New reboot of Battlestar Galactica will touch on AI as it explores our “fear of tech”

The original Battlestar Galactica TV show, about the last vestiges of humanity on the run from the robotic Cylons, aired way back in 1978, when the Cylons were big honking hunks of metal you could pick out from space. In 2003, a remake aired on Sci-Fi. This time the Cylons were practically indistinguishable from humans, and several infiltrated our ranks.

That brings us to today, when people are earnestly talking about artificial intelligence taking our jobs, disrupting our economies and grinding the human race under underfoot like a pack of Terminators. Into this maelstrom walks Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, who is rebooting Battlestar Galactica once again, this time for Peacock. How will yet another new version of this humans-vs-robots story adapt for the times?

“Yeah, and the world is changing way too fast for us,” Esmail told The Hollywood Reporter. “I mean, when we started working on it, I obviously was aware of AI, but now, four or five years later, it’s in the public consciousness and now that’s so influential in how we’re going to tell the story. The allegory piece is something that is crystallized in a different way, too. The focus is the same, which is the fear of tech and how it might take over, but this idea of just ‘the robots are going to be our overlords’ is a very facile and overly simplistic way of looking at it. Now that the audience is more sophisticated about the consequences, I think we have to match that with Battlestar.”

Maybe this time the enemy will be human beings who are voluntarily following an AI? People controlled by an AI hive mind? Whatever happens, expect the new Battlestar Galactica to push the boundaries of why and how people are terrified of computers.

Battlestar Galactica will make a pilot “soon”

We don’t have a release date for the new Battlestar Galactica remake as of yet, but it sounds like things are starting to move. “We have a great outline and we’re probably going to go to pilot soon,” Esmail said.

Unlike with Mr. Robot, Esmail won’t be taking the reins of this show himself, but working with a team to bring it to life. “Because I know myself as a filmmaker and I don’t know if hard sci-fi is something I’m going to be the A-plus person to pull off,” he said. “And Battlestar needs the cream of the crop. But I love the world and what Ron Moore did with the [2004 version] — how it was such an allegory for what we were going through at the time of 9/11. I knew that if we bring in the right partners to write and film the show, I could be on that other end as a person of guidance to say, ‘OK, I think this is working; it’s the same magic I felt watching the Ron Moore version.'”

I’d guess we’ll see the new show sometime in 2025.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels