Battlestar Galactica: That Sought-After Sun

Updated
Battlestar Galactica: That Sought-After Sun
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2009
Original Running Time:
152
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
137
Time Cut:
19
Time Added:
4
Brief Synopsis:
That Sought-After Sun seeks satisfying story and character closure for Battlestar Galactica. Crucial plot points from the originally aired finale have been altered to render the entire story more coherent and character driven. God or gods may or may not exist. Starbuck no longer vanishes. Bill Adama is no longer Leaving Forever. The visions in the opera house, and the many sacrifices on the road to Earth, will mean much more than in the only ending fans have had available until now.
Intention:
The original finale, while containing many satisfying closures for characters, devolved into utter incoherence on some pivotal matters of plot. The writers’ strike probably played a hand in rendering the ending of the show less than it could have been. Crucial plot points relied upon either arbitrary chance or the intervention of an equally arbitrary god. Several major story points built over the course of the entire series ultimately amounted to almost no significance or were even contradicted, while several major character decisions in the last half-hour serviced a plot objective rather than deriving from sensible motivations. To add insult to injury, the story relied on intelligent design, two Earthlike worlds that just coincidentally had the same constellations, and an embarrassing array of misportrayed science--which is different from science fiction.
Additional Notes:
The synopsis is deliberately vague to minimize spoilers. This finale has received some of its most positive commentary from viewers who have not seen the original. If you have seen the original, try to put aside preconceptions about what is happening, since the implications of the story become significantly different.
Other Sources:
ESO/VISTA telescope video of the Helix Nebula
Centurion footage from Season 2, Episode 2 of Battlestar Galactica
Opening scene of Gaius and Six from Season 2, Episode 1 of Battlestar Galactica
Wide shot of the ship from Season 2, Episode 1 of Battlestar Galactica
Recap footage from Season 2 Episode 20 of Battlestar Galactica

In Special Features: Stock Footage of New York City, military equipment & warfare, and ecological destruction, short clips from several episodes during season 4 showing Cylon on Cylon combat and the Basestar as the protector of the fleet
Special Thanks:
Thanks go to BionicBob for extremely helpful advice on an early workprint, to L8WRTR for technical and editing support, and to everyone on Fanedit.org who commented. Thanks also to all my friends who gathered to screen the first completed workprint, and to my girlfriend who cried during this ending after watching the series for the first time.
Release Information:
  • DVD
  • Digital
Special Features
What Happened to Hera? (Recut version of the original finale’s epilogue)
What Happened to the Fleet? (Joke intro sequence to a spin-off sequel)
Katee Sackhoff on the BSG Finale (Some frank words)
Editing Details:
I began with a tremendous respect for the creators of Battlestar Galactica, particularly Ron Moore, and for the many plot and character balls they juggled. I wanted to do justice to what they had established, and that meant respecting and maintaining their intent in many regards. I aimed to keep the look and feel of the show’s editing style, and I went to great lengths to achieve the best video quality possible, but telling a character-driven story was paramount. I thus opted to incorporate a deleted scene that uses lower resolution than the movie’s main source material, because it achieves something very specific that no other footage could.
Cuts and Additions:
Fanedit copyright warning added

Previously on Battlestar Galactica cut

Regular opening titles cut

Alternate opening sequence added:

Opening verse of Apocalypse used as audio (sped up slightly), while a translation of the title song appears on the screen over real deep-space images zooming in on the Helix Nebula

[The translation is my own and follows the original Sanskrit more literally than most translations you will find online. "Dhiyo," a complex term for the purest essence of mind or self, is glossed as "the best part of ourselves" to match Lee's phrasing in the final act.]

Main cast titles added over introductory montage

Baltar's flashback to conversation with Calvin moved to his decision to stay with Galactica, where it replaces his POV shot of Lee. Color correction links the two shots of Baltar between which the scene originally appeared.

Starbuck's argument with Adama over plugging Sam into Galactica removed

Awkward transition between parts 1 & 2 of Daybreak smoothed

We cut away from Skulls and Racetrack as they make the decision to go weapons hot. They are not killed by a random asteroid.

Trimmed, reframed, and reversed version of final flashback with Baltar and Six inserted when they see their “angelic” doubles together

Final shot of dead Boomer removed and used instead for dead Athena

Scenes of Centurion boarders from "Valley of Darkness" replace footage of Roslin as Athena chases after Baltar and Six, so that Roslin does not appear to be reaching the door, but instead that the Centurions are chasing after Athena. Scenes from Valley of Darkness color corrected to match tones of Daybreak. The Centurions open fire on Athena, with a zoomed-in and flipped version of the excised shot of Boomer's bloody face serving to confirm Athena's death.

Deleted scene inserted: Sharon hears about the death of her parents. Her first and last memories are of losing her family. Fade to white into Baltar and Six carrying Hera.

Baltar's speech on god truncated, and Cavil's interest in it removed.

Sharon and Helo cut from long shot of CIC

"Zombie Racetrack" removed. Bits of footage of Racetrack and her ECO assembled [reversed or modified as needed] to convey that she deliberately launches the nukes at the Colony when the Cylon bargain sours

During Starbuck's jump montage, after she asks, "What am I?" Leoben's telling Starbuck that she is an angel is replaced by Sam describing Number 7 as Daniel, followed by a shot of the pianoman hallucination who we have learned is Kara's father.

Shots of fleet arriving at Earth removed. Galactica has traveled in a way the fleet cannot follow. As Adama said, this was a one-way trip.

Title cards added: Earth, 3114 B.C.E. - 10,000 years before the fall of Caprica

(Those who know their history will understand that Galactica arrives just in time for the dawn of urbanism)

Brief dialogue between Bill and Lee concerning humanity already existing on Earth retained, with zoomed clips of tribal society overlapping. Intelligent design and incorrect ideas about human evolution removed.

Apollo's decision to abandon all technology removed. Although he makes reference to sharing "the best part of ourselves" with the native humans, there is no deliberate abandonment of all technology into the sun. Considering that all they have is a broken Battlestar and weapons with no ammunition, no such decision is necessary.

All scenes showing the fleet and characters left with it removed, as the fleet did not make it to Earth.

Stock footage of sweeping across terran landscapes replaces shots of fleet before Adama's plan for colonization

Wide shots showing characters left behind in the fleet replaced with shots of the colonization Adama is narrating

Scene giving closure to Tyrol, Ellen, and Tigh comes before Adama's final launch scene

Adama's final launch scene shortened to remove shots of fleet

Scene showing Helo and Athena as surviving removed. Shots of colonists from the start of this scene are inserted to complete a sense of colonization. Title cards show the number of survivors from Galactica and the unknown disposition of the fleet.

Dialogue between Adama & Roslin of what to call planet removed

Lines concerning Bill Adama "not coming back this time" removed

Dialogue between Starbuck and Apollo rearranged. Now, when Lee stops short on, "I must be craz--" it's because Kara has given him a look that he realizes means she won't be joining him. After the flashback, he thus asks where she'll be going. After her saying she's done, we get Lee's hungover sense of a bird flying away.

Starbuck no longer vanishes. Instead, the scene with her returning to Anders comes after her conversation with Apollo, not before. The scene is edited so that she says, "I love you," but not, "goodbye." Inserted S2E20 recap footage of S2E05's "I'm coming back. I said it. I meant it." We then cut to a wide shot of Galactica alone taken from Season 2, Episode 1.

Opening of Laura’s scene with her student slightly trimmed; shots of Laura’s “baptism” laid over opening and closure of scene

Timing of dialogue and footage of Hera, Baltar, and Six altered in order to remove Sharon and Helo.

Opening scene from S2E01 inserted in lieu of final flashback with Baltar and Six. "She's our child, Gaius. Our little girl." Dialogue in scene changed slightly to move it along more quickly than in the original. Some shots are zoomed to excise that episode's opening credits.

Final shot of Baltar and Six walking away replaced with Opera House footage from several points in the series, including one horizontally flipped and reversed shot to show Six and Baltar walking into the future with Hera.

Closing shot of Hera looking to the sky inserted during the final moment of the series to imply that she embodies hope for the future.

Epilogue with Head Six and Head Baltar in New York removed. An edited version appears in the special features. "Five Millennia Later" and different stock footage of NYC replaces "150,000 years later." "Mitochondrial Eve" is removed (as the writers misunderstood what this means). The "robot revolution" is replaced with footage of various destructive behaviors of humankind.

A second special feature cuts together footage from many episodes to suggest the fate of the fleet...
Cover art by L8wrtr (DOWNLOAD HERE) image

User reviews

9 reviews
 
56%
 
44%
5-7 stars
 
0%
3-5 stars
 
0%
1-3 stars
 
0%
Overall rating
 
8.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.1(9)
Audio Editing
 
8.9(9)
Visual Editing
 
8.9(9)
Narrative
 
8.2(9)
Enjoyment
 
8.9(9)
View all user reviews View most helpful
Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
The edit works well as an alternative episode for some of those who don't like some of the narrative decisions for the finale. However, as with the original episode not all of the narrative choices in this worked for me. Mainly the missing fleet, Galactica surviving, and the replacement of the 'zombie Raptor' for a rushed anti-climatic attack by the Raptor. There is also a weird '10,000 years before the Fall of Caprica' caption which makes no sense. On the plus side, Starbuck's ending was handled really well. Overall, a good, but not perfect, edit for those who were dissatisfied with the original finale.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
7.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
4.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
Being a huge BSG remake fan (and at first hating it when it came out because I couldn't get over all the changes in terms of characters from the original), I was looking forward to this fan edit, especially after reading all these positive reviews here. Now, I'm one of the apparently few who had no problems with the finale. There were only 4 real options:

1) earth is not found
2) earth is found in present day
3) earth is found in our ancient past
4) everyone dies.

I found 3 to be the most likely and satisfying proposition and that's what the show creators went with.

In any case, I found a LOT of problems with this edit. I even went through the trouble of comparing the two side by side (DVD and this edit).

First the positive:

most edits are seamless and I watched the 2GB mkv video version of this, not in surround sound.

Also didn't notice anything jumping out audio-wise. I liked the beginning with the translations. Well done.

Also, I think there were a few deleted scenes added to the fanedit which I appreciated (or I don't remember those scenes anymore).

Now the not-exhaustive list of the negatives, in no specific order:

1) Athena is killed? WTF? And Helo dies too? So Hera is raised by Baltar and Six (or whatever that 'real' cylon is named)? Why? Did not work for me at all.

2) "Disposition of fleet: unknown". Very unsatisfying for a viewer, I would think. That just raises more questions. This is under the category of "fan fix." After watching this, I felt like the original edit gets so much more right and the editor isn't fixing anything but mudding it up more.

3) the raptor "accidentally" shooting off nukes vs now in the fanedit it is by human intention. This seems like choosing to turn a metaphysical event into straightforward human action-taking. The meteoroid hitting the "zombie raptor" comes across as divine providence, given what is going on in the story and not "deus ex machine", in the sense that it is completely random and a cop-out. So that change didn't work for me either. And that raptor gets left behind the fan edit. More open endings instead of less.

4) The colonists land on earth and the title reads "10,000 years before the Fall of Caprica." I read through the changes the editor made. Am I missing something here? How can the colonists land on earth BEFORE the Fall of Caprica?? Caprica falls and THEN the colonists leave their 12 colonies in search of Earth. What you could maybe write is "present day earth: 10,000 years AFTER the Fall of Caprica."

5) It seems the editor tried to fix issues with the story that weren't there: in the fan edit, it seems ONLY the Galactica makes it to Earth, the rest of the fleet is bye-bye, never saw the Galactica again once it jumped into battle. Apparently the editor does not understand that after Galactica jumped to earth, she couldn't jump anymore but Adama sent a jump-capable raptor to the fleet and that raptor then guided the fleet to earth. I read the editor's change list and he apparently did not understand this point and thought there was a plot-hole where in fact there is not.

I'm sorry to be so negative. I know how much work goes into something like this. I just think this edit made things worse than better. I am definitely sticking to my original episodes.

Starbuck doesn't disappear. But the alternative is not more satisfying to me. Crying at Sam's bathtub.

Sorry.


User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
No
Format Watched?
Digital
Owner's reply September 10, 2014

This review may confuse viewers because it contains spoilers filtered through a lens of the originally released ending. If you watch this ending assuming that certain events mean the same as in the original, then you will find yourself unsatisfied. Most pertinent to this reviewer's questions, the original gives us two different Earths, which miraculously both have the same constellations and indigenous homo sapiens. This edit does not.

As to the reviewer's criticisms, though, I welcome them as much as the praise from the others. The reviewer dislikes how I replaced divine providence with human intention, a happy ending for beloved characters with a painful and foreshadowed one, and a thoroughly likeable set of parents for Hera with a morally ambiguous pair. He also dislikes how in some places, instead of answering certain questions, I simply raise more.

I can safely say that all of these are exactly what I set out to do, and that they characterize what I like in my Battlestar Galactica and in my storytelling in general. I can also assure the reviewer that I am not in misunderstanding of the jump capabilities of Galactica and its raptors, and that my dates chosen were extremely deliberate--watch without assumptions from the original, and this may become clearer. The images and text for the menus in the DVD version may also be considered minor Easter eggs.

Thanks for the kind words on the audio and video editing--it's good to know that even for people who have different tastes in stories, the technical aspects still worked.

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(Updated: August 27, 2013)
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
The Battlestar Galactica series finale, such a controversial end to one of the best true Sci Fi TV series in recent memory.

I was quite excited to follow the progress of his edit and now after a bit of a delay I can finally take the chance to post my thoughts on the experience.

I watched the DVD version from my HTPC, and technically the edit is very well put together; the video looked great for SD quality and the audio featured a nice 5.1 track that is always welcome. A deserved 10 for AV quality.

Now in terms of editing I only have to point out that I found a couple of the transitions including a fade here and a cut there to be somewhat jarring, but considering the intention behind them and the fact that there is not much choice in how to implement them I'd say they can be overlooked. Because of this its 9s all around for the editing scores.


It's been a while since I last watched this flawed piece of entertainment - since it originally aired back in 2009 I think. And I was amazed at how easy it was to jump back in and feel all the excitement at the truly awesome first part of this extended episode.
I'd have to watch the original version again, but I believe that Menbailee has left the first half completely untouched, and that's a good call in my book. The Galactica and her crew's final mission intertwined with those character development flashbacks provide a pure gold final cap on a great series and remain a "by the edge of your seat" type of quality television.

Now, the controversy comes along right after that is when things got murky in the original version and is of course where this edit really mixes things up.

First off, I really liked how final moment for Starbuck is handled this time around. It went from something extremely vague to a proper final scene that brings close for the character while still leaving a reasonable amount of lingering questions about who she is and what really happened to her to personal interpretation. Nicely done :)

Also, added that, trimming the final hour to focus on the protagonists was a very smart choice. By focusing on Adama's final farewell for Roslin; added to Baltar and Caprica Six's realization and Lee the chief's somewhat clean slates at the end of the journey provide a satisfying conclusion.

As much as I feel that many of the editing choices were very spot on, I can't say that I agree with all of them. Particularly the rest of fleet's fate as teased in the special features caught me by surprise and I'm still torn on whether it should have been handled somewhat similarly to the original ending or not... however it did feel like a plot thread left just dangling.

Because of this last issue I give 8 for Narrative; and a solid 9 for overall Enjoyment.

To sum things up, this edit is a very smartly condensed and improved version for the 2000s version of Battlestar Galactica. One that many fans of the series would likely enjoy more than the original.

Congrats and thank you to Menbailee for taking the time and effort.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
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Overall rating
 
9.8
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
Now this is what I was hoping for the first time around! Menbailee has given us the BSG finale we were hoping for, instead of the ragged end full of loose threads we were given the first time around. No longer does the most engaging character with the most complex story simply vanish with no explanation; no longer does the shepherd abandon his flock. And when it ends, your first thought won't be WTF?! The change made to the final destination is major, but if you really think about it, it makes perfect sense. It's actually so appropriate that it makes past events which were never fully explained in the series proper look like clues to this very outcome. Plus, it helps flesh out the "Starbuck mystery." I also really love the flashbacks re-appropriated as final character beats and the more thoroughly realized opera house prophecy.
This is a very professional and elegantly realized edit that will now act as my preferred ending whenever I re-watch the series. And if you have never seen the original closing episodes, consider watching this instead. It's much more satisfying, and you can always go back and watch what was aired as a frustrating, inferior "director's cut."

The DVD was nice with some fun extras. The sound and picture were consistently good, except for the scenes which were either re-sized or re-inserted from an unmastered source. These bits are few and far between, though, and they serve the edit, so they are forgivable.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 2 0
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
I'm not a reviewer. "I don't know art, but I know what I like."

I LIKE this. This is the ending we deserved. And I agree with one of the previous viewers, the extras were great, especially "What Happened to the Fleet".

This is the official replacement for the original finale. If you're a BSG fan, this needs to be on your shelf.

User Review

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Yes
Format Watched?
DVD
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