 Not Your Typical BSG |
| Review Date: October 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: K. Simicevic, Miami, FL., USA |
I started watching The Plan really skeptical; I read all the reviews here, and thought it was going to be mediocre at best, as all the negative reviews seem to be saying that in unison.
However, I was really pleasantly surprised. I can understand how some people might be disappointed with The Plan, it doesn't, after all, answer some of the questions left hanging in the air after the series finale. It doesn't have the space battles or insane intensity of some of BSG's better episodes. It doesn't include some of the most important characters (Laura Roslin, Apollo, Starbuck).
But The Plan was never planned or written, I think, as a nostalgia film that is supposed to exploit our feelings for these characters to milk us for some cash. Instead, it has decided to do something bold: to tell an entirely new story that connects with what we already know, happening at the same time as what we've seen during the first two seasons of BSG.
It's the story of how the Cylons, each in different situations and living amongst different humans were in fact influenced by those humans. We see them developing genuine empathy, and utter hate. We see some renouncing their Cylon identity because of what they've done. We see them questioning their actions. We see them at their most brilliant, but also at their most incompetent. We see them for what they truly are: the imperfect creations of imperfect creations. In the end, the moral is simple: it's easy to kill someone from space with a nuke. It's hard to kill someone looking them in the eye.
If your going to watch The Plan expecting some grand revelations about the loose ends in the series finale, then you will come out disappointed. But if you watch The Plan looking for a really well written movie, with some terrific performances, some new insights into Cylon thinking, or just for a little nostalgia, you wont be disappointed.
So, if you choose to buy this DVD, judge it on it's own merits. |
You might be missing the point...
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| Review Date: October 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: D. A. Ferreira, Denver, CO |
I am not going to preface this with any grand statements about being a BSG fan from day one. If I am taking the time to write this, you should suspect that already.
This movie really works in that it is a quiet story in a very noisy room. It is about how life finds ways to disrupt our plans but not always in a bad way. It is about reconciling what you think you want with what actually want. It is about learning "the truth" isn't always in the safe black and white places we create. It is about love in all its forms.
First, about the nudity. It exists. Get over it. BSG was never a "family friendly" show given its themes, so if you were expecting something different here, then you are about to be sadly mistaken. There are no basic cable broadcast guidelines to satisfy, so a story can be told in whatever way the storytellers wish. The nudity is not gratuitous or in your face, so deal with the fact it is just another adult theme that BSG can use without restriction now.
Here is the crux of it: at its heart, this movie is about how the Cylons intended on destroying humanity for their perceived wrongs against the Cylon race, and how that plan changed literally everyone. In the real world, it would have been nice to have been able to film scenes with all of the cast members, but monetarily that was not to be - everyone (including Lucy Lawless, contrary to another review here) is represented through previous footage in some fashion. Jane Espenson wound all their stories together in a beautiful fashion, and Edward James Olmos mixed the stock footage together with the new that it was at times hard to tell which was which. The story was engaging enough that I could suspend the fan's critical eye for the first running of the movie, and just enjoy the story Ms. Epenson and Mr. Olmos told.
Will you like it? Hard to tell, but only because I don't know you. If you sit back and let the story unfold, you will most likely find this an engaging work and a worthy addition to the BSG canon. If you are watching this to see (fill in your favorite actor here)'s story expanded, you might be out of luck - and you also might be missing the point. This is a quiet story not always about specific individuals, but rather about how an individual can affect others and how that ripples through even the most well laid out plan. It is an intimate story told on a grand pallette, and thanks to the people in front of and behind the camera, it works beautifully. |
The key is to watch it in context
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| Review Date: October 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Tal Lorberbaum, |
While definitely not a stand-alone piece like Razor, The Plan is definitely recommended for BSG fans. Many of the things going for it make it easily criticized, but if you consider what you know after watching The Plan and what you didn't know before watching it, some of those criticisms start to become significantly less extreme.
For example, many reviewers criticize this movie for its arguably excessive use of stock footage from the TV show. While there were definitely times that the footage in the movie looked familiar, I quickly found myself realizing that the scene was evolving into something new and not in a previous season. What I mean to say by this is that the new footage is almost woven in too well to the old footage; in a way you think you're still seeing an old clip when in fact Edward James Olmos has seamlessly woven that old clip into new footage. The end effect is that the viewer feels like they've sort of been taken backstage to see what has been going on from the Cylon point of view.
Another pretty consistent complaint is the lack of new major plot developments (aka the story presents no surprises and doesn't ultimately tell us anything we didn't already know). Again, I would say that it's in the subtle fleshing out of plot points that the movie achieves it's greatest success; you'll find yourself nodding your head agreeing with why characters are doing what they're doing, but at the end of a scene or at the end of the movie you'll find you have gained a deeper understanding into why certain characters did the things they did. Also, would viewers really like anything new plot-wise to occur in a movie that attempts to further explain the events of the first two seasons? I think more complaints would be seen if the movie tried to take the story and plot in a radically new direction.
With a total runtime of almost 70 hours, Battlestar Galactica spanned many different plot arcs and themes and explored many different characters to provide us with a truly excellent show. It's unreasonable, and in fact, arguably unwanted, to try to cram that much exposition into a two hour movie. What The Plan instead tries to do, and what it succeeds in doing, is providing a bit more exposition on characters and plot elements that didn't get as much focus during the show, while also providing some thematic material that allows BSG fans to continue probing the differences and similarities between humans and Cylons. Watch it with an open mind, and most of all, watch it in context; realize that the movie is not trying to tread especially new ground but instead sit comfortably within an existing storyline and take you behind the scenes so that the ground already treaded makes more sense. While the movie certainly didn't have any epiphanies of the scale present in the TV show, thinking about the movie in the hours since watching it has made me aware of the subtle things I did glean from seeing it. These realizations post-movie have really made me want to rewatch the entire series over again, and the insights gained from The Plan will make re-experiencing the show that much better. For anyone who plans on seeing Battlestar Galactica again and enjoying it even more, The Plan is highly recommended. |
Extremely Entertaining!
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| Review Date: October 20, 2009 |
| Reviewer: OrangeCrush, Farmington Hills, MI USA |
I am a big fan of Battlestar Galactica. I think its one of the best written Sci Fi pieces to come along in a long time. I will openly admit that I was disappointed with the final season and I am not to keen on how it ended. Even as disappointing as season 5 was, it was still head and shoulders above your average sci fi material, especially material that's made for TV and I have no problem admitting that I was hoping to see more material as I just absolutely love the whole cyborg angle to science fiction. Its just such powerful subject matter as its literally becoming less sci fi and more reality by the day. In fact I just saw a BBC Horizon episode a few weeks back entitled Human 2.0. The subject of the show was the future of artificial intelligence and robots and there were aspects to that show that were literally frightening. In 50-100 years we will have the capability of producing robots that are smarter than us and similar to some of the robots we see in science fiction today and this just makes this whole concept extremely fascinating. This is why I love the whole cyborg premise so much and its also why I just cant seem to get enough of it.
With that being said I really didn't know what to expect from The Plan. I had worries that this might just be an attempt to get as much money from the series as possible before its pretty much forgotten about and that may in fact be one of the the main reasons why this was produced. I honestly don't really care what the reasons are as this is definitely one of the more intriguing alternate angles, seeing things from the Cylon side. I honestly wasn't too worried about the fact that most of the main characters would not be present in this film as again the story and writing are so well done with this series that I was sure it could succeed even without those characters.
Anyways I got around to watching The Plan last night and I absolutely loved it. I wont give anything away, ill simply say that if your a fan of this series then you simply cant miss this, not that you would have anyways. The first 15 minutes, which shows the attack on the colonies in much greater detail than previously shown is awesome. The sick and twisted side of me always wanted to see more of the attack and they have finally given us such footage. Some of the shots are really amazing. Its important to note that they have quite a bit of footage that you have already seen from the series inserted here and there as it gives you a reference time wise to the events taking place. It works extremely well in that regard and it also gives the main characters who have no new scenes, like Starbuck, a presence in this film. So really when you take this into account, there really aren't many characters missing from this film, a lot of them just don't have any new scenes.
Overall the film doesn't hold the suspense and mystery that the series held but that is to be expected as we know the outcome of the series. This film isn't revealing anything new in regards to an ending, its simply filling in the holes in regards to what took place on the Cylon side. In other words its more about information than it is about action or suspense or mystery. The only other negative I can think of is that the film jumps around A LOT. Not only from person to person but also from time to time. Then again they are squeezing everything relevant that took place on the Cylon side into a 2 hour movie. They really are forced to jump around or they would have never been able to make this into a movie. It still has a somewhat negative effect on the film as it just seems all over the place at times.
I was going to give it 4 stars but then I realized that most of the faults I saw in this film were simply a necessity in making this a film instead of its own series. There just wasn't the time to slowly reveal things and again the jumping around was a necessity. So I decided to give it 5 stars as they did a great job given the restrictions they had. Overall it was much better than I expected it to be. With the release of Caprica and now the Plan, the Battlestar Galactica series has really come full circle.
5 Stars!
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The asnwer is out there
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| Review Date: October 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Joseph Carbone, |
I didn't know what to expect when I heard about this movie. Being a huge fan of the show I was somewhat worried because I never really felt that Battlestar Galactica: Razor was a great fit for the show. However The Plan is no Razor.
The Plan is a far more detailed look at show then one would expect. It shows a lot of details that were overlooked on the show and answers a score of questions about what the cylons were up to. Without getting into any details, it will make you go back and rewatch seasons one and two and truly understand what horrors humanity was up against! I'd recommend this as a must have for any fan of the show! It was outstanding and I hope we see more movies like this in the future featuring the Galactica and her crew.
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