Rating:  - Great to see more of Cain
Razor is an interesting item. In essence there was a long gap between Battlestar Galactica season 3 and season 4. The people in charge of Battlestar Galactica literally said "let us make some sort of instant-to-DVD movie we can get the fans to buy. Hey, you writers, what can you write for us to sell?" The writers tossed around the idea and realized that we had seen little of the Pegasus battlestar. That ship shows up in the series and then is demolished. The writers thought it would be perfect to tell more about the Pegasus and also to bring back Admiral Cain who was played incredibly well by Michelle Forbes. So this was a perfect way to get more Admiral Cain time, to get some back story fleshed out and to give Battlestar Galactica fans a fix while they eagerly awaited Season 4 to begin.
On one hand it's easy to be cynical about a company saying "how can we create more things for fans to buy." On the other hand, if right now Peter Jackson said "let me make a 2 hour movie in the Lord of the Rings universe for fans to buy" I honestly wouldn't care WHAT aspect of Middle Earth he chose to cover. If he was bringing in my favorite actors, in my favorite world, to tell ANY story I would buy it and watch it repeatedly. So in the same sense if Razor brings us more acting time and storyline in Battlestar Galactica's world that can be seen pretty much as a good thing.
Interestingly, the story is really all about Kendra Shaw - played well by Australian Stephanie Jacobsen. Kendra is one of the ONLY characters on this show to speak with a "non-American accent" and it helps her to stand out. Kendra is a fresh officer coming on to help Cain when the Pegasus is initially attacked. The rest of the story is really all from Kendra's point of view - how Cain handles the issues that come up, how Kendra changes over time based on what she goes through. Certainly she runs into Apollo and Starbuck and others, but she is always the focus.
A lot of what went on in Season 3 is now explained with Razor, i.e. you understand characters' motivations. That being said, I think they try a little TOO hard to "justify" decisions that people made which simply were not the right ones. They do show that certain characters had mixed feelings about what they did, but it would have been nice if they went into that more rather than just hinting at "oh person X had a tummy ache sometimes when they thought about having wreaked genocide down onto an entire planet". I've of course changed the situation for spoiler reasons :)
There are certain key issues I have with this episode but that would get into spoiler area, so I'll keep those all separate in my longer review. I know Amazon is very sensitive about spoilers anywhere in their site area.
It is definitely important to see the "long and short" version on this DVD as well as the commentary track. If you've only seen the broadcast short version you've missed out on a lot of the story. Even watching the long version still leaves some areas murky - areas that start to make sense when you hear the commentary track.
Definitely a must-watch before season 4 comes around since it informs what they are going to do in season 4.
Rating:  - Need to be seen.
This a great companion for the Galactica TV series. It must be seen after finishing the third seasson.
Rating: - GREAT!!!
The BEST show on TV by far!! If you have not watched any of the new BSG the BUY IT!!!
Rating: - Great! could have been better...
The very prospect of adding shedding new light onto the story of the pegasus excited me so I looked forward to watching it. The story I feel could have been a little better, but the acting and special effects were top notch as always. A must for any fan of the series!
Rating: - Australian XO for Pegasus ... Kendra Shaw
The story of RAZOR has already been well detailed by other reviewers here so I will keep my review to pure analysis of the episode assuming that people reading this are already fans of the BSG series.
In Razor we get the missing back story of the Pegasus told in parallel time lines - Past with Admiral Caine and present with Lee Adama. The bridge between these two times lines, apart from the Pegasus crew under Caine, is one Kendra Shaw played by Australian actress Stephanie Jacobsen. It should be said from the outset that most North Americans will not recognize her accent and think it is English ... it is not, it is a standard neutral Australian accent.
It was great to hear a familiar Aussie accent within the BSG story line and Jacobsen as Kendra Shaw proves herself to be every bit as tough and resourceful as Kara Thrace ( Starbuck ). In one scene when William Adama and Lee are watching Kendra Shaw drill a team of marines for weapons training Adama Snr comments "I'd like to sell tickets to that dance" when it is revealed that Starbuck and Shaw don't get along. We get the distinct impression that something inside Kendra Shaw is quite broken, perhaps even more broken than Starbucks emotional past. This sets us up for the past events of the Pegasus under Caine which begin to unfold.
Kendra Shaw is the legacy and product of Admiral Caine, during Razor we witness the back story explaining what makes Admiral Caine the woman she is, as well as what drives her ultimate Raison D'etre. The results of her hard nosed and single bloody mindedness culminate with devastating consequences on two occasions during RAZOR's back story as well as revealing her motivation behind the treatment under interrogation of the Cylon No6. In one scene we see Caine playing with a folding knife keepsake where she states to Kendra Shaw ... "When you can be this, as long as you have to be ... then you become a razor".
The story of Razor in a metaphorical sense explores the theme that in a war of survival of the human race people are often required to do things and act in ways that are contrary to our morality and common code of normal behaviour. That to win against machines human beings are often required to set their emotional life aside and become nothing more than a weapon ... a razor. The dilemma in all this however is that nobody can survive being a Razor indefinitely without having it exact a heavy toll. Everybody is emotionally scarred, nobody is left unscathed - this is the paradox of our humanity. We even realize as the seasons roll on that the Cylons themselves are not free from the heavy burden of human feelings and emotions, this seems to be their very own Achilles heel.
In the modern day we see Lee Adama being given command of the Pegasus where we initially find Kendra Shaw working the kitchens having been previously busted back to nothing for repeated insubordination after Admiral Caine's murder at the hands of the Cylons. Lee Adama realizes that he needs a strong personality who represents the past life of the Pegasus crew and after some verbal jousting assigns Shaw as his new Executive Officer.
As the episode gathers pace Adama Snr transfers over the Pegasus to oversee a mission to discover the nature of a strange hybrid fleet of Cylons which takes us into a third back story involving William Adama and the first Cylon War. It is this back story that really impressed me as a BSG fan from the orignal series in the late 70's ... I grew up with the original Galactica and the entire sequence with young Adama quite frankly rocked! There were many cool references to old school Cylons ( Toasters ) and the old school Cylon Raiders and Vipers. There is one particular scene in this sequence where the rookie Adama takes on two Cylon Raiders resulting in an incredible free falling fight scene.
To spell anything else out would get into spoilers but while I loved this addition to the series there were a couple of moments that I found a tad weak - sadly I will not be able to reveal them here for the sake of those who have yet to watch Razor but rest assured they aren't big enough to drop this rating from 5 stars. RAZOR is superb and we need more BSG!
I wish they would make more prequels and back stories for BSG ... the guy that plays the young Adama could easily lead up a series based on the first Cylon Wars ... SO SAY WE ALL!
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