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Interview with Tom DeSanto

posted 18 years ago by jjrakman
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http://www.cylon.org/bsg/DeSanto-int01.html

On July 29, 2005, The Cylon Alliance was honored to have the chance to speak with legend-in-the-making producer Tom DeSanto ("X-men"). CA co-owner Bill "Commander Taggart" Gordon conducted the interview (serialized in three of our "Radio IFB" podcasts), which - mostly - covers Mr. DeSanto's lamented effort to revive Battlestar Galactica.

Bill: How did you come to be such a big fan of [the original] Battlestar Galactica?

Tom: I think it was just a product of being 10 at the time that Galactica aired. I remember the [first] night very well for some reason because I went to tune into Battlestar Galactica and it wasn't on, some news conference was on, I think it was the Begin/Sadat peace conference. So, I tuned to channel four to start watching King Kong (this was pre-VCR, pre-TiVo). So I was watching King Kong and Battlestar Galactica started late and I flipped over to watch it – and for 10 year-old kid in the summer of 1978, that was a little bit of Nirvana that influenced me tremendously. I was a huge, huge fan of the show and the thing I remember about it was there was a time I'd sit down on a Sunday night with my brothers and dad, and we'd all watch the show and get something different out of it.

It was good family sci-fi, that doesn't mean it was juvenile, it just means that there was something in it for everybody and whether you were an adult or 10, you took something different away from the show.

Bill: Well I've heard the story about you and Bryan Singer on the plane and you watching the DVD of the Battlestar Galactica movie, what did it feel like when you walked into Universal Studios to pitch Battlestar Galactica and then hear them say: "Yes?"

Tom: It was a great time because we were both flying back to New York to do the press junket for X-Men and I'm sitting there with Battlestar Galactica, and Bryan looks over and said: "My God, Battlestar Galactica!" and then we both started talking about and he actually borrowed the DVD. He had fond memories of it like I did and was a fan and we pondered over that.

Walking through the door of Universal with Bryan Singer excited about wanting to do your project is probably the best 800-pound gorilla anyone could possibly ask for, so it was a project we very got quickly got answers for with the William Morris Agency acting as the tip of the spear. We cut through a lot of bureaucracy at Universal and when they finally said: "Yes, let's bring thing back." It was one of those surreal moments when you realize that the thing that you've been dreaming about doing – sketching revised designs of the Cylon Raider, or mapping out storylines since I was behind a cash register at J.C. Penny – that was then becoming a reality, that was a tremendous feeling!

When we went in to do the pitch, I actually had to go home, so Bryan went at it alone, but pretty much by that time they had seen the box office that X-men had done and Universal was just excited to be in business together.

At first they were in disbelief, "You want to do what?" And we said we wanted to do Battlestar Galactica and they said: "Why?" But one thing we both went in with was a passion for the show. We got the doors open and greased the wheels, and something that had been stuck for 25 years suddenly got moving again.

Bill: You mention the reaction of "the suits" at Universal, do you think there are some people that just get it and some people that just don't?

Tom: Yes I really do. It's interesting going down to Comic Con, there are people who went to Comic Con before it was the cool "Hollywood" thing to do and there are those who went after trying to understand why comicbook movies are hot or why Star Wars is the biggest movie of the year and I think it's something that's intrinsic – it's in your blood – you're waiting on comicbook day for your comics to come in, or circling TV Guide for certain shows like Battlestar Galactica or what other sci-fi or genre shows were out there, and it is something in the blood. You either have it or you don't.

Unfortunately (not to knock studio execs because it's an easy target, their jobs are extremely hard, I would not want that job for anything in the world) not a lot of studio execs come out of filmmaking, or storytelling, or mythology, they sort of come out of the MBA background, they are lawyers or did business studies. So that's their take on it and they try to meld both but their instincts might not naturally be inclined towards something that is pop culture orientated or created.

Bill: It's age-old argument between art and commerce.

Tom: It is, and it's something that creative people have been battling the studios and networks over for time immemorial and will continue to do so.

Bill: I understand that you and Bryan were thinking about doing a remake, what changed your mind (if that is indeed true), what convinced you to go in the direction of a continuation?

Tom: Well, for me it was never a question of a remake – it was always going to be a continuation. It was really about how far we were going to set it in the future and whether it was going to be a continuation a la Star Trek: The Next Generation, where everyone in the past was dead but were referenced, and you might have Bones show up in the first episode but that was it. I think when Bryan saw the fanbase out there he started to become convinced that it could be set 25 years later, which I think was the best way to take the show.

Fortunately, we had a great storyline and a good take on the characters, and being a fan of the show, I understood the soul of it. There are no illusions to some of the cheesy episodes, because I'm in agreement there were some cheesy episodes.

Bill: No one would disagree with you on that.

Tom: Absolutely, but I think there's some of the best science fiction ever done on television. "The Living Legend" with Lloyd Bridges as Cain was amazing stuff! That and Patrick Macnee in "War of the Gods" – it was wonderful sci-fi and that was what had imprinted on me and that's what I wanted to translate to the new series.

Bill: Well, we've heard a lot about the old friends who were going to return but we haven't heard much about the new generation of hotshot pilots, what was the balance you were going to have between the two?

Tom: Sure. The largest amount of joy I got from stepping into this project was to making those phone calls to Dirk, Richard and Herb, or talking to Anne, and saying [to her]: "Hey look, you’re not going to be in the pilot, but I've got this thing mapped out for five years and I want to bring you back at 'X' point". Even talking to Sarah [Rush] who played Rigel – that was the sort of detail I understood and I was a fan of, because they each played a part in the success of the series.

In fact, the first day we were open, Dan Angel got a phone call from Jane Seymour, who said: "Hey look, I know I was killed off in the original series but I would love to come back and explore that character, and if there's anything for me, I'm letting you know I'm open to that" – I thought that was pretty wonderful. Jane's gone on to tremendous success and for her to sat that she's got a little bit more to explore with that character is something pretty amazing.

Bill: That would have been a fan dream come true to see that episode.

Tom: Yes, there were storylines mapped out that included her character, but going back to your original question that was about new characters – it was about looking into Boxey becoming an adult and coming to hate the name Boxey, so originally I wanted to call him Orion, but Bryan thought that was a bit too on the nose, so we came up with a compromise and called him Orin. Basically, he was Ahab without the whale. At this time we were still following the original storyline, which was the Exodus, the Israelites looking for the Promised Land and being pursued by the Egyptians. The Colonials looking for Earth, being pursued by the Cylons, but what if the Cylons stopped chasing them. What if there was a final battle that happened twenty-something years ago and several of the characters were lost, including Apollo, including the Pegasus, which was lost again and then that was it. There's no word from the Cylons for a month, for two months, for six months, for a year, and all of a sudden they come across this asteroid belt and it's rich in gold and ice and all the raw materials they need to survive, and also a place to hide amongst this great desert as it were. So the template we were using was – what if the Israelites stopped at Mount Sinai and built Las Vegas?

What if they stayed, what if Adama died, what happens if their Moses dies and there's no more sparkplug? So they devote all their energy to building this massive "golden calf" as it were. This massive white elephant of a space colony, with pleasure domes and gambling centres and business areas, and it was all about that – building a bigger machine. And they lost their sense of purpose, to find Earth, but of course those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it, and they forget that the Cylons are still out there. The Cylons come back, but this time they are a little different, a little more evolved and it's 20 years later.

We had a female president, we had the decommissioning of the Galactica in the pilot episode and the people had gotten lazy and forgotten what their past was and the Cylons come back and attack, once again a la Pearl Harbour, but also this is pre-9/11 and the story was very similar to what happened on 9/11, and that was part of the reason we ended up shutting down, was after 9/11, no one could function, including myself, for a period of about a month. It was difficult to concentrate, to think that our little space show made a lot of difference, but eventually we picked ourselves up and brushed ourselves off and got back to work and said we've got to keep working and do our jobs but that push ended up influencing the start of principal photography for Galactica, so we had the Vipers being built, we had the bridge being built...

Bill: We've seen the shots.

Tom: Yeah, Guy Dyas, who is going to win an Oscar one day, stayed true to the original series but wasn't a slave to it. He added to the bridge and Bryan came up with having a war room underneath the bridge, something we never saw in the original show but it made sense it was there. It didn't violate anything, it only added to the mythology.

Unfortunately, because Fox Features were starting to schedule X2, there was this concern over Bryan's availability, and so Bryan was left with a kind of "Sophie’s Choice" situation, when he had to choose one of his "kids," and unfortunately Galactica lost out on that [decision]. Bryan was going to stay on as an exec producer and still be there as one of the guiding forces on the show but Fox all of a sudden started losing interest, even though we got several feature directors interested in hopping onboard the show, it was just something where we lost a lot of steam. I think Fox at that time was approached by Fox to do Firefly, so now they've got two competing space shows and they had a previous relationship with Joss (one of the best writers in genre television history), so they put their chips behind Firefly because we had taken too many hits off the port bow and needed to go back into drydock.

So we went into life support in December, but I had a battle plan which I had told to David Kissinger, which was to do what they had done with Dune, do a four-hour mini-series, we can pre-sell the foreign markets and do all the business stuff that the studio needed to feel comfortable that they wouldn't lose their shirt, but also giving us a sense of trying to make it work.

So Kissinger really liked the battle plan that I had laid out right before Christmas, and we'd said we'd get back together in the New Year, to start up again. I spoke to David several times (which is a whole other conversation [laughs]) but I read in Variety (in fact I'd heard from several friends) that Ron Moore was being approached to do the show, which I thought was a great idea. One of the facts of our series was that when putting a list together of showrunners to do the show, Ron was at the top of the list. I actually investigated Ron's availability, but he was contracted to do Dragonriders of Pern at WB as a TV series, so Ron wasn't available, but fortunately Billy Brown and Dan Angel were. You could not ask for better partners or better people who understood what Galactica was.

Bill: The rumour is they did a wonderful job with the script.

Tom: The script was a first draft, was anyone happy with it (including Dan and Billy)? Not a 100 per cent, we needed to still work things out, but it laid the foundations. Again, making it a next generation, making it about Orin and his kids – who were now 18 and 22, and their struggle.

At the time I was looking around and thinking what was America about anymore? With the Cold War over, I think we've lost a sense of who we were, and for my generation I think it was that we were never defined by a great war like the Second World War, which was the honourable war, or Vietnam which had bonded everyone, pro or con. For my generation there wasn't that great trial by fire, not until 9/11, and we're still going through that baptism by fire in which way we're going to see the country go and see how we react. How is history going to look on the decisions that have been made?

The interesting thing was that that's where we were before 9/11, it was really the story about these people who have this tragic surprise attack and how they coped with it, and then of course, 9/11 happened and then we were like: "Look, this is our strength, this show is now more important than ever before, because we can speak to what we're doing, what is going on, and now this show becomes even more relevant than it was – if 9/11 had never happened."

Bill: So 9/11 wouldn't have changed the story arc you had already planned out?

Tom: No, but it was eerily similar. And that was one thing everyone knew and everyone understood, from Bryan, to the network, to the studio, was that the thing we were talking about, was again a society that is attacked a la Pearl Harbour, which was re-telling the origin story, but making it new in our own way, because it was about a people who didn't remember the past and were unfortunately doomed to repeat what they didn’t learn in the beginning.

Bill: Let's go back just a second, and talk about some of the new characters, we understand that Starbuck's daughter was going to be a major character in the show.

Tom: Yes, but that was always in a state of flux, at least for me, because after conversations with Dirk (and I spoke with Richard, and Herb about what they wanted to do with their characters), I wasn't so sure whether we were going to marry off in the final script, Starbuck or not. Originally there was going to be a female [character] but not a cigar-chomping version. More of a – I guess an analogy would be Newt from Aliens, all grown up. Definitely her father's daughter, but using the template of that character and tapping into what Anne [Lockhart] did in the first series with Sheba – that strong female, but still a very female character. Not a part that you could replace with a male actor and nobody would notice.

After talking with Dirk, I actually started to move towards his thoughts on his character, which was actually making him Peter Pan, and making him this guy who is now just past 50 and maybe never got married, never settled down, never had the family and might now be looking at those past decisions perhaps with a little regret and sadness and then having Cassiopeia come back into his life and see the possibility of the "what if?" because she didn't wait around. She went off and had the family and had those things he could have had, if he had been a little less "Starbuck!" So I thought that was an interesting way for the character of Starbuck to go.

But in the first draft of the script we had the character of Rayna, who was going to be Starbuck's daughter and we had the two grandsons of Apollo, so we did "age up" the character of Boxey a bit. We made the character of Boxey very JFK, which was a character in his early forties, and this was his first trial by fire. So he had sons in their early twenties, with definitely a "next generation" feel to them.

Bill: Now I understand that despite this being a continuation, that using some of the original characters was a source of consternation for the network.

Tom: Yes it was, they were a little taken aback by the fact that we had Starbuck in it and it was going to be Dirk, but after making what is now two billion dollar movies for Fox, the studio learns to trust your instincts. I think they were think more of a complete distancing from the original and maybe referencing it, but not having the actual characters continued on like Boomer or Starbuck, or Apollo for that matter.

We did have Apollo in the pilot, he was probably the most key character in the pilot, but he didn't have a lot of screentime. I did let Richard know what plans we had for the character and initially he was a little reticent because it was more of a "Darth Vader" type journey. It was a story of him finding redemption and him coming back to the side of light, which was going to play out over the series. It was definitely a challenge, but I think Richard is one of those actors who would have blown away fans and critics with a role that he could sink his teeth into.

Bill: Well let's talk about that subplot, the Cylons using nanotechnology to "Cylonize" human Colonials. In fandom parallels have been drawn with the Borg [from Star Trek]. People say it's a rip-off of the Borg idea, but I never felt that way, do you want to defend yourself against that charge?

Tom: Sure, I consider that a compliment because I love the Borg. The problem I had with the Borg was that there was no personality to them. It was a one-note situation. They're a great villain but it was almost like a "hive" mentality, it wasn't going to be that with the Colonials, it was going to be like the ultimate perception of communism, the absolute control by the state and abdication by the individual of free will, in order to get things like the trains to run on time. However, you still have your family, you still have your job, you still have a life, but that life is not your own. So it's not like a hive mind like the Borg, it’s more like a very dark version of "Stepford". It was Stepford run by Il Duce, a completely fascist state where it's all about order. And again, that's where I had given back story to the original show, which wasn't there [originally].

Looking back, you had the Imperious Leader – why is he there? Why is he reptilian? I know in the original he was a robot, but I was going to fudge that a bit, and I was going to say he was the last of the reptilian Cylons – or there were very few of the reptilian Cylons left. The backstory of the reptilian Cylons was that they created the mechanical Cylons in order to combat the humans. They were now their weapon – they didn’t have to risk their lives anymore fighting as they had a completely mechanical army and could devastate humanity with it. However, in the programming there was a flaw, a glitch, the need to bring order to the universe they had to not just destroy humanity, but anything with free will. So in order to do that, they needed to turn against their masters, the reptilian Cylons, who were devastated by this, to the point that there are very few reptilian Cylons left. The only way to stop the annihilation and circumvent the [mechanical Cylons] programming was to undergo a procedure using nanotechnology to rewrite their brains and DNA so that in order to survive they no longer had freewill.

[–] jjrakman 18 years ago

This was how we were going to introduce human Cylons into our world.

After this great devastation [of Cylon society] the Colonials were going to pull out their maps and discover they had been going in the wrong direction and that Earth is back [the way the had come] through the heart of darkness, to the Colonies and the people they had left behind.

Bill: How were you going to reconcile the going in the wrong direction with the Ship of Lights having given them the coordinates to Earth [in the original series episode "War of the Gods" part two]?

Tom: There was going to be a continuation [of that story] with the Ship of Lights, with Jane Seymour's character coming back and finding that there is a larger battle going on and that sometimes angelic beings are not what they appear to be, there can be other forces disguised as angelic beings.

Eventually the series was going to go into a symbolic thing, which was about the larger battle between the Count Iblis-type forces and the Lightship forces and it's the Cylon and humans talking about free will and choice and those things that either makes us human or not human and that was the journey that thematically we were going to step into.

Bill: So those were the plot elements of what was going to be the first season?

Tom: Yeah, they would go through the series, but Jane's character we were going to reintroduce, or the idea that I had – was that she would be the one to turn Richard’s character, Apollo, back from the programming, from the dark side, to enable his character to have a rebirth. If you were a fan of the original show, you would get something completely different from it, if you were new to it, you'd come to care about the characters unto themselves and realise that love conquers all.

Bill: Well it seems like we'd see less traditional space battles, it seems like there'd be more communication between the humans and the Cylons rather than a shoot 'em up every week.

Tom: I wouldn't say that, there were definitely going to be shoot 'em ups but it was also going to say more about the human condition and talking more about the deeper issues that thematically the original show had attempted to do. And those were the strongest episodes of the original. When they had talked about the more spiritual and mythic side of storytelling.

Bill: And the values of hope and family and courage in adversity.

Tom: Absolutely, and one of the storylines we had would have seen Boxey or Orin become obsessed with getting his father back, even to the point of beginning to put the fleet in danger, because he was obsessed with regaining this thing he had lost 20 years earlier.

Bill: Do you feel that there is a place for that with the 21st Century audience? I mean that's something I'd like to see...

Tom: I absolutely think with the 21st Century audience there is [a place for it]. When you look at the big successes of Hollywood, it is the more pop culture inclusive things like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Spider-man which is again not just about what's cool to 18 year-olds, or 38 year-olds, but what's cool on a level when you're eight, 18, or 38, or 88. I'm a science fiction fan but the show we were going to be doing was not only for science fiction fans, but also for people who were not science fiction fans and just like good stories.

Bill: Let's talk about the look and feel of the show. There are a lot of folks out there that can't seem to grasp the concept that a continuation would have meant updating. There's a lot of unfair criticism about feathered air, disco and capes, to me that's like criticising I Love Lucy for being in black and white! What do you feel would have done in bringing the look of Battlestar Galactica into the 21st Century while maintaining a link to the original?

Tom: Again, it was staying true to the wonderful production design, the actors, what Boomer was, what Apollo was, the memory of Adama and keeping true to the ship. The Galactica we had – the only modification we had and I had requested, was to put big guns on it. Big Star Blazers-type guns so that it could hold its own instead of those little guns along the launch bays.

It was a ship that was 25 years old and apart from the big guns, it had not seen a lot of love and care in 20 years. So, it was starting to rust out and mothball a bit.

One of the things I really loved about the show which has been derided of late, is the whole "Chariots of the Gods" tie-in – the whole "There are those who believe, that life here started out there" – the pulling in of all that. We had a massive style guide that took from Egyptian, Mayan, Sumerian, Babylonian and Chinese cultures, the great ancient cultures and melded them into one. So there would be hints of that, but still keeping the Egyptian motif on the Viper helmets and the uniforms.

As far as capes go – there probably would have been capes in formal [situations]. Sort of like a dress uniform thing, but as far as everyday cape use, that was something that would have gone to the side, but again staying true to the colors they had, and using those icons of the dark blues and browns, and the tans because they worked so well.

Bill: We saw the Global Effects designs for the new Cylon centurions, and obviously on the Sci Fi Channel show there are now human-looking Cylons. Would that have happened on your show, would it have been an economic thing?

Tom: No, we were actually building the suits, theirs are all CG, in the budget we had, there was a big chunk of change set aside to build enough of those Cylon suits.

One of the great ideas that Bryan had, was that to only reveal that there were human Cylons in the last shot of the pilot, you'd hear this voice giving orders to the mechanical Cylons throughout the pilot, and then in the last shot you'd hear this voice again and we'd go through space and actually see for the first time, the planet Cylon, and this voice would be getting louder and clearer and we'd zoom in and see that "Oh my God, these are not robots giving these orders, they are humans!" – and you'd see this table in the shadows and these faces that are human, and the last face you'd see was that of Richard.

Bill: After literally living a fan's dream, coming so close to executive producing a show that meant so much to you personally, and to steer the course that at time you regarded the third biggest [SF] franchise and that you were so passionate about, and then to have it fall apart and taken away, how did that feel?

Tom: Well, it felt exactly as the fans felt, and not to take away anything from the success of the current version – I hold no ill will against David Eick and Ron Moore. They've done a great job with the show, it's not the show I would have done, or Bryan would have done (not to speak for Bryan), but they got it on air, that's where the studio put its bet behind, and I understand that. It's become a tremendous critical success for them and there's a lot of elements and tone that are similar to what we were going to do, the only difference I'd say, was that opposed to doing a hard sci-fi show, we were going to do a pop culture sci-fi show.

Bill: And that's something many of us original series fans would have liked to have seen.

Tom: That's where my love is. I respect hard science fiction, but if it’s a choice between hard science fiction and a good pop sci-fi movie, then that's where my heart is. I love Star Trek, I love Star Wars, I love Galactica, I love X-Men. X-Men the movie was something I'd wanted to do since I was 12 years old. So it [Battlestar Galactica] was within that sensibility. I respect movies like Minority Report or A.I. – the harder science fiction films, but it's not my cup of tea.

Bill: You talked earlier about Firefly, which turned out to be a really great show that Fox from all appearances completely bungled with poor promotion and frequent pre-emption and no tolerance for building an audience, in retrospect, do you think Battlestar would have been given the same kind of treatment?

Tom: I think we would have had an ace up our sleeve that Joss [Whedon, Firefly creator] didn't have and that was the name recognition. Joss is a great guy and I visited him on the set of Serenity because I know Loni Perestiere, who ended up doing the FX for Galactica, and I was going to bring Loni on in 2001 with Zoic (his FX house]. Loni did all the FX for Angel and Buffy, and did an amazing job on Firefly.

I think there would have been battles, there's a lot of misunderstanding of what makes genre shows work. In Hollywood, it's sort of a rule that no one wants to be first but everyone wants to be second. So if you have a 90210 that is a hit, then everyone's going to come out with their Melrose Places or whatever, and be similar and try to recapture that [success]. This season we're going to see a lot of Desperate Housewives knock-offs. It's good and it's bad because something changed the tone of the industry but now everyone’s trying to copycat it.

I think with dealing with Fox (and Gail Berman was great) was a great marriage while it lasted and it would have been the perfect network. If someone had said: "What network do you want to be on?" I would have said either ABC or Fox, but I was glad that it was at Fox because they were younger and hipper and really behind the show and unfortunately when 9/11 happened, and with us losing Bryan – and Fox (the network) fought to keep Bryan onboard but it was a decision that was handed down from higher above.

Bill: Let's talk about the future of Galactica as it relates to the original series. Last month Glen Larson made a statement at a convention in England that he planned to have a Battlestar movie on the big screen in a year-and-a-half! A lot fans had heard this from Glen before, so we were a little sceptical – the money question is, what rights does Glen Larson have regarding a TV series or feature film?

Tom: I can't speak for Glen on that, but I still think there's life in the old series, in a continuation of the old series while the new series is going on. I think it is possible to do both, and I actually presented to David Kissinger (when he was still at Universal) – I had spoken to friends at the Cartoon Network (because I had been thinking of how to get this story out there) and I said what about if we do Battlestar as an animated thing, and Cartoon Network really liked the idea a lot. So I went to Universal and said this is really a possibility, the brand is good for Cartoon Network, you can have the new show, which is like you next generation and we can so the classic like with "Kirk" and "Spock" while you have "Picard" and "Riker." David Kissinger said: "Let me think about it." And about two weeks later, he came back and said: "Look, we don't want to confuse the brand," which I did understand, and I also didn't understand, because the turnaround on an animated series probably would have been about two years, but the decision was "No" from Universal, they didn't want to do an animated series.

Bill: These are the same people who have two Stargates on, and there was always two Star Trek series on at the same time!

Tom: You know, I wish I could understand the reasoning, that I could influence the powers that be, but it’s not my decision. Creatively, you can put me in charge of a show and I know where to take it and I know how to make the fans happy and make a whole new generation of fans. But as far as trying to figure out the psychology of studio decisions, that’s something that’s baffled every creative person on the planet for a 100 years.

Bill: Now, the animated series would have picked up right after "The Hand of God," and not been set 25 years later?

Tom: No, it still would have been set 25 years later. And I would have gone back to Bryan, and Dan and Billy and hopefully regrouped. But I didn't make any calls because I didn't get the thumbs up from Kissinger. Nothing would have made me happier to get in that Galactica sandbox with Bryan and call Dan and Billy to get them back onboard.

Bill: Well fans have come together to say "What can we do now?" The idea of a Direct-to-DVD feature has come up, how do you feel about that has a route to get the original Battlestar Galactica back?

Tom: It's definitely a route, and I'm definitely in communication with Glen as far as trying to get the old girl up and going. I don't want to say short-sighted, but the tone of the new show (which works on its own) but doesn't capture what I think is the possibility of capturing the younger audience and the family audience, and therefore expand for Universal the great cash machine – for that's what they understand, it's all about bringing money into the corporation how do they keep those quarterly numbers up? And that would be through merchandising and that’s one of the weapons I would bring to the table. I'd say: "Look, we're Toys-R-Us friendly, so you can have the ships and action figures and all those things and still have an intelligent show!" It's the old Walt Disney philosophy, when asked: "Why do you make kids' movies?" he replied: "I don't make kids" movies, I make movies for adults that children can go and see!"

Bill: I've been lucky enough to see some episodes of the new series of Dr Who, and I've got to say, if you want a text book example to bring back a property that some would consider "cheesy" and make it relevant for today's audience while remaining true to the original, then that's a classic example right there.

Tom: Well, I know in my gut we had that formula down 100 per cent and the success that we had with X-Men and translating that to the big screen successfully, I know 100 per cent that it would have worked with our version of Galactica!

Bill: Well you've mentioned you've been talking with Glen. Now the rumours that came out of Galacticon was that there was kind of a stonewall, Glen wanted to do a Pegasus movie and you wanted to do a Galactica movie, was that ever true? Is that still a consideration as far as working with Glen?

Tom: I think there are differences on the takes that we would have, but that's part of the creative process and I would expect that. Look, if he can convince me of something and I can convince him of something – but for me, I wouldn't be interested in seeing a Pegasus movie, I wouldn't be interested in anything but doing Galactica, And that's something with my schedule, and how busy I am, and if it's something I'd be willing to throw my energy and time behind, but only if it was Galactica.

Bill: So you're saying if the opportunity came along you'd make room on your plate?

Tom: Absolutely! It's not like the work hasn't been done, you're talking to someone who wrote out a five-year battle plan for the series, but if we went there or not, who knows? Ultimately it's not my decision. If it were my decision it would be done and dusted in 2001. And, you know, we could have done both, Galactica, and X-Men 2 and still kept the schedule.

Unfortunately, it's one of those things where I don't control the rights. Glen has the film rights and Universal the TV rights, so it's a situation where if any one of them is ready to get in the trenches, then they know where to find me!

Bill: What can we fans do to help, is there anything we can do to help?

Tom: One of the reasons I wanted to do this interview with you was the fact that I wanted to give something back to the fans, because, one, I'm a fan and I know how frustrating it can be when you're seeing things and you're not getting the information. It's my way of saying thank-you.

There was a lot of thought and energy [in our Galactica], we had sets being built, but unfortunately it just didn't become a reality. As to what the fans can do now, that's a great question and I wish I had an answer, but I think it's one of those situations that until there's some movement from either the studio's side, or from Glen deciding he wants to move forward with a feature, then that would be the time.

Bill: That's one of those situations where it could happen tomorrow or in five years.

Tom: It might, it's absolutely one of those things where it could go one way, or the other.

Bill: But you've not given up hope?

Tom: No, never give up!

Bill: [Laughing] Never surrender.

Tom: I'll be 75, and if this story isn't done, I'll be still fighting, so at least it's out there and part of the mythology. That's the joy of my job – all my action figures are real now!

If somebody had told me when I was 10 (even though it didn't go to air) that I'd have the opportunity to work with Dirk Benedict, or Richard Hatch, or become friends with these people – or Herb – wow! They're all great people, and there are a lot of not-great people in this business.

Everyone I've met from Galactica, from Glen, through to the cast, through Ron and David Eick, they've all been stand-up guys. I wish everybody well. And maybe one day we'll have new Galactica and classic, running together.

Bill: Is the fact that you haven't given up, one of the reasons why we haven't seen the script for your pilot in another form, like a novel, graphic novel or comicbook series?

Tom: Well, it's Universal needing to say: "Look you guys, our Galactica is established, we don't feel threatened, and we don't feel there's a sense of the fanbase getting convoluted by an animated series." Then I think we'd stand a good chance of getting an animated series on the air. Again, that's the decision of Universal Studios on a larger scale.

I think the thing Universal has to realize is that once again – the real money is in the DVDs that are sold and in the merchandising, all those things that have limited appeal because of the adult nature of the new show.

Bill: You've been very generous with your time Tom, very quickly – I know you're working on Transformers, do you want to tell us what's going on with that?

Tom: We've announced the release date, which is 7-4-7, which is July 4, 2007. We had a big presentation at Comic Con with a big 18-wheeler truck and the announcement of the date. So that's another situation where my action figures have become real.

Again, the thing with Transformers is that it will be accessible – you'll find it cool if you're eight, 18 or 38, and a fan of that material. You'll leave the theatre very happy. If you're not a fan then you'll leave [the theatre] as a fan. It's the same thing as X-Men, a lot of people went into X-Men who didn't know a thing about characters called Wolverine or Professor Xavier or Magneto and left with an appreciation of those characters and the relationships and that mythology.

Bill: Well I know that all of us original Galactica fans are planning to go see Transformers about 11 times, so we'd like you to make another billion for the studios, so if Peter Jackson can walk in and say: "I want to do King Kong!" and get a greenlight, we're hoping that Transformers puts you in the place where you can walk in and say: "I want to do Galactica!" and they say: "Tom. Do anything you want."

Tom: As soon as I have that sort of power, the fans should know that I will use that power to get the old girl out of drydock and tell this story.

The Cylon Alliance thanks Tom DeSanto for taking the time to speak with us, and we look forward to the next opportunity to talk to him - someone who really "gets it".

[–] spaseebah 16 years ago

Nice post.