Battlestar Galactica

If you took the “Star Wars”, blended it with the original “Star Trek”, turned it into a TV series and then re-cut it to be a movie, you’d have “Battlestar Galactica”. The results are not great, but enjoyable nonetheless and it displays genuine intelligence.

After a thousand year war, humanity’s dangerous enemies, the Cylons (a ruthless race of extremely shiny robots led by a mysterious, immobile leader) have called for a cease-fire and negotiations for a lasting peace. Betrayed by their mechanical enemy and their ally Count Baltar (John Colicos), mankind's last hope rests in the hands of Commander Adama (Lorne Greene), the captain of the Battlestar Galactica.

I’m not familiar with the original show this film is assembled from, but I have seen most of the re-imagined series. It’s easy to see why “Battlestar Galactica” garnered itself a solid fan base and eventually, a re-imagining. There are a lot of good ideas here. The last remnants of mankind must travel through space, desperately looking for a new world to inhabit. The resources are scarce, the people are forced to co-inhabit despite clashing cultures. The enemy, merciless machines could be around any corner, just waiting to finish the job and wipe them out forever. There’s a lot of good potential for drama and action there.

What worked in "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" also applies to "Battlestar Galactica". The film features plenty of special effects during the space battles and a large crew of humans, with the spotlight being placed on a few key characters. For what it is, the film features pretty good special effects, decent performances, and the costumes are pretty good. Some characters leave you scratching your head (like the leader of the Cylons, what was that? ) but there’s a nice variety of colorful creatures, including bee-like humanoids, a race of women with four eyes and two mouths and a robotic dog. I personally got a kick out of the extremely shiny Cylons. They dazzle so brightly it’s kind of funny to watch.

For criticisms, I'll mark that you never really forget that this is a television show. We’ve got an annoying kid sidekick thrown in for the younger audiences to relate to, they give him a cute robotic pet and an excuse for the two of them to get dragged into all sort of zany adventures, most of which are going to include aliens with shady plans. The inclusion of multiple different races of aliens (something they dispensed with in the re-imagined series) also raises some big questions about this whole universe. By the film's end, you wonder if planet-wide genocide is a simply business as usual in this galaxy.

Ultimately "Battlestar Galactica" is a lot of fun but suffers from the fact that it was originally spawned for TV. It feels as though some of the smaller plots here are just padding and that it falls into some of the typical science-fiction story clichés. It’s nothing revolutionary but has held up remarkably well. If you’re a fan of science fiction, definitely check it out. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 2, 2014)