OK, so this was a pretty cool birthday as far as birthdays go. Almost by accident TheWife stumbled upon an ad in Backstage West for something called "Battlestar Galactica All Access Event". Well, we're both huge fans of the incredibly well written show so we were definitely interested in checking it out since, the ad explained, there would be stars from the show there to answer questions and the two main producers of the show, Ron Moore and David Eick. So, as a fan and a professional, I was gung-ho to go. They were also going to run some sort of footage on the big screen. The only catch was that just the first 500 would be allowed in. This made me uneasy. Great, I get to sit in a line and possibly not even get in on my birthday. While I used to be fine with being a rabid fanboy, standing in lines for hours (4.5 just to get Phantom Menace tickets and another 8 to get in the night of), maybe it's my birthday or maybe "fandom" has grown tiresome. In short, I almost didn't make the trip into Hollywood. On a literal whim today at around 2pm I thought to myself "Well, it's either Paprika, the new anime film from Satoshi Kon (director of Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers) or possibly a wasted afternoon/evening in H'wood OR possibly a blast seeing actors and producers I respect and some BSG on the big screen. Screw it, let's take a bus ride!" I hope I'm not the only person who refers to himself as a separate person... Anyway, so I make the trek and get there around 3:30pm to see probably only 80 or 90 people in line. Or it could have been close to 200--I'm terrible at estimating--all that matters is that it was nothing like 500, so I decided that I'd get in. I snapped a quick pic on my phone (see above) and thought about pulling out my laptop to start work on a screenplay I was supposed to start on June 1 (see: ScriptFrenzy.org). However, there are these fountains at the Dome now that spritz water on you when the wind blows and didn't want to subject my new lappie to such moist torture. So, I stood around and hoped that TheWife would join me soon. Before she did, the folks sponsoring the screening (the SciFi channel, I believe) had this dude who was trying to get the crowd fired up. He held a little trivia contest and gave the winners all T-shirts. Of course, this was kind of a waste of time since: 1) We all got free the same T-shirts just for showing up. 2) We're Battlestar Galactica fans, not Trekkies. Trivia? Contests? Free prizes? We like good story, character and drama. I knew this judgment was accurate when I saw the very lukewarm response from the crowd (certainly lukewarm compared to the responses I remember before my retirement from Trekkie-dom). Still, I do like my free T-shirt--it says in tiny, red print on the front "Frak Off". BSG fans will get what that means. So, then we go in, watch the season 3 finale on the big screen (which was pretty cool) and then got to see Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck), Jamie Bamber (Apollo), Mary McDonnell (Roslin), Edward "Eddie" James Olmos (Adama), David Eick (exec producer), Ron Moore (exec-producer/writer), and Lucy Lawless (one of the cylons) talk about the show and answer questions. They did run a preview of the new mini-series/2 hour special (not sure what it is) Battlestar Galactica: Razor which will air in November. The Q&A was brilliant--they're all smart, sharp actors and of course, Ron Moore talking is enough for me to want to listen. The guy wrote some of the best eps of Next Gen and his stuff is even more brilliant on BSG. The clip was a bit of a let down as it wasn't for the new season of BSG--after the season 3 cliffhanger, I want to know what's going to happen in the new season, damn it! Still, it was a great and special evening for my birthday and I felt lucky to have known about the event at all, let alone have gotten into it. I think the show is really great, in case you hadn't noticed. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend Netflixing the DVDs and get watching. I've got most of the series on my iPod and when I've got nothing else to do or watch, I'll put on an ep. Oh and James Callis (who wasn't there but plays Baltar) makes me want to be an actor soooo bad. He's enough to make me want to fool myself into thinking I have some talent in that arena... :) I took some other pics at the event and will post them in the next day or two.Orignal From: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA EVENT AT THE CINERAMA DOME
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