"Time has come to stop running, to take back our sacred homeland!"
SO SAY WE ALL: Richard Hatch's vision for a Galactica sequel. 20 years after they left the Colonies, the Fleet returns in the middle of a Cylon civil war (my interpretation). The four-minute trailer + 2 minutes of scenes and effects tests is available on YouTube.
REVIEW: What if the nightmare that is Galactica 1980 never happened? What if instead, the franchise bided its tie and came back in 1999, helmed by its star Richard Hatch? It might certainly look like The Second Coming trailer. Boxey is still a grown-up Troy, though he's really beefy, but Apollo, Tigh (now heading the Quorum), Athena (recast), and Baltar (sporting a scar) are all back, along with a bunch of hot new Viper pilots, and some redesigned Cylons. No Starbuck, but they keep talking about him, perhaps to entice Dirk Benedict to return. The biggest surprise is that the Galacticans seem to have decided to abandon the idea of getting to Earth. They have either settled (literally) somewhere else and the Cylons find them, or they've decided to return to the Colonies (whatever "our homeland" means, could even be Kobol). There's no reason the premise can't evolve (1980 evolved it in the wrong direction however). But there's another complication. The Cylons are fighting a civil war against new and improved models.
While it's hard to get a real sense of the story from those 4 minutes, but competing plot threads would have likely led to a more serialized show, not unlike what we eventually DID get. It seems very military, which again evokes the feeling of the reimagined series. And the effects! As a personal project in the late 90s, it's no surprise they look more like Space: Above and Beyond than they do Star Trek, and had Universal taken Hatch's bait, the CG would have been updated. And yet, the space action looks pretty damn good in terms of choreography! Again, I point to the reimagined series and its faux-documentary camera work. Hatch either inspired Moore and his team, or he just understood where television space opera was heading.
Alas, Universal DIDN'T take the bait, as it was trying to develop Galactica as a feature film, and finally settled for a mini-series event that launched what I personally consider one of genre television's greatest achievements. So it's all for the good, unless you're one of those hardcore old-timey fans, in which case you've been set up to disagree with my next 100 reviews.
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: The Gemini is destroyed in the trailer, which it was always fated to do, considering that it was also destroyed in Galactica 1980. Starbuck also seems to have gone missing in this other timeline.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: In this timeline, Adama is apparently dead.
VERSIONS: The 30-minute pilot (without effects except what was done for the trailer) was never shown publicly. Richard Hatch did translate his vision of Battlestar into a series of original novels.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - It looks like it would have been exciting, but it's little more than a fan-made trailer, even if the fans in question are name actors.
REVIEW: What if the nightmare that is Galactica 1980 never happened? What if instead, the franchise bided its tie and came back in 1999, helmed by its star Richard Hatch? It might certainly look like The Second Coming trailer. Boxey is still a grown-up Troy, though he's really beefy, but Apollo, Tigh (now heading the Quorum), Athena (recast), and Baltar (sporting a scar) are all back, along with a bunch of hot new Viper pilots, and some redesigned Cylons. No Starbuck, but they keep talking about him, perhaps to entice Dirk Benedict to return. The biggest surprise is that the Galacticans seem to have decided to abandon the idea of getting to Earth. They have either settled (literally) somewhere else and the Cylons find them, or they've decided to return to the Colonies (whatever "our homeland" means, could even be Kobol). There's no reason the premise can't evolve (1980 evolved it in the wrong direction however). But there's another complication. The Cylons are fighting a civil war against new and improved models.
While it's hard to get a real sense of the story from those 4 minutes, but competing plot threads would have likely led to a more serialized show, not unlike what we eventually DID get. It seems very military, which again evokes the feeling of the reimagined series. And the effects! As a personal project in the late 90s, it's no surprise they look more like Space: Above and Beyond than they do Star Trek, and had Universal taken Hatch's bait, the CG would have been updated. And yet, the space action looks pretty damn good in terms of choreography! Again, I point to the reimagined series and its faux-documentary camera work. Hatch either inspired Moore and his team, or he just understood where television space opera was heading.
Alas, Universal DIDN'T take the bait, as it was trying to develop Galactica as a feature film, and finally settled for a mini-series event that launched what I personally consider one of genre television's greatest achievements. So it's all for the good, unless you're one of those hardcore old-timey fans, in which case you've been set up to disagree with my next 100 reviews.
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: The Gemini is destroyed in the trailer, which it was always fated to do, considering that it was also destroyed in Galactica 1980. Starbuck also seems to have gone missing in this other timeline.
HUMAN DEATH TOLL: In this timeline, Adama is apparently dead.
VERSIONS: The 30-minute pilot (without effects except what was done for the trailer) was never shown publicly. Richard Hatch did translate his vision of Battlestar into a series of original novels.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium - It looks like it would have been exciting, but it's little more than a fan-made trailer, even if the fans in question are name actors.
Comments