Planet Starbuck

Early in 1980, a small television crew went to Red Rock Canyon State Park to film what would be the last episode of the short-lived series "Galactica 1980."  This episode, entitled "The Return of Starbuck" featured Dirk Benedict in a reprise of his role, Lieutenant Starbuck, from the earlier science fiction program "Battlestar Galactica."   

The show aired in May 1980, became a fan favorite, and is considered to be the best hour of the entire run of "Galactica 1980."   

All but a few minutes of the program were filmed on location, at the Scenic Cliffs, a part of Red Rock Canyon State Park that is now preserved as a hatching area for birds of prey.   The canyon setting posed as a lonely asteroid, where Dirk Benedict's character was stranded, and which was appropriately named Planet Starbuck in the show.  

On October 7, 2006 my wife Janet and I drove out to Red Rock Canyon and after some searching were able to locate the site, on a dirt road with restricted access.

Below are some pictures from that trip, and some screen caps from the episode to compare the area then and now.

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First off, here's a shot from the episode of Starbuck atop of some rocks, surveying the area.

This is the rock wall behind him.. taken in October 2006.  Dirk Benedict was sitting on a mound of rocks immediately behind the camera in the below shot.

 

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Here's the view from out of the door of the structure that Starbuck built out of rocks and recycled parts from the crashed ships.

 

Here's a same view of the same rocks, from a bit farther back, in October 2006.

Now compare the above shot, with this wider angle from the end of the episode.   

You can see that it was a different season that the episode was filmed in, winter as opposed to early autumn, as is evidenced by the comparative lack of vegetation.

The above shot shows is a bit blurry, but you can see the crashed Cylon ship at the top left, Starbuck's shelter to the right of that, Starbuck cradling Cy in the bottom left and the three felled Centurions lying to the right of them. 

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Here's one of the reverse angles.  Below:  Late in the episode, Cy confronts a patrol of Cylon centurions that have come searching for him and his crew.

 

The same area in October 2006.   The rock formation on the left is the most identifiable feature.   If you watch the episode carefully, you can determine that Cy is standing right next to the shelter which is out of shot.   Having visited the site, it is interesting to note how much of the show could have been filmed with very little movement of the camera.   

In the screen capture below, you can see roughly the same angle was used at the start of the episode to establish where Starbuck's Viper originally crashed.   Again, you need to match things up with the rock formation on the far left.  Although the episode suggests the two crash sites were far apart (there is a sequence depicting the passage of time as Starbuck explores the asteroid) in fact the locations of the shelter and the Viper crash site were less than 60 feet from each other.

 

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Links

http://www.blast.net/hart/ReturnOfStarbuckFanReview.htm - Return of Starbuck entry on Sheba's Galaxy

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Starbuck - Return of Starbuck entry on the Battlestar Galactica wiki

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=631 - Red Rock Canyon State Park on the California State Parks site

http://www.desertusa.com/rrsp/rrsp.html - Red Rock Canyon State Park entry on Desert USA

 

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This page was last updated on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 .

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