Live Life Team
This film was a full-length movie released in theatres. It also served as the pilot for the original television series of the same name. I’ve watched this movie several times, most recently having the privilege of watching it in the theatre on a cruise ship, with many of the original cast members in attendance.
This movie was cutting edge science fiction for its time. The special effects were first rate, created by John Dykstra, of Star Wars fame.
While the movie has all the aspects of great science fiction, the universe as its backdrop, a large-scale space ship and all the techno gadgets that make for good science fiction, it also has a lot of great acting and human intervention. Some of the scenes will actually bring tears to your eyes, as when all the Earth’s colonies are destroyed because the President of the World Council allowed himself to be deceived by the Cylons, with Baltar as their emissary. When you watch him in his distress, saying that he has led the whole human race to ruin, you can actually feel his pain – the pain that comes from a trust that was abused.
The acting is first rate as well. The scenes between the young Captain Apollo and the little boy who lost his beloved dog in the attack on Caprica show that there is so much more to good science fiction than just a bunch of bells and whistles created by the special effects department.
This is a great movie in my opinion, and it spawned a great television series that has lasted through the decades in various forms. But there is no better form, in my opinion, that this original cast that launched what became a major milestone of the science fiction genre back in the 1970s.
