Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007)

Too much of everything

To me, this movie is perfection.

Thanks for the memories!

Sorry, this movie sucks

The trick with these sorts of reviews is perspective.Even today (2014) the rebooted BSG series is considered one of the best produced and written series of all time, addictive, as much a game changer for TV as Buffy or Breaking Bad.Once you understand that, the question you need to ask yourself is, what purpose do these feature length "fillers" serve? Many of the other reviewers here were expecting greatness, something new, something important, and, having failed to find it, got a little peckish.I believe that these features are simply a chance for the producers to unwind, to show off, to experiment. Almost like having a fast car that you can't drive fast because you're in the city. Take her out on the hiway and see what she can do...In that context, this is a solid little entertainer. Great use of flashbacks (compared for example to the over-use in series like ARROW).Great acting. I believe BSG showed us many actors who were capable of greatness if given a chance, yet, post-BSG, we never really saw much of them again.The scenes between Michelle Forbes and Stephanie Jacobsen are electric. Both deliver far more on-screen wattage than their resumes would suggest. And Jacobsen's exotic looks (she was born in China) once again showcases the ability of the casting director to pick the right actor for the correct role.

Before its destruction in battle the crew of Battlestar Pegasus underwent many changes in command. One common crew member through these changes is the green Lt Kendra Shaw who joins the ship shortly before the attack on the colonies. She remains in place in a higher role much later when Lee Adama assumes command although it is clear that her experiences have changed her approach to leadership. It is under Adama that she makes tough but risky calls that lead to the discovery of an very old model of Cylon ship – a model that brings memories back to Commander Adama relating to his encounters in the first Cylon wars.I must confess that learning that the massive cliff-hanger at the end of season 3 was to be followed by a "flashback" film was not the most cheering thing in the world. Quite how it was back when fans had to wait a year to find out they were waiting a bit longer I don't know but at least for me everything is out on DVD now so the only delays are those associated with my spare time. Anyway, Razor took me a minute to get into, partly because I didn't want to jump back. In it we get events on the Pegasus under Cain that we had previously only heard about, events under Lee Adama and some back-story on the Cylons by way of Commander Adama. In terms of the main plot of the overall series, Razor doesn't add a huge amount apart from adding a little bit of information on the Cylon experiments with humans and a warning about the destiny of one of the main characters.Where Razor works though is in its look at the nature of command within Pegasus, the tough decisions required and the regret that somehow has to be managed. We see this through new character Shaw, who we see as both a relative "rookie" of sorts as well as the more experienced, jaded Lt of Adama's command. She is the common thread across the majority of the film and it works because she does. She is very well played by Jacobsen who is convincing in all the parts she has to play. She fits into the cast well and captures the darker mood the series has gradually taken on. Her threads are full of action and space battles where the effects are impressive and quite exciting – sure it doesn't move things along in the way one would hope but the events are engaging and make for a solid drama. Not all the cast are as good as Jacobsen although most are solid. The regular cast all do their stuff but it is the Adama flashbacks that are not that well acted, with a bit too much overacting and over-expression that does border on being hammy.Razor may not answer the questions left hanging after season 3 but, viewed without the pressure of answers (I did not have to wait long after 3 for the season 4 DVD release) it is a solidly entertaining film. The various threads all engage but it is the common presence of Jacobsen's Shaw that makes it work as well as it does. Worth seeing for those watching the series proper.

Battica had all the tools needed to tell a great story, and then p*ssed it away. I'm baffled by the acclaim it got as the greatest sf show of all time, the greatest show on TV, etc. Have these people ever watched any sf, or any TV? To take the most obvious contrasting example, The 4400, which inhabits much the same territory, has characters and plots that are...well, characters and plots. On that show, the continual reversals of attitude typical of the soap form are made plausible. On Battica they aren't. But they aren't exactly implausible either, since most of Battica's characters are non-characters to start with, and so can do one thing as soon as another, for any reason or none. That's no basis for a plot, and so most of the time the Battica shows have no plot; just incidents in search of one.Razor, amazingly, does have a plot, and a character, and good ones. It does its best to p*ss both away, but doesn't quite succeed, and so ends up being much the best thing the show ever did. The central character-- or the one who would have been central, if the promise of the early scenes had been followed through on--is a soldier who loses her innocence, and more, to war. The character is well conceived, better conceived than written, but Stephanie Jacobsen's portrayal of her compensates for the shortcomings in the script. Jacobsen is a tough, lucid, grounded actress, and from her performance we can derive the portions of her character's arc that aren't shown. This turns out to be necessary, since her story is hijacked along the way, and she's crowded out by the usual wooden non-characters in the usual trifling non-plot.What a stew this show was! Artsy camera-work and music, coupled with hack writing and ham acting; magic in place of science; video game graphics in place of battle; kneejerk violence (the show was quite fond of beatings); confused politics (the heroes were antiterrorists and terrorists at the same time--Israel and the PLO); and always the same endless stalling, seducing striptease, the effort to fool us into thinking it was all going somewhere and to keep us watching. But lo, in the midst of the rubbish appeared a compelling human being facing a troubling problem--drama, in other words. Since Battica never had any more sense of what it had than what it lacked, she was just grist to its mill.Yet she lingers in the mind.

Having just watched this, and then read some of the comments that have been posted, I suspect that there are a few subtleties that have been overlooked.While most people who have commented on this special episode have recognised the use of flashbacks to "flesh out" things we already know have occurred, the development of the back story of the "Old Cylons" did (I feel) link in with a great deal of what has been hinted at regarding the development of the Cylons, particularly their human-like forms; the ability to "see" the future; and their religion (and may I say, rather than feeling "force fed" by writers, the whole concept of machines developing a religious belief system just like my own scares the *heck* out of me! Do the Cylons *really* believe what they are saying? Is it something they collectively discovered; or did a leader get delusions somewhere and infect them all with a psychosis? Worst of all though, is the question "if the Cylons have a belief system like mine, while the humans have a "multi-god" view, then which side should *I* really be on?". But I digress!) My point is that this issue of (some) Cylons having the belief that they can see the future "because it has all happened before" has been floating around for a long time now. Also I think many people may have missed the hint from this particular episode that the "old" Cylons appear to be the link between Earth and everyone else (in the original series, *** ooh, ooh, spoilers from 30 years ago follow - frak me!*** the Cylons actually made it to Earth - though I can't recall what the outcome was, as by then they had been reduced to parodies of their former menacing selves). It also showed that the Cylons have an aspect of their past that they aren't so proud of either, and the revelation of their treatment of humans made an interesting counter-point to what we saw happening with Pegasus (in both cases, the events are set on vessels "outside" of the mainstream fleet; and in both cases it is hoped that the events can be left on the respective vessels when they are eventually destroyed).So, I don't have a problem at all with the whole "old Cylons" sub-plot, and I very much suspect that this will become very important in Series 4. And in regards to Adama *not* revealing his previous experience to anyone before, perhaps he didn't understand enough of what he saw to be able to say anything (especially since he would have been pre-occupied with rescuing the other survivors).Anyway, how about we all wait for Series 4 and see where it takes us, then see if "Razor" fits in with it or not? Oh, but I can't leave without commenting on one thing - *whose* idea was it to have the main character speak with an Aussie accent? Yes, I know, she *is* an Aussie, but that's not the point - Jamie Bamber is as English as Prince Charles, but *he* can do an American accent, so why do I have to listen to someone who sounds like *I* do? (I mean, Baltar has an English accent because he's a villain, and at least when Lucy Lawless was in it, she did her "Kiwi" accent, which has a minute trace of class about it! Yep, I can just hear those emails already!!!) So, to finish up - there was a lot of story to cover in "Razor", and while quite a bit of it had already been covered, this presented a new context to it all and was all the more thought provoking for it. I don't agree that any of the production efforts were below normal (I thought the special effects were brilliant - but may be others have forgotten that Cylon spaceships can't *really* fly around - and land it - city environments. And although I'm supposedly "grown up" at age 45, *don't* get me started on how *creepy* the Centurions are - them and the new Cybermen are the stars of my worst nightmares!) If you've read this far, thanks for staying with me! For anyone associated with making BSG, thanks for keeping me so entertained for the past few years - and giving me plenty to think about! Oh, and if you plan on sending the Cylons to Australia, please start with Sydney, then Canberra ....