It is well known that the late
Star Wars concept artist
Ralph McQuarrie contributed designs and concept paintings for
Glen A. Larson's television series,
Battlestar Galactica. In fact, I've posted some of his
Galactica art on this blog
before. But I had never seen the above piece until recently. Obviously painted long before anyone was cast or spaceship designs were finalized, it is equally obviously the inspiration for the
John Solie art (pictured below) that was used to promote the series, and appeared on many products, including the
soundtrack album, t-shirts, posters, etc.
While the faces are understandably different, what I find most intriguing is that in McQuarrie's original, it is the insectoid Ovions that are featured in the lower left quadrant, instead of the Cylon Centurions pictured in Solie's version. It makes me wonder if, very early in the development of
Galactica (which was originally planned as a series of two-hour TV movies rather than a weekly show), the alien threat to the humans was intended to be the insects?
If - and this is pure speculation for the fun of it - Larson's original intent had been for the bug people to be the major menace, why change it? Did ABC demand
Star Wars-ish robots? Or was it just that creating an army of convincing insectoids was too difficult/expensive?
The Ovions we saw in the pilot film were pretty remarkable - some of the best alien costumes I've ever seen on television - but then, they didn't really do much more than sit and stand around (and play a harp).
I know that I'm probably just reading way too much into it.... but it's fun to speculate about this sort of stuff.
If - and this is pure speculation for the fun of it - Larson's original intent had been for the bug people to be the major menace, why change it? Did ABC demand Star Wars-ish robots? Or was it just that creating an army of convincing insectoids was too difficult/expensive?
No sir, this is AWESOME, I never say the original Galactica 'proto-poster'... I know per Hatch the original characters were names like something 'Starkiller', way too close to SW. I never liked Maren's head-cock in the back, I knew all the cast likenesses were drawn from promo stills, but it never looked right.
ReplyDeleteWish Boxey and Muffet weren't in the forefront as much, but I guess they really wanted the kids in (SW didn't seem to need 'em..).
Interesting pondering as to 'original villains'. I always held that the Cylons were as close as you could get to stormtroopers, but as for any villains from Larson's original 'Adams Ark' story idea (which evolved into BG), not sure who the villains were back then, if any.
As for costs, it seemed to be a trade-off.. Yes, the Ovions had some extra arms to manipulate (if even necessary), but the Cylons gave so many headaches to the lighting teams due to their shinyness.
Aside from most fans, I typically enjoyed the end of the first season better, when the show grew it's 'legs' and became more than the 'space fight-of-the-week'.. Additional characters, layering relationships, Sheba as love interest, the security guys arguing with colonial warriors, the show really ended on a high note.
David:
DeleteI too much preferred episodes toward the end of the season- especially the Terra story arc. Those episodes are far and away my favorites and I much liked "Take The Celestra" and "Murder On The Rising Star" as well as the Apollo 11 tie-in to the finale
My favorite throwaway line was Randolph Mantooths"Your Killing Me". I laughed out loud and said "Yeah. Your over-acting is killing everyone" or Boomers "Do I have the Council's permission to use the Turbo-Flush".
I never liked Maren's head-cock in the back
Delete...Oh, that's so full of freudian slips it's almost too embarrassing to contemplate :P
I agree, the Ovions were terrific looking TV aliens. Not nearly as menacing as the cold, clinical Cylons though. And if they were replaced as the main bad guys, I'm guessing that would've been the reason why
ReplyDeleteMy guess is the logistics of four-armed insect men week after week was more complicated (read: expensive) than big ol' shiny robots.
ReplyDeleteEither that, or some executive had a bug phobia.
The story I heard (and unfortunately I don't remember where) was that the Cylons were originally going to be reptilian creatures, but late in the game they changed them to robots because the network was worried the show would exceed some sort of prime-time body count limit. The limit only applied to living beings, not robots, so they made the change. If I can find the source for this info, I'll send it along. Could those be reptiles in the original painting, and not Ovions? The image isn't big enough for me to tell.
ReplyDeleteThe forward two are Ovions (the design in the show changed very little from McQuarrie's original.) The ones just to the left of them are Cylons. The others are a little too small/indistinct to tell.
DeleteYou are certainly correct about the reptilian aspect. I had two Battlestar Galactica novels as a kid (the original, attributed to Glen Larson himself, and The Cylon Death Machine, which was based on the episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero") and in both cases the Cylons were depicted as armored reptiles rather than robots. This confused me quite a bit as a child! I assume the common Cylons were supposed to look something like the Imperious Leader with a smaller head; there was some rigamorale about most Cylons having one brain, officers having a second brain implanted, and only the Imperious Leader having a third brain. Hence his really big head - I guess. Anyway, the Cylons were definitely supposed to be reptiles in the first two novels.
DeleteTake a look at the colonial warrior helmet in Ralph McQuarrie's original painting - looks like he reused it a few years later for the A-Wing pilot helmets.
ReplyDeleteThis is not where I initially heard the Cylons-as-reptiles story, but this site has a bit about it, as well as McQuarrie's Cylon reptile concept drawing:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.galactica.tv/battlestar-galactica-1978-news/the-history-of-the-cylon-centurion-costume.html
From several accounts, Larson and Universal decided to make the Cylons the primary villains in the series due to its "family hour" timeslot and deliberate appeal to kids.
ReplyDeleteWith the Cylons being entirely mechanical (apparently this itself was a late switch from the original concept, which had them as partially organic a'la the Daleks), the heroes could shoot or blow up as many of them as the FX budget could stand every week, without ever really killing anyone (even creepy-looking humanoid insects.) Thus no problems with the Broadcast Standards department.
And for the purposes of the original poster, the Ovions were a much more striking design than McQuarrie's original Cylons (several of which are in the group at the lower left.)
I wonder what they would've used to kill the Ovions week after week. A massive fly-swatter perhaps?
ReplyDeleteKnowing Battlestar's propensity for reusing effects, sets and costumes across subsequent episodes, I always thought it odd that they never brought back the Ovions, simply to get their monies worth from the initial investment.
ReplyDeleteAnd think of the promotional opportunity: "The Colonial Warriors face an old foe... Sunday night on ABC"
I know - technically - the Ovions were blown to kingdom-come but I'm sure their could be other colonies (nests?) peppered about the galaxy. They certainly had access to transport, what with all the visitors to their casino that never left.
Massive space insects with their own casino. Pretty cool, the Ovions. They were easily the best of the Galactica action figures too
ReplyDeleteYou're spot on about the delays in effects. As most of you know, there was NEVER any intention originally to make BG a weekly series. It was only to be a series of periodic 2hr movies, much like 'How We Won the West'. Nor was it ever supposed to be a big-screen movie, hence why having it on Blu-Ray is kinda pointless (because the matte effects for the space scenes come across faded and terrible..); they just showed it on big screens in Canada and Europe to generate interest and recoup costs.
ReplyDeleteThere was never any pre-planning to support a weekly commitment, but once ABC waved enough $$$ in front of Universal Studios, there it went.
That being said, by the time they got to the Patrick Macnee/Ship of Lights 2-parter, they were actually delivering wet prints to the networks, just completed literally hours before.. It was REALLY a mess for a spell. Hence the immediate switch to less costly episodes like with Fred Astaire, etc..
I truely LOVE this show (nearly as much as Space:1999), despite the weak shortcomings of what ended up on screen sometimes...
Man, I miss McQuarrie.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Ovions were ever meant to be recurring characters. The reason they appear in McQuarrie's painting is probably due to the fact that the artist's involvement with the project was during the very early development stage and he worked primarily from the pilot script, which featured them prominently during the third act. As to the subject of whether or not BG was ever originally meant for theaters...according to Richard Colla (who directed the majority of the pilot), Universal originally sold the show to the network at an unrealistically low estimated cost. He felt that the only way the studio could make its money back was to shoot the pilot as a feature, thus giving them the option of releasing it in theaters. Had it not been for impending legal action from 20th Century-Fox (who were re-issuing Star Wars in the US that summer), Universal would likely have given the pilot a domestic theatrical release prior to its televsion premiere, as they later did Buck Rogers. But in the end, they chose to release it that summer in Canada (where the actual series would not be seen until some time later), with eventual releases in Europe and Japan as well.
ReplyDelete