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Old February 13th, 2006, 02:10 PM   #61
Eric Paddon
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But compared to the number of original novels that are not set in one consistent universe, Battlestar Galactica has gotten far less than any other sci-fi TV property I know of. And that again is Universal not giving us the fanbase, greater creative freedom to flood the market with more stories involving these characters. I do not believe one person, especially Richard Hatch, should have been the only one so lucky to do so especially when his novels aren't even remotely recognizable to me given their appalling disregard for continuity.

If anything, it's that lack of high visibility in novels from an active fanbase that I think creates the problems you cite on lack of focus because Galactica never had anything out there that explicitly built off the series except for the two comic book series in the early 90s. I think the solution was to have more people writing and showing what could be done, and also it would have helped to have some adaptations of the episodes in print form that weren't so far afield from the actual episodes like Larson's novelizations are. Case in point is how one thing that helped maintain interest in Trek during the 70s in the pre-VCR era was that James Blish's episode adaptations were for the most part fairly faithful recreations of the episodes themselves that managed to keep the template of Trek familiar in the minds of people when they weren't watching the show in repeats.

All this comes back to is that the greater the market for novels based on the original series that observed faithful continuity to what went on in the episodes (THAT is where a censor should have been needed. Not to give us one universe post-HOG but to just insure that a multitude of projects in different universes steemed from a consistent world of what the series established), then the better off Galactica would have been just like Trek prospered with dozens of novels that will never be part of their official timeline (even though some of them like "Yesterday's Son" deserve to be).
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Old February 13th, 2006, 02:26 PM   #62
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I think we maybe agreeing, but from different directions.

What I was saying is that the mutitude of spin-off stuff that happened (like the two comic series and Richard's books) had wildly divergent ideas of where the entirety of the property's future should go. And that comes from Universal simply handing out the rights to whomever ponied up the cash without keeping an eye on what they were doing with it. If the studio thought that the property was worth it, they'd have had a "continuity cop" watching over it to make sure that the brand identity didn't get muddied. Much like Lucasfilm does (though not very well) with Star Wars.

What I perceive YOU are saying (and correct me if I'm mis-interpreting here) is that the stories could have continued infinitely (much like the Star Trek novel stories) as long as there WAS some continuity with the old show... telling many many many new stories and perhaps even advancing the plotline WITHOUT necessarily damaging the perception of the property. Thus keeping the show in the public eye and maintaining it's viability as a money-maker and continuously re-energizing it's fandom with new releases (much like the Dr.Who books and audio adventures).

And to that I agree.

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Old February 13th, 2006, 02:32 PM   #63
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The Star Trek books have to meet certain criteria as dictated by Paramount. It would be simple for Universal to do the same thing for BSG - but they haven't, and aren't likely to.

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Old February 13th, 2006, 02:34 PM   #64
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Could well be that's the case. I sort of looked at what you said initially and though that the implication was only one post-HOG future licensed by Universal for all intents and purposes that would have given us something like the Star Wars situation where every published work must fit into a pre-approved chronology and that there are no ways of telling stories where one can disregard the prequel trilogy etc.

THe thing that has plagued Galactica over the years from the print standpoint is they have episode novelizations that are (1) not presented in proper sequence. You could get away with that with the James Blish Trek adaptations since Trek is a set of self-contained stories but not in Galactica and (2) retain too much of early draft ideas, and not the final versions of what aired, thus giving us the alien picture of the Cylons still as reptiles etc. When this gets followed by Hatch's novels that didn't pay attention to chronology at all within the show, the situation was made worse.
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Old February 14th, 2006, 07:13 AM   #65
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Paddon
THe thing that has plagued Galactica over the years from the print standpoint is they have episode novelizations that are (1) not presented in proper sequence. You could get away with that with the James Blish Trek adaptations since Trek is a set of self-contained stories but not in Galactica and (2) retain too much of early draft ideas, and not the final versions of what aired, thus giving us the alien picture of the Cylons still as reptiles etc. When this gets followed by Hatch's novels that didn't pay attention to chronology at all within the show, the situation was made worse.
Absolutely agreed!

One is forced to wonder if Richard read any of his own ghost writing and checked it over for anomalies? Or maybe he didnt care. Or maybe he did care and let it slide anyway?

But this isn't a thread to condemn RH's books.

Maybe then, the best answer to"the worst thing that ever happened to Galactica" might be that it was abandoned by the studio left to fend for itself for so many years?

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Old February 14th, 2006, 07:32 AM   #66
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It wasn't loved.

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Old February 14th, 2006, 09:42 AM   #67
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An abused child is one way of describing Universal's relationship toward Galactica over the years. Or an absentee landlord that lets a once great piece of architecture decay for decades and doesn't have it refurbished and when loyal enthusiasts band together and get it restored, Universal then decides it's going to turn the property into a completely different kind of building entirely. The analogies are endless.

On the novels, Richard just needed a fanfic author to act not necessarily as a co-author, but as a story editor who could have stopped potential problems right in their tracks.
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Old February 21st, 2006, 05:58 PM   #68
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dah66
Well, I think the worst thing that ever happened to Galactica was its initial cancellation!


What are the first three letters of the alphabet? Or yeah, A-B-C. Universal should've taken BG over to a different network like they did when ABC cancelled "The Bionic Woman".
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Old February 21st, 2006, 08:02 PM   #69
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Quote:
Originally Posted by captmiloman
What are the first three letters of the alphabet? Or yeah, A-B-C. Universal should've taken BG over to a different network like they did when ABC cancelled "The Bionic Woman".
They did, but both CBS & NBC did not add it to there line-ups. Back in 79' Starlog had a write up about that.

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