Caprica

Written by Remi Aubuchon and Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Jeffrey Reiner

Going in to this, I wondered if a prequel to Battlestar Galactica was such a great idea. I recognized that Moore and the other creators of the series had put a lot of time and effort into making the twelve colonies a viable background for their series, but I was nervous that the notion of tieing the Adama family into the creation of the Cylons was a huge mistake. If their was such an intimate connection, it seems odd that Admiral Adama would have never mentioned it.

All of those concerns were quickly washed away when I started to watch Caprica. It's an excellent film in its own rights, and it lays very fertile ground for a television series.

It, like Battlestar, is firmly grounded in religion, and the struggle between a monotheistic minority and the pantheistic majority that is common in the parent series. That the Soldiers of the One, a terrorist group dedicated to spreading the word of their god has so many parallels in today's society can not be accidental, and I find it interesting that the worship of many gods is trotted out as a solution to fundamentalism. I wonder if there are some Hindus on the writing staff....

Also of interest is the technological superiority of these Capricans to the ones in Battlestar Galactica. That makes perfect sense in a post-Cylon world, that people will have ditched their robot butlers and cell phones, but it creates a completely different aesthetic for this series, one that is very attractive. The houses in this film are beautiful, as are the carpets, which seem to score a lot of screen time.

I'm very interested in watching this series play out, and am looking forward to its premiere, some time in 2010.