The Good

The Bad

Hopeful for lasting peace following centuries of intense warfare, the Twelve Colonies gather to sign a treaty with their dreaded enemies, the Cylons. But after an act of treachery on the eve of the ceremony, the Cylons launch a devastating surprise attack, destroying the Colonies home planets and most of their military strength. A lone flagship battlestar, the Galactica, remains to aid the surviving colonists on their epic journey for a new home to a far- off legendary planet - Earth.

They must survive the pursuing Cylons in a series of epic battles that will determine the fate of the human race!!!

Features

This basically gives us, the viewer, a history of Battlestar Galactica. It is quite interesting and informative seeing how this show went from idea to to the big screen. Personally, I always looked at it as Star Wars little child, but now that I am older and wiser, I realize that having John Dykstra involved raises the "little child" to whole other level. He is the man after all behind the special fx in Star Wars and Spider-Man. We find out how large of a production this actually was, with the Galactica being constructed on several Universal studios soundstages, that I quickly understood this was no small affair. In watching the dvd itself that has never been more apparent.

Cast and Filmmakers

This is pretty paint by numbers stuff as the stars of the film(and the star creators) have their careers highlighted so that we can see what eventually led them to the show. It was enlightening for me to read up on Dirk Benedict. Who knew that Face from the A-Team studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts? That his favorite role to play is Hamlet? Now it may seem like I am making light of this man's career, and maybe I am, but dvds like this show us all what is so very good about the medium. Had I not been searching around on this dvd these are facts about one my favorite TV personalities that I never would have known.

Universal Web Links

This disk works with a DVD-rom drive. Basically, pop it into your computer you can go to the Universal website and read about upcoming projects and whatnot. If you are DVD-rom drive challenged, then typing in the URL into your internet browswer should do the trick.

Behind the Scenes Look at the new Battlestar Galactica d by the SCI-FI CHANNEL this expose looks at the new show and I gotta tell you, it looks pretty darn good. Edward James Olmos seems like a natural for this show for some reason, and I think the Cylon's looking like humans is a very interesting plot twist. Sadly, it doesn't really go into it any more then that. It airs on December 7th for those that are interested.

Truthfully, this felt more like a commercial which I think it was.

Behind the Scenes Look at the new Battlestar Galactica Interactive Game

This game has been created to give the gamer to "ultimate Battlestar" experience or something like that. As I am not that big a gamer(I religiously play a boxing game from 1985), this really didn't hold that much for me. It was nice to see the makers of the game so engaged and this makes sense because making a game probably isn't unlike making a movie. Both are highly creative experiences and it seems like one could have the same feeling undertaking both. The thing is, the videogame looks a heck of a lot better then the actually movie in terms of special fx.

Video

The transfer was amazingly clear. When BB gave me this dvd I didn't know what to think, but it's really nice to see such TLC given to something that as I alluded to earlier, I thought was just a throw away from a TV show. The dvd transfer looked very nice and presented in 1.85:1 widescreen I was actually quite shocked at how clean it looked.

Audio

Dolby Digital all the way here folks(I thought they may have even used THX sound!) this bad boy can be heard in both English and French. For our hearing impaired friends, like myself, you can even watch this captioned.

Package

Final Word

I really enjoyed this movie. It's hard to watch these types of things and not see allegories to what was happening on screen and what is happening in our world now. That aside, I for some reason always thought of Battlestar Galactica as dark and boring but it is anything but that. The pace moved well, the characters were beleivable and overall I'd say if you are fan of the show this DVD seems like a must own. Also, I found something very comforting about this show...maybe it was the period in which it was shot? Maybe I am feeling old and nostalgic but I couldn't have viewed this DVD at a better time.

I just would've liked to get a bit more on the special features side. Then again, don't I always say that?