Podcast:Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II

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Teaser

Hello, and welcome to the podcast of "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II". Ronald D. Moore, Executive Producer and Creator of the new Battlestar Galactica. I just finished a few moments ago doing the podcast for "part one" so a lot of this is a continuation as is the episode of part one and once again I would just caution all of you if you have not watched this episode I would suggest you do that before you listen to the podcast because I will be talking about things at the end.

As I was saying before, a key structural change that happened was shifting the end of the show, primarily. We moved the original night one out was the crash of the Raptor, and now the the night one out is Kara taking the Raider and jumping back to Caprica which is -I think- is a much stronger, more emotional, more personal beat. And as a result of that, that basic decision, it allowed "part II" to open up a bit, it allowed us to play all the moments of "part II" because I think that one of the the key things about show is the ability to play the moments. You're not just rushing through things. You're not just like brushing over details and not giving the scenes themselves a chance to breath, and to really enjoy the characters, and to play texture and detail. And it's as simple as, example, in "33", there's a shot where Adama's shaving in the bathroom and the camera just jumps downs watch him rinse the wa- rinse the shaving cream off his razor. And watching them eat noodles, I mean just all the little details about life and how the people interact, and being able to play moments like this in their full glory, to really give it its due, and give enough space, and not rush through the whole thing. You have to have enough room to do that, and one of the challenges of the show it to do it- to do these stories in an efficient way 'cause you've only got forty minutes to tell an hour story, I hate to tell you, but it's only forty minutes of actual program content time. And so, it's sometimes it's really hard to cram all that material in there. And, Michael's decision- Dany's decision to shift the night break opened up night two and made night two play in a much more comfortable fashion.

That little bit of business there, when James is reaching through the flame, he's really reaching through the flame. It's not a CGI. It's not digital. None of this is, except this shot coming up there. It's all practical. So when you saw him reach out and like put his hands in the flame, it's James being crazy and and putting (laughing) his arms in- in the middle of raging fires on the set. It's always interesting to see where - what the actors will or will not do. I mean most of the time my experience actors want to do their own stunts and desire to do their own stunts and go way out of their way to train themselves, and learn the techniques, work with the stunt people, and generally want to do their own stunts, and rare as- they did happen. There were times, there were a couple of actors -who I won't name- that I worked with in Star Trek who just did not like to do stunts. And, if the character was going to fall down, it was lake "STUNT MAN," but that was sort of the exception rather than the rule.

This whole little ending is- was the tease of- was the tease of night two. It just had the- the actual crash it took them all the way. It was like the tease- no I take that back. The teaser went out with the Raptor going, hitting, crashing, and then I think that Act One begin with the sequence that you just saw.

A couple of thing just to remind you if you, some things I said on the night one podcast which was there was a whole separate storyline going on- down on Kobol that we dispensed with which had to do with the two temples. There was a temple on Kobol and then another temple they built on Caprica to sort of emulate the original. And one of the reasons we got rid of that was strictly production. Balancing the budget versus the creative needs of the show is one of the biggest challenges of producing this series, and you always write to what the best version of the show and then you pare back. And there was just no way that we could get the temple. I'll come back in a second.

Act 4

This standoff, in the original draft we did not get to this point exactly. When Lee was down on the planet and we had a somewhat different structure, the standoff was gonna be Laura on the inside of her office. The Marines on the outside, they're about to burst through the door. And it was at that moment that Adama was shot. So were gonna leave season one with Laura about to be taken down by the Marines and Adama lying bleeding in CIC and what will Tigh do? That was the thing. the immediate question. What will he do about Laura? What does he do about Adama? Decided not to do that. Felt- wanted to play it through. Wanted to get her all the way, put her in jail. Have Adama close the door on her, and wanted to play this beat with Lee. Wanted to see Lee, push comes to shove Lee has to make a choice here. Will he subvert the democracy? Will he participate in a military coups against the lawfully designated President of the Colonies or will he make a stand? And Laura, who was willing a moment ago to go right up to the edge and see who's gonna pull a trigger first and will he make them do it, now it's entered a different zone. Now it's brother against brother. Is it- or it's Galactica people turning against- you can see the whole thing starting to spiral wildly out of control. It could be a true bloodbath at this point and that's where Laura has to step in and say, "Ok. The game of brinksmanship is over. Somebody has to blink first and it's gonna be me."