"Battlestar Galactica: Razor": review

L to R: Edward James Olmos (Adama), Mary McDonnell (Roslin), Michelle Forbes (Cain), Stephane Jacobsen (Shaw), Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck), Jamie Bamber (Apollo)

[WARNING: spoilers.]

"Battlestar Galactica" (BSG) spawned a few spinoffs—there were three "TV movies" (at least one of which started out as a series of webisodes but got spliced into a full-length movie) plus a spinoff series named "Caprica," which got no traction and lasted only one season. The three "TV movies" were "Razor," "The Plan," and "Blood and Chrome." I reviewed "Blood and Chrome" way back in 2013, but I don't think I've ever properly reviewed either 2007's "Razor" or 2010's "The Plan." "The Plan," directed by Edward James Olmos, was frankly terrible (not Olmos's fault) and not worth reviewing; it added nothing to the overall storyline and gave a piss-poor explanation for what the Cylons' overall plan was. "Razor," which I want to focus on here, was a much better production, but it had its problems, too.

"Razor," directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá, is full of time-jumping flashbacks to different eras, from the first Cylon war to the second, but its "present" takes place somewhere around Season 2, at the time when Galactica and its ragtag fleet encounters the battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes, one of the original, awesome tough-girl actresses from long before annoying girl-bosses were a thing). Lee Adama has been given command of the Pegasus after three of its commanders have died in rapid succession: first the ruthless Cain, then the corrupt Fisk, then the micromanaging Garner. The movie deals with Cain's backstory—how she had abandoned her little sister right at the end of the first Cylon war, and how this cowardice haunted her present, turning her into a hardened admiral capable of executing her second-in-command right on the bridge of the Pegasus after his conscience prompted him to refuse an order that would send soldiers to unnecessary deaths. We also get to see a young Bill Adama (Nico Cortez) flying like a madman in the first Cylon war (against old-school Cylons from the original, 1978 BSG!) until he ends up crashing on an ice planet where he discovers the Cylons' first Hybrid (part human, part machine, and able to see metaphysical realities as all successive Hybrids could do) as well as whatever bloody project the Cylons had been working on (creating more Hybrids, presumably). But "Razor" mostly focuses on Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Jacobsen), a character created specifically for this show. Shaw is an ambitious, young officer who ends up assigned to Pegasus, and while she doesn't make a good impression on Cain at first, she ends up proving herself many times over when the second Cylon war erupts.

"Razor" is, overall, an even deeper exploration than the main series into the morality of war. It's also an exploration of human character—of what we do when we're faced with extreme situations. Do we abandon our little sisters? Do we shoot our executive officers (XO) when they balk at an order? Do we fire a nuke at a target when we know our own troops are still there and not done with their mission yet? At the end of "Razor" is a discussion between the older Bill Adama (Olmos) and his son Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber) about who Admiral Cain was and what could have been done differently. The older Adama contends that he can't judge Cain for her ruthlessness and cruelty because he had never been put in her dire situation. He also notes that, unlike Cain, he had voices of conscience "in my face" like President Roslin (Mary McDonnell) and his own son Lee, aways keeping him from taking the extreme path. Cain had no such brakes... unless you count her XO, whom she killed. 

Kendra Shaw is the thread connecting the events of "Razor," an ambitious young woman who proves to be as ruthless as Cain, executing passengers on a civilian vessel that Pegasus is raiding for parts and crew so as to be able to continue its war. Shaw quickly rises in the ranks, and she even becomes, after Cain's death at the hands of a betraying Cylon, Apollo's XO. In the end, though, Shaw ends up as part of the away mission to rescue human soldiers who had been captured by the Cylons and taken to an old Cylon base ship; when the nuke her team is carrying has its remote detonator damaged, Shaw, wounded, elects to stay behind and blow the nuke manually. While in the base ship, she encounters the same Hybrid that Bill Adama had encountered all those years ago during the first Cylon war, and the Hybrid tells her the prophecy that Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) is "the harbinger of death" who "will lead humanity to its end." Unable to do anything with this knowledge, which she unsuccessfully tries to relay to Pegasus, Shaw ends up paying for all of her sins when she sets off the nuke inside the base ship.

"Razor" has a lot going for it. The movie provides a lot of the background information that viewers of BSG had been craving. We learn about Bill Adama's early days as a hotshot pilot (which is why he bonds so well with Starbuck in the present day); we learn about how Admiral Cain became so Machiavellian; we meet (and eventually lose) the cipher that is Kendra Shaw; we learn a bit more about the mysterious Cylon Hybrids. We also learn more about the Number Six (Tricia Helfer) who betrayed Admiral Cain and the Pegasus, and who eventually murdered Cain: this Six, named Gina Inviere, masqueraded as a tech expert and was Cain's lover. Like all Cylons, Gina is excellent at manipulating human emotions. If you watched the main series, you know that Gina, after murdering Cain, hides among the Galactica's fleet with the help of Gaius Baltar and eventually sets off the nuke that attracts the Cylons to the planet named New Caprica by the remaining colonials, killing herself in the process. The movie also gives us plenty of fan service and memberberries in the form of old-style Cylons and Cylon fighters reminiscent of what we'd seen in the old, 1978 series—the kind of fighters piloted by three robotic Cylons working in sync/tandem. But thanks to improvements in special effects, these "toaster" Cylons are all CGI in "Razor," not guys in bulky suits, and their fighters are a lot more nimble and dangerous-looking than in the original series. Actor Nico Cortez is utterly convincing as the young Adama: he's got Edward James Olmos's mannerisms down pat, and he totally inhabits the role of a younger, fiercer Bill "Husker" Adama, fighter pilot extraordinaire. The old Cylon Hybrid (Campbell Lane)—a man instead of the usual woman—is also a fascinating character, buoyed along by his weirdly occult metaphysical awareness of pasts and futures that no mortal could ever know. Even Helena Cain gets some of my sympathy given the trauma she suffered at the end of the first Cylon War when she abandoned her little sister, not knowing that her sister would be scooped up by the Cylons for their foul experiments right as the first war was ending. The hard-nosed discussion of war's morality is also a point in the show's favor: "Razor" doesn't pull any punches in its discussion of the role of utter ruthlessness in combat, especially against an implacable, machine enemy.

At the same time, "Razor" had its bad points. The actress playing Kendra Shaw, Stephanie Jacobsen, struck me as way too baby-faced for the role of an ambitious, hard-bitten young officer who sees Pegasus merely as a stepping stone toward her own command. Jacobsen is a Hong Kong-born Australian with an annoying habit of uptalking too many of her lines. The showrunners should have found someone with a grittier, less delicate appearance and delivery for the part. Another problem was that some of the special effects showcased bad physics. BSG was infamous for having sound in space, like the Star Wars movies (and so many other SF films and TV shows), but during the initial Cylon attack of the second war, we also saw battlestars burning in orbital shipyards, and the smoke as these floating hulks burned drifted upwards for no good reason (the BSG main-series finale episode also featured a brief moment of the same bad physics after Starbuck jumped the Galactica to our Earth). In space, when you're far enough away from any gravity well, smoke doesn't drift upward: it basically stays in place and just gets denser, possibly even extinguishing the flames producing it. Perhaps most disturbing of all was the Bill Adama problem: Adama was addressed as "rook" by the veteran pilots, possibly implying that this battle in the first Cylon War was his very first. By the end of the action sequence in which Adama had shot down several Cylons and crashed on the snowy planet below, the first Cylon War was already over: the Cylons had signed an armistice and retreated immediately, pulling all of their ships away to some mysterious location. So did this mean Adama was, in reality, an inexperienced pilot despite his potential? He seemed to have fought in only a single battle. I've read some nerdish attempts to explain what was happening; it's possible, for example, that Adama was being called "rook" simply because of his youth and not because of his inexperience, but most of these nerdsplaining efforts have felt hollow to me. The movie "Blood and Chrome" further characterized the young Bill Adama as a hard-charging go-getter with rakish charm and an eye for the ladies, and he was also portrayed as a skilled, experienced pilot with, it was implied, a long combat career ahead of him. I choose to believe in this latter version of Adama; I like the idea that he's a grizzled veteran who's seen it all. I also wish that Nico Cortez had played Adama in "Blood and Chrome": the guy was so convincing as the young Bill Adama that I'd almost swear he was an Olmos relative. (Adama was played by Luke Pasqualino in "Blood and Chrome." Pasqualino was fine in the role, but Cortez would've been miles better.) And the weirdest bit of badness had to do with the movie's title "Razor": Helena Cain had in her possession a switchblade with a story behind it. She would pull it out when she wanted to drive home the point that the people under her all had to "become razors"—sharp, alert, and unsentimentally combat-ready. But, dammit, that wasn't a razor—it was a switchblade! Every time I've rewatched this movie, that strange disconnect has never failed to bother me.

Well, you can't make a movie without all sorts of mistakes and problems creeping in, so maybe I shouldn't be too hard on "Razor." Overall, given how many times I've rewatched it, I think it's safe to say that I like the movie for its good points more than I hate it for its bad points. It's a worthy addition to the BSG mythos in that it provides crucial backgrounds for Adama, Cain, and the Cylon Hybrids. It also gives us the interesting character of Kendra Shaw, there and gone, who undergoes at least a little bit of a character arc as the movie proceeds to its conclusion. We even learn a bit more about the relationship between Admiral Cain and her betrayer, the Cylon Number Six named Gina. These points are all in the show's favor, and they outweigh the sometimes laughably bad VFX physics and the Adama problem, which may have a plausible in-universe explanation. If you've never seen "Razor" before, I'm sorry to have spoiled it for you, but I'd still recommend that you give the movie a watch, especially as a way to fill in the gaps in your BSG knowledge.