Review for Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome

Introduction

Should you go out on a bang, or should you go out on a whimper? The answer to that would be obvious, you might think, but not when it comes to entertainment. The whole problem with having a hit, whether it’s a show or a movie, is that the cash and the plaudits start rolling in, and the people who make the most money out of it, want to make more. And thus was the sequel invented. Ron Moore’s reinvention of Battlestar Galactica was a stunning piece of television, a landmark achievement, and as is the way, people wanted more. But it’s a self contained, complete story in and of itself, four great seasons. There is no room for more, is there?


They tried stepping outside of the series format during the run, with the Razor movie, and that was my least favourite part of the big boxset that I got. After the series ended, there came The Plan, which again looked at events in the series from a different perspective, but created very little that was new, merely serving as a companion piece. Then there was Caprica, a prequel series that began to tell the story of the creation of the Cylons, until it was cancelled after one season. A couple of years ago, they tried again to recapture lightning in a bottle. Blood & Chrome apparently began as a videogame set 40 years prior to the series, but when the execs saw the script, they thought it was worth making for real, so it became a web series, which became this movie, which was supposed to be a pilot for a whole new series... and there’s a distinct absence of Blood & Chrome on our television screens. That didn’t work obviously, but the problem they had when they made this movie was that all of the BSG sets had been broken down and disposed of.


Ensign William Adama is a rookie fresh out of flight school, looking to make a name for himself as a Viper pilot on the Galactica. But the eager young space cadet gets assigned to a Raptor running milk runs with grizzled veteran Coker, an arrangement neither is happy with. Their first mission is to ferry a passenger Becca Kelly to Scorpion, safe in Colonial Space. Only she has secret orders that divert them to the front lines instead. It looks like Adama is about to get the action that he’s been craving. It’s a mission that might just end the bitter ten year war with the Cylons, but Adama is about to learn that the reality of war is nothing like the propaganda that the government releases at home.

Picture

Blood & Chrome gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p, clear and colourful for the most part. This film was shot on the digital backlot, so the scope and grandeur of the ‘sets’ far exceeds anything we saw on the show, and the space effects sequences are also a generation ahead. Some of the dogfights are amazing. But to hide the show’s digital nature, there’s a whole lot of deliberate blurring, and there’s more lens flare here than a J.J. Abrams movie. Stylistically this looks nothing like any of the other nu-BSG outings. And the usual problem with digital backlots raises its head here, a lack of interaction with environments.

Sound

Blood & Chrome gets a robust DTS HD MA 5.1 Surround English audio track with optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The surrounds really do come to life during the action sequences, and even if Bear McReary’s music seems lifted from previous BSGs, it does suit the story well. The dialogue is mostly clear throughout, clichéd though it is, although the subtitles will be required when mumbler Toth is on screen.

Extras

The disc autoplays with trailers for the Battlestar Galactica series, Grimm, Alphas, and The Man with the Iron Fists, before loading up the animated menu.

The only extras on this disc are 13 Deleted Scenes running to 29:22 in total, although technically they’re not deleted as they were never finished for the final movie in the first place. And given that they consist of the principal actors in front of massive green sheets in all directions, they’re not as thrilling or as elucidating to watch as your regular deleted scenes would be.

There is also the Blood & Chrome: Visual Effects featurette 22:58, which has the digital artists expounding on their artistry, and that’s it.

Conclusion

I think the brief heyday of digital sets, when people were momentarily stunned by Sin City, Sky Captain, and 300 are long since past. There’s a reason why the new Star Wars film is looking back to the original trilogy, rather than the prequels for its visual style. If you can’t believe that your actor is actually in a real, tangible space that they can interact with, then no matter how fancy the graphics are, the performances will always have a layer of detachment and a lack of believability. Of course for Blood & Chrome this was less a creative choice than a practical one, as the Battlestar sets just didn’t exist anymore, and this was the only affordable way to get the movie done. The movie is just about watchable enough, but can you imagine a whole series like this?


The film itself is fun enough, enjoyable to watch once you get past the feeling that it’s all one long feature length videogame cutscene. The story is fairly straightforward, a rookie pilot’s first mission, some machinations and skulduggery, no little action, and some romance as well. For Battlestar fans, there’s certainly enough of interest here to make watching the film worthwhile, as it serves as a bridge between Caprica and Battlestar Galactica, referencing the prequel while setting some things up for the re-imagining. But there’s nothing here that is essential, no revelations about humans and Cylons that will have you re-evaluating the whole franchise and no new perspectives even in the limited way that The Plan delivered. It’s certainly better than Razor though.


The one problem with Blood & Chrome is the main character, William Adama. Razor had its faults, but one of the positive aspects of that movie was the flashback storyline set near the end of the Cylon War, featuring a young William Adama played in that show by Nico Cortez. It was a great performance for just a few scenes, as Cortez created a character that was visibly unique, but also displayed enough of the foreshadowing that presaged the man he would become 40 years later. Not so with Luke Pasqualino, who plays Adama here. This is just a generic, pretty boy character that looks good on screen, and has about as much depth as a puddle. That pretty much kills any investment I might have in this movie, it just doesn’t feel relevant, or even part of the Battlestar Galactica universe at all. I got the same feeling watching this, that I did watching the Wing Commander movie. Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome is fun, but pointless.