Battlestar Galactica - The Plan / Razor

Comment: Bear McCreary does great work once again, for the Battlestar Galactica Plan/Razor cd. Loving the sax and the violins, his wife Raya and her beautiful voice. I hope that he keeps up all his great work.

Comment: Battlestar Galactica; so much better than the vast majority of sci-fi series, now or in the past. The music to BSG, again, better than most of what's avaiable and one of the things I was going to miss with BSG ending was Bear's soundtrack CDs.

Yet here's one I hadn't heard of, and I'm thinking most other BSG fans in the UK haven't either. Granted, The Plan was shown later here than in the US, and the CD is on Amazon UK as an import, but still, I was greatly pleased to see this available.

So, how good is it? Outstanding. Bear is a true artist and it's a joy to listen to his genius. Like all his work, the more you listen to it, the more you'll enjoy it. It's natural that with any film soundtrack, it's going to relate more to that specific story rather than the collected music from an entire series, but as with other great film music, that's just a given.

Having heard the music from Stargate Universe, vainly trying to ape BSG, you realise just how good Bear is. I have to say that I'm not yet as impressed by Caprica, but then that just shows that a composer for television series needs good material to work with, and Caprica is no BSG.

Now, if only they'd make more BSG films, and need more music, I'd be a happy bunny.

Comment: I love BSG. 5 stars for the content. It's fabulous. I'm having a blast running through all the episodes again. I haven't yet listened to the commentary; perhaps if I choose to go through them all again I'll listen to the show with the commentary on.

However, the packaging for this box set sucks. It is impossible to get a disc in and out of the sleeves without putting a finger print on the disc. It's difficult to know which disc you're pulling out. It's also not clear when there's an extended version of an episode unless find a listing of extended episodes online, or look through the disc contents one disc at a time on your dvd player. All but one of the extended episodes are on a different disc than the broadcast version.

There's a little cyclon action figure with the set that is of marginal quality. It can stand on it's own, but it takes some work to get it to do that, and it's not at all obvious how to get it to stand at first glance.

In short, I love the series, hate how they store the discs in the box.

Comment: Bear McCreary's original soundtrack for the two Battlestar Galactica "events" Razor and The Plan is the final Galactica album - and it might just be the best. I thought the season 3 soundtrack broke the boundaries of what a soundtrack could achieve. Not just a collection of music that supports the show, it exists as a beautiful piece of art all on its own. Season 4 expanded on that, giving us an even richer experience. It all culminates here in the soundtrack for The Plan, in particular.

The familiar Galactica motifs are back in full force: taiko drums, ethnic soloists, duduks, and chunky hard rock guitars. All the musicians involved should be commended for their tremendous, emotionally charged music. I'm continually amazed that such fully realized music could come about as the result of made-to-order music, created to support characters and events in a television series. It is to BSG's credit that they made music a significant plot-point in the final two seasons, bringing deserved attention to McCreary and the musicians.

If you've enjoyed the seasons 3 and 4 soundtracks, this is a must-have. Even if you've never seen Battlestar Galactica (a brilliant show I recommend wholeheartedly), you can enjoy this album. It's some of the most exciting, wonderful music I've ever heard, and I simply couldn't praise it enough or recommend it more highly.

Comment:
This guy McCreary is outa sight. Best soundtrack music ever for a series or movie,all of the releases.