Saturday, December 20, 2008

There are some spoilers in this entry for the Battlestar Galactic episodes that aired this year, up to the current Webisodes - nothing from that story is referenced. This section is me researching the post series finale movie, which is set during the series.

I did some digging and here are the articles I found that deal with the post-BSG film, "The Plan". The Los Angeles Times had this in August. Also in August, BSG writer Mark Verheiden's blog had this to say. Also in August, the Chicago Tribune offered this piece. Then in late August, there was a blog / report on Door Q that had this to say. In September, IGN had this to add. Also in September, the Chicago Tribune offered this cast update. And lastly, there's this interview with the writer Jane Espenson from a few days ago on scifiwire.

For those of you not wanting to read all these articles, what we seem to know about this post series released tv movie is this.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by Edward James Olmos
Production Start: Sep 8, 2008
Airdate: 2009

The movie will air sometime after the series ends, so after Friday, March 20, 2009.

It's reported that the movie will be released on DVD shortly after airing, just as previous tv movie "Razor" did before it.

Edward James Olmos has directed other episodes. These episodes include Season 1's "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down", Season 3's "Taking a Break From All Your Worries" and Season 4's "Escape Velocity".

Jane Espenson (former Buffy writer) wrote Season 3's "The Passage" & "Dirty Hands"; and season 4's "Escape Velocity", "The Hub" & "The Face of the Enemy" webisodes.

The movie was filmed after the series was completed, and around the same time the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes were also filmed.

From Sci-Fi's press release:

"Starting before the events of the miniseries, our story focuses on familiar characters including Cylon Number One, know as Cavil, Resistance Leader Sam T. Anders and Chief Galen Tyrol. In the beginning, the Cylons had a plan, but it didn't account for one thing: survivors. During the chaotic aftermath of the destruction, two powerful Cylon agents struggle with plots and priorities on the human ships that got away, and among the resistance fighters who were left behind."

Jane Espenson had this to say:

"The events of The Plan are the events that you've seen...in the show, from the miniseries to almost the end of season two. So it's that chunk of time, but sort of seen with the Cylon perspective. So you're going to see a lot of stuff that was going on that you weren't aware of at the time: on Caprica, in the fleet. That was when the Cylons, as depicted in the original show, were very mysterious, enemies that would come out of the darkness and retreat. And this is...what were they really doing all that time: What was the the internal stuff. A lot of loose ends are tied up, a lot of questions are asked that you don't even know that you have. If you had a copy right now, you might feel that you could go ahead and watch it, because it's about stuff that already happened. But it's very much designed to be watched after the run of the series, because it definitely relies on stuff you don't learn until much later... We made tons of changes in the preproduction phase and ended up with a really tight script that we filmed sort of as they were demolishing the sets out from under us. And we ended up with something that I think is so much better than our highest hopes had been for what this movie could be. It really sort of caps off the show."

It's interesting that it follows the Cylon perspective though the end of the 2nd Season, because that's when we started seeing more from the Cylon perspective in the show through "Downloaded" and later in the 3rd Season with Gaius on the Cylon ship. From "Downloaded" onward we got the Cylon perspective and now this movie is set to fill in some of the blanks - sounds awesome.

The movie stars:

Aaron Douglas ("Chief Tyrol")
Matthew Bennett ("Doral")
Tricia Helfer ("Number Six")
Michael Hogan ("Saul Tigh")
Lymari Nadal ("Giana")
Edward James Olmos ("Admiral Adama"),
Grace Park ("Boomer"/"Athena"),
Callum Keith Rennie ("Leoben"),
Rekha Sharma ("Tory Foster"),
Dean Stockwell ("Brother Cavil"),
Michael Trucco ("Samual Anders"),
Rick Worthy ("Simon")

Lymari Nadal's character Giana, appeared in the original miniseries. She was the Caprican who escaped along with Boomer and Baltar when Helo was left behind. She was heard asking about her husband who served in the Colonial Fleet near Gemenon. Nadal is also Edward James Olmos's real life wife.

Almost all of the cast is made up of Cylon characters, with the exception of "Three" & possibly the final unknown Cylon. The Chicago Tribune reported that Saul Tigh and Tory Foster both appear but in a limited capacity. I'm wondering if Lucy Lawless's character of Three might not show up in some old footage or something.

There's a page set up for the film on the Battlestar Wiki, though much of the information I learned about the film is not represented there.

And that's really all I can find on the film. Which is good as I don't want it ruined. I was just curious about it.

   posted by Bald Jason at 06:45 AM
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