Final Thoughts about Galactica In Name Only
It’s over.
I’ve tried to anticipate what I would write for a final review that would be a worthy capstone to four seasons of reviews. I even tried my hand at a few ideas over the past few weeks that might let me go out in a blaze of snarky glory. None of them worked, and nothing I can say at this point will be entirely adequate, much like the final episode itself.
In this respect, I can empathize with our friend Mr. Moore’s plight.
Yet the episode itself, as a standalone, worked quite well in places. The second hour of the three kicked all sorts of tushy, what with the explosions and the blood-smeared centurionsand the old school Cylons and space dogfights and all the popcorn SciFi coolness you could muster. I had a great time. And seeing Earth, our Earth, was pretty fun. I have no idea, though, why Hera mattered at all. Suddenly she’s “mitochondrial Eve” from which we are all descended? Given that Earth was already populated when Galactica arrived, and that the Colonials scattered all over the globe, how is this even remotely possible?
Like that’s the only question left unanswered.
Still, you have to cut Moore and Co. a little slack. Nothing they could have said or done would have sufficed, even under the best of circumstances. It didn’t help that Moore painted himself into several different corners and then just stomped his way across the floor, hoping that you wouldn’t notice the mess he was making. Why did the Cylons attack every 33 minutes? Because. Why did they operate on Kara in “The Farm” and steal her ovaries? Because. Why was the Final Five’s history and mission so wildly convoluted and inconsistent? Because. Why was their earth nuked? Because. Why did the Cylons bother to nuke humanity in the miniseries in the first place? Because.
Because why? Well, because God did it.
Who would have thought that this would be the heart and soul of the reinvention of the Science Fiction television series: a literary device as old as time – the “Deus Ex Machina,” i.e. the Machine of the Gods. At the end of a Greek myth, Zeus of Poseidon or the God of Quality Footwear would wave his bolt or his trident or his shoe horn and make everything better. Or worse. Or like it never happened.
It’s cheap, it’s sloppy, and it’s the core of the “greatest show on television.”
No wonder so many devotees of this show are in an uproar. The discussion boards have been filled with theories to reconcile the improbability of all of Moore’s arbitrary twists and turns, only to discover that there are no explanations. God did it. God sent his sneering daughter Starbuck to save His Battlestar. God directed His servant Baltar’s hand to point out the ammo dump back in Season 1’s “Hand of God” episode. God sent lots of visions that didn’t make any sense and which were largely irrelevant. God sent a slutty angel in a red cocktail dress to help Baltar masturbate. God wrote “All Along the Watchtower” and taught it Anders, Starbuck’s father, Hera, and Bob Dylan, respectively. Did Jimi Hendrix use the jump coordinates from the song to help him kiss the sky? Maybe Jimi is the name God likes better than God. And, really. who wouldn’t?
Such sophistry.
No one likes to hear “I told you so,” which is too bad, since it’s usually so much fun to say it. Yet I take no joy in seeing this show’s devotees being so colossally duped. Indeed, a reasonable person could have looked at this show and its solid initial premise and its stellar cast – Sackhoff ever the exception – and conclude that something was happening here that was worth their time. Context, however, leads to a different conclusion.
This is a show that, from day one, was built on a foundation of contempt.
You can still see the reflexive disdain for the show’s source material in the comments of those who have followed the show’s hype but not its story. It’s impossible to read an overview of the thing without a ritualistic genuflection to the idea that the original series was hokey and trite and silly and filled with all manner of limburgerian fromage. So even when the new show sucks openly, apologists can take cover behind Dirk Benedict’s dated hairstyle. At least the new show didn’t have Muffit the Daggit! Or casino planets! Or Lords of Kobol!
Oh, wait…
See, the dirty secret is that much of the original show’s basic mythology actually did survive into this new incarnation. And when this show shined – and it did, on occasion, have its moments – it was following in the footsteps of its predecessor. Unfortunately, it always refused to acknowledge that that was what it was doing. Indeed, the producers were embarrassed by where they had come from. They were ever lamenting the fact that they were forced to labor under the leaden weight of the cheesy title “Battlestar Galactica,” which was holding them back.
Can we now collectively admit that this is a provably false assertion?
Consider: the only information people who tuned in to watch the miniseries had was that the show was named “Battlestar Galactica.” That was a name with a history and not-insignificant brand equity. So the miniseries was a ratings smash. Yet when the show went to series, the show lost a third of that original audience.
So who were the people who abandoned this show after the miniseries?
Wouldn’t it make sense to assume that a good chunk of them were people who liked “Battlestar Galactica” but recognized that this series bore scant resemblance to its namesake? As the show wore on, the ratings steadily eroded to the point where first run episodes were lower-rated than “Star Trek: Enterprise” reruns. This show should have been cancelled after the second season, yet it endured. Why? Because the network and the producers and the intelligentsia were proud of it. They were proud of the audience they were alienating. The rubes and hicks that couldn’t see how nihilistic gloom was infinitely more sophisticated than the heroic optimism of the original series weren’t wanted here. This show mocked their religion, their politics, their morality, and wallowed in the despair that marks the absence of the things they hold dear.
And then, in the end, God did it.
Suddenly, the tables are turned. The core diehards, the ones who followed Ron off the cliff, who bought into the miasma and the blackness, who somehow believed that all of this was going somewhere that would justify their investment of time, energy and passion – they get told that God did it. They now know what it is to be held in contempt by the show they loved. It’s not surprising that they’re not particularly happy about it.
What’s interesting is that Moore, in his finale, felt it necessary to provide a bunch of irrelevant backstory for characters that have been on display for four television seasons and the better part of six years. Adama’s lie detector test? The strip club? Roslin’s boytoy? Lee and Kara’s sexual near miss? What was the point?
The point, it seems to me, was one last, flailing attempt to give these characters enough weight so you would miss them when they rode off into the sunset. Which, by and large, you won’t. Too many of these folks were mean, nasty, vile people, and it’s kind of nice to be rid of them. The largest exceptions, in my mind, were Roslin and Adama, whose final scenes were, indeed, rather touching. Part of that is the stellar nature of the two actors involved, but these two characters were the only ones that maintained most of their integrity throughout. (Maybe Lee, too, although his denouement was pretty pedestrian.) Are we really going to miss the Tighs or Tori? Anyone else wish Starbuck had been thrown out of the airlock long before she Let There Be Light Rock?
It was laughable to see the Baltar flashbacks, which provided a limp retcon to make Baltar’s genocidal betrayal just a little less venal. I mean, come on. Baltar’s an interesting character, sure, but he’s not a good guy. He’s an amoral, self-serving weasel. And suddenly, he’s the one non-imaginary angel character with the direct conduit to Jimi God? How are we supposed to take that seriously?
The broader answer, of course, is that nobody should take any television seriously. In the immortal words of the Shat – who, I’m thinking, may have actually met Bob Dylan – “for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show!”
Yes, it is. But he disappointment comes from knowing that it didn’t have to be “just a TV show.” Like it or nor, that’s all we’re left with.
I’ve tried to anticipate what I would write for a final review that would be a worthy capstone to four seasons of reviews. I even tried my hand at a few ideas over the past few weeks that might let me go out in a blaze of snarky glory. None of them worked, and nothing I can say at this point will be entirely adequate, much like the final episode itself.
In this respect, I can empathize with our friend Mr. Moore’s plight.
Yet the episode itself, as a standalone, worked quite well in places. The second hour of the three kicked all sorts of tushy, what with the explosions and the blood-smeared centurionsand the old school Cylons and space dogfights and all the popcorn SciFi coolness you could muster. I had a great time. And seeing Earth, our Earth, was pretty fun. I have no idea, though, why Hera mattered at all. Suddenly she’s “mitochondrial Eve” from which we are all descended? Given that Earth was already populated when Galactica arrived, and that the Colonials scattered all over the globe, how is this even remotely possible?
Like that’s the only question left unanswered.
Still, you have to cut Moore and Co. a little slack. Nothing they could have said or done would have sufficed, even under the best of circumstances. It didn’t help that Moore painted himself into several different corners and then just stomped his way across the floor, hoping that you wouldn’t notice the mess he was making. Why did the Cylons attack every 33 minutes? Because. Why did they operate on Kara in “The Farm” and steal her ovaries? Because. Why was the Final Five’s history and mission so wildly convoluted and inconsistent? Because. Why was their earth nuked? Because. Why did the Cylons bother to nuke humanity in the miniseries in the first place? Because.
Because why? Well, because God did it.
Who would have thought that this would be the heart and soul of the reinvention of the Science Fiction television series: a literary device as old as time – the “Deus Ex Machina,” i.e. the Machine of the Gods. At the end of a Greek myth, Zeus of Poseidon or the God of Quality Footwear would wave his bolt or his trident or his shoe horn and make everything better. Or worse. Or like it never happened.
It’s cheap, it’s sloppy, and it’s the core of the “greatest show on television.”
No wonder so many devotees of this show are in an uproar. The discussion boards have been filled with theories to reconcile the improbability of all of Moore’s arbitrary twists and turns, only to discover that there are no explanations. God did it. God sent his sneering daughter Starbuck to save His Battlestar. God directed His servant Baltar’s hand to point out the ammo dump back in Season 1’s “Hand of God” episode. God sent lots of visions that didn’t make any sense and which were largely irrelevant. God sent a slutty angel in a red cocktail dress to help Baltar masturbate. God wrote “All Along the Watchtower” and taught it Anders, Starbuck’s father, Hera, and Bob Dylan, respectively. Did Jimi Hendrix use the jump coordinates from the song to help him kiss the sky? Maybe Jimi is the name God likes better than God. And, really. who wouldn’t?
Such sophistry.
No one likes to hear “I told you so,” which is too bad, since it’s usually so much fun to say it. Yet I take no joy in seeing this show’s devotees being so colossally duped. Indeed, a reasonable person could have looked at this show and its solid initial premise and its stellar cast – Sackhoff ever the exception – and conclude that something was happening here that was worth their time. Context, however, leads to a different conclusion.
This is a show that, from day one, was built on a foundation of contempt.
You can still see the reflexive disdain for the show’s source material in the comments of those who have followed the show’s hype but not its story. It’s impossible to read an overview of the thing without a ritualistic genuflection to the idea that the original series was hokey and trite and silly and filled with all manner of limburgerian fromage. So even when the new show sucks openly, apologists can take cover behind Dirk Benedict’s dated hairstyle. At least the new show didn’t have Muffit the Daggit! Or casino planets! Or Lords of Kobol!
Oh, wait…
See, the dirty secret is that much of the original show’s basic mythology actually did survive into this new incarnation. And when this show shined – and it did, on occasion, have its moments – it was following in the footsteps of its predecessor. Unfortunately, it always refused to acknowledge that that was what it was doing. Indeed, the producers were embarrassed by where they had come from. They were ever lamenting the fact that they were forced to labor under the leaden weight of the cheesy title “Battlestar Galactica,” which was holding them back.
Can we now collectively admit that this is a provably false assertion?
Consider: the only information people who tuned in to watch the miniseries had was that the show was named “Battlestar Galactica.” That was a name with a history and not-insignificant brand equity. So the miniseries was a ratings smash. Yet when the show went to series, the show lost a third of that original audience.
So who were the people who abandoned this show after the miniseries?
Wouldn’t it make sense to assume that a good chunk of them were people who liked “Battlestar Galactica” but recognized that this series bore scant resemblance to its namesake? As the show wore on, the ratings steadily eroded to the point where first run episodes were lower-rated than “Star Trek: Enterprise” reruns. This show should have been cancelled after the second season, yet it endured. Why? Because the network and the producers and the intelligentsia were proud of it. They were proud of the audience they were alienating. The rubes and hicks that couldn’t see how nihilistic gloom was infinitely more sophisticated than the heroic optimism of the original series weren’t wanted here. This show mocked their religion, their politics, their morality, and wallowed in the despair that marks the absence of the things they hold dear.
And then, in the end, God did it.
Suddenly, the tables are turned. The core diehards, the ones who followed Ron off the cliff, who bought into the miasma and the blackness, who somehow believed that all of this was going somewhere that would justify their investment of time, energy and passion – they get told that God did it. They now know what it is to be held in contempt by the show they loved. It’s not surprising that they’re not particularly happy about it.
What’s interesting is that Moore, in his finale, felt it necessary to provide a bunch of irrelevant backstory for characters that have been on display for four television seasons and the better part of six years. Adama’s lie detector test? The strip club? Roslin’s boytoy? Lee and Kara’s sexual near miss? What was the point?
The point, it seems to me, was one last, flailing attempt to give these characters enough weight so you would miss them when they rode off into the sunset. Which, by and large, you won’t. Too many of these folks were mean, nasty, vile people, and it’s kind of nice to be rid of them. The largest exceptions, in my mind, were Roslin and Adama, whose final scenes were, indeed, rather touching. Part of that is the stellar nature of the two actors involved, but these two characters were the only ones that maintained most of their integrity throughout. (Maybe Lee, too, although his denouement was pretty pedestrian.) Are we really going to miss the Tighs or Tori? Anyone else wish Starbuck had been thrown out of the airlock long before she Let There Be Light Rock?
It was laughable to see the Baltar flashbacks, which provided a limp retcon to make Baltar’s genocidal betrayal just a little less venal. I mean, come on. Baltar’s an interesting character, sure, but he’s not a good guy. He’s an amoral, self-serving weasel. And suddenly, he’s the one non-imaginary angel character with the direct conduit to Jimi God? How are we supposed to take that seriously?
The broader answer, of course, is that nobody should take any television seriously. In the immortal words of the Shat – who, I’m thinking, may have actually met Bob Dylan – “for crying out loud, it’s just a TV show!”
Yes, it is. But he disappointment comes from knowing that it didn’t have to be “just a TV show.” Like it or nor, that’s all we’re left with.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 3:10 PM
16 Comments:
You are seriuosly geeking out about this. Wow.
these reviews have been fun.
If you're going to do a Createspace or lulu book, and you need more content to meet the minimum page count, I still think you ought to do a point/counterpoint with both The Last Frakking Special, and that silly U.N. forum that Whoopi Goldberg moderated.
In any event, at least we can still look forward to the review for The Plan. Hope that one makes the book!
I've loved your GINO reviews SC, but I think you may have been a bit unfair on RDM and his treatment of the Original Series.
For mine, you can't get the "maximum value" out of the finale unless you know TOS. I don't think the deus ex machina is actually as straightforward as you contend. The writing was ambiguous on this point. "God" could have been:
1. God.
2. Some entity that had seeded life or human life across the Galaxy and had a vested interest in how it developed. This was alluded to in the finale when the Colonials noted that the chances of finding human life on Earth were such that it had to be the work of a "higher power".
3. (Following on from 2) Count Iblis and/or the Beings of Light. Both could pull off what we saw in the series, it's just they were never mentioned by name. There may have been an oblique reference to Count Iblis when Head Baltar said that "God" didn't like to be called by that. There is also a tie in between the BOL/Count Iblis in the mythology of the 12 Lords of Kobol/Rebel Lord in the new series.
Further, Starbuck's resurrection may best be explained by the BOL, which also happened in TOS.
Finally, the Colonial refugees splitting up, heading all over the globe, and setting up small but advanced societies since lost to history could well be a nod to the prologue in TOS that the forerunners of the Mayans, Toltecs etc may have come from the stars.
Hence, don't be so harsh on RDM for what he did with BSG. I think the finale may have been the new series' greatest tribute to the old!
I haven't seen a trainwreck that bad since the Matrix sequels. It was awful, just awful.
The only overarching theme present was irresponsibility. Every character acted like an irresponsible a-hole. From the lowest ranking grunt up to the "god" character. Only a remnant of humanity left? Well, let's take all the competent military officers and go on a one-way trip to certain death, leaving the effeminate lieutenant and cat-corpse-toting lunatic in charge.
Found a new earth? Let's ditch our technology and culture and expose our kids to the delights of paleolithic living: disease, predators, high-infant mortality, backbreaking work. Even Adama's "touching" departure from Lee reeked of childishness. You only have one child left in the world and you're going to leave him? Yes, he's an adult, but still.
Or how about that god character? Look at any modern critique of Judeo-Christianity and you will read of the horrors of the Old Testament. But that god had nothing on this god. I mean, he sat around while three planetary civilizations went *poof* and did nothing. Now that's thinking big. Worse, he may haven even set up the last one just so they could arrange for Baltar and the Va-Va-Voom Cylon to escort Hera to the bridge. Really? That's what it's all about? Why not just have Baltar stop Boomer before she left with the half-breed brat and avoid the whole mess?
Normally, we'd call this sort of stuff monstrously evil, vile, loathsome, but Baltar says this god is "beyond good and evil", so he gets a pass. The nietzschean get-out-of-jail card played again.
Nihilism, Luddite pettiness, Rousseauan back-to-nature bullshit, the longing for a "clean slate", it's all there. Every disastrous, childish urge of the modern leftist rears its ugly head during these two hours. The ending was so over-the-top technophobic you couldn't help but laugh.
The mini-series began with a big question: Is humanity a species worth saving? Well, we have our answer: no.
The same question came up in the old series, BTW, and was dealt with far more economically, and cogently too.
Stallion, you obviously have no idea what the term "mitochondrial Eve" actually means. It does NOT mean "common ancestor."
Polichinello, there are plenty of cases in human society where people have abandoned ways of life for a simpler existence. Heck, America was FOUNDED by such people. How soon you forget. After living for 4 years in tin cans eating algae with my former toaster ovens chasing me, I might make the choice to give up my Raptors and broken Battlestar as well.
But gentlemen, be glad. You soul need not be troubled any longer by watching television that is unbelievable, or does not "respect the source material". No more slaps in the face for you.
The four-season arc has come to an end. You are free. Free at last to watch sci-fi popcorn shows to your heart's content.
Congratulations!
Polichinello, there are plenty of cases in human society where people have abandoned ways of life for a simpler existence.
Sure, like after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
We're not talking about scaling back some luxuries here. We're talking about giving up a level of civilization that made interstellar flight possible for digging around in the ground for your food.
It was mass act of irresponsibility. It tossed away the sacrifices of previous generations (as well as those who died to keep the fleet going), and it condemned future generations to hardscrabble lives.
Yeah, I know there are people who urge us to "go back to the earth." These idiots have been with us ever since we've had cities, and precious few of them have acted on their own advice (vide Rousseau). Conan's narrator put it best: "Time enough for the earth in the grave."
After living for 4 years in tin cans eating algae with my former toaster ovens chasing me, I might make the choice to give up my Raptors and broken Battlestar as well.
That wasn't the choice on offer. Nobody said they had to keep living in tin cans. The question was whether they were going to rebuild civilization (the root coming from civis, or city). They said no cities, thus no civilization. It was a mass act of ludditery. How else would you describe driving all your interstellar ships into the sun?
Then there's Lee Adama saying how much he wants to climb mountains and explore. Well, moron, you had a whole galaxy to explore until you destroyed the fleet. If I was his kid, I'd kick his ass off a mountain when I was big enough. "You mean we could have been flying to the stars instead of spending weeks on end rooting around in the dirt, freezing our asses off in winter, sweltering in summer, praying for rain in between, and watching our kids die of horrible diseases?"
The funny thing is, the horrible, horrible Zarek came into this series urging the fleet to start anew, break from the sinful past, have a clean slate, and look at what happened: They did just that! I guess he won in the end.
The four-season arc has come to an end. You are free. Free at last to watch sci-fi popcorn shows to your heart's content.
Anyone who lauds a show that uses "God did it" or "Angels did it" to plug up countless plot holes or tie up every loose end is no position to sneer at "popcorn" shows.
Ron? Is that you?
Stallion, you obviously have no idea what the term "mitochondrial Eve" actually means. It does NOT mean "common ancestor."
Actually, he is right about this. The mitochondrial Eve is only the earliest female line we can trace. There are still plenty of other inputs. For example, a woman who had 20 or so sons wouldn't register in this line.
But Anonymous' correctness in fact only further condemns the story, because now there's nothing special about Hera. She just happens to be the earliest line that we've discovered, not the only line. The whole rescue mission and all the angelic woo-woo that led up to it is thus made entirely pointless.
Ron,
Stop reading Stallion's blog and do some bloody work!
All the best,
Peter
http://andrewfullen.exploretalent.com/model_page.php?talentnum=212737
Not really related to this blog, but I glanced upon this today. Andrew Fullen's latest version of his cast biography. Spreading the whole "Glen Larson = Stallion_Cornell" meme
Actually Hera is quite significant. You see the reason the older earth with the “5” was nuked was because they tried to live in harmony with not only humans but also metal. The 5 created resurrection but did not want to give it to the others for fear of the power it would bring. There was a war and subsequent nuclear holocaust over the issue. So the “5” left that earth and decided to give resurrection to the new Cylons associated with the colonies since holding it back deemed to be so destructive to their earth.
Well, same result. The power overwhelmed the Cylons and deception (in the Cylons betrayal of the “5” by denying them their memories) and holocaust was again the result. Hera becomes quite significant in this repetitive pattern of man/machine genocide because she represents the first true blending of human and Cylon. She is the the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all currently living humans on the new earth. It’s a paradigm that promises that the cycle of man and machines conflict could be broken. Hence her significance as the mitochondrial eve… But I guess Stallion Cornell in all his wisdom missed that subtle point. ;).
Not just because god said afterall.
Maybe I missed the line in the infodump episode, but IIRC, the conflict in both places was not over resurrection technology per se. It was due to the intrinsic incompatibility of cylon and human. The cylons didn't have resurrection technology when they started the first war with the colonies. In fact, the F5 wanted to return to the 12 colonies to warn them away from creating cylons in the first place, but they showed up too late, in the middle of the war. So they bribed the cylons with cyborg technology and resurrection. Cavil then had his mommy issues, and the whole shebang started again.
I never really grasped why there was incompatibility anyhow. This really goes for other stories, too, like Dune's backstory or the Matrix. I mean, it's not like machines have to live on Earth. They can live and operate in a vacuum. The have elongated lifespans (theoretically eternal with software transfers), and they can exploit just about all of space and time. Why fight over some rock with an atmosphere?
Anyhoo, back to Hera: the only thing significant about Hera is that she proved humans and cylons could interbreed. That's the sum total of her value. Even if Cavil had sliced and diced her, that fact wouldn't have changed. Any two, six or eight could have fallen for a human and produced another half-breed brat.
Well, I definitely hope you come out of 'retirement' to review "The Plan"
I'm the second anym. Not because I'm Ron or a wannabee, but I'm too damned lazy to sign up.
The Morrigan said...
Actually Hera is quite significant. You see the reason the older earth with the “5” was nuked was because they tried to live in harmony with not only humans but also metal. The 5 created resurrection but did not want to give it to the others for fear of the power it would bring. There was a war and subsequent nuclear holocaust over the issue. So the “5” left that earth and decided to give resurrection to the new Cylons associated with the colonies since holding it back deemed to be so destructive to their earth.
Well, same result. The power overwhelmed the Cylons and deception (in the Cylons betrayal of the “5” by denying them their memories) and holocaust was again the result. Hera becomes quite significant in this repetitive pattern of man/machine genocide because she represents the first true blending of human and Cylon. She is the the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all currently living humans on the new earth. It’s a paradigm that promises that the cycle of man and machines conflict could be broken. Hence her significance as the mitochondrial eve… But I guess Stallion Cornell in all his wisdom missed that subtle point. ;).
Not just because god said afterall.
Not only that, but Hera also carries the genes of both the DNA of the "mitrochonrial eve" of the 12 Colony humans (through Helo) and the Cylon 13th tribe (threw Athena, who was created by Elen, who was a copy of the original Cylon on Earth 1. I thought it was a nifty idea, although it's not spelled out explicitly. But hardly pointless (although it does draw a sign to the dumbass "hybrid" children that were retconned out of existence earlier in the season.
Polichinello said...
It was mass act of irresponsibility. It tossed away the sacrifices of previous generations (as well as those who died to keep the fleet going), and it condemned future generations to hardscrabble lives.
Yeah, I know there are people who urge us to "go back to the earth." These idiots have been with us ever since we've had cities, and precious few of them have acted on their own advice (vide Rousseau). Conan's narrator put it best: "Time enough for the earth in the grave."
Hmm. Time to add Henry David Thoreau to your reading list. America probably has probably the richest literature on the planet on living with nature.
Perhaps the Israel kibbutzes have escaped your attention. Or the Amish. Or the Mennonites. There's plenty more examples. The Roman Empire isn't one of them, though. Sorry.
As as for past generations, you use one movie quote, I'll use another: "The dead know one thing. It is better to be alive."
And if I were Apollo, and were pitching my idea to the fleet survivors, the idea of breaking the cycle of human destruction might have pushed me in that direction, even though they might regret it.
Anyway, they tried it your way in Season 2, remember? They even called the planet "New Caprica", as an explicit a "we are going to rebuild it just the same" as there can be. And where did it get them?
Their TECHNOLOGY betrayed them, AGAIN, and let the Cylons find them.
If I believed in the Cycle, lived through the destruction of the Colonies and the occupation on New Caprica, that might might finally have set in. If the nuking of 30 billion didn't clue me in the first time.
I give Ron, in hindsight, of treating religious beliefs with respect from the start. This might be the most religious symbolism ever in a s-f show.
What's the first line in Season 1? "God has a plan for you, Gaius. He has a plan for everything and every one."
And then, later in the season ... Six: "All this happened before and it will happen again."
Baltar: "The first line of the Sacred Scrolls. Every child knows that verse."
I may not be what you believe, or what you would choose, but it's well established in the show. You see it as a betrayal of the people who died for the Fleet, but it was also long established that they were fighting and dying for a dream of a new home.
Polichinello said...
Anyone who lauds a show that uses "God did it" or "Angels did it" to plug up countless plot holes or tie up every loose end is no position to sneer at "popcorn" shows.
Cornell said that. I'm not surprised that he does so, because from what I've read, Head Six fits EXACTLY the job description of the Mormon version of an angel.
Me, I lean more toward HotFudgePlanet's No. 2 or 3. It's established that God "doesn't like to be called that". Maybe because he/she/it isn't? And Starbuck? She died, she was resurrected somehow, came to terms with her death, fulfilled her purpose and disappeared. Seems like something a deity can do, but then again, give me 5000 more years to advance my technology, and it might seem what I do is Godlike, too.
Put a proto-human in a jet plane, and I might as well try to explain rainbows to an earthworm.
The sneering was in your own head (do you have a Head Anonymous? Maybe you see angels ...). I promise I wasn't sneering.
I do, however, reserve the right to point and laugh at you at any time.
Perhaps the Israel kibbutzes have escaped your attention. Or the Amish. Or the Mennonites.
The kibbutzes never renounced technology. Indeed, they embraced it. The Amish and the Mennonites didn't so much renounce the technology of their time, as freeze it. What you have in BSG is an absolute renunciation of technology. They gave up interstellar flight and city-based civilization. Yes, you have had a few cases of self-selected fools who've tried something similar, but their projects fail within a generation, if not a few years. It's not something you see an entire group of people happily do. That was clearly a writing cheat. Big time.
Their TECHNOLOGY betrayed them, AGAIN, and let the Cylons find them.
No, the technology didn't betray them. Baltar betrayed them. He ran a corrupt government on a planet he himself said wasn't suitable for settlement. He also handed a nuke to a cylon agent* which gave away their position when she set it off.
That's the problem with the show and the philosophy you're spouting. You're blaming technology when you should be blaming the people.
Of course, you could say we should dispense with technology, and then we won't have to worry about guns, nukes and robots. That's true, but we'll be busy worrying about germs, bears and famine, not to mention the guy two caves down who covets your latest hunting prize. I'll take the technology, thanks.
*Only Moore's slipshod writing could allow for this, too, as in a normal situation the military would have had the nuke under constant surveillance. You should see the protocols the Air Force has established.
Seems like something a deity can do, but then again, give me 5000 more years to advance my technology, and it might seem what I do is Godlike, too.
In other words you're saying it isn't really God that did it, but something that looks like God to us that did it. There's no difference in substance. From the audience's viewpoint it's still a deus ex machina, even if it's more machina than deus.
Yes, Moore mentioned God in the first season as part of the aborted "cylon plan", but that was more as a cylon construct. Cylons like Leoben blabbered about God, too. Moore only resurrected that God in the last season and reworked him to dispense with all the loose ends that had accumulated over the past few years. It was blatantly contrived.
Even if you buy that contrivance, Moore's earlier mention of this "god" does not undo the fact that this thing (be it god or no) is a monster who allows whole civilizations to be snuffed out for his own amusement.
I do, however, reserve the right to point and laugh at you at any time.
Ecclesiastes 7:6.
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