Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome is a 2012 film prequel to the Battlestar Galactica television series.
It was announced/leaked in mid-2010 by Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica producer and writer). Blood & Chrome, starring Luke Pasqualino (The Borgias) and Ben Cotton (Alcatraz), premiered on the Machinima's channel, Machinima Prime, beginning Friday. The film was broken up into 10 seven- to twelve-minute episodes online until February and remained on Machinima until April.
Plot[]
- The following is based on a Wikipedia synopsis, and can be found here.
Pilot Ensign William Adama graduates from the Academy and posted to join the crew of the Galactica. Much to his disappointment, he is assigned not to a Viper fighter but to a Raptor transport ship named the Wild Weasel. He meets his navigator Coker Fasjovik, who is cynical and interested only in leaving the military, as his mandatory second tour of duty ends in eight weeks. Coker finds Adama's eagerness irritating and nicknames him "Husker". Galactica's CO, Commander Silas Nash, briefs the two on their first mission together, a routine "milk run" sending cargo to the Scorpia Fleet Shipyards and returning with supplies for the Galactica. It is a four-day trip during which they are to avoid enemy contact of any kind.
While preparing the Wild Weasel for the mission, Adama and Coker find out that their cargo isn't supplies but a civilian software engineer, Dr. Becca Kelly. They depart, but upon leaving Galactica's DRADIS range, Dr. Kelly hands them new orders from the Admiralty. They are to rendezvous with the Archeron, a Colonial heavy cruiser, in an area bordering Cylon space. They are also to take all further orders from Dr. Kelly. As they travel to their destination, Dr. Kelly reveals that she worked for Graystone Industries, designing the upgrade for the Cylons' MCP "brain" chip. When they reach the rendezvous point, they discover that the Archeron was ambushed and destroyed. A pair of Cylon raiders appear and attack the Raptor.
Thanks to Adama's risky but excellent piloting, the Wild Weasel narrowly escapes the Cylon raider. Despite Coker's desire to head home, Dr. Kelly has them break radio silence to send a transmission; they receive an immediate response with yet another set of coordinates. En route Dr. Kelly tells Adama that she was married to famed marine Ezra Barzel (from the Hebrew prophet Ezra and the Hebrew word for "Iron"), who inspired many young people to join the Academy. They arrive at the coordinates to find a fleet of "ghost ships", Colonial vessels assumed to have been destroyed in battle that are now camped out hiding in Cylon territory.
The commander of one of the ghost ships - an older Orion-class battlestar called Osiris - assembles a small fleet for a mission. They will bring Dr. Kelly to embedded Colonial operatives on Djerba, a former winter resort planet located in Cylon territory that holds Dr. Kelly's objective. Dr. Kelly requests that Adama and Coker continue to escort her in the Wild Weasel. Coker overhears the commander say that the mission's personnel must be volunteers (i.e. it is a suicide mission); he is not pleased. On the launch deck, Coker runs into his old friend Lt. Jim Kirby, who was presumed dead after his ship was badly damaged in battle. Kirby asks Coker whether his wife has remarried, and Coker informs him that she has not and is raising their son. Kirby is overjoyed to learn that he has a child. As the mission fleet departs, Commander Ozar of the Osiris tells the crew that the fate of the war depends on Dr. Kelly reaching her objective. Just after the fleet jumps into Djerba's orbit, a Cylon Basestar appears.
The basestar and the Osiris exchange fire as the Wild Weasel and its Viper escorts, one of whom is Kirby, fly toward Djerba. They are pursued by three Cylon raiders which the Colonials manage to destroy, though Kirby deserts midway through the battle to go home to see his family. Meanwhile, the Osiris is heavily outnumbered by the Cylon basestar and raiders. When its nuclear weapons jam, the commander decides to fly it into the basestar and manually detonate the weapons, destroying both the Cylon ships and the Osiris. The Wild Weasel crash-lands onto the surface of Djerba.
Adama, Coker and Dr. Kelly abandon the Wild Weasel and trek through Djerba's harsh wind and snow, following a signal with Dr. Kelly's communicator. They track the signal to a huge cave, where they discover their escort unit dead from mysterious non-artillery wounds. Suddenly the cave floor collapses and plunges them into a dark underground chamber. Strange noises surround them and a large snake-like creature lunges out and bites Coker. As Coker struggles to contain the monster, a man rappels into the chamber and kills the snake. He introduces himself as Tech Sgt. Xander Toth, the only surviving escort. He explains that the snakes, which killed his unit, were created by Cylons doing half animal/half machine experiments. Toth has been alone in the cave for some time and is slightly mentally unstable, prone to unpredictable aggressive outbursts. Nevertheless, he has scouted a route to Dr. Kelly's objective. They leave the cave and stop at a cliff overlooking a seemingly abandoned resort compound.
Toth takes Adama, Coker and Dr. Kelly into the abandoned resort, where Toth says the Cylons previously stored "spare parts". He has rigged the perimeter with mines and set up a generator inside to keep heat running. Dr. Kelly later confides to Adama that her husband's status as a war hero was completely fabricated by the Colonial army. He did not singlehandedly defeat a Cylon platoon; rather, his exploratory mission was felled by friendly fire. She emphasizes that the war must end, with which Adama agrees before tenderly touching her. She tells him that "you will regret this", and they sleep together. Shortly after, Adama finds Coker deftly playing a grand piano, and Coker quickly surmises what has happened between Adama and Dr. Kelly. Just as he begins telling Adama that Dr. Kelly's objective is more than it seems, one of Toth's mines explodes and Cylon Centurions approach the compound.
Adama and Coker search the compound for Dr. Kelly, who disappeared when the Cylons arrived. Toth is shot multiple times by a centurion; his fate remains unknown. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelly stumbles into a cold storage room filled with human body parts - likely the "spares" Toth mentioned. She hides inside from a Centurion, who finds her when she exhales loudly. Instead of killing her, the Centurion scans at length a microchip dog tag she wears around her neck. Adama and Coker burst in and Coker shoots the Centurion. The Centurion crashes to the floor and emits a high-frequency wail, which Dr. Kelly explains as screaming - the Cylons can feel pain. Coker puts the Centurion out of its misery and the three set off to look for Toth.
When Coker wants to send a rescue signal for the mortally wounded Toth, Adama and Dr. Kelly instead insist that they press on toward Dr. Kelly's objective. Coker demands to know Dr. Kelly's mission, and she finally explains that she will upload a virus to the Cylons' communications array. Once they find the array, Dr. Kelly begins her upload, but Coker shoots her and disarms Adama when he sees a Battlestar on the communications screen - Dr. Kelly is transmitting information about the ghost fleet to the Cylons. She shoots Coker several times and justifies her betrayal: she believes that the war will only end when humans negotiate with the Cylons, who she thinks value life more than humans do. Accepting that Dr. Kelly is a traitor, Adama destroys the communications unit. He drags a badly wounded Coker out of the array, leaving Dr. Kelly behind.
As Adama and Coker wait for a rescue to take them back to Galactica, Coker shows Adama a picture of his wife before passing out - apparently dying. In the communications array, a quasi-humanoid Cylon asks Dr. Kelly if she is alive, and if she thinks that her enlightened view of Cylons diminishes their hatred of her, then snaps her neck. Back on Galactica, Commander Nash explains that the seemingly failed mission actually went as planned. Colonial command had anticipated Dr. Kelly's betrayal, and by the time the Cylons followed the communication, the ghost fleet was long gone and was able to destroy multiple defenseless Cylon bases. Nash tells Adama the casualties of the Osiris were worth the victory, and successes like these keep civilians supporting the war effort. Disillusioned, Adama signs off on a sanitized account of the mission. He was then offered his own Viper. A recovered Coker surprises Adama before he goes to his ship, which displays his newly chosen call sign: "Husker", an apparent tribute to Coker. Adama joins his fellow pilots, ready to continue the fight.
Cast[]
- Luke Pasqualino as Ensign/Lieutenant William "Husker" Adama
- Ben Cotton as Lieutenant Coker Fasjovik.
- Lili Bordán as Dr. Becca Kelly
- Jill Teed as Commander Ozar
- John Pyper-Ferguson as Technical Sergeant Xander Toth
- Brian Markinson as Commander Silas Nash
- Karen LeBlanc as Lieutenant Jenna McGavin
- Sebastian Spence as Lieutenant Jim "Sunshine" Kirby
- Ty Olsson as Osiris Crewmember
- Zak Santiago as Captain Armin "High Top" Diaz
- Mike Dopud as Captain Deke "Minute Man" Tornvald
- Adrian Holmes as Lieutenant Zachary Elias
- Carmen Moore as Lieutenant Nina Leotie
- Jordan Weller as Seamus Fahey
- Tom Stevens as Marine Baris
- Terry Chen as Tiu
- Sooraj Jaswal as Marine
- Leo Li Chiang as Osiris Marine Sergeant
- Colin Corrigan as Osiris Marine
- Zach Martin as Strohmeyer
- Aaron Hughes as Army Medic
- Toby Levins as "Sandman"
- Tricia Helfer as Cylon Prototype (voice)
Production[]
Sources[]