Ronald D. Moore says that long rumored and fabled 4-hour plus cut of the “Battlestar Galactica” finale may actually exist. The reimagined series, which remains a pinnacle of how to revitalize an existing property, did have a rather lengthy three episode finale, but it could have been longer.
In an interview with Collider today (which we HIGHLY suggest you check out), creator Ronald D. Moore admitted that the longstanding rumors of a much MUCH longer cut of the “Battlestar Galactica” series finale may exist in the form of a DVD somewhere.
(you can fast forward to about 44:52 in the interview when the question comes up:)
“It was originally going to be a 2 hour, it was written as a two hour, but the page count, and the amount of time to shoot. When we started putting the footage together, we realized there was no way it was going to fit into a 2-hour time slot. We started talking about it, ‘how do we- theres no real such thing as a 3-hour movie,’ that’s too big, especially for SYFY channel, it’s asking too much of the audience with commercials. So it became a three-parter for broadcast.
The original cut was probably closer to 4 hours. There was a different structure in the script than what ended up on screen. The script was much less linear, it was very non linear. I was doing flashbacks, and current stuff, and mixing them all up. You’d see the end of Laura’s story before you saw the beginning of it, coming back to the present. It was very challenging. As much as I wanted it to work, the people around me knew it wouldn’t really.
So that’s what the real difference would be between the four hour and the three hour, changing the structure.”
Steve from Collider asks RDM if he’d ever shown the uncut finale to anyone, fans or the like, and Ron admits he hasn’t seen it himself.
“I haven’t seen it since that initial viewing. I probably have it burned on a DVD, someplace. I’m sure if I asked Universal where their masters are, they’d be like ‘Oh yeah we have all the masters in a salt mine’ or something and we’d never find it. But, it exists. It was put together that way. It’d be fun to watch it again. There’s also a version of the mini series that was never seen, too.
But a lot of times, longer is not better.”
The reimagined “Battlestar Galactica” series is available to stream in it’s entirety on Syfy.com. The episodes are free to stream, though they contain ads.
The upcoming reboot in the works will be housed on NBC Universal’s streaming service, Peacock.
Considering what a hot topic director’s cuts and especial editions are currently, this is something that fans would TOTALLY want to see.
So Say We All.
