News: Battlestar Galactica Fan Film Contest

Back when I was a kid, I gotta say, I hated ABC’s Battlestar Galactica. Glen A. Larsen’s paean to the success of Star Wars the year before reeked of rip-off, from the Colonial Fighters (X-Wings) to Baltar (Grand Moff Tarkin) to the Cylons (Darth Vader/Stormtroopers) to Starbuck (Han Solo) to Apollo (Luke Skywalker) to Adama (Obi-Wan) to…look, it was a bad xerox with a smidge of Star Trek (they visit billions of planets but never get anywhere) thrown in. Even as a 10-year-old kid, I knew they’d never find Earth, and if the low expectations of your primary, pre-teen audience can’t even be met, that’s a problem. Heck, the only good thing I have to say about it 29 years later is that at least Rick Springfield got blown up in the first three minutes of the series. Even Galactica 80 was better (Hey, didja see that? I just watched my credibility physically fly out the window!).

The show left such a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve never watched a single episode of the new, improved and thoroughly revamped Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi Channel. I know, I know—everyone tells me it’s great. No less an authority of good TV than Entertainment Weekly regularly expounds at length how it’s the best show on TV, bar none. I ought to give it a try; I know I should. I’m just too lazy to commit to yet another show, even if it’s just a Netflix DVD rental away. Plus I have fan films to watch.

And that’s why I’m excited to write about the new Battlestar Galactica fan film contest, which runs through June 1. Not only do I get to sample makeshift versions of the show via fan films, I have to admit I like where they’re coming from.

Last week, I gave a pretty thorough denouncing of the Star Wars fan film contest, because they pretend they’re giving you something by changing the rules to include dramatic flicks, when in fact they’re taking away stuff, like the prize money they no longer give the winners.

BSG, on the other hand, makes no bones about the fact that you will get no money, you can’t post your movie anywhere but the Sci-Fi website (i.e. no YouTubin’), and the only prize is that they’ll show the winner during an episode of the show. Most importantly, they’re honest about the fact that you’re probably going to get your chops busted like Tony Soprano hitting you in the face with a crowbar behind the Bada Bing. Check out the following piece of legalese from their website (and, for the record, they wrote it all-caps, not me):

YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE DEPICTION AND PORTRAYAL OF YOU AND YOUR SUBMISSION IN CONNECTION WITH ANY WEB SITE OR PROGRAM MAY BE DISPARAGING, DEFAMATORY, EMBARRASSING OR OF AN OTHERWISE UNFAVORABLE NATURE, MAY EXPOSE YOU AND YOUR SUBMISSION TO PUBLIC RIDICULE, HUMILIATION OR CONDEMNATION, AND MAY PORTRAY YOU AND YOUR SUBMISSION IN A FALSE LIGHT.

You gotta love that. They make it perfectly clear that they’re probably going to screw you over as brutally as possible. Everyone, including your dog, will laugh at what a chump you are. The only person sadder than you will be your lawyer, since you disgrarded the warning and now he can’t build a case against Sci-Fi Channel for you. I’m guessing the provision is because there’ll be an America’s Funniest Battlestar Galactica Home Videos-type show or website. Of course, that’s providing they find any entries funny. If you’ve watched your fair share of fan productions, you know that there’s nothing amusing about a pathetic fan film; they’re just kinda….sad.

But hey, put all that aside and you can see what the real point of this contest is: Viral marketing. They say in the rules that if you join the contest, you can’t post your video anywhere else, but man, it’s so obvious (to me at least) that they hope you won’t enter at all—you’ll just plaster your BSG flick all over the net.

To whit, the contest provides you with something they call The Battlestar Videomaker Toolkit. It’s pretty sweet, providing all kinds of downloadable brickabrack to assist in making your movie: more than 30 visual effects, 20-plus audio effects and cuts from the show’s soundtrack—and a handy-dandy promo clip which is required at the end of each official entry. If you don’t want to enter the contest, that’s still a pretty cool line up of goodies to help you make your own flick—and don’t think they aren’t aware of that.

Of course, you shouldn’t really download all that stuff, make a movie and then spread it around the net instead of entering the contest; I’m just conjecturing, of course. Downloading that material in bad faith would be wrong, and fancinematoday.com would never endorse such thoughtless behavior. Promise us that you won’t do that, but even more importantly, promise that if you do, you’ll blow up Rick Springfield in the first three minutes—y’know, just for old times sake.