DVD Review – Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

The Cylons have a plan… We’d heard and seen that concept a lot through the run of the spectacular TV series Battlestar Galactica. We didn’t know what the plan was, really, beyond nuking the Colonies and eventually destroying humanity, but we assumed it was a pretty darn interesting plan!

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, the latest direct-to-DVD release from the SyFy Channel, shows us exactly what the plan was, and, as it turns out, it was… er… basically to nuke the Colonies and wipe out humanity. Everything else that happend was largely them reacting to the fact that there were still human remnants out there.

The movie tells the story of the Cylon attack on the Colonies (and shows it in loving detail), and also tells us some of exactly what the Cylons were doing within the Fleet and on Caprica back during the early days of the series. You see how Cavil controlled Boomer, what Simon was up to both in the Fleet and on Caprica, you see how Anders and his crew ended up fighting as a resistance group and you really get an idea of how much of a puppet-master Cavil was.

You’ll see all the main characters on the show, though many of them just through re-used footage. You won’t see Lucy Lawless’ Cylon character, but you do see all the others, including a wonderful shot with two Cavils seeing the Final Five all standing together.

You’ll also see a lot more nudity than you might expect, including at least one gratuitious penis shot, and several breasts. You’ll also see Edward James Olmos’ wife in the all-together and you’ll even see the upper half of the face of the long-missing Boxey.

Extras on the DVD include deleted scenes, some behind the scenes stuff, a trailer for Caprica (which if you haven’t yet seen, why not?), and a commentary by Edward James Olmos (who directed the movie), and Jane Espenson (who wrote it).

Ultimately this is an excellent, if somewhat lacking, movie. I would’ve liked to have seen them do this as a four-hour film rather than two, because it would’ve been nice to carry it all the way to the end of the series. But that’s ok. For what is likely to be the last of the re-imagined BSG, it’s pretty good and I’m happy with it!