Hey there you groovy space rangers!

Get out the “Tang” and put on your space gear, It's time to blast off into the wacky world of Sci-Fi shows! Last month, I bought the “Battlestar Galactica” movie on DVD, the one based on the classic series not the stupid remake where they cut off Apollo & Starbuck's penis and turned them into women!! No, not the show that was too cheap to make the Cylons look right and made them “humanoid”. No, not the show that borrowed the costumes from “Space: Above & Beyond”. No, not that politically correct urine stain on the world of Sci-Fi & classic TV!!

 No, we are here to talk about the pilot that had extra scenes and was released in movie houses!! I liked the movie a lot because even though I found the classic series entertaining, there were some plot problems that needed to be fixed, like the fact that the Cylons keep the human traitor, Baltar alive and in command of a base station when the Cylons could not stand the sight of humans! The movie corrects this by having the Cylons cut Baltar's head off!! (You'll never be the head of a base station like that!)

Anyway, for those of you who were not born yet or those who send too much time with your video games and don't know the plot, well here goes... There are 12 colonies (planets) that are the home of the human race! The colonies are governed by the council of 12, who have at last, after many years of war, made peace with the Cylons ( living robots) or have they?? The deal was made by Beltar, who is in fact a traitor, the Cylons made a deal that his colony would be spared and he would be it's ruler! That's right the Cylons have never intended to make peace and the president of the council has foolishly left the 12 colonies unprotected as a sign of “good faith”!!

The Cylons attack and destroy all 12 colonies and all the Battlestars ( huge aircraft carriers that are the size of a small city!) except for one Battlestar that survived and that is the Galactica!! The council of 12 is dead except for Adama ( Lore Greene ) who is the commander of the Galactica!  Adama is also the wisest, because he did not trust the Cylons so called peace treaty!! This is where “Battlestar Galactica” becomes a metaphor for vigilance!

The original Battlestar Galactica was aired in 1978, at the time President Jimmy (peanut head) Carter was making a deal with the (now defunct) USSR, it was call SALT ( Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). The thing that worried most smart Americans was that there was no way of knowing if the Russians were cheating and keeping a larger stockpile of nukes! Of course, our weak leader said that we had to trust them as a sign of “good faith”!! Well, this is not the kind of leadership we want!! ( Reagan latter stopped all SALT talks!) This is where Galactica's role as a metaphor for vigilance starts to hit hard, the Battlestar movie was going to be shown in the USSR in 1980!!

But (as reported in Starlog) Soviet officials took one look at it and hit the roof!! They saw Battlestar Galactica as an attack on the USSR, they felt that the Cylons were really supposed to be the Soviets!! Now that may be true but it could be applied to any aggressive nation, like  China, North Korea and many middle east countries!!

Well, now back to the movie, Commander Adama gets all those who survived into as many ships that can fly, they start to look for the lost 13 colony, earth!! They have to get past a deadly area of space that has been mined, our young fighter pilots, Apollo, Starbuck ( Dirk Benedict) and Boomer clear the mines and the Galactica and the “rag tag” fleet are safe for now!! However, they discover a space resort and plan to let
some of the crew & civilians go down for some R&R, Adama is not too sure about the aliens who run the resort!

Meanwhile, the new president of the new council of 12, wants to make peace with the Cylons!! (some people never learn!) When Adama protests this as an act of madness, the president explains that if the colonies had never stopped the Cylons from invading a neighboring planet, they might have left them alone! This outrages Adama, who feels it was a noble act to save their neighbors from being enslaved!! The council plans to honor Apollo, Starbuck & Boomer, at the ceremony, they want to announce plans to show the Cylons that they are ready for peace by giving up their arms as a sign of “good faith”!! To add to this foolishness they have all the fighter pilots there for the ceremony, leaving the Galactica and the other ships unprotected!!

However, Adama has a plan, he gets the non-essential members of the crew ( cooks, techs, etc) to double as pilots in dress uniforms at the ceremony, of course the real pilots are ready for  action!! I won't give away any more details but the good guys win and the new council learns that one must have peace through strength!! So beware of leaders who have “peace prizes”!! The best prize of all is freedom!! You should check out the Battlestar Galactica movie, just click on the Count's Amazon link!!

Stay Strong!!
Rock Savage
For more out of this world madness see me at...
http://www.savagefilmgroup.com