10 Biggest (And Weirdest) Lawsuits In Star Wars History

5. The Force Is Too Strong With Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica 1978
NBCUniversal Syndication Studios

Though George Lucas and 20th Century Fox had very little faith in the film, it became apparent that Star Wars was a massive success almost as soon as it debuted in 1977. And where there's a massive success, there are copycats.

Wanting to have its own blockbuster space-set franchise, Universal went ahead and produced the TV series Battlestar Galactica, which debuted in 1978. Revolving around warrior robots, spaceships, and a galactic war, the similarities to Star Wars were readily apparent, something that Fox couldn't help but notice.

As a result, the studio decided to sue Universal for copyright infringement, but this move didn't have the result they thought it would. The Central District of California granted summary judgment, believing that Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica "were only similar on the most general level of intellectual abstraction."

Basically, they were both set in space.

The case was soon remanded and settled, and Battlestar Galactica was ultimately cancelled in 1979. It was later revived in 2004, going on to become one of the most critically-lauded TV shows of recent times. Take that, Star Wars.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!