If you’ve read my review of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, you’ll know why I’m not the fondest of people when it comes to George Lucas’ own re-imagining. It’s as though he forgot or neglected what made the Original Trilogy fun. Instead of the larger-than-life personalities of Luke, Han and Leia, we got the formidable-yet-distant Qui-Gon Obi-Wan and Padmé (who had a little too much quiet in the quiet charisma stakes when she wasn’t being Queen, and not enough nobility when she was) and the conflicted teen Anakin. Don’t get me wrong, Qui-Gon has a soft spot in my heart forever for that piece of dialogue in response to Anakin’s assertion in Phantom Menace that no-one can kill a Jedi: “I wish that were so.” But it’s the exception that proves the rule; the Original Trilogy was littered with little character moments like that when the three leads interacted.

Rather than spreading the child-like antics (that would rope the kids in) around amongst a great number of “face-less” creatures like the Ewoks (let’s face it, even adults have a soft spot for teddy-bears, and don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise, you liars), he concentrated them into two characters, Jar-Jar Binks and the young Anakin Skywalker, whom adult audiences found extremely annoying as a result (adults usually don’t have soft-spots for weird-looking fish-guys and pre-teens, especially pre-teens who pull off the incredible with accidental ease). He seemed to be attempting a character drama in the midst of a space opera whilst still trying to pander to the inevitable child audience, whilst forgetting that it’s the larger-than-life characters – which seldom have faults – whom audiences become infatuated with.

Ron Moore’s mission statement for the Galactica mini-series spells out a similar approach; “portray(ing) human beings as flawed”, of “bringing realism to science fiction”. The criticisms of wooden and unheroic performances and a show that lacks heart that have been levelled against the new mini-series by the fans and that negative 50% of the press reviews ring quite similar to those levelled against the Star Wars Prequels.

Here’s the thing, though. I can talk about what I see as flaws in George Lucas’ prequels until the cows come home; so can other fans of the Original Trilogy and the generally ambivalent film critics. But, in a time when fun summer-film SF like Terminator 3 and Hulk draws mediocre-to-bad box-office with its larger than life characters, it’s the Prequel Star Wars Trilogy that consistently draws massive crowds, even taking into account its immensely popular brand name (you’d think Terminator 3 would have done better than it did were brand recognition all that was needed). It looks as though George Lucas was on to something after all; his flawed, awkward and distant characters are just what modern audiences are willing to see (and see again), even if fans of the Original Trilogy is left feeling alienated.

Let’s face it: times, and the tastes of the silent, non-hardcore viewer base, change. If the ongoing success of the Star Wars Prequels is any indication, Ron Moore may well be right in his assertion that the broader viewer base may, to paraphrase, be ready for a bigger meal than popcorn. The original Galactica fan base, spread as it is across the US and overseas, just isn’t big enough to make a commercial success of a TV series or motion picture feature (which has to succeed in the US market before it can go international) if no one but the fans came to watch.

This is why I still think that the vocal Galactica fan community is holding a little too tight to their beloved show; they’re holding it so close to them that they can’t see past it. They can’t see that, even though the original show rated well, the non-fan audience has gone and changed in the intervening twenty-five years. But I can understand that clinging a little better than before. I think I finally understand what the old-time Galactica fans mean when they say that those who pan the original Galactica just don’t “get it”.

I just don’t think that what the fans “get”, no matter how much I myself may understand and even enjoy it, will be commercially successful nowadays. That sense of innocent fun that categorised both the Original Star Wars Trilogy and the original Battlestar Galactica just doesn’t cut it any more.