Battlestar Galactica (1978) 01-03: Saga of a Star World, Part 1

Episode:

1-3

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Writer:

Glen A. Larson

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Director:

Richard A. Colla and Alan J. Levi

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Air Date:

17-Sep-1978

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching the epic first episode of the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica series! Well, first movie really. I've called it episodes 1-3 because it was later split for syndication, but it's all one film.

Battlestar Galactica was originally supposed to be a miniseries made of just three stories: the Saga of a Star World TV movie, The Lost Planet of the Gods, and The Gun on Ice Planet Zero, but things escalated quickly and they found themselves rushing to make another 17 episodes. And then it got cancelled after one season. And then it got a sequel series. And then that got cancelled after half a season. It makes Lost in Space and Star Trek's modest three season runs seem pretty lengthy by comparison, especially as they'd been on repeat in syndication for years.

Though at this point in 1978 there hadn't been a science fiction series like this airing new episodes on US TV in a long while. Space 1999 had just finished in the UK, plus we had Blake's 7, and Doctor Who was on Tom Baker's fifth season (they'd just reached The Ribos Operation), but there was a real absence of glossy expensive American sci-fi. Fortunately Star Wars happened, and executives had suddenly become a lot more interested in stories about spaceships and ray guns... like the one that creator Glen Larson had tried to pitch a decade earlier.

There was a bit of interest by the public as well, as Saga of a Star World aired to an estimated audience of 65 million viewers! That's about five times as many as watched Star Trek's The Man Trap 12 years earlier, and four times as many as watched TNG's Encounter at Farpoint 9 years later... I think. Basically, it was wildly successful. In fact it was later released in cinemas as a theatrical movie... because it cost a damn fortune and they wanted to get some money back. I've seen a few numbers given for its budget and one of the lowest is $7 million (the poster says $14 million). To give that some context, Star Wars: A New Hope cost $11 million the previous year.

Okay, this is basically going to be a reaction video in text form, with comments under screencaps. That means there'll be SPOILERS for the entire feature-length story. I won't be spoiling the rest of the season however (because I have basically no idea what happens in it) and I won't spoil any story content in the 2004 remake series either. The movie is two and a quarter hours long so I'll be splitting this article into three roughly equal parts that probably won't line up with when the syndicated episodes start and end... because I don't actually know. I'm not exactly a classic BSG expert I'm afraid.

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The film begins with giant names flying towards the camera. I figured they must have borrowed the idea from Superman, but this actually came out a few months earlier.

There's one and a half minutes of them, they just keep coming! It's not so bad though as it means I get to listen to Stu Phillips' Battlestar Galactica theme, which is one of the greatest TV themes ever made. The 2004 remake has its own themes and they're very fitting, but they're not this. Stu Phillips also did the themes to Glen Larson's Knight Rider and also Glen Larson's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, so there's some trivia for you.

Okay, the opening credits are done, but now I've got a minute of opening narration to sit through, featuring the voice of classic Avenger Patrick Macnee.

It does the same job as Star Wars' "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." text, establishing right at the start that despite the spaceships this isn't a story about our future. In fact it goes full Chariots of the Gods?, talking about how there are those who believe that humans are the descendents of ancient astronauts or that they had some help from aliens building the pyramids. Those are two different theories so the narration's not committing to anything right now, it's just saying that maybe there are humans in space fighting to survive at this very moment in 1978.

Alright, now I get to update my sci-fi TV series pyramid construction theory list:

• Stargate - The pyramids were definitely built because of aliens.
• Red Dwarf - The pyramids were built because the slave drivers had massive, massive whips.
• Battlestar Galactica - I dunno, maybe one or the other?

Okay I think the intro's over.

Hey it's a Battlestar! In fact there's a whole fleet of the things, and they couldn't look more 70s with that grey paint and hull covered in greebles.

The series came out just 10 years after Star Trek: The Original Series but they'd come a long way with visual effects since then. The Galactica miniature is much smaller than the 11-foot Enterprise filming model but you really can't tell by looking at it. It's still 6 feet long though, so it's not exactly tiny, and it apparently cost $50,000 to build. I love that I can use present tense for all these models by the way. There are plenty of pictures of the Galactica miniature on the internet and it seems to be in good shape still.

We get another shot that pulls in to the side of one of the ships and this time the name is clearly visible. It's the Battlestar Atlantia.

Inside the Atlantia we meet Quorum of Twelve, representing the twelve colonies of man. The look of them has me wondering if there's another quorum for the twelve colonies of women.

They're here so that President Adar can raise a chalice and toast the peace they've negotiated with the Cylons. In fact they're on their way to rendezvous with them now. Right away the episode is getting some efficient exposition down and establishing that this not a culture anyone on Earth will be familiar with. They're also showing off that presumably rear-projected window in the background.

The episode's got other characters to check in on though and it cuts to the barracks aboard the Battlestar Galactica to introduce fighter pilots Starbuck, Apollo and Zac. Those are their actual names by the way, not callsigns.

Zac (played by music Rick Springfield) is really coming across like an overly hyped up Luke Skywalker type. Meanwhile Starbuck (played by a pre A-Team Dirk Benedict) on the left is more of a Han Solo. Except less chill. You might be wondering what came first, Starbuck or the Starbucks coffee chain, and the answer is... Starbucks by seven years. They both came well after the chief mate in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick however.

We learn that Zac is Apollo's younger brother and he really wants Starbuck to fake being sick or something so he can go fly a patrol with him instead. Apollo probably knows what's going on but he lets Zac come along anyway and is immediately punished by it when his brother goes "WOOOOOOOOOOOO!" right next to his ear.

Then we get the first glimpse of Galactica's bridge as they go through the process of launching fighters. It's all very military and serious, and presumably very different to anything that'd been on TV up to this point. The Enterprise has her shuttles and Star Wars had space fighters, but how often did TV viewers get to see proper space carrier operations? Or carrier operations in general?

Down in the fighter bay there are people literally all over the fighters, presumably doing the final checks before the craft are catapulted down the launch tubes. We never got to see people doing final checks on the shuttles in Star Trek!

We even get to see the fighters hurtling down the launch tubes, which have a lot more stuff bolted to the walls than you might expect considering that they're a tunnel for fighters to go down. They manage to reuse this exact same shot three times while launching two fighters, but it looks awesome so I'll let them off. The model work's a bit Thunderbirds here, in a good way.

Apollo and Zac clear the ship and then go off on their patrol. I wonder if the other battlestars are also launching patrols or if it's just Galactica doing all the work.

Then we finally get a good look at their Vipers. Any resemblence to X-Wings may or may not be coincidental, but they're plenty distinctive in their own right.

It's not really a surprise that they'd look so similar to Star Wars fighters as they were designed by Star Wars artist Ralph McQuarrie. Though this wasn't the only concept he came up with for them.

This is what the second place design looked like. It was never used in Battlestar Galactica to my knowledge, but it came in handy when Glen Larson decided to make a second sci-fi show the next year, as it became the Thunder Fighter in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Though we do actually get to see another fighter design in this scene for a few seconds, down at the bottom left corner of the frame...

It's a rogue Cylon Raider! I'm fairly certain that wasn't supposed to be in the shot, but I guess these things happen when you recycle the same bits of footage over and over.

Apollo mentions to Zac that when the war's over they might be able to get back to deep star exploration, which sounds cool. They could do a bit of star trekking. (Spoilers: they'll be doing some deep star exploration soon enough, though not in the way they expected).

Back in the room with the big window we get to meet two characters: Count Baltar, the guy who arranged the armistice conference with the Cylons, and Commander Adama, the one man who doubts that the Cylons are sincere.

Adama was played by Lorne Greene, then better known for being the star of the long-running western series Bonanza. I suppose anyone would become strongly assoicated with a series after being in 417 episodes over 14 years. That's a lot of episodes, and I haven't seen a single one of them, so to me Lorne Greene will always be Adama.

The reason Adama doubts the Cylons really want peace is that he feels that resisting oppression is an alien way of existing that the Cylons will never accept. Personally I think he's being very closed minded about them.

Oh hang on, no he was right, there are disco robots lurking in the mist near the "old moon" Cimtar.

Whenever the Cylons appear the production crew puts a four-point star filter on the lens so things get very twinkly. They've also got a sweeping red light for an eye, just like KITT in Glen Larson's Knight Rider. These guys came first though. You might be wondering why they need three pilots per fighter. The reason is that  they suck basically. Apollo mentions that the Cylons would have to outnumber them ten to one before they'd win a dogfight.

Man, even the Cylon fighters are iconic! They're very distinctive as well, you wouldn't get them confused with a Viper... or a TIE fighter.

The Cylons and their spaceships were designed by Andrew Probert, who later helped design the refit USS Enterprise for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and created the new USS Enterprise 1701-D for Star Trek: The Next Generation. They weren't messing around when it came to hiring designers on this series.

Apollo and Zac really are outflying the Cylon fighters... until they're not. Zac's engine is clipped by a laser blast and he's in trouble.
 

Plus their beautifully retro looking VDU is indicating that they're outnumbered by a lot more than ten to one.

Fighter aircraft had been using screens a bit like this since the late 60s, so this wasn't entirely science fiction, but I'm sure it's far more sophisticated than anything they had at the time.

The two pilots need to get back into communication range to warn the fleet but Zac's fighter isn't so fast with only two engines, so if Apollo goes he'll be leaving his brother behind with the Cylons. Zac heroically tells him to do it.

I like how their helmets somehow don't look ridiculous even with the Egyptian Pharaoh design and those strip lights. They're definitely leaning into the ancient astronaut concept here. I also like how the stars are reflected in his canopy. The star field turns as the fighter banks so I imagine they used rear projection here, and it works really well.

They both hit their turbo button on their joysticks, but Apollo's got the jet coming out of all three engines and zooms away.

I was wondering how they created the effect of a jet shooting out the back of the fighters so I did a bit of research, and it turns out that the answer is that they shot a jet out of the back of the fighters.

The fighter miniature had tubes going through so it could spray liquid nitrogen out of the back. There are also lightbulbs in there for the engines; it's a cool little toy.

At this point Adama's returning to the Galactica on shuttle and we learn that he's the ship's commander. That means that we soon get a better look at the bridge.

This shot doesn't quite get across the size of the room, but it's pretty huge and it's filled with screens. Plus this middle bit rotates for no good reason I can think of and features the comfiest seat in space. Honestly, I'm impressed.

The bridge cost maybe $875,000 to build, but they also got $450,000 of computer equipment from Tektronix in exchange for a mention in the end credits. The set had two kinds of screens on it: monitors playing footage from Betamax video tape, and Tektronix computer displays that could be operated by the actors. They also had a few basic video games on them for the extras to play (they were told not to react if they won).

First officer Colonel Tigh lets his captain know that communication with their fighter patrol has been jammed, so Adama calls up President Adar on the Atlantia for permission to launch more fighters. Unfortunately Adar has Baltar hovering over him as an advisor, and he advises that they don't do anything that will freak out the Cylons while they're on the verge of making peace.

So Adama decides that this would be a good time for a battle stations drill, ruining Starbuck's game of cards.

Starbuck had a 'perfect pyramid' and has basically just won the pot! All he needed was another minute for everyone to show their weird hexagonal cards and let him claim his winnings. Though everyone's in such a rush that he's able to stay behind a moment and empty the table down the front of his trousers. I hope his pants tuck into his boots or else he's going to be losing all his winnings down the corridor.

Any time the episode threatens to get too dull and serious Starbuck turns up to lighten the mood and I think it's mostly working. I wouldn't want to be in the same room as the guy as he's always got a cigar in his hand, but as comic relief goes he's pretty likeable and hasn't crossed the line into ridiculous... unlike the carts the pilots ride to their planes on.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they were sitting down, without their helmets on. In fact the more I look at them in those giant helmets the more I wonder what the point of them is. I mean they're not exactly wearing airtight spacesuits. I'm starting to realise that the Colonial fleet is more about style than function, and I can respect that.

At this point the Galactica's long range scanners are able to pick up the incoming Cylon fighters chasing Apollo and Zac. The two of them were racing to warn the fleet so I'm guessing that by the time they're on the scanners there isn't a lot of time left for Galactica to get its defences up.

Over on the Altantia, Baltar suggests to Adar that it might just be a Cylon welcoming committee and Adama recommends launching a 'welcoming committee' of their own. Of course Baltar opposes the idea, saying that any one of those pilots could start the war back up again, and the President agrees. This is their first chance of peace in a thousand years, they can't afford to mess this up!

Wait, they've been fighting the Cylons for a millennia? The way Apollo was talking about getting back to space exploration earlier I assumed he'd on a mission himself or at least knew someone who had.

Star Trek 1-26: Errand of Mercy

Oh, I should mention that Baltar's actor (John Colicos) would've been familiar to Star Trek fans, as he's the guy who played the very first Klingon antagonist, Kor, in the episode Errand of Mercy.

There's something that fascinates me about the way you can tell these two images were filmed 10 years apart even though there's nothing in the clothing or the background or even the hairstyles to give it away. Even though they've been scanned from film, processed in a computer and stuck on a DVD. Lenses, lighting and film stock make such a huge difference.

At this point Zac's almost made it back to the fleet and is close enough to call for help, but the ship hasn't launched any fighters so all Adama can do is listen as the Cylons destroy his fighter. President Adar calls up and asks what that just was and Adama replies that it was his son.

Adama holds it together pretty well considering, but an officer on the bridge starts crying. I'm not sure they've given us her name yet. At this point Adama's not waiting for permission to fight back anymore. He launches all fighters and gets all gun batteries firing. That means I get to watch the fighter launch clip again!

Well those Vipers can't be to scale. The fighter launch tubes would be longer than the flight pods are wide!

One thing that's standing out to me about these effects shots is just how many elements have been composited together. There are five battlestars here and four fighters, plus all the laser blasts. They're really showing off.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (4K77 version)

Here's what the original version of Star Wars looks like for a comparison, which was an actual blockbuster movie released just a year earlier. Honestly I think I prefer Battlestar's lasers.

The effects for Saga of a Star World were created by the newly-formed VFX company Apogee, run by John Dykstra. Dykstra was the guy at ILM who achieved a lot of the visual effects in Star Wars and he was apparently using the same Dykstraflex camera equipment here... in the same facility... with a lot of the same people. Afterwards he went and completed the 70s 'Star' trinity by working on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Sadly he did not work on Stargate.

One big difference between the effects in BSG and Star Wars is the type of film they used for the motion control shots. They had switched from the gigantic VistaVision to typical 35mm film in order to save money at the cost of quality, as the effects weren't going to be seen on the big screen. But then it ended up in cinemas anyway, to Dykstra's annoyance.

And here's the concept art of the attack, just because it looks awesome. Galactica's got some very thin arms holding up its flight pods here though. I guess they were going for the Star Trek approach of demonstrating that the ship was built with advanced future technology by giving it flimsy-looking pylons.

We also get to see lots of close ups of the Galactica's laser turrets firing and I'm suddenly starting to feel like I'm watching Babylon 5. I guess it makes sense that BSG would've been a big inspiration for the series.

The camera is so close to the ship here that we're given basically no clue to where this actually is, but we get a similar looking close up on the side of the flight pods when the fighters launch so I'm thinking it's around there.

At this point Apollo makes it up to the bridge to ask his dad Adama if he can take a fighter out and save his little brother. Tigh gives him the bad news.

Adama calls up the President again for permission for Galactica to leave the fleet. Apollo reported that the fighters don't have any carrier support, which means their base ships must be busy elsewhere... like at their home planets perhaps. President Adar's not quite home right now unfortunately. It's finally sunk in that he's led the entire human race to ruin and he's currently not in the right state of mind to issue orders.

The episode hasn't been very familiar to me so far to be honest, but I know I must have seen it before because the line "How could I have been so completely wrong?" has been assigned to permanent storage in my brain and I have reason to say it often. I mean I don't say it, but it keeps getting buffered in my short term memory ready to go.

It's a bloody good question though. How could he have been stupid enough to take their entire defensive force out to arrange an armistice?

The President's battlestar is in a bad way right now as it's the Cylon's main target, and their 'Atlantia death squadron' makes a suicide run at the relatively undefended interior of the ship's landing bays.

It's a lot like how the Cylons are about to attack their relatively undefended planets!

Damn, they really messed up the Atlantia's bridge, and the President's robe. It's not often that you get to see the air blowing people's clothes around like this as it escapes through a crack in the hull.

Adama orders that his own bridge's shield be opened so he can get a look at the other ship out of the window. Seems like a bit of a risky move, but sometimes you've just got to see something with your own eyes I guess.

Nice job Adama, now everyone's got an exploding battlestar burned into their retinas. Still, the flash has made the set look great, especially combined with this red alert lighting they're using. They've really given me a good view of the bridge here... along with some of the stage above perhaps, it's hard to tell.

I got a bit of a Babylon 5 vibe from the space combat earlier and now I'm getting it from this set as well. Hang on, I'll try to find a good angle of it to show you.

Babylon 5 2-04 - A Distant Star

See, there's a bit of a similarity there. Though B5's command centre can only fit three people in its tiny pit. There was a little bit of a budget difference between the two series. Also a 15 year difference in camera and lighting technology.

Anyway, Tigh reports that their long range scanners have picked up Cylon base ships close to three of their planets

Speaking of Cylon base stars, here's one now. They look a bit like like a cross between the Death Star and a yo-yo and they're the evil version of a battlestar. The filming model for this thing was only 3 feet across, but that's still pretty big for a circular model I think. It's certainly got a ton of detail on it, which you can't see here.

We do get to see to see the Imperious Leader of the Cylons in his throne room though.

Huh, he doesn't look like much of a robot. In fact it's hard to tell what he looks like. It's very easy to tell that Patrick Macnee's back to provide the voice however.

This is one of those 'villain's lair' scenes, where they basically just say "Our enemies are doomed, we're about to win" etc. There is no deep insight into the methods and motivations of the Cylons here. I'm not sure he even has a moustache to twirl. Though we do the very first "By your command," from one of the Centurions.

Adama doesn't have a boss anymore now that the President has blown up, so he orders the Galactica to abandon the fleet and head off without her fighters back to their home planet. This doesn't win over any of their pilots, especially as no one told them about it.

We get a really good look at the front of the ship here as the camera gets in close enough for us see that there isn't actually a central window that corresponds to the bridge. Though I suppose no one ever said that the bridge was right in the middle.

The jamming stops and they start getting signals back from home. But it's not sounds of running and screaming and explosions that you'd expect, as things are actually pretty calm down on planet Caprica. (They got a bit astrological with the colonies, with Caprica being named after the zodiac sign Capricorn).

In fact barely anyone's even turned up to the celebrations at the Caprica Presidium. A news reporter talks about this, saying that it is "somewhat deserted" at the moment, but she's sure it'll be filled with people in a few hours once what the armistice meeting gets underway.

I haven't been given any reason to think about the acting so far as everyone's been perfectly fine, but she doesn't come across as a very convincing reporter to me. Especially when the Cylons suddenly strike and she's reporting on the running, screaming and explosions. This is Jane Seymour by the way, from Live and Let Die and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman .

Oh no. I'd genuinely forgotten about Boxey. Things were going really well for the first 25 minutes but now a cute kid has shown up.

The news reporter is his mother I guess as she yells his name and runs over to save him, dragging him behind an obelisk as the Cylon ships come swooping by overhead.

The entire Cylon attack on the colonies is basically only seen from this reporter's point of view, so it's kind of limited in scope. We don't even see any cities getting nuked! I love these shots of the Cylons just blowing up random parts of the street though. Those are some A-grade top quality lasers and I wish I knew exactly how they did them.

Hey they've got actual pyramids in the background!

On this shot it seems like they had sparks set up on the set to be fired off in sequence to match the laser bolts on the fighter strafing overhead. They didn't quite get them to sync up on this frame, the explosives went off before the hit, but it still looks awesome in motion. Oh by the way, that dark shape at the base of the obelisk is the reporter and Boxey successfully taking shelter, so they did well there.

There are also lots of shots of the Cylon fighters flying around without any buildings in the frame. The clever thing about setting these scenes at night is that they got to use their favourite trick: recycling effect shots. A Cylon Raider against a starry night sky looks a lot like a Cylon Raider in deep space.

The reporter and Boxey can't stay in their hiding place forever though as a guy comes over and tells them that the building's about to collapse. The guy picks up Boxey like he was nothing and gets them both to safety like a big damn hero. Then he immediately gets shot and killed while presumably going off to save someone else. It's pretty bleak right now!

Fortunately Boxey's dog daggit is still alive! He races through the crowds of people running in all directions to get back to Boxey... but a laser from a Cylon Raider sends the obelisk toppling down on top of him. Splat. Well, it looked more like it landed in front of him, but there's no sign of the daggit afterwards.

This time even Colonel Tigh is crying as Galactica crew watches the news in absolute horror. Well, some of them do, others are clearly just trying to get their work done. They're professionals.

It's clear at this point that they're too late to save anyone on Caprica or any of the other colonies. Even the outer planets are under attack. The Cylons have achieved victory through the devious strategy of just attacking everywhere at once with overwhelming force.

Adama orders Galactica to rendezvous with the survivors of their battlestar fleet while he goes down to Caprica in a shuttle, alone, but Tigh and Apollo aren't about to let him do that. They arrange a compromise with Apollo taking him down in his Viper, which apparently has two seats now. That way if the Cylons spot them they'll at least be able to fight back.

This seems like a good place to leave it for now.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO

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COMING NEXT

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, the middle third of Saga of a Star World. It's the part that comes between the exciting beginning and the dramatic conclusion, but I'm sure something has to happen in it!

Thanks for reading by the way, and extra thanks if you decide to leave a comment.