Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

I am late to the game on watching BSG, I flew through the first two seasons but have slowed down and just recently finished season 3. I have been disappointed with the direction the series took after season 2. This edit has rekindled my fire and I look forward to watching more. This was a great view. This FE trims the fat and makes for a very compelling story. I absolutely loved the music. Removing Baltar was my favorite part of the edit, I cant stand his character. The only improvement I could suggest would involve an HD version.

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*

I rated this a 10/10 as I was simply blown away. The source material is fantastic, but with this edit it shines even brighter IMHO. I frakkin’ loved it and feel I need to check out the original show as well.