Battlestar Galactica: O Plano

Where the people you meet are important to you only because they were already important to you Which pretty much sets it apart from the other movie versions of BSG each of which managed to both carry the story and at the same time be a self-standing movie for newbies.

The pace is slow. A fly crawling up a drape makes better progress.

If you watch the whole thing (and many will not) you will be haunted by the notion that the producers saw this as an easy payday and a chance to reuse footage from earlier episodes.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The rating I gave tells the tale. Dean Stockwell gives the performance of his life. There is a scene at the 1:40 mark involving Stockwell, a small boy, an apple and a knife. It is mesmerizing Which is more than I can say of the movie

After a very disappointing final episode of the series that answered and revealed naught, the plan finally digs deeper into the motivations and questions that a created construct has about it's creator and what it means to develop into an evolved human prototype. From my estimation the plan is both the beginning and the definitive ending of this exotic and brutally honest space opera. It brings full circle the entire series. The fact that it is pieced together like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle is apropos in my mind.

The eternal recurrence, that this has all happened before, this is a complex morality tale that both satisfies and justifies many unanswered questions that I had, it places its brand upon the entire series and I can now breath a sigh of relief that this was truly one of the best dramas in television. No longer a hurried, convenient open exit, the end is now the beginning and so we must continue to wonder and to speculate on what the idea of humanity really means.

The synopsis given by "official" sources says that this movie reveals the Cylons' Plans from before the attack on the colonies up through the end of Season 2.

This review will be extremely short, as talking about much of it at all would be spoiling both the movie and the series.

The movie basically follows 'Number 1,' both the one on Caprica and the one in the fleet, and how they change throughout the course of the series. Unfortunately, it only covers up through season 2, so this so called "Plan" was boiled down to simply kill all humans. Nothing the audience of BSG didn't already know, right? The movie was okay, but it ended up feeling like a long string of deleted scenes from the series. If you have seen the whole series, then it is a must-see, even if there is nothing new.

Taken as a standalone movie, it is easily a 1/10. However, there is NO WAY someone who has not seen the entire series of BSG should even consider watching this. It doesn't introduce anything new really, but it is a decent addition/companion to the series that all hardcore fans need to see.

I had mixed feelings about the concept of The Plan before I saw it: Olmos spoke a lot about The Plan at a panel at '09 Wizard World Convention in Philadelphia. He was very excited about the project and led us to believe that we would be presented an intimate look at an extended Cylon plot that ran concurrently with the series as a whole.

He did not deliver.

First, the movie is at least 40% Archive Footage (taken from Season 1 and Season 2). The scenes are woven in as helpful "reminders". These "reminders" help connect events from the show to their extended explanations in "The Plan". Truthfully, the archive footage is abrupt and unnecessary. Fans would easily be able to connect "The Plan"'s events.

The story of this movie lacks the provocative and thought-inspiring nature that BSG is so respected for. The writing is poor and the events play out in rather unspectacular way.

The only thing that saves this movie is the strong performances by Dean Cain, Tricia Helfer, and Callum Keith Rennie. Though the writing is not up to normal standards, these actors' mastery over their characters is readily apparent in this flimsy companion piece.

Overall, watch "The Plan", it's not very long and has a few interesting moments (spread far out in the film). More importantly, if you're interested in Brother Cavil, this is a great way to get some perspective on the bitter Cylon "leader." You need to disconnect your brain a little bit at some points (like seeing 7 Cylons hiding in plain sight on Galactica), and if you can, you can enjoy the bits of BSG-goodness hidden in the film.

I joined Battlestar Galactica the series after it was all finished with, and watched it through DVD's, which I find is the best way to watch series where possible. I enjoyed it all the way through but was never a raving fan of the show to the point where I could not accept any faults or criticism. Anyway, I was not really looking forward to this TVM simply because I only half-heard about it and never saw the adverts or hype that professed it to be something important or worth seeing. Although I was not told this I still did hope that the film would be worth watching but the truth is that it cannot get over the problem that it hasn't got anything new to say.

It is a shame because had this been built into the show then perhaps it would have worked better, but by coming after the series has concluded one does have to take this film as a standalone. As such it has the themes of the show, the events of the show and the narratives and the only difference is that we have some new material which acts as framing to allow a new angle to be put on the events. I say angle rather than perspective because "perspective" suggests that there is some insight or opinion to be gained from the different telling whereas angle just suggests the same thing from a different view point and that is what the film is. Watching it is a bit irritating because the new material is sporadically interesting but it never lasts long and it is not strong enough to "be" the film and as a result the film remains about the threads that we have already seen – and these are not different enough due to the new angle to be particularly worth seeing.

The cast do what they did originally (in some cases exactly the same since many are only in old footage) but I did think that Stockwell did well in his additional scenes. Other than that though there is not much else to say – the film doesn't add much and for those who have seen the series (and if you haven't why are you watching this?) the vast majority of it will be just the same material from a slightly different angle, with the new material being the same themes from a different angle. Built into the series (like Razor) then maybe this could have washed (big maybe) but as a standalone film after the fact it just feels like an accountant has done the maths and tried to work out how to keep getting the revenues that BSG brought in before it finished.