Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

First of all, let me start off by saying that I loved the new Battlestar Galactica. I’m not all that familiar with the original classic series except through what I’ve heard from others. When I heard saw this fan edit show up on the main page, I had to check it out. I loved the idea of editing the “human” cylons out of the new BSG. So, I downloaded it.

It’s been quite a long time since I watched my BSG DVDs, so I don’t remember everything, but that’s how I prefer to watch fan edits.

Story Editing:

I didn’t really miss anything that was deleted, I’ll say that much. This works very well without the human cylons involved as just a straight-up, killer robots, sci-fi action flick. My only gripe was Baltar’s sudden entrance into the story on Caprica when he shows up at the Raptor with the other survivors. It just seemed like we were supposed to know who he was, yet he had not been introduced into the story before. I understand he had to be left at that point to explain what happened to Helo, but I wish Baltar could have been introduced earlier somehow.

Other than this, great concept. I really liked the intro with the voice over. Nice set-up.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Video Editing:

Didn’t really notice any issues here. The majority of the video transitions were nicely done. A previous reviewer had mentioned that there was a deleted scene added. If there was, I didn’t notice any serious quality difference.

Score: 9 out of 10

Audio Editing:

I’m going to have to break ranks with the previous reviewers in this area, as this is where the majority of my problems were. Being a musician, I’m very anal about audio, and while most of the audio transitions are pretty good, there were a couple of rough audio cuts toward the beginning. In the scene where Adama has crash landed on the planet and the cylon ship is lifting off, it seemed like there were some noticeable cuts there. Also, there was a really rough transition from the “Heart to Heart” scene with Lee and Will to the ceremony. Plus, I noticed a couple of audio clicks during the cylon attack montage.

I liked the idea of mixing in some of the classic BSG music with the new. Unfortunately, while I thought it worked in a few places, overall I’d say it didn’t work. The added music with Starbuck and Apollo in the brig takes you out of the scene a bit. I would have either lowered it or left it out. I also thought that the added music over the scene where they have to leave the sub-light ships behind lessened the emotional impact. In addition, there were a few spots where the classic music didn’t really sync up with the percussion from the original scoring, and some spots where the music overpowered the sound fx too much.

Score: 5 out of 10

Overall, I’d say this was a great idea. I would have liked it much better without the classic BSG music, though.

Final Score: 7 out of 10

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

This was a very fun fanedit. I'm not much of a BSG fan so I really couldn't tell what was cut story wise. Some of the audio transitions could have been better, but this was overall really well done.

To be honest, I was unsure about this type of edit. However, with the editor being Bionic Bob, the idea had merit. Sure, it cuts out a lot of dramatization, but there is a lot to be said for the credo ‘less is more’.

This is a fantastic merger of old and new. Bob has taken a lot of scenes from the entirety of the series and ‘movies’ to make this a unique approach. All of it is very well done.

Video: 10/10 No hard cuts that I could discern.
Audio: 9/10 with that final point being due to music mix. There are points where the old music is a bit too loud in comparison to the background noise and chatter, and drowned it out some. Other than that, the mix of the old music with the new drum beats really did work out well. The addition of the old launch tube sound effects surprised me, and hit that little boy in my head, who bounced around like a little maniac.

Overall, I’d give this a 10/10, or an ‘A’ without the plus for that music bit I mentioned.

Outstanding! I even got some pins and needles going with some of the music queues. Two Thumbs Up!