David Eick on ‘Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome’ And The Future of ‘BSG’

CraveOnline: What do you hear from people who are just watching the entire series of “BSG” now or are watching it again and discovering new things in it?

David Eick: Gosh, it’s been a while since I’ve had that encounter. I think the “Battlestar” fan base has not hardline, but also not terribly fluid boundaries. You sort of got early bloomers for sure and later followers and friends and so forth that catch up with it long after the fact, but for the most part the days of being stopped at restaurants or hallways by people saying, “Oh my God, now I get it, Sharon’s a Cylon,” that’s been a while since that sort of mini ruckus was in the air.

Once in a while someone will just say that they caught up with it and they love it, but the last time I got one of those questions, believe it or not, was by Quentin Tarantino at Sushi Dan on Sunset.

CraveOnline: What was his question?

David Eick: You know, I wish I could remember it specifically. I think I was just tripping out on the fact that I was standing there having this discussion with him and I wasn’t actually listening to what he was saying. But he said he was fascinated by the Sharon character. Clearly he has a thing for Asian ladies and he was desperate to know how we came up with the mythology as he understood it at that point.

So I remember vaguely describing to him some of why we made certain decisions. He seemed fascinating and then I was of course trying to get him to commit to directing an episode which he wouldn’t do, but it was fun.

CraveOnline: I should have mentioned Grace Park on “Hawaii Five-O” too.

David Eick: Oh yeah. Grace is someone who didn’t fall out of bed knowing how to do everything she can do now. She is an example of someone, a lot of raw talent, who got a very early opportunity, could have rested on her laurels and coasted, and instead she got to work. She really willed herself into a very significantly good actress who is great looking and so unusual. She has a very unique look and I think she’ll keep working as long as she wants.

CraveOnline: Were there any deja vu or parallel moments between “Blood & Chrome” and the original series?

David Eick: Yeah, primarily just the way in which we featured that Viper and made that Viper kind of a symbol of heroism and represented sort of the brass ring. I think “Battlestar” kind of had that sense of itself too. It was a little bit of a flyboy story where Adam’s presented with this photograph of himself as a young man with his son in front of the Viper and the fact that the chief sort of has refurbished and restored his original Viper to museum status and all this kind of stuff.

That was a fun connective little piece I thought, just in an emotional sense. But otherwise, it was much more, from a visual sense, it was about designing shots that would reveal a piece of the set the audience of “Battlestar” would think it knew, and then finding an interesting way to shift the perspective, either widening out or panning or somehow revealing that it’s actually much deeper and bigger and more elaborate than you ever quite realized when you were watching “Battlestar.” Maybe you just never saw that angle on “Battlestar.” Look, it was all the way up there and all the way down there. That stuff was fun.

CraveOnline: What feedback did you get from the Syfy airing?

David Eick: They were very pleased as I understand it and I don’t know what that means from a numerical or empirical standpoint. I don’t understand what success is anymore on the networks or anyplace else for that matter. So I would need someone to put it in context.

Whatever the numbers were, the contextual reaction was wow, so much better than we expected given the Grammys and “Walking Dead” competition. So that encouraged me. They seemed very happy and encouraged and there’s buzz about talks for another installment of this or another version of it or who knows what? So we’ll see if and when that happens. In the meantime, it seemed to have gone well.

CraveOnline: If it continues, will there also be a political component like there was on “BSG” or would it stay focused in the aerial battle units?

David Eick: I think it’s always going to have more of an Audie Murphy kind of Spirit of ’76 vibe to it that is not necessarily how you would define “Battlestar.” Again, that was partly driven by this idea of doing a sweeping Saturday morning serial style approach to the mythology.

At the same time, you’ll note at the end, Michael Taylor who authored the teleplay, one of his great contributions was the idea that the mission that they were sent on was a ruse from the beginning and our heroes were being operated like blind puppets by this scheming military command, is to suggest that we would get into some of that more textured kind of serious drama as a part of the show.

But I think the escapist part, which is something that “Battlestar” had sometimes, it would kind of flow in and out of that tone, is something that will be a mainstay of “Blood & Chrome.”

CraveOnline: And we might meet those people behind the scenes?

David Eick: Well, you certainly get to know one of them slightly. You get to know the commander of the Galactica in “Blood & Chrome” but yeah, our hope and our plans for continuing always involved keeping him and making him a very central character.  

 

TRENDING


X