Battlestar Galactica Season 4 - Page 47

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

One base-ship, that's not on guard duty. The new Earth is one jump away from the Cylon colony. I don't know what that translates too in ly (hopefully a very long way due to that nasty black hole being in the vicinity!), but I can't imagine it would take the "bad" Cylons too long to find it, if they were after a bit of payback. But still, okay, I'll imagine the other Cavils are too incompetent to find the planet, or the "Angels" intervene again...

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

They way jump technology works in this universe, everywhere is one jump away from everywhere. It's basically like whole-ship teleportation. It's only because they didn't know where Earth (the original Earth) was that it took so many jumps to get there. There have also been strategic reasons to jump several times and get incrementally closer. The only people who could have tracked the jump were the Cylons that got sucked into the singularity/black hole. According to one of the crew, our Earth is a million light years away from the colonies. I think that puts plenty of distance between Earth and the surviving skin jobs. And without the ressurrection technology, they only had a generation to survive anyway. The fact that we're here implies they never found us before they died off. And since the humans and the peaceful Cylons emancipated the Centurions, I don't think we have to worry about them bothering us. That's the biggest change in the cycle. Before, the centurions always had to rise up and claim their freedom by force. This time they were handed it peacefully and freely.

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I'm still not convinced that the earth in Daybreak and Crossroads Part II are two different places. Two different times maybe, but not two different places.

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I don't think that's entirely correct and certainly not even every ship in the Colonial fleet has equivalent jump ability. They've made too much of the Cylon Jump advantages in the past both in accuracy and distance -- when they sent the Raider back to Caprica they did so because it could do so in a much fewer number of jumps. Certainly the exact details and capabilities of Jump Drives were never laid out, but I think there was plenty of indications of hard limitations on individual jumps.

FTL (Battlestar Galactica) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

Adam, I think David has it right here. When reading your post, I also immediately thought of the cylon jump advantages and the raider going back for the arrow of apollo. Not to mention the advantages they get when hooking Boomer or Athena up to the nav computer.

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You guys bring up good points. While the jumps appear to be instantaneous, you're absolutely right that different ships have been show to have different distance limits, per jump. It still doesn't explain how Galactica could go such a seemingly massive distance in the finale, though.

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It didn't go a massive distance. Bill's comment about "a million light years," was just an exaggeration -- he might just as well have said "a gajillion light years." The Milky Way is only 100,000 light years across.

Also, the earth we saw when Kara came back that showed the Florida peninsula was NOT the nuked Earth. They were very careful to never show any land masses from orbit that would identify it.

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Putting aside all of the debate over how far a FTL jumps, because I really don't care about the techno-babble, the show itself was something very few are.. epic in scale, and the direction & cinematography in this felt like a feature film.

This was a beautifully shot, great acted film that looked of insane quality in HD.

But the entire sequence of the back and forth from the Opera House to BSG was some pretty awe-inspiring stuff. That was incredible screen work, the complexities of those shots just to get them on film so they cut back and forth so damn seemlessly, that it made the end, the "five" as they appeared in the Opera House and in the CIC one of those moments that made you come out of your chair.

Desspite the references earlier (I'm one of those who loved the finale of Sopranos) there are different endings appropriate to different content; I found Sopranos ending so solid because Tony's life was still a mess and no matter of time or changes would get rid of the fear, the risks, the banality of the whole thing. Meanwhile, BattleStar was a show about a quest. The only real ending that would matter is how that quest ended up. It was bittersweet for quite a few characters who got whacked as the show went, but the story was about the characters and the journey.

I admit, considering the earlier moments of rats in the series and this season, the ending with the planet made me think more of Slartibartfast, just waiting for another "Earth" to appear, but kind of expensive, you know?

Really fitting conclusion. Moore ended DS9 with one of the best SciFi endings I'd scene; the entire season 7 is solid; and the last five episodes were great stuff. This was that from a more mature Moore. There is no doubt Moore is one of the few people who are in the TV SciFi genre who respects the intelligence of the audience and relies on them buying into a complex story. We need a hell of a lot more like him.

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I'm surprised anyone thought that was good. I'm shocked so many actually liked it here.

I thought it was the suck.

Basically, they didn't have a plan, they didn't know what they were doing, and they didn't have any answers. From the big picture on down to the little details - like how did Roslin get to C&C? Thought she and Boomer got left behind a la the Opera House vision.

The final 'betrayal' was a cluster fuck. Cavil kills himself because Tyrol kills lame-o and chaos breaks out? Whatever.

Apologists can wax on about the great resolution of Kara...but, having her be some God/Angel who disappears is not only one of the lamest things I've ever seen in any show anywhere...but, it totally violates who she has always been. Kara has ALWAYS been the most human of anyone with the most foibles, demons, etc. Being a higher being who is at peace with herself is stupid. It also begs the question - why does a higher being have a childhood she can remember (with her dad the pianist)? LAME.\

Possibly lamer is the total ball-drop on the song. The music is the coordinates to a habitable planet? WTFrak? What does that have to do with the final five? What does it have to do with the planet? Even if you buy the 'it comes from God' pill that the writers want you to buy on any unanswered question, it still doesn't explain the significance of the song to the final five and how/why they were hearing it and heard it upon their revelation.

And, Hera? How the frak is she the chosen one? If anything, I'd say Kara was. She had the coordinates (as lame as that was). Hera has...NOTHING. She isn't the key to ANYTHING. There is no resolution as to how/why humans and cylons must live together. This is likely the most maddening thing of all - the Centurions are allowed to leave...ok, fine. But, the skin jobs stay with humanity. To what end? How will they survive? How is Hera a key??? No answers because the writers had NONE.

And, don't even get me started on the Baltar/Six Angel thing. Wow. Just wow.

As stupid, lame, and completely underwhelming all that crap was I have to admit the assault on the base was riveting and the character work, as usual, was great. Adama and Roslin's last moments, Baltar and Six reconnecting (beyond the ridiculous angel crap), Baltar talking Cavil down, etc.

But, this will be an episode I will never watch again. In my opinion it is a betrayal to a great series, an utter and complete non-anser to the meta-plot questions, and one of the worst finales of a great season I can think of.

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Quentin, how do you really feel?

I'll just say that you have some valid points, especially about Kara, IMO. That said, I loved the finale. It has flaws but I'm overlooking them and here's why: it was incredibly entertaining and stirred emotions in me like nothing has in a long time. I was literally on the edge of my seat from the second they jumped to the colony to when they arrived at our Earth.

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Some good information from a final interview of RDM by Alan Sepinwall, who has been following and commenting on the series. Of particular note: all the Cavils, Simons, and Dorals are gone; and Cavil shooting himself was an acting choice by Dean Stockwell, which I actually enjoyed.

They were. Then Baltar managed to arrange a truce. Everyone stopped shooting. During the time it took to set things up for the data transfer, people were free to move about.

This was also explained. Perhaps your raging fury blinded you to the answers they did give?

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For the last season, I've sort of seen it coming to this. Some guys want every single "I" dotted, every single "T" crossed. You want narrative to be some grand, Swiss-watch machine that has every piece in a perfect place. You want every question answered. That's not what you got, and more than that, that's not what you were offered.

It's a boring modern construct that every narrative must, at the end, have a neat, perfect bow tied up on top. I think this finale answers everything it HAD to answer, gave a couple more answers, and then threw some delightful ambiguity at you, assuming you have a brain and would like to continue thinking about the show once it was over.

Everything I'm reading from people who didn't like it sounds like they wanted a PowerPoint presentation instead of a story. They needed their hands held.

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What exactly wasn't explained? Roslin and Boomer did get left behind in the Opera House vision, but that only applied to reality in so much as they didn't make it into the CIC in time to stop the key events from unfolding. I don't think the dream was necessarily implying that they'd never see Hera again. What exactly is wrong with this? Cavill desperately needed Hera, so went about as far behind enemy lines as you could go. Both sides had a good faith agreement in principle, which would have been carried out successfully if Tory hadn't off on a power trip a while back when and flushed Cally out that airlock. I loved that that action finally had consequences when it mattered most. She committed an evil act and was denied paradise as a result. Once things went south, Cavill knew he was done for even if the Cylons managed to carry the date. Rather than await whatever horrific fate was in store for him, he decided to just end it. It makes sense to me. Cavill couldn't have gone to Earth, because his anger and bitterness would have ensured that the cycle of war and genocide would continue. His death was meant to be as a prerequisite for finding the new Earth. Just because you don't get it doesn't mean it's lame. She was born and raised as a human being. Up until her death in "Maelstrom," that was 100 percent the case. Had she not died then, she probably would have had a long and tumultuous life with Lee on Earth. But much like America's financial institutions today, she was deemed by whatever higher power has been manipulating events from the beginning "too important to fail." Thus she was brought back to complete her destiny. But the whole time she was on borrowed time. Upon arriving at Earth, she'd completed her mission -- essentially leading humanity to salvation -- and ascended to the other side. Her story is essentially the Christ story: born as a mortal being, died, rose from the grave and ascended to heaven (or whatever higher plane operates in this universe). Sure, she was flawed and deeply human. But then, so was Christ the man, probably. I look at it as foreshadowing. The answer was there, staring them in the face the entire time: here's the location of your new home! But they weren't ready to understand it until the time was right. It's one of those things that shouldn't have a tidy answer; anything they'd come up with would be less satisfying than not knowing. All of those questions were answered in the episode. She is the chosen one because she is both human and Cylon; she is the final legacy of both species, because she was the Eve for all of us. Kara was the mechanism for God's will, Hera was the point of it all. She is important because she represents the loving union of two sides that have been battling over and over again since prehistory. In a cyclical universe where "all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again," Hera is something that has never happened before. The last best chance for breaking the cycle. As for the skinjobs, only the peaceful ones -- back with the fleet or aboard Galactica itself -- survived the battle near the singularity. All the others were sucked into the black hole. Those ships that were away during the attack probably survived a generation or so until the skinjobs on board them died of old age. Without resurrection, there wouldn't another generation. The same is true of the friendly skin jobs, except they got to experience paradise before they faded away, living and working aside the humans and finding peace in the same manner as their creators. Personally, after it was revealed that Caprica Six had a Head Baltar, I would have felt really gipped if we were supposed to accept that they were both schizophrenic in exactly the same way. It makes perfect since that the head dopplegangers were agents of the higher power.

Sorry if I'm sounding like I'm singling you out for attack, I'm not intending to; if anything, your criticisms were a terrific avenue for me to flesh out some more of what I appreciated about the episode. There is plenty in this finale to hate for those viewers than can't stand the religious/spiritual elements of the show. However, it's not like that angle came out of nowhere. The show has balanced the scientific and the spiritual all the way back to the miniseries. The show upon which it is based was essentially a Sci-Fi retelling of Joseph Smith Jr.'s pilgrimage west with the first Mormons.

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I love the religious/spiritual aspects of the show. I don't need every idea or thread to be tied up neatly. And, I stated clearly, I loved the character aspects of the finale.

However, as a writer, I found the episode to be a gigantic piece of "we have no idea where to go"...made up as best as they could pull off. And, I thought it was garbage. There's nothing I don't "get", nothing I'm not seeing or appreciating. I have my opinion, and you have yours. And, I'm not thread crapping - I've been a regular poster here and a big fan of the show. I'm STILL a big fan of the show - as a whole. But, I'll never watch this episode again.

I'll quote one of Adam's replies simply because I think they're all about the same and equate to "there was enough of an answer there for me":

"All of those questions were answered in the episode. She is the chosen one because she is both human and Cylon; she is the final legacy of both species, because she was the Eve for all of us. Kara was the mechanism for God's will, Hera was the point of it all. She is important because she represents the loving union of two sides that have been battling over and over again since prehistory. In a cyclical universe where "all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again," Hera is something that has never happened before. The last best chance for breaking the cycle."

That sounds like such a politician's answer, I simply cannot express how much of a non-answer it is to me. She IS something that has never happened before. But, she's been that since she was born. The show has pointed her out as 'the chosen one' and 'the key' many times. Cavil was ready to carve her up to find the key in her DNA. Your telling me that the show, after building her up as some great answer, is saying that she is the key because she exists? Because it 'breaks the cycle'?

Ummm...no. That's bad writing. You don't build up something that much and then say, 'yeah, she really isn't any more special than the day she was born.' You pay it off. They didn't. If that's enough for you, fine. But, she is only the salvation for humanity and/or cylondom because they said so and you bought it.

There is NOTHING that clarifies her as a key any more than Kara, or the coordinates, or Anders, or Lee (who comes up with the idea to 'start fresh', or even Galactica herself. I could wax poetic and spiritual about any one of those things and come up with the same anwer you gave.

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Perhaps that's what makes this show a work of art, since, as a writer myself, I found the finale to clearly demonstrate a "plan" (which is to say Moore's plan) coming to fruition. Was the plan fully-conceived off on day one, à la Babylon 5? I doubt it. But then again, it's often been said that Michelangelo "saw" the statue of David wthin the stone, and he merely took away the excess. Is that really true? I have my doubts about that as well (and yes, I am comparing BSG to David).

Of course it is highly unlikely there is some key aspect of the finale which you failed to grasp, leaving you with a tenuous grasp on the events within. However, and I say this with all due respect, of course there is something you don't "appreciate." However, it's in the same category as how I don't personally appreciate *anything* from Andy Warhol or The Beatles. I'm not an idiot for disliking "Imagine," and you're not an idiot for disliking "Daybreak."

It's all art, and when something doesn't resonate with one individual, yet is praised greatly by another, it's almost expected. That all being said, when people say things akin to "oh the artist didn't know what to do, so they made it up," I tend to be wholly dismissive of their opinion, because it just seems a rather silly statement to make. Did Lennon not know how to begin "A Hard Day's Night," so he just had everyone clang a stupid chord? It's just as silly a claim to make...

cheers!

Josh

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She turned out to be the "mitochondrial Eve", ancestor of all of us. She also had both Cylon and Human genes and passed those on to all of her descendants, thus preserving in some sense each species.

The Cylons, of course, expected her to be the key to the survival of their race - even if they didn't quite understand how. And she was. If that's not enough for you, fine, but I really wonder what your expectations were there. I thought it was terrific.

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For me, the second hour just didn't quite hit the right emotional beats for me, and I just felt more disengaged as the final hour came to a close.

I will note that they really played up the sound of the winds on earth, something that was missing for all of them for quite a long time. That was a nice aural touch.

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I've a couple of thoughts. I didn't have a problem with the "answers", given the continuity problems associated with multiple writers on a TV series. I was disappointed that they didn't come up with something more original than a variation on the "Adam and Eve" ending, however: a very safe, unimaqinative, plain Vanilla, finish.

As for Hera, I thought the point of her conception (and the Tigh/Six failure) was that "Love" was needed for a Cylon-Human hybrid to be born. This would give hope for all the remaining "Good" Cylons to interbreed on old Earth, becoming part of our ancestry.

"Breaking the cycle", in my thoughts, was referring to building a new society from scratch, rather than building a new world from the technology of the previous one, as appears to have happened before. (and was the initial suggestion by the survivors) Hera was a key to survival not to the building of a new society.

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Totally agree in both respects.

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Actually, it's not a parallel to the modern (1800's) Mormon westward pilgrimage, but to the Book of Mormon's account within the first 50 pages or so of a family from the Middle East in 600 BC making their way to the Americas.

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Did I hear Galen correctly that he went up to what is now Ireland? Meaning that Gaelic is from Galen? That was cute.

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I never implied you were thread crapping. Your opinion was very negative, but it was also thought out and fully formed. It's not like you posted "This finale SUX" or some such thing. This is, in the end, what it boils down to: I'm okay with knowing only what I was given in the finale, and I felt the pieces meshed together well enough to be satisfying.

"All of those questions were answered in the episode. She is the chosen one because she is both human and Cylon; she is the final legacy of both species, because she was the Eve for all of us. Kara was the mechanism for God's will, Hera was the point of it all. She is important because she represents the loving union of two sides that have been battling over and over again since prehistory. In a cyclical universe where "all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again," Hera is something that has never happened before. The last best chance for breaking the cycle."

Setting aside the insult, yes. Take the story of Jesus. The Christian half of the bible is devoted to his life's story. His sacrifice is celebrated by most sects of Christianity as the salvation of mankind. And yet, He is important because of who He is: both the Son of God and the manifestation of God on Earth. If the Christians are right, He was important from the very moment of His immaculate conception.
It's the same thing with Hera. She is important because of who she is, important not necessarily because of her own actions but because of her parents' actions in the first season. The Cylons and the humans have alternated between creation, war and seperation dating back to Kobol. By falling in love, Helo and Boomer introduced the biggest chink ever since the cycle began. Hera was the product of that extraordinary development and thus was destined to be great from the moment of her conception. Americans (myself included) like to believe in self-determination, so the whole resolution with Hera is a little offputting. However I made my peace with it because I was so moved by the boundary crossed by Helo and Athena. You might not like the payoff, but Hera paid off bigger than any other character on the show. She laid the groundwork for all of us. You say you love the spiritual parts the show, and then mock me for waxing poetic and spiritual. She is the deus ex machina for the show, and has been since Ronald D. Moore and company decided to follow what happened to Helo on Caprica after the mini-series. All the manipulation of Kara and Baltar and Caprica Six and everybody else was to bring Hera safely to this planet at this point. Were it not for Hera, both humanity and the Cylon race would have ceased to be. Because of Hera, a little bit of both survived. Kara, Anders, Lee and the rest all acted of their own free will and in doing so contributed to God (or whatever He likes to be called)'s plan. Perfect post, Josh. You expressed so much of what I've been trying to say it a much more artful manner than I've managed. Whether the ambiguity works is a personal opinion, it did for me (and I'm guessing you) but not for Quentin (and I'm sure a lot of other people) and that's fine too. Nice catch. I also noticed that the early scenes were the first time in the whole series that they didn't blow out the white levels and go with washed out color. It was truly lush, National Geographic-esque cinematography. Another touch I really and truly appreciated. We aren't shown what happens to all of the "good" Cylons after the initial settlement, but they certainly seemed to accept that they would not reproduce and die off of natural causes. In order for all of us to trace back to Hera, the Cylons would have had to have been eliminated from the gene pool. Hera's descendents would have also had to find their way to each of the human settlements across the globe.

The other possibility, as you suggest, is that new Heras were born between humans and Cylons all across the world and the mitocondria is the same because all of the mothers were manufactured the same. This interpretation makes more logical sense and really drives home the idea of breaking the cycle, but I still favor the other theory because this one minimizes Hera's importance even more. YMMV. Building from scratch removes the temptation that technology offers. "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again."

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Wow just wow. I loved the epic feel of the whole final 2 episodes. I think they perfectly balanced answering some questions and leaving other left to be answered by the viewer. It shows real faith on the writers part that we dont need a flowchart to enjoy the show. I can't say I have seen another show that ended in quite as satisfactory way.

The only gripe I have is, WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA WATCH ON FRIDAYS NOW!!!!!!

Congrats R. Moore and everyone involved with the series on a fantastic job.

BRAVO!!

Dare I say encore?

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In the spirit -- I have seen the pinnacle of perfection and touched the Face of IT that prefers some other Name so I am going to give up TV in all forms, move to an isolated cave somewhere in the Hawaiian islands, and live out the rest of my life happily searching for MY Angel Six.

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

In the spirit -- I have seen the pinnacle of perfection and touched the Face of IT that prefers some other Name so I am going to give up TV in all forms, move to an isolated cave somewhere in the Hawaiian islands, and live out the rest of my life happily searching for MY Angel Six.

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He mentioned highlands, which says Scotland to me. Of course, there are Scottish Gaels too. But none of them would have evolved from the line of Galen! The finale shows how pointless saving all those people were. If Helo and Athena had just gone off on their own, it would have resulted in the same thing.


Erm...

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Really? Who would Hera have mated with?

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How about the offspring of all those other early humans? Helo and Athena could have just as easily given them language skills.

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* Why did the evil Cylons go through so much trouble to kidnap Hera? They had Ellen, and seemed pretty convinced that they could obtain the secrets of resurrection by cutting open her brain -- but htey let her go in a ploy to get Hera. The finale implies that the Cylons were hoping to learn the secret of reproduction from her, but what good would that do them when they only have one female model. Did they think they'd make Boomer into their Smurfette? Was Cavil going to be Papa Smurf?

* If the Earth they found at the midseason mark isn't our Earth, how come Gaeta confirmed that the constellations matched the ones found on Kobol -- the constellations that were our zodiac?

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Perhaps this is what is to be addressed in the DVD movie "The Plan"? They did state that each of the Final-Five only had a piece of the full process. That's why they had to merge to send the info to the Cylons. If they had killed Helen, then the secret would have been lost, as it was when Galen killed Tori.

(my emphasis)
I accept the constellation discrepancy as just a writing and continuity error. It just looked like our Zodiac but really was not. There were way too many things that Moore had to adjust on the fly to correct for his lack of overall control of the too-many writers and directors. I thought this was probably one of them.