The reboot of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ from Ronald D. Moore was brilliant television. Although heavy on the science fiction, the show established great characters and told a very human story of depression, hopelessness and survival, which was inserted seamlessly with the mystery and adventure that engulfed every episode. The show rose above the genre and delivered something incredible to science fiction fans. So the Syfy channel found themselves with something special on their hands and when the show went off the air, the decided to try and capitalize on the brand and expand the Battlestar Galactica universe. One such attempt was the web series, Blood and Chrome, which later became the movie that we now have.
The idea for the show is decent enough; follow a young William Adama (played to perfection originally by Edward James Olmos) as he fights his way through the first Cylon war. But this Adama (played by Luke Pasqualino) is much different from the Adama that we know. He’s cocky, unaware and tends to make quick, sometimes dumb decisions. These are traits common with youth, but they tend to further drive an already deep wedge between this and the series we loved. In fact, aside from a few names and the excessive use of the word “frack”, there’s really not much to link us back to the series.
Some fans complained that ‘Battlestar Galactica’ focused too much on the drama between the characters and not enough on the action. BLOOD AND CHROME seems to acknowledge this and features a lot of action and exciting aerial battles. But it also tries to incorporate some drama to a much lesser success rate. The dialogue is usually awkward or worse yet, filled with groan-worthy clichés. We also have very bland co-stars, including Adama’s co-pilot Coker (Ben Cotton) and the mystery woman Becca (Lili Bordan). They each have a purpose to the plot, but they feel more like a hodgepodge of throwaway characters from other shows. The bad dialogue and uninteresting characters prevents any real drama or character development from ever getting going and so we’re left with a very empty shell of a movie.
There are several failures in BLOOD AND CHROME, but probably the biggest failure was starting with Adama too young and not including any other familiar names for fans of the show to get behind. I felt that we could have picked up with Adama when Apollo was a baby or a young kid and that would have given us something more familiar. Then add in additional familiar faces as we go along and at least we’d have something to relate to.
But a little perspective needs to be used when judging BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD AND CHROME. Let’s remember that this started out as a web series and then was being considered a regular series and then ended up being a movie. So I’m not convinced that this final product was ever intended to be produced, probably leading to many of the movie’s problems. As a web series (that I didn’t watch), I imagine it worked much better because it was broken up into small bits and didn’t fall under the weight of the pressure a full length movie brings. This could be blamed on Syfy, who apparently never knew what to do with BLOOD AND CHROME. Unfortunately, the end result is a disappointment to fans of the original show and one that should probably be forgotten when looking back at the series.
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: You can’t turn a sunflower into a rose and likewise, you can’t take an originally average video and make it beautiful. The video transfer was great, but the source video wasn’t, so they did the best with what they had.
Audio: The audio was fine.
Blood and Chrome: Visual Effects (22:54): This is an extensive look at some of the more elaborate visual effects in the movie. To the film’s credit, it did have some decent visuals and this featurette gives you a closer look at how they were created.
Deleted scenes (29:03): We get 13 deleted scenes, most of which are unfinished, complete with a green screen and muffled audio. I enjoyed these scenes, only because I like watching the movie making process and these gave us more insight into that. As for their worth to the overall movie, I think they were wise to not finish them.
