Battlestar Galactica’s Adama Maneuver Turns 20

To free the humans living under Cylon occupation, Admiral William Adama (Edward James Olmos) jumps the Battlestar Galactica directly into New Caprica’s atmosphere. The warship plunges toward the settlement, launches its Viper fighters and jumps back into space moments before it would have crashed, likely obliterating the planet.

Two decades later, the scene from Battlestar Galactica season 3’s “Exodus, Part 2” remains a dazzling and horrifying piece of science-fiction television. The “Adama Maneuver” is also a wildly risky tactic, even by the standards of Vice-Admiral Holdo. The ship could have torn apart in the atmosphere, or its FTL drive could have failed to activate in time. Yet the episode still has an even more impressive spectacle to come.

Minutes later, with Galactica damaged and surrounded by enemy ships, Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber) arrives aboard Pegasus. He buys his father time to escape, evacuates his crew and turns the most advanced remaining warship in humanity’s fleet into a battering ram. Pegasus tears through one Cylon basestar and explodes, sending a burning flight pod into another. Its destruction delivers the decisive blow in the battle to liberate New Caprica.

In one extended sequence, “Exodus, Part 2” ends a frustrating period in the story, reunites the scattered cast and restores the series’ core premise: one battered battlestar protecting the remnants of humanity as they search for Earth. The characters cannot recover from their trauma so easily. Neither, perhaps, could the visual-effects artists who had to destroy Pegasus.

The ship had already played a central role in the earlier “Pegasus” episode, which turned an apparent miracle into a nightmare.

The Adama Maneuver was only the beginning

“Exodus” was originally conceived as one episode, written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle and directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá. The rescue of New Caprica eventually grew too large for a single hour.

Alongside the occupation and the resistance’s ground operations, the story included Sharon Agathon’s (Grace Park) infiltration of the Cylon compound, Kara Thrace’s (Katee Sackhoff) imprisonment by Leoben Conoy (Callum Keith Rennie), and Ellen Tigh’s (Kate Vernon) betrayal, which led to her being poisoned rather than handed over for execution. Most of those events took place in the first part of “Exodus.”

Moore discussed the production in a series of podcast episodes released alongside the show. He said splitting “Exodus” in two helped the production absorb the considerable cost of the New Caprica storyline. The opening of season 3 needed new sets, location shooting, large numbers of extras and far more visual effects than an ordinary episode. Making “Exodus” a two-parter, comprising episodes 3 and 4 of the season, allowed the producers to spread that expensive infrastructure across another hour.

Part 1 builds the tension. Sharon retrieves the launch keys for the civilian ships, and the resistance prepares to rise up. Adama orders Lee to protect the civilian fleet and continue the search for Earth if Galactica does not return within 18 hours. Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco) discovers that Ellen betrayed the resistance to save her husband, Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan).

In Part 2, Saul poisons Ellen rather than surrender her to the resistance for execution. The uprising begins, Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) retakes Colonial One, and Anders rescues Kara from Leoben’s apartment. The civilian ships start to launch. Then Galactica falls out of the sky.

Watching the sequence during his podcast commentary, Moore remarked that the episode had better win the Emmy for visual effects. Less than a year later, it did. “Exodus, Part 2” won the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series and the Visual Effects Society award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series. It also received Emmy nominations for direction and sound editing.

Why Battlestar Galactica had to destroy its best ship

After Galactica jumps out of New Caprica’s atmosphere, Adama finds four Cylon basestars waiting. The ship has already been damaged by its free fall and has little chance of survival. Facing what seems like certain death, Adama quietly tells his crew that it has been an honor to serve with them.

Lee disobeys a direct order and jumps Pegasus in to help. The ship immediately destroys one basestar and draws enough fire for Galactica to escape. Lee orders his crew to abandon ship, sets its weapons to fire automatically and pauses on the empty bridge to give his command one final “Thank you.” He and the remaining crew set Pegasus on a collision course with the enemy ships.

Destroying Pegasus had always been part of the general plan for the New Caprica storyline, although the circumstances changed across drafts. The creative team also considered destroying Galactica and moving the military crew onto the newer, better Pegasus. That would have meant abandoning the series’ title.

There were practical concerns, too. The Pegasus sets occupied valuable studio space, and maintaining two capital ships forced the production to divide personnel and background performers between separate locations. The creative team also wanted to build new Cylon basestar interiors for later stories, but there was not enough room for everything.

The visual-effects team had grown attached to the ship. When the artists learned it was scheduled for destruction, they hung a large “SAVE THE PEGASUS” banner outside their workspace, directly across from Moore’s office. “It was very funny and it was really endearing,” Moore said, “but we destroyed the Pegasus anyway — so goodbye, Peggy.”

The destruction became an enormous undertaking for Atmosphere Visual Effects. Lead compositor Brenda Campbell later recalled that the climactic sequence contained roughly 250 to 300 elements in each compositing flow, across approximately 10 shots. Ships, explosions, weapons fire and debris interacted so extensively that much of the work could not be simplified through pre-compositing. Campbell had about a week and a half to finish it.

Some battle shots also featured hundreds of individually animated Cylon Raiders that had not appeared in the original previsualization. The artists added camera movement, flares and an unusually heavy layer of grain to help the digital effects match the show’s handheld, documentary-inspired photography.

The collision destroys one basestar outright. A burning flight pod then breaks away from Pegasus, spins through the battle and strikes another. Humanity loses Pegasus, but the ship takes out three Cylon basestars in the battle.

“Exodus” restores the show’s original structure after four episodes grounded on New Caprica. Battlestar Galactica returns to its “scrappy military ship on the run” format, but its characters carry more trauma than before. The occupation is over, and the damage it caused has barely begun to reveal itself.

The episode delivers the catharsis its story demands without suggesting that liberation can erase what happened. The heroes escape, but they cannot return to who they were before New Caprica. Humanity is free again, but the fleet has sacrificed its most powerful warship.

Twenty years later, it is easy to understand why the visual-effects artists wanted to save “Peggy,” and why the writers decided they could not. The Adama Maneuver may be the better-remembered image, but the destruction of Pegasus gives “Exodus” its emotional climax.

Battlestar Galactica is available to stream for free on Pluto TV.

 

Source: Polygon