On Monday, Variety exclusively broke the news that Universal is "ramping up a movie version of the sci-fi franchise "Battlestar Galactica."
When I read this, my heart exploded. I can't imagine anything better than an hour and a half to two hours of my life in the company of Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, et al. I even love that guy who plays Gaeta. That guy.
However, I took a break from dancing around my room and finally understanding the essence of Pharrell's insidiously sickening and gleeful music to read on, and learnt that this is a reimagining. Of a reimagining. Of a mini series. Of the original.
Look, I'm not a pessimist. I'm a person who knows that most things turn out bad. Not because humans are evil. But because we dream a little too big. I'm a realistic optimist at worst. The good news is, the original series creator Glen Larson is on board. Which is not a bad thing, per se. Except, you know, that the reimagining was mind bogglingly beautiful and haunting and agenda changing and may I have more of that please?
The bad news is, no one has any idea who this new writer is - Jack Paglen - except that he's written that new Jack Sparrow-in-a-computer-in-the-matrix-turning-evil movie. Which looks like a shiny late 80s future-tech throwback. It reminds me of The Lawnmower Man. For no good reason. I can't fault it - I haven't seen it - and can't say much beyond 'the trailer looks alright.' Yet here he is with one of modern sci-fi's most precious jewels in his hands. I don't know enough about this guy to let him dog-sit my dog, so why would I let him loose on my heart?
Forget that. Forget who's involved. Let's think about what they're trying to do here. The naughties reimagining told a sweeping epic over approximately 80 hours of screen time. That's three and a third days of your life, without breaks for eating, showering, sleeping or sneaky pee pees. What are they going to do in an 90 to 120 minutes of movie world time? Tell us about that one time Adama spanked Apollo for disobeying orders? A mini-collage of Starbuck kicking ass and changing the game? A Rambo-esque montage of Gaius Baltar being a raging dickhead?
The only way that this new movie won't make me want to get my eyeballs surgically removed is if the following occurs (N.B. this list contains some spoilers for the reimagining):
- The cast includes Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, Tahmoh Penikett, Aaron Douglas and Michael Trucco.
- Every character and story arch is an allegory
- It turns out Starbuck is our closest approximation to God
- Sam Anders dies a lot
- Roslin was infused with Cylon nanothingies that cured her cancer just in time and she lives out her days on Earth with Admiral Adama, living happily ever after in a hut made of twine, and spends her days building a new world of joy and sweetness and tolerance.
Otherwise, I'm out.