Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
= 3 stars
Starring Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Michael Trucco
Directed by Edward James Olmos
Synopsis
Revisit the events of Battlestar Galactica seasons 1 and 2 from the Cylon point of view.
The Good
- Impressive attention to continuity, as nearly every episode from the first two seasons is revisited with tiny twists, explaining small details such as how Brother Cavil came to be among the pyramid ball players, the appearance and disappearance of Shelly Godfrey, who wrote “Cylon” on Sharon’s locker, and what exactly spurred chief to consider suicide, etc.
- Was good to see the hellish destruction of the colonies, and certain characters like Number 4 (the doctor) who after appearing on Caprica in the hospital kind of got sidelined, as well as more of the Anton Doral models. Also liked seeing more of Anders’ time on Caprica.
- Cavil is completely unaware of the six in Baltar’s head, and Starbuck’s otherworldly origins aren’t addressed, so we can definitively say the Cylons had nothing to do with either.
- Tricia Helfer parades around in black underwear.
The Bad
- While impressive in its attention to continuity, the plot jumps around so much as to be incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t watched the series.
- While the movie tries to suggest the Cylons had a plan, it’s haphazard and improvisational, and hardly a plan at all. We have one Brother Cavil aboard Galactica, telling all the colons aboard Galactica to do things that we remember from the series, and another on Caprica manipulating the pyramid ball players. Shouldn’t we get more point of view of the Brother Cavil aboard the Cylon home fleet, moving things along as well? What about the 6 on the Pegasus; was anybody guiding her? So both Cavils, while scary and manipulative, come across more like terrorist leaders performing random acts of violence than any sort of logical puppet master manipulating everything toward some higher end. There isn’t really a plan.
- Tricia Helfer’s black underwear parade takes place with Cavil in bed next to her. That guy gets too much action.
- Only goes until the end of season 2.
Conclusion
Much like how season 4 tied itself in knots trying to explain everything that came before (in particular the final five amidst the fleet), The Plan is revisionist history, trying to make the Cylons look smarter than they really were, and largely coming up short, because the series creators didn’t have a plan, either. I enjoyed watching this movie, but it left me wishing the series creators — not just the Cylons — had a better plan of their own.