These great replicas come from two different manufacturers and from two very different versions of the same show.
I've always been a fan of the original
Battlestar Galactica ever since I saw it as a kid at the cinema here in the UK, (they re-edited the TV movie pilot episode for theatrical release.) The
Galactica has always been a great ship, very much in the wake of the phenomenon of Star Wars but still original and distinctive.
The original ships are from Japanese manufacturer
Konami and are made of plastic. The level of detail on these models is exceptional and far superior to the die-cast Hasbro titanium ships.
Konami released 3
Battlestars,
Galactica, Pegasus and
Atlantia. My mate
Glazy managed to get me these from Forbidden Planet in
Middlesbrough, at the time I only wanted the Pegasus and
Galactica and didn't pick up the
Atlantia even though
Glazy had managed to reserve me one. Whenever I've denied the little voice inside me shouting 'buy it' I always end up regretting it later. I don't plan on ever selling any of these but they have increased in price quite considerably, enough to push any
Atlantias out of my price range.
All of these ships are about 4 inches long. The new
Galactica from Hasbro had its stand hole positioned too far back, it meant that the front dipped down when displayed making it look like it was heading into a nose-dive. This picture shows how it should appear with the stand set back, in reality my ship was never this level so I decided to do some alterations!
Using the two screws on the underside I opened up the model. I carefully drilled a new hole closer to the middle of the ship. I then used the plastic housing from the original hole and slotted that into the new hole. You can see the new hole in this picture below, its close to the lettering. The original hole can be see towards the back of the ship, close to the rear screw. Its not the most pretty of modifications but it does the job very well. My
Battlestar now
flys in a straight line!
It's
interesting to have these four displayed together and compare their designs and detailing. The
Konami wins hands down for detail but the Hasbro models are die-cast and have more weight to them. Overall the level of detail and finish is good on the
Hasbros too but its only
when I got close in with my camera set to macro that I could appreciate just how much detail is on the
Konami models. I wonder how much of the detail comes down to the source material? Obviously the
original series used large practical models with massive detailing built up from kit parts. The new series relies on CG models which may or may not have as much detail as the classic series, my instinct say they probably don't.
I always love a good sister-ship! Design
variants within a fleet are always enjoyable and the Pegasus is no exception. Its not my favourite design to be honest, its a bit too
clunky and
symmetrical for my liking but its fun to see the two ships together.
Read a review of Hasbro's BSG replicas
here.
The model was built at the BBC in the early 80's by, amongst others, Ron Thornton of Foundation Imaging fame. After working at the Beeb Ron went on to pioneer computer generated spaceships in Babylon 5 and Star Trek Voyager.
The detailed model suffered from some rushed lighting & camera work, poor compositing and very grainy footage. I'm sure if these models were placed side by side with feature film models of the same time they would compare quite favourably
The prop only last for one season, its brief on-screen career was ended when it crashed into the forests of Guada Prime. There are one or two scratch builds around the world but if anyone has made a small replica I am not aware of it.
