Slim said:
I know that this part of the topic has been done to death but I have to say that I vastly prefer the 'new' series to the old one!
However, I do realize that there are dyed in the wool fans of the old one too...
Aide-Memoir, this question is for you sir;
How many of each do you encounter (if at all) and what do they say of each of the different series?
op:
I ate up the old series when I was a kid, and couldn't wait for it to come on (Sunday nights, as I recall.) Who didn't want to be Captain Apollo? Last time the series was aired here in B.C. (long before we heard there was even going to be another series), I taped every one I could on VHS. Yeah, the original series had its fair share of cheese (lighted-rope dancing comes to mind), but damnit, it had Vipers, lasers, aircraft-carrier-in-space action and evil robots -- what's not to love? (Okay. Muffet. Score one for the forces for darkness.)
Throughout the various sci-fi fan groups, USENET groups and even email forwards, a few people I know heard of the projected new series and just were aghast at changes like "Starbuck" getting a bad case of female, "Galactica" itself turned into an orbiting museum and gift shoppe, and the overall drive to make the look "low-tech" high-tech. More than a few people brought out the old "if it works, don't f*ck with it" in terms of the original Galactica formula, and figured the new series would just be Hollywood trying to recycle old properties, sex it up a dozen notches, and do it cheaply.
We were wrong. As wrong as one could be, as it turns out. I watched the miniseries with the same trepidation I know a lot of other fans of the old series were experiencing too - but unanimously - and I mean unanimously - the verdict was "AWESOME!" Once you worked out that it was possible to be fan of both the old and new versions of "Galactica", even the most stubborn holdouts (there were a few) came around.
As you probably know, Richard Hatch ('Zarek' in the new one; the original "Apollo" in the old one) got together with a bunch of others from the old show and, on their own nickel, shot a short film with some of the old props and uniforms (with some updates, as I recall) hoping to rekindle interest in producing more eps of the original Galactica (five-six years before the current one was greenlighted.) It should still be kicking around Youtube or Veoh or elsewhere on the web somewhere. From what I understand he pushed and pushed his idea with Glen A. Larson and others to no avail
BUT I can just about guarantee that was the spark which got people thinking about making the New Galactica - even though you can't really trace anything directly back to Hatch. I also think he was a little bitter/reluctant at first, but was then persuaded to come on the new show anyway as Zarek, so if he harboured any resentment he soon got over it. Once he got to set, he apparently had more than a few people come up and tell him Captain Apollo was their hero growing up, which isn't something a lot of actors get to hear 28 years after they took the uniform off for the last time.
On set - among the regular crew anyway - there are a *lot* of fans of the old Galactica, and I'd go as far to say that's the case with most of them (or at least the ones I talked to over the last couple years.) When we were out on the set of the camp/settlement during that "New Caprica" arc a few days before shooting, everyone had their celphones turned on because there weren't any scenes being shot to interrupt. The ringtone in all of them was the theme from the old Battlestar series! (da...da-da-daaa..da-da-da-dadadadaaa...) Heh.
Tuesday night -into Wednesday a.m. was the last day of shooting all things Galactica. We were in the sack-end of nowhere and were shooting around a pit full of bodies that looked like a bad Srebrenica flashback. The poor extras had to lie among all the very lifelike fake bodies (and parts thereof) for hours while this camera moved here and that one there - it was a long night. It's just as well the last shooting day was a night shot as everyone walked around tired and thoughts were more of just getting to bed rather than "wow, this is the last time I'm going to be working with these people after five years", which cut down on most of the overly emotional crap
. Most of it, anyway.
At the end, Edward James Olmos allowed himself an Adama moment, grabbed an applebox to stand on and a megaphone from an A.D., and congratulated everyone on being part of a great show. He also said this series had been the most important chapter of his life. His speech was off the cuff and brief, but you could tell the dude was choked up. He ended by giving us a bit of hope at the end by announcing:
"This is it. The end of Galactica. <then partly under his breath, conspiratorially almost>
At least in its current form."
He then ended by leading a cheer of "AND SO SAY WE ALL!" which the entire mob still present echoed right along with him. It was...something to see. Sometimes the planets and stars and crap align and you're places you'd never thought you'd ever be and present at occasions you know you'll never forget. That was one.
