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By Chris Snellgrove | Published
In many ways, Ronald D. Moore was the perfect guy to restart Battlestar Galactic. As someone who broke into Hollywood writing to Star Trek: The next generationHe knows some things about the difficulty of attracting major fans. Even so, he was not even prepared for the initial extreme reaction to his decision to make Starbuck the character female for his restarted series. However, once the showrunner realized that all these detractors were creating very necessary free advertising, they set out to be deliberately angry whenever possible.
Make Starbuck a woman
The savage history of Battlestar Galactic The showrunner and his angry fans are captured in Edward Gross/Mark A. Altman’s book. We all say that: the complete oral history, without censorship and not authorized by Battlestar Galactica. In that book, Moore remembers the complex relationship he had with unconditional fans of the original series that were upset by the changes he was making, particularly the decision to turn the popular Starbuck character into a woman. However, instead of being angry at all the protest of fans, the showrunner soon realized that he now had a free source of advertising for the restart that he was trying to take off.
“Once it became something, I thought, yes, just those flames, man,” said Moore. “We need all the help we can get.” By then, I was ready to encourage angry fans to “shout about this” and “get angry” about the simple fact that “I need advertising.”
In a particular impudence, the Battlestar Galactic The showrunner states that he urged fans to “go to the chat rooms” because he needed “more men demanding Ron Moore’s head.” Of course, part of what makes this story so ironic is that Moore did not change gender to Starbuck to make a statement about equality or anything like that. I just wanted to put aside one of the oldest clichés of science fiction.
The original Battlestar Galactic Friendship very centered program between two very different pilots: Apollo, who loved to follow the rules, and Starbuck, who loved to break them. That worked well for the original 1978 program, but Moore was concerned that fans of the genre were tired of this cliché when his 2003 restart was released.
Regarding Starbuck a woman, Moore said that “she simply realized that this would change”, including “all the dynamics” among the characters. In addition, he was writing the program “Just at the time we began to familiarize ourselves with the idea of women in combat in the United States.” Therefore, turning one of its most prominent and talented soldiers allowed a woman allowed the intersection of reality and fiction, a narration technique. Battlestar Galactic Later he would improve for the delight of his fans.
Angry fans
Therefore, the Battlestar Galactic The showrunner was not trying to boost the cultural war with his gender change from the character of Starbuck … Instead, he wanted to change the oldest cliché of science fiction so that things seem fresh and interesting. However, once he realized how much his creative decision had altered the loop of angry fans, he did not hesitate to continue kicking that nest to generate the advertising that his program needed to succeed. Unfortunately, the current media panorama is different … instead of the fact that negativity helps a program to find a audience, there is an entire artisanal industry of hateful YouTube channels that try to destroy new franchises before they take off.
But anger serves as an anchor for aggravated fans? That is nothing new. Fans are angry with the creators who simply try something different … as Moore Cylons would probably remind us, all this has happened before and everything will happen again.
