Customer Reviews

Battlestar Galactica: Mission Cylon Attack [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

...the television version of the "Living Legend" was much better. I admit to buying this video strictly for that aspect of this haphazardly spliced-together film. ("Fire In Space" episode by itself is okay too). Okay, to the plot (for the non-BSG familiar). Lorne Greene leads an aircraft-carrier sized spacecraft (the Battlestar Galactica), with 200-some odd civilian craft in tow, in search of the mythical planet Earth after their colonies were destroyed by a relentless cybernetic race called the Cylons. During a recon mission, two of his patrol craft accidentally run into a patrol from another battlestar whose legendary commander (Lloyd Bridges) they thought perished years ago. The two commanders reunite, but quickly realize they have differences on how to proceed. Commander Adama (Greene) wants only fuel to get his fleet underway while Commander Cain (Bridges) wants to put the smackdown on the Cylons by any means necessary. Interesting plot and outstanding special effects (although some are blatantly rehashed AND stolen from the movie "The Towering Inferno". Good supporting cast too, including Richard Hatch (Capt. Apollo), Dirk Benedict (Lt. Starbuck), Terry Carter (Col. Tigh), Anne Lockhart (Lt. Sheba) and the late (but enjoyably oily) John Colicos as the traitor Baltar. Bottom line -- good escapist entertainment. I've loved the BSG series since I was a kid and the "Living Legend" was the best of the lot. I've heard rumors of resurrecting the series as a movie, miniseries and even an IMAX movie. (Whatever it takes, folks, just do it!)

Im very disappointed. This is actually a butchered verson of THE LIVING LEGEND, a two-parter, with a few unseen special effects from the series. The problem here is they cut off the ending of the two-parter, and replaced it with the finale of THE FIRE IN SPACE, another Galactica episode that came later in the series. Having seen LIVING LEGEND in its entirety on TV, I can say they sacrificed drama for spectacle by deleting or shortening several key sequences of character interaction. The end of the tape is an abomination, a mess of bad editing and confusing dialogue that makes no sense, having been a paste of the endings of two different stories. LETS HOPE UNIVERSAL RELEASES "THE LIVING LEGEND" INTACT!!!

I wince every time I see this movie. As a fan of Battlestar Galactica, I remember the way the episodes originally were and I think it was a horrible mistake to combine two different episodes together. In order to have it all work, several fantastic scenes had to be cut from "The Living Legend" episode. Worst of all, the dialogue at one point makes no sense and leaves the viewer confused unless he is farmiliar with the way the episode originally was. I would very much like to see "The Living Legend" released in its original form. Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack is watchable but ultimately disappointing to fans of the original series.

This was obviously an attempt to make some more money off of Galactica, probably overseas. I never saw it released in the states, thank god. Stick to the original movie, "Saga of a Star World," and pray that the powers that be will update Galactica with a new movie, bringing back the original cast and special effects based on MODELS, not fake looking computer generated stuff. If there was ever an argument for non CG effects, it's the new Star Wars movie.

I must agree with most the other reviews that this was a somewhat poorly reedited version of Living Legend and Fire In Space, and, if you noticed, a few minutes of footage from the pilot ( Baltar's mine field sequence was originally from the Carillon mine field from the pilot and the movie) However, when this was released in Europe, about the same time the movie version of the pilot was released here, European TV viewers hadn't seen The Living Legend or the Fire In Space episodes yet. The storyline followed Living Legend more than Fire In Space and the two stories were pretty well edited together, in fact some of the earlier scenes were appeard more logically then those in the episode version of Living Legend. The ending scene was however, poorly done, Originally, Sheba was on a gurney talking to the others(injured in The Living Legend, but not in this movie), instead it was Adama( from Fire In Space) , and the dialogue was cut from both episodes and then a hasty voice over by the late Lorne Greene. Would still like to have this on DVD as with the other episodes with trailers and whatever else. For right now, this is the only way to get most of Living Legend on video but hopefully soon Universal and.or Columbia House will release ALL of them on DVD.

This is the WORST Battlestar Galactica video out there! They took two of the best episodes of the series and mashing them together to try to make a movie out of it but instead succeeded in creating a confusing mishmosh of the episodes. Oh, and to a previous reviewer that noted that Adama wasn't injured in "The Living Legend", you are right. But he WAS injured in "Fire in Space" - guess Universal thought the scene was good enough to throw in just for some angst.
DON'T BUY THIS VIDEO! IT'S AN INSULT TO "GALACTICA" FANS!

This video took elements from The Living Legend Parts 1 and 2 and the episode Fire In Space. Missing from this video is a scene from part two where Sheba (Cain's daughter) is shot and brought aboard the Galactica, this is a key scene because her character and actress Anne Lockhart stayed on after this two-part episode to finish out the original series run. Also missing is the original scene where Starbuck and Apollo tell Adama about Cain going off into space again. Note: Adama was not wounded in the original run of the two part episode. It's a shame that Glen Larson and Universal don't take the fans keen eyes and memory into consideration. Worst line."Those gulmonging Cylons" said by Lloyd Bridges way too many times.

I was 12 when this series orignally came out. Now, twenty years later, the episode that used to be my favorite, "The Living Legend," is obviously, well, underwhelming. The editing of the Fire in Space footage was horrible, just an excuse to extend this "movie" by another 20 or 30 minutes. There was really no speculative element to this movie at all, which was the problem with most of the BG episodes. It was just another simple-minded shoot-em-up, an excuse to replay their fx another dozen or so times each. Now that I'm not a kid anymore, I realize the episodes I used to like the least are in fact the best -- episodes like War of the Gods and The Long Patrol where the cylons were not really involved and there were some provocative, speculative ideas. It figures now that I'd really like to see War of the Gods, it's unavailable on video. Oh well. Also: why in the world were the sound effects for the cylon ships moving through space changed?

This is a great film. Taken from some of the best episodes of the original galactica series. Let me get the bad points over with first. The editing at the end is crap! I could have done a better job. They cut out the cylons attacking the pegasus from part two of "Living Legend" and instead had the cylons attacking the galactica from "Fire in Space". I would have rather seen both. And they cut out the pegasus theme music and replaced with the usual galactica theme. Plus they had no explaination of Baltar's presence in the film considering that in the last film, Baltar was killed. But other than that, it was great. Apart from the end, the editing was pretty damn good throughout the rest of the film. The story was great, and it was filled with action. If you're a hard-core fan, or if you just have vage interest in the show and you don't want to buy the series, I highly recommend this film.

what most people don't know is that this is actually the "tele-movie" version of living legend, made to be shown as a "movie event" rather than part of the Battlestar Galactica series. it was a re-edit of the fore-mentioned episodes, the only major difference is in the episode version of living legend sheeba was injured instead of adama as she was to become a series regular cast member. and as for people complaining that special effects were constantly reused... well... gotta think in the late 70's SFX were much more expensive to produce. even in the mid 1980s with V the series (another classic case of SFX stock footage going ape s--t) reporting a per-episode production cost of over one million. they did the best with what they had and i for one like both versions as i see them for what they are. thank the lords of kobol we have them. :)