So, um, I’m getting kind of tired of this series (and this web site in general) but because I’m committed, I’m going to see it through. So, yeah, here is this month’s Year in Movies. And bam!
The Collector
This sucks, don’t see it. I don’t even know what it’s about. I walked out after 15 minutes and ended up seeing:
Rating: 
The Hangover
This is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s hilarious. A group of friends go on a bachelor party in Vegas and wake up without a single memory from the night before. All they know is their friend is missing, there’s a random baby in the closet, and a tiger in the bathroom. It’s awesome. You just might want to close your eyes during the credits. I’m just saying.
Rating: 
The Soloist
What’s with all these movies starting with ‘the’? Anyway, this is one man’s exquisite attempt to find friendship and meaning in a post-9/11 world. In the process, he meets a man who will soon change his life. Ok, this isn’t what the movie is about, but it could be based on the box art. This movie was good. I mean, I think it was. I don’t really remember.
Rating:
Push
Evidently there are people who live among the rest of us who happen to have special abilities. They choose to hide these abilities in order to hide from the government, who wants to round everyone up and turn them into weapons. Sound familiar? Probably since there’s a pretty bad tv show with a similar story. Anyway, this movie was alright and the climax was pretty unique — yeah, I just said climax, deal with it. Anyway, it’s a solid movie and stars Dijmon Hounsou, so you can’t really go too far wrong. I don’t even know what that means…
Rating:
Wall-E
If there is a better commentary on the state of our society, I haven’t seen it. So until I do, Wall-E will have to do. There’s very little dialog, but the point comes across loud and clear. We’re fat, we’re lazy, and we are massive consumers. But if we take a few minutes to actually look at the world around us, we just might like what we have to see (or not). Either way, we might get pushed to do something about it. It was a sweet movie. Was it worthy of all the Best Picture controversy it stirred up? I don’t know, but Wall-E is worth seeing.
Rating:
Here we go. Year in Movies. Yep.
Balls of Fury
Looking at the Netflix page for this movie, I find is extremely surprising that Roger Ebert gave this film three out of five stars. It was pretty much horrible. The plot was mindless, the acting poor, and the jokes unfunny. Which is exactly what I needed in my post-surgery, pain induced state. Still, the movie merits the worst rating in Year in Movies history. Don’t bother with it.
Rating:
The Rocketeer
Even though I haven’t seen this movie in about fifteen years, as soon as those hanger doors open all those awesome memories came flooding back. It’s the story of a fly-boy who comes across an Howard Hughes prototype rocket pack that is being hunted by the FBI, mafia and an undercover Nazi spy. Other than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade there is no greater plot involving beating up Nazi’s in the history of cinema! This movie is great. Jennifer Connelly is beautiful and Terry O’Quinn plays a way better Howard Hughes than the guy in that crappy Scorsese flick.
Rating:
Payback: Straight Up: The Director’s Cut
Payback is about a guy who gets screwed out of $70,000 and he decided to kill everyone until he gets it back. Yeah, just $70,000. I know it’s not that much. It’s kind of the point. I really enjoyed the original version of this film so I figured I’d give the director’s cut a spin. Unlike most director cuts, Payback brings massive changes to the movie. Most noticeably? The black and white presentation is thrown out for a washed out color print. The ending also changes dramatically from the original. Despite the massive changes, I still like the cut. It brings a slightly different look at Porter’s quest to be paid back. Yeah, I went there.
Rating:
After the awesome ending to season 3.0 I was really excited to get Battlestar Galactica: Razor from Netflix. After about five minutes in I was very disappointed to find out Razor wouldn’t continue the story line and, instead, would follow the Pegasus from the moment of the Cylon attack to the moment it was destroyed. Lame. However, the movie wasn’t a total loss.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor
There were some, all but minor, revelations that have something to do with the entire series as a whole. Namely forty years ago, at the end of the first Cylon war, then Viper pilot “Husher” Adama found a factory where the Cylons were experimenting on humans — essentially attempting to build the first skin jobs. It was also revealed that at the moment the first Cylon war ended, Laura Roslin’s family had been killed and she left her little sister to die. When the war ended, her sister had been taken by a Heavy Raider, never to be seen again… maybe? We’ll see if it plays out again. Finally, Razor revealed that the original Hybrid Basestar was being protected by a group of original Raiders and hiding in deep space. Significance? Who knows because Battlestar Pegasus blew it up. Anyway, once Razor was out of the way it was finally onto the real story at hand, season 4.0.
There are a few, seemingly minor, things that happen throughout the course of season 4.0 that are still worth mentioning. The Cylons that became active at the end of season 3.0 — Colonel Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Samuel Anders, and Tory Foster — remain living in secret. Cally, Tyrol’s wife, discovered the secret and Tory flushes her out an airlock. Tory also starts sleeping with Giaus in an effort to “get information from him” but instead really enjoys it. Giaus continues to build his religious following and, in the process, stands up to the government and people that want to kill him. Oh, and he miraculously heals a child. No big deal.
The biggest story line of season 4.0 actually had very little to do with the humans. With the 3’s, the Lucy Lawless-bots, shelved, the 2’s (Starbuck’s creepy manipulating “husband”), 6’s (Giaus’ girlfriend), and 8’s (the Boomers) decided that finding the Final Five and working with the humans is probably God’s desire. On the other hand, the 1’s (crazy preacher guy), 4’s (doctor man) and the 5’s (first Cylon discovered) decided that knowing the identities of the Final Five and working with the humans is a horrible idea and, with the help of the 8 that tired to kill Adama, decide to kill off the “rebels.” Did you follow that? Anyway, the war only lasts a few minutes because the “rebels” basically get blown to pieces with no Resurrection ship in range.
[Note: As I typed this out I just realized that there are no 7's. Am I missing something or will this be revealed in 4.5?]
Meanwhile Starbuck, who despite being gone for two months and everyone thinking she died, shows up and only thinks she’s been gone for six hours. On top of that, her Viper is basically brand new without any computer data, scratches or even signs of use. Needless to say everyone thinks she’s a Cylon. As the Fleet continues to jump away from the Nebula that activated the hidden Cylons and where she reappeared, she starts to go nuts. Her “feeling” of how to find Earth starts to slip away. So, against the President’s wishes, Adama gives Starbuck the Demetrius and a small crew lead by Helo to follow her “feeling” to Earth.
Comet or a Basestar?
While on their “mission,” Starbuck’s crew grows tired of her crazy ramblings and paintings of a star system that don’t seem to make any sense. Then, on the last day of their 58 day tour, the Demetrius crew runs into a horribly damaged Heavy Raider with none other than Leoben Conoy, Starbuck’s creepy “husband” from New Caprica. Instead of killing him again, she listens to him and learns of the civil war and the rebel factions desire to work with the humans. Needless to say her crew thinks she’s nuts and decides to mutiny and go against her orders. In the Mexican standoff that ensues, Anders shoots Gaeta in the knee and Starbuck decides to take a Raptor with Athena, Anders, and some other pilot who ends up dyeing, along with Leoben, to see if the Cylon civil war is true.
Starbuck sees her crazy paintings realized when they jump into the battlefield and discover the whole thing is true. Discovering that working with the rebel Cylons may be the best way to find Earth, they jump the somewhat destroyed Basestar back to the Demetrius and then jump back to the fleet together.
It’s decided that the only way to end the Cylon civil war, and in turn get rid of the threat from the 1’s, 4’s, and 5’s, is to jump to the Resurrection Hub and destroy it. The Resurrection Hub is exactly what it sounds like, the one Hub in the universe that controls all the other Resurrection ships. Destroying it would essentially make all Cylons mortal. In the process, they will have to reactive a 3, since she knows the identities of the Final Five, and get her off the hub.
A plan is formed and half the Viper wing is moved to the damaged Basestar and then, randomly, the Hybrid controlling the Basestar, jumps off starting to hunt the Resurrection Hub — the Hybrid’s are the only Cylons capable of finding the Hub. After a number of jumps, they find it and the attack is on. Helo and an 8 board the Hub, once the Vipers took out it’s FTL, and pick up Lucy Lawless bot. The plan worked.
Resurrection Hub goes boom!
Back with the Fleet, The 3 decides to take all of the humans on the Basestar hostage until the four hiding Cylons are under her care. Tory goes with her when the 3 leaves Galactica. In a pretty tense moment, Tigh decides to finally tell Adama his secret and proposes a solution to the standoff, flush him out the airlock. Tigh ands over the identities of the other hidden Cylons who join him in the airlock. All the while Starbuck is trying to figure out what was so special about her “new” Viper. Then she figures it out — it’s the only ship in the fleet that’s picking up a Colonial transponder code pointing the way to Earth. How’d she know to look? Anders and Tyrol told her as they were being taken into custody. President, yes, president, Lee Adama decides the best way to handle this is by working with the Cylons and sharing the information. Everyone is in agreement that, while a long shot, it seems plausible. After all, the Final Five are supposed to lead the way to Earth. So, together with the rebel Basestar, the Fleet jumps to Earth(?).
Earth(?)
Season 4.0 ends with the main cast, including the rebel Cylons, on Earth(?) standing at the ruins of the temple of Athena. PUSH IN Adama and the 6’s confusion. FADE TO BLACK. End of the season.
A few things to note:
I wrote Earth with the (?) at the end because something doesn’t quite seem right. Granted there is a season 4.5 but a destroyed planet can’t be Earth, can it?
I have to assume we haven’t seen the end of the other side of Cylons. Despite the Resurrection Hub being destroyed, I have to think there is a group of 1’s, 4’s and 5’s that survived and want some revenge.
Tigh had been frakking the prisoner 6 and, guess what?, she’s pregnant!
Lucy Lawless-bot mentioned that four of the Final Five reside in the Fleet. What does that mean for the final Cylon? Surely their not in the Cylon fleet. So who is it? Where is it? Is it the 7-series? There’s only a few episodes left.
President Adama issued a full amnesty to each of the Final Five Cylons, allowing them to decide if they want to go with the Cylons or remain with the humans. All of this is probably mute considering it seems both factions are going to have to work together to figure out what really is going on.
I’m still wondering what happened to Starbuck while she was gone for two months, but I’m not really sure we’re going to get to find out. Maybe it’ll go the way of Shepherd Book’s true history in Firefly and become one of life’s great mysteries.
There isn’t really much more to say. One Cylon remains. Earth(?) has been found. No one has any idea what to do. I can’t wait for season 4.5.
I can wrap season 2.5 up with one word: change.
The season begins with what seems like the beginning to the mother of all space battles, pitting the Galactica against the Pegasus. Though, right when things are about to get good, Starbuck shows up in the Black Bird and shows everyone why she’s the best Viper pilot in the Fleet. So what’s the giant Cylon ship being protected by two Base Stars? Well, according to Cylon-Sharon, it’s the Resurrection. Huh?
When Cylons die, their mind downloads into another body. So they don’t ever really die. Except, since they’ve been chasing the Fleet for so long, they’re to far from their homeworld and can no longer download. So they beam to the Resurrection and are good to go. So, of course, this is a priority target.
Needless to say the Fleet totally destroys the hell out of the Resurrection as well as the Base Star escorts. You can push humanity to the brink of extension but you can’t take the fight out of us — or something like that. Anyway, this is where everything begins to change.
We got a look at what the Cylons are doing back on Caprica and, well, it was an interesting look. The two “war heros” — the Number Six who is stuck in Gaius’ head and the Number Eight who shot Adama — decide that the Cylons are doing it all wrong and decide to take the lead of the entire Cylon race. In order to do this they have to kill our seventh known Cylon, Lucy Lawless. Cylons taking a deeper look at their purpose and killing their own to make a point? That’s a change.
While this is going on, Starbuck leads a team of Raptors back to Caprica to rescue the resistance, and her new boyfriend. They do, but conveniently all but about 15 people are killed just before the Raptors all arrive — this will make the return trip a lot easier. But while everyone is reuniting, they’re all pinned down by Cylon mortar fire. So they hide. Eighteen hours later they realize that all the Cylons have left. A priest, who happens to be our eighth known Cylon, tells them that it’s a sign from the gods.
Meanwhile, back on Galactica the same Cylon-priest is counseling the Chief because, after being woken up from a reoccurring nightmare, beat the living crap out of Callie [and frak! while looking up the spelling of her name I caught a spoiler. Stupid Google summary text under the link!]. Anyway, Cylon-priest delivers a message to President Roslin that the “war heroes” have shown the Cylons the error of their ways and they have decided to leave Caprica for good and will no longer chaise the Fleet to the ends of the universe. Yeah, big change.
While all this is going on the Fleet-wide election is taking place. The big swing in the whole deal is the discovery of a relatively hidden planet which 20% of it is habitable. Of course, President Roslin thinks abandoning Earth is a bad idea and, seizing the opportunity, Giaus wins the election. Change that is obviously going to yield horrible results.
This is where the biggest change takes place. The Fleet takes settlement on the planet they decide to call New Caprica. A barebones Galactica and Pegasus maintain orbit with a few Fleet ships keeping watch while everyone else eeks out a hellish living on the frozen planet. Fast forward a year. Starbuck is married and hasn’t spoken to Lee in a year, Tigh retires, Giaus is a horrible president and the Cylons show up. That’s right. They show back up and no one has any idea what to do. Giaus, not really having any choice at this point, surrenders to the Cylons giving up the entirety of humanity — except for Galactica and the rest of the orbital Fleet that had the sense to jump away at the first sign of trouble.
So there it is. Change. At this point eight of the twelve Cylon models are known. I’m pretty sure that Giaus isn’t a Cylon after all, he’s just an idiot. As for the remaining four models I’m really hoping it’s not all guest stars like the doctor, the priest and Lucy Lawless. I now have a very strong fraking suspicion that the Chief is a Cylon. I guess it’s kind of obvious since his whole nightmare thing was very similar to Sharon’s whole “awakening” thing, but other than that I don’t really have any ideas for the remaining Cylons. It would be all sorts of shocking if Tigh or Starbuck were Cylons, but I’m doubting that’d be the case. I don’t really know.
While season 2.0 really hooked me, I’m not really happy with how season 2.5 ended. I was left more in a state of disbelief than anything else. The whole one year later thing felt a lot like when the CIA shut down to reopen next season as Authorized Personal Only in Alias — in other words, sloppy writing. I’m hoping that’s not the case here but we’ll see. Netflix has sent disc one of season 3.0 so we’ll see what happens there. I don’t really have anything else to say at this point.
This is how I ended my season one write-up:
I’m still not completely sold on Battlestar Galactica being this super awesome show that everyone raved about while it was coming to a close. Don’t get me wrong, it’s decient but it’s more slow then it is compelling. Though it seems just when I’m getting tired of nothing happening, it gets extremely compelling and won’t let me give up on it.
Season two begins with Starbuck and Helo, stuck on Caprica, getting ditched by Boomer — Helo’s Cylon-baby mama. Interestingly enough, they stumble upon a human resistance movement. That’s right, more humans than Helo survived the massive nuke strike on Caprica. Crazy, I know! Anyway, in an attempted strike to steal a Raider and get off Caprica, Starbuck is shot and wakes up in a hospital. Of course, the hospital isn’t exactly what it seems and it’s here that we finally learn a bit of what the Cylons’ plains are.
Apparently Cylons can’t make babies. I mean, they can create more copies and make more Cylons, but the human copies can’t make babies. So they’re trying to, well, farm them. See the hospital that Starbuck wakes up in is really a creepy Cylon baby factory. Her doctor happens to be the fifth Cylon we’ve been introduced to. Besides treating her gunshot, the Cylon-doc appears to have cut Starbuck’s ovaries out. I’m sure it’ll come into play later on.
To wrap this story up, because it’s only part of the season, Starbuck kills the doctor, as well as another copy of Number Six, and busts out. Just as she does, the resistance and Helo come to save her along with a Cylon gunship being flown by Boomer. Apparently this copy of Boomer is so ashamed of being a Cylon that she’s doing everything she can to help the humans. This could just be her programing, but I’m not really sure at this point.
Starbuck returns to the fractured fleet with the Arrow of Apollo. Adama decided that it’s time to bring the fleet back together and joins the President and company on Kobol. The team not only finds the map to Earth, they end up, if not briefly, on Earth looking up at the stars — their roadmap.
Once the fleet is again flying together, Adama grants a reporter looking for dirt an all access pass aboard Galactica in an effort to show that the members of the Battlestar are no different than everyone else in the fleet. The final piece is pretty good but, as it turns out — and this was a complete shocker — the reporter was our sixth Cylon. Crazy. I know. They got the entire run of the ship. Not sure when we’ll see the reporter-Cylon again, but I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.
The Chief, heart-broken that Boomer is back and in love with another man, decided to put his time to better use and builds an actual Viper in the hanger deck. Like from scratch. And it happens to be better than a normal Raptor, it’s a stealth Viper dubbed the Blackbird. Pretty sweet.
There was one more massive event in this short thirteen-episode season and that happened in the final episode. While cruising the skies contact was made with another Battlestar, the Pegasus. When the attack begun, they quickly jumped off and have been on the offensive ever since. While attempting to figure out Cylon jump patterns, the Pegasus stumbled on the fleet. It seems, not surprisingly, that the Cylons have been following the fleet. But here’s the kicker, the commander of the Pegasus is Admiral Cain, that’s right, she out-ranks Commander Adama which means she is now in command of the fleet. Needless to say she doesn’t exactly see things the same way Adama does.
After studying Adama’s logs, well, before I get to that two things: 1) what’s the deal with not having corners on anything? Is it a massive love of the octagon or in the future are we without corners? 2) Who’s keeping these logs that Adama gave to Cain? Thousands of words WRITTEN down remarking on every single event since the fleet began running. Just seems odd. Anyway, after Cain read all of Adama’s logs she decides there need to be some changes. She has Starbuck and Apollo reassigned to the Pegasus and, after the Chief and Helo accidentally kills a Pegasus lieutenant, Cain decided almost instantly that they’ll be executed. Upon hearing this, Adama decided he’s had enough and sends a Raptor filled with marines escorted by Vipers to return the Chief and Helo. Cain reacts by scrambling her Vipers. Then the season ends. Just like that.
Besides what will happen with the massive Mexican standoff in the sky, season 2.0 leaves us with a few other cliff hangers. The first one is obviously what will happen with Cain and the Pegasus. Clearly she needs to go and Adama needs to be restored to commander of the fleet, but I’m not really sure how. The Pegasus is a bigger, more powerful ship and has plenty more Vipers than the Galactica so I’m assuming a battle is out of the question, so somehow they go their separate ways. My best guess is that is has something to do with Starbuck and Apollo’s new assignment. Cain’s scouting party caught a picture of a very large, very unidentified and heavily guarded Cylon ship. The Pegasus CAG decides to send a team on a recon mission to figure out just what it is. Starbuck points out the flaws in the mission and gets herself grounded. Instead, Apollo gives her a recon package and tells her to use the Blackbird because that is a mission plan that will most likely actually net results. So my guess is somehow this works out and Cain decides to just give Adama his people back and leave the fleet alone, continue doing what they do. Either that, or she’s a Cylon.
Besides the immediate cliff hangers, there are a few massive ones that span the entire series. The obvious one is the identity of the final six Cylons. I’m starting to think my original bold predictions of Gaius, President Roslin and Colonel Tigh are probably all wrong. But that’s ok. I’d rather it not be someone obvious in favor of someone more shocking. Like if somehow Adama turned out to be a Cylon, that’d be massively shocking. Not probable, but shocking nonetheless.
The other massive question hanging out there is just what is this Cylon-human baby going to be/look like/effect the human race. This brings up the whole baby-farm and why the Cylons wanted Starbuck’s eggs (assuming that’s what they were doing). I’m not sure, but it’s pretty creepy.
Wow, that’s a lot of words that can only be summed up by saying that I’m completely hooked on the show. If you’ve read this far you’re either a fan of the show or have some weird obsession with everything I write. Either way, I can’t wait for Netflix to ship out season 2.5 disc 1 so I can get right back into it and find out what happens with the massive Galactica/Pegasus standoff.
So am I crazy or is this a pretty good show?
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