Glen Larson To Battlestar Galactica Fans: Drop Dead
It’s no secret that Glen Larson, one of the minds behind the original, cheesy, 80s version of Battlestar Galactica hates Ron Moore’s current, much more successful version of the show. In fact for years now he’s stood in the way of turning that version into a movie. He owns the film rights, and he’s blocked all attempts to take Adama theatrical. Tonight, Universal Pictures finally threw up their hands and decided to let him screw us all over.
HR is reporting that Larson has been given the greenlight by Universal to make a Battlestar Galactica movie with no connection at all, to the current, mega-successful, much beloved television series currently finishing up its run on the Sci Fi channel. That’s right, before the new BSG’s final season has even finished, they’re already doing a remake.
Now it’s one thing to remake or reboot an unsuccessful franchise. For instance Marvel attempted it with Hulk, after the Ang Lee version received tepid reaction. That’s bad enough. But to actively seek to snuff out a popular, hugely successful version of something, a burgeoning, still fairly new franchise fresh with newly converted fans and all the excitement that goes along with that, by selfishly rebooting it so you can put everyone in 80s legwarmers is an insult. It’s a big fuck you to everyone who loves the current, massively more successful (critically and in popularity) version of BSG.
Maybe Larson has deluded himself into thinking there’s this huge following of haters reading to spit on the grave of Ronald Moore’s critically acclaimed version and slip back into his cheese fest. Well I’m sure there’s some. But they’re vastly outnumbered. How many times are we going to redo the same idea over and over and over again? How many times are we going to watch the colonies destroyed, when it’s already been done right, when there’s a perfect version out there right now, a perfect version screaming, crying out for a proper cinematic sequel.
It’s one thing to do a sequel, to continue the ideas kicked off in the original and supplement them with new ones, new adventures. But it’s the height of arrogance and cyncism to reboot something like this, to keep recycling the same idea over and over and over again simply because you, yes you Glen Larson, are unable to accept that someone might have done it better than you.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy as the movie version of BSG happens… without any of the people or characters you love about BSG. Get ready for robot dogs and sniveling one-dimensional villains. Battlestar Galactica is back in the hands of Glen Larson and his message to fans is: Drop dead.
