Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series [Blu-ray] | ![Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dyDVf9iyL._SL500_.jpg) | Director: Michael Rymer
Actors: Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $349.98
Buy New: $185.00
as of 2/10/2010 09:09 EST details
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New (15) Used (5) from $185.00
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Rating:  163 reviews
Sales Rank: 855
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Limited Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Media: Blu-ray
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number Of Discs: 20
Running Time: 67 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 7.7 x 7.6
MPN: BR61107923
UPC: 025192010378
EAN: 0025192010378
ASIN: B001993Y2C
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Release Date: July 28, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Genre: Television: Series
Rating: TV14
Release Date: 28-JUL-2009
Media Type: Blu-Ray
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
 Worthy of survival February 9, 2010
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
Fifty years ago, humanity's robotic servant Cylons suddenly turned on their masters, and vanishes off into space after a terrible war.
But of course the story doesn't stop -- and it turned out to be a rare case of a remake becoming spectacularly better than the source material. "Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Series" is a grimy, dark, violent and hopeful sci-fi adventure saga -- and while it has its ups and downs like any series, it's a brilliant and powerful piece of work.
Forty years after the war's end, the Cylons unexpectedly return to the Twelve Colonies and start wiping out ships and cities. The Battlestar Galactica (an aging warship about to be turned into a museum) is forced to flee the world of Caprica with a collection of refugee-crammed ships, commanded by Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and the new President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell).
Now the people of the Twelve Colonies must find a new home -- their goal is Earth, a legendary planet with other humans on it. Unfortunately, they have been infiltrated by the treacherous scientist Gaius Baltar (James Callis), and a group of Cylons who are almost indistinguishable from human beings -- they even have emotions and can interbreed with humans.
And their journey has its own perils: sabotage, assassination attempts, betrayals, shortages of water, food and fuel, the introduction of cruel martial law, religious conflict, the discovery of another surviving Battlestar called the Pegasus, and the overhanging fear of infiltration by the humanoid Cylons. And though they find a habitable (but miserable) planet, soon the ragtag fleet is forced to flee again -- and eventually discover that their goal is not what they hoped...
Anyone expecting "Battlestar Galactica" to be a copy of its predecessor is going to be horribly disappointed. This is sci-fi at its most compelling -- a gritty, bleak, dark story of war and desperate escapes, and there are plenty of moral dilemmas (Roslin ordering the death of a baby Cylon/human hybrid). And it explores the truly compelling questions about what it is to be human and alive -- and to deserve to be.
The writers wrap together hard SF with threads of mystical science fiction, and undertones of religion and philosophy. The writing is solid and snappy ("Old gods die hard"), but frequently lapses into dramatic, powerful speeches that barely manage to dodge being cheesy. And each character is given an intricate and complex journey to follow, filled with pain, death, sorrow and slowly moving beyond their own personal problems. Friendships are pulled apart, alliances are formed, and lots of horrible and morally questionable choices are made. Some of these people are redeemed, some are destroyed, and some discover that they are not even human.
Olmos and McDonnell are the powerful leaders in this story, and both actors do a brilliant job -- especially Mcdonnell with Roslin's breast cancer, and Olmos with his tragic past. The entire cast is pretty much brilliant -- Callis as the ever-changing Baltar, Michael Hogan as the unlikeable Saul Tigh, and Grace Park as a humanoid Cylon whose love changes her goals. But the best ones are Katee Sackhoff as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, and Tricia Helfer as the ethereal Cylon Number Six -- both women are deeply entwined with the search for Earth.
The previous "complete series" release angered a lot of fans because it didn't include the "Plan" movie that shows some of the series' events from the Cylon point of view. This new double-dipper WILL have "The Plan" and new packaging added in -- but it apparently still won't have the "Face of the Enemy" webisodes. I don't know WHAT they are doing, honestly.
"Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series" is a stunning and powerful story that transcends the sci-fi label, and deserves to be praised to the skies. As for this new release, buy it if you don't have it.
Great box set! February 7, 2010
ap236
This box set is quite wonderful. It includes all 4 seasons, including the 2 hour Razor movie, and a cylon centurion character. The box is nicely laid out with each of the discs easy to access. The TV series itself if simply brilliant. Looks great in blu-ray.
Amazing!!! February 5, 2010
M. Knopp (Calgary, AB Canada)
One of the greatest TV series that has come out in recent years. If you enjoy Sci-Fi then this is a must buy. The quality of the BluRay is worth the extra cash as well.
 so it goes February 4, 2010
tell it like it is (UK)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
BSG in the beginning looked like it could have been a worthy contender to match or even outdo JMS's epic 5 year story arc 'Babylon 5' B5 made us invest emotionally in the characters and their journey of development, an investment which was ultimately worthwhile. BSG in the beginning offered something similar but failed to deliver. It also failed to deliver a coherent story arc - the so called 'plan' was never realised - but was instead a massively wasted opportunity.
Ronald D Moore was given the task of turning a turkey of a TV series from the 70's into a relevant, highly watchable and engrossing contemporary show with an overarching story arc. In the first 2 or 3 seasons it looked like he was going to pull that 'miracle' off. But no from the 3rd season onwards with a couple of notable exceptions story wise he turned it back into a turkey.
BSG has been an infuriating roller coaster ride. Often it has been a truly great TV series and at other times it has lost the plot completely.
What could have been a truly great show has fallen flat on its face with the fourth series and the final episode. The plot threads we all hoped would be at least partially explained have been written off as the work of God.
RDM has used "deus ex machina" to tie the series up. This plot device is the ultimate sin of any writer and has to be ultimate cop out in a show of this stature.
Basically this means that RDM can finish off the story using the absurdist teleology "God did it in his mysterious way."
As H.G. Wells himself said regarding the deus ex machina, "If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting."
Well, with God, anything can happen. Aristotle also said something similar way back when- and i think we can agree HE was a wise man.
The story was much richer and open to more interpretation when the gods were portrayed through faith as metaphor, but the Gods are cast as real and cannot be really interpreted in any other way.
Season 4's religious infatuation was a huge indicator of the direction this whole thing was falling into. The religious cliched chocolate box picture lid dreams of cancer victims sailing on the boat over the river to meet the loved ones on the other side etc. Surely a program of this stature could add more substance and pragmatism to such dark occurrances of dealing with terminal illness?
Many have said that the religious content was implicit from the start. This is true, but one can criticise the way the religious subtext has been handled throughout the series. Galactica's God is an interventionist God whose machinations and interference only devalues all the great work put into the characterisations and great acting. The motivations of the characters loses all meaning in this deterministic universe. The characters lose all responsibility for their own actions...remember this is God's plan. So 4 years of brilliant character driven plots and motivations gets flushed down the cosmic toilet.
Even earlier prophecies made by the Cylon Hybrids were ignored or just passed over without further mention.
Any reasonably explained scientific rationalism has been ditched completely, so those looking for any self consistent rules to be played out will be disappointed. Hard SF fans will be disappointed. Especially those wise enough to understand that the universe is not a deterministic clockwork one in the Newtonian sense but intrinsically indeterminate in the quantum paradigm/chaos theory..
If you try to analyse the show through the religious route it fails even more spectacularly and shoots itself in the head throughout the whole 4th series. There are far too many variables where God has to work in mysterious ways to get the characters to where they finally end up. This just confirms the lack of a truly coherent and consistent story arc.
The final hour of this tragedy dismantles anything built up over the 4 years of hard graft. The only way the religious theme worked at all was that the Cylons belief in the one true god gave them motivation to ethnically cleanse the immoral humans and their false gods (sound familiar?)
There are also many bad mistakes along the way. The major one being the position of stars in the constellations in the tomb of Athena way back in season 2. The constellations (position and names of the stars) indicate they are the same ones we see in our night sky. The constellations on scorched earth matched these. This meant that scorched earth should have been our Earth. When our Earth is eventually found the constellation idea has been quietly dropped. And this was supposed to be a major event.
The references which places BSG to our culture like greek gods mythology, telephones, radar, turns of language etc is ignored by placing the finale in the deep past. There is no way these references could have survived to have an effect. RDM uses the ridiculous unprovable idea of collective consciousness to cover that one. Anyhow God wrote "all along the watchtower" (not Bob Dylan sorry)and implanted it in various characters over the series.
The 7th Cylon was also an error and had to be hastily passed over. (whoops someone forgot how to count to 12!)
The evidently important opera house vision was passed off lamely in an ill thought out couple of minutes. It therefore became totally meaningless. This too had been built up to be a major event.
Even if the constellations matched our earth's or any other, the position of the stars would be very different (not even close)because Moore decided to use Earth 150,000 years ago. It just doesn't pan out at all. By using the star patterns depicted this should have meant that the end of galactica should have been in our future - not in our past as presented here. There are many, many other examples of these kind of mistakes littered over the 4 seasons.
The ending using Mitochondrial eve idea was cliched beyond belief. The Mitochondrial Eve of 200,000 years ago is NOT our common ancestor, or even common genetic ancestor. She is the most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent. That may seem like a mouthful, but without even a single one of those qualifying phrases, any description or discussion of the ME reduces to a lot of nonsense. ME is an ill named genetic based mathematical model and nothing to do with Adam and Eve pseudo scientific creationism as depicted by this show.
Basically it was stated that the 12 colony humans were highly compatible with the early humans found on "Earth." This meant that Hera's DNA,Cylon DNA and 12 colony DNA was practically identical. This is absurd as the 12th colony was stated (inaccurately) to be a million light years away from earth. This would mean that for the 2 species of Earth and 12 colonies the DNA being so close was well nigh impossible. And there is no way that the evolution of both worlds be so convergent (or as in this case identical) This is at least openly admitted by the show but swept under the carpet with the "God's will" magic wand. Basically this just smacks of pseudo scientific creationism. If the DNA was different enough to Earth mitochondrial DNA it would mean that we would not now be related genetically to our primates or anything else in our evolutionary past. We would be genetically tied to Hera instead. This is absurd. The main point is that if Hera's DNA was so close to human DNA there would be no importance or reason whatsoever for her to be the basis of our own human-ness. It is totally pointless. So why bother at all?
The rest of Galactica's crew from the pragmatic view of human history must have been wiped out completely anyway. The galacticans ironically all agree in a consensus never seen in all 4 conflict filled series to destroy all their technology and settle all over the globe.... to die out with a whimper. maybe RDM thought he was still writing for Star Trek and invoked the ridiculous concept of the prime directive subconsciously? The Hominids didn't leave Africa until 60,000 years ago. and modern humans evolved there 150,000 years ago. So how do the galacticans help humans and give them the best part of them for the future? No records, no archeology, no technology etc. mass suicide...yes.
The survivors suddenly just become thoughtless consensual drones of a religious god as in Python's satirical warning in "the life of Brian."
The weekly conflict between factions is swept under the carpet.
One of the main themes of this show was "are we worthy to survive?" and this brought in many valid questions as well as answers to this in a religious context. The religious content WAS implicit from the start, but there was a better balance between gritty stark reality and religion in the first 3 seasons. The series has really gone off the rails since mid way through series 3. The last season taken as a whole had few highpoints and it wasted a lot of precious time on nonsense which was never expounded consistently. ie: the final 5 cylons, who was the 5th cylon? (who cares? It didn't matter a jot anyway to the plot) How did Starbuck return from the dead? Why did they find her body/viper many light years from where it met its end? Why write her out and then bring her back? A lot of these elements felt like mere dramatic plot devices and didn't go anywhere. This just devalued Starbucks meaty role into that of a mere pawn.
When the show was good it was the best there's ever been. The mini series, the episodes about the Pegasus, the New Caprica plot lines, the rise of Tom Zarek, the collaborator witch hunts, the black market, the insurrection, scorched Earth et al.
The final episodes are entertaining in a superficial way but just fall apart under any kind of scrutiny.
The cast gave exceptional performances, some of the writing was excellent, some dire and the cgi was of feature film quality.
Many episodes in this final set felt like mere padding. It would have been a much better ending if they had finished the series half way through when they found scorched Earth. It would have been BRAVER. But no the ending RDM used renders the actions of previous seasons pointless. Re watching the series becomes a redundant act - knowing what you know at the end.
It became ever more apparent as season 4 imploded in on itself that they were just making it up as they went along.
I know this review may upset some fans, but after checking out the BSG blog sites a lot of fans feel let down. I have been a big fan of the show and found it to be at its best when it was most pragmatic/political/sociological/psychological. But this is my opinion which i have a right to exercise.
If this is the best RDM can do i feel inclined not to buy the final season and will probably give the forthcoming "Caprica" and "The Plan" a wide berth. If RDM can incurr a miraculous creationist interventionist God here there's no reason he won't use it again down the line.
BSG had great potential which it failed to recognise. Like many TV shows before and i suppose many more which will follow this will happen again and again and again.....
The real tragedy of BSG is that the series was built upon great characters grounded in a real world political social context. The first 3 seasons and part of season 4 built strongly upon these compelling themes. The final season dismantled these great themes and made them utterly pointless. The finale is probably the most disappointing end to a series i have ever seen. It is all the more disappointing because the show WAS so brilliant to start with.
BSG will sadly be remembered as the show that started off great but had the stupid ending.
It's really "complete" this time. February 1, 2010
Lincoln 6 Echo (Harrisburg, IL USA)
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
Universal is repackaging the series to include the telefilm "The Plan" and in all new slim packaging. The only thing known at this point is that the discs will be in "slim packaging" surrounded by an outer slip box cover. I'm guessing they'll be four 6-disc blu-ray cases (similar to the Sarah Connor Chronicles) in an outer box.
EDIT: Apparently the packaging will be a series of digipaks, one for each season inside of the outer box.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 163
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