College Humor has posted a new video that uses the four seasons of the new Battlestar Galactica as a framework for a 16-bit RPG.  The clip has fun with a few of the sticking points of the show: Baltar’s questionable decision-making, the reliance on political debates due to a basic cable budget, and especially the writers’ willingess to forget plotlines.  But they kid because they love.  This was clearly the work of devoted fans, and the result is wicked funny.  Heck, it’s worth watching for the 16-bit version of Bear McCreary’s score alone.  Check it out after the jump.

Screenwriter John Orloff (Anonymous) has been hired to write the screenplay for Bryan Singer’s new adaptation of Battlestar Galactica.  The new adaptation won’t have anything to do with the excellent TV reboot, so it will be a new take on mediocre 1970s TV series.  Both series focused on a war between men and sentient machines, but thematically and narratively they went in vastly different directions.  There are currently no details on what Singer plans to do with his movie.  The 2003 series took the premise of the original series and transformed it into a political drama with a mystical storyline woven in to the overarching plot.  Orloff has a diverse screenwriting background—his credits also include A Mighty Heart (good!) and Legend of the Guardians (not good!)—so there’s no clear indication of what he might bring to the script.

It’s tough for me to give this new Battlestar the benefit of the doubt since Singer and now Orloff have chosen to put themselves in the shadow of the recent TV series rather than create a new outer-space adventure movie from scratch. [THR]

Because folks apparently can’t get enough of Arthurian legend (aside from the tanking of King Arthur and other sword-and-sorcery flicks), Warner Bros. was previously developing two movies set in the sub-genre.  There was Bryan Singer’s Excalibur and Guy Ritchie’s Excalibur, but then WB killed both projects in favor of David Dobkin’s Arthur & Lancelot, which is due to start filming in January for a March 15, 2013 release.  However, Bryan Singer isn’t too broken up about the loss of his Excalibur.  He has plenty of other projects in the pipeline and he says the death of Excalibur has allowed him to turn his attention to the feature film adaptation of Battlestar Galactica.

Hit the jump for what Singer had to say about why his Excalibur died and how he’ll be moving on to Battlestar Galactica.  Singer’s next film, Jack the Giant Killer (a blockbuster adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk), is set to open in 3D on June 15, 2012.

Today’s your lucky day, Battlestar Galactica fans. For those of you who want to take your fandom to the next level, or have the desire to simultaneously express your love for Battlestar Galactica and quench your thirst, we’ve got just the thing for you. A Top Gun stein from the beloved Syfy series exists, and it’s set to be available for your drinking pleasure before the end of the year. To learn more, and to see some images of the beverage holder, hit the jump.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, especially if the first man is a finished movie or TV production and the other man is an eBay memorabilia business.  Fans of Battlestar Galactica, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Stargate SG-1, and other geek properties may want to get their wallets out to buy some movie memorabilia.  Sure, an Iron Man poster is nice, but wouldn’t you rather have a fake newspaper with the headline, “Who Is The Ironman?”  And while real books are all well and good, you could fill your shelves with the corner-less books from the Battlestar Pegasus.  And fellas, if you want to impress that certain special someone, you might want to pick up fake blood samples from BSG and Incredible Hulk.  She’ll be like putty in your hand when you say, “Hey, baby.  Check out all this blood I bought off eBay.”

Hit the jump to check out some of the memorabilia that’s currently up for sale.

This morning, there are two geek-friendly shirts available for purchase that you might want to buy.  First up, RIPT Apparel has “Droid Drive-In”.  Designed by Matt Wrightson, the shirt encourages you to fire up your landspeeder and head over to Beggar’s Canyon for a good time at the moving pictures/holograms.

Also for sale is the very cool “So Say We Can Do It” shirt from TeeFury.  Combining the remake of Battlestar Galactica with the famous World War II propaganda image of “We Can Do It“, this shirt designed by “Bregan1989″ would also make an awesome poster.  Hit the jump to check out both shirts, which are available to buy today only.

“What went wrong with Caprica?” is a popular refrain among sci-fi circles this holiday season. Syfy cancelled the would-be successor to Battlestar Galactica’s legacy after just one season, engaging in a hasty retooling over the hiatus before dropping the whole thing in a very ugly mess. The second half of–well, of the entire series–has been released on DVD, with five as-yet unaired episodes constituting the set’s major draw. Watching it reminds one that, while the show ultimately couldn’t measure up to BSG, it still has a number of things to recommend it. Hit the jump for my full review.

Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day is Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series on either DVD or Blu-ray for 60% off.  That makes it $80.99 (DVD) or $119.99 (Blu-ray) with free shipping.  Like all Gold Box deals, it’s only good for the rest of today.  I would have posted this sooner, but have been traveling.  Here’s the links:

• Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series DVD
• Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

After an apparent struggle finding high enough ratings, SyFy has canceled the Battlestar Galactica prequel spin-off series Caprica and yanked it from their schedule effective immediately. The remaining five episodes of the first and only season of the series will run in early 2011. Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of SyFy says, “Unfortunately, despite its obvious quality, Caprica has not been able to build the audience necessary to justify a second season.” Surely a blow to all Battlestar Galactica fans, but fortunately they still have the recently announced two-hour pilot for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome to look forward to in the future. Anyone really disappointed?

Following the hints they dropped back in March, Syfy has announced they will return to the Battlestar Galactica universe for their next possible series, Batllestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome.  Set in the tenth year of the first Cylon war, the prequel centers around hotshot rookie pilot William Adama (played by Edward James Olmos in the parent series) as he is assigned to the newest battlestar in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica.

The order is for a two hour pilot from a teleplay by Michael Taylor, one of the key voices on Battlestar after season three.  David Eick will executive produce.  The name of Ronald D. Moore, the man who developed the Battlestar re-imagining with Eick, is notably absent from the crew list.  He is likely busy with Syfy’s other Battlestar prequel Caprica.  Hit the jump for the official announcement.

While it feels like we’re always highlighting minimalist movie posters, for today’s cool poster article, we’ve got some awesome alternative Star Wars posters, as well as a line of TV show posters called “quote series” featuring The A-Team, Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and Superman 2.

What’s also great about the Star Wars posters is all the alternative designs are based on other famous movie posters.  For Star Wars they used Full Metal Jacket, The Empire Strikes Back used Goodfellas, and Return of the Jedi used American Beauty.  In addition, you can check out some retro boxing posters using Star Wars characters as contestants.

Hit the jump to check out the posters:

NBC Universal and Netflix have announced a new agreement that will have Netflix adding every episode from all 35 previous seasons of Saturday Night Live to Watch Instantly.  Not only will Netflix have all of SNL, but day-after broadcast of episodes from the upcoming 2010-2012 seasons.  Personally, I can’t wait to re-watch the sketch where Norm Macdonald plays a car crash victim whose spends most of his dying words insulting Sylvester Stallone’s filmography.

Additionally, beginning next week the last seasons of 30 Rock, The Office, Friday Night Lights, and Law & Order: SVU will be going on Watch Instantly (all prior seasons were also renewed).  The deal also puts new shows on Watch Instantly including USA Network’s Psych, Monk, In Plain Sight and SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica, Destination Truth, and Eureka.  All the shows will become available next week.  Hit the jump to read the full press release.

In case you’re still holding out and haven’t seen Syfy’s excellent Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica, you’re missing out on one of the absolute best shows on TV.  You don’t have to have seen any Battlestar to enjoy it, so don’t let its fantastic nerd pedigree scare you off.  This recap of the first half of season 1 is a good primer for what’s happened so far: basically, a teenage girl (Alessandra Torressani) dies in a terrorist bombing but her avatar is still alive in a steampunk-meets-Grand Theft Auto virtual world, and her father (Eric Stoltz) creates the Cylons while monotheistic fringe groups and James Marsters create chaos.  Caprica returns on Syfy on October 5^th at 10pm.  Watch the 5 minute recap after the jump:

A few days ago we reported FX had ordered a part-scripted/part-improvised science fiction comedy pilot called Alabama from Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant, the screenwriters and creators behind Reno 911! The synopsis was:

“Set a thousand years in the future, the show follows the crew of the space ship USS Alabama as they continue a seven-year mission to maintain interplanetary peace.”

Since the idea sounded awesome, I decided to do a little more digging and managed to land an exclusive interview with Thomas Lennon. During the interview he revealed:

• They only have an order for the pilot
• Call it “Reno 911! meets Battlestar Galactica.” In their mind it’s not really a Star Trek parody
• They’re shooting the pilot either end of September-beginning of October and they want it to feel like Das Boot.
• He said he thinks Natasha Leggero will be on it and a lot of Reno 911! regulars. He also said “I wouldn’t be surprised if the series has a few people from The State.”
• There is a major also overarching plot to the entire series and there’s two twists in the series that have sort of already been designed. Also, they know how it ends no matter how long the series goes.
• “There may be some characters on the show who are puppets. There will certainly be some characters on the show who are cyborgs. So it’s just Reno 911! with a much larger buffet of problems to choose from.”
• Regarding costumes: “No one’s ever going to be in like sort of clean like Starfleet looking stuff. The show is way more like Moss Eisley Spaceport style than like Episodes 1,2, 3.”

So much more after the jump:

Andrew Paquin put his directorial debut Open House on the market at Tribeca and spilled the shoot’s bloody details to Collider, along with two of his stars, Rachel Blanchard (Snakes On A Plane) and Brian Geraghty (fresh off The Hurt Locker‘s Oscar wins).  As the title indicates, Alice (Blanchard) opens her home to prospective buyers.  A cold-blooded killer (Geraghty) slips in and hides out until he can take her hostage and slay some houseguests with the help of his sociopathic partner, Lila (Battlestar Galactica‘s Tricia Helfer).  True Blood‘s Golden Globe winner Anna Paquin (yes, she’s Andrew’s sister) and her real-life fiancée/series co-star Stephen Moyer make extended cameos.

Hit the jump for the full interviews to hear why Paquin’s house suffered for his art, what it’s like to direct your future brother-in-law in a sex scene that did not involve the bride-to-be, how Blanchard bonded with Geraghty before she was bound by him, and what Ben Stiller told Geraghty about the Oscar-winning ride of The Hurt Locker.