|
Author
|
Topic: MISSION GALACTICA: The Cylon Attack (Universal) 2X400
|
Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted December 16, 2008 09:03 PM
Okay, I have been and always will be a fan of Battlestar Galactica.
Ever since I was eating my Apple Jacks and staring at the TV in 1978, I have loved this series and was overjoyed once again when the box set came out on DVD of the whole series which amazingly, only lasted one season, which is amazing as it has had such a long-lasting impact. it really boosted the look of TV sci-fi by leaps and bounds. (By the way, the image quality on this DVD set is really good, with stereo sound. I have seen this rebroadcast on retro TV and the prints they use are terrible, but the DVD box set, (except for the hair styles) shows that the TV show has aged remarkably well).
But most people do not know that Battlestar was released to the Movie theaters. in fact, it "premiered" in the theater as a feature film, (later a three hour TV pilot), but even fewer people know that there was a SECOND feature film released to movie theaters.
It was entitled, "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack.
I was surprised by this super 8 release a number of years ago and finally acquired a decent copy of it, but I was even more surprised by the content. I had originally assumed that it was entirely a two parter, but actually it was made up of three of the episodes of the series, and it nicely mixed the three episodes together.
"The Living Legend Parts 1 and 2 (guest starring Lloyd Bridges)
"Fire in Space" (acknowledged by fans as the "worst episode ever" with reused scope footage from some fire themed movie)
The digest is as follows :
Part one consists of about two minutes from the first part of the two part "Living Legend" , with the arrival of Commander
Kane (Bridges). We then go immediately into the second part of of "Living Legend" as Commander Kane goes off to engage the three Cylon base ships,(desiring to kill Baltar, who is on one of the Cylon Base Ships) and Commander Adama take on the Cylon Home world. They land some troops to plant bombs along with a combined Viper attack. One of they're strike force is injured, but they get off safely. (we also get the chance to see the rarely seen other forms of Cylons).
Cylon warships are sent on to engage the Pegasus, (Kane's Battle-
-star), but Kane ignores the Cylon fighters and goes straight for Baltar's Cylon Baseship. meanwhile, we now cut into this Living Legend episode, which starts with the Cylon Kamikaze attack on the Galactica, which surprisingly fits in just right, (as, in the Living Legend episode, Cylons DID take on the Galactica) which is successful, nearly destroying the Galactica, severely injuring Commander Adama.
By the way, they upgraded the special effects for this film and it shows, when compared to the original three episodes this is based on.
Back to "The Living Legend", as Kane takes on the Cylon Baseships in grand style, blowing them to hell, with a little help from Starbuck and Apollo flying point and taking out major gun turrets, (which by the way, is reused shots of the Galatica's gun turrets!).
Now we complete the rest of this 600ft release with Starbuck and Apollo going into anti-gravity suits and planting bombs on the outer hull of the Galactica to blow some bulkheads in order to stop the out of control fire. They are successful, and though they float off into space, they are soon rescued, as well as Adama being saved. Fortunately, only about six minutes of this 2X400ft release is made up of this fire sequence, as most of it concentrates on fun space battle stuff!
At the end of the story, Adama asks Starbuck and Apollo what happened to Kane and they didn't see what happened to him.
THE END
This is a VERY action packed 600ft reel, with all the best scenes contained from all those episodes.
... but this film has some elements to it that are quite different than what was shown on TV!
The climatic battle between Commander Kane's Battlestar and the two Cylon baseships had much more laser work and explosions to it, as well as some special effects of the ships that were definitely NOT in the TV Two part version! Much more exciting.
... also, when Commander Adama asks of Kane, he finishes by saying ...
" Well, wherever he is, I'm sure that he's DAMN happy. "
... which is a line that would have NEVER been on TV back in the late 70's, as censorship was far heavier back then, but would be allowed in a movie theater.
... so, by having this film in my collection, I now have a piece of Battlestar that other collectors, (with only the box set of the whole series) do not have.
The sound on this print is EXTREMELY SHARP, which allowed me to up the bass, but then, if this was taken from a theatrical print, then it was reprocessed in "Sensurasound", so this is probably why it sounds so good.
It is a VERY sharp print, Universal did a great job on it.
The contrast/grain is very low, it does not have the appearance of being "dupey".
If you have seen this as the TV episode, and were not impressed with the story, (and just love the action), then I would pick this up.
By the way, this was released as a 2X400ft, but since those Universal 2X400 were usually about 16 minutes, (sometimes slightly less), this fits on a 600ft reel, but caution, it's right up to the very edge of the reel, so keep that in mind.
There is one slight drawback to this digest that really can't be helped.
The pre-print material may well have been taken from an early workprint of this feature before it was released. There is a great varying of quality between one space shot and another. Stock space footage from the show tends to have a brownish space to downright pink space, while most shots, specifically shot for this episode and feature, have spot on color.
Being that most of the color is spot on and then shifts to pinkish, it is not due to color fade on my print and if you happen to pick this title up yourself, please expect varying degrees of good/bad color, even on a perfect color print of it.
What saddens me, is that Universal 8 would release overseas (but not in the US) one final 2X400ft Galactica release "Galatica 3: Conquest of Earth" and that digest went incredibly HORRIBLY wrong. Pass by that one.
But this one is quite good and I can highly recommend it for Galactica fans!
Enjoy, fellow Super 8 Lovers. LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!
[ April 13, 2011, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Osi Osgood ]
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted December 17, 2008 07:06 PM
Actually, "Galactica 1980" only lasted for ten episodes, not even a season. It wasn't anything to write home about. there were two good episodes.
the pilot episode, when the Galactica actually arrives at earth. I remember that they showed the warriors what an attack on earth would look like, and they spent at least some decent money on the effects.
That and the best episode, "The Return of Starbuck" which was really, "What happened to Starbuck". he was marooned on a planet with one lone Cylon that had also survived the crash of thier own ship, and they end up being friends by the end of the episode, ("Cy", as Starbuck calls him, sacrifices himself for Starbuck when other Cylons land and attempt to kill Starbuck. The camera pulls away on a now alone Starbuck on the planet.)
It is out on DVD.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted December 18, 2008 07:52 PM
I must say, I was surprised with how well they were able to put together two seperate, un-related episodes of the series. Another nice thing was the extra special effects they added to the feature version of this.
This has a number of brand new special effects that were specifically done for this release, and you couldn't ask for a better special effects laden action packed release.
This "Mission Galactica" was different than the first Battlestar Universal release, in that the first Feature film was basically a 30 minute almost unedited chunk from the first 40 minutes, (which was the best section, to be sure), while the "Mission Galactica" was pieces of the whole feature, from beginning to end, which, while it does give you an idea of the whole feature, it also doesn't really have the time to give you all the elements of the story.
I was pleased with it as well. Paul, just curious, in the case of my two part print of Mission Galactica, part 1 has a little fade, (slight fade, actually), while the part 2 is spot on concerning color). How's yours?
I did notice that the source print that they used has different levels of fade already existing, and mostly in the space battle scenes. There a couple of shots especially of Jolly in his Viper
that there appears to be a good deal of fade, then there very next cut away from that shot, the color is spot on.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted December 19, 2008 10:33 PM
I was comparing some of the beginning of "Mission Galactica" with the original TV version, and there are a number of other differences. the approach to the galactica is longer than in TV, (with other special effects shots) and a number of other differences. I'm glad to finally have this in my collection.
Mine is quite scratchless, except for the very last minute or so of part 1.
Universal could be a little off a times when it came to how long they made these 2X400. most of them will fit just barely on a 600ft. This "Mission", for instance, is right up to the lip of the 600ft reel, while "1941" is a good 30 or more seconds over the edge of the 600ft reel.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
