User reviews

This film retells the events of the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica but with one crucial difference; it is told from the Cylon perspective. As such it contains crucial plot points that anybody watching the original series wouldn't discover till a few seasons in... that is the main reason not to watch this before finishing the series. The other is that it will seem very rushed; events that took place over an episode or more may be covered in a few minutes and much of the plot advancement is skipped altogether. Similarly no time is spent explaining who characters are.

The story starts as two Cylon 'Number One' models are about to be executed; each of them has very different views about what should have been done to humanity. We then jump back to just before the attack on the colonies. The events that follow are shown from the perspectives of various key Cylon characters, some of whom believe themselves to be human. It becomes clear that it was expected that the attack would completely exterminate humanity; the Cylons certainly didn't expect to have to exist within human society as they do and it is clear that some of them are developing unexpected feelings.

I rather enjoyed this; probably because it is quite a while since I've watched the series so it provided many reminders of great episodes... perhaps because a fair amount of the material was reused. Seeing the events from the Cylon point of view was interesting as was seeing how living amongst people for an extended period showed that they weren't as different from their creators as they would like o believe. The acting was solid; most notable from Dean Stockwell who was great as Number One, AKA Brother Cavell; he dominated every scene he was in. I didn't expect any surprises but the story managed to provide some. These including a genuinely shocking moment where a child is killed. Not all surprises were good; there was some gratuitous nudity which appeared to be there just because the makers were free from restrictions which applied in the broadcast series... I have nothing against nudity in film/TV but it shouldn't be quite as gratuitous! Overall this isn't a must see but BSG fans wanting to see the characters again should enjoy it.

Where the people you meet are important to you only because they were already important to you Which pretty much sets it apart from the other movie versions of BSG each of which managed to both carry the story and at the same time be a self-standing movie for newbies.

The pace is slow. A fly crawling up a drape makes better progress.

If you watch the whole thing (and many will not) you will be haunted by the notion that the producers saw this as an easy payday and a chance to reuse footage from earlier episodes.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The rating I gave tells the tale. Dean Stockwell gives the performance of his life. There is a scene at the 1:40 mark involving Stockwell, a small boy, an apple and a knife. It is mesmerizing Which is more than I can say of the movie

I had mixed feelings about the concept of The Plan before I saw it: Olmos spoke a lot about The Plan at a panel at '09 Wizard World Convention in Philadelphia. He was very excited about the project and led us to believe that we would be presented an intimate look at an extended Cylon plot that ran concurrently with the series as a whole.

He did not deliver.

First, the movie is at least 40% Archive Footage (taken from Season 1 and Season 2). The scenes are woven in as helpful "reminders". These "reminders" help connect events from the show to their extended explanations in "The Plan". Truthfully, the archive footage is abrupt and unnecessary. Fans would easily be able to connect "The Plan"'s events.

The story of this movie lacks the provocative and thought-inspiring nature that BSG is so respected for. The writing is poor and the events play out in rather unspectacular way.

The only thing that saves this movie is the strong performances by Dean Cain, Tricia Helfer, and Callum Keith Rennie. Though the writing is not up to normal standards, these actors' mastery over their characters is readily apparent in this flimsy companion piece.

Overall, watch "The Plan", it's not very long and has a few interesting moments (spread far out in the film). More importantly, if you're interested in Brother Cavil, this is a great way to get some perspective on the bitter Cylon "leader." You need to disconnect your brain a little bit at some points (like seeing 7 Cylons hiding in plain sight on Galactica), and if you can, you can enjoy the bits of BSG-goodness hidden in the film.

Whilst 'The Plan' well made and not terrible, we find out a couple of new things but the idea and story isn't nearly as good as it should be. The script fails to ignite and there is understandably a lot of reused footage. The acting is good, especially from Dean Stockwell who really holds the story together. The special effects are good but there are no big battles, the score is subtle most of the time, occasionally the camera is a bit to unsteady but that is just a personal thing. Editing is OK, not really exciting. I didn't hate any part of it but it didn't excite me at all either. A bit disappointing really.

Really I would say that this film is for Battlestar Gallactica completists. Hopefully Battlestar will do a film explaining all the stuff they didn't bother to explain about Star Buck but somehow I doubt that will happen.

I joined Battlestar Galactica the series after it was all finished with, and watched it through DVD's, which I find is the best way to watch series where possible. I enjoyed it all the way through but was never a raving fan of the show to the point where I could not accept any faults or criticism. Anyway, I was not really looking forward to this TVM simply because I only half-heard about it and never saw the adverts or hype that professed it to be something important or worth seeing. Although I was not told this I still did hope that the film would be worth watching but the truth is that it cannot get over the problem that it hasn't got anything new to say.

It is a shame because had this been built into the show then perhaps it would have worked better, but by coming after the series has concluded one does have to take this film as a standalone. As such it has the themes of the show, the events of the show and the narratives and the only difference is that we have some new material which acts as framing to allow a new angle to be put on the events. I say angle rather than perspective because "perspective" suggests that there is some insight or opinion to be gained from the different telling whereas angle just suggests the same thing from a different view point and that is what the film is. Watching it is a bit irritating because the new material is sporadically interesting but it never lasts long and it is not strong enough to "be" the film and as a result the film remains about the threads that we have already seen – and these are not different enough due to the new angle to be particularly worth seeing.

The cast do what they did originally (in some cases exactly the same since many are only in old footage) but I did think that Stockwell did well in his additional scenes. Other than that though there is not much else to say – the film doesn't add much and for those who have seen the series (and if you haven't why are you watching this?) the vast majority of it will be just the same material from a slightly different angle, with the new material being the same themes from a different angle. Built into the series (like Razor) then maybe this could have washed (big maybe) but as a standalone film after the fact it just feels like an accountant has done the maths and tried to work out how to keep getting the revenues that BSG brought in before it finished.

First of all let me get one thing straight, this is in no way an original Battlestar Galatica story. Razor had a story that centered around a new character and told a somewhat self-contained story. This is almost the complete opposite; no relevant new characters, no truly new plot lines. This film is essentially a side story of the original two seasons. It deals with the attack on the colonies and the subsequent invasion and pursuit of Galactica from the point of view of the Cylons; not just the original 8 models but also the final five.

The main character is actually Brother Cavil, in two different forms one on Caprica and one on-board Galatica. We see that Cavil plays a crucial role in orchestrating the Cylon events on the Galactica, while his Caprica counterpart takes the role of a distant observer to the struggling band of survivors on Caprica.

What I really liked about this movie is that it kind of ties everything together. It retreads the old plot lines of the first two seasons, but knowing the revelations to take place it puts everything in a different light. It also explores the intense cruelty and duality of Cavil. Additionally, some of the plot lines that were never quite clear, begin to make sense. (How did Leobin know so much about Kara? Where Valeri's actions intentional?) There are three issue that I can foresee someone having with this. The first being, that some might feel it being a retcon of the first two seasons to connects the events of the fourth. While this might be somewhat true, I don't think it takes anything away from them, and if you liked the fourth season it adds something significant to it. The second issue is that it is a retread. We already know exactly what happens to all these characters. But I don't think that the compelling part of this is what happens so much as why it happens, and what feelings and emotions are fueling the Cylons. The third is that there are basically no space battles to be seen here. There is a great opening sequence where we get a much more in depth look at the destruction of the colonies, but for a show called Battlestar Galatica we might expect some space jockey action.

I am not a prude but I must say that after seeing the unrated DVD, there is a bit of gratuitous nudity. Not that I had a problem with it, so to say, but it felt a little out of place, like it was trying to be a little shocking. Maybe it was just trying to give us a taste of what the show would have been like on HBO, i dunno just felt a little tacked on.

Overall this is a great companion piece to the series, does not feel entirely necessary but at the same time doesn't feel like it didn't need to be in the first place.

The synopsis given by "official" sources says that this movie reveals the Cylons' Plans from before the attack on the colonies up through the end of Season 2.

This review will be extremely short, as talking about much of it at all would be spoiling both the movie and the series.

The movie basically follows 'Number 1,' both the one on Caprica and the one in the fleet, and how they change throughout the course of the series. Unfortunately, it only covers up through season 2, so this so called "Plan" was boiled down to simply kill all humans. Nothing the audience of BSG didn't already know, right? The movie was okay, but it ended up feeling like a long string of deleted scenes from the series. If you have seen the whole series, then it is a must-see, even if there is nothing new.

Taken as a standalone movie, it is easily a 1/10. However, there is NO WAY someone who has not seen the entire series of BSG should even consider watching this. It doesn't introduce anything new really, but it is a decent addition/companion to the series that all hardcore fans need to see.

As someone who enjoys Battlestar Galactica a good deal, I wanted to like The Plan. But other than the decent looking sets and costumes and the better than average acting I didn't care overall for the movie. The writing is not as clever and often doesn't flow very naturally, while the story is not only dull with a lot of it being clumsily incorporated stock footage and overlong filler but with the fact that I didn't get anything new from it I just didn't see the point. The characters are not as interesting either, in fact I found their personalities bland and underdeveloped on the whole.

Overall, not absolutely terrible but pointless and nothing interesting or new. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I had trouble following the thread of the film, and I've watched all BSG episodes religiously, so there is no chance in hell anyone else than a BSG fan could want to watch it. But then again it didn't provide any answers, just a feel good humanization of the cylon skinjobs, which felt stretched anyway.

Bottom line: a futile exercise, especially after we've seen the horrible ending of the series.

If this would have been released before the end of the fourth season, it would have made some sense, but like this... it was just a waste of time.

I hate to say it, but the Galactica stable are really losing their touch.

The story is half stock footage from the series and half filler. OK, we learn some details like HOW Ellen Tigh got out alive - but we knew she did. We see some trivia, like who Caprica Six met just before the raid, but who cares? We see some familiar Cylons in unfamiliar and unexpected places, generally risking throwing off continuity.

We don't see the things I really wanted to know. I wanted to see the Cylon worlds. I wanted to see WHY the Cylons chose to attack, and why now. I want to see WHY they chose to infiltrate Earth, and why that way. I want to learn the Cylon choices and motivations and psychology.

Oddly, the costume designer was shown in the credits before the writer. I guess the writing is less important than the consulting producer and other illusory titles. Jane Epperson wrote this one, as well as being the executive producer. Ron Moore wasn't in the critical credits. Where was he? Perhaps if he'd spent more time on this than Virtuality he'd have gotten one good product.

While the visuals were good, what I feel is the now increasingly tired end of a series. How long will they keep scraping the bottom? I guess as long as they think they can make money at it.

Warning: If you haven't seen the whole BSG series, then BSG - The Plan won't make any sense at all. It'll just look like a bunch of deleted scenes cobbled together. If you have seen the BSG series, then it will fill in some blanks along the BSG storyline, only from a Cylon perspective. Some of the special effects weren't that convincing, particularly the initial nuclear attack. I always thought nuclear blasts leveled everything around them but left whatever was precisely below them at ground zero mostly intact. (just like Hiroshima) Oh, yeah ... the DVD easter egg is in the Bonus menu, go to "Cylons of The Plan" and right arrow.

After a very disappointing final episode of the series that answered and revealed naught, the plan finally digs deeper into the motivations and questions that a created construct has about it's creator and what it means to develop into an evolved human prototype. From my estimation the plan is both the beginning and the definitive ending of this exotic and brutally honest space opera. It brings full circle the entire series. The fact that it is pieced together like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle is apropos in my mind.

The eternal recurrence, that this has all happened before, this is a complex morality tale that both satisfies and justifies many unanswered questions that I had, it places its brand upon the entire series and I can now breath a sigh of relief that this was truly one of the best dramas in television. No longer a hurried, convenient open exit, the end is now the beginning and so we must continue to wonder and to speculate on what the idea of humanity really means.

A movie that parallels the series Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009), showing the attack on the 12 Colonies of Cobol, the aftermath and the human fleet's odyssey from the Cylon perspective. In particular we see it from the point of view of the humanoid Cylons, especially Brother Cavil / Number One.

A movie that's neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Battlestar Galactica series but rather shows key events in the series from a Cylon-perspective. It adds nothing to the story so is quite pointless, other than a means for the producers to squeeze some more dollars out of the Battlestar Galactica brand. Being from a Cylon perspective it's not that engaging and it's not filling any gaps in the storyline you were wondering about. Did we really need to know who caused the explosion that destroyed Galactica's water supply, say? No.

It's behind-the-scenes Cylon goings-on that nobody cares about.

This said, the graphics are great, better than the series, and there are some interesting sub-plots and themes. The fact that many of the Cylons gain a conscience and can't go through with their missions is particularly interesting. The fact that most of the flashbacks are from the best part of the series - Seasons 1 and 2 - also beings back fond memories.

If The Plan is the last of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica that we'll ever see, does it complete the series in a bang, or a whimper?

I'd say somewhere between the two. Where Razor was a fun side-story that added some welcome, but unessential details to the Battlestar Galactica cannon, The Plan is really nothing more than a retelling of the majority of the story, from the Cylon's point of view. Specifically, the points of view of two Cavil's and two Simon's.

We get a few answers during the movie that explain some minor, niggling questions, and those were pretty cool. But everything else is either just a review of events that were driven by the Cavil's, outside of our knowledge, a few scenes that more fully integrate the Final Five into the earlier parts of the series, or a look at the experiences that the two Simon's had with the humans that they were close to. 

One's and Four's are among my least favorite Cylon models, so I can't say that I was exactly thrilled that they were the focus of the majority of the story. But I did feel like I knew more about the Cylons and the mythology of the series after I watched it, so it was worthwhile for me. I'm not going to complain about any new BSG, and getting to see some of my favorite characters one last time was worth the price of admission, by itself.   

Just look at it as a long recap episode with some never before seen footage, and you won't be disappointed. Razor was better, but The Plan serves its purpose somewhat well, and its a bittersweet final entry for anyone who's a fan of one of the best TV shows in years.

I was a great fan of the series and bought the DVD's as soon as they were available.

This, however, was a real let down. It was almost more like a budget saving "clip show" than a movie. There was nothing new, no revelations, no finally uncovered PLAN. It was just a rehash of everything you knew before.

It was nice to see Edward James Olmos direct again and there were some new scenes (heavily mixed with clips).

I'm certain there are some great movies that could be made based on the series. Unfortunately this was not one of them.

In a way, I envy those who have never watched Battlestar Gallactica (BSG) but decided to see this one. Me, who have followed the show through out the years, now feel the sudden urge to watch them again.

With every story ever told, having more then one side to it, so does the BSG one. All though you might not agree with their view on things, it is interesting to see it.

Now being a fan, I found a lot of "aha" moments through out the film, moments a viewer, new to the story might not see at all.

If you have seen anything from the BSG show, even if it is just a short clip or stray episode and found it interesting, watching this movie will sure be time well spent.

The movie is a nice addition to BSG Universe and tells the story from the Cylon part, which answers some mysteries that rise along the series. (Ie. what happened to Six after accusing Baltar of sabotage).

With the BSG sets gone, it would be nice to move the story forward, like EJO commented in an interview. The task of setting in a new earth, the encounter of an advanced civilization vs primitive one. If done with same care and level of the re-imagined BSG, would be great.

It is good to have followed the series through all seasons and coming to its closure on its own terms. Thanks to the crew of for a wonderful job. So say we all.

To me, this just seems like a lot of parts wrongfully cut from the 2004-2009 show, with a bit of the surrounding footage to put it in perspective.

Especially since the first season only has 13 episodes and the rest had 20

Plenty of things in this movie that would have explained things a bit better had they been left in.

As others have said, don't watch this if you haven't seen at least the first two seasons of the show.

There are also several characters in this that either didn't get much screen time in the show and/or development, and a couple that seemed to be cut from it entirely.

Watch this after season 2 if you're just starting.