10 January 2025

by Chris Snelgrove
| Published

Ronald D. Moore Battlestar Galactica The new version was a show all about planning. Not only did the show's creator have big plans (more or less) for the modern sci-fi mythos from the beginning, but characters like Commander Adama had to constantly plot and plan to stay one step ahead of the nefarious Cylons.

As it turns out, Adama actor, Edward James Olmos, isn't much of a planner in real life, often making spontaneous decisions to bring his on-screen characters to life. Unfortunately, this resulted in a high cost Battlestar Galactica A mistake during the episode “Maelstrom” where the actor accidentally destroys a $200,000 model.

Adama gets angry

For a tale this is insanely expensive Battlestar Galactica It's wrong to make sense, you'll need some important context. “Maelstrom” prominently features Commander Adama's detailed model of an ancient sailing ship at his headquarters, but this is more of a Starbuck episode… at least, until the heartbreaking moment when this fan-favorite character apparently dies (don't worry, you'll be shocked). Better … somewhat). Starbuck was basically the daughter Adama never had, and the episode ends with Adama completely grief-stricken destruction The model ship before it collapses into uncontrollable tears.

This is undoubtedly one of the most powerful moments in our history Battlestar Galactica date. It's also a scene that contains the show's most expensive blooper. In 2012, Edward James Olmos He revealed a secret to Planet Comicon attendees: that he completely improvised that scene. Simply put, Adama destroyed his model ship (unlike Captain Picard destroying his model ships in First contact) was never in the script and the actor decided to do it for the time being.

For Olmos, this kind of deadly improvisation was just another day The officeConsidering how amazing the scene was, it is clear that the actor's instincts regarding this scene were perfect. As far as he knew, the model ship he was destroying was something the production team had made, so it didn't matter if he destroyed it as surely as if Roslin had taken it out of the airlock. But what the actor didn't know at the time was that the show had rented this model from the museum, and it was worth $200,000.

This is expensive Battlestar Galactica The error becomes more understandable when you consider that most of the time the show was using cheap knock-offs instead of the real model. With that being said, Olmos didn't really seem remorseful when recounting this anecdote to conference attendees. According to the actor, his response to the news that he had destroyed the unique (and very expensive) model was: “Why did you put it in the scene? I was just told that my daughter (my character) died, what did you expect?”

There is a certain logic in his response! Perhaps the producers saw this as too expensive Battlestar Galactica Wrong, but Olmos saw it as an opportunity to create a memorable moment for his character. This wasn't the first time the actor did a killer amount of improvisation, and it certainly wasn't the last. Or, as the Cylons might say, it's all happened before, and it will happen again.


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