If there is anyone left besides me who was a fan of the original short-lived 1978 “Battlestar Galactica” TV series and who didn’t really follow the “re-imagined” series a few years ago, or the prequel spin-off called “Caprica,” the new prequel coming to Blu-ray Feb. 19 called “Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome” (Universal, $34.98) may hold a little more interest for you.
The 97-minute “unrated” movie version of the series that premiered last November on the Internet as a 10-episode series shot entirely digitally starts out immediately feeling very similar to the pilot of the 1978 series, with a hotshot young Viper fighter pilot showing off his skills before he gets into some trouble. Bu this time he doesn’t die as Rick Springfield did in the original — that’s because this cocky but charming young flyboy (Luke Pasqualino of “The Borgias”) is the younger version of the man who will grow up to be the man we know as Commander Adama in the original series (Lorne Greene) and as William Adama (Edward James Olmos) in the more recent series.
The tone of the movie and the look of the spacecraft also look pleasingly familiar from the original series, and there is even a very clear strand of music from the 1978 ABC series in the opening theme music of “Blood & Chrome.”
Young Captain William Adama finds himself in the middle of the first Cylon war assigned to one of the most powerful battlestars in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica, as the battle between humans and their creation, the sentient robotic Cylons, rages across the 12 colonial worlds. Though Adama quickly finds himself at odds with his co-pilot, the battle weary officer Coker (Ben Cotton, “Alcatraz”), the two men set their differences aside when a routine escort mission with an enigmatic passenger (Lili Bordán, “Silent Witness”) turns dangerous and becomes a pivotal one for the desperate fleet.
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So, why watch the Blu-ray? Well, for one thing it’s “unrated,” though I couldn’t notice any obvious additional scenes of nudity or violence. Additionally, the Blu-ray features many deleted scenes, seven exclusive to this disc, and interviews with the crew about how they produced this action-filled and visual effects-laden series without ever leaving the digital studio.
— By Scott Hettrick