TV/Movie Talk - Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

Well, it took me a while to re-watching this one again. I’ll get into why down later, though. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan was released on DVD during October of 2009. I didn’t end up seeing the movie until it aired on Syfy in early 2010. I haven’t done much research in this, but it was shot alongside the final episodes of the show. The idea for the movie was to show what the Cylons’ plan was for humanity. That shouldn’t have been too complex to know: they wanted to blow them up! Still, the creators wanted to add a little more to the mythos. They even got Edward James Olmos to direct the 112 minute feature.

The movie revolves around Cylon #1 or “Cavil” (Dean Stockwell) as he and the rest of the Cylons plan humanity’s destruction. Cavil also has plans for the Final Five Cylon models (the ones that helped the Caprican Cylons with resurrection) to see what they’ve done to humanity. The fall happens but plans change when it’s revealed that a group of humans (the BSG and the fleet) are still alive. We then see Cavil and the other Cylons scheme and plan to take down the fleet over the first two seasons. Meanwhile, on Caprica, a Cavil model tries to befriend Anders, one of the Final Five. It all ends pretty much where “Lay Down Your Burdens” ends with the two Cavils being shot out into space.

PROS

While I can’t call this great, it did have some pluses. Even though it didn’t feel that introspective, It was nice to see the Cylon side of things. We basically get Cavil, who  could be considered to be the main villain of the series, leading the other Cylons to do some dastardly things to the fleet. Remember all of those explosions in the early part of the series? He was the one who supplied the other Cylons. He also played into framing Baltar during the first season.  We even got stock footage from those scenes that helped bring it all together.

We also got to see how Anders and the survivors on Caprica held up during their stay. Honestly, that was actually more interesting that what we got with the fleet at times. It was also interesting since “Caprica Cavil” ended up going through some changes kinda like how most of the human Cylons did. The characters I thought were handled well here were Cavil (both versions), Boomer (the #8 who was with Tyrol), Anders, and strangely Doral (Cylon #4). I think Rick Worthy ended up doing more here than he did in the series proper.

The production design was good as usual. We got to see the vibrant 12 Colonies before they were viciously wiped out by the Cylons. That was chilling sequence with the Hybrid listing off all of the destroyed worlds. As usual, the music from Bear McCreary was on point. Man, that guy’s still doing it good these days, ain’t he? Finally, I though the new scenes meshed well with the stock footage we got. I do have a complaint on the old footage, but I’ll get to that below.

CONS

I'm glad Cavil called out #5's tacky suits.

Outside of some stuff with the Cylons, this story feels kind of unnecessary. We pretty much get a few explanations on why some things happened in the fleet. While that is fine, it doesn’t make for an interesting watch. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t answer a whole lot of questions that were left unanswered at the end of the series. It would’ve been nice to see all that played into the Cylons doing what they did to the 12 Colonies.  Heck, we even didn’t get to see much of the Final Five here outside of Anders and Tyrol. The rest just get a small scene or were relegated to stock footage.

This is why it took so long to get to it. It really doesn’t keep your attention that much either. It gets dull as we get into more of the familiar stuff. I think it also didn’t help that the characters I really like were pretty much relegated to stock footage and that’s something we got more of as the movie goes along. Overall, it’s not a bad movie, but it did leave me “whelmed.”

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In the end, this was an okay outing for the Cylons and the show. While it didn’t do much in answering things, it was nice to see Dean Stockwell shine for a bit. Do I recommend this? I do, but just know that this works more like a companion piece to the series than a movie itself. Also, just know that you’ll run into a little nudity here. I was surprised to see some nudity show up here, but then realized that this did get released on DVD unrated. With all that said, I’m now going to go make an even tougher  list. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and don’t tick off robots especially when they look like Al from Quantum Leap.