Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is a made-for-DVD BSG movie written by Jane Espenson and directed by Edward James Olmos (aka Admiral William Adama).

The movie, if it even qualifies as that, begins nine months and two weeks after the attack on the colonies, then within two minutes jumps back ten months to two weeks before the attack. That's the first jump in a series of jumps that speed the film forward through various scenes that take place over the course of the next ten months, scenes which chronicle the aftermath  of the attack from the perspective of the Cylons as they struggle to handle something they didn't anticipate: human survivors.

In the lead up to its release, here's two key things Olmos had to say about it:

“The Plan is … literally, at the beginning of every single episode you see that the Cylons are created by man, there are many of them, and some of them don’t know that they are Cylons. And they have a plan. Well, this is the plan. This is what caused this to happen.”

and

”When Battlestar fans see The Plan, they’re all going to have to go back and watch the entire series again.”

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of The Plan is that it proves both of those statements utterly wrong which, when added to his now legendary outburst on Attack of the Show claiming that BSG had influenced the UN to amend its non-existent 1947 charter, well, that's three strikes and you're out.

First of all, there is no plan. The only plan the Cylon's had, as demonstrated by The Plan, was their plan to wipe out all humans. Well, we already knew about that and, ironically, The Plan actually skims over that particular plan in seconds, giving it signficantly less attention than the actual series does.

Within the first twenty minutes of the film the destruction of the twelve colonies sequence has played out, which, I might add, is the best part of the film. The visual effects and the entire momentum leading up and during the attack, together with brilliant music from Bear McCreary, is really quite awesome. Check out a clip from it below:

From there, the film goes downhill. In a nutshell, the next hour and a half (roughly) focuses almost entirely on delivering rapid fire scenes that are tailored primarily around Dean Stockwell's Cylon Number One, Cavil, as he attempts to find a way to wipe out humans for good. But of course he fails because they hadn't planned for survivors!

This is the point at which my long lasting love of Battlestar Galactica began, after all these years, to wane. Olmos says The Plan would make you want to watch the series again, but instead it did the opposite for me. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it ruined it completely.

Week after week, year after year, I would watch the opening credits of BSG, reading the central message of the opening credits that the Cylons had a plan, and wondering with growing anticipation what that plan would turn out to be.  When the finale played out, and that plan (amongst other questions) was left unanswered, I heard that The Plan was being made to answer it. In a way it did, but with the answer being "they had no plan" I am less than thrilled to finally hear it. Pissed off is another way to put it, for now I know I was led on for years by writers who really didn't know where the series was going, and really didn't have a plan for the Cylons.

So with the first twenty minutes of awesomeness out of the way, and the knowledge that the Cylons had no plan, what are we left with? Roughly an hour and a half of new clips spliced with old footage to provide answers to secondary story-arc questions that I'm guessing even hardcore BSG fans wouldn't have cared about or, in some cases, have even thought about.

Worse, these various scenes unfold in a rapid fire fashion, almost haphazard way, giving you the distinct feeling that you're not actually watching a film but instead have just paid money to watch a fan video on YouTube that merely contains a string of series footage mixed in with deleted scenes with little point to it.

On a positive note, those clips do offer a fair amount of humorous banter from Cavil which I believe is a credit notch for writer Jane Espenson and, arguably, the best thing about the last 80% of the film.

You'll also find humorous the way some of the actors seem to change shape between scenes (from their old thin self to their new, more bloated selves).  Watch as in one breath Chief  Tyrol is thin, then he's not, then he is again. Gotta love that.

In the end, angels (or whatever they were) seem to have been the key to the series, whilst love is the key to The Plan. You see, The Plan explains that the reason the Cylons are unable to wipe out the humans after their original plan goes awry is because a number of Cylon models have discovered love. This contention amongst their own side leads to a disunity which, in the end, foils their plans to eradicate the last of the humans and, ultimately, allows the humans to make it to Earth.

Of course, they didn't plan for love either.

Here's the new title I suggest for this film: Battlestar Galactica: The Cylons Had No Plan But Some Of Them Were Angels and Others Found Love So Despite Wiping Out 20 Billion People, It's All Good.

Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it:

Olmos would like lots of DVD sales, something he says will contribute to secure future BSG movies. He's been quoted as saying he would like to make some non-prequels that explain more of the answers to questions left open at the end of the series, questions like was Starbuck an angel?, what happened to the people left on Earth?, etc etc.

Problem is, like The Plan, those answers needed to have been there before the ideas were commited to the screenplays, and before they were commited to film. Now, any answer to those questions will simply be contrived after the fact because, we now know, the writers had no plan.

Syfy intend to air Battlestar Galactica: The Plan sometime in 2010. Since I'm disappointed with my purchase, I have to say save your money and wait until then to see it. If doing so seals the fate for this round of Battlestar Galactica re-imagining, then so be it. Bryan Singer's version is on its way after all.

I give it 5 monkeys: [Rating:5/12]

Final note: I haven't commented on the extra's, this was already a long enough article as it was. But, let me just say, there is a cool little easter egg available. Find the Admiral to Director feature in the Extra's menu, highlight it, then navigate to the right to light up the secret BSG seal. It's all yours from there.

Oh, and assuming you don't care what I think and you'd rather check it out for yourself (or if you think it's worth buying for the awesome first 20 minutes), here are the links you need:

See larger image Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (DVD) Starring: Edward James Olmos Rating: NR (Not Rated) List Price: $14.98 USD New From: $4.49 In Stock Used from: $1.69 In Stock Release date October 27, 2009.

See larger image Battlestar Galactica: The Plan [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Starring: Edward James Olmos Rating: Unrated List Price: $26.98 USD New From: $11.98 In Stock Used from: $9.64 In Stock Release date October 27, 2009.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan