U.S. Theatrical
Release Date: 5/18/79
So after the
spacedust settled following Gaactica’s
tumultuous first and only season, executive producer Glenn Larson discovered
that he was in hole for several million dollars. As preparatory publicity for
the series’ premiere, in July of 1978 Universal had theatrically released the
pilot movie in Canada, Europe and Australia, where it did some decent business. In March of 1979 Larson put the forthcoming Buck Rogers pilot movie, which he also produced, out in America – again, to healthy box
office.
And so, on May
18th, 1979, Larson put the Galactica
pilot, “Saga of a Star World,” into American theaters to help recoup some
of his financial losses. (This time – no interruptions by President Carter.) Simply
titled, Battlestar Galactica, it was
indeed profitable, since the main costs this time related to printing and
distribution. I suppose thee was also the secret hope that it might
reinvigorate interest in the show so that high summer rerun ratings might make
ABC brass reconsider their cancellation. They didn’t, but perhaps it led,
indirectly, to the green light for Galactica
‘80.
Since the
theatrical release is basically the same as the pilot movie, I won’t repeat the
plot summary (you can read it here). The only major difference is that Baltar
is executed by the Cylons in the theatrical release, and it is retroactively
revealed that he is spared in the TV version. But I will share a few
observations based on my second viewing of the movie:
I still think that,
after a dynamite first third, this overlong episode really gets tedious fast,
and I can only imagine that young kids sitting in the theater for well over two
hours must have been bored silly. After Adama and the crew avert destruction
from the Cylon ruse, anything could’ve
happended, but the teleplay pretty much grinds to a shuddering halt. We spend a
huge chunk of the movie’s midsection with a lot of garbled dialogue dealing
with food contamination aboard the ship. And just where did that other Council of 12 come from anyway? And
what of “Sire Uri”? What are his motivations? It’s never clear if he is a Cylon
pawn or if he just hates Adama and came up with a bad plan that the Cylons
exploited. The other enemy here – the Ovions – are a race of human-feasting
bug-like aliens, and they’re definitely creepy (even if their cocoons reminded
me of the eerie encasements from the Invasion
of the Body Snatchers movie), but their belated arrival is too little, too
late.
I saw this
feature on an individual DVD edition (apart from the series), which,
presumably, is the actual theatrical release. I definitely appreciated the
widescreen format (not sure if they blew it up from the TV 1.33 ratio or if it
was shot 1.85 in the first place). After watching the documentary on the
series, however, I found it odd that they didn’t put back the footage the
couldn’t use on TV after getting busted by the censors, like Starbuck with his
shirt off after fooling around with Casseopia. The “bonus features” are all
text, so there’s nothing special here – it’s just a decent stand-alone edition
of the Galactica movie version, for
better or worse.
So now, on to Galactica 1980 – the second wind for the
series. But for network television in the early 80s, those were tumultuous
waters indeed.
Rating: ** (same as original rating)
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