"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." On this date in 1978, the three-hour world premiere of
Glen A. Larson's Battlestar Galactica aired on ABC, and like most of you, I was sitting on the living room floor about three feet from the TV, enjoying every minute of it. Happy 35th anniversary to the epic series that refuses to fade away!
I have to say, even though it's 35 years old, I'd still rather watch the original instead of the remake.
ReplyDeleteAmen and amen. I never warmed to the remake (or 'reimage'...). The actors just didn't have any gravitas or screen presence like in the original.. Granted, totally different production/direction style involved, more of the then-stylish 'dysfunctional' approach.
ReplyDeleteTo me, I prefer heroics. Plain and simple.
Aside from the terrible Hector and Vector stuff in 'Greetings from Earth' I greatly preferred the later half of the original series with Anne Lockhart. It's when the series was FINALLY getting away from the 'star-wars-each-week' mode (which honestly is what the network wanted, to be fair...), into more secondary character/relationship development, the show becoming more than just the sum of it's parts...
As in most series' first year, it had it's 'shake-down' period. As all fans of the original, I would have loved to have seen a second year, but I occasionally ponder at just what we would have gotten. We'd hope for stronger stories, but would we have gotten even lighter fare..? Who knows..?
I actually flew out to LA for the 20th Yarhen convention back in '98. I was a bit disappointed that Herb Jefferson and Dirk Benedict (and Kent McCord) couldn't make it as announced, but it was still great to meet Richard Hatch, Anne, and a few others.
Still LOVE this show.
Happy anniversary to Battlestar Galactica!
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the old vs. new debate - I loved the original series and remember it fondly but it is blown away by the pathos, storytelling, dialogue and acting of the BSG reboot.
I just watched the 35th Anniversary Blu-ray and recently did a run through of the original series on Netflix. While it is an important part of my pop culture and sic-fi DNA and was essential viewing for a young boy thirsty for anything 'star' related, I cannot help but recognize its simplified, and oftentimes cheesy production.
Of course, I still love it and always will.
(Now I am missing my model Viper with the awesome choking hazard projectile shooter in the ship's nose).
Agreed!
ReplyDeleteDo they really call it "the saga of a star war" in that trailer? Shameless. But I didn't see this on TV, the pilot actually played at my local cinema and I watched it there, emerging from it thinking it was easily as good as anything George Lucas had done.
ReplyDeleteI believe it used Sensurround in selected showings, though the place I saw it in didn't (it would have probably have demolished the rickety building entirely if they had tried that).
Glad to see someone else marking the occasion! I don't bear any real ill will toward the remake (though I thought they dropped the ball about mid-way through season 3), but I still have a lot of fondness for the original, and think it still has much to offer, as I wrote this week for The Sci-Fi Christian (http://thescifichristian.com/2013/09/remembering-the-original-rag-tag-fleet-battlestar-galactica-at-35-part-1/).
ReplyDeleteLoved seeing the promo again. This anniversary has inspired me to rewatch the whole series, and even to start picking up Dynamite's new ongoing monthly.
Thanks for such a fun website!
What an awesome show. The egyptian earth references blew my 7 year old mind.. The Cylon vocoder voices were so cool!!!
ReplyDeleteI remember the original broadcast being interrupted by the signing of the Camp David Accords by Begin and Sadat. Boy was I miffed, as I had no idea what it was all about. I only knew it was preventing me from seeing the ending of a great science fiction TV show. Now of course I'd have a different reaction (but I'd probably still be just a little miffed). Anyone else remember this? I was in the Boston area at the time, in case the pre-emption was region-specific. It was probably time-zone specific in any case. I think they continued where they left off after the signing was concluded, but by that time either it was to late for me to stay up or I had ranted so long and hard that I didn't care about it anymore, can't remember which.
ReplyDeleteAs a boy, I still remember that Sunday September 17th, 1978 watching the three hour first episode. On Monday it was what all of us kids were talking about at school.
ReplyDeleteSGB
I remember that night very fondly as well. I was 11 and had been looking forward to it for at least a couple of weeks when I had first seen an ad for it in TV guide. I was into anything that was even remotely sci-fi or space. I got my bowl of popcorn and curled up on the couch. It was a school night but for that one I got to stay up to 11 to watch it all the way through. Unfortunately, I didn't really have any friends who I could share it with. In my little redneck town in the 70's it was uncool to admit liking nerdy shows and movies. Even if every kid in 5th grade had watched it, there would have been few that would have admitted it. But I was in HEAVEN.
DeleteSorry to hear that, we had a lot of those kids too. Many of whom I suspected wanted to join in with the kids that liked sci-fi, but were afraid too. However, fortunately for me there was a large percentage of students that always discussed sci-fi television shows and films in the '78 post-Star Wars era. We even built the models, played with the toys and role played the characters. For example, we would run in slow motion, jump off things and fake bend things like we were all bionic in the Six Million Dollar Man. Boyhood in the '70s was fun.
DeleteSGB
I agree- the latter episodes had a lot of promise.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked the Parodin/Lunar7/Eastern v Western Alliance story arc. I've many times imagined myself a character in those episodes. I have always though that if they could cure Lloyd Buchner of his tendency to kill or capture everything he runs across they could really use one of those Eastern alliance destroyers as a scout vessel.
One piece of humor from "Greeting From Earth". Remember Randolph Mantooth's line " You're Killing Me"? The whole family was watching the show and my little sister- who had a crush on Mantooth in "Emergency"- quipped "Your acting is killing ME" and set us all to laughter.
Oh, I loved the original series and wish that the network had given it the love and budget that it deserved. Unfortunately, we got Galactica 1980 as a pseudo-continuation and the rest is history.
ReplyDeleteI liked some parts of the SyFy remake, but agree that it ended pretty bad. Ronald Moore painted himself into a corner and he wrecked the last two seasons (and the ending).
But to stay on topic, I can't believe that it's been 35 years since the original came out. If only we could get a remake worthy of the charm and characters that the original had.
I think the ending of the new version was absolutely brilliant and everything i ever hoped the original series would be.
ReplyDeleteIve all seen saga of a star world when it came out at the theaters and also tombs of cobol , which came out as a movie here in portugal too long before the series appeared here which was around 1983.
I loved the show as a kid, much than star wars as it opened my mind to the ancient astronauts hypotesis and so i was totaly blown away by the ending of the new series which i thought was the best final episode of a scifi tv story ever.
Overall i think both are brilliant shows that reflect two different times.