asher553: (Default)
Don't know how I missed it at the time, but Richard Hatch - a veteran of both iterations of 'Battlestar Galactica' - passed on last February. He was Captain Apollo in the original series, and terrorist Tom Zarake in Ron Moore's 2003 remake.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/tv-shows/richard-hatch-dead/index.html

'Hatch died at around 1:30 p.m. in Santa Clarita, California, with his son, Paul, by his side, Kaliski said. The 71-year-old actor had been battling pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from his family.
In the original "Battlestar Galactica" series that ran from 1978-1979, he played Captain Apollo and in the 2003 remake, he played Tom Zarek. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the first series.

"In my case, 'Battlestar Galactica' was a milestone," he wrote on his personal website. "It afforded me the opportunity to live out my childhood dreams and fantasies. Hurtling through space with reckless abandon, playing the dashing hero, battling Cylons, monsters and super-villains -- what more could a man want?" ...'

Hatch led an unsuccessful attempt to revive the original series, and even after being cast in a major role in the RDM remake, remained critical of the new version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hatch_(actor)#Battlestar_Galactica_revival_attempt

'In 2004, he stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that he had felt resentment over the failure of his planned Galactica continuation and was left "exhausted and sick ... I had, over the past several years, bonded deeply with the original characters and story ... writing the novels and the comic books and really campaigning to bring back the show."[13]

Despite his resentment, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the remake show's head writer and producer, when Moore appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 25th anniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience.[13] Later, in 2004, Hatch was offered a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series, which he accepted. He acted out Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building. After Zarek's death, Hatch commented that "never did I play this character as a villain nor did I think he was one and I still feel that way," and that he considered the character to be a principled figure who is driven to violence after being "blocked in every way possible" by Roslin and Adama.[14] "Zarek, Adama and Roslin all wanted power for the same reason, to make a positive difference."[14]

Even so, Hatch remained harshly critical of Moore's remake of Battlestar Galactica.'

So his career was a remarkable case of both an actor and his character having a radically different vision of a fictional world - and thus playing the role of antagonist both in the story and in life.
asher553: (Default)
Last night started binge-watching two of my favorite SF shows in tandem: Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica.

Babylon 5 aired from 1994 to 1998. The creation of J. Michael Straczynski, it was groundbreaking in its time and I think it stands up very well today. The show featured the most advanced and extensive CGI effects to date, and set a whole new standard for CGI production. It also marked a departure from the procedural format common in TV series - in which each episode is a self-contained story, and the episodes may be watched interchangeably in any order - toward a serial format, in which an extended story arc is developed from one episode to the next over the length of a season or even the series. The premise of B5 is a space station located in deep space, and hosting visitors and diplomats from various spacefaring races. A similar concept was used in 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' and Straczynski maintains that the Star Trek franchise stole his idea, although he declined to pursue legal action. B5 was notable for its dramatic sophistication and strong character development.

Battlestar Galactica, which aired a decade later, was Ronald D. Moore's 're-imagined' production of a 1978 TV series of the same title. In the pilot mini-series, the human race (an Earth-like, spacefaring civilization spanning twelve planetary 'Colonies') is wiped out following a war with robots of its own creation, called Cylons. Only about 50,000 humans survive aboard the spaceship of the series title. This show too set a new standard for CGI effects and for dramatic production. The scenes have a gritty, lifelike feel which Moore said was part of a conscious effort to differentiate the series from the 'Star Trek' model. Much of the tension comes from internal conflicts among the protagonists, sometimes overshadowing the external threat from the Cylons.

So I've started watching both shows from the beginning, more or less alternating by episodes. Vorlons to the left of me, Cylons to the right! This is gonna be fun.
asher553: (asher63)
Thanks to flister monster_grrrl, I think I've finally found the song that captures the spirit of the last season of BSG:

I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a failsafe plot
to piss of the dumb few that forgave us
I hope the fences we mended
Fall down beneath their own weight
And I hope we hang on past the last exit
I hope it's already too late
and I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here
Someday burns down
And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away
and I never come back to this town again
in my life
I hope I lie
and tell everyone you were a good wife
and I hope you die
I hope we both die
I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long
Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises
We're pretty sure they're all wrong
I hope it stays dark forever
I hope the worst isn't over
I hope you blink before I do
and I hope I never get sober
and I hope when you think of me years down the line
you can't find one good thing to say
and I hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way
I am drowning
there is no sign of land
you are coming down with me
Hand in unloveable hand
and I hope you die
I hope we both die
- The Mountain Goats, "No Children"

Sing with lots of feeling, preferably while wearing a "Frak Earth" t-shirt.

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678 910
11121314151617
18192021 222324
252627 28293031

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated 2025-05-30 16:13
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios