By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
There were many things that appealed to sci-fi fans about the Battlestar Galactica reboot, including the fact that (unlike the original series) it didn’t include any alien races. This helped to highlight the conflict between humanity and the Cylons even as it made clear that mankind and its rebellious creations are more alike than they are different. As it turns out, this smart creative decision is partly due to Edward James Olmos, who claims it was in his contract that his Commander Adama character would have to be killed off if he encountered any aliens.
No Aliens For Adama
This tale of Edward James Olmos not wanting his character to encounter aliens in the show is one that the actor shared with the AV Club. He was very excited “to be part of” the show because it was “amazingly well written by Ron Moore,” but in his first meeting with Moore and the show’s producers, he warned them that “I don’t want to see any four-eyed people, or weird jellyfish people, or weird outer-space people.” The alien antipathy was so strong that he had it written into his contract that if Adama encountered any aliens, the writers would have to have his character die of a heart attack.
If you’re a fan of sci-fi in general or the old Battlestar Galactica in particular, you might think that Edward James Olmos hating the idea of his character encountering aliens is pretty weird. However, this makes more sense when you consider the actor’s own background with science fiction…in this case, starring in Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking film Blade Runner. He was actually relieved when the Galactica producers reassured him that the new show would be like Scott’s movie because, as Olmos put it, “There was no monsters in that, they were all human beings.”
Reading between the lines a bit, it seems obvious that Edward James Olmos prefers the idea of his onscreen characters interacting with humans or human-like characters rather than aliens. The big revelation of Blade Runner was that the allegedly evil replicants were not really all that different from their creators, and this idea is heavily ingrained into the themes and narratives of Battlestar Galactica. After memorably playing a human in a world where killer replicants were revealed to be victims out to fight against their oppressors, it was much easier for Olmos to play Commander Adama, a man fighting genocidal aliens who blame humanity for their past oppression.
As an added side effect, Edward James Olmos getting his “no aliens” request met meant that Battlestar Galactica could better separate itself from other sci-fi franchises such as Star Trek. That was likely very important to showrunner Ronald Moore as well considering that he got his start in television writing for Star Trek: The Next Generation and went on to become one of that franchise’s most talented scribes. Moore knew very well that his own show was going to have to distinguish itself from what came before, and making his ultra-realistic sci-fi series alien-free was one of the best ways to do that.
In retrospect, Edward James Olmos’ story about not wanting Adama to encounter aliens proves how serendipitous the Battlestar Galactica reboot really was…just when the acclaimed actor was ready to put his foot down about a major sci-fi trope, he discovered he and the producers were already on the same page. From top to bottom, that show was filled with actors and other creatives who wanted to redefine what televised science fiction could be. And they succeeded so well that, to this day, nothing has been able to eclipse the ambition and scope of a series that boldly went where no Star Trek had gone before.
