Wednesday, May 31, 2006

First Look at Galactica Spinoff!













It's always a pleasure to see some fan-based humor injected into the Battlestar universe. I saw this on the BSG forums today and found it quite the gut-buster. Thanks to GoonSquad for giving me permission to post the animated gif. You can see the orginal thread in the official BSG forums. Long live Serenitica!

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Posted by Smitty at 11:16 AM - 0 comments


Caprica Script in Early Stages

Michael Ausiello's long-awaited interview with Battlestar executive producer David Eick has been posted. In the Q&A session, Mr. Eick spills more information about the upcoming BSG season 3, the Caprica spin-off, and how he plans to handle the extra workload. Here's a snippet of the interview, with portions related to you-know-what:

Ausiello: What's the latest on the Caprica spin-off?

Eick:
It's in the very earliest embryonic stages. We're now working on the outline with Remi Aubuchon, who's the writer. We're going to be submitting the document to the network in the next week or so.

Ausiello:
Fans are worried that your attention will be pulled away from the original and it'll suffer.

Eick:
I think the difference this time is that we have a partner in Remi, who's going to be taking the lead with the new project. And the new project, at this point, is in the very earliest stages. Ron [Moore] and I [aren't] approaching Caprica like we approached Galactica, which is to say it was just the two of us. We're deeply involved with Caprica, and we're very enthusiastic and thrilled with the opportunity, but when it comes to the detail work of pounding out the script, there's a third partner involved who's at the helm. And that, I think, is the job that tends to be the one that creates the distractions and dilutes a person's attention and focus. So in this particular case we don't have that problem.

Ausiello:
Has Sci Fi ordered a pilot, or is it just a script?

Eick:
Right now it's a script. We'll probably know if it's a pilot around July.


There you have it. You can read the full interview at the TV Guide blog website. There are a few spoilers regarding events in the third season of Galactica in the article so please read at your own risk!

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Posted by Smitty at 7:55 AM - 0 comments


Saturday, May 27, 2006

Producer Spills More Details

Remi Aubuchon recently spoke with Dreamwatch Magazine regarding the new Caprica series. The story comes to us from the SciFi Pulse website. In the interview, the producer addresses the direction for the show, insisting that Caprica will defintely stand on its own when compared to Battlestar Galactica.

"I had pitched a story to NBC/Universal Studios independent of Battlestar (an allegorical story about slavery with robots) and Ron [Moore] and David [Eick] were considering a prequel, but were obviously busy with their obligations on the current show so the studio suggested we meet. We hit it off big - time and within a couple of months, the three of us had worked out the concept, took it to Sci Fi and by January we'd sold it."

In regards to ties with Galactica this series will focus more on a less advanced civilisation, which has only just started to traverse space and has just invented a primitive form of robots called Cylons. The show will only share a few historical elements with the present series of Battlestar.

"In Caprica, William Adama is 11 - years old; most of the characters on Battlestar haven't been born yet! The context of the Battlestar world gives us more storytelling opportunities, at least for fans, because there will be some answers to the burning questions that I have had."

Remi Aubuchon as an individual is someone who hasn't really written much within the Science Fiction genre for Television and some may question his judgement because of this. However Aubuchon insists that this show will be so much more than a Sci Fi series, a genre to itself maybe?

"This is more than a science fiction show. This is a very human story about how out own hubris can lead us to disaster. This is a show that owes itself more to Dallas in some ways than to Star Trek. I feel very equipped. I do have a few credits lurking around that are close; From the Earth to the Moon (which is more science than fiction) and a fantasy pilot for NBC called young Arthur."

One burning question on the lips of many people is the potential for cross over stories. Aubuchon revealed that certain elements have been embedded into the first few episodes of season 3, however the Caprica series for the most part will definitely stand on its own.

"We want Caprica to stand on it's own. We're hoping that people who've never heard of Battlestar Galactica (there must be one or two!) can still watch Caprica and not feel they're out of the loop somehow."


I suppose that if you are a fan of Dallas this is glorious news. Regardless of the specifics of how Caprica will look and feel, these recent comments have been adding some interesting layers to the show. Stay tuned.

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Posted by Smitty at 2:02 PM - 0 comments


Thursday, May 25, 2006

New Web Series Called "The Resistance"

The always-informative Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog has picked up a story regarding the web-only series (not to be confused with Caprica) of Battlestar Galactica. Here's what the article says:

The most exciting news on this front involved Battlestar Galactica, which airs on the NBC Universal owned Sci Fi Channel. Debuting later this year will be a Web series spin-off for the acclaimed series called Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance. Lasting ten episodes, The Resistance will fill in the gap between season two and the upcoming season three.


The original IGN story can be found here. At the moment a hundred questions regarding BSG come to mind: Another spin-off series? Does this effect the Caprica prequel development? And more importantly, will either David Eick or Ron Moore die from exhaustion next year? Stay tuned.

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Posted by Smitty at 5:48 AM - 0 comments


Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Interview with Grace Park

The MediaBlvd interview with Grace Park has been posted. I would have posted this sooner, but several things distracted my attention: E3, migrating my computers to Linux, and other real life boring issues. The full interview is worth a read, but unfortunately she dispels very little about the new Caprica series that was not already posted in the preview a few days ago. I have quoted the relevant passages below.

MB: It sounds pretty cool. So I guess the big news this week, out from Battlestar Galactica is about the prequel - the spin-off, Caprica. Have you heard much buzz about that?

GP: I know, I just heard that today, too, from my manager. He said that was in Variety. And Trish Helfin, who plays Number Six, she just sent out an email that she heard from her husband, and it was like, "How the hell do we not know this?" It was a total surprise to me. There was no, "Just so you guys know, we are thinking about doing this, we don't know when it's going to come out." None of that. Not a hint. I was like, "Are they really going to do this? How do I feel about this? Why don't we have any say, or why don't we at least know about it?" So that was very strange.

MB: So how do you feel about it?

GP: Well, one of the things I was wondering is, if it was kind of cheesy to do that already? I thought maybe it was a bit soon or didn't really know how that would fare. But if it's David and Ron doing it again, I know the quality will be really good. I'm actually really curious, and I want to know. . . like, are the Cylons already in that part? Probably not, and I'm actually really curious who they're going to use for casting, if they're going to use any of the same characters. Actually they can't because it's 50 years ago, right? Or fifty years before. I'm really curious to see what they're going to do with it. Lots of times, because the show is so good, sometimes when you hear something really drastic is going to happen - like we had the one year jump ahead in the future, or something like that at the end of Season 2 - there's a lot of raised eyebrows, hesitation, and a lot of doubt. There definitely had to be some script things that were worked around, but it ended up fantastic. And that's kind of making me go, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are they going to do with it. I'm actually really curious to see how it goes.

MB: That's really interesting. I know it had been on the news or anywhere that it was in the works, then yesterday the announcements just started coming out and were picked up everywhere.

GP: It was yesterday? Weird. . . I'm only going to end up feeling not happy if the prequel ends up doing way better than our show. I'll be like, "Wait a second - are you allowed to do that?" If it's better than our show, I guess we'll be riding their coat tails.


I remember watching the mini back when it debuted and thinking she was the weakest link in the acting chain. Grace has really honed in on her talents over the past few years, going far beyond my inital expectations of her acting. While the interview contains mostly information about the Battlestar Galactica series I truly recommend giving it a look-see. The folks at MediaBlvd and bsg-tns.com collectively are one of the best news sources regarding the subject matter. More to report as it come in!

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Posted by Smitty at 7:42 PM - 0 comments


Thursday, May 04, 2006

David Eick discusses Caprica

In the part 3 interview with David Eick by iF Magazine, the executive producer of Battlestar Galactica shares some compelling information regarding the spinoff series. Here are the parts that pertain directly to the SCIFI original series titled Caprica:

iF: When do you anticipate going into production on the new CAPRICA series?

EICK: We would need a green light first. But I would imagine, if that happens, then we would be shooting in August. Ron and I started talking about a prequel series right around the time we were breaking the second season. When I did HERCULES with the folks at Renaissance Pictures we had the spin-off XENA ready to accompany the second season of that show. I told Ron since we were getting ready to head into our second season, that so far he and I hadn't had a conversation about a spin-off let alone one ready to go to a company with. We realized if we were going to do a spin-off it would have to come from some place organic, it couldn't just be because we wanted to do one.

iF: What was the genesis for CAPRICA?

EICK: We got to talking about the events that took place before the attack and how you might be able to spin a story or a style of storytelling that would be different from GALACTICA. We wanted something much more romantic, and much more of a soap that dealt with a corporation and the man in charge of that corporation who in a very innocent and idealized way propagated the artificial intelligence technology that would later become [unbeknownst to him and those involved in the series] the Cylons. That was about as far as we got, and we continued along on our merry way doing season two. We finished that and started to work on season three. Along the same time we were introduced by the studio to a gentlemen named Remi Aubuchon, who had a pitch that struck them as having a lot of similarities to the Cylon mythos. Ron and I thought, "well we were never able to make time to pursue that idea we had a year ago. . . maybe this is an opportunity to meld what this guy has with what we had. He could write it and we could develop it with him," and so that's what we did. We were right; his idea was very similar to what we had been talking about. We took some of what we had and some of what he had and he's going to start writing next week.

iF : Is CAPRICA going to air on the SCI FI Channel?

EICK: We put our minds together, put the ideas together, and spruced up a pitch. Then we went into the SCI FI Channel and pitched it to them, they were very enthusiastic and it was very well received. They said, 'we'll buy it. . . go write it' so that is what we are doing.


That was far more information than I was expecting out of the iF magazine interview! Eick also reveals that the concept for the spinoff has been floating around for some time now. Most exciting!

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Posted by Smitty at 4:31 PM - 0 comments


Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Downloaded Remix Video

While this really does not classify as Caprica news, I think this is one of the best fan-made Battlestar Galactica videos. It comes to us compliments of Youtube.com. You can watch the video from it's source here.



Simply amazing! I'd also like to note one of my theories concerning the new show. I think it is entirely possible that we might see some of the six known Cylons models later on Caprica. It could serve as a means to tie together both shows. Just some healthy speculation.

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Posted by Smitty at 2:03 PM - 0 comments