Genre: Action | SciFi
Director: Jonas Pate
Writer: Michael Taylor, teleplay
Cast: Luke Pasqualino, Ben Cotton, and Lili Bordán
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Run Time: 97 minutes excluding bonus features
Synopsis:
An all-new chapter in the “Battlestar Galactica” saga, Blood & Chrome takes place in the midst of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, the sentient robotic Cylons, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a young, talented fighter pilot, William Adama, finds himself assigned to one of the most powerful battlestars in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica. Though Adama quickly finds himself at odds with his co-pilot, the battle weary officer Coker (Ben Cotton, “Alcatraz”), the two men must 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.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/nMcLF9V0_6o[/youtube]
Maybe you’re like me and when the reboot of Battlestar Galactica ended in 2009 you mourned another good show taken out of your viewing rotation. And I don’t know about you, but Caprica never spoke to me the way Battlestar Galactica did. I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe what I desperately missed was the opening Viper dogfight sequences. Who knows. But when I heard about Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome coming out I had mixed feelings. I really liked the idea of it being a back story for William Adama and how he came to be on the Battlestar Galactica, but I was worried that the release of the show on YouTube might diminish the artistic elements that I had grown to trust from the show.
I jumped in with the series online immediately and then fell out just as fast. For me it was hard to maintain the momentum in 12 minute bursts spread out over weeks and I opted to wait for the whole experience to be available to me in one sitting. And I was not disappointed.
Last night when I popped in the Blu-ray for Blood and Chrome and the opening popped up with a Viper dogfight complete with the iconic drums of the Syfy series, I’ll admit that my hands started to sweat a little. I drew up my feet and was completely absorbed in the show for the full 97 minutes. Only a few times did I stop to think where the action breaks were supposed to have been, and they were only obvious a handful of times. Otherwise it ran continuously as if it had always been meant to do so.
The show makes up for its low budget with some pretty effective blurring and overuse of lens flares and while my husband said he thought the techniques were distracting, I really felt like it took my mind off the fact that they probably had very little in the way of actual sets, and the additional camera tricks do help to keep your eyes on the characters rather than their backgrounds.
But the scenes in space with the ships zipping around shooting each other is pretty exceptional, especially in the Blu-ray format. I found myself during the opening scene, mouth agape, just saying WOW over and over. It really is breathtaking what can be done with CGI.
Special Features
BLU-RAY/DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
* Deleted Scenes – Which like any movie are probably removed to keep the story tighter, but a lot of these are essential bits of storyline that would otherwise be missed. So interesting to watch, since they are all filmed, but not taken through CGI enhancements.
* Blood & Chrome Visual Effects Featurette – This give you the full scope of what was involved in the CGI production of every single shot. Amazing.
Program Information
TECHNICAL INFORMATION – BLU-RAY COMBO PACK: Street Date: February 19, 2013
Layers: BD-50
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Rating: Not rated
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French Sound: 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio
TECHNICAL INFORMATION – DVD:
Street Date: February 19, 2013
Layers: Dual Layer
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Rating: Not rated
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
What they’ve done with this release is ground-breaking in its production and I think this is a great start to a prequel to Battlestar Galactica. I hope that there will be more to come, because there is still so much left of the story to tell.
I give Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome [Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy] Five Out of Five Stars.
Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome [Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy] is available for preorder from Amazon now; here’s the link:
[AMAZONPRODUCT=B00A3718IS]
