Battlestar Galactica: Razor
Aired in November 2007 as a prelude to the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica, Razor is a bit of an enigma - as fans waited for the resolution of the cliffhanger ending of season three, what they got here was an oddball out-of-time tale which lives - continuity-wise - in the middle of season two. It boasts stunning effects work, decent performances, and some of the most dramatic scenes in Galactica’s history as it rewinds to Pegasus’ escape from the all-out Cylon attack on the colonies. On DVD, it also boasts some extra scenes (which may seem suspiciously familiar) and more bonuses than some of the show’s season box sets.
The major feature of Razor is really the commentary; as with the season sets, there doesn’t seem to be any one big making-of piece. Interestingly, Ronald D. Moore and writer Michael Taylor spend a lot of the movie’s extended running time talking about what Razor could/should have been, how the script was originally structured, and how it might’ve made more sense (to them) that way. But at the same time they admit that everyone from Taylor’s girlfriend to producer and director-of-numerous-Battlestar-episodes Michael Rymer felt that it needed restructuring and paring down to make it cohesive. They both note that they had carte blanche to up the ante on sex and violence in the movie for “unrated home video version” purposes, but despite Galactica being a show that has merited parental advisories on past episodes for both reasons, the makers of the show opted not to take the studio up on that offer.
The “extended” version of the movie is extended by the addition of a few scenes, much of it material that came from the Razor Flashback “minisodes” (which are handily included as their own half-hour feature, edited together by putting the “to be continued” fade-outs back-to-back with the fade-in of the next “minisode”). The uniqueness of the Flashbacks is eaten away a bit by the “extended” edit of the movie, but they’re still interesting to watch with their numerous visual callbacks to the original Galactica series - the old-school Cylons, uniforms, ships and helmets are interesting in the context of the new show. Nico Cortez, as the younger version of Edward James Olmos’ Adama, straddles a line between being utterly convincing as young Adama…and occasionally going “over the top” with his hushed intensity. Still, it’s kind of like a bonus episode, so who can complain? As for incorporating a lot of it back into the movie…that felt like a little bit of a cheat. Extended scenes not culled from the Flashbacks includes a young Cain’s first encounter with the Cylons, and the origin of the knife/razor as a motif for her character…though I’ll admit that it barely changed, nor did it really alter my perception of, the movie or its characters. The re-edit isn’t that much to write home about.
Other featurettes include the various cast members discussing their favorite episode (and it seems like almost every third episode in the show’s history is name-checked here, though Olmos may win the day by predicting that the final installment will be the best), and a short documentary on the visual look of the “world” of Galactica, from the ship’s technology (flatscreen LCD monitors mixed with WWII field phones) to why some of the sets are built the way they are. To whet everyone’s appetite between now and April 2008, two short features focus on the upcoming fourth season: a “Sneak Peek” which includes the producers hinting at coming story developments, and a preview trailer featuring actual footage.
Ironically, these features included with Razor, while they fall short of what I’ve been hoping for from Galactica DVD extras, were more impressive than the lack of features that accompanied the Season 2.5 box set. Maybe by the time we’re getting the DVD set from the show’s last season, there’ll be more where these few extras came from.