The Cylons are coming - again

You just have to love Hollywood. Because the only thing better than a hit original idea is someone else’s hit original idea that you can copy and revision over and over again. Like Halloween, The Brady Bunch, Dukes of Hazzard, Alien Vs. Predator (2 different great movies, one horrible waste of time), Mission Impossible, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (redone 4x now), Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica. Every single one of these examples has been remade from generally a better original. Some remakes and revisioned films have even been done over 2x or more.

That is the motivation to the just announced Battlestar Galactica movie. Revisioning the original classic sci-fi television show. Again.

This time Bryan Singer will be at the helm of the movie. Which bodes better for the film since he is very successful at making conversion movies (he made the original X-Men movie and the sequel X-2). Plus he is just a good director. The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil are great examples of a job well done.

Of course he has had his mistakes too. There was Valkyrie (mostly Tom Cruise’s fault – is an even British accent that hard for an actor?) and Superman Returns. Though the Superman series has been run into the ground long before Singer got to it.

Still I can’t imagine this next version of Battlestar Galactica being worse than the television series made by SyFy Channel. Back when they were still playing with the concept that they were a scifi channel (ie Sci-Fi). In that fiasco of a series, the entire story was butchered.

The SyFy version took every concept of the original and threw it out. About the only thing it had in common with the original was the name of the ship and some of the characters. The major Black characters were eliminated as were several female characters, the gender of the main characters was switched, the bad guys were given a convoluted and incomprehensible motivation, and the ultimate outcome was dumb. The sub-plots were almost all boring, the main plot took twists that were generally illogical, and all but 2 of the characters were worthless.

Such is the path of a revisioned product 9 out of 10 times. So what is Bryan Singer planning for his movie version? Revisioning.

The good news is that the movie will have nothing to do with the SyFy television series. Which is very good news. The bad news is that it may well have little to do with the original series either. My expectation is that the latest version will strongly influence much of this new movie version.



I’m hoping that a few things from the original stick. Like the main characters, the mythology of the original, the motivations of the original, and the relationships of the original. From the new series I think that the graphical upgrades can be interesting. That’s about it.

Overall I tend to find that remakes are miserable these days in Hollywood. They may be cheaper and/or an easier bet than an original film but less than 2 out of 10 are actually worth seeing, even on cable let alone a movie theater. When the film is revisioned, the chances of a good film drop exponentially. So at least Singer will be starting off with really abysmally low expectations.

Will this film be a Dukes of Hazard? Unlikely since Singer is a good director and decent writer. The chance of an utter disgrace is pretty small. Will the film be a Mission Impossible? Most likely. A decent film that has little to do with the source material, but gives enough of a distraction to be worth seeing in a theater. Could it be a Fly? Few remakes ever equal, in quality, the original they are based on. Even less attain a better standing than the source material.

But there is always the potential when great actors, great writing, and a great director combine – without the influence of Hollywood execs involved. Still I don’t expect that at all.