Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming

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Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming was a project to create a movie trailer for a proposed new Battlestar Galactica television series that would pick up from where the original 1978 series left off. All continuity related to Galactica 1980 would have been completely ignored.

Created, produced, and directed by Richard Hatch who starred in the original series as Captain Apollo, the project was conceived to convince Universal Studios, the owners to the rights to Galactica franchise, to greenlight a project based on the concepts in the trailer.

Hatch was able to get many stars from the original series including Richard Lynch (in place of Patrick Macnee as Count Iblis), John Colicos (Count Baltar), and Terry Carter (Colonel Tigh, now President of the Quorum of Twelve) to appear in the trailer. Hatch himself also reprised his own role of Apollo (now Commander of the fleet).

Filming on the trailer began in the summer of 1998. Some of the filming was done in conjunction with the Battlestar Galactica 20th Yahren Reunion which was held at the Los Angeles Hilton in September 1998. The trailer also featured computer generated special effects.

The partially complete Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming trailer was first shown at DragonCon in Atlanta on July 3, 1999 and received rave reviews from fans. Once it was complete, Hatch travelled to a series of science fiction conventions to show the trailer and it proved to be very popular at these events.

However, Hatch never succeeded in getting Universal's attention, and a different project, the reimagined Battlestar Galactica conceived of by Ronald D. Moore was ultimately pursued. Hatch, who funded the trailer effort out of his own pocket, mortgaged and eventually lost his own home because of the debts he incurred.

Later, Richard Hatch joined the new Battlestar Galactica series cast as the recurring character of Tom Zarek. However, Hatch continues to push for a revival/continuation of his own vision of the original series (he writes original novels based on it).