Friday 24th October, 2003

The morning was spent registering properly and picking up an actual timetable for the Con. There were several running around, and the latest that I had managed to get from the website before I left was out of date, so it was good to know what I was going to be getting into.

Then I rushed up to CityWalk and picked up my copy of the Galactica TV series on DVD. It had been mentioned to me earlier, and I decided that I just couldn't wait. [Having now watched some, I can heartily recommend it if you have a multi-region DVD player. The extra and deleted scenes are worth it alone, and the work that has been put into it is spectacular. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I have no idea when the UK is scheduled to get it.] - It came out in the UK through May of 2004.

The evening started off late for entry to the various panels. Depending on whom you spoke to, this was due to bad organisation; technical difficulties or it was the hotels fault. The more cynical amongst us even thought it might be due to Ron Moore putting on his body armour for he was the first panel. Regardless of who's or what fault it was, the joke was started that if someone said "5 minutes" you would add an hour to that. And if someone came out flashing their hands and saying "5 minutes" you would actually count the hand motions to get the right time...

But an hour and half later, we all strolled into the main Ballroom and sat down in anticipation of Ron Moore's presentation. "The SCI-FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica 2003". He started off by describing a little bit of what the new show would be like, followed by a video showing several never seen before scenes. What was neglected to be mentioned, was that a lot of the special starship combat effects were borrowed from the video game because they were not finished. I did not envy the job of the introducer of Ron Moore, with all the bad feeling there was, I think he did a good job of introducing him at first, but then went the wrong way after the video. We were told that it was not his idea to re-image the show, but Sci-Fi asked him for a new direction and this is what he came up with. The first pilot is only going to show about two days of life during the Cylon attack, so we may or may get concepts and characterisation, but we should get action, which may mean that the first pilot may not be a good idea of how the series is going to develop. Who can tell? Views on the video were mixed; personally I am going to wait until it airs over in the UK before I make my judgement.
As for Ron Moore himself, I get the impression that he's almost like Margaret Thatcher. Once he's got an idea, it is pretty hard to get him to change his mind, but then, to be fair, he was asked if, after the pilot, if the fans wanted the original cast or different concepts, would he change, and he said no, he would not. Which, is kind of logical as if he did, he would be changing the style of his show, which is not what we used to know.

Following on from that, was the "25 years of Battlestar Galactica" with Glen Larson. You could tell that Glen did not really approve of what Ron Moore was doing, but he was fairly diplomatic about it. The big news here is that Glen now has the rights to do any movies of Galactica. Ron Moore has the series, Glen Larson has the films, and he is still thinking about one of his initial ideas for what happened to the Battlestar Pegasus after it left Gamorray. He's also interested in working with Tom DeSanto (X-Men), and after what I say later on in the Con, I am fully in support of that. What he also said though is that while he might not agree with the new series, he hopes it does well. This is because if it does do well, more people (both fans and Studios) will be interested in the films and will make it more likely. The new film may or may not star any of the original cast, but so far all of this is just talk.
This was cut a bit short due to Glen not being that well, but before he went, all the assembled cast got together for the start of a darn good weekend.

After this was the "Starlight Ballroom Grand Reception", and that was lovely. The food was great, the company was good, and some of the cast were there as well. What followed was the "Retro Disco Party", however, the music was not too everyone's cup of tea and the room emptied quite quickly - myself included.

	Elements of the BSG FanClub and Friends at Citywalk: (L-R) Steve Parady, Debbie Bailey (Western Canada), Shawn O'Donnel(Co-President), Allyson Handon (Estern Canada), Phillip, Charlene Donatello (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tenessee, Kentucky), Steve, John (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania)
	25 Years of Galactica: (L-R) Jack Staufer, Richard Hatch, John Dullaghan, Laurette Spang, Herbert Jefferson, Glen Larson, Dirk Benedict, Terry Carter
	25 Years of Battlestar Galactica: (L-R) Jack Staufer, Richard Hatch, John Dullaghan, Herbert Jefferson, Laurette Spang, Glen Larson, Terry Carter
	Starlight Ballroom Reception: Terry Carter and I
	Starlight Ballroom Reception: Dirk Benedict and I