Battlestar Galactica (film)

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This article is about the original film; for other versions, see the main Battlestar Galactica page or Battlestar Galactica (disambiguation).
Battlestar Galactica (1978 film)
Directed by Richard A. Colla
Produced by John Dykstra
Leslie Stevens
Written by Glen A. Larson
Starring Richard Hatch
Dirk Benedict
Lorne Greene
Music by Stu Phillips
Cinematography Ben Colman
Editing by Robert L. Kimble
Leon Ortiz-Gil
Larry Strong
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) July 1978 (Canada, Australia & most of Europe)
May 18, 1979 (U.S.)
Running time 125 min. (theatrical version); 148 min. (television version)
Language English
IMDb profile

Battlestar Galactica is the pilot for the American science fiction television series which was produced in 1978 by Glen Larson starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict. The film was released theatrically in Canada, Australia and some countries in Europe and Latin America before the television series aired in the U.S., in order to cash in on the success of Star Wars, and grossed $20 million at the box office. However, the television series that followed lost momentum, and was cancelled after only one season. A low-budget sequel (of sorts) debuted on television in 1980, but was quickly cancelled mid-season. It was reimagined in 2003 by the Sci-Fi Channel as a mini-series, with Edward James Olmos stepping into Lorne Greene's role of Commander Adama, and an acclaimed weekly series on the Sci-Fi Channel followed in January 2005 (see Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining)).

The series title is sometimes formatted with a colon, as Battlestar: Galactica, however it is more commonly formatted without.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Battlestar Galactica is set in a distant star system, in an age described as "the seventh millennium of time". Twelve colonies of humans, living on twelve colony worlds, have been fighting a thousand-year war against the robotic race of Cylons, who seek to exterminate all of humanity.

The Cylons have unexpectedly sued for peace, through the diplomatic agency of a human, Count Baltar. The human leaders and the commanders of their military fleet are lured into complacency by the Cylon offer of peace. All of the human warships, called "Battlestars", are to meet at the armistice talks to participate in the final actions sealing the peace. But it's all a deception - Baltar has betrayed humanity for personal gain, and the Cylons have no intention of making peace.

Adama, commander of the Battlestar Galactica, is the only military officer who's suspicious of the Cylons' motives. He orders a regular patrol consisting of his two best pilots: his eldest son, Apollo, and Lt Starbuck. Adama's younger son, Zac, convinces Starbuck to let him go in his place. The patrol discovers a vast Cylon craft waiting in ambush, but is in turn discovered by the Cylons, who jam all communications. Zac's fighter is hit, reducing his speed, forcing Apollo to leave him behind so that the fleet can be warned. Zac is killed by the Cylons before Apollo can return to save him.

Despite the President's orders for restraint, Adama is able to prepare the Galactica before the Cylon fighter fleet attacks, but all the other Battlestars are unprepared and unable to launch their own fighters. The result is that almost the entire fleet is caught off guard and annihilated. During the battle, Apollo tells Adama that the Cylons' fighter fleet was accompanied by refuelling tankers. Adama realizes that this was done in order to extend the range of the fighters from the Cylon base ships (known as basestars). He orders the Galactica to withdraw, in order to protect his home planet, Caprica. But they are too late: upon arrival they find the devastation the Cylon basestars have left. They soon learn that all twelve colonies have suffered the same fate.

With the colonies in ruins, and the Cylons likely to continue the extermination of humanity, Adama sends out a call for every ship that can make it into space to escape the Cylons. The hope is that the Galactica can protect this fleet long enough to find a legendary thirteenth human colony, the last outpost of Man in all the star systems, which could have sufficient technology to defeat the Cylons. It is on a planet called Earth. But the location of this lost thirteenth colony is known only to the last lord of Kobol, the planet which was the original home of Man but was abandoned thousands of years earlier when the thirteen colonies migrated to the stars.

Helping Adama in the quest for Earth are Colonel Tigh (who is second in command of the Galactica), and a squadron of viper (fighter) pilots led by Captain Apollo (Adama's son), Lieutenant Starbuck (the Galactica's best fighter pilot), and Boomer. The Cylon Imperious Leader, determined that no human at all shall survive, orders Baltar's execution. In the film version Baltar is beheaded. But in the television series his execution is halted at the last moment; he is spared in order to help the Cylons hunt down the human fleet, and he becomes the series' chief antagonist, forever in pursuit of the Galactica.

The Galactica and its "ragtag fugitive fleet" find brief respite on the resort planet of Carillon, where they hope to find food and fuel for their journey. But the Ovions, Carillon's indigenous insectoid inhabitants, delay them to give the Cylons time to gather forces to destroy them. The Ovions, thinking themselves safe in their mines deep below the surface, begin kidnapping and eating the crew and passengers from the fleet. Apollo and Starbuck investigate the disappearance of some of their comrades and discover the conspiracy. In a firefight in the mines, the highly volatile Tylium fuel is set on fire, and threatens to blow the planet apart.

Meanwhile, the ruling Council, believing the Cylons have been left far behind, propose that the humans pause to celebrate their escape. The Council arranges a banquet on Carillon, and orders all fighter pilots to attend. The Cylons, believing that all of the Galactica's pilots are at the banquet, launch a fighter attack against the Galactica in orbit. But Adama suspects a trap, and arranges for support crew to impersonate the fighter pilots at the banquet. The real pilots are standing by for trouble, and soundly defeat the Cylon attack.

Apollo realizes the Cylon fighters couldn't have come so far without base ships. He and Starbuck go hunting, and find a Cylon basestar hidden on the far side of Carillon. In defiance of Commander Adama's recall order, they decide to attempt to destroy it, in order to enable the refugee fleet to elude pursuit. They fool the basestar into thinking it's under attack by multiple viper squadrons. The basestar descends into Carillon's atmosphere to avoid detection, and is destroyed when the planet explodes, due to the spreading fire in the Tylium mines.

Despite their victory, the humans realize their enemies will still be pursuing them. Thus, "fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest: a shining planet... known as Earth."

[edit] Cast

(starring)

(also starring, listed alphabetically)

(guest stars of film, listed alphabetically)

Creative cast:

[edit] DVD release

On 27 August 2006, the edited 2-hour pilot film was released by Universal Playback on DVD.

[edit] Facts and figures

  • Humans in this series had their own units for measuring time. Colonial time units do not appear to have exact equivalents in Earth usage, but have rough analogues – a "micron", for example, is roughly equivalent to a second, in the sense that a character might say "Wait a micron!" The time units themselves might not be the same. Other analogous time units include the centon (minute), centar (hour), secton (week), sectar (month), and yahren (year). These units appear to have a decimal arrangement – one centar equals one hundred centons, for example (revealed in the episode "Take the Celestra", among others).
  • Some fan materials assume that there is one battlestar per colony. This was never stated to be so in the original series; only in the 2003 remake was it ever said that each colony had a battlestar assigned to it. In the original series, only eight battlestars ever actually appeared or were mentioned: Acropolis, Atlantia, Columbia, Galactica, Pacifica, Pegasus, Rycon, and Triton.
  • Dogs, in the human society of Battlestar Galactica, are known as "daggits". Boxey's robot daggit, Muffitt II, is a mechanical replacement for the one he lost during the destruction of Caprica.
  • The film was given a theatrical release in Canada and Europe several weeks before its American network TV premier. While received favorably in Canada, very few Americans were even aware of the release, and even fewer entertainment news outlets in the U.S. took notice of the Canadian release until after the show premiered on ABC. The theatrical version was different than the version eventually presented on TV. The Cylons weren't robots in the original version, but rather the Centurions were living creatures wearing armor. Baltar is killed by the Cylons soon after the attack on the colonies. As well, the TV version had Adama and Tigh give away the plot ending, half way through the film.
  • After the series' cancellation, the film was edited together into a new theatrical release, with certain scenes trimmed or edited out completely. This release is notable for the incorporation of the Sensurround sound enhancement system first introduced in the film Earthquake in 1974, and is considered by most critics as perhaps the only film where the technology was used properly.[citation needed] It was, in fact, the last film to feature Sensurround.
  • In the television episode "Greetings from Earth", the remains of buildings from Expo 67 in Montreal stand in for the 'capital of Paradeen'. The buildings include the United States, French (now Montreal Casino) and British pavilions.

[edit] Other versions of Battlestar Galactica

[edit] The Original Series (1978)

Main article: Battlestar Galactica (original series)

[edit] Galactica 1980

Main article: Galactica 1980

In this 1980 sequel series, the fleet finds Earth and covertly protects it from the Cylons. This series was a quick failure due to its low budget, widely-panned writing, and ill-placed time slot -- Sundays at 7:00 PM, a time slot generally reserved for family-oriented programming and 60 Minutes. The show also included obviously recycled space battle sequences from the original program, to the dismay of fans. Some syndication packages for Battlestar Galactica incorporate the episodes of this series.

[edit] Revival attempt

The original show has maintained a cult fandom, which has supported efforts by Glen Larson and Richard Hatch (independent of each other) to revive the premise. Hatch even went so far as to produce a demonstration video in the mid-1990s 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 displayed at science fiction conventions but did not lead to a new series.

[edit] The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica

Main article: Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining)

In December 2003, the American Sci Fi channel produced and aired a three-hour miniseries that reimagined Battlestar Galactica. The success of the miniseries led to a new series (October 2004, UK; January 2005, North America). A highly edited version of the miniseries aired on NBC on January 9, 2005, five days before the American debut of the series.

Notable changes from the original series include: some Cylon models that closely resemble human form for infiltration; Starbuck is a female character; Boomer, formerly a black man (and genuinely human), is now portrayed by a Korean woman and is covertly a Cylon infiltrator; and Col. Tigh, formerly also portrayed by a black actor, is now portrayed by a white actor. In addition, characters have been given full names (in the original series they were only known by one name). For example, Adama is now William Adama, and Starbuck and Apollo are said to be the callsigns/nicknames of Kara Thrace and Lee Adama, respectively.

Commander Adama is now played by Edward James Olmos. Olmos's Adama is still a paternal figure, but differs from Lorne Greene's characterization. The new incarnation of Adama believes Earth is a myth and only makes it the fleet's destination to keep hope alive. Greene's character was both a military commander and a spiritual leader who had been part of the civilian command structure; Olmos's Adama has a definitively military background. In both series, Adama is a capable and insightful leader.

There are fewer ships in this series than the original, only 60 ships are in the fleet (while the original series had 220), but more human survivors -- fifty thousand people are alive as opposed to the original series figure of only 6,000 (episode Greetings from Earth). Space battles take place using Newtonian physics, first seen in a TV series in the sci-fi series Babylon 5.

[edit] Other media

  • A number of BattleStar novels based upon the series have been published over the years, including a mixture of novelizations written by Glen Larson and a series of guest writers who expanded the basic scripts for upon televised episodes (including the pilot episodes of both the original series and Galactica 1980) and what were billed as original stories but were in fact based on scripts originally intended for use in the series never-filmed second season.
  • In the 1990s, original series star Richard Hatch co-wrote several new novels based upon the series as part of his efforts to spark a revival. These novels have met with general success, but while the first three novels received positive marks from critics following the genre, the later novels have not found the same level of support. The primary criticisms being the changes in certain characterizations on the part of Hatch at the suggestions of his co-author(s) - most notably a rather haphazard relationship between Apollo and Casseopea despite major build-ups of the Apollo-Sheba relationship established in the series - which were seen to have weakened the family structure that was arguably one of the series' strengths. In addition, several elements of Hatch's novels have been subtly adapted into the Ron Moore revival series, which critics have argued was the result of Hatch's involvement in the series in the role of Tom Zarek.
  • Marvel Comics published a short-lived comic book series based upon the show between 1978 and 1981. It is notable for the fact that it lasted longer than the TV series did at 24 issues, and for the artwork of Walt Simonson.
  • A tactical combat board game was released in 1983 which pitted Vipers against Cylon Raiders on a hex-grid playing field.
  • Monogram released four plastic model kits in 1979; the Galactica, a Cylon Basestar, a Viper and a Cylon Raider. These kits have been re-released several times since the show's cancellation, especially prior to the premier of the revival series.
  • A photonovel of the film was released in 1979, and is considered a highly-prized collector's item. While much of this demand was due to each image on each page being taken directly from the actual 35mm film cells, compounding the value was the scarcity of intact copies; the glossy paper used for the print stock did not adhere well to the spine glue, and after several reads the binding tended to fall apart. This was further compounded as the glue became brittle with age.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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