Battlestar Galactica Movie Review

by AVForums
Movies & TV Shows Review
Battlestar Galactica Movie Review
Who built the pyramids?, or provided the wonderful culture of the Mayan people? What happened to the lost city of Atlantis? These were the questions posed by producer Glen Larsen when he started to develop a storyline for his new movie. What if Earth was not the source of human life, but merely one of the planets colonised by humans, who are space-travelling explorers. This is the premise on which Larsen developed his movie and subsequent T.V series, soon to be “re-imagined” on American T.V. Battlestar Galactica starts at the beginning, as the tag line rather obviously states “ Every story has a beginning”. The President of the Alliance of the Twelve Colonies (named Aquarius, Sagittarius, Capricorn... you get the idea) waits hopefully in the conference room of one of the giant mile long Battlestars. A nervous truce has been called for by the Cylons, a robot race long at war with humans. The President awaits the arrival of a Cylon delegation. It is realised too late that the Cylons have ambushed the human fleet, and all but one of the mighty Battlestars are destroyed, Battlestar Galactica. A synchronous attack has occurred on all twelve of the planets of the alliance - humankind lies on the brink of extinction. Led by Commander Adama (Lorne Greene), and Lt. Starbuck (I kid you not) played by Dirk Benedict better known as Face from that other 70's T.V series, The A-Team, a rag tag group of space ships travel through the galaxy to escape the pursuing Cylons and search for the 13th planet, long forgotten and humans last hope of survival, Earth.

Battlestar Galactica arrived on the back of the massive success of 1977's Star Wars. It is easy to see the influences the more famous space saga has had on this movie. Unfortunately, despite being a story about humanity, and family it has none of the latter's soul, and presents a series of one dimensional characters. You get the impression that this movie was only ever intended to be the pilot for the subsequent T.V series, who knows maybe it was. Well to the best of my memory less than 20 episodes were made, and watching the film gives you a good idea as to why. What is less clear is why the series is being resurrected for a modern audience. Go figure!

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