Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)

Did You Know?

• The show's cancellation contributed to the suicide of a 15-year-old boy in Saint Paul, Minnesota who was obsessed with the program.
• The pilot score was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded at 20th Century Fox, which later sued Universal over the series.

Series overview

In a distant star system, the Twelve Colonies of Mankind neared the end of a thousand-year war with the Cylons, warrior robots created by a long-extinct reptilian race. Humanity was defeated in a sneak attack aided by the traitor Baltar. The Cylons pursue them relentlessly. Main characters include Captain Apollo, Adama's son and a Colonial fighter pilot, and his best friend Lieutenant Starbuck, a skilled pilot, gambler, and womanizer. The era is never clearly stated; the series mentions "the seventh millennium of time," and the final episode indicates the story occurs after the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing. The later Galactica 1980 series is set in 1980 after a 30-year voyage to Earth. Larson incorporated many themes from Mormon theology into the show.

Pilot and subsequent changes

The pilot, budgeted at $8 million, was theatrically released in Sensurround; an edited version appeared in several regions on July 8, 1978. The full 148-minute pilot premiered on ABC on September 17, 1978, to high ratings. During the broadcast, ABC interrupted with a special report on the Camp David Accords, resuming afterward; this interruption did not occur on the West Coast. The theatrical version received a nationwide release in May 1979. Originally announced as the first of three television films, the format changed to a weekly series after the second episode, catching the staff off guard and leading to rushed scripts and actors using cue cards. That episode also introduced a costume change: the warriors' dress uniform gained a gold-trimmed cape, prompting a portion of the pilot to be reshot for the 1979 cinema release. The original plain cape is documented in a 1978 book.

Legal troubles

In June 1978, 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios, alleging Battlestar Galactica stole 34 ideas from Star Wars. Universal countersued, claiming Star Wars took ideas from their 1972 film Silent Running and 1930s Buck Rogers serials. Fox's copyright claims were dismissed in 1980, but a federal appeals court reversed that decision in 1983 and remanded the case for trial. George Lucas also threatened legal action against Apogee, Inc., the visual effects studio formed by former Industrial Light and Magic artists, claiming Apogee used equipment he left behind for a competing project. Apogee surrendered the equipment, and several team members returned to ILM; Universal Hartland Visual Effects then handled the show's effects. Lucas further challenged Galactica merchandise, arguing that Cylon Raider and Colonial Viper toys could be confused with Star Wars toys, particularly because they fired plastic pellets that posed a choking hazard. On Christmas Day 1978, a four-year-old child inhaled a pellet from a Cylon Raider toy and died six days later. Mattel recalled all Galactica toys with missiles, and the boy's parents sued. A second, non-fatal incident led Mattel to redesign the toys so pellets no longer left the toy when fired.

Language

The Colonial language includes fictional words for time units, distance units, and expletives, roughly equivalent to English counterparts. Time units include micron (less than a second), centon (minute), centar (hour), cycle (day), secton (week), sectar (month), quatron (uncertain), yahren (year), and centuron (century). Deprecated units include millicenton (about 10 minutes) and microcenton, replaced by micron after the second episode. Distance units include metron, maxim, and hectar. Expletives such as "frack" (or "frak"), "felgercarb", "snitrag", and "golmogging" (also spelled "gall-mogging" or "galmonging") avoided FCC profanity guidelines. Other terms include daggit (canine-like animal), ducat (ticket), pyramid (card game), cubit (currency), triad (full-contact ball game), lupus (wolf-like animal), travelator (travel agent), officiator (referee), and socialator (prostitute/escort). Figures of speech include "daggit dribble" (falsehood) and "daggit-meat" (contempt).