There are no shortage of fans who are rabbid about Battlestar Galactica, or at least SciFi Channel’s recent update of the original series from the 80’s. As far as the original goes, it’s sort of become the science fiction show that sci-fi snobs love to hate. Mostly because it wasn’t all that good. I was eight when the show was new, and I was pretty sure it was the most awesome thing ever. When I watch episodes now, I tend to think that I must have been a complete tool when I was eight (if you look hard enough you’ll be able to find some people who will tell you not much has changed in 29 years). In an attempt to suck some of the suckyness out of the original Battlestar, Dynamite has brought in Marc Guggenheim to do a 4 issue mini series titled Galactica 1980.

Guggenheim is a busy guy these days, he’s a co-writer of the upcoming Green Lantern movie, the producer of Flash Forward, one of most anticipated new TV shows with “nerd appeal” this fall, has a new creator owned series called Resurrection coming out soon, and is the creative genius behind The Amazing Spiderman. So does this translate into a sucky trip back to the 80’s? Not likely. Guggenheim had this to say to Newsarama about the upcoming series

Well, it actually has its origins about 2-3 years ago, where Dynamite had approached me to do something with Battlestar Galactica. I sent them several ideas, and this was one of them. Actually, I had the idea years earlier and was glad to find an opportunity to tell the story.
I’d had this idea in large part because I remember vividly when the original Galactica 1980 was promoted. This was before the Internet – there were all these commercials for it, and my 10-year-old self was going, “This is going to be the most amazing series ever!” And then…Not so much. But my 10-year-old-self never really let it go…I don’t even remember the other Galactica ideas I pitched to Dynamite. However, I’d included, the Galactica 1980 idea almost as an afterthought, thinking they’d never go for it. The pitch was, basically,doing Galactica 1980 from the parallel universe where they actually did it well, where the execution wasn’t lame. Or, to put it another way, where the series was as good as my 10-year-old self thought it would be. “Wow, Galactica finds Earth! That’s the coolest idea ever! They’d have to work pretty hard to make that not work!

I guess those 2 years Guggenheim has on me made all the difference, because I actually did think it was the coolest thing. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if he’s able to make 1980 as cool as it should have been. Mind you, there are limits to how cool anybody can make Lorne Greene. Look for Galactica 1980 in comic stores next month.