Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Imperious Leader

Found some pics online of the Imperious Leader mask from the original Battlestar Galactica show, it was a character that was always pretty hard to see, to work out what it actually looked like. There were rumours that Alien and E.T creator Carlo Rambaldi sculpted the mask but he discounted those rumours when shown the mask at an interview when he said he'd never seen it before. I had the toy, probably one of the crappest action figures ever, it looks like a lizard with an afro cut. The head itself was surrounded by a kind of wire frame, I can't remember the glowing eyes seen in the B&W pic. The Imperious Leader was actually killed in the first Battlestar Galactica film/ Mini Series when his Basestar exploded over Carillon, and was voiced by Avengers star Patrick MacNee, when the Imperious Leader next showed up in Galactica it was also voiced by MacNee.

The above design was from one of the aborted attempts to bring Galactica back to the screen in the late 90's early 00's

7 comments:

Michael Grant Clark said...

I must admit I still haven't got a clue what the Imperious Leader was supposed to be. Was he robo king of the Cylons, or some nasty alien afro wearing lizard beast who had a thing for shiny armour?

Andrew Glazebrook said...

I'm sure the Cylons were meant to be a lizard race that had been turned into Robots/Cyborgs in the original draft of the show, only they seem just more like robots in the final thing !!

Jim said...

NICE!!!!

Chris Battle said...

I think the glowing eyes one was from the Universal Studios ride from back in the day...

Michael Grant Clark said...

You don't get much of the lizard thing in the new Galactica. Mind you the new cylons would benefit from a strong cyber-rex in a wig.

allen etter said...

Patrick MacNee was also the voice of the narrator at the beginning of Galactica and Count Iblis in the two part episode War of the Gods. In the novelization of War of the Gods, Count Iblis is decsribed as being Satan-like...oddly enough when the Count meets Baltar, Baltar freaks because he recognizes the man's voice...

Ray Sikes said...

What was The Imperious Leader holding in his left "hand" as he sat on the throne...a flower...a bird...a pet lizard???? anybody know???