Product Details

• Actors: Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales
• Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: SyFy
• DVD Release Date: October 5, 2010
• Run Time: 534 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002ZCY872
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,770 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Corporate espionage, online role-playing games, terrorist attacks--the world of Caprica isn't so different from our own. The science-fiction series delves into the complex back story that led to the superb rebooted Battlestar Galactica: two men connect through mutual grief, each having lost a daughter in a bombing. Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz, still best known for Some Kind of Wonderful) is the multimillionaire inventor of the holoband, a virtual reality version of the Internet; Joseph Adama (Esai Morales, NYPD Blue) is a lawyer and functionary for a crime family. Their glimmering friendship swiftly mutates as each realizes that the other offers something he wants… which eventually leads to the answer of Battlestar Galactica's greatest mystery: how did the Cylons begin? Caprica is flush with hot-button issues, ranging from alternate sexualities to religious extremism to troubling moral questions raised by accelerating technology; the world is a skillfully conceived dark mirror of contemporary life. The characters, unfortunately, are not so well developed. Too many of them have no clear desires or driving impulses--which isn't unlike real life, but makes for a meandering story line. On several occasions characters have to do something dumb just to keep the plot in motion; again, not unbelievable, but it's hard to stay engaged with characters you can't respect. Still, every episode has at least one moment that's truly clever or emotionally compelling, just enough to keep a viewer going. The series strengthens as it gets further in, so this may be one of those precarious first seasons where the creators work out the kinks (the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pretty rocky, but then it soared into the stratosphere). Caprica has a lot of potential; if it finds its footing, this could be great television. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

The Battlestar Galactica phenomenon continues with this undeniably compelling look at where the real conflict between humans and the Cylons began...in a vibrant world remarkably like our own: Caprica. Fifty-eight years before Battlestar takes off, two powerful families – the Graystones and the Adamas – find their destinies irrevocably intertwined after a devastating explosion. As both houses struggle with the line where humanity ends and artificial intelligence – the Cylon race – begins, they’ll face off in a battlefield of corporate conspiracy, murder, sexual politics and family backbiting. From executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick comes this highly anticipated prequel starring Golden Globe nominee Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales and presented in uninterrupted Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Complicated, Courageous, Messy, Risky, Scary, Ravishing August 1, 2010

By noelephantitis

Format:DVD

In HALF a season Caprica has generated more ideas, images, stories, characters and themes than most shows do in multiple seasons. This nearly impenetrable density has, understandably, turned some off. I suspect that if it wasn't the first post-BSG project of Ronald D. Moore and David Eick it would never have made it to production.

The incredible opening sequence--three teenagers, a decadent nightclub of sex and horrific violence, a VR doppelganger, a secret monotheistic religion in a polytheistic world, a plan to run away to another planet, a suicide bombing--unfolds with breakneck speed and intensity within the first ten minutes (or at least it FEELS like the first 10 minutes). I've never seen anything like it. Eventually, all the threads are untangled and explained, only to reweave into more and more complex patters and structures. This show requires VERY careful viewing and a LOT of patience.

The world of Caprica is a mix of ancient Greek theology, 1940s costumes and architecture, 1980s corporate interiors, noir lighting and cinematography, 1950s futurist technology, 1990s mediascapes, 1960s druggie-commune culture, etc. It SHOULD be incoherent, but the emotional and thematic throughlines are so insistent and palpable that it's all of a piece. Bewildering but ravishing.

Caprica is obsessed with excruciatingly painful father-daughter relationships and absent mothers. The speed of the show slows WAY down to really stew in the minutiae of father-daughter power struggles (the Daniel-Zoe Graystone story), father-daughter loss and grief (the Joseph-Tamara Adama story), and father-daughter sadism (Barnabas and Lacy, not actually related, but the paternalism is unambiguous). This seems to me to be unchartered territory and an under-examined aspect of contemporary American family dynamics. It can be painful to watch, but so rewarding if you can stay with it.

I haven't even mentioned the show's complex representations of homosexuality, race, class, corporate culture, marriage, revenge, death, technology, media, death, violence, the generation gap, and, of course, religion and fanaticism.

Listen to the commentary tracks--these guys are figuring the show out AS THEY MAKE IT. This is risky material put together in a risky way, which makes sense, but can be off-putting to those who want their stories pat and their transitions smooth.

I think this is why the amazing Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales (not to mention Paula Malcolmson, Polly Walker, and a nearly unrecognizable James Marsters from Buffy in one of the scariest performances I've ever seen on TV) have signed on.

I hope the network money people see the challenging aspects of this show as a good thing, and keep it running.

P.S. The second half of Season 1 is turning out to be even better, unfolding with extraordinary complexity, but great clarity as well. While the focus has moved away from the father-daughter stories, familial themes are deepening, and resonating with political themes in surprising and challenging ways. Extraordinary stuff.

P.P.S. Apparently the show has been cancelled. One season of this show is worth 5 of any other, so I guess I can console myself that it had a good run.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just the Beginning January 5, 2011

By Sam F.

Amazon Verified Purchase

SPOILER FREE***
Apotheosis, currently acting as the series finale, was not meant to be the end of the series but it should be applauded the care to wrap up the events on this story as neatly as possible and keep fans salivating for more in case Caprica was not renewed for a second season. This episode was just the Beginning of the line and definitely made this show's 18 episode run worthwhile. To anyone thinking about giving this show a try, do not be afraid for you will not be given a complete cliffhanger. There is clearly meant to be more, but enough closure is given to make the show feel complete enough to warrant the money to download. Caprca may have been fairly slow in the beginning, but it was meant to buld the world and the characters within it so that we could be taken on the wild ride the last 4 episodes trust us upon and this finale was beautiful in the way it used the technology Caprica's world introduced to its viewers and showed how it changed the world forever. If any show I have ever seen deserved a season 2, its Caprica. here's hoping that Syfy gets their heads out of the gutter and realizes the potential this show really has, and it is very evident in the last ten minutes of this brilliant conclusion. So Say We All!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This isn't the whole season December 1, 2010

By Petrina Frost

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Customers buying this DVD need to be aware that this is not the entire season. It ends midway through season 1. There's more on Season 1.5. To avoid frustration, I would wait until the entire season is available on DVD.