It has been a couple months since finishing Seasons 1-4 of Battlestar Galactica and I miss it. I miss starting up another episode excited for new plot and character developments. I miss seeing how pieces of the puzzle come together revealing a bigger picture. The drama, the connection to characters, the connection to the environment… was lost on the movie Caprica.
Set 50+ years before the Cylon attack, Caprica fails at creating a world I cared about. My expectations were not unattainably high either, however once the previews started to roll with that introduction music that preceded BSG episodes started to play, my heart sped up a little.
The idea of the virtual world was clever and delivered well. Honestly, I do not think human kind is that far from making that a reality! This consumed a fair amount of the movie and unfortunately is a rather stretch to connect with Battlestar Galactica.
Dialog was sub-par at best in the first 20 minutes but improved to mediocre after that. In my humble opinion, the plot had a couple holes in it that were distracting to me. One of which they could have certainly plugged with some cool material (involves the end, but I’ll not ruin it for anyone reading).
With adjusting maybe 5-10 minutes of the movie, this could have been a standalone Sci-Fi movie that had nothing to do with BSG and I would not have even noticed.
I still miss the ship. Galactica was every part a character in that series as the Admiral. From the series, this environment was home, and felt like so for the viewer. Caprica was not able to duplicate this feeling. Building relationships between characters is certainly harder in one movie vs 30-40 hour long episodes but again, this movie missed the mark.
For the average BSG fan, I’d say you could skip this spin off. The series starting in the Fall/Winter based on this time frame may strengthen the movie. However, I believe this movie is suppose to be the tool to get watchers excited and on board.