Battlestar Galactica Series Finale Was Originally 4 Hours Long

A new reboot of Battlestar Galactica is coming so it's time to reminisce about the previous series in all its glory. But did you know that the series finale was supposed to be a lot longer than it already was? Ronald D. Moore has just revealed that he had initially planned for the final episode to be four hours long but decided to change the original conclusion.

Moore, who developed the 2004 series, recently spoke to Collider about his original plans for Battlestar Galactica to end. Although the three-part finale titled Daybreak ended up being three hours long, the episode was supposed to be a lot longer.

"The original cut was probably closer to four hours. There was a different structure in the script than what ended up on the screen. The structure in the script was much less linear – it was very non-linear," Moore said, explaining that there were several flashbacks setting up the characters' stories. Not surprisingly, he confirmed that "everyone got really excited about it" but he had to scale it down for practical reasons.

"When you laid it out like that in film it was really hard to follow. As much as I wanted it to work, people around me were going 'I'm not sure it works. Maybe you should make it linear,'" Moore said. As a result, he decided to scale it down.

"So it just became a more linear piece in that all the flashbacks lined up chronologically instead of doing them all the flashbacks out of order. Once you did that it changed the fundamental structure," Moore said. "So that's the difference between the four hour and the three hour was. It was really just changing the structure, tightening up, and making the usual cuts and edits you do on almost any piece of film to just get it down to its fighting weight."

Perhaps fans were hoping for a longer finale since they didn't really want the series to end. On the other hand, Moore made the right decision in coming up with a proper conclusion to Battlestar Galactica.

The Battlestar Galactica reboot has not yet been given an official release date. Stay tuned for more updates on this story.

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