Battlestar Galactica
Encyclopedia
Battlestar Galactica is an American
science fiction
franchise
created by Glen A. Larson
. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series
in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980
, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games. A remake of Battlestar Galactica aired in December 2003, beginning with a two-part, three-hour miniseries
developed by Ronald D. Moore
and David Eick
. This led to a weekly TV series
which ran for four seasons between 2004 to 2009. A prequel
TV series, Caprica
, aired in 2010. A second prequel series, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
, is currently in production and will air in 2012.
All Battlestar Galactica productions share the premise that in a distant part of our galaxy, a human civilization lives on a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies
, to which they have migrated from their ancestral homeworld of Kobol
. The Twelve Colonies have warred for decades with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons
, whose goal is the extermination of the human race. The Cylons offer peace to the humans, which proves a ruse. With the aid of a human named Baltar (an inadvertent aid in the 2003 version), the Cylons carry out a massive attack on the Twelve Colonies and on the Colonial Fleet of starship
s that protect them. These attacks devastate the Colonial Fleet, lay waste to the Colonies, and virtually destroy their populations. Scattered survivors flee into outer space
aboard available spaceship
s. Of the entire Colonial battle fleet, only the Battlestar Galactica
, a gigantic battleship and spacecraft carrier (analogous to an aircraft carrier
), appears to have survived the Cylon conflagration. Under the leadership of Commander Adama, the Galactica and the pilots of "Viper
" fighter
s lead a fugitive fleet of survivors in search of the fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth.
, the creator and executive producer
of Battlestar Galactica, claimed he had conceived of the Battlestar Galactica premise, which he originally called Adam's Ark, during the late 1960s. However, he was unable to find financial backing for his TV series for a number of years.
Battlestar Galactica was finally produced in the wake of the success of the 1977 film Star Wars
. In fact, the movie studio
20th Century Fox
sued Universal Studios
(the studio behind Battlestar Galactica) for copyright infringement
, claiming that Universal Studios had copied 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars. Universal Studios promptly countersued, claiming that Star Wars itself had stolen many ideas from its motion picture Silent Running
(1972) (notably the robot "drones") and the Buck Rogers
movie serial of the 1930s.
Initially, Larson envisioned Battlestar Galactica as a series of made-for-TV movies (a three-hour pilot program
plus two two-hour episodes) for the American Broadcasting Company
(ABC). A shortened version of the three-hour pilot, Saga of a Star World
, was screened in Canadian theaters (before the TV series was telecast
) and in American theaters (later on). Instead of two additional TV movies, ABC decided to commission a weekly TV series of one-hour episodes.
In 1979 at the sixth annual People's Choice Awards
, the TV series won in the category of "Best New TV Drama Series".
The initial episode of the TV series (the long pilot TV movie) was broadcast on September 17, 1978. However, about 30 minutes before the end, that broadcast was interrupted by the announcement of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Accords
. After the interruption (which was nearly an hour in length), the episode picked back up where it left off.
During the eight months after the pilot's initial broadcast, 17 original episodes of the series were made (five of them two-part shows), equivalent to a standard 24-episode TV season. Citing declining ratings and cost overruns, ABC canceled Battlestar Galactica in April 1979. Its final episode "The Hand of God
" was telecast on April 29, 1979.
to consider restarting the series. A suitable concept was needed to draw viewers, and it was decided that the arrival of the Colonial Fleet at present-day Earth would be the storyline. A new TV movie called Galactica 1980
was produced. Again, it was decided this new version of Battlestar Galactica would be made into a weekly TV series. Despite the early success of the premiere, this program failed to achieve the popularity of the original series, and it was canceled after just ten episodes.
In this 1980 sequel series, the Colonial fleet finds the Earth, and then it covertly protects it from the Cylons. This series was a quick failure due to its low budget (e.g., recycling footage from the 1974 Universal Studios
movie Earthquake
during a Cylon
attack sequence), widely panned writing, and ill-chosen time slot (Sunday evenings, a time generally reserved for family-oriented programming and, more specifically, also for the 60 Minutes
newsmagazine program). The TV series also had to adhere to strict content restrictions such as limiting the number of acts of violence and being required to shoehorn educational content into the script and dialogue.
To cut costs, the show was set mostly on the contemporary Earth, to the great dismay of fans. Another factor for fan apathy was the nearly complete recasting of the original series: Lorne Greene
reprised his role as Adama (working unpaid), Herb Jefferson, Jr.
, played "Colonel" Boomer in about half of the episodes (with little screentime), and Dirk Benedict
as Starbuck for one episode (the abrupt final episode, though his character was to have also appeared in the unfilmed episode 'Wheel of Fire', which was a semi-sequel to 'The Return of Starbuck'). Richard Hatch
(Apollo in the original series) was sent a script for Galactica 1980, but he turned it down since he was not sure what his part in the series would be - now that all the characters had changed.
Some TV syndication
packages for Battlestar Galactica incorporate the episodes of this series.
, released originally in Canada, Europe and parts of Latin America and, following the broadcast of the series, in the U.S., two other Battlestar Galactica feature films were released in cinemas. Both Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack and Conquest of the Earth were made up of various episodes of the original series and Galactica 1980 respectively. (See: List of Battlestar Galactica feature films)
(independently of one another) to revive the premise.
Richard Hatch produced a demonstration video in 1998–99 which featured several actors from the original series combined with state-of-the-art special effects. This video, titled Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming
, was screened at some science fiction convention
s, but it did not lead to a new series.
In 1999, the producer
of Wing Commander
, Todd Moyer, and the producer of the original TV series, Glen Larson, announced plans to produce a motion picture based on the TV series. It would have featured Battlestar Pegasus
.
In the year 2000, the director and an executive producer of the X-Men
movie, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto
, began developing a Battlestar Galactica TV miniseries under the auspices of Studios USA for the Fox TV network
. A continuation of the original series but set 25 years later, Singer and DeSanto's version included several members of the original cast reprising their original roles as well as newer characters being introduced. It was intended to be telecast as a backdoor pilot in May 2002, and pre-production commenced and sets had even been partially constructed with a view to filming starting in November 2001. However, production delays caused by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks meant that Bryan Singer had to drop out, due to his commitment to direct the X-Men 2
movie. This caused the executives of Fox TV to lose interest in this project.
in 2003 by Universal Television
as Battlestar Galactica
, a three-hour miniseries
. Commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel
, screenwriter Ronald D. Moore
and producer David Eick
were the creative forces behind it. Academy Award-nominated actor Edward James Olmos
was cast in the role of Commander Adama
, while two-time Academy Award nominee Mary McDonnell
was cast as President Laura Roslin
. Starbuck and Boomer were now female characters, portrayed by Katee Sackhoff
and Grace Park
respectively. Other cast members included Jamie Bamber
(Captain Lee 'Apollo' Adama), James Callis
(Dr. Gaius Baltar), and Tricia Helfer
as a Cylon known as "Number Six". The mini-series was a ratings success for the Sci-Fi Channel and they commissioned a new weekly Battlestar Galactica series
to follow.
on the Sky1 satellite channel in October 2004. The series was then broadcast in North America
on the Sci-Fi Channel
in January 2005. Continuing where the 2003 mini-series left off, the main cast all returned to reprise their roles. Several new characters were introduced, and Richard Hatch
, who played Captain Apollo in the 1970s Battlestar Galactica TV series, also appeared in several episodes as Tom Zarek
, a former political terrorist who later becomes part of the new Colonial government.
An edited version of the pilot miniseries
was aired on NBC
on January 9, 2005, five days before the Sci-Fi series premiere. NBC also aired three selected first season episodes to promote the show in advance of the second season premiere in July 2005. The series ultimately ran for four seasons between 2004 and 2009. The second season was split into two halves screened several months apart. Due to production delays caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike
, the fourth season was also split into two parts, with a seven month hiatus in between.
The series has won widespread critical acclaim among many mainstream non-genre publications. Time
and New York Newsday named it the best show on television in 2005. Other publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker
, National Review
and Rolling Stone magazine also gave the show positive reviews.
The show has received a Peabody Award
for overall excellence, several Emmy Award
s for Visual Effects, and Emmy nominations for Writing and Directing. Time Magazine named it one of the 100 Best TV Shows of All Time.
produced and broadcast in the gap between Seasons 3 and 4 of the re-imagined series. Razor is also technically the first two episodes of Season 4 though it chronicles events on Battlestar Pegasus
in two time periods, both of which are "in the past" with respect to the Season 4 continuity. The "present day" framing scenes are set during Lee Adama's command of the Pegasus in the latter half of Season 2, while "flashback" scenes depict Helena Cain
's command in the period between the Cylon attack (shown in the 2003 mini-series) and the reunion with the Galactica in the second season. It aired in the United States and Canada on November 24, 2007 and in the UK and Ireland on December 18, 2007. An expanded version of the movie was released on DVD on December 4, 2007.
s were a series of shorts produced in 2006 to promote the third season of the re-imagined show. Made as an "optional extra" to Season 3, the webisodes filled in some of the events between the second and third seasons and featured some of the main cast, though did not reveal what would happen in the beginning of Season 3, nor was viewing them essential to follow the story of the third season. Each of the ten webisodes was approximately three minutes long, and they were released twice a week leading up to the U.S. Season 3 premiere in 2006.
The Razor Flashbacks were a series of seven webisodes produced in 2007. Set some 40 years earlier during William Adama's fighter pilot days during the later stages of the First Cylon War. They were released on the Internet as "webisodes" leading up to Razors release. They are now available on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and some are inserted into both the broadcast and extended cuts of the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray. The installments that did not make the final cut include 1, 2, and the latter half of 7.
In May 2008, a set of 10 webisodes were announced to be in the works which were released during the seven month hiatus between episodes 10 and 11 of Season 4. Titled The Face of the Enemy, the web series premiered on December 12, 2008 on SciFi.com. Again, viewing of the webisodes was optional prior to the second half of Season 4.
and directed by Edward James Olmos
, The Plan storyline begins before the attack on the 12 colonies and shows events primarily from the perspective of two Cylons, Cavil and Anders. Edward James Olmos
reprised his role as Adama, and eleven of the twelve actors who played Cylons appeared, including Michael Trucco
, Aaron Douglas
, Dean Stockwell
, Tricia Helfer
, Grace Park
, Rick Worthy
, Matthew Bennett
, Callum Keith Rennie
, Michael Hogan and Rekha Sharma
. The only "Cylon" actor not present was Lucy Lawless
(although previously filmed footage of her was included).
On July 24, 2009, Edward James Olmos
stated that The Plan will not be the last movie based on the reimagined series.
television series to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. It premiered on Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi) on January 22, 2010, and was described as "television's first science fiction family saga". It was originally a two-hour back door pilot for a possible weekly television series, but on December 2, 2008, Syfy gave the go-ahead to expand the project into a full, 20-episode series. Caprica is set on the titular planet, some 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica. The show revolves around two families, the Adamas and the Graystones, and the creation of the Cylons.
The pilot was directed by Jeffrey Reiner
and starred Eric Stoltz
, Esai Morales
, Paula Malcomson
, Alessandra Torresani, and Polly Walker
. The pilot was released on DVD on April 21, 2009 and the series was broadcast in January 2010.
On October 27, 2010, Syfy canceled Caprica due to low ratings. The final five episodes were aired in the US on January 4, 2011 though they had aired a couple of months earlier on the Canadian network Space. The entire series was released on DVD in 2011.
) during the First Cylon War (as was glimpsed in Razor and the corresponding webisodes).
Syfy has greenlit the two-hour pilot of Blood & Chrome, which saw production begin in February 2011. No release date has been announced yet for the pilot.
has often declared plans for a Battlestar Galactica motion picture. All attempts had been unsuccessful, though in 2009, Larson teamed up with director Bryan Singer (who had himself attempted to make his own Battlestar Galactica series in 2001). Initial plans for the film was to base it on Larsons's original series
which starred Richard Hatch
, Dirk Benedict
and Lorne Greene
. Bryan Singer
was confirmed to direct the feature film though plans made very little progress. However, in 2011, Singer's planned remake of Excalibur
was cancelled which then gave him time to develop the Battlestar Galactica film.
In October 2011 writer John Orloff
was reported to have been hired as the script writer of this new feature film version of Battlestar Galactica, which as stated before by Singer will be based on the original 1978 series, though not a continuation of said original 1978 series.
Marvel Comics
published a 23-issue comic book series based upon the show between 1978 and 1981. Walt Simonson, who later wrote and drew Thor, and also had a long stint on Marvel's Star Wars comic, was the artist for the series at its conclusion. Other comics have since been published by Maximum Press, Grandreams, Look-in
Magazine, Realm Press and, currently, Dynamite Comics. Of all these series, only those by Marvel, Grandreams and Look-In actually completed their storylines and brought the story to a conclusion. All the other series were cancelled at various points during their run, with no resolutions.
Both the Grandreams and Look-In comic strips take place early in the series. The other comic series based on the 1978 series have been set after the final episode of the series and ignored Galactica 1980
.
The Maximum Press series began with the discovery of a completely unpopulated Earth some fifteen years after the conclusion of the TV show. The look and the feel of the comics had been changed considerably from the series, to give the stories a "more nineties" feel.
The Realm Press series picked up immediately after the conclusion of the final episode of the original series in an attempt to present what they called "Season Two" of the original show.
Dynamite Entertainment
is currently publishing comic books featuring both the classic and reimagined Battlestar Galactica series. In June, 2009, it was announced that Dynamite Entertainment will be releasing a Galactica 1980 comic series. It will be written by Marc Guggenheim
and will be a re-imagining of the original series and is expected to be released in August 2009.
with the authors listed below. All novels except Battlestar Galactica #14: Surrender the Galactica (ACE publishing) were originally published by Berkley and have been republished recently by I Books as Battlestar Galactica Classic to differentiate it from the reimagined series.
Episodic novels
Original novels
. Play includes using terrain elements and a number of special-ability cards to the players' advantage.
In 1978, Mattel Electronics released a handheld electronic LED
game based on the series. The player tries to defend Galactica from kamikaze
Cylon Raiders by manipulating a switch on the game unit to direct your fire, which was activated by a red button to the left of the unit.
In 1979, FASA released a tabletop counter piece game for Battlestar Galactica based on the fighter combat, which included the Galactica and a Cylon Basestar to be launched from, attack with and be attacked/defended. The counters for the Vipers and the Raiders included three model versions MKI/MKII/MKIII not just the MKII Viper and Raider MKI.
In November 2003, shortly before the premiere of the re-imagined TV series, Sierra released a 3D space combat Battlestar Galatica computer game for the original Xbox
, PlayStation 2
, and for PC. The game took place 40 years before the original series and featured an ensign Adama flying a Viper during the Cylon war. The game was developed by Warthog.
Wiz Kids, Inc.
(a collectible game manufacturer) produced the Battlestar Galactica Collectable Card Game
based on the 2003 mini-series and 2004 TV show. The premier set of this game was released in May 2006. After the release of one expansion set, Wizkids announced the game's cancellation on March 13, 2007.
A Battlestar Galactica role playing game was released in August 2007 by Margaret Weis Productions at Gen Con
.
Fantasy Flight Games
has produced Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, based on the 2003 re-imagined series. It is a semi-cooperative game of strategy for 3-6 players with some players being Cylon agents, either aware at start of the game or become aware later, as Sleeper agent
s. Each of the 10 playable character has their own abilities and weaknesses, and must all work together in order for humanity to survive, as well as attempt to expose the traitor while fuel shortages, food contaminations, and political unrest threatens to tear the fleet apart. In June 2009, a "Pegasus expansion" to the board game was announced, adding seven new characters, and extra gameboards representing Battlestar Pegasus and New Caprica. A further expansion, Exodus was released in December 2010.
There is also a Xbox 360 Live Arcade
title called Battlestar Galactica which is 2D in nature where you can co-op or dogfight with up to 8 people over Xbox Live
.
Battlestar Galactica Online
is a 3D browser-based
MMOG
released as an open beta on February 8, 2011 by Bigpoint Games
.
Television in the United States
Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
franchise
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
created by Glen A. Larson
Glen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica TV series
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
in 1978, and was followed by a brief sequel TV series in 1980
Galactica 1980
Galactica 1980 is a science fiction television series, and a spin-off from the 1978–1979 series Battlestar Galactica. It was first broadcast on the ABC network in the United States from January 27 to May 4, 1980.-Development:...
, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games. A remake of Battlestar Galactica aired in December 2003, beginning with a two-part, three-hour miniseries
Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)
Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour miniseries written and produced by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica reimagining based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series...
developed by Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
and David Eick
David Eick
David Eick is an American producer and writer, best known as the Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica, of which he also wrote several episodes with Ronald D. Moore, as well as the re-imagined version of Bionic Woman...
. This led to a weekly TV series
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
which ran for four seasons between 2004 to 2009. A prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
TV series, Caprica
Caprica (TV series)
Caprica is a science fiction drama television series. It is a spin-off prequel of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, taking place about 58 years prior to the events of Battlestar Galactica. Caprica shows how humanity first created the robotic Cylons who would later plot to destroy humans in...
, aired in 2010. A second prequel series, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome is an upcoming television pilot based on the television series Battlestar Galactica. It stars Luke Pasqualino, Ben Cotton, and Lili Bordán...
, is currently in production and will air in 2012.
All Battlestar Galactica productions share the premise that in a distant part of our galaxy, a human civilization lives on a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies
Twelve Colonies
The Twelve Colonies of Man are fictional locations that constitute the principal human civilization in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, the "reimagined" series of the same name in 2004, and in the prequel series, Caprica...
, to which they have migrated from their ancestral homeworld of Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...
. The Twelve Colonies have warred for decades with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons
Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)
The Cylons are a cybernetic civilization at war with the Twelve Colonies of humanity in the Battlestar Galactica science fiction franchise, in the original 1978 and 1980 series, the 2004 reimagining, as well as the spin-off prequel series, Caprica...
, whose goal is the extermination of the human race. The Cylons offer peace to the humans, which proves a ruse. With the aid of a human named Baltar (an inadvertent aid in the 2003 version), the Cylons carry out a massive attack on the Twelve Colonies and on the Colonial Fleet of starship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
s that protect them. These attacks devastate the Colonial Fleet, lay waste to the Colonies, and virtually destroy their populations. Scattered survivors flee into outer space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
aboard available spaceship
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
s. Of the entire Colonial battle fleet, only the Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (ship)
The Battlestar Galactica is a space battleship in the original and re-imagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica.The Twelve Colonies of Man in the original television series built a number of Battlestars during their thousand-year war with the Cylons, whose battleships are...
, a gigantic battleship and spacecraft carrier (analogous to an aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
), appears to have survived the Cylon conflagration. Under the leadership of Commander Adama, the Galactica and the pilots of "Viper
Colonial Viper
The Colonial Viper is the primary fighter spacecraft type used by the human protagonists in the Battlestar Galactica fictional universe. Appearing in both the 1978 original series and the 2003 reimagined series, as well as various derivative works, the single-pilot spacecraft are carried aboard...
" fighter
Starfighter
"Starfighter" is a science fiction term used to describe small, fast, usually one-manned craft designed for armed combat .The appearance and use of fictional starfighters is often modeled on fighter aircraft, with little regard for the actual physics of spaceflight...
s lead a fugitive fleet of survivors in search of the fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth.
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Glen A. LarsonGlen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
, the creator and executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
of Battlestar Galactica, claimed he had conceived of the Battlestar Galactica premise, which he originally called Adam's Ark, during the late 1960s. However, he was unable to find financial backing for his TV series for a number of years.
Battlestar Galactica was finally produced in the wake of the success of the 1977 film Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
. In fact, the movie studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
sued Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
(the studio behind Battlestar Galactica) for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
, claiming that Universal Studios had copied 34 distinct ideas from Star Wars. Universal Studios promptly countersued, claiming that Star Wars itself had stolen many ideas from its motion picture Silent Running
Silent Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.-Plot summary:Silent Running depicts a...
(1972) (notably the robot "drones") and the Buck Rogers
Buck Rogers (serial)
Buck Rogers is a Universal serial film based on the Buck Rogers comic strip, starring Buster Crabbe as the eponymous hero, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran and Anthony Warde.-Plot:...
movie serial of the 1930s.
Initially, Larson envisioned Battlestar Galactica as a series of made-for-TV movies (a three-hour pilot program
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
plus two two-hour episodes) for the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
(ABC). A shortened version of the three-hour pilot, Saga of a Star World
Saga of a Star World
"Saga of a Star World" is the pilot for the American science fiction television series of Battlestar Galactica which was produced in 1978 by Glen A. Larson...
, was screened in Canadian theaters (before the TV series was telecast
Telecast
Telecast may refer to:*television broadcast*Telecast , a Christian band from the United States...
) and in American theaters (later on). Instead of two additional TV movies, ABC decided to commission a weekly TV series of one-hour episodes.
In 1979 at the sixth annual People's Choice Awards
People's Choice Awards
The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show recognizing the people and the work of popular culture. The show has been held annually since 1975 and is voted on by the general public. The People's Choice Awards air on CBS and are produced by Procter & Gamble and Survivor magnate Mark Burnett...
, the TV series won in the category of "Best New TV Drama Series".
The initial episode of the TV series (the long pilot TV movie) was broadcast on September 17, 1978. However, about 30 minutes before the end, that broadcast was interrupted by the announcement of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Accords
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States...
. After the interruption (which was nearly an hour in length), the episode picked back up where it left off.
During the eight months after the pilot's initial broadcast, 17 original episodes of the series were made (five of them two-part shows), equivalent to a standard 24-episode TV season. Citing declining ratings and cost overruns, ABC canceled Battlestar Galactica in April 1979. Its final episode "The Hand of God
The Hand of God (1978 Battlestar Galactica)
"The Hand of God" is an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica television series. This was the last episode of the original Battlestar Galactica TV series...
" was telecast on April 29, 1979.
Galactica 1980
During the autumn of 1979, ABC executives met with Battlestar Galacticas creator Glen A. LarsonGlen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
to consider restarting the series. A suitable concept was needed to draw viewers, and it was decided that the arrival of the Colonial Fleet at present-day Earth would be the storyline. A new TV movie called Galactica 1980
Galactica 1980
Galactica 1980 is a science fiction television series, and a spin-off from the 1978–1979 series Battlestar Galactica. It was first broadcast on the ABC network in the United States from January 27 to May 4, 1980.-Development:...
was produced. Again, it was decided this new version of Battlestar Galactica would be made into a weekly TV series. Despite the early success of the premiere, this program failed to achieve the popularity of the original series, and it was canceled after just ten episodes.
In this 1980 sequel series, the Colonial fleet finds the Earth, and then it covertly protects it from the Cylons. This series was a quick failure due to its low budget (e.g., recycling footage from the 1974 Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
movie Earthquake
Earthquake (film)
Earthquake is a 1974 American disaster film that achieved huge box-office success, continuing the disaster film genre of the 1970s where recognizable all-star casts attempt to survive life or death situations...
during a Cylon
Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)
The Cylons are a cybernetic civilization at war with the Twelve Colonies of humanity in the Battlestar Galactica science fiction franchise, in the original 1978 and 1980 series, the 2004 reimagining, as well as the spin-off prequel series, Caprica...
attack sequence), widely panned writing, and ill-chosen time slot (Sunday evenings, a time generally reserved for family-oriented programming and, more specifically, also for the 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
newsmagazine program). The TV series also had to adhere to strict content restrictions such as limiting the number of acts of violence and being required to shoehorn educational content into the script and dialogue.
To cut costs, the show was set mostly on the contemporary Earth, to the great dismay of fans. Another factor for fan apathy was the nearly complete recasting of the original series: Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...
reprised his role as Adama (working unpaid), Herb Jefferson, Jr.
Herb Jefferson, Jr.
Herbert Jefferson Jr. is an African-American actor. He graduated with honors from New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1969. He is probably best known for his role as Lieutenant Boomer on the original Battlestar Galactica television series...
, played "Colonel" Boomer in about half of the episodes (with little screentime), and Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict is an American movie, television and stage actor, perhaps best known for playing the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series.-Early life:Benedict was born...
as Starbuck for one episode (the abrupt final episode, though his character was to have also appeared in the unfilmed episode 'Wheel of Fire', which was a semi-sequel to 'The Return of Starbuck'). Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, and also as Tom Zarek in the remake of Battlestar Galactica....
(Apollo in the original series) was sent a script for Galactica 1980, but he turned it down since he was not sure what his part in the series would be - now that all the characters had changed.
Some TV syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
packages for Battlestar Galactica incorporate the episodes of this series.
Cinema releases
Besides a re-edited version of the pilotSaga of a Star World
"Saga of a Star World" is the pilot for the American science fiction television series of Battlestar Galactica which was produced in 1978 by Glen A. Larson...
, released originally in Canada, Europe and parts of Latin America and, following the broadcast of the series, in the U.S., two other Battlestar Galactica feature films were released in cinemas. Both Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack and Conquest of the Earth were made up of various episodes of the original series and Galactica 1980 respectively. (See: List of Battlestar Galactica feature films)
Attempted revivals
The original series maintained a cult fandom, which has supported efforts by Glen A. Larson, Richard Hatch, and Bryan SingerBryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
(independently of one another) to revive the premise.
Richard Hatch produced a demonstration video in 1998–99 which featured several actors from the original series combined with state-of-the-art special effects. This video, titled Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming
Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming
Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming is a 1999 science-fiction action film. It was a project to create a pilot film for a proposed new Battlestar Galactica television series that would pick up where the original 1978 series left off...
, was screened at some science fiction convention
Science fiction convention
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies and...
s, but it did not lead to a new series.
In 1999, the producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
of Wing Commander
Wing Commander (film)
Wing Commander is a science fiction film based on the same titled video game series, released in 1999. It was directed by Chris Roberts, the creator of the game series, and stars Freddie Prinze, Jr., Matthew Lillard, Saffron Burrows, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow, David Suchet and David Warner...
, Todd Moyer, and the producer of the original TV series, Glen Larson, announced plans to produce a motion picture based on the TV series. It would have featured Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus is a fictional spacecraft that appears in the both the original and the reimagined television series Battlestar Galactica.- Battlestar Galactica :...
.
In the year 2000, the director and an executive producer of the X-Men
X-Men (film)
X-Men is a 2000 superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics characters of the same name. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film stars Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, Bruce Davison, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn, Ray Park and Tyler Mane...
movie, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto
Tom DeSanto
Tom DeSanto is an American film producer and screenwriter. DeSanto is best known for his work with long time friend Bryan Singer, especially with his contributions to the first two X-Men movies.-Education:...
, began developing a Battlestar Galactica TV miniseries under the auspices of Studios USA for the Fox TV network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
. A continuation of the original series but set 25 years later, Singer and DeSanto's version included several members of the original cast reprising their original roles as well as newer characters being introduced. It was intended to be telecast as a backdoor pilot in May 2002, and pre-production commenced and sets had even been partially constructed with a view to filming starting in November 2001. However, production delays caused by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks meant that Bryan Singer had to drop out, due to his commitment to direct the X-Men 2
X2 (film)
X2 is a 2003 superhero film based on the fictional characters the X-Men. Directed by Bryan Singer, it is the second film in the X-Men film series...
movie. This caused the executives of Fox TV to lose interest in this project.
2003 reimagining
Despite attempts to revive the series over the years, none came to fruition until it was reimaginedReboot (continuity)
The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas...
in 2003 by Universal Television
Universal Television
Universal Television is the television production arm of the NBCUniversal Television Group, and by extension, the NBC television network...
as Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)
Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour miniseries written and produced by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica reimagining based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series...
, a three-hour miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
. Commissioned by the Sci-Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
, screenwriter Ronald D. Moore
Ronald D. Moore
Ronald Dowl Moore is an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his work on Star Trek and the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, for which he won a Peabody Award for creative excellence in 2005 and an Emmy Award in 2008.-Early life and...
and producer David Eick
David Eick
David Eick is an American producer and writer, best known as the Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica, of which he also wrote several episodes with Ronald D. Moore, as well as the re-imagined version of Bionic Woman...
were the creative forces behind it. Academy Award-nominated actor Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
was cast in the role of Commander Adama
William Adama
William "Bill" Adama is a fictional character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series...
, while two-time Academy Award nominee Mary McDonnell
Mary McDonnell
Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves, and she is also very well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife...
was cast as President Laura Roslin
Laura Roslin
Her first actions include organizing all FTL-capable ships together and convincing Commander William Adama to abandon a retaliatory attack on the Cylons. President Roslin and Billy Keikeya, her aide/press secretary/chief of staff, establish a working office space aboard her transport, renamed...
. Starbuck and Boomer were now female characters, portrayed by Katee Sackhoff
Katee Sackhoff
Kathryn Ann "Katee" Sackhoff is an American actress known mainly for playing Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica. In 2004 she was nominated for a Saturn Award in the "Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series" category for her work in...
and Grace Park
Grace Park (actress)
Grace Park is an American-born Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Sharon Valerii on Battlestar Galactica, as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont...
respectively. Other cast members included Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber is the stage name of Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith , a British actor known most widely for his roles as Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin on the ITV series Law & Order: UK...
(Captain Lee 'Apollo' Adama), James Callis
James Callis
James Callis is a British actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, and Bridget Jones' best friend in Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...
(Dr. Gaius Baltar), and Tricia Helfer
Tricia Helfer
Tricia Janine Helfer is a Canadian actress and former model, best known for her roles as Number Six in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, "Carla" on Burn Notice, and FBI Special Agent Alex Rice on Dark Blue, as well as for hosting the first season of Canada's...
as a Cylon known as "Number Six". The mini-series was a ratings success for the Sci-Fi Channel and they commissioned a new weekly Battlestar Galactica series
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
to follow.
Television series
The new TV series was co-funded by the UK's Sky Television, and premiered first in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on the Sky1 satellite channel in October 2004. The series was then broadcast in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on the Sci-Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
in January 2005. Continuing where the 2003 mini-series left off, the main cast all returned to reprise their roles. Several new characters were introduced, and Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, and also as Tom Zarek in the remake of Battlestar Galactica....
, who played Captain Apollo in the 1970s Battlestar Galactica TV series, also appeared in several episodes as Tom Zarek
Tom Zarek
Thomas "Tom" Zarek is the name of a fictional character on the Syfy series Battlestar Galactica. He is played by Richard Hatch, who had previously portrayed Captain Apollo, a character on the original Battlestar Galactica series of the late 1970s....
, a former political terrorist who later becomes part of the new Colonial government.
An edited version of the pilot miniseries
Battlestar Galactica (TV miniseries)
Battlestar Galactica is a three-hour miniseries written and produced by Ronald D. Moore and directed by Michael Rymer. It was the first part of the Battlestar Galactica reimagining based on the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series, and served as a backdoor pilot for the 2004 television series...
was aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
on January 9, 2005, five days before the Sci-Fi series premiere. NBC also aired three selected first season episodes to promote the show in advance of the second season premiere in July 2005. The series ultimately ran for four seasons between 2004 and 2009. The second season was split into two halves screened several months apart. Due to production delays caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike
2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....
, the fourth season was also split into two parts, with a seven month hiatus in between.
The series has won widespread critical acclaim among many mainstream non-genre publications. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and New York Newsday named it the best show on television in 2005. Other publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
and Rolling Stone magazine also gave the show positive reviews.
The show has received a Peabody Award
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
for overall excellence, several Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s for Visual Effects, and Emmy nominations for Writing and Directing. Time Magazine named it one of the 100 Best TV Shows of All Time.
Razor (TV movie)
Battlestar Galactica: Razor is a 2007 television movieTelevision movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
produced and broadcast in the gap between Seasons 3 and 4 of the re-imagined series. Razor is also technically the first two episodes of Season 4 though it chronicles events on Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus
Battlestar Pegasus is a fictional spacecraft that appears in the both the original and the reimagined television series Battlestar Galactica.- Battlestar Galactica :...
in two time periods, both of which are "in the past" with respect to the Season 4 continuity. The "present day" framing scenes are set during Lee Adama's command of the Pegasus in the latter half of Season 2, while "flashback" scenes depict Helena Cain
Helena Cain
Admiral Helena Cain is a fictional character in the reimagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica, portrayed by Michelle Forbes.-Youth:...
's command in the period between the Cylon attack (shown in the 2003 mini-series) and the reunion with the Galactica in the second season. It aired in the United States and Canada on November 24, 2007 and in the UK and Ireland on December 18, 2007. An expanded version of the movie was released on DVD on December 4, 2007.
Webisodes
The first set of webisodeWebisode
A webisode is a short episode which airs initially as Internet television, either download or stream as opposed to first airing on broadcast or cable television. The format can be used as a preview, a promotion, as part of a collection of shorts, or a commercial.A webisode can be an episode...
s were a series of shorts produced in 2006 to promote the third season of the re-imagined show. Made as an "optional extra" to Season 3, the webisodes filled in some of the events between the second and third seasons and featured some of the main cast, though did not reveal what would happen in the beginning of Season 3, nor was viewing them essential to follow the story of the third season. Each of the ten webisodes was approximately three minutes long, and they were released twice a week leading up to the U.S. Season 3 premiere in 2006.
The Razor Flashbacks were a series of seven webisodes produced in 2007. Set some 40 years earlier during William Adama's fighter pilot days during the later stages of the First Cylon War. They were released on the Internet as "webisodes" leading up to Razors release. They are now available on the DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Battlestar Galactica: Razor, and some are inserted into both the broadcast and extended cuts of the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray. The installments that did not make the final cut include 1, 2, and the latter half of 7.
In May 2008, a set of 10 webisodes were announced to be in the works which were released during the seven month hiatus between episodes 10 and 11 of Season 4. Titled The Face of the Enemy, the web series premiered on December 12, 2008 on SciFi.com. Again, viewing of the webisodes was optional prior to the second half of Season 4.
The Plan (TV movie)
In August 2008, the Sci Fi Channel officially announced the production of a two-hour TV movie which was planned to air after the final episode of the series in 2009. The movie began production on September 8, 2008. The movie premiered exclusively on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download on October 27, 2009 and aired on January 10, 2010, on Sci Fi. Written by Jane EspensonJane Espenson
Jane Espenson is an American script writer and television producer who has worked on both situation comedies and serial dramas. She had a five-year stint as a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shared a Hugo Award for her writing on the episode "Conversations with Dead People"...
and directed by Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
, The Plan storyline begins before the attack on the 12 colonies and shows events primarily from the perspective of two Cylons, Cavil and Anders. Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
reprised his role as Adama, and eleven of the twelve actors who played Cylons appeared, including Michael Trucco
Michael Trucco
Edward Michael Trucco is an American actor with Italian roots. He is best known for his role as Samuel T. Anders on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and currently appears as a series regular on the USA Network television series Fairly Legal.-Biography:A native of San Mateo, California, he...
, Aaron Douglas
Aaron Douglas (actor)
Aaron Douglas is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Galen Tyrol on the Sci Fi Channel's television program Battlestar Galactica....
, Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell
Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and...
, Tricia Helfer
Tricia Helfer
Tricia Janine Helfer is a Canadian actress and former model, best known for her roles as Number Six in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and television series, "Carla" on Burn Notice, and FBI Special Agent Alex Rice on Dark Blue, as well as for hosting the first season of Canada's...
, Grace Park
Grace Park (actress)
Grace Park is an American-born Canadian actress. She gained recognition as Sharon Valerii on Battlestar Galactica, as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont...
, Rick Worthy
Rick Worthy
Richard Worthy is an American actor and Star Trek veteran, having played several alien and one human role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise....
, Matthew Bennett
Matthew Bennett
Matthew Ray Bennett is a Canadian actor, writer and director. At the age of 20 he moved from his hometown of Toronto, Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia to pursue an acting career...
, Callum Keith Rennie
Callum Keith Rennie
Callum Keith Rennie is a British-born Canadian television and film actor. He started his career in Canadian film and television projects, where his portrayal of Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the TV series Due South was his first international success...
, Michael Hogan and Rekha Sharma
Rekha Sharma
Rekha Shanti Sharma is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Tory Foster on Battlestar Galactica.Her ancestors are from the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, which they left during the British period. Her family resettled in the Fiji Islands and her parents moved to Canada...
. The only "Cylon" actor not present was Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless
Lucy Lawless, MNZM is a New Zealander actress and singer best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series Xena: Warrior Princess....
(although previously filmed footage of her was included).
On July 24, 2009, Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
stated that The Plan will not be the last movie based on the reimagined series.
Caprica
Caprica is a prequelPrequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
television series to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. It premiered on Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi) on January 22, 2010, and was described as "television's first science fiction family saga". It was originally a two-hour back door pilot for a possible weekly television series, but on December 2, 2008, Syfy gave the go-ahead to expand the project into a full, 20-episode series. Caprica is set on the titular planet, some 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica. The show revolves around two families, the Adamas and the Graystones, and the creation of the Cylons.
The pilot was directed by Jeffrey Reiner
Jeffrey Reiner
Jeffrey Reiner is an American film director, editor, television director and producer.Since the late 1980s, he has amassed a number credits in the film and television industry...
and starred Eric Stoltz
Eric Stoltz
Eric Hamilton Stoltz is an American actor, director and producer. He is widely known for playing the role of Rocky Dennis in the biographical drama film Mask, which earned him the nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture...
, Esai Morales
Esai Morales
Esai Manuel Morales is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Bob Morales in the 1987 biopic La Bamba. He also appeared in the PBS drama American Family and in the Showtime series Resurrection Blvd.. However, he is best known for his roles as Lt...
, Paula Malcomson
Paula Malcomson
Paula Malcomson is a Northern Irish actress born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Malcomson is sometimes credited as Paula Williams.She starred as "Trixie" in the HBO series Deadwood and Colleen in ABC's Lost...
, Alessandra Torresani, and Polly Walker
Polly Walker
Polly Walker is an English actress.- Early life :Walker was born in Warrington, Cheshire, England. Her first school was Silverdale Preparatory West Acton, London. At 16, Walker graduated from Ballet Rambert School in Twickenham, began her career as a dancer, but had to abandon dancing after a leg...
. The pilot was released on DVD on April 21, 2009 and the series was broadcast in January 2010.
On October 27, 2010, Syfy canceled Caprica due to low ratings. The final five episodes were aired in the US on January 4, 2011 though they had aired a couple of months earlier on the Canadian network Space. The entire series was released on DVD in 2011.
Blood & Chrome
Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome is an upcoming spin-off series from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series. Syfy approached show runner Ronald D. Moore to produce another spin-off set in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica universe, and will begin as a two-hour pilot that will focus on William "Husker" Adama (to be portrayed by Luke PasqualinoLuke Pasqualino
Luke Pasqualino is an English actor, best known for his portrayal of Freddie Mclair in the television series Skins.-Early life:...
) during the First Cylon War (as was glimpsed in Razor and the corresponding webisodes).
Syfy has greenlit the two-hour pilot of Blood & Chrome, which saw production begin in February 2011. No release date has been announced yet for the pilot.
Feature film (2013)
For many years, original series creator Glen A. LarsonGlen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
has often declared plans for a Battlestar Galactica motion picture. All attempts had been unsuccessful, though in 2009, Larson teamed up with director Bryan Singer (who had himself attempted to make his own Battlestar Galactica series in 2001). Initial plans for the film was to base it on Larsons's original series
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
which starred Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch (actor)
Richard Hatch is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, and also as Tom Zarek in the remake of Battlestar Galactica....
, Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict is an American movie, television and stage actor, perhaps best known for playing the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series.-Early life:Benedict was born...
and Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene
Lorne Greene , was the stage name of Lyon Himan Green, OC, a Canadian actor.His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction movie and subsequent TV Series Battlestar Galactica...
. Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
was confirmed to direct the feature film though plans made very little progress. However, in 2011, Singer's planned remake of Excalibur
Excalibur (film)
Excalibur is a 1981 dramatic fantasy film directed, produced and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. Adapted from the 15th century Arthurian romance, Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory, Excalibur features the music of Richard Wagner...
was cancelled which then gave him time to develop the Battlestar Galactica film.
In October 2011 writer John Orloff
John Orloff
John Orloff is an American screenwriter who currently lives in Chatham, New York.-Life and career:Orloff studied screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles Film School, and on graduation, went to work in the advertising business...
was reported to have been hired as the script writer of this new feature film version of Battlestar Galactica, which as stated before by Singer will be based on the original 1978 series, though not a continuation of said original 1978 series.
Comic books
A series of comic book publishers have adapted Battlestar Galactica since its inception.Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
published a 23-issue comic book series based upon the show between 1978 and 1981. Walt Simonson, who later wrote and drew Thor, and also had a long stint on Marvel's Star Wars comic, was the artist for the series at its conclusion. Other comics have since been published by Maximum Press, Grandreams, Look-in
Look-in
Look-in was a long running children's magazine centred around ITV's television programmes in the United Kingdom, and subtitled "The Junior TVTimes". It ran from 9 January 1971 to 12 March 1994...
Magazine, Realm Press and, currently, Dynamite Comics. Of all these series, only those by Marvel, Grandreams and Look-In actually completed their storylines and brought the story to a conclusion. All the other series were cancelled at various points during their run, with no resolutions.
Both the Grandreams and Look-In comic strips take place early in the series. The other comic series based on the 1978 series have been set after the final episode of the series and ignored Galactica 1980
Galactica 1980
Galactica 1980 is a science fiction television series, and a spin-off from the 1978–1979 series Battlestar Galactica. It was first broadcast on the ABC network in the United States from January 27 to May 4, 1980.-Development:...
.
The Maximum Press series began with the discovery of a completely unpopulated Earth some fifteen years after the conclusion of the TV show. The look and the feel of the comics had been changed considerably from the series, to give the stories a "more nineties" feel.
The Realm Press series picked up immediately after the conclusion of the final episode of the original series in an attempt to present what they called "Season Two" of the original show.
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...
is currently publishing comic books featuring both the classic and reimagined Battlestar Galactica series. In June, 2009, it was announced that Dynamite Entertainment will be releasing a Galactica 1980 comic series. It will be written by Marc Guggenheim
Marc Guggenheim
Marc Guggenheim is an American television writer-producer and a writer for Marvel Comics and DC Comics. His brother is screenwriter Eric Guggenheim.-Television:...
and will be a re-imagining of the original series and is expected to be released in August 2009.
Books
Both the original and the reimagined series have had books published both about the series, academically oriented analysis, novelizations, and new works based on the characters.Original series books
These Battlestar Galactica softcover novelisations were written by Glen A. LarsonGlen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
with the authors listed below. All novels except Battlestar Galactica #14: Surrender the Galactica (ACE publishing) were originally published by Berkley and have been republished recently by I Books as Battlestar Galactica Classic to differentiate it from the reimagined series.
Episodic novels
- Battlestar Galactica #1: Saga of a Star World. (with Robert ThurstonRobert ThurstonRobert Thurston is a science fiction author well known for his works in popular shared world settings, most notably his Clan Jade Falcon novels of the BattleTech universe and the novelizations of the original Battlestar Galactica television series....
) - Battlestar Galactica #2: The Cylon Death Machine. (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #3: The Tombs of Kobol. (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #4: The Young Warriors. (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #5: Galactica Discovers Earth. (Galactica 1980 novelisation, with Michael Resnick)
- Battlestar Galactica #6: The Living Legend. (with Nicholas Yermakov)
- Battlestar Galactica #7: War of the Gods. (with Nicholas Yermakov)
- Battlestar Galactica #8: Greetings from Earth. (with Ron GoulartRon GoulartRon Goulart is an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson , Con Steffanson , Chad Calhoun, R.T...
) - Battlestar Galactica #9: Experiment in Terra. (with Ron Goulart)
- Battlestar Galactica #10: The Long Patrol. (with Ron Goulart)
Original novels
- Battlestar Galactica #11: The Nightmare Machine. (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #12: "Die, Chameleon!". (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #13: Apollo's War. (with Robert Thurston)
- Battlestar Galactica #14: Surrender the Galactica. (with Robert Thurston)
Reimagined series books
Tor Science Fiction has published the following works in both hardcover and paperback format.- Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver
- The Cylons' Secret: Battlestar Galactica 2 by Craig Shaw GardnerCraig Shaw GardnerCraig Shaw Gardner is an American author, best known for producing fantasy parodies similar to those of Terry Pratchett.He was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America , a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized...
- Sagittarius Is Bleeding: Battlestar Galactica 3 by Peter DavidPeter DavidPeter Allen David , often abbreviated PAD, is an American writer of comic books, novels, television, movies and video games...
- Unity: Battlestar Galactica 4 by Steven HarperSteven PiziksSteven Piziks is an American author of science fiction.Piziks writes mostly military science fiction and film and television series novelisations...
Academic analysis
- So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica, edited by Richard HatchRichard HatchRichard Hatch is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Captain Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, and also as Tom Zarek in the remake of Battlestar Galactica....
Games
The original series inspired a Battlestar Galactica board game. The game is set during a training mission, where two to four players maneuver pieces representing Colonial Vipers in order to capture a damaged Cylon RaiderCylon Raider
The Cylon Raider is the standard starfighter used by the Cylons, in the various Battlestar Galactica movies and television series. Cylon raiders are used as the main line of defense for Cylon Basestars.- Original series :...
. Play includes using terrain elements and a number of special-ability cards to the players' advantage.
In 1978, Mattel Electronics released a handheld electronic LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
game based on the series. The player tries to defend Galactica from kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
Cylon Raiders by manipulating a switch on the game unit to direct your fire, which was activated by a red button to the left of the unit.
In 1979, FASA released a tabletop counter piece game for Battlestar Galactica based on the fighter combat, which included the Galactica and a Cylon Basestar to be launched from, attack with and be attacked/defended. The counters for the Vipers and the Raiders included three model versions MKI/MKII/MKIII not just the MKII Viper and Raider MKI.
In November 2003, shortly before the premiere of the re-imagined TV series, Sierra released a 3D space combat Battlestar Galatica computer game for the original Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
, PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, and for PC. The game took place 40 years before the original series and featured an ensign Adama flying a Viper during the Cylon war. The game was developed by Warthog.
Wiz Kids, Inc.
WizKids
WizKids, Inc. is an American New Jersey-based company that first made its mark in the game industry producing collectible miniatures wargames. WizKids was purchased by and is a subsidiary of National Entertainment Collectibles Association. The company was founded in 2000 by Jordan Weisman, a...
(a collectible game manufacturer) produced the Battlestar Galactica Collectable Card Game
Battlestar Galactica Collectable Card Game
The Battlestar Galactica Collectible Card Game is a collectible trading card game based on the Battlestar Galactica science fiction media franchise. The game, published by WizKids, saw first release in May 2006 and was officially canceled in March 2007....
based on the 2003 mini-series and 2004 TV show. The premier set of this game was released in May 2006. After the release of one expansion set, Wizkids announced the game's cancellation on March 13, 2007.
A Battlestar Galactica role playing game was released in August 2007 by Margaret Weis Productions at Gen Con
Gen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
.
Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games
Fantasy Flight Games is a Roseville, Minnesota-based game company that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games. Fantasy Flight Publishing was founded in 1995 by its CEO, Christian T. Petersen. Since the release of its first game product in 1997, the company has been doing...
has produced Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, based on the 2003 re-imagined series. It is a semi-cooperative game of strategy for 3-6 players with some players being Cylon agents, either aware at start of the game or become aware later, as Sleeper agent
Sleeper agent
A sleeper agent is a spy who is placed in a target country or organization, not to undertake an immediate mission, but rather to act as a potential asset if activated...
s. Each of the 10 playable character has their own abilities and weaknesses, and must all work together in order for humanity to survive, as well as attempt to expose the traitor while fuel shortages, food contaminations, and political unrest threatens to tear the fleet apart. In June 2009, a "Pegasus expansion" to the board game was announced, adding seven new characters, and extra gameboards representing Battlestar Pegasus and New Caprica. A further expansion, Exodus was released in December 2010.
There is also a Xbox 360 Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
title called Battlestar Galactica which is 2D in nature where you can co-op or dogfight with up to 8 people over Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
.
Battlestar Galactica Online
Battlestar Galactica Online
Battlestar Galactica Online is a browser-based Massively Multiplayer Online Game based on the 2004 television series Battlestar Galactica. Released in open beta on February 8, 2011, it was developed by Bigpoint and Artplant using the Unity Game Development Tool. In less than three months of...
is a 3D browser-based
Browser game
A browser game is a computer game that is played over the Internet using a web browser. Browser games can be created and run using standard web technologies or browser plug-ins. Browser games include all video game genres and can be single-player or multiplayer...
MMOG
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
released as an open beta on February 8, 2011 by Bigpoint Games
Bigpoint Games
Bigpoint GmbH is a German video game developer that has specializes in browser-based games. Bigpoint runs a gaming portal website with a number of browser-based massively multiplayer online role playing games it has produced and has over 200 million registered users...
.
See also
- Battlestar Galactica comics
- Battlestar Galactica shipBattlestar Galactica (ship)The Battlestar Galactica is a space battleship in the original and re-imagined science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica.The Twelve Colonies of Man in the original television series built a number of Battlestars during their thousand-year war with the Cylons, whose battleships are...
- List of Battlestar Galactica characters
- List of Battlestar Galactica objects
- Religious and mythological references in Battlestar GalacticaReligious and mythological references in Battlestar GalacticaIn both the original and reimagined versions of Battlestar Galactica various references are made to existing mythologies.-Common to both:Some of the elements of the two Battlestar Galactica science-fiction television series seem obviously derived from the Mormon beliefs of their creator, Glen A....