The Battlestar Galactica reboot seems to be on hold indefinitely at the time of this writing, though we know it was still in the works at least as recently as July of 2024. With the project seemingly on hold, some of the details on it have started to come out — including a big revelation from one of the previous stars, Tricia Helfer last week. During a discussion on the Sackhoff Show podcast, Helfer revealed that the original series creator, Ron Moore, had set one major rule on the potential remake — it could not portray the Cylons as humanoid life. This would have been a major limitation on the series, but it also would have called back to the original series, and vindicated some of its ideas with new special effects technology.
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Helfer joined her former Battlestar Galactica co-star Katee Sackhoff on her podcast last week, along with Sackhoff’s co-host Jeff Porter. Sackhoff had just interviewed Moore the previous week, and was eager to continue discussing Battlestar with a fellow veteran of the franchise. Porter observed that Moore was relatively laid back about the idea of another reboot — not interested in participating, but not opposed to its existence. However, he remembered a previous conversation where Helfer alluded to more negotiations between Moore and Sam Esmail, the producer behind this planned reboot.
He was referencing Battlestar Galacticast, Helfer’s show which has been on hiatus since 2020, when she last interviewed Moore. She couldn’t recall direct quotes from the time, but agreed that Moore had been generally unbothered by the existence of another reboot — especially if it were handled by Esmail. “He had told me — it couldn’t be on the record at the time that I had taped my podcast, so I don’t know if I can say it now — but he had told me he had one stipulation,” she recalled. “He was basically like, ‘ Do what you want to do, but here’s the stipulation that you can’t have.’”
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Noting that Esmail’s reboot seems to be stalled, Helfer grew conspiratorial. “It’s dead in the water at least for now. Maybe I can say it, then? Should I say it?” she said excitedly. With some encouragement, she went on, “What he told me at the time was that he said they couldn’t have humanoid Cylons. They couldn’t have the human-looking Cylons.”
As they marveled at how big of a change this would be, Helfer added that she believed Esmail had originally planned to make his Cylons look human until Moore had asked him not to. However, the trio saw some merit in this idea and how it would change the course of the story.
The original 1978 Battlestar Galactica revolved around human colonies in a distant galaxy, fighting an endless war against robots called Cylons. In that version, the Cylons were created by an enemy alien race that had long since gone extinct. However, in Moore’s reboot continuity beginning in 2000, the Cylons were created by humanity themselves as servants. They gradually evolved to greater intelligence and sentience, while incorporating biological components into their designs. By the time the story started, the Cylons were generally indistinguishable from humans.
It’s disappointing to hear Sackhoff, Helfer, and Porter agree that the reboot series doesn’t seem to be moving forward, especially with this tantalizing hint at how it could have reimagined the original series’ premise. However, the rights to the franchise are still out there and could be scooped up at any time for another journey into deep space. In the meantime, Moore’s Battlestar Galactica is streaming now on Prime Video, while the original series and a number of spinoff titles are available to rent or purchase on PVOD stores.
