After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, the last major fighter carrier leads a makeshift fugitive fleet on a desperate search for the legendary planet Earth.After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, the last major fighter carrier leads a makeshift fugitive fleet on a desperate search for the legendary planet Earth.After the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, the last major fighter carrier leads a makeshift fugitive fleet on a desperate search for the legendary planet Earth.
- Won 2 Primetime Emmys
- 3 wins & 8 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaGeorge Lucas and 20th Century-Fox sued the producers over alleged similarities with Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). The show was re-worked from its original pilot to capitalize on the film's popularity, employing the same special effects team and the same concept designer. The lawsuit was dismissed in 1980, Fox appealed, and the case was settled out of court in 1983.
- GoofsThe humans' terms for time measurement appear to be simple replacements, as explained on the Trivia page - "micron" = second; "centon" = minute; and "centar," "secton," "sectar" and "yahren" corresponded respectively to hour, week, month and year - the term "centon" is the most used, often in a context that cannot possibly mean a minute: "He should have been in bed centons ago," "A route that will take us centons out of our way," etc.
- Quotes
Opening Credit Announcer: There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe... with tribes of humans... who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians... or the Toltecs... or the Mayans. Some believe there may yet be brothers of man... who even now fight to survive - somewhere beyond the heavens!
- Alternate versionsTwo episodes were edited together to form the made-for-video movie Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack. In syndication, the series incorporates the episodes of "Galactica 1980" (1980).
- ConnectionsEdited into Battlestar Galactica (1978)
To get the comparisons out of the way, watching both leaves me in little doubt that those that trash the remake and praise the original are probably heavily influenced by protective nostalgia when they say that, because there are few ways that this is the case. Indeed the ways that the original is "better" than the remake relates to qualities that I didn't like in the original and that the remake didn't try and have (namely a swashbuckling comedy and the clumsy aim at the family/kiddie viewing sector). With that more or less done I can concentrate on judging the original Battlestar Galatica on its own terms and not against something else. This produces a mixed feeling that I struggle to reconcile because at times this series is awful and at others times it is actually quite engaging and offers potential (that it admittedly doesn't manage to deliver on) but mostly it is a mixed bag.
The split is not total but the series does seem to go through phases where it is silly and for kids and then also more dramatic stuff that could have been a solid backbone for more. Sadly it gets into the silly stuff first. While Apollo and Starbuck were always going to be the lead characters, the first half of the season makes it their show, with a weekly "theme park" style story where we have planets that are like the Wild West or like Medieval times etc etc. Annoyingly all these stories seem to involve the Cylons – who are either already on these planets or are using these planets as a trap for the Galatica. This bugged me because it felt like the Cylons were so far ahead all the time that the struggle to watch the survivors shouldn't be this hard and it minimised their presence as a real tangible threat because they were always a handful of robots laying a trap, not a race hunting another to extension. None of it is helped by the overuse of that child and also that bl00dy robot dog thing.
Happily things get a bit more "serious" in the second half of the series, where the approach appears to be more towards action and plot rather than the kiddie theme park approach. It doesn't really pull this off though. The Cylons drop off the map for many episodes while the Eastern Alliance comes into it, but then that thread isn't done particularly well either. That said though it did generally make for a much better series than the first half had been – but it is still not that great. It is the contentment with the basics that hurt it, because nothing really convinces and nothing really engages or builds. The Cylons don't menace like they should, the human fleet doesn't feel like it is more than a handful of people, many, many threads are left with unsatisfying endings (and I mean mi-series, not just cause it got cancelled) while other threads just "stop" without a thought for the viewer, as if to say "well, that's that episode filled". The Pegasus episodes along with the Eastern Alliance and other specifics do offer a more grown up thread/feel that could be expanded like the remake did to great success but this never happens and it retains a very fragmented and unsatisfying feel.
There is much to enjoy about it despite this. The effects are limited but the designs are great, with the centurions, the base stars, the vipers or the Galatica herself being iconic and memorable. The comic swagger it has also works well, with Starbuck benefiting from this with some nice moments in the action. Such things as these combined with the better aspects of the second half of the series do combine to make it a solid enough piece of TV sci-fi but the "downsides" do limit it a lot and make it less than it could have been. The mix of aims, the lack of consistency in the central plot (escaping genocide) and in the tone (is it for kids, it is for adults, is it a comedy, is it all worthy and heavy??) are too big to overcome and, as a whole series it is not that great when you sit now and watch it with as little "warm nostalgic glow" as you can muster. Has good episodes and bad episodes but too many fall somewhere in the middle, showing a potential that frustratingly it never really seems to realise or do anything with.
- bob the moo
- Aug 19, 2009
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Sprache
- Also known as
- Kampfstern Galactica
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
Contribute to this page
![Noah Hathaway, Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict, Richard Hatch, and Laurette Spang in Battlestar Galactica (1978)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTY4NzQ5MDAwM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODU0OTkwMDE@._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,0,90,133_.jpg)