BSG Season 4 is the Final Season?!

[Rico]

Love to see a huge, big budget BSG movie a couple of years after the series ends!  That would be cool!

[jedijeff]

I agree, if the series is going to end, if they leave it open for a Feature Film, that would be great. I thought BSG looked fantastic on the small screen, but would really like to see them pull the stops out on a Theatrical Movie.

[Ktrek]

That would be really cool to see a theatrical BG release but I think it's unlikely. Perhaps a direct to DVD movie but there is just not a large enough audience to risk a feature film. I know that for the Sci Fi Channel BG is a hit but a hit for them equates to what? About 3 or 4 million household viewers? A feature film would need twenty times that to even begin to be successful. I know for those of us who love sci-fi ,and dearly love good sci-fi like BG, it's hard, because we wish that everyone could/would enjoy the shows we love, but sci-fi fans are still and will probably always be a minority. Most people don't want to actually think when they watch TV. They just want mindless entertainment.

Kevin

[Geekyfanboy]

Battlestar's Moore Talks Finale

Ron Moore, executive producer of SCI FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica, said that he and fellow executive producer David Eick are planning to send the series off on a note of finality at the end of the coming fourth season. "The plan is to end the show," Moore said in a conference call on June 1. "The plan is to bring us to a definitive conclusion. There's no plans or thoughts in our heads, really, of then doing a follow-up feature or any series or anything beyond that."

Moore and Eick announced on May 31 that they would wrap the acclaimed series at the end of the upcoming fourth season and elaborated on their decision in a call with journalists a day later.

Moore said that he and the writers have been thinking about how they wanted to end the series since the middle of the second season and began talking seriously about the conclusion towards the end of the third.

"Those ideas about where we were headed and what it all meant started to really sort of coalesce over the course of the third season," Moore said. "And in between seasons four and three is when we started talking in earnest about, 'OK, if we do end it next year, what would it really be?' And it just felt like, yeah, this is the right time to do it. ... We're really sort of taking our cues from the story itself, and it just feels like the story has moved forward aggressively."

Moore said that he's proud that the show has been unafraid to take risks. "And it's been unafraid to move strongly forward instead of trying to sort of tread water," he said. "And it just feels like the momentum of the series is moving towards a conclusion."

Moore and Eick have not yet begun writing the script for the finale, but they have had some discussions about how they will wrap up the story. One thing that has been talked about is leaving some of the relationships open to interpretation.

"The intention is to certainly concentrate on the characters and their relationships and sort of bring them all to an end point," Moore said. "I don't know if we'll resolve every single thing about every relationship, and I think there's value in leaving some things open to the imagination and having some things that are sort of tantalizingly unresolved. But the intention is to move towards what is the final chapter." In November, a special two-hour Battlestar episode, "Razor," will air. The fourth season kicks off in early 2008.

[Jen]

Sounds like they could be angling for a TV or feature film project. Dollars to donuts says Ron Moore would love to get a feature film deal.

I agree Bryan...I sense that this series will transition to the big screen.
I'm all for defining when the show will end, but my fear is this will result in influx of rushed story lines. I hope I'm wrong. Oh well...I can only keep up with one show at a time. Guess I'll have to pick up Lost or Heros now. Maybe this is for the better.

[Ktrek]

Oh well...I can only keep up with one show at a time. Guess I'll have to pick up Lost or Heros now. Maybe this is for the better.

If those are your choices then go for Heroes! Lost is on it's way out also and Heroes will likely see another two to three seasons. It's a fantastic show! I can't believe it's taken me this long to check it out!

Kevin

[Geekyfanboy]

Here is a cool Q&A with Moore & Eick I copied from E Online. No spoilers but some cool info

It’s funny to hear the news that this will be Battlestar’s last season, because we talked to [Sci Fi network vice president]
Mark Stern recently and he said it wouldn’t be. Why do you think there's the disconnect on his part?

Moore: This is a decision that took some time to arrive at, and like all decisions this large, there were a number of questions that we had internally. And we all collectively decided when it was time to be definitive about it, and that time is now.

Since Battlestar is so highly rated, was there any pressure from Sci Fi to try and drag it out for a fifth season or beyond?

Moore: Well, there was a discussion as to how long it should go on, and to their credit, they were very sensitive as to what we wanted to do creatively on the show. It came from David and I approaching them and saying we felt the show had reached its third act and that it’s about the resolution of the seriesâ€"and we feel that the storyline is propelling us toward the conclusion. They asked us questions about why we felt that way, and they understood the reason and wanted us to think about it for a while and make sure that this is what we wanted to do, but they didn’t really fight us on it. They expressed concern that the show might be able to go on longer and they we wanted to make sure we weren’t passing up opportunities to continue telling stories with the series. They were very accommodating, and when we, David and I, were clear that this is what we definitely wanted, they supported it.

Was there a specific moment from last season that trigged the idea for you that it was time to bring the series to a close?

Moore: I think it was somewhere around the midpoint of the season, when we were working on the story where they discovered the temple. The temple gave Deanna a glimpse of the final five, and that triggered the beacon that’s pointing toward Earth. Those events made it feel like we were promising the audience that we were moving toward revelations, and indeed, by the end of the season, we had taken that moment and had revealed four of the final five Cylons. And one of our characters had been to Earth and seen it and that was probably the moment when we started feeling that if we don’t start paying offâ€"if we don’t really reveal the secrets and start moving in that directionâ€"you get to a place where you feel like you are jerking off the audience or you’re just treading water, and we never wanted to be in that position. We always wanted to be striving forward and pushing the show to its limits and not being afraid to move onto the next part of the story.

I understand that the first episode of season four will be a two-hour prequel?

Eick: It’s two episodes that are not really a part of the fourth season and are not connected to the cliffhanger where we ended season three. Essentially, [marketers] expressed an interest in releasing a couple episodes on DVD for domestic and foreign distribution. As we talked about them internally, there was no way to pick up the cliffhanger in that form, and we would preserve that for the official beginning of the fourth season. So, the way that made the most sense to us was to go back in time. Not before the series began, but back a season or two ago, say, the second season of the series, and tell a story then. We found a way to connect the events of that story to things that will happen in season four.

And this will air also?

Eick: It will air on Sci Fi channel. I don’t have a date for you, but the plan, from what I understand, is to air those on Sci Fi and then release [them] on DVD either the next day or two days later. The extended episodes, as we are calling them, will be broadcast in the fall and the official start of season four will begin in early ’08.

The relationships of the characters are so important. Do you think you will have time to bring closure to these relationships: Baltar, Adama, Number Six, Roslin?

Moore: That is the plan. That is how we approached the storylines as we were breaking them out for the season, and the intention is to concentrate on the characters and their relationships and to bring them all to an end point. I don’t know if we will resolve every single thing about every single relationship. I think there is value in leaving some things open to the imagination and having some things that are tantalizingly unresolved, but the intention is to move toward what is the final chapter.

Is the show going to be divided up again for season fourâ€"is it going to be 10 and 10?

Moore: At the moment, the network has not set up a definitive schedule yet, and I double-checked that with them today. All we can say definitively is that the show begins in early ’08.

The whole "reaching Earth" thingâ€"is that something on tap for the beginning of the season or the last shot?

Moore: I don’t want to be that definitive about it, but the show has always been about the search for Earth, and I think to end the series without getting to Earth or a version of Earth or something we call Earth or at least someone saying "Earth" would be unsatisfying. So, it will definitely figure into this year's storyline.

There have been talks about Caprica as a series, and I wanted to find out if that is on the radar anywhere?

Moore: We are certainly tremendously excited and enthusiastic on what we are able to develop into a prequel launching point for a new series called Caprica. It would take the stories that we came to discover on Battlestar Galactica and go all the way back to their embryo and the discovery of the technology that will link to the Cylons specifically. It’s a tremendously arresting idea that was really beautifully executed, and we're anxious to have any opportunity to pursue it because we really think it’s a special project.

Is Sci Fi still considering Caprica, or has it passed on it?

Eick: I don’t think we know the definitive answer for that. It’s not on the immediate front burner, but I don’t think anyone has said to us that it is definitively dead. And we continue to hope that there will be an opportunity in the forum and a programming need for it. It is certainly something we believe in and something we think would not only capture the Battlestar Galactica fans, but would open up a whole new audience to this mythology because it’s a very different show.

Can you talk about any upcoming storylines for the recently revealed four Cylons?

Moore: You can see from the end of the third season that they are all the same people, that they are still the same characters. They didn’t switch over and become robots suddenly. So, essentially you are going to see an extension of that initial moment where they try to figure out what this means to them. If they are Cylons, when did that begin, what are their true backstories, what are they meant to do, what are they supposed to do, are they dangerous to themselves, are they dangerous to the ship, can they trust the people around them, should they keep the secret only among themselves? That’s essentially where their storyline is going to pick up.

When you plan on wrapping up the series at the end of the fourth season, do you plan on keeping it open-ended to do a feature film like Firefly's Serenity, or do you want a closed ending?

Moore: The plan is to end the show. The plan is to bring us to a definitive conclusion. There are no plans or thoughts in our heads really of them doing a follow-on feature or series beyond that. But it’s also a thing where you never say never because who knows how we’ll feel when we actually write the conclusion? It would be foolish now to say absolutely not, but right now the plan is for a definitive plan.

[Geekyfanboy]

SCI FI aired a 30-second preview of the upcoming “Battlestar Galactica” movie, “Razor” during last night’s season premiere of “Eureka.”

[youtube=425,350]AwruKvEKfvk[/youtube]

[Rico]

Cool trailer.  Fun to see that some of the regulars will be in it too.

[Darth Gaos]

I had planned on watching this movie regardless, but I had heard that some of the "original" Cylons (like from the 70's version) were going to make an appearance in this movie.  Has anyone else read this?  If so...awesome.

[Jen]

VERY cool trailer! Can't wait. I'm so glad that Michelle Forbes is back. I think she's an awesome actress.

[JoSpiv]

I got so excited when I saw that trailer last week.    It's still so long to wait!!!

[wso32]

Wow.  Thanks for posting Kenny.  I didn't even know about this.  I really enjoy the TV series so this will be great to see.  I'm really looking forward to the new season as well.  Thanks again Kenny!

[Geekyfanboy]

Universal has also announced the Battlestar Galactica: Razor - Unrated Director's Cut DVD, also due on 12/4 (SRP $26.98). This will include an uncut version of the 2-part "bonus" episode slated to run on Sci-Fi in November (11/24 to be exact). It's partly a flashback, telling the story of what happened to Admiral Cain and her crew aboard the Battlestar Pegasus during the initial Cylon attack on the colonies. It also features the Galactica's crew (in the present) and it apparently sets up a few story elements that will become important in the show's fourth and final season, due to start airing on Sci-fi in January. We hear that Razor even holds a few surprises for fans of the original Battlestar show, including a look at the original Cylon Centurions and Raiders from the 70s series. With any luck, Universal will announce the standard DVD release of Battlestar Galactica: Season Three soon as well (they usually release the DVDs about a month before the new season starts). We'll see...

http://www.digitalbits.com/#mytwocents

[Geekyfanboy]

Good News for “Galactica”‏

http://www.sliceofscifi.com/2007/09/10/good-news-for-galactica%e2%80%8f/

Written by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF Staff Journalist)

The technical Emmys were handed out last evening and “Battlestar Galactica” won the award for Best Special Effects. The episode was “Exodus, Part 2″ that featured the atmosphere drop by Galactica.

With this win, the Emmy voters are safe from the wrath of executive producer Ron Moore. In his podcast for “Exodus, Part 2″ Moore talked about how he’d be upset if “Galactica”’s effects wizards didn’t take home the Emmy for the episode. “Galactica” beat out stiff competition from other shows such as “Eureka” and “Heroes.”

Meanwhile, SyFy Portal is reporting that the proposed break in season four may not be as long as initially reported. In an interview on the site, writer David Weddle said the gap between episodes ten and eleven could be as long as the initially reported ten months or as short as one month.

“We were told that SCI FI was thinking about splitting the final season, but we do not know how long the gap in that split will be,” producer David Weddle told SyFy Portal’s Michael Hinman. “As far as I know, SCI FI has not decided yet. The SCI FI Channel executives are the only ones who will be able to answer that question, once they’ve arrived at a decision.”

Whether or not SCI FI decides to split the season, Weddle reported that the final episodes of “Galactica” have been mapped out and the writing staff is hard at work on them.

“The writing staff just spent three days in a cabin in Lake Tahoe mapping out the final episodes of the show,” Weddle said. “We now know how it will end and what each major character’s journey will be, though the specifics may go through many changes between now and the conclusion of shooting in March. It was both exhilarating and sad at the end of those three days in Tahoe.”

The writing staff also recorded a podcast of the retreat that will be released on-line in the future as well as included as an extra on the eventual season four set of DVDs.