BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (1978) Art by Ralph McQuarrie

It is well known that the late Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie contributed designs and concept paintings for Glen A. Larson's television series, Battlestar Galactica. In fact, I've posted some of his Galactica art on this blog before. But I had never seen the above piece until recently. Obviously painted long before anyone was cast or spaceship designs were finalized, it is equally obviously the inspiration for the John Solie art (pictured below) that was used to promote the series, and appeared on many products, including the soundtrack album, t-shirts, posters, etc.

While the faces are understandably different, what I find most intriguing is that in McQuarrie's original, it is the insectoid Ovions that are featured in the lower left quadrant, instead of the Cylon Centurions pictured in Solie's version. It makes me wonder if, very early in the development of Galactica (which was originally planned as a series of two-hour TV movies rather than a weekly show), the alien threat to the humans was intended to be the insects?

If - and this is pure speculation for the fun of it - Larson's original intent had been for the bug people to be the major menace, why change it? Did ABC demand Star Wars-ish robots? Or was it just that creating an army of convincing insectoids was too difficult/expensive?

The Ovions we saw in the pilot film were pretty remarkable - some of the best alien costumes I've ever seen on television - but then, they didn't really do much more than sit and stand around (and play a harp).

I know that I'm probably just reading way too much into it.... but it's fun to speculate about this sort of stuff.