I loved the original Battlestar Galactica. I was seven when it came out and was one of thousands of fans saddened by its cancellation. The sequel series Galactica 1980 didn't offer much in the way of continuation.
Then there was this vision called Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming.
Original BG series star Richard Hatch knew what BG should have been and tried valiantly to revive it. In his short four minute trailer, the rag-tag fugitive fleet on its continued quest for Earth faces an evolved Cylon empire.
Along with past regular BG stars like John Colicos, Terry Carter and Richard Lynch are a group of new faces to include a grown Boxey.
The short trailer showed more conflicts that the space refugees might have faced had this vision had become a reality. It appeared to have a darker tone than the fun original. That darker tone seemed to have been incorporated into the 2003 remake plus some space ship designs.
While the 2003 remake made some pretty impressive waves for five years, this 1999 vision of a BG revival would have made bigger waves because it would have been a sequel. A sequel is what fans wanted for years.
It's a shame that Glen Larson didn't want to work with Richard Hatch on a revival sequel. While I totally understand that the rights and creative licenses belonged to Larson, at least Hatch showed his ideas of what could have been. Larson only hinted that he had a script he was working on and couldn't even give little hints of what his view on what a revival should be.
After Hatch presented this remarkable trailer, interested studios approached him and asked how they can move forward with this. Unfortunately Hatch could not and told them that the rights to do so were not with him.
I can only surmise that bickering of how Battlestar Galactica should have been revived is what failed to make it come into fruition. While there has been talk of a sequel to the original series (since the end of the remake), there really is no point anymore as Hatch and many other major players have passed away. All the surviving actors have pretty much retired from acting. While it is not unheard of for an actor to come out of retirement for another gig, it would be hard for a continuation to get off the ground when you only have a fraction of the original characters.
Good initiative Richard Hatch! While this awesome vision of how the show should have been revived never became reality, you showed fans that BG still had a place among sci-fi greats. More so than Glen Larson in my opinion.
