The Cylons and Battlestar Galactica are ready for the 21st century in its latest incarnation. © 2004 Sci Fi Channel USA Cable Ent., LLC. Point of View Prods. Vfx images courtesy of Zoic Studios.

Holy Cylons! Sci Fi’s ramped up and revised Battlestar Galactica for the new millennium sure isn’t your daddy’s genre show. While the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica will always hold a special place for diehard fans, it’s plain to see that the cult show doesn’t hold up well compared to 21st century standards. The cheesy outfits and visual look may have delighted back in its day, but the concept was in serious need of updating to become relevant for today’s savvy audiences. Enter exec producer Ron Moore and his vision for a bigger, bolder, more focused reworking of the beloved concept. Working to engender fan support and understanding for the new project, Moore even created a mission statement before the miniseries that premiered last year that basically said, “Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science fiction television series. We take as a given the idea that the traditional space opera, with its stock characters, techno-double-talk, bumpy-headed aliens, thespian histrionics and empty heroics has run its course and a new approach is required. That approach is to introduce realism into what has heretofore been an aggressively unrealistic genre. Call it ‘Naturalistic Science Fiction.’”

It was that mandate that drove the creative vision for the Battlestar Galactica miniseries that earned huge ratings on the Sci Fi Channel last year and became the template for the spin-off television series premiering this January on the network. Battlestar Galactica: The Series, starring Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, takes up right after the miniseries ended with humans losing the war against the Cylon robots. The battered Battlestar Galactica crew speed toward the fabled 13th colony, Earth, while Galactica commander Adama (Olmos) and president Laura Roslin (McDonnell) face waning supplies, crushed morale and the pursuing Cylons.

The bulk of the creative team on the mini made the leap to the series, including visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel. A veteran of space special effects from his work on the Star Trek franchise, including Deep Space 9, Hutzel wasn’t immediately sure he wanted to venture back into the star-filled abyss again when he was offered Battlestar Galactica. “I knew Ron Moore from Star Trek,” Hutzel details. “My first love is working with miniatures and I prefer supervising projects that are really design oriented. I had done a lot of space already, but when I read [Moore’s] mission statement about the show, I knew he was serious. I just wasn’t sure his seniors were going to allow him to follow through with it. So I went in to talk to them and the tools were all there and the premise was in place and he was getting support to make it happen. I talked to the mini art director and had an in depth discussion about design and I was given complete control over the spaceships. With that measure of control, I knew I could press my vision for the visual effects for the show. It all came down to trust and with Ron, David Eick, the exec producer, and the director, Michael Rymer, I was completely on board. I was a Battlestar Galactica convert. It was really a perfect match. All of us have the same vision, so the project is very blessed with a cooperative effort from everyone.”

Cooperative effort. Not always the case in a project of this stature, but Hutzel says that ideal and Moore’s mission statement permeate every aspect of the show. It especially helps guide the visual effects process considering the very atypical approach to filming the series. “The way we approach things on this show is so radically different from any other show,” he insists. “It is chaos! But we really embrace that on the series. We are all willing to let it happen. We started this project with Michael, who is very much into method acting and encourages it with the actors. It’s one of the elements that brought so much life into the show. For instance, there is a military advisor on set at all times when Michael is directing. All the actors went to a boot camp prior to the miniseries production to learn military form. So there is quite a bit of attention to detail in the show. In working with Michael, one of the things that occurred to me is to ask myself was, is there such a thing as method visual effects?