Wednesday, June 25, 2014

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (1978) Lobby Cards

A number of familiar publicity stills (including the always-popular "beheading of Baltar" scene) grace these theater lobby cards for the 1978-79 (depending on the country) theatrical release of the Battlestar Galactica pilot film ("in Sensurround!).

As you might have noticed, I'm easing back into regular updates here on the blog, even if they've mostly been photos and videos with only brief commentary. I am working on some more substantial posts, though  - some of which I've been working on for a long time. I even have a Space Babes post in the works for July! So stay tuned, Star Kids!


4 comments:

  1. Where I grew up in El Paso, Tx. the Pershing Theatre would post these outside the theatre along with the posters. Often they were a bigger draw than the posters- especially the stills. More than once they got my Mom into taking us to movies we might otherwise not have seen. Later on when I was in HS whoever managed the theatre no longer followed that practice.
    I missed Battlestar on its theatrical run so I missed out on these. Regretted it later- some of the shots must have been really good on the big screen.
    btw- did anyone ever find out what that reptile thingy on the Illustrious Leader's shoulder was?

    Dave M.

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  2. I think Imperious Leader's pet lizard was simply an iguana (or something similar) with a pair of wings glued on. If you check out the special features on the Complete Epic Series dvd set, there's some brief outtake footage where you can see it more closely.

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  3. Galactica had some pretty good production values for the time. The stills make it look like good quality. A lot of the pilot looked like a movie production.

    Of course the problem was that as soon as you saw the Cylons on screen they were lumbering and stupid and not at all menacing. How many times did we see them amble through a doorway only to get blasted? I always got the sense that the actors had to over-act in order to make the Cylons seem scary, because they certainly seemed like bumbling robots that could not hit the side of a barn.

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  4. I'm in a big original BSG mindset these days.., I'm quickly becoming 'newly single' and to celebrate, I commissioned one of the top BSG cosplay tailors to make me a warrior uniform, separately purchased the resin weapon AND some nice vintage SIDI full-bore boots (size 12.. thank you Lord..) to have painted brown. I've bought up some of the MIB Mattel items as well, just to put in acryllic display boxes and show off.

    Suffice so say, I love the show, despite some shall we say 'underwhelming' plots (I never liked the remiaged seres much..). But if you look at it from the timeframe the original was done in, made less than a year after Star Wars, while shows like 'How the West Was Won' and other big television miniseries were big on network television, it actually plays better as a television series.

    The only shortcomings I saw were the 1hr shows which were done so hastily and with effects still being completed the day of network airing (ie, 'War of the Gods', some of the effects prints actually finished that morning...), that you wind up with some stories with either bad pacing, bad editing, or just plain mundane. It wasn't until "Hand of God" that the show was finally becoming more than the sum of it's parts.

    I was at the 1998 20th Yahren celebration in LA, I'm hoping to attend Galacticon 4 next year in Seattle.

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