8mm Forum: MISSION GALACTICA: The Cylon Attack (Universal) 2X400

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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 ]

Posted by Patrick Walsh (Member # 637) on December 16, 2008, 10:26 PM:

Wow Osi! nice to see someone that is keen on Battlestar as well!
and someone who also has it on Super 8! I have after the battlestar super 8s for a while now, I believed thay would be good digests.
The TV show always looked so sharp on the screen and I believe that the episodes were shot in 35mm, as the 2 features that came out at the cinemas were several episodes edited together, I have the movie poster here for the 1st film BATTLESTAR GALACTICA in SENSE-SURROUND SOUND!!!! [Eek!]

Pat

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on December 17, 2008, 10:34 AM:

Good to hear, Patrick!

Though some of the special effects look dated today, the show still looks remarkably good, even by todays standards. It's sad that the original series never had a chance at a second season. It could have grown in some interesting ways.

Posted by Patrick Walsh (Member # 637) on December 17, 2008, 06:23 PM:

I believe that there was 1 season called BATTLESTAR 1980 but it never took off and was scraped after the 1 season.
Pat

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on December 18, 2008, 06:47 PM:

Hi Osi,
thanks for the review, I didn't know that "Mission Galactica" was made up of two different stories as it all blends together so well in the digest. I have both this film and the earlier "Battlestar Galactica" and the two films when played together make a great mini feature of the series. Thankfully the colour has held up on both prints which is a bonus. [Smile]

Paul.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on December 19, 2008, 08:57 PM:

I must say that I am very happy with the colour on my prints of both these movies, in fact apart from "Dr.Cyclops","This Island Earth",and "Phantom of the Opera" all my other U8's are in good condition colour wise. My problem is with buying used prints from different sources I do tend to suffer with varying degrees of scratches, though thankfully mostly light ones not the nasty green emulsion scratches.

Paul.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on 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.

Posted by Roy Neil (Member # 913) on February 13, 2009, 02:51 AM:

Im an old Battlestar Galackalack ( what my brothers and I called it ) fan as well and have screened my two 400' reels more times than I will admit. I thought I was the only one left alive who cared for the old series.

.. and if anyone wants to see some old Galackalack 1980 episodes you can see them here free

free Galactica 1980 episodes on IMDB

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on February 13, 2009, 10:39 AM:

You know Roy, your bringing back up this review made me think of a question ...

The original "Battlestar Galactica" 2X400ft release is easily come by; you see one pop up about every month or so, but the second super 8 release, "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Ataack" I have rarely seen.

Was this a short time release of only a relatively few printings?

Anybody have any info on this?

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on March 29, 2010, 05:32 AM:

Well I finally have B.S.G. The Cylon Attack and it is a great 2 x 400 footer. There is slight fade in mine, but it is better than many other U8's.

I saw both of the Battlestar Galactica features in the cinema and of course watched them on TV. I would not have seen this since the late 1970's. My 4 year old son loved it!

David

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on March 29, 2010, 09:26 AM:

David,

Were they shown in Sensurround? Did the plaster fall from the ceiling? [Big Grin]

Doug

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 549) on March 30, 2010, 04:58 AM:

Yes theatrically; no at home!

When I saw the original at Village East End Cinema One the sound was incredible. Out of the Elmo it was a little less impressive.

David

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 13, 2011, 12:59 PM:

Just letting folks know, I re-wrote this review. Enjoy.

OSI

Posted by Pasquale DAlessio (Member # 2052) on April 13, 2011, 03:06 PM:

HI Osi

Great review. I also have the same version as you. [Big Grin]

And my 600' reel is full to the edge of the reel. Color on mine is awesome. I wish I had the box art for the 2x400' reels. [Confused]

Pat DAlessio

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 14, 2011, 01:11 PM:

Color on mine is excellent as well. Good facial tones. The only irritating thing is that change in the space shots from great color to not so great color, but certainly, a fun romp, to be sure.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on April 14, 2011, 11:01 PM:

"Earthquake" was also in Sensurround and I remember my little sister being disturbed by the vibrations in the seats and we had to leave and go back a different night. How's the sound on the digest? A terrible movie, but when my folks and I went to see it again (we left Sis with grandparents) I was amazed by the experience. Today, it's a laughable piece of cinema with a script that my 8 year old could have improved upon. If I bought it, it would only be for silly sentimental reasons - remeberances of a fun night out with my parents. I have a number of titles in my collection that are not well-liked and received sub par reviews like "Fireman, Save My Child" that I only bought because there's some sweet memory attached to it.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 16, 2011, 10:41 AM:

I might have experienced that sound format back then in the Movie Theaters, but I don't know for sure.

What did they do? Basically put a massive subwoofer behind the theter seats?

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on April 17, 2011, 08:15 PM:

Probably. Every time there was a loud enough sound effect (tremors, roller-coaster, etc.) you would feel a vibration in your seat. It was a fad that had a very brief life span and certainly not an effect that would enhance the experiences of movie-goers of today. You would have patrons screaming for a refund if you even tried to charge for something so cheezy. However, in the 70s, it was a rage for a while and for a kid only 12 years old (me) I thought it was "pisser" (the vernacular for "Awesome" in Massachusetts at the time).

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on May 03, 2011, 08:08 AM:

I remember the warning that was shown in theaters when "Earthquake" was originally released.

Your attention please!

"Earthquake" will be shown in the startling new multi-dimension of SENSURROUND. Please be aware that you will FEEL as well as SEE and HEAR realistic effects as may be experienced in a real earthquake.
The management accepts no responsibility for the physical or emotional reactions of the individual viewer!

It almost sounds like a William Castle film. [Big Grin]

Did anyone see the cheesy Italian horror film "Devil Within Her" with Juliet Mills? It was rushed out after "The Exorcist" with poor old Juliet having to endure her head spinning around and spraying pea soup over everyone with the added attraction of "Optical VibraSound". Wonderful!

[ May 03, 2011, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: Paul Spinks ]

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 03, 2011, 10:06 AM:

Paul,

Interesting that the film had the same title as the Joan Collins film (available in 8mm as I Don't Want to be Born). The Juliet Mills horror was released here as Beyond the Door. I never heard of VibraSound!

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 03, 2011, 10:33 AM:

A great throwback to those 1950's gimmicks!

The latest?

EVERY BLOODY THING IS 3D!!!!

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on May 03, 2011, 04:38 PM:

Doug,
I've looked everywhere for info on Vibrasound and I found some references in the sensurround discussions on the Film -Tech forum. It seems that "Das Boot" was evidently presented with it but there was no mention of "The Devil Within Her" using the process. Interestingly "Krakatoa: East of Java" was originally released in yet another variation called "Feelarama." The mind boggles!!!

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 03, 2011, 09:21 PM:

That sounds awfully close to the "Feel-A-Round" process used in the movie theater skit in Kentucky Fried Movie!

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 04, 2011, 01:04 PM:

I wonder if "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack" (great digest, by the way!), was released in senssurround? It really was a 70's thing and once the far superior Dolby really became entrenched, all that went by the way side.

Personally, I think the most notorious "sensation" was the one used for the Vincent Price film (the "Tingler", I think?) in which, if I remember correctly, they used some kind of light electric shock for the audience?

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 04, 2011, 03:12 PM:

Osi,

Mission Galactica had a sensurround release in Europe. You are correct about The Tingler. That gimmick had the catchy name "Percepto"!

Doug

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 06, 2011, 12:55 PM:

PERCEPTO!

That's it. I wonder if it triggered any heart problems.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on September 09, 2017, 09:45 AM:

Having started to watch the Blu Ray discs of Battlestar Galactica I thought I would watch my print of this. Despite the years since Osi's review the colours on mine are still very good (Eastmancolor) though some scenes are slightly brown in the background to the stars I think they were like that when I bought it new. The Kodak "Doll" on the leader looks very good in this scan on checking it has just lost a little green (about 10-15%)

Reviews at the time of release said the 1x400ft extracts were of lower quality than the 2x400ft ones. The 1x400ft of Battlestar Galactica is not as good as the 2x400ft of Mission Galactica. I think I re-recorded both into my own version of Sensuround by transferring the effects that would have used it onto the balance stripe on my Eumig 926 and replaying with the balance stripe output into a 2x30 watt amp switched to mono with full bass lift and treble cut into 2 12in speaker units. The main stripe went from the projector amp to an extension speaker. I bet the neighbours loved me then!!!

[ September 10, 2017, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Brian Fretwell ]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on September 11, 2017, 11:42 AM:

MAN!! I just LOVE coincidences!

Last Monday, and THIS monday (today), we watched the first "Battle" and today the "Mission", and mine still have it's very good color as well. I think, as a general rule, most print of this 2X400ft digest has held up very well.

In fact, my print of this looks the same as you're print, (judging by the "lilly" screenshot). This is one of those beloved Universal 8 prints where, though the color is as good as can be, you will have special effects space shots that go from perfect blacks to reddish messes.

Just don't bother with the infinitely RARE Galatica 1980 2X400ft digest, as it's truly a load of garbage ... onlt for the Battlestar completist. [Frown]

[ September 12, 2017, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: Osi Osgood ]

Posted by Jorma Julku (Member # 6015) on September 12, 2017, 01:51 PM:

I have 600ft reel. It used to be my precious. Need to watch it again.

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