4/5 Inspires mixed feelings for a BSG follower
  by E. M. Van Court (Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA)
"The Plan" is not for people new to Battlestar Galactica (BSG). If you've followed the series, then it is going to inspire mixed feelings. Overall, I liked it, but I can see how others may not.

This is the BSG story from the Cylon perspective. A few characters get inserted into the old timeline, a lot of footage is recycled, depth is added to the saga, and the story of how Ellen Tigh escaped the nuclear attack is revealled.

It would be easy to accuse the makers of BSG of milking the cash cow, but I think the back-story in "The Plan" is along the lines of "Razor". You can watch and follow the series as broadcast, but the extended episodes and movies fill in blanks and enrich the epic. The politicking and behind the scenes stories of events that appeared in the series put those events in a whole new light, and enrich the understanding of the Cylon approach and outlook.

A good addition to BSG.

E. M. Van Court

1/5 Kluge
  by J. Cameron (Incline Village, NV USA)
kluge
Definition:

Something not built according a design or plan, but assembled from whatever is available to 'make do.'

(from Wikipedia):

Kludge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A kludge (or kluge) is a workaround, a quick-and-dirty solution, a clumsy or inelegant, yet effective, solution to a problem, typically using parts that are cobbled together. This term is diversely used in fields such as computer science, aerospace engineering, Internet slang, and evolutionary neuroscience.

The Plan is a perfect example of a Kluge. Worse yet, it changes characters and relationships from the series, and even changes the story line. The idea here was that there was not democracy and voting among the Cylons, they were all controlled to one degree or another by Brother Cavil, who knew who the final five were from the beginning. This may attempt to be an "effective solution" to a 4-5 year series with many plot holes and inconsistencies, but it ends up feeling "quick and dirty". If you have to change the story to try to tie it together, then better off leaving the questions unanswered.

5/5 Not a boring clip show
  by James Thomas
The Film

First off, this is NOT a clip show. If these reviewers even bothered to watch the movie, they would know that the majority of the film (at LEAST 75%) is entirely new footage. They only use old footage to provide the context to understand when the events are occuring. And the reused footage is often from different camera angles, and not exactly what was seen before. The integration of new and old footage is so well done that it gets hard to tell them apart. The visual effect shots are all entirely new (and absolutely stunning). The acting remains fantastic. There are entirely new music tracks, as well as a couple old familiar ones that are sometimes remixed and used at appropriate places in the time line of the story.

Secondly, this film is not really for newcomers to BSG. It might make limited sense to a newcomer, but there is no way you'd get the same appreciation for it, since this is the LAST installment of Battlestar, and spoils the entire preceding series.

For those who have seen BSG, the film itself is not pointless, and not just a reliving of earlier days on Galactica. It has it's own narrative and a plot. It's mainly a study of the motivations of the Cylons, as led by Cahvil, and how their plan (kill all humans) fell apart because of obsession and love. We already knew that they had hated the colonials enough to purge them from the universe, but not enough of an understanding of what precipitated the Cylon Civil War, and why they would ever ally with the Colonials, or why the Occupation wasn't just a wholesale slaughter of humans.

The only real faults of the film was it's pacing, which at first is too quick, and then it becomes too slow. And then there was too much that was glossed over, scenes that felt underplayed, and events that I couldn't help feel like should have been in the film (Olympic Carrier anyone?). And it only covered the time line of the first two seasons, still leaving a lot to be inferred. With so much left out and rushed through, I feel that it might have worked better, and have been more clear to it's purpose as a longer piece. Although there may yet be another BSG movie, since EJO has strongly alluded to that possibility.

Overall I find it a satisfying addition and enhancement of the story.

The Product

The packaging on this one is fine. I saw a lot of people have package issues with the full series box set, but that is not the case here. And in fact I was impressed the seal was surprisingly easy to remove (I've had many bad experiences with these on other DVDs). The disc has some rather nice extras. Unfortunately EJO and Espenson aren't nearly as good as Moore when it comes to commentary, yet they still share some interesting insights on their work.

Rating

Normally I'd give it 4 stars, since the film has it's faults. But I'm giving it 5 to offset the morons who say it's a clipshow, when it's not, and give it only one star on that basis alone, neglecting all it's good stuff. Sure it aint perfect, but I wouldn't have even reviewed this (I'm lazy) if it didn't irk me so badly how some people are bashing it.

3/5 What the frak!?!
  by Scott D. Ash (Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
I had to review this in the three parts that made up The Plan, because something can be missed in trying to sum up the entire show as a whole. As these three parts take up nearly a third of the show each this is rather easy; the difficulty lies in how to judge how well they were put together.

Firstly, the "Fleet" sequences. Sure, a lot of the new stuff was good, even if the nudity (yes, some people "get nekkid" in The Plan) seems a little gratuitous, but overall it was new camera angles of clips from previous episodes. While the idea was to get a sense of the cylon viewpoint, it seems more that stock footage was used to save on production costs. After all, why have some actors return to Vancouver to reprise scenes already completed? Just use the different camera angles to give that illusion. Also, there were subtle image-quality differences between that filmed for, say, the mini-series and that made for The Plan- most apparent after Six's famous "It's about time you got here" line was followed up upon. Overall, one star. Had there been more original work in this section I'd have rated this higher, but for the most part I found the fleet sequences disappointing.

Second, the "Resistance" segment. As the majority of this had to be new footage, here's where The Plan begins to markedly improve. The interplay between Anders, Brother Cavill, and the other resistance members was very well done; Brother Cavill trying to find some sense of absolution for the near-annihilation of humanity from Anders, who has no idea what he is, while Simon's (strangely) clueless about Anders being one of the "Final (actually, original) Five." The others in the resistance cell play their parts as athletes-turned-partisans very well, and I found the "resistance" segment quite enjoyable overall. Had a few deleted scenes been included, it'd have given it a full five-stars, but there were story gaps that were left on the cutting-room floor so I'll go four stars here.

And finally, the CGI. Here's where they pulled out all the stops. The new imagery was amazing, and we finally had a sense of life on the Twelve Colonies just as they were destroyed. The Hybrid's almost-poetic recital of the "status reports" combined with the before-and-after images of the various locations can easily be the highlight of the show. While we had allusions as to what the various colonies were like, it was only as they were being destroyed that we (finally) knew what places the individual worlds held in the Colonial collective consciousness. "The farms of Aerilon, the plains of Tauron..." Other CGI images (like the MIRV over Caprica) were also well-crafted. In CGI The Plan truly shines, thus five stars.

Overall, I had to give The Plan three stars. While the CGI and "Resistance" segments were well done, the "Fleet" sequences could have been much better. Even the brief pre-attack sequences seemed "thrown together" in order to give a sense of where the "Final Five" were when the bombs fell. (I'm sorry, but did Ellen Tigh always hang out in strip clubs when Saul was deployed or do Piconese waitresses simply work in nothing but g-strings?) The Plan was, overall, an enjoyable wrap-up to the latest incarnation of "Battlestar Galactica," but there was so much more the writers and producers could have done.

3/5 Meh
  by Thomas P. Kildren (NY)
As much as I was looking forward to this, I was surprised to find a flat plot and felt that it was nothing more than a clip show. I hope they do another, a more fitting coda to a great series than this.