Battlestar Cylons May Surprise

Cast members of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica told reporters that they weren't happy at first to discover that their characters were Cylons, but they have come to terms with the revelation in their own ways—and hinted the Cylons may not be what they appear.

"I've always thought to myself—I don't know if I said it out loud, I must have—that I sure am glad I'm not playing a Cylon," said Michael Hogan, who plays Col. Tigh, in a news conference in Vancouver, Canada. "I'm not happy about being a Cylon at all. But I don't imagine any of us who are being picked to be Cylons are happy about it. But the scripts and what we've been doing so far are great, and the only way that I can deal with it is as a human being. So far, that's all I've had to do. And I'm not sure what's going on."

Hogan added that the new information about his character has added a level of complexity to his performance and challenged him as an actor. "For Tigh so far, it is like a mental illness," he said. "It's like the ringing in the years and visions and constantly wondering what's going on. So [in] almost ... every scene we do now, it's that thing where you're thinking, ... if you've had a personal tragedy happen to you, then you've got to carry on with life: You kind of realize, 'Isn't this amazing that I'm actually talking to people?' But this is all going on inside."

Aaron Douglas, who plays Chief Tyrol, said at the same press conference that he came across the information by chance early on and has had a little more time to process the notion. "I found out months in advance, accidentally," he said. "I found a piece of paper lying around that I wasn't supposed to read, but I read it anyways. And I said, 'What the ... is this?' And [director Michael] Rymer went, 'Oh, you're not supposed to read that.' ... So I kept my mouth shut until it officially came out, and then I phoned [executive producer Ron Moore]. 'What the hell is this?'"

Douglas said he didn't like the news at first. "Because I thought you're taking a fan favorite, a character that's very identifiable, very human, that the fans really, really like, and you're really marginalizing him," he said. "So Ron spoke to me for, like, an hour and a half on the phone, and he explained the whys and the wherefores, and I was convinced at the end. Now I've embraced it, more than Michael has, I believe. And I don't mind going down in history as one of the Cylon gods and one of the 12 Cylon human forms."

Douglas also revealed a detail about the final five Cylons that had previously been kept under wraps. "The differentiation between the seven and the final five will become more clear," he said. "We're not like them. In all seriousness. We're Cylon, but we're not connected to these guys at all."

Part of the point of the story has always been that humans are their own biggest enemies, they made the Cylons and couldn’t manage to be friends with them, they screwed up somehow on Kobol, their top computer scientist let the Cylons infiltrate the defense computers to get his wick wet, and they persist in killing each other even when faced with a much more important enemy.

On the other side you have the Cylons, who in spite of it all really want to be like the humans, they see the flaws in humans, they point out the flaws in humans, but when push comes to shove they want to be humans. This is important when contemplating the final 5. Moore has said the final 5 aren’t like the other Cylons, of course being Ron Moore he didn’t elaborate. My guess is they aren’t full body Cylons, they’re chips or wave patterns or something else that somehow gets inflicted on a human. But that’s just a guess.

Richard Hatch had been working on a proposal for a "next generation" of BSG, taking place about 20 years after the original and ignoring the 1980 series. Part of the problem was that the rights and ownership and legal stuff needed to be ironed out before anyone could greenlight anything.

They were going to keep the cool things about the series (the mythology and stuff) and get rid of the bad things (the special effects and 1980). I saw him speak at I-Con at Stony Brook, Long Island several years back. (I got to speak to him in the dealers room. There were few people there that wanted to talk to him -- they were all across campus in the hall trying to get good seats!)

Anyway, they had filmed a proposal for a series, a bunch of scenes strung together, done with lots of fan support and with effects that were already better than the original series (ok, not saying much). They had new uniforms, props and whathaveyou. They were still being pursued by Cylons, still looking for Earth. Starbuck was missing, but the door was open for him to return. The guy who play Bojay was there and involved (not that I really remembered him). I beleive Patrick McNee was involved, but I really don't remember if he had a voiceover, but he had told them that he loved BSG and would be happy to be part of this.

Jon Colicos had about 4 minutes of film against a blue screen. That would be the last thing that he filmed before he died. He appears briefly in the trailer. ("Starbuck? Oh, yes, he was still alive last I saw him. Of course, he's probably dead now.")

Hatch wanted to use "The X-Files" as a model where you do a couple of seasons on TV and then do a big budget film to move the series to the next level.

The thing was well-produced and highly polished and when it was over and when the final shot of the ship flying through space came on screen, you were just waiting for the words "COMING THIS JULY!" to appear on the screen. But, of course, they didn't.

I'd say that the most amazing part of this was the admiration for Hatch was so high that just before he was about to roll the film, he stopped and asked everyone to please turn off their videocameras, and everyone did. I haven't seen it pirated on youtube yet. (Then again, I haven't checked recently, either.)

It was a fun little hour of my time. Worth the trip to Stony Brook.

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