Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1978)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	102:38
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Vince Edwards Christian I. Nyby II
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Richard Hatch Dirk Benedict Lorne Greene Herb Jefferson Jr. John Colicos Maren Jensen Laurette Spang Tony Swartz Anne Lockhart Terry Carter
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	None Given

    The Battlestar Galactica has been flying through space protecting the last of the human race from the dreaded Cylons for some months, all the while believing that they are the last vestiges of mankind. By chance they stumble upon the Battlestar Pegasus, a powerful military ship whose crew have been fighting the Cylons since the fall of mankind - with the same belief that they were humanity's sole survivors.

    Having retreated into deep space after the fall of its battalion, the Pegasus had been conducting hit-and-run attacks on a particular Cylon shipping route for months. Commander Cain (Lloyd Bridges), the captain of the Pegasus and a military legend, is eager for the Galactica to unite with the Pegasus a major assault on a nearby Cylon capital. Commander Adama (Lorne Greene), who outranks Cain, would rather see the Pegasus joining his mission to protect the last of the human fleet. Commander Cain reluctantly agrees with Adama, causing a stir between the crews of the two ships, or so he claims - the conniving Cain has his own ways of getting what he wants...

    Mission Galactic: Cylon Attack is a movie edited together from three episodes of the original 1978 television series (the two-part The Living Legend and Fire in Space). It follows successful Battlestar Galactica movie that was edited together from the opening episodes of the series for European markets in somewhat of a last-ditch effort to see some profit from the costly series. The first movie proved to be a hit in those markets, certainly enough of a hit to warrant the same treatment to another set of episodes.

    The movie has a particular focus on action. The 130 minutes that would have made up three episodes of the series have been cut back to a lean 100 minutes, and not a moment of the action from the episodes is missing. The plotting is intact enough to keep an engaging story together. While the effect is a little bit clunky in places, it does makes for a surprisingly good movie - though no better than the episodes it was culled from.

    It is hard to tell exactly who this disc is intended to appeal to. If you already own the original 1978 series on DVD this movie will certainly not be an essential purchase unless you truly are a diehard fan of the series. If you are yet to see the original series and had a casual interest then this may be for you, although for only a few dollars more you could own the complete series (which I would suggest is a better way to go).

Video

    The movie is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

    The video looks surprisingly good for something that was shot for TV in the late 1970s. The video is reasonably sharp and features only a very fine level of grain. No low level noise is noticeable. There is a reasonably good level of detail in shadows and dark areas.

    The colour is a little pale and a hint on the musty side of things, though this really shows the age of the material rather than detracts from the viewing experience. The colour levels and contrast are uniform throughout the movie.

    Film artefacts are occasionally noticeable, particularly during effects sequences where they pop up in numbers, although this only makes for a mild distraction as none are too sizeable. There are no noticeable MPEG compression artefacts or other distracting video artefacts.

    Basic, white English subtitles are available. They appear to be quite accurate and reasonably well timed.

    This is a single disc, so no layer break occurs.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A single English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) audio track is available.

    The dialogue is fairly clear and at a good level in the mix. The dialogue is reasonably well synchronised to the video, but features a considerable number noticeable of overdubs (presumably this was necessary to shoehorn the story together from its constituent episodes).

    The movie features a bombastic, very 1970s, orchestral score. It is a little muddy in the mix.

    There is no noticeable surround speaker or subwoofer usage.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This disc features no real extras, unless you want to count adequately animated menus and and advertisement for a UK DVD label that specialises in distributing cult TV.

    This title is not available in Region 1. The Region 4 edition is identical to the Region 2 release - we even get their ads.

    Mission Galactic: Cylon Attack is an entertaining movie edited together from three episodes of the original 1978 TV series. The video and audio transfers are both of a high standard for material produced a television in the late 1970s. There are no extras on this disc.

    Whilst the movie itself is quite good, it is hard to recommend the purchase of this disc to anyone. For a few dollars more you could go out and buy the full series, which I highly recommend any science-fiction fans do if they haven't already. It is a shame, as it would only have taken a handful of extras to make this a worthy purchase for Battlestar fans.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall