Written by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF Staff Journalist)
As the long months with no “Battlestar Galactica” continue to unfold, fans can take solace that in the midst of our drought, we’ll get a little relief. As we’ve reported numerous times here at Slice of SciFi, a two-hour Battlestar movie will debut this fall on SCI FI.
The movie was first rumored to be going direct to DVD, then airing on SCI FI. However, due to the agreement with the producer and creator of the original “Battlestar” Glen A. Larson, the movie must be shown on television first. As we reported last week, Larson holds the rights to produce “Battlestar” movies — whether on the big-screen or direct-to-home-theater.
The new movie is being produced as part of the fourth season of the hit show and as two separate episodes to avoid any legal quandries.
It will air on SCI FI and then quickly be released direct-to-home-theater on DVD. The good news for DVD fans — the producers are plannign an extended, deluxe edition of the film on DVD. As of now, plans are to include at least 15 minutes of new footage in the movie when it hits the home-theater market. There could be more included based on how the movie is edited and what the producers feel needs to be restored for the home-theater audience.
The “Battlestar” movie has been tenatively titled “Razor” and will focus on Admiral Cain of the “Pegasus.”
Extended cuts of “Battlestar Galactica” stories on DVD is nothing new. The season 2.5 set features the longer version of “Pegasus” on the first disc. At the time “Pegasus” aired, it was too short to run in an hour and a half time slot on the original edit. Ron Moore and company were able to edit it down to the hour time slot. However, in his podcast, Moore stated he wasn’t happy with some of what was lost and promised it would be on the DVD sets. When the first half of season 2 came out on DVD, it was the original version, causing some fans to riot in the streets (OK, not really…but we were pretty annoyed). The season 2.5 set saw the episode see the light of day in the original edit with a new commentary by Ron Moore and David Eick.
[Photo by Carole Segal for the ©SCI FI Channel]
I would like to know how you acquired the photograph in this article ( credit reads : picture by skloanki ) when it is a photograph that I took as the official stills photographer on Battlestar Galactica. This photo is © copyright to SCI FI Channel. What is this skloanski person doing, trading in these copy-righted photos???
Photo is not attributed to sksloanski – that is simply the name of the folder where it was stored for use in this article. Now that we know who took the original and for whom — proper acknowledgment can be attributed and has been.
Thanks so much!!!
Your Welcome Carole. And, thank you for allowing us to show this. It is a great photo that fits beautifully with the article. I also sent you an email explaining the situation and offering our thanks for your contribution.
Excellent news, was starting to fear the worst.
I’m excited to hear of the at least extra 15 minutes. I have noticed that many “big” episodes this last season have felt rushed and don’t want a deleted scenes section. Hopefully, they’ll do the same with the Season 3 DVD set. Anyway, I’ll take whatever I can get, since the extended version of Pegasus was so much better as was the aired hour and a half “Lay Down Your Burdens 2.”
Any news on whether it will appear on HD-DVD? I know there were rumours about BSG appearing on HD-DVD but that all seems to have gone quiet…