Fan edits of popular films and TV show have been all the rage for a several years on the Internet, and after the success of the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, it seems many fans went back to the TV show of the late ’70s to looks for clues on how that particular narrative ended. Some may remember Galactica 1980 — TV sequel to Battlestar Galactica — that fluttered into failure after 10 episodes aired. I remember when the show came on (being a fan of the original series. Hey, what can I say, I like space stuff), and was pretty underwhelmed.
If you remember (and maybe you don’t) in the original series, the Galactica never made it to Earth. But in Galactica 1980, it’s set thirty years after the original series ended and the Galactica does make it to Earth, but can’t fully integrate in to society because we on our blue planet are technologically backward (as compared to the folks on the Galactica and the “rag-tag” fleet), and couldn’t defend ourselves against the ever-persuing Cylons. What to do? Well, there’s plot point about seeking out scientists and slowly introducing them to the realities of the larger universe out there, and hopefully bring us Earthlings up to speed to repel a Cylon attack on humanity. The show had many problems (the most glaring was that it was pretty bad TV), but it ended with a pretty good episode called “The Return of Starbuck” which was also the last episode that aired on TV.
Okay, so you have a show that didn’t get to end its narrative, but fans of the show want to see where the story goes. Enter the growing popularity of fan edits. In this one, you get roughly a 30 minute compressed arc that illustrates what could have happened at the end of Galactica 1980. The edit uses footage from both shows, the movie Independence Day (I think), its own CGI footage,and even a cameo of Kent McCord –who played “Boxie” Troy Adama — to offer a conclusion of what happened when the humans from the 12 colonies fully integrated into Earth’s culture. For uber-fans of BSG (I’m talking about the rebooted series with Edward James Olmos), you’re probably going to frown at this edit. But since Battlestar Galactica (the 1978 series) was the starting point for the re-imagined series (and used some elements from it in a non-ironic way), have a look at this video and see if it offers a satisfying ending to the show.
BSG re-imagined had an ending that was kind of ambiguous — which made me wonder what happened to the characters after they landed on Earth 150,000 years ago. I’m not the only one. Edward James Olmos said a couple of years ago that he wanted to write a graphic novel to continue the story of what happened after they humans from the 12 colonies “started over,” destroyed their technology, freed the Cylon centurions, and roughed it in Africa without any of the comforts from home. Now it seems the novel is coming out in 2013 and published by Oni Press. Go Eddie!!!
