Written by Chris Snelgrove | Published
In many ways, Ronald D. Moore was the perfect man for the reboot Battlestar Galactica. As someone who broke into writing in Hollywood Star Trek: The Next GenerationHe knows a thing or two about the difficulty of attracting older fans. However, even he was not prepared for the early backlash over his decision to make the Starbuck character female in his rebooted series. However, once the show’s creator realized that all these naysayers were creating some much-needed free publicity, he set out to intentionally piss them off whenever possible.
He made Starbuck a woman
The wild story of Battlestar Galactica The model and his angry fans are depicted in the Edward Gross/Mark A. Altman book So we all say: The complete, uncensored, unauthorized oral history of Battlestar Galactica. In this book, Moore recalls the complicated relationship he had with die-hard fans of the original series who were upset by the changes he was making, particularly his decision to make the popular character Starbuck a woman. Instead of getting angry at all the fan protests, the showrunner quickly realized that he now had a source of free publicity for the reboot he was trying to launch.
“Once it became a thing, I was like, yeah, just light that fire, man,” Moore said. “We need all the help we can get.” By then, he was willing to encourage angry fans to “scream about it” and “get angry” just for the simple fact that “I need the publicity”.
With a little impudence, Battlestar Galactica The model claims he urged fans to “go to chat rooms” because he wanted “more males clamoring for Ron Moore’s head”. Of course, part of what makes this story so ironic is that Moore didn’t gender-switch Starbuck to make a statement about equality or anything else. He just wanted to avoid one of the oldest clichés in science fiction.
The original Battlestar Galactica The show focuses heavily on the friendship between two very different pilots: Apollo, who loved following the rules, and Starbuck, who loved breaking them. This worked well in the original 1978 show, but Moore was concerned that genre fans would tire of this hackneyed trope by the time it was first rebooted in 2003.
Regarding making Starbuck a woman, Moore said he “just realized that would change everything,” including the “whole dynamic” between the characters. Additionally, he was writing the show “at the moment when we were starting to learn about the idea of women participating in combat in the United States.” Therefore, making one of his most prominent and talented soldiers a woman allowed for the intersection between reality and fiction, a storytelling technique Battlestar Galactica He would later become perfect for making his fans happy.
Angry fans
Therefore, Battlestar Galactica The showrunner wasn’t trying to stir up a culture war with his sexual twist on Starbuck’s character…instead, he wanted to shake up the oldest sci-fi clichés in order to make things feel new and interesting. Once he realized how much his creative decision was upsetting a hornet’s nest of angry fans, he didn’t hesitate to keep kicking that nest in order to generate the publicity his show needed to succeed. Unfortunately, the current media landscape is different now… Instead of negativity helping a show find an audience, there’s an entire cottage industry of hate YouTube Channels that try to destroy new franchises before they even start.
Does anger serve as an anchor for the oppressed masses? This is nothing new. Fans angry at creators who are simply trying to do something different… As Moore Cylons reminds us, it’s all happened before, and it’s all going to happen again.