Battlestar Galactica: The Exhibition: The Review
I had the real pleasure of going to the opening of the Battlestar Galactica exhibit at the EMP-SFM in Seattle. As part of that, I attended a press conference with Ronald D. Moore, Edward James Olmos, Michael Hogan, Kate Vernon and Richard Hatch. A few tidbits from that conference below, and some photos from the exhibition.
The friendship and trust between them all was readily apparent, as was the love of what they accomplished. Some trivia from the discussion:
-When they killed off Ellen in Season 3, they had no idea she was going to come back. In fact at that time the notion of the Final Five was barely sketched.
-Hogan fought the decision to send Tigh down to New Caprica — his view was that Tigh would never leave the Galactica — but he lost, and we gained a one-eyed cylon for it.
-In the final season’s attempted coup by Gaeta and Tom Zarek, originally the Council was going to side with Zarek in a meeting, at which point Zarek was going to exit the room and have his henchmen eliminate them all. Richard Hatch said that this would never happen, and the scene was changed to have the council disagree with Zarek before their elimination.
-The ‘So Say We All’ speech that concludes the pilot episode was completely unscripted. Originally, Adama was to say “so say we all” once, and that was the end of the scene. Instead, Olmos on the fly turned to the cast and extras with his repetition of “so say we all,” and escalated to that remarkable crescendo. Nobody knew what Olmos was doing, so the initial looks of confusion are genuine, as are the shouts by the end.
-Olmos has a remarkable ponytail.
More tidbits to come if I ever figure out how to fix the audio in my sound files.
The exhibition itself is pretty cool: old and new vipers, a cylon Raider, the Imperious Leader, the frakkin’ Arrow of Apollo, and a ton of other great props. Highly recommended to all BSG fans.
Posted on October 26, 2010, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
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I live in the wrong city. Clearly.
I saw posters for this while there this weekend. Looks interesting. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the final season though.
Yeah Clark, thanks for meeting up with us when in town!!
Frack, I’m jealous.
A great moment from the press conference: While Moore is answering a question, Kate Vernon sneaks some candy out of her purse and eats some, then slips the bag of candy under the table to Michael Hogan. Hogan takes a piece too, then slips it to Olmos. Olmos takes some too and tries to hand it off to Moore, who is trying to be very subtle in declining it. These guys are pros.
Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!
When Ellen came back, I did find it a little/creepy that back on New Caprica number 1 was sleeping with his ‘mother’ creator person thingy. When the four found out they were cylons, I didn’t believe it and decided they were earthlings. Turns out I was half right/wrong:)
I’m curious to see what more will come in the form of movies and such.
Hey I said to everyone to stop by the chocolate show. No one did. I was working and unfortunately didn’t have time for meetups.
You didn’t tell US, clark! I didn’t even know about it.
Sure I did. I just didn’t want to be crass enough to put up a full post for it. It was great though.
A lot better than the last time I had to go to Seattle back in June and found all the hotels booked because of a Yankees game, two big concerts and a few other things. We ended up in what can only be described as a crack house up north of Everette which had jacked up the prices to $80 for the night. The water didn’t even work in the bathroom and it looked scary. The first thing we did was take off all the sheets, throw them on the floor and sleep in our clothes. The towels had blood stains on them. Ugh…
Wow. Next time just stay with Supergenius. I hear there’s less crack there.
North of Everett?! Dude.
Yes, my house has 60% less crack.
Don’t know if you guys saw this but Caprica will be cancelled after the end of this season.
Not surprising. The reason BSG worked, I’m convinced, was because the structure of having a cramped space with Cylons constantly attacked worked to Moore’s strengths. When he didn’t have those (the first episode of the miniseries and much of the last season or so) then Moore’s weaknesses dominate. Moore just isn’t a plot oriented guy. To the point that he doesn’t care about plot.
I’m all about characterization. But Moore doesn’t realize that for characterization to be interesting it has to be found in interesting structures. Its interesting to compare and contrast Moore with say David Milch’s Deadwood. Deadwood also is a highly character driven series focused on moments and vignettes. However Milch’s focus is also the philosophical questions of the structures around. The structure of the town and its growth ends up being a character such that plot matters because it’s in plot that the characters have their meaning.