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I know this has been out for a few weeks, but I picked it up as a package deal along with “Star Trek” and “Farscape: The Complete Series.” I had initially planned not to get it, since it didn’t sound like it brought anything new to the definitively concluded “BSG” saga, but I’m glad I did. It’s not a perfect movie, but like “Razor,” it fills in some blanks and tells a side story that gives more detail to the larger saga.

Obviously this review will contain SPOILERS for both “The Plan” and “BSG” as a whole, so don’t read any further if you don’t want to know.

“The Plan” documents the saga of Brother Cavil (aka One, aka John), the first Cylon of the Significant Seven, and who was slowly retconned into being the Big Bad of the entire series. The movie follows two Cavils, actually — one Cavil is the guy who reinserts the Final Five into Colonial society just prior to the Cylon invasion, then gets aboard Galactica and proceeds to marshal the other Cylons to destroy the fleet from the inside. The other Cavil is the one we meet at the end of Season Two (I think), who is among the Resistance fighters on Caprica when Kara comes back to rescue Anders. Caprica-Cavil is apparently there all along, while Fleet-Cavil is revealed to have been behind some of the Cylons’ actions from the first two seasons.

Fleet-Cavil gives Doral the suicide bomber belt, programs Boomer to act as a sleeper agent, and marshals the Shelley Godfrey Six to discredit Baltar in order to discontinue use of the Cylon testing machine. While under the guise of a humble priest (which is how we meet him in Season Three), Fleet-Cavil is again retconned into being the Master Cylinder who is behind some of the unexplained dangling plot threads of the series. It should come as no surprise, for instance, that the unknown figure Caprica-Six meets in the miniseries premiere is, in fact, Cavil, giving her marching orders.

In order to make this more than a glorified clip show, director Edward James Olmos and writer Jane Espenson create an arc for both Cavils centering around the fact that they can’t get their shit together in the wake of the destruction of the Colonies. Fleet-Cavil, who loathes humanity for replacing him in the eyes of his creators (The Final Five), comes up with plan after plan to destroy the fleet, only to watch them fail because the other Cylons are developing feelings for humanity. We see this play out in Leoben’s growing fascination with Kara, Boomer’s reluctance to kill Adama, and even the Shelley Godfrey Six falling for Baltar, thus botching the plan to discredit him.

Caprica-Cavil, meanwhile, desperately tries to get Anders to renounce his love of humanity and forgive the Cylons for destroying the colonies, which he won’t do. Eventually, Caprica-Cavil himself comes to see the error of the Cylons’ ways, and volunteers to return to the fleet to deliver the message that the Cylons won’t hunt them anymore. Of course, we know that doesn’t work out, and both Cavils end up going out an airlock–but not before Fleet-Cavil promises to box Caprica-Cavil for his “strange ideas.”

There’s also a parallel arc of two Simons, who definitely got the short shrift of character development throughout the series. One Simon lives among the fleet as a medic, married to a deck technician and raising her child. The other is also among the Resistance, quietly sabotaging them until he’s revealed as a Cylon thanks to the events of “The Farm.” Fleet-Simon ends up committing suicide rather than join Cavil and the other Cylons in destroying the humans — another example of the movie’s primary conceit that love outlasts death.

The movie makes a Herculean effort to match up old footage with new, and really does a seamless job of it for the most part. It’s helped by the fact that the actors generally aged very well and don’t look much different after six(!) years, though Aaron Douglas doesn’t hold up as well as some. The visual effects are astounding — we see the terrifying dance of the Cylon Basestars as they appear over Caprica and deliver their payloads of death on the Colonies, as well as beautiful footage of the various Colonial institutions turned to rubble, ash, and fire. Lovely stuff.

I also like that the DVD format enables the movie to go hard on both the violence and sex, as we see awful images of the devastation wrought by the Cylon attack, including bodies being shoveled into huge pits, and copious nekkid chix and dudes alike. There’s one shot of a guy’s dong that is hella gratuitous, but as Jane Espenson says on the commentary track, fair is fair.

All of the actors involved do incredible work. Tricia Helfer, once again, is the ace in the hole as she plays not only versions of Six we’ve seen before in the past and future, but an entirely new Six, a prostitute who ends up shacking up with Cavil, and makes them all distinct individuals. Dean Stockwell does a fantastic job of distinguishing between the infantile rage of Fleet-Cavil and the puppy-dog need for love in Caprica-Cavil. Michael Trucco, who gets the most screen time of the Final Five, admirably essays Anders’ growth from callow athlete, to scared refugee, to heroic Resistance leader, all the while subtly playing the undercurrent of his true identity.  Interestingly, Simon’s wife, Giana (Lymari Nadal), actually appears very briefly in the miniseries, and is here brought back to become a full character with a strong arc of her own. Nadal, by the way, is married to Eddie James Olmos himself.

There’s one thing that really bugs me, and I’ve never gotten a good answer to this — if we see the Final Five in their tubs, about to be resurrected into Colonial society, then how did they establish the relationships they had throughout the series? How did Tigh and Adama serve together for years? How did Anders become a champion Pyramid player? How did Tyrol serve on Galactica? Hell, how did Tori become a precinct captain? There’s no clear answer to this, and Cavil certainly doesn’t have the power to brainwash whole segments of Colonial society to insert those identities into place. Nick, help me out here — what am I missing?

Because of that, I can’t fully endorse “The Plan” as a worthy addition to the BSG saga. While it sutures up continuity problems and answers some questions (including a few you didn’t know you had), it not only raises at least one big new problem, it also doesn’t really add a lot to the new story. We already knew Cavil was a spoiled, pissy brat who wanted revenge on the world for being born, and hated humanity for usurping him as the favorite (Very Biblical, actually). We already know how the story ends — this reminds me of a comic book retcon, actually, like the Illuminati–something that clearly didn’t exist in the course of the story, but was inserted in afterwards to change the way you look at it.

It’s definitely worth buying if you’re a die-hard fan or completist, but if you’re a casual BSG fan, don’t bother — you’ll be totally lost. If you’re also satisfied with how the story ended, you can leave this alone. But if you really want to know what was up with the mysterious “Plan” the Cylons had, pick this up.