I like this train of thought. Carrying it a bit further, is this setting Gaius up to be the next human leader after Roslin and Adama die? Could the writers be trying to set this up by showing Gaius ‘growing up’ a bit, as it were, and attempting to take more responsibility?
Given that Michael Nankin directed this episode, I think it’s pretty sure Laura Roslin’s dead.
He directed:
The Passage: death of Kat
Maelstrom: death of Starbuck 1.0
The Ties That Bind: death of Cally
Sometimes a Great Notion: death of Dualla
When Nankin’s in charge, characters die!!!
An excellent thought. Perhaps both the Sharon and Roslin of this vision reflect the ‘old’ way of viewing the cylon/human dynamic, and Gaius, Six and Hera represent the new? Your theory about Gaius’ maturity playing a part in leading the joined/blended crews could make sense.
I screen-captured Hera’s dots, and there’s no way they can turn into either the bass or treble of All Along the Watchtower. Never mind the exact vertical distance between the noteheads, the contour is all wrong. That’s disappointing: couldn’t they have asked Bear or someone to add that little touch of veriditas?
You know, when we first saw Head Dad writing down music, I thought to myself, “Is he visually impaired? Why are the staffs on his paper so darn big?” Oh… it was so Hera’s big noteheads could fit on them.
Chuck’s right, it’s reminiscent of medieval neumatic (not pneumatic!) notation, in which monks wrote neumes instead of notes, except they had flags to tell the relative pitch from the last note, until finally a four-line staff was invented.
(For the record, the bass is C#-C#-C#-C# C# B A, with open fifths, and the treble is C#-D-E-A-G#-E-A-G#-D-C#… at least, in the key of C# minor, which is what the music was playing in.)
Hera was unconscious in the box, at least that was heavily implied when Boomer got her from daycare, gave her a bottle of “water” and said “Guess what Mommy brought you? Drink it all, mmm good.”
Say, how did Kara know which way was up in Hera’s music notation? She could just as easily have been playing it upside down and backwards… Schoenberg does Dylan.
A few times I’ve heard Chuck say the twelve colonies were all in the same solar system. I find this unlikely in the extreme… why would they have needed FTL drives? And twelve different orbits in the habitable zone is rather impossible, since if so many planets were so close together they’d gravitationally accrete. I suppose they could have two or three sets of Klemperer rosettes (five planets in the same orbit, in each other’s Lagrange points), but they’re unstable and massive amounts of energy (okay, perhaps magical Tylium) would be needed to sustain them; they wouldn’t arise naturally, and would need technology able to move whole planets…
… and now I just looked it up on Battlestar Wiki and apparently RDM has said they were all in one system, just like in the original series. Maybe some were double planets or moons? Or maybe RDM doesn’t know jack about astronomy?
Or maybe a god or gods created a naturally impossible system for humanity.
[QUOTE=DavidFromMontreal;149553]I screen-captured Hera’s dots, and there’s no way they can turn into either the bass or treble of All Along the Watchtower. Never mind the exact vertical distance between the noteheads, the contour is all wrong. That’s disappointing: couldn’t they have asked Bear or someone to add that little touch of veriditas?
Okay, here’s a first: I’m correcting myself. I don’t know if I was looking at it upside down or at an angle, but it’s actually pretty darn close to Watchtower.
Here’s a screen capture with staff lines, clef and key signature written in by me:
It’s a little different at the end, especially the penultimate note, which is clearly “D” although Hera writes an E. (And it’s not just a matter of height… Hera’s Ds are all written in red, and this one’s in black.) And the two notes before that are kind of an in-harmony neighbour-tone countermelody, but it’s still close enough to pass.
My bad.
Great cast, guys! First off: Lawyer/fighter pilot? LEE! Heh. Remember back before BSG became All My Cylons when Lee was a character with something to do? Between that and Anders being in a coma there has been a serious lack of arm porn of late… (Helo’s disturbing as hell scene with Boomer does NOT count!).
I am in deep denial about Roslin’s condition. Would RDM really let Laura l go with that little fanfare? Arg! Please no!
Interesting thought that the 8 in the visions was Boomer instead of Athena. Would Athena and Caprica be able to tell? As for Baltar, he’s already saved Hera once on New Craprica. And he was promised to be the “father of the next generation” (or something like that), so perhaps he’ll play some role in getting her back. Put those guns (bigger! More!) to good use…
Carrying it a bit further, is this setting Gaius up to be the next human leader after Roslin and Adama die? Could the writers be trying to set this up by showing Gaius ‘growing up’ a bit, as it were, and attempting to take more responsibility?
I think Baltar’s more of a “pick up the emotional pieces” kind of leader than a “make plans and execute them (publically)” kind of leader a la Roslin/Adama. I’m interested to see where he ends up.
Anyone else notice how awesome the camerawork was these week? There was some really cool scenes.
I definately agree any scenes with Athena in them (for this episode) were really hard to watch. Seeing her weakly walk out and start screaming about her child was really sad.
I do think that Watch Tower has more meaning than just a tune that plays over and over again. I’m thinking that since music can be transposed to a mathematical equation that the tune is actually the jump coordinates to the place they need to jump to find their new home.
Combined this with the fact that Galactica probably only has one last good jump in her, and historically they have been following breadcrumbs, I can see someone doing a “Oh my Gods this is a jump coordinate”. After all what Stargate has taught me is you need seven points in space to plot a course. 
Actually, Bear’s blog talks about this - how they did indeed take what he thought would be the simplest way to notate it. But it isn’t actually Watchtower, it’s the FF theme that we’ve been hearing all season. It’s pretty cool 
I watch the last episode again and it’s interesting how things jump out the second time around.
At the start of the show Starbuck goes to see Halo and walks in while Hera is drawing something on a piece of paper with crayons. Starbuck asks her if she is drawing stars and Hera nods her head yes and Starbuck goes on to talk to Halo.
After a bit Hera tugs on Starbuck and hands her the completed drawing as if it means something. If you pause you can see that there are 12 markings of different colors ranging from top to bottom with a 13th marking that is not colored in.
Starbuck says something about it being nice and continues to talk to Halo and then leaves. As she is leavening we get a look from Hera like “your not listening to me” and then she kind of throws her hands up in the air as if to say “oh well” and goes back to drawing.
The piano player is obliviously a head person but I think Starbuck is seeing her father as projected by Hera to help see the importance of the drawing (this is why Starbuck is unable to identify her own father as Hera has never seen him before). Remember Hera has always communicated through drawings (six for example).
What is interesting is you continue to hear a 13-cord progression in various order as Starbuck is trying to put it all together. As the piano player said compose the rhythm.
It’s when Starbuck maps Hera’s drawing into the composition and the other three of the five hear it we start to see the importance both Hera and Starbuck are going to play in the final episodes. More so considering Hera has been kidnapped by Boomer and the little bit of dialogue between Ellen and Sol in the day care center.
By the way we now know that Starbucks head person was her father because when he played the last note he held up his finger and Starbuck blew on it like blowing smoke of the barrel of a gun. This is what they use to do when she was a child.
Boomer…dang
Made Tori look like Mother Teresa…
[QUOTE=FrankieV;149632]
At the start of the show Starbuck goes to see Halo and walks in while Hera is drawing something on a piece of paper with crayons. Starbuck asks her if she is drawing stars and Hera nods her head yes and Starbuck goes on to talk to Halo.
This makes tremendous sense, per Grandpa Goo’s prophecy that Starbuck will lead humanity to its’ end. If these are coordinates to Earth (or where ever), then Starbuck’s musical training (from her dad, Daniel), will allow her to ‘see’ it, and then lead Galactica to those coordinates. Great pickup FrankieV!
In the RDM podcasts, he has stated over and over that music is important, and Watchtower in particular is important. If, as some have said, that music is just another form of math, that math could represent coordinates.
This fish seem to agree, and they like this theory a lot!
God help us all then! He hasn’t grown up THAT much!
well… even RDM didn’t want to take it that far. That was Michael Nankin’s idea…If you listen to the RDM podcast, I think even he had a tough time watching Athena being tormented.
This makes so much sense.
Especially if…What’s left of Galactica’s chain of command? Starbuck is the CAG. It’s Adama, then Tigh, then–? Is it Starbuck?
I so agree with you Cody. BSG has never been just another show. It certainly took me places that surprised me.
But didn’t Roslin and Athena once have a conversation about their shared visions about the Opera House? Isn’t that why Athena shot Natalie, the Six on Galactica, because she thought the Six was trying the steal Hera?
Helo’s past feeling for Boomer, will definitely color Athena’s reaction. Gods, that was awful.
So true.
I think we’re onto something. I hope so.
I couldn’t figure out where else to put this on the forum, but I don’t use toothpaste. I told my dentist about 5 years ago that I didn’t care for the taste/feel of any I’d tried, so he told me since my teeth are in good shape and I floss well, I don’t need to do so. I think when you floss regularly you also don’t get such bad breath. So I have only used water to brush my teeth for a long time now. This freaks people out beyond belief sometimes when I tell them