mini was conceived as a backdoor pilot.

[VBKatLou]

Snurched from the dom:

Date: 02/02/2004
From: davron


GALACTICA actor claims series is a go

Reports are starting to spread via the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA online community that Sci Fi has given an official greenlight to the proposed GALACTICA TV series late yesterday afternoon. The message forum of Galactica 2003.net has a thread where GALACTICA actor Aaron Douglas has stated that the network has ordered 13 episodes of the new series. Douglas played Chief Petty Officer Tyrol in the mini-series, and according to his post, his contract calls for his character to appear in all 13 episodes.

"Yes it is true," writes Douglas in his posting on the website. "They have ordered 13 episodes and it truly went down to the wire."


According to Douglas he only learned of the go-ahead late in the afternoon of January 30 with literally minutes left until the options holding the actors in place ran out.


Douglas also added that he heard from actress Grace Park, who played Boomer in the mini-series, also stating that her option had been exercised and the series was happening.


No official word from Sci Fi Channel about a greenlight of the new GALACTICA TV series has been heard as of yet, but if the messages are indeed true, it will likely be announced after the weekend is over. There has been no comment from series creator/showrunner Ronald D. Moore about this latest development, but if Sci Fi just gave a go-ahead Friday evening, maybe he's out celebrating.



cinescape

[MediaSavant]

Feb. 03, 2004

The Vine: Sci Fi orbits 'Galactica' series

Sci-fi fans probably haven't seen the last of "Battlestar Galactica." After successfully relaunching the franchise as a miniseries in December, Sci Fi Channel picked up the options last week on its top cast members, which include Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell and Katee Sackhoff. Sources said the cable network is aiming to bow "Galactica" as a full-fledged series as early as fourth-quarter 2004. Sci Fi declined comment, but all indications are that at least six episodes of "Galactica" will be shot in Vancouver as soon as April. It will likely be one of cable's more expensive drama series, with production estimates as high as $1.5 million per episode. The four-hour "Galactica" miniseries averaged 4.2 million viewers last year, making it the third-highest-rated multinight program Sci Fi has aired. Executive producers are David Eick and Ronald D. Moore. (Andrew Wallenstein)

[Under A Dying Sun]

thanks for the info guys.


i cannot wait not to watch it!

[vacantlook]

1.5 million per episode. I thought SciFiChannel had a problem with how expensive Farscape was. Now, I know BG being Universal would mean the company would partially be paying itself, but still. It FEELS offensive hearing it'll be 1.5 million per and having been told Farscape was too expensive.

[vhsiv]

Originally posted by vacantlook
1.5 million per episode. [...] It FEELS offensive hearing it'll be 1.5 million per and having been told Farscape was too expensive. vacantlook - Bonnie herself said that fans can't participate in the creative process. As Katee Sackhoff herself said - "Get used to it!"

The flipside here is that if 'Battlesoap Galactica' fails, the USA Group is going to eat the cost all by themselves - no Henson, no EM.TV, no Hallmark, Channel Nein or Foxtel. The loss - $18M and counting - will fall squarely on the Hammer...

[vacantlook]

Something tells me that even if they do take a loss, they'll find some way of spinning it into sounding as if they didn't lose anything.

(My network bitterness is just running high, I guess, after watching amazingly great episode after amazingly great episode of Firefly and knowing it was cancelled yet knowing that ultra-crap Andromeda has been picked up for a fifth season. I just don't understand idiocy that is excreted by networks anymore.)

[B Sharp]

ah, who cares if it's a series or not? it sucked, and we're getting our show back!

[Under A Dying Sun]

well said!:D

[BillFrugge]

Originally posted by vhsiv
vacantlook - Bonnie herself said that fans can't participate in the creative process. As Katee Sackhoff herself said - "Get used to it!"

The flipside here is that if 'Battlesoap Galactica' fails, the USA Group is going to eat the cost all by themselves - no Henson, no EM.TV, no Hallmark, Channel Nein or Foxtel. The loss - $18M and counting - will fall squarely on the Hammer...

JMS and Rockne & co. used the forums for feedback. By reading what people had to say, they were able to tweak their series in order to improve what people liked. Bonnie & co. insist on using Nielsen ratings for feedback.

Yeah, it's bad. If this new Battlesoap fails, Bonnie & co. will just point to it and say "See! We told you no one actually likes this stuff!" and go on to produce more 'Scare Tactics.'

[primortal]

More BG news from Ron Moore (scifi wire)Moore: Galactica Takes Off

Ronald D. Moore, executive producer of SCI Channel's upcoming new series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that the 13-episode first season will pick up where the hit December miniseries left off and will build on that show's characters and situations. SCI FI on Feb. 10 formally announced a green light for production to begin on the Galactica series, which will bring back cast members Edward James Olmos (Adama), Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) and Tricia Helfer (Number Six), among others. Production commences next month in Vancouver, B.C.

As the new series begins, "a few days have passed since the miniseries, and we're in sort of a dire situation right from the get-go," Moore said in an interview. "I think one of the hallmarks of the series will be that it's always going to be a tense situation. These people are always going to be one step away from disaster. Which doesn't mean that the Cylons will be attacking them every week. But I think the nature of their situation and the reality of what they're facing out there alone, with most of them left with the clothes on their back and whatever food and supplies they happen to have on those ships when the events of the pilot occur is only, God, the beginning. And it's going to take a long time for them to get to any kind of stability or normalcy."

Moore said that he is currently assembling a writing staff for the series, which may include colleagues from Moore's old series Roswell, Star Trek: The Next Generation and HBO's Carnivale. Moore is drafting the script for the series' first episode, has roughed out stories for the first three and has written a series bible, with story and character arcs for the first season.

"The series is going to take its cues from the miniseries," Moore said. "The tone and context will be in that vein. There will be lighter moments. I'm sure there will have things that are unexpected and fun to play as time goes on. But the miniseries, that's the bar. That's what we're trying to [do]. ... We want to do that show every week."

Moore said that he may eventually adapt a few of the original 1978 series' old episodes for the new show. "I've talked about revisiting the 'Pegasus' episode, because I think that's a cool idea at some point. There's a possibility in my head we might go back and play around with the ship of lights that was in the original series. And I'm going to sit down and watch all 22 of them again, kind of go through it. But the first thing that springs to mind is that the old show did a lot of planet-of-the-week type episodes, and we're specifically not doing that on this. So a lot of those aren't going to translate very well."

Moore added that he'd like to find a place on the new show for some of the original series' actors as well. "That's something that I would like to approach them about," he said. "I'm probably going to approach a couple of the actors, if not all of them, at some point, and talk to them about that possibility, because I think that would be kind of cool and fun. And I think it would be interesting to find things for them in the new series. And not just, like, a walk-on, although you could do always do that. But it would fun to give them a role and have them bring something to the new show."

It sounds like this series is going to be just like Farscape in the sense that if you miss a few episodes your going to be lost on what is going on. So two-face Bonnie said this was the reason why Farscape was doing poorly in the ratings and shows like Stargate were doing well. It just doesn't make sense any more....

Personally I would like to see the repeats of tremors get better ratings than BG (no I'm not pissed :whip: )

[Leppard]

Originally posted by vacantlook
1.5 million per episode. I thought SciFiChannel had a problem with how expensive Farscape was.

Understood, however: It got a 4.2 rating.... 4 times what farscape was getting when it got canceled.

So I would imagine 4 times the ratings at the same cost per episode would make good business sense.

Not that I liked that mini series at all. :)

[vhsiv]

What I'd like to know is why/how all of the Trek writers became 9/11 mythologists?

This 9/11 stuff seems to have invaded all of their work - not only the 'big concept' on the new BSG, but also the dog that is 'Enterprise'. It may be science-fiction, but these guys demonstrate all of the 'talent' and 'creativity' of State-approved 'artists' - I'm thinking Soviet and German National Socialism, here. There's no creativity or 'outside-the-box' thinking that's characterized the work of so many good writers over the years - only thinly-veiled 'US vs. them' messages, besieged 'minority' humans who believe in the apple pie thatt's been denied them after a cataclysmic act of terrorism. These ongoing stories are all about revenge, retribution and war.

I'm not sure that Glen Larson or Gene Roddenberry, for that matter would have been aboard for these kind of story trajectories. The double-irony is that these shows are nominally targeted at a science-fiction audience that ISN'T going to buy the easy solutions that they seem to want to provide, e.g. "Get the guns, obliteration and total war are the answer to all of our problems." G.I. Joe fantasies tend NOT to be the solution to any of these situations in either SF novels or the real world (U.S. Foreign Policy, anyone?), but Ron Moore, Berman and Braga seem to think that these are the story elements and motivations that are going to keep folks tuning into their 'entertainments' week after week.

The 'Guns, Girls and Kicken @ss' approach might work for more mainstream tastes -'Tremors', 'The Dukes of Hazzard', 'Baywatch', etc. - but it gets a bit thin when it begins to sustain a work of speculative fiction. More than half of the films produced by the Dino DeLaurentiis Group (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0209569/) are a testament to this failure.

[Digger]

Originally posted by Leppard
Understood, however: It got a 4.2 rating.... 4 times what farscape was getting when it got canceled.

So I would imagine 4 times the ratings at the same cost per episode would make good business sense.

Not that I liked that mini series at all. :) Not quite Leppard. BSG got ratings of a 3.5 and a 3.8 for the two nights. This averages out to a 3.65. FS was averaging a 1.3 when it was cancelled. This means they only got about 2.8 times the ratings of Farscape. Now, the budget for BSG was (approximately) 1.5 Million per hour. This figure probably does not include the millions they spent on advertising. Lets see how they do with only a small advertising budget for this show. The budget for FS was the same, but skiffy only paid HALF that, or $750K. So in essence, BGS got nearly the SAME BANG FOR THE BUCK AS FARSCAPE. The only difference is that skiffy/Universal owns BSG, whereas they were only paying for the broadcast rights to FS. In Farscape's favor was the cache it brought to skiffy. It was beloved of critics. BSG, from what I remember, got very luke-warm reviews. Of course skiffy doesn't seem to factor critical acclaim into the equation, but then neither do any of the major Networks. So skiffy is right on track to becoming just like them. Hooray for skiffy!

edited to correct my math

[Mysterious Stranger]

Well, if you hadn't already heard, Sci-Fi announced it's official. The 13 eps are scheduled to start filming next month in Vancouver.

Is it just me or is this one of the first signs of the apocalypse? I love Battlestar Galactica and I was really a lot more excited about the mini than I like to admit but I watched it and was struggling to stay awake. It bored me into a near catatonic state. There was so much potential and it fell well short of all the hype, in my opinion. And the fact that Skiffy is now giving them a 13 episode commitment only adds insult to injury. I may watch it, in that same way we all can't help to look at a trainwreck. But it's not gonna be must-see-TV for me.

Oh, and Ron Moore wants to get some of the original cast to make appearances too. If that happens I'll go insane!

[Has]

Moore & Eick Discuss Natural Star Galactica
Source SciFiPulse
8 February 2004

By Ian M. Cullen

It has been two months since Ron Moore's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica was introduced to the US and Canadian audience's. And it is merely a matter of one week before UK viewers will have the chance to tune into the mini series and judge for themselves whether or not the new show stands up well again the original. An unfair test in reality when you consider how different the politics or today are when compared to the politics of the late 1970's.

In issue 114 of the UK publication Dreamwatch magazine, producers David Eick and Ron D Moore talked enthusiastically about many of the changes that they have made to the Galactica universe, and some of the problems that they had in trying to stay true to the original concept of the series.

The re-imagination of Battlestar Galactica was and still is to many a hot topic on message boards from here to alpha centuri. And as soon as the series was announced as a remake by the Sci Fi Channel. Many fans started to point their finger at the Sci Fi Channels executives. However the money people had nothing to do with the decision to re-imagine the series. Ron Moore however did. Moore who is best known in Star Trek circles for his work on shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine wanted to do something radical and attempt to change the face of 'Science Fiction Television'. He was bored with Alien of the week and planet of the week stories, and wanted to do something that mirrored human nature more truthfully, than a show like Star Trek could. Many fans took issue with this, due to the fact that they had been struggling for 25 years to get a new Galactica series on the air in order to continue the stories of the characters that they had initially fallen in love with back in 1978.

"I was more interested in the possibilities inherent in redoing the pilot because I quickly realised if you took this premise and made it more realistic and complicated you could comment on things that are happening in today's society." Moore told the magazine, and added. "I also thought you could take a different approach to Sci Fi Television. I had wanted to do something different in science fiction for awhile. I felt Star Trek's way of delivering science fiction on TV had run its course - I felt the whole production of Trek had become very stale: the way it's shot, the way it's directed and the way it's edited, scored and written. That sort of goes for Farscape and Andromeda and even Star Wars - they all felt of the same language. I wanted to try something different."

Moore was initially invited to pitch his ideas for Galactica by producer David Eick who had spoken to numerous screen writers about their ideas for Galactica. "I think the first conversation I had was with Matt Greenberg," Eick Revealed, "who created The Invisible Man for me when I was at USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Matt was very interested. He wanted to go in a completely different direction. He was talking about the Cylon homeplanet. But he was so swamped in feature film work that after our second conversation it was clear he didn't have the time.

"But Ron was always an obvious choice. When I first sat down with him, I was open to any interpretation as long as the original show's underlying themes were intact. From that, Ron told me what he wanted to do, and I said, 'I love it, let's go!'"

Once Moore had signed on the dotted line, he set about writing a script that would stay true to the underlined premise of the original Galactica. "I tried to keep as much of the original show as possible," he states. "I kept the fundamentals there; the aircraft carrier in space; the rag tag fleet; the Cylon attack; the escape; the search for Earth; Adama in command; Apollo, his son, the lead fighter pilot; Starbuck, the rogue; Boomer, their friend; Baltar, the traitor. Those are the sort of essentials I knew I had to keep hold of."

However things from Moore's perspective did alter somewhat, one of the earliest problems he foreseen was casting the role of Starbuck, so in order to put a new spin into things, Starbuck underwent a dramatic sex change.

"I think a male Starbuck would have been immediately put side - by - side with Dirk Benedict, and I don't think any actor put in that role would come out of it very well. What Dirk gave the original Starbuck was this easy charm - he's an easy, charming actor who plays the role with a wink and a nod to the audience. He got through some really bad scenes in that show and yet you like him anyway. That's a hard act to follow."

Another element which Moore altered was Baltar's motivation for betraying the Colonial Fleet to the Cylon's. "He didn't have any motivation! It was just crazy." Moore revealed. Another aspect which was turned on its head was the loving relationship between Apollo and his Father Commander Adama. "It was just too pat and easy for me. I wanted to make it more complicated."

And of course the Cylons also underwent a major face lift, and even had elements of their origins changed. "I didn't understand why the Cylons were so intent on tracking these humans down across the galaxy [in the original show] - they needed better motivation than that," explains Moore. "So I changed their background and their relationship with the human beings. In the original series, the Cylons were just an evil empire of robots who wanted to kill humans. In this version, the humans created them and the Cylons have now evolved to look like humans. They're coming back and revisiting their human parents and destroying them. So it's a more complicated relationship."

The human face of the Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica mini series caused much consternation amongst the fan base. However the alterations to the Cylons were a much needed change to Battlestar according to producer David Eick. "The Cylons were the descendants of the Stormtroopers and [Star Wars writer/director] George Lucas has done every conceivable variation of that idea - so where do you go with it?" he notes. "I'm not going to say a synthetic humanoid villain is the most original idea; certainly we were borrowing from Blade Runner. But at least the idea that they were created by Man and have evolved to this point in a way that mirrors Man's own evolution is interesting and feel's fresh."

The next phase for the mini series was the casting. Both Eick and Moore were in agreement that they wanted to have Edward James Olmos signed up for Adama, and both producers were in awe when Olmos agreed to sign on and play the role. Eick also revealed that small cameo parts were offered to original series stars Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict. "I approached Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict to play roles, and in both cases it didn't work out. We were not in a position to cast them as leads, because we were doing a different type of show, but I thought it would be interesting to include them in smaller but still significant roles. I wanted Richard to play the Priest, Elosha, and Dirk the armistice officer at the beginning of the mini series.

"In both cases we were turned down - which was totally fair. I understand. There are no hard feelings. But I think it would have been fun to have had them in it."


Eick also sang the praises of director Michael Rymer. "The approach taken by Michael Rymer is very different from how Sci Fi tends to be presented on television and in movies," Eick explains. "There is and have been for some time a pretence that sci - fi requires a certain grandiosity and theatricality, but this mini - series actually presents science fiction in a context that is very accessible and realistic. It's almost done in documentary style. In fact, rather than Star Wars or Star Trek, we really looked to films like Black Hawk Down as the aesthetic model of what we were trying to achieve.

"I think if people are looking for a new approach to science fiction, they will get very excited by this."

At present all we know for sure is that the actor's contract options have been renewed. According to Ron Moore and a recent official announcement by the Sci Fi Channel. The executives are still discussing the cost of producing a series. However when asked for some input on how he would like to continue the story should Galactica get a definite go ahead. Moore provided the following comments.

"The show would continue the story," said Moore. "We would play a lot of stories within the rag tag fleet. The Cylons would continue to chase the Galactica and be nipping at their heels.

"We won't be doing Star Trek - that's the big thing. We won't be doing planet - of - the - week episodes. We're not going to do aliens with bumps on their foreheads or the evil - twin episodes or time travel. We're not doing all the stapes of space opera. We're going to make realistic drama. We're going to take the situation seriously and we're going to make it very tense."

You can read much more of what Ron D Moore and David Eick had to say in issue 114 of Dreamwatch magazine which is out now in all good news agents throughout the UK. The Battlestar Galactica Mini series will premier on Sky Movies 2 on the 17 and 18th of February 2004.





"I was more interested in the possibilities inherent in redoing the pilot because I quickly realised if you took this premise and made it more realistic and complicated you could comment on things that are happening in today's society." Moore told the magazine, and added. "I also thought you could take a different approach to Sci Fi Television. I had wanted to do something different in science fiction for awhile. I felt Star Trek's way of delivering science fiction on TV had run its course - I felt the whole production of Trek had become very stale: the way it's shot, the way it's directed and the way it's edited, scored and written. That sort of goes for Farscape and Andromeda and even Star Wars - they all felt of the same language. I wanted to try something different."


This really pissed me off I know Star Trek is stale, hell everyone know its stale. But comparing Farscape to bloody Andromida is a joke, and i find it really interesting from the discussion about mini that Moore basically snurched plot ideas form other shows including Farscape.

[Under A Dying Sun]

i hope bsg and ron moore fail on every possible level.

farscape has always tried to bust the genre. what is he talking about.