I want to be wrong!

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

The more I reflect on last the BSG finale (I saw it last night in the UK) the more disappointed I feel. True, the battle was a white knuckle ride, brilliantly staged and there were some touching character moments in the last hour.

But the final revelation that all of the show’s mysteries were all part of a divinely ordered plan was a betrayal of BSG at its complex, ambivalent best.

In plot terms it was simply lazy: a foot coming out the proverbial sky. There were any number of ways in which the head people and Starbuck’s resurrection could have been addressed which would have made more sense in terms of the BSG universe. For example, the head people could have been by-products of the resurrection process - junk code implemented on the human cortex. The numinous force that was manipulating everything behind the scenes could have been a more ancient result of AI technology running amok (fitting nicely with the cyclic mythology, etc.).

I could have even lived with God being responsible for Starbuck if HE hadn’t also been responsible for just about everything else that needed explaining: the biological compatibility of Earthlings and Colonials, the nova, the head people, the pathway to the real Earth, the new Earth…

My admiration for what Ron Moore did with BSG knew few bounds - God knows I’ve published on the show

http://www.amazon.com/Battlestar-Galactica-Philosophy-Popular-Culture/dp/0812696433 -

but I was always niggled by his insistence on retaining the premise that the colonials are our ancestors from the original show. It was an idea that was voguish at the time of the original BSG but that’s about all that could be said for it. And so much would have made more sense if the show had been set in the future - if the colonials and their languages and animals had descended from old Earth. Are we to believe that God ordained that cats and dogs, pigeons, rats, and elephants also popped into being half way across the galaxy? Was this all part of some numinous plan that we – as viewers – just have to accept? So much for encouraging one’s viewers to think for themselves.

Good science fiction needs to offer us a world that is at least coherent in its own terms; but at the end, I felt that the writers of BSG were just trying to ingratiate themselves with a largely imaginary audience. I’m feeling sad and let down - like it’s the end of an affair - and I’d so love to be wrong.

#2

-pats back-
dont worry, I think youre wrong :slight_smile:

#3

-nods head-

Yep, I think you are wrong too.

#4

Well - take it from Roman Sandstorm (if I may be so bold) and me, that from where we sit you are spot on.

Here’s the obvious though - it’s “his” story. (And the finale, for the most part, was well written, nicely executed and terrifically acted.) If RDM wants “IT” and goes with it and the story is interesting and satisfying to its creator and many of the show’s watchers - well…

Having written that, it was pretty clear from the end of Season 3, when we saw Our Earth, that Our Earth would figure in mightly to the conlusion. And that RDM would HAVE TO (you know what I mean) physically take the survivors and us there. That could happen in our distant past or future. The latter would have allowed for a much more “nuanced” (I guess that is the right word) and less, um, mystical approach - along the lines of what you have nicely set out.

It also would have taken a heck of a lot more time and required, it seems to me, the jettisoning of the mutiny plot line and, perhaps some others (certainly the character backgrounds).

And to top it off, Our Earth in Our Future - the obvious plot line there was played out with Erf, I think. Our Earth in Our Future that was not a planet without humans and yet one that the survivors could have settled - that would have taken some “imagination”.

#5

That’s a good point OT. We did get to see both sides of the equation: 1) The continued destruction that would occur with our a responsible approach to technology in the form of Erf, and 2) The hope that can exists from potentially breaking the cycle by taking a slower approach.

Of course the question remains as to whether we’ve broken the cycle or not. Which just shows that despite people’s reservations about openly acknowledging the presence of the mystical in the story (I’m of the camp that he still managed to do it in a satisfying and nuanced way), RDM left us with a conclusion that enables many more hours of (mostly) fruitful and interesting discussion…

#6

Having watched and enjoyed the original as kid, i was aware from the get go that there were built-in problems with resolving the BSG story as RDM inherited it and these were always going to sit oddly with new show’s grit and realism. I take OT’s point about the problems the writers faced here.

I’ll certainly re-watch the finale when I have a chance and hope that I can away more of the good stuff.

#7

It took me a few days to realize it … but I am MUCH happier with the way that things ended than if all answers were revealed. We are all left to explore the meanings and results for ourselves.

Something to note is that the long path that the took the fleet to Earth of 150,000 years ago was critical to the higher being’s desires. Why is Hera so important? Because genetically she is superior to either of the former races and will hopefully be the progenitor of a new race that will break the cycle.

#8

BSG did not resolve on its own terms–something well said I have not been able to say, so disappointed I am.

I thought the finale was sloppy, preachy, and worse.

It would have been better if the Cycle continued with humans trashing habitable planets and acting like a cancer on the universe than continually being smacked down by god and his Plan for trying to make AI. It’s so . . . trite and overdone to put it all on god, whichever god.

‘Turing Cop’ --good name!!

#9

Good points.

I would add the future option would also be pessimistic working against it. My pessimistic I mean as opposed to realistic. Cracks of the only realistic only realist is a pessimist aside, that’s not BSG. BSG’s sort of unofficial theme, “one must be worthy of survival” contains the implication that survival is possible. It might be realistic, but it’s a hopeful realistic.

#10

You may.

Yes, Turing. Spot on. I wrote in big letters in another thread that it was not just the rabbit-out-of-the-hat resolution which disappointed me; more, it was the massive inconsistency with what had gone before.

The books to which you link, and have contributed, talk about the sophisticated, intelligent, ambiguous and endlessly-fascinating Battlestar Galactica, not the BSG we are presented with in its denouement.

#11

Well, don’t hold your breath.

I was CONVINCED that RDM would leave ambiguous whether his denoument (and the less explicable of the events leading up to it, like the nova, the head characters, etc.) were the consequence of “science” or IT. Boy, was I wrong.

Now that would have been “harder” to come up with than what we got (and, no, I do not claim to have “solutions” here). However, I wish that RDM had tried. As Phil has noted elsewhere, the die probably pretty much was cast that we were going to get IT with the appearance of Head 6.

So you have the IT problem (and to me that is the primary one) and then all the issues inherent to ending the story 150,000 in our past and us being descendants of the survivors and the indigenous people of Our Earth (maybe, on the last one).

As noted in my prior post, the end of Season 3 mandated that Our Earth play a big role in the story (as did TOS, I guess). To rewrite RDM’s ending, it seems that the only way RDM could have avoided what he came up with (or some variation thereon) was for Erf to be Our Earth. Now that would have created all sorts of possibilities for what had happened before and what came next - including that we are descendants of the 13th and succeed in obliterating ourselves in the future.

The possibilities for the habitable planet ending in that scenario are numerous and are the sorts of ideas one ought to actually “converse” about. I have been intrigued by the notion that “they” recreated Kobol, with the S7 survivors in the role of the Lords/gods and “we” humans as their servants - the ultimate turning of the tables. (Now, that would have been dark, assuming it could even be written in a way that would have made sense.)

Also, make no doubt about it, RDM went for the dramatic jaw dropper ending. With me he did not get it. But it’s tough to blame the man for trying and I am confident that with many devoted and casual viewers he succeeded.

#12

Sorry to do the noooob “ask a naive question in a discussion thread!” thing, but I couldn’t find this in the FAQ (sorry if I missed it and it’s there): What is this “IT” to which you keep referring? I keep trying to parse it as an acronym and come up half-empty handed. Or is it just IT…like the platonic essence of…it?

#13

IT = whatever it is that doesn’t like being called “God”. Itt also is Gomez’s cousin in The Addam’s Family.

#14

I’ve just watched the finale - a number of things delayed me. As it unfolded I was more worried about it being just utterly archaeologically unfeasible than about the supernatural stuff. I’ll probably post about the archaeological issues elsewhere (although they managed to walk a fine line to my more-or-less satisfaction here).

As for the supernatural issues, well, we have to interpret Head Baltar, Head Six and Starbuck as some sort of “angels”. But I think people are getting too hot under the collar about this somehow having to be seen as a BSG endorsement of the existence of a god along our own cultural lines. I’m not a believer - atheist by temperament and agnostic on logical grounds (how the hell can I know?). But I don’t mind a bit of mystery and having to accept that there are things that we don’t understand and can’t explain. It doesn’t have to be the god of the bible or whatever. Just some mysterious force.

I’m pretty happy to accept that we don’t know what the Head characters and Starbuck were - happier than I thought I would be in fact, as I always thought they would and should resolve this. Lazy? Maybe. But do we need everything spelt out? Is there no room for a bit of mystery? I don’t think we have to have found Jesus to roll with it.

Now, I think they maybe could have done it better, and personally I would have liked to have seen this Earth, as portrayed in all its green and primitive glory in the final episode, being in our far future long after the collapse of our present day civilisation. My fantasy Earth would have been the birthplace of the colonials, before they even set out to Kobol. I was just waiting for them to find the ruins of a very, very ancient city. That would have been neat from a cyclical point of view and would have avoided the awkwardness of the genetic compatibility with the natives. But I can see why RDM went the way he did in order to feed the BSG story into our present day. I don’t think it was necessary in order to drive home the point that the show is all about us, not just people in space, and they could have done this just as easily with my future-Earth scenario, but I can live with it.

Anyway, I’ve been away from the forums too long so am gushing. I’ll stop there for now.

#15

HAH! I must say, I myself, started thinking about the archaeological ramifications of what they proposed. In the end I said to myself, it doesn’t matter in the story. But, you’re right, there are TONS of problems with this, way more than anything that’s been discussed already.

#16

LOL! I thought the same thing while watching. Also, as Adama and Roslin took off in the Raptor, there was a smoke trail. As this happened I pointed at the screen and yelled: “GLOBAL WARMING!” Everyone started laughing.

#17

Some semi-random thoughts:

That they ended up in our past was almost a given. Future? Kinda lame. Present? Galactica 1980-lame. Past it is, then.

That poses a problem, then. Where are the artifacts? Giving up tech seems to be a bit of a solution (although the whole, fly into the sun bit is a stretch. Especially given the Centurions Great Adventure.)

They did a nice dance b/t the “physical” v. “metaphysical” camps the entire series. They didn’t HAVE to go one way or the other at the end, but it shouldn’t be a surprise that they did. This is what seems to stick in some people’s craw. I’m somewhat surprised to find I’m OK with it (although, less with the dancing robots would be better.)

Discuss.

#18

I’m not as disappointed as you are on this one - I don’t mind a bit of mystery and am consoling myself with the notion that the head characters and Starbuck were agents of a more ancient culture that escaped the cycle and that now tinkers from “outside” (not characters from the Bible). But I agree that it could have been wrapped up much more consistently, and that it wouldn’t have been that hard.

I’m totally with you on the past/future issue. I was really worried about this, as a sometime archaeologist who can’t bear all the von Daniken-type nonsense about beings from outer space bringing civilisation to mankind (we know pretty much how civilisation arose and it wasn’t like that!).

On the one hand I think the writers pulled it off in terms of situating the final episode in our past, if you ignore the fantastically coincidental genetic compatibility. The Fleet explicitly did not bring civilisation or build the first cities, and this is addressed by Lee’s words “no - no cities”. And I can buy Hera as mitochondrial eve (although I do keep thinking of the Golgafrincham B Ark and the cavemen from Hitch Hikers). I’ll probably write a bit more on the archaeological compatibility of the finale elsewhere, as there’s a lot to say, good and bad.

On the other hand I always wanted it to end with the Fleet arriving on our Earth, but in the far future. It makes so much more sense for the colonials to be our descendants, the result of Earth colonising Kobol. The 13th tribe could have then sought Earth, ended up on Erf, and it still would have worked. Or they could have travelled back to old Earth and settled there. At either the time of the 13th tribe’s exodus and/or the time of arrival of the Fleet in the finale, Earth could have been abandoned, populated, technologically advanced, a wasteland, or a post-civilisational planet in which people had given up technology and become hunters, gatherers, village farmers, or whatever. There are all sorts of ways they could have cut it and all would have provided great material.

Watching the final episode, I was hoping for the survivors of the fleet to find a ruined city on Earth, dating back thousands of years before the exodus to Kobol. It would have made more sense, and avoided the need for the deus ex machina of genetic compatibility with the locals. It would have provided a mechanism by which knowledge of Earth could have been preserved enabling Starbuck to somehow acquire it, perhaps via the mechanism of the 13th tribe’s exodus to Earth and knowledge retained by the Final 5. Starbuck could have been linked with the F5 via Daniel, who could have been her father. Watchtower could have been used deliberately by Daniel to break Cavil’s brainwashing/memory wiping of the F5, and Daniel could have made sure Kara knew it so that she could undo Cavil’s plan before he had Daniel boxed. Watchtower could then have been linked with our Earth, albeit over vast spans of time, rather than being another one of those coincidences like the genetic compatibility of Colonials and Middle Palaeolithic Humans.

So, lots of missed opportunities here, and it could have been wrapped up much more satisfactory and consistently.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it a lot, and enjoyed the sentiments and the linking to “us”. As a scientist and archaeologist I’m used to fiction getting it wrong, and actually this wasn’t bad considering the potential for von Daniken style howlers. So credit where it’s due - given that the writers constrained themselves by setting it in our past I think they did the best possible job, and missed quite a few traps. I guess they wanted to make the point that we’re all cylons, hylons or whatever, but I’m sure they could have linked the colonials with “us” and got the desired messages across just as efficiently by setting it in our future.

So still good stuff. I just thought it could have been done better. 7/10 - room for improvement.

#19

What type of archaeology are you most interested in NickB?

#20

I co-direct a research project looking at cultural change in the prehistoric Sahara in the context of the large climatic and environmental changes that occurred there over the past 10,000 years. The focus is on how people responded to the Sahara turning from a well-watered savannah to the desert it is today around 5000 years ago. Similar changes happened across the northern hemisphere sub-tropics, and in my spare time I’m looking at evidence for linked environmental and cultural change in the so-called “cradles of civilisation” - all the earliest civilisations emerged in areas that were facing extreme environmental deterioration and resource scarcity. It seems they were products of last resort as people found themselves squeezed together in river valleys, not the result of simple “progress” and advancement. So I have a special interest in the whole origins-of-civilisation issue.

Actually I thought the finale was OK in terms of archaeology - given that they had decided to set it in the past they did the best they could. Basically the colonials and cylons must have assimilated with the locals (or replaced them), leaving Hera as mitochondrial eve in Africa, our ultimate female ancestor. Then prehistory could have unfolded as it appears to have done in reality. So there are no real inconsistencies with the archaeological record - we’re not asked to accept that the people from the Fleet gave Earth civlisation, or built cities much earlier than we know is plausible given our understanding of the archaeological record. Certainly they weren’t successful in establishing agriculture, at least not indefinitely. But then it’s plausible that agriculture was developed and all traces of it lost over time before it was invented again. So maybe Baltar did manage to grow some stuff before the harsher conditions of the ice age (associated with increase aridity in much of Africa) led to its abandonment (although it would be in harsher times that people may have been more likely to rely on agriculture as wild food stuffs became less abundant).

Anyway, I was really worried but then relieved at how they handled it. Given that this is fiction with supernatural overtones, and they had to somehow shoehorn the Fleet’s arrival into our distant past it was acceptable at a stretch (apart from the genetic compatibility). If they had arrived at the dawn of civilisation and helped “advance” our ancestors along the path to modernity I would have thrown my TV out of the window :wink:

I think we can say that any associations with Classical mythology or contemporary religion are completely spurious - to ask us to accept that these aspects of colonial/cylon mythology/culture persisted into the historical period would be going too far. So they arrived, left a genetic heritage, and that was all they left us - no culture, technology, civilisation etc - these were all reinvented later. Again, I think this could have worked much better if the ending had been set in the future - these elements of BSG culture could much more plausibly be seen as echoes of our historical culture.

In danger of writing a thesis here, so I’ll stop. I feel a paper coming on with a title along the lines of “Battlestar Galactica, archaeology, and the inferred farming prowess of Gaius Baltar”.

I’m still thinking Golgafrincham B-Ark though! :wink: