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to be finalized as watched
disk one; side one: "Saga of a Star World" a 3 part pilot introduces the the main characters and plots in a long 2 and a half hour movie. basic plot: peace with an enemy group of mechanical men called Cylons is found to be a trap, but found too late. the planets of 12 different colonies are destroyed and most of the remaining people are scurried onto what remains of a fleet of miscellaneous star ships led by the Battlestar Galatica. their planets destroyed, their people mostly killed, many had to be left to die, and those that made it onto the ships are also finding problems. shortage of food, no where to run, in a last ditch effort they end up on a planet called Carillon. Carillon is suppose to be nothing but mines, instead they find a vast casino that is inifinately inviting. something seems amiss, and they're right. a colony of bee like people have made a deal with the cylons to please the people. the ultimate traitor involved in all the downfall schemes is Baltar, he sold them out to start with, sets up a awards ceremony on this planet to honor all the remaining starfighters, all in a bit to have control over the people. the scheme is unmasked and the plot foiled...and in the end, they are no better off having come to the planet.
some things i found interesting: today we know to find the space scenes a bit silly. sound, lasers firing, jets designed for air, and other unexplained phenomena. whats more surprising is that when you see scenes of small crafts against planets or larger crafts you'll definately see the cut out and paste methods used in filming. their is no digital corrections of this (not even for the dvd). this is the way it was...and theres no need to correct it...we get the point.
in one of the first scenes that we meet Starbuck, he's smoking a cigar! no kidding...didn't expect that really. its been a long time since i've seen any of these, and i don't recall him smoking honestly. but something just seems really strange about people on space crafts that are smoking non-nonchalantly.
frankly much of the stage sets seem obviously rough. this is far more of a blatant soap opera than we expect today. its about the stories and the characters...leave the gimmicks for the fighting scenes.
the cylons are pretty convincing as enemy beings. the bee people are old school star trek cheese. fun of course but dated to.
bonus material: i didn't watch it all, and probably won't. i watched the deleted scenes. theres over 30 minutes of material provided here that didn't make it to print. much of it is rough cut (not bad quality but not brought to clean show material). only one scene is a little difficult to hear, and a few are clearly stand-in voices meant to be filled in later. all in all, interesting stuff...i couldn't say what it means to the plot to have some of these "alternative" concepts left out. i can say the "socialator" (aka "prostitute") tells starbuck to "make an apointment" (aka "take a number")...that was a good scene to cut...a bit to far with that one. the prostitute part was shocking enough.
