Lost Transmissions

by Desirina Boskovich

  “One of Berkey’s illustrations—a rocket-plane diving down from space toward a gigantic metal world—seems to have especially caught and held the director’s eye,” says designer Michael Heilemann in an essay titled “John Berkey & The Mechanical Planet.” “It would, in fact, be echoed in his film’s climax as squadrons of Rebel X-wing fighters attack the Imperial Death Star.”

  Later, Ralph McQuarrie took over the concept art for Star Wars, contributing the lion’s share of the arresting visuals that turned the franchise into a genre-defining hit. But there’s no question that Berkey’s ideas also played a role.

  Like McQuarrie, Berkey also worked on Battlestar Galactica (1977). (Certain similarities between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica then led to a lawsuit, but that’s another story—see this page.) Berkey’s passion for envisioning high-tech and futuristic space vessels has shaped the genre indelibly, deeply influencing our entire conception of space warfare.

  SFF art expert and critic Jane Frank describes Berkey’s style as “the perfect balance between painterly impressionism and hard-edged realism.” In The Art of John Berkey, Frank collected more than one hundred of his illustrations and provides a nice overview of his contributions to the genre.

  Ironically, Berkey never even saw Star Wars, the site of his best-known work. In 2005, he opined, “I suppose I should see it one of these days.” *

  Untitled (1971) by John Berkey, often referred to as “Mechanical Planet” or “Tin Planet.” Tempera, 14” × 14”. The painting was purchased by George Lucas as inspiration.

  Star Wars vs. Battlestar Galactica: The Legal Battle Over Space Opera’s Look

  When Star Wars hit the scene in 1977, it revolutionized science fiction forever. In the wake of the movie’s smashing success, TV and film producers at every studio sought their own swashbuckling space opera. On television, the most successful of these was Battlestar Galactica (1978–1979), the original series created by Glen A. Larson.

  Though not many present-day fans have seen the original Battlestar Galactica, the basic story will be familiar to anyone who saw (or absorbed by osmosis) the more recent twenty-first-century remake by SyFy—after a lengthy battle with the Cylons, the ragtag survivors of humanity flee the Twelve Colonies of Mankind in a massive warship, the “battlestar” Galactica. They journey through space searching for a long-lost thirteenth colony while being relentlessly pursued by the Cylons at every turn. Unlike in the SyFy remake, throughout which the Cylons’ human appearances proved a major plot element, the original Cylons were metallic, humanoid robots—their sleek, bulky exteriors and awkwardly heavy strides not unlike the stormtroopers of Star Wars.

  With a 148-minute run time and a $7 million budget, the pilot’s production values rivaled that of a feature film. Narratively and visually, the show’s early episodes delivered similar pleasures to that of Star Wars—and therein lay the problem, as some viewers believed them to be too similar. This camp included George Lucas and 20th Century Fox, who together launched a lawsuit against Universal, months before the show even premiered, based on the courtesy script Universal provided (provocatively titled Galactica: Saga of a Star World).

  In its lawsuit, Fox pointed to “34 similarities” between the two properties. Some are eye-rollingly broad, seeming to implicate dozens—if not hundreds—of works in the science fiction genre, particularly in the decades since Star Wars cast its long shadow. Consider “The central conflict of each story is a war between the galaxy’s democratic and totalitarian forces” or “The heroine is imprisoned by the totalitarian forces.” Others are a little more specific, and perhaps damning: “Space vehicles, although futuristic, are made to look used and old, contrary to the stereotypical sleek, new appearance of space age equipment” or “There is a scene in a cantina (Star Wars) or casino (Battlestar), in which musical entertainment is offered by bizarre, non-human creatures.” (Though, to be fair, fans of the French comic series Valérian might argue that the cantina scene wasn’t original to Star Wars, either—see this page.)

  Ralph McQuarrie designed concepts for the human fighter spacecraft Vipers, the Cylon Raiders and Basestar, and the Battlestar Galactica itself. The Galactica housed a fleet of about 150 Vipers.

  Key characters also bore some resemblance to each other. Starbuck, a male character in the 1978 version, is a fighter pilot whose masculine charm and swagger rival that of Han Solo’s. His more straitlaced friend, the handsome young Captain Apollo, carries a heavy family legacy as the son of military legend Commander Adama; his mother was tragically killed by Cylons. In earlier drafts of the script, Captain Apollo was named Skyler, telegraphing his connection to Luke Skywalker a bit too strongly.

  But the resemblance that most strongly struck the average viewer were the visuals. “There’s no escaping how much the original version of Battlestar Galactica looks like Star Wars,” essayist and genre critic Ryan Britt writes for Tor.com. “From the red stripe painted on the fuselage of the Vipers, to the rag-tag worn-out look of the spaceships, to the feathery haircuts of Starbuck and Apollo, a small child or elderly parent in 1978 could have easily squinted at the television and believed this was Star Wars: The TV Show.” It turns out there was a very good reason for these visual similarities. Two key creators lent their considerable talents to both projects, in fact going directly from the set of Star Wars to working for Glen Larson on Battlestar Galactica. Those artists were Ralph McQuarrie and John Dykstra.

  Ralph McQuarrie, of course, was the concept artist who created many of the most iconic characters and landscapes in the entire Star Wars saga (see this page); his paintings, drawings, and sketches continue to massively influence the franchise. John Dykstra is a lighting and special effects virtuoso whose company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) used a new motion-controlled camera that enabled some of Star Wars’s most groundbreaking special effects. For their work on Star Wars, Dykstra’s team won Academy Awards for best special effects and special technical achievement.

  Despite the accolades Dykstra would receive, George Lucas wasn’t entirely happy with his work, and ended the contract early—perhaps making Dykstra’s move to Battlestar Galactica all the more contentious. With his new company Apogee (which included several employees from ILM), Dykstra created the visuals and special effects for the Battlestar Galactica pilot, which continued to be used throughout the series.

  For his part, McQuarrie developed concept art and paintings for Battlestar Galactica that would set the look of the series—including the Galactica, the Cylon ships, and the vaguely Stormtrooper-esque Cylons themselves.

  When the Battlestar Galactica pilot finally aired, the lawsuit was still ongoing. It had also grown more complex, since Universal had promptly countersued Fox, claiming that Fox had in fact stolen Star Wars from them, by plagiarizing a Buck Rogers serial from 1939 as well as Silent Running (1972).

  As the lengthy pilot premiered, lines were drawn among viewers and fans: Was Battlestar a rip-off? SF master Isaac Asimov said yes: “Battlestar Galactica was Star Wars all over again,” he wrote in a syndicated newspaper column in September 1978. “I couldn’t enjoy it without amnesia.” The ever-obstreperous Harlan Ellison was also #TeamRipOff, saddling the show’s creator Glen Larson with the nickname “Glen Larceny.” Others found the comparisons superficial, especially as the show progressed, giving it more opportunity to flesh out its characters and expand its plot lines, inevitably treading new territory.

  McQuarrie provided early artwork and concepting for the metal-attired Cylon centurions, rudely nicknamed “toasters” in the 21st century remake.

  The lawsuit was thrown out in 1980 (by a court that also found the resemblances superficial)—then appealed. Universal eventually settled with Fox for $225,000.

  Battlestar Galactica itself only ran for a single season—outlived at the time by the lawsuit that followed it. While initially its ratings were strong, they dropped over the season, leading to its early cancellation. After a massive fan outcry—including a suicide—the show retu
rned briefly as Galactica 1980. This iteration lacked most of the original cast, and was not good.

  In 2003, the franchise returned on SyFy, first as a three-hour miniseries and then as a series that ran from 2004–2009, produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. (Plus a handful of spin-offs such as The Plan (2009) and Caprica (2010–2011).) This grittier, sexier reboot staked out a territory far removed from its “Space Western” beginnings; now, comparisons to Star Wars would seem absurd. Yet both properties remain a lasting testament to the conceptual artistry of Ralph McQuarrie, who created the iconic visuals that so thoroughly define each story. *

  “The Spice Must Flow”: Iterations of Dune

  In Frank Pavich’s award-winning documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), the famed director himself relays an odd and hilarious story about David Carradine, the actor tapped to play Duke Leto (a lead character). Alejandro Jodorowsky (b. 1929) invited Carradine to meet him in his hotel room. When Carradine walked in, he saw a jumbo-sized jar of vitamin E, which Jodorowsky had purchased “to take one pill every day, in order to have the strength.” As soon as Carradine crossed the threshold and laid his eyes on this delightful prize, he exclaimed, “Oh, vitamin E!” . . . and proceeded to swallow the entire bottle. Here, Jodorowsky does an impression of Carradine’s insatiable vitamin E–gobbling: head tossed back, the imaginary jar pouring its contents straight into his gargling throat. “It was like a monstrosity!” Jodorowsky concludes.

  Harkonnen’s Flagship, concept art by Chris Foss for Jodorowsky’s Dune.

  This bizarre, unrestrained act signified to Jodorowsky that Carradine could pull off the ambitious role, and he told him, “You are the person I am searching for.”

  Jodorowsky is a charismatic, charming figure, and this story, like many of his recollections, is relayed with a fierce vitality that makes it quite enjoyable to watch. It’s very funny. But as he moves on to other topics, some practical questions remain—who in the world, no matter how eccentric, would swallow a hundred vitamin E pills in one sitting? Wouldn’t Carradine need a bit of beverage to wash them down? Did he . . . chew them? How long did this take? What were Jodorowsky and colleagues doing as the situation unfolded?

  But no further explanations are forthcoming. This is the story; it is what it is. And this is the spirit in which it’s best to encounter the documentary as a whole, and the larger-than-life legend of the greatest movie never made. It’s a rousing vision, and a fantastic story. Would it have been an equally fantastic film? We’ll never really know.

  In the early 1970s, Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky was making major waves in art house and indie film circles. His psychedelic western El Topo (1971) was an early cult film, some say the first “midnight movie.” El Topo was followed by Jodorowsky’s surrealist fantasy film The Holy Mountain (1973), which the New York Times called “dazzling, rambling, often incoherent satire on consumerism, militarism, and exploitation.” So it makes sense that he was tapped to direct the film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965), a groundbreaking novel to which many of the above descriptions apply. Dune (the novel) is a massive epic of the far future, where the corrupt, decadent villains of the galaxy execute complex political maneuvers in order to control the backwater planet Arrakis (colloquially called Dune). Though a barren and hostile place, Dune is home to an extremely rare element called “spice,” an addictive substance and energy source that’s essential to the function of the entire galactic order—essentially, what fossil fuels were to civilization in the 1970s, combined with a tinge of LSD.

  Writing for the Guardian in 2015, novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru said, “Every fantasy reflects the place and time that produced it. . . . Dune is the paradigmatic fantasy of the Age of Aquarius. Its concerns—environmental stress, human potential, altered states of consciousness, and the developing countries’ revolution against imperialism—are blended together into an era-defining vision of personal and cosmic transformation.” Fueled by this timely vision, Dune became one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. It won the Hugo and the Nebula (the genre’s biggest awards). As of 2003, it had sold twelve million copies.

  A galaxy-spanning epic . . . a worldwide phenomenon . . . Dune was the perfect target for Jodorowsky’s almost limitless vision and ambition. In a 1985 essay on the subject, Jodorowsky wrote, “There is an artist, only one in the medium of a million other artists, which only once in his life, by a species of divine grace, receives an immortal topic, a MYTH.” For him, Dune was that once-in-a-lifetime project. “I had received a version of Dune and I wanted to transmit it,” he writes. “The Myth was to give up the literary form and to become Image . . .”

  Terming it “easily the geekiest and most obsessive documentary I saw all year,” Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty declared Jodorowsky’s Dune one of the ten best movies of 2014.

  In Pavich’s documentary, Jodorowsky articulates similar thoughts: “For Dune, I wanted to create a prophet. Dune will be the coming of a God.”

  For such a visionary project, there could be no ordinary cast and crew. Jodorowsky began assembling a team of “spiritual warriors,” each individual painstakingly selected and tirelessly persuaded. Jodorowsky understood exactly the talents he required, and there could be no substitutions, no alternates.

  In this way he assembled a truly remarkable creative team: legendary concept artists Jean Giraud (who went by Moebius for his sci-fi work), H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, and artist/writer Dan O’Bannon, all of whom later did outstanding, genre-defining work on Ridley Scott’s Alien. Jodorowsky asked each of these three very different artists to work individually on specific aspects of the set design. This smart move ensured unique aesthetics for galactic actors separated by gulfs of space and time. The Swiss surrealist H. R. Giger, for instance, created the look and feel of the degenerate, depraved world of House Harkonnen, poisoned by their own greed and perversion.

  Jodorowsky also recruited Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Orson Welles as actors. His own twelve-year-old son Brontis trained in fighting techniques for six hours a day for two years straight, in preparation for the lead role of young Paul Atreides. Together with avant-garde band Magma, Pink Floyd would create the soundtrack—a work that could have become an unforgettable SF classic in its own right.

  Much of Pavich’s documentary is devoted to Jodorowsky describing the bold strategies employed to convert these figures to his cause—and enumerating the various coincidences and serendipities that brought them together. Orson Welles, a legendary foodie, refused his pleas to play Baron Harkonnen until Jodorowsky promised to hire his favorite chef to cook for him every day on set. Salvador Dali invited Jodorowsky to join him at a table filled with Dali’s friends and admirers, then posed a surreal riddle, claiming that he’s often discovered clocks in the sand—has Jodorowsky ever found one? Jodorowsky is momentarily stumped, wanting to seem neither too bereft of clocks nor too boastful, until he hits on the perfect answer . . . he’s never found a clock, but he’s lost plenty. Dali is impressed and agrees to play the emperor. And so on.

  Leading his design team with messianic fervor, Jodorowsky would give them a speech each morning: “You are on a mission to save humanity.” As the documentary makes clear, his passion for the project inspired and motivated them, eliciting their very best work. “It was a phenomenally creative period,” said Chris Foss in Skeleton Crew magazine. “Goaded by the guru-like Alejandro, I produced some of my most original work. We were literally a gang of three working under the master to create a multi-million-dollar movie.”

  For two years the team worked on sketches, scripts, concept art. Moebius storyboarded out the entire film with Jodorowsky’s direction. All those materials now form a massive—as in unbelievably gigantic—book; allegedly only two of these books exist. We get a glimpse of this book in the documentary, rifling through the pages. Its rarity feels like a bit of a waste. Though it would no doubt cost a fortune to reproduce, it would make a hell of a coffee table book.

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bsp; Everything was ready to begin filming, but it was not to be. By 1976, Jodorowsky had already spent $2 million in preproduction, and the film as imagined would need a great deal more funding to realize the vision. Not to mention it was intended to be a fourteen-hour-long experience akin to an acid trip. The film’s financial backers got cold feet and pulled the funding, and just like that, the project was over. It was a devastating blow.

  A few years later, the rights were acquired by Dino De Laurentiis. De Laurentiis first hired Ridley Scott—who’d recently directed Alien, working with some of the key creative talents involved in Jodorowsky’s Dune. But a family tragedy compelled Scott to exit the project. Next De Laurentiis recruited David Lynch, still a relatively young and inexperienced director.

  HR Giger: Dune V, 1976, 70 × 100 cm, acrylic on paper. Courtesy of the HR Giger Museum, Gruyeres, Switzerland.

  Lynch’s version of Dune is still plenty bonkers. It stars his frequent muse Kyle MacLachlan and the musician Sting. The band Toto took a break from blessing the rains down in Africa to create the soundtrack.

  The film is undeniably awful—a fact that cheered the heartbroken Jodorowsky immensely. (As an admirer of Lynch, a kindred creative spirit, Jodorowsky blamed not the director but the short-sighted producers who’d done them both wrong.) Lynch’s Dune cost $45 million to make and only grossed $31 million, a financial disaster. A TV adaptation called Frank Herbert’s Dune premiered on Syfy December 3, 2000; the three-part miniseries was one of the channel’s highest-rated programs and won Emmys for cinematography and visual effects. Writing for Tor.com, Emily Asher-Perrin pronounced it “the Most Okay Adaptation of the Book to Date,” which is, well, something.