impfac

Galactica 1980 is the rushed, pointless follow up to Battlestar Galactica. Almost the entire thing takes place on Earth, decades after the end of the original. It is poorly written with a threadbare budget and none of the feeling of the original, itself inferior to its remake.

The whole production feels rushed and cheap. I was impressed how the effects of the original held up-not so with 1980.

Add in kids and the all knowing "Doctor Zee," who makes Adama constantly look like a moron, plus lots of cheap laser effects and invisible pilots/planes, and this show is consigned to the ashbin of TV history.

It even has a crummy disco-ized BSG soundtrack.

Not worth watching. Most don't even consider it cannon to BSG.

*/**** (One star out of four)

I don't know that John Woo was the man to direct this. Then again, I don't know that the gang of writers should have been the ones writing this either.

I can summarize the movie and it's flaws in by describing one particularly asinine scene: Our good guys are-of course-surrounded and out numbered by the evil Japanese. During this climactic battle, our hero fires a pistol at a hillside. A half dozen Japanese SIMULTANEOUSLY leap out of the bushes in their dramatic deaths. All sense of realism is shattered.

Really not a period piece but a lame action vehicle smothered in cliché. Oh well. I'm not a big fan of Woo anyway.

**1/2 (one and one half stars out of four)

I see now why this movie was a box office flop; it is criminally boring. While I know little of the King Arthur legend, I seriously doubt the Guinevere ran around in a two piece painted blue with a battle ax among armies composed entirely of men. This pretty much ruined the historical accuracy of the entire movie for me.

The plot: King Arthur and his knights have served the Roman empire gallantly for years and have reached the time when they can finally return to the homes from which they were conscripted. But when the time comes, they are sent on one final, suicidal mission to rescue a family from the Nordic army.

Through out the movie King Arthur pontificates on freedom and notions more advanced than enlightenment Europe. Please. Guinevere end up some kind of feminist role model and seems utterly historically inaccurate.

This might have been a good hour and a half, but at an ungainly 140 minutes it is simply tedious.

*1/2 star (one and one half stars out of four)