Battlestar Galactica’s Best Actor Made A $200,000 Mistake On Set
Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica remake was a show that was all about planning. Not only did the showrunner have major plans (more or less) for his modern sci-fi mythology from the beginning, but characters like Commander Adama had to constantly plot and plan to stay one step ahead of the nefarious Cylons.
As it turns out, though, Adama actor Edward James Olmos isn’t that much of a planner in real life, and he often makes spontaneous decisions to bring his onscreen characters to life. Unfortunately, this led to a costly Battlestar Galactica mistake during the episode “Maelstrom” in which the actor accidentally destroyed a $200,000 model.
Adama Gets Angry
For the tale of this insanely expensive Battlestar Galactica mistake to make much sense, you’re going to need some important context. “Maelstrom” prominently features Commander Adama’s detailed model of an ancient sailing ship in his quarters, but this is more of a Starbuck episode…at least, until the heartbreaking moment when this fan-favorite character apparently dies (don’t worry, she gets better…sort of). Starbuck was basically the daughter that Adama never had, and the episode ends with a grief-stricken Adama absolutely destroying the model ship before breaking down into uncontrollable tears.
This is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful moments in Battlestar Galactica history. It’s also a scene that contains the show’s most expensive mistake. In 2012, Edward James Olmos revealed a secret to attendees of Planet Comicon: namely, that he completely improvised that scene. Simply put, Adama destroying his model ship (not unlike Captain Picard destroying his model ships in First Contact) was never in the script and the actor decided to go for it in the moment.
For Olmos, this kind of killer improv was just another day at the office, and considering how great the scene turned out, it’s obvious the actor’s instincts regarding this scene were pitch-perfect. And as far as he knew, the model ship he was destroying was something made by the production staff, so it was no big deal if he destroyed it as surely as if Roslin had ejected it out of the airlock. What the actor didn’t know at the time, though, was that the show had rented this model out from a museum, and it was worth a cool $200,000.
This expensive Battlestar Galactica mistake is more understandable when you consider that most of the time, the show was using its own cheap replicas rather than the real model. With that being said, Olmos didn’t really sound that remorseful when recounting this tale for convention attendees. According to the actor, his response to news that he had destroyed the one-of-a-kind (and wildly expensive) model was, “What did you put it in the scene for? I’ve just been told my [character’s] daughter is dead, what did you expect?'”
There is a certain logic to his response! The producers might have seen this as an expensive Battlestar Galactica mistake, but Olmos saw it as an opportunity to create an unforgettable moment for his character. It wasn’t the first time the actor delivered a killer bit of improvisation and it most certainly wasn’t the last. Or, as the Cylons might put it, all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
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