Anyone know what actually went on in 1978, when Fox/Lucasfilm issued a lawsuit against Universal over Battlestar Galactica ?
Was it similarities to Star Wars that had Lucasfilm and Fox riled or John Dykstra taking effects ideas over to Universal ?
What ever it was all about seemed to go on until about 1982.
Who won out in the end?
Strangely many of the links I used to have to this story have gone dead.
I thought it a bit odd that the show centres on a ragtag fleet fleeing an evil Empire and the last two parts of the OT had a ragtag fleet fleeing an evil Empire.
It also was interesting to find the PT was largely about a war with a bunch of robots built by insectoid aliens renaying their prior treaty obligations.
So maybe Lucas had mentioned future possible story ideas to John Dykstra to prep him for any possible future projects and that is the real stink in the case.
Ralph designing might have stung a bit too.
In the end though neither side could call anything they did unique.
From what I've read over the years it pretty much boils down to Fox getting really greedy and slightly loony. Claiming intellectual copyright on spaceships flying around and shooting at each other, for example. Something Flash Gordon was doing in the '30's.
It's also telling that they apparently never went after any of the Japanese or European knockoffs...
Remind you of anyone? ;)
Fox also wanted to sue over Hardware Wars, but Lucas thankfully talked them out of it, or so the story goes.
Where were you in '77?
^ Oh yeah, The Humanoid. That is jammed full of Star Wars ideas.
Lucas never asked Dykstra back after Battlestar. Probably a bit sore over him using equipment that was created using the Star Wars budget.
The making of book seemed to indicate that there was even some feeling that, before ILM moved up north, all the Galactica people were there at the Van Nuys building and took note of early planning for Empire and that's how an ice planet ended up in Galactica.
I doubt the party atmosphere at the Van Nuys location endeared Dykstra to Lucas either. There's the old story about Lucas driving up to the warehouse with Fox bigwigs, and the whole water slide thing was going on.
Of course, there are no ice planets in any other science fiction tale. It's a wonder the Frank Herbert estate didn't sue over Tatooine and all the references to "spice". Of course, nobody knew thirty years ago Anakin was going to become Kwisatz Haderach. ;)
Where were you in '77?
Or that his boy/girl twin children would inherit his powers.