 The director's decision that most of the fictional crew should die may have been motivated by a desire to tie up some loose ends in the plot.The original 1978 "Battlestar Galactica" series and the 2003 remake, depicts a race of Cylons, sentient robots who war against their human adversaries, some of whom are just as menacing as the Cylons.The 1978 Cylons were the machine soldiers of a (long-extinct) reptilian alien race, while the 2003 Cylons were the former machine servants of humanity who evolved into near perfect humanoid imitation of Humans down to the cellular level, capable of emotions, reasoning, and sexual reproduction with Humans and each other.