God really? Is there a rule that they need to remake this series every 20+ years
I was disappointed that Blood and Chrome and Caprica didn't continue on. Absolutely loved BSG.
There's actually a "formula"
If someone saw Ron Moore's BSG and they were 17 years old, 20 years later, they are 37. That age range is a highly coveted demographic for marketing, advertising, merchandising, etc, etc.
From a pure numbers standpoint, technically speaking, and this might incite some Indy fans, the profit potential for Indiana Jones would be seen as wasted by today's metrics. The core trilogy happened in an 8 year block. Given Harrison Ford's career demand at the time ( lots of films wanted him as their lead, he was a legitimate A list movie star then), that's still very productive. The later gaps of 9 years and 15 years are bridged too far apart to maximize the IP. I'm talking bean counters and actuaries here, not actual film making and story telling.
It's also why the MCU is force feeding a back door pilot for something else in each new film and each new TV show. Star Wars is doing the same.
The first 20 episodes of BSG under Moore were truly ground breaking. The rest had very good production quality, far above it's budgetary punching weight, but the writing nosedived badly.
Here were, IMHO, the core problems of Moore's BSG
1) Moore studied politics in college. He actually wanted to make a show about politics. All young writers then were completely captured by The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin is a generational level writer. It is extremely hard to make a full time show about politics. One that's marketable. Most writers aren't that talented. Moore, for all his success, is a solid writer, but he's not that good. Caprica was a show created on the cache and success of BSG. As a concept though it was completely non marketable. All Moore's shows are very political at some level. Outlander a bit less if only because there's historical elements and fantasy in play. For All Mankind is jammed packed with Moore's political "values and ethics" force-fed into it.
2) Moore had no desire to cover action, combat and practical warfare. Which is fine if he was making another kind of show, but this one was about the human race being hunted down by Cylons. This is why we got rigged elections, press conferences, a coup, a big trial, long politically charged monologues, etc, etc. He began to make a show that he found interesting, but it was functionally edging into a non marketable concept.
3) Moore was reactionary and contrarian to a fault. If someone did it one way, he was going to do it the exact opposite, even if it didn't fit or didn't work. If someone said the Pegasus had to be written off fast, he'd do the opposite without consideration if it fit into the story.
4) Moore violated his own show bible. Mary McDonnell was told early on that the role would not last very long. Then because Moore knew she would struggle to find more work as roles for aging actresses is not exactly bountiful, he created some bizarre retcon deus ex machina to keep her alive. I'm a bit sympathetic here because Moore was known as a good boss and very considerate in how difficult it was for anyone to make a living in the industry. But it made the situation more difficult.
I personally love the first third of Moore's BSG, very much so. The rest is much harder to handle. It's like loving something, but knowing it will end in a car wreck pile up anyway.
The tanking ratings of BSG and the failure of Caprica pretty much doomed Blood And Chrome. Also the pathway towards good SFX was much more expensive and complicated back then. To be totally fair to Moore, he was operating under all kinds of limitations. The massive cost of SFX and the time needed for it was punitive enough to where entire seasons needed to be built around one or two major actions scenes. Also the thin budget prevented showing the rest of the fleet and communities there, which were key storylines for the original series. The complication of Sackhoff's contract was also a PITA moment for the show. It probably didn't help that Olmos is a known activist in real life and demanded certain kind of storylines be infused into the series. From an industry standpoint, lots of people took Moore's goodwill, inexperience and easy going nature and basically bullied him. It hurt the show.
Esmail is likely interested as the core concept is very fertile ground for contemporary social/cultural/political issues of our time. Given what I'd gleaned from Mr. Robot, this version of BSG will likely be a referendum on the real life pandemic. Also probably a soft retelling of the carnage that came from Emmy Rossum. Esmail simply has a wider range of options than Moore did to tell this story. Also the potential here is pretty much unlimited. You can simply get away with more hard edge material under the guise of Sci Fi themes. ( Hence why Rod Serling could only talk about complex human behavior/social issues under the umbrella of The Twilight Zone, where the tough questions asked could be casually dismissed as ironic fantasy instead of real in your face social criticism)
