Some of you may be elated to hear that there is a Battlestar Galactica film in the works. Not so fast: According to Universal Pictures, the film will be “a complete re-imagination” of the franchise and X-Men director Bryan Singer will direct.
Seriously? Announcing the complete rebooting of a franchise months after the finale of a critically-acclaimed run on Syfy from 2004 to 2009 – one that brought in mainstream audiences and featured many strong and complex female lead characters – just seems wrong. Furthermore, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a film starring the cast of the Syfy series, has yet to be released. (Its current release date is October 27.) Let’s also not forget the Syfy Battlestar prequel, Caprica, which is set to air in January 2010.
When negotiations with Universal were still preliminary, the studio indicated that the feature film will be based on the original BSG series from 1978-79. So will this “re-imagination” be a reboot of the reboot by returning to the preboot? My head is spinning and I’ve already lost interest.
If the film is going to go old school, this means no humanoid cylons. For the completely shallow (and I certainly do not deny it in this case), this means:
(1) No Number 6.
(2) No Number 8.
(And no hot spine-glowing cylon sex.)
Instead, the cylons will all look something like this:
And that is no fun.
Going old school means that Starbuck will be male, which is all fine and good, but part of the appeal of the re-imagined Syfy series was seeing Kara “Starbuck” Thrace swigging booze, blowing things up, and kicking ass.
You know what? I’m not ready to move on from the re-imagined Syfy series, so I think I’ll just catch Battlestar Galactica: The Plan and be frakkin’ done with the franchise.
