Battlestar Galactica deliberately angered its biggest fans

By Chris Snellgrove | Published 24 seconds ago

In many ways, Ronald D. Moore is the right person to do the reboot Battle Star Galactica. As someone entering the world of Hollywood writing Star Trek: The Next Generationhe knows a thing or two about the difficulty of attracting older fans. However, even he wasn’t prepared for the extreme initial reaction to his decision to make Starbuck’s character female for his reboot series. However, once the showrunner realized that all these naysayers were creating much-needed free publicity, he deliberately angered them whenever possible.

Making Starbucks a Woman

The wild story of Battle Star Galactica showrunner and his angry fans are captured in the Edward Gross/Mark A. Altman book So Tell Us All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica. In the book, Moore recalls the complex relationship he had with die-hard fans of the original series who were upset by the changes he made, particularly the decision to make the popular character Starbuck a woman. However, instead of getting angry at all the fan protests, the host quickly realized that he now had a source of free publicity for the reboot he was trying to pull off.

“Once it became a thing, then I was like, yeah, just light the fire, man,” Moore said. “We need all the help we can get.” At that point, he was ready to encourage angry fans to “scream about it” and “get angry” for the simple fact that “I need the publicity.”

In a certain bit of carelessness, that is Battle Star Galactica showrunner claims he’s urging fans to “go to the chat room” because he needs “more men demanding Ron Moore’s head.” Of course, what makes this story so ironic is that Moore didn’t swap Starbuck’s genders to make a statement about equality or anything. He just wanted to avoid one of the oldest clichés in science fiction.

The original Battle Star Galactica the show focuses heavily on the friendship between two very different pilots: Apollo, who likes to follow the rules, and Starbuck, who likes to break the rules. That worked well for the original 1978 show, but Moore worried that genre fans would grow tired of these clichéd tropes by the time his 2003 reboot premiered.

As for making Starbuck a woman, Moore said she “just realized that it would change everything,” including the “whole dynamic” between the characters. Plus, she was writing the show “right at the point where we were starting to get familiar with the idea of ​​women in combat in the United States.” Therefore, making one of its most prominent and talented soldiers a woman allows for a meeting point between reality and fiction, a storytelling technique Battle Star Galactica later it will be perfect to please his fans.

Angry Fans

Therefore, Battle Star Galactica the showrunner isn’t trying to start a culture war by gender-bending Starbuck’s character… instead, he wants to subvert sci-fi’s oldest cliches to make things seem fresh and interesting. However, once he realized how much his creative decisions had disappointed angry fans, he didn’t hesitate to continue kicking the nest to generate the publicity his show needed to be successful. Unfortunately, today’s media landscape is different… instead of negativity helping a show find an audience, there is instead a cottage industry of hate. YouTube channels that try to destroy new franchises before they launch.

However, anger becomes an anchor for aggrieved fans? That’s nothing new. Fans are angry at creators who simply try something different…as Moore’s Cylons might remind you, this has all happened before, and it will all happen again.