Battlestar Galactica Season 4 - Page 53

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

wasn't the prophesy about the dying leader not seeing the 'promised land' similar to Moses and Canaan?

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

Well, maybe not what happens to the promised land many years after after they arrive. But Roslyn still made it there, and has just enough time to soak in the beauty before finally dying of cancer. So from my perspective, that particular prophecy hasn't been properly fulfilled.

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

...or this could be an indication that the cycle had been broken?

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I never put much credence in anything that comes from Fox News. This validates my opinion.

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

I don't think it's an "either/or" situation. I could care less what Fox thinks or whether their critique holds water. I know there were parts of the finale I didn't like, chief among them being the Starbuck is some kind of an angel, different from Baltar and Six, alive, but not knowing what she is, etc. I thought the resolution of her story was weak.

I'm closer to the side I think you were illustrating that "disagreed" with what happened. But the problem was created by killing her off and resurrecting her. Once they did that, with a character who had a long human history, lots of human flaws, lots of questions about religion, love for a human and a cylon, etc, well, IMO that was what created the problem for the finale. The various Starbuck storylines weren't resolveable, but the problem shouldn't have been created in the first place. And for that, I can attribute the criticisms of the finale to the writers.

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i think that the big plot hole in the final few episodes was the discussion between 'hybrid anders' and adama.

what the frak did 'hybrid anders' say that made adama react so quickly and absolute. what did anders say that make adama immediately react and attempt to save hera....

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

FWIW ... The DVD is supposed to include an "extended version" of "Daybreak". I have no idea if this question will be answered, but I certainly agree that it *needs* to be ...

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Oh! I didn't think of that. Good call!

Two weeks since the series ended, and we're still discussing it. I love this series!

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Adama is going to be all by himself, same as Chief and Lee?? I guess war does mess with your head.

Starbuck an angel? I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, after coming back, she was depressed, got into fights, was an alcoholic and didn't she have sex with Sam after she came back? I don't know...that whole storyline left a bad taste in my mouth.

Now the "imaginary" Six and Baltar...those I can totally accept as angels. Good thing that was answered. I didn't know whether the real Baltar was crazy or whether it was some sort of cylon projection into his head. I guess angels make a little more sense in that case (unlike the whole Kara deal).

Other than that, they did a great job finishing an excellent series. I'm going to miss this show.

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I think you need to detach your notion of angels from the traditional judeo-christian image of them. It would seem the BSG angles are simply tools of whatever force is "out there." I won't say god, since Baltar said he doesn't like to be called that

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When was it ever definitively said that Starbuck was an angel? I think RDM left it up to the viewers interpretation.

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It wasn't stated, but in the context of religion as we know it the most logical interpretation of Kara is that she's an angel. She may be something else in the context of another power but we don't know that context because we were never shown it beyond Head Six, Head Baltar and the Magical Mystery Viper.

After a couple of weeks to contemplate it, I still feel satisfied with the ending until I start thinking about Kara. When that happens I get annoyed as hell at the writers. Yes, religion has been a part of the show from the beginning and in that context their resolution of her story works, but I still feel it's a major disappointment.

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Well, she saw the land but hardly the promise. She just essentially landed on the planet and died. She never saw her people build a new world, never saw the cabin in the woods that was promised and so on. It is one thing to see the place and another to really see it blossom. At best she saw the raw materials of the promised land but that was it.

But I also like the idea that the cycle was broken, too. One could argue it was broken the moment a cylon-human hybrid was born. It was this child's blood that saved Roslyn the first time. She was about to finish out her prophesized death two seasons ago if it wasn't for the miraculous healing power of human-cylon hybrid blood.

On a Biblical side note, what ever happened to Lazarus when he was brought back to life? I don't ask this to thread jack but as he is one of two major resurrections in Biblical lore I wonder about it. Was he an "angel" or simply given more time on earth? Did he live a while longer and expire again or does he walk the earth seeking out brains (likely not mentioned in the Old or New Testament, I would suspect)? Everyone says Starbuck was an "angel" but even in Biblical lore people don't die and become Angels. Angels were God's original creations and humans came later. It was "It's a Wonderful Life" and other stories that give us the idea that if we are only just good enough that we too will get our wings some day. Was the pristine Viper her "wings?" :-)

That is why it parallel's nicely with the "head" versions of Baltar and Six. Those were something different and creations of a higher power given a visage that would be comfortable for their respective hosts to imagine but they were definitely otherworldly. Starbuck was a walking representation of her original self with all the doubts and fears of the original. The Head Angels (if you will) had none of the doubts or faults of their originals (that I can recall...they were devious, though).

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Since there seems to be a fair amount of discussion relating to religious aspects I want to offer my opinion to the series in general.

I personally don't think this series was geared towards religion, rather it dealt with a philosophical approach. I would highly recommend researching the writings of Rene Descartes.

When I took a philosophy class, and I could not help but see so many parallels to my class with this series. Topics discussed in my class dealt with "can computers 'think'" and "is there a god" (or better yet, a higher being).

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I'm going with this.

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I seem to recall that in the movie version with Willem deFoe, Lazarus was murdered shortly after coming back to life. Just before he was murdered he was asked what it was like to be dead, and he said something along the lines of that it was "not that much different from life".

I don't know if that's in the book version of the Bible. I've only seen the films.

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i watched the bsg 1978 'movie cut' of the first three episodes since i have not seen them since i was a young child. although it was corny as all get out there are some striking similarities between the two series, especially early on. i plan to watch the remainder of the 1978 series but i am not sure about watching bsg 1980 as that is universally lambasted...

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The only episode of "Galactica 1980" that you should even begin to consider to view is "The Return of Starbuck". And if you do decide to view that ep, please keep in mind that it was produced about 5 years before the movie "Enemy Mine" ...

Re: Battlestar Galactica Season 4

There are a number of similarities between the original show and the new one, including a disappearance of and return of Starbuck, as well as the return of Pegasus, and more. I was among those who universally lambasted G:1980 too, but I bought the DVD when it came out and was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the heck out of it. Most episodes are just goofy fun, but fun nonetheless. I encourage you to give it a shot.

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What I bolded is the more generally accepted answer among Christendom, but the New Testament is silent on the matter.

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Re-watched the series finale last night, and I think it was very well done, even more than I did the first time. I wasn't bothered by the resolution to Kara's storyline, and it made more sense as I have been re-watching the last half of season 4 these last few weeks. Looking forward to seeing expanded versions of these episodes (some of them, anyway) on DVD.

Just in the process of re-watching the entire series on DVD/Blu-ray, and figured I would give a friendly bump to this thread while highlighting the ramblings of the first hybrid (as seen in Razor):

"At last, they’ve come for me. I feel their lives, their destinies spilling out before me. The denial of the one true path, played out on a world not their own, will end soon enough. Soon there will be four, glorious in awakening, struggling with the knowledge of their true selves. The pain of revelation bringing new clarity and in the midst of confusion, he will find her. Enemies brought together by impossible longing. Enemies now joined as one. The way forward at once unthinkable, yet inevitable. And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering. I can see them all. The seven, now six, self-described machines who believe themselves without sin. But in time, it is sin that will consume them. They will know enmity, bitterness, the wrenching agony of one splintering into many. And then, they will join the promised land, gathered on the wings of an angel. Not an end, but a beginning."

Looking back on how things came to pass, I found a re-watching of this scene (among others) to be amazing.  You can listen to the hybrid, and litteraly say "well, that's how the series unfolds!"  Obviously at this point in the writing process Moore and crew knew exactly how the series was going to end, so in my mind, any thoughts of "he made it all up right at the end" are simply baseless.  If Razor aired in November 2007, I wonder when exactly it was penned.  Further, I think it would be interesting to know which of the writers/creative team members were told what pieces of critical info.

Anyway, I honestly browsed through the thread looking for a reference to the First Hybrid's speech, but couldn't find it.  I just thought it would make for an interesting glance back, knowing what everyone knows about how the series ended.

cheers!

My understanding is that Razor was produced as the first two 'episodes' of Season Four.

On a BSG related note, director Edward James Olmos has said that The Plan is going to be 155 minutes on video (versus 88 minutes on TV).

Oh I understand that.  I was just musing about who (as in which writer/writers/cast) were told the big secrets, and when.  Since the plot was clearly laid out during Razor's writing, at least some people were told osme pretty major stuff beforehand (unless Moore himself wrote the First Hybrid's speech).

Nice pull, Josh.  Pretty concise description of the end and I'd agree proof that there was a plan.  You're not pulling a late April Fool's joke and writing that yourself are you?  :)

I think you have to take a lot of forum posts with a grain of salt and accept some hyperbole.  "They just threw it together without any idea of where it was going.  Why couldn't they have it mapped out like Babylon 5?" are two statements used frequently in many series threads on the forum, even while the series are still in midseason.  Sopranos, Lost BSG, 24, True Blood, Heroes, Doll House, etc. all have had the same said about them.  I agree with you that the criticism is unfair, especially midseason.  However, it may just be a problem of poor word choice.  The writers may have had a plan for 2 years, but that plan still may have sucked (not speaking about BSG in particular).  As viewers, does it make a difference if they had a plan if the series ends badly?  I think what people like is to be rewarded for watching a series from beginning to end and seeing small clues from early on that paid big dividends in the final resolution of the series in the form of a critical piece to the puzzle.  People like to see something that looks like it was planned out.

A more fair way to write those posts that criticize an ep or series for not being planned out to me would be to say:  This feels like the writers don't have a plan.  Stated as a subjective thought, rather than as a declarative absolute truth, makes the point more open to discussion rather than devolving into finger pointing, fanboy namecalling, etc.  Who cares what process the writers used, as long as when completed, the series fit together and made sense.

Maybe it's not Emmy love, but BSG wins The Critic Association show of the year.

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2009/08/02/battlestar-true-blood-and-big-bang-win-television-critics-association-awards-news-flash-critics-have-good-taste/

 After finally seeing the last half of season 4 this week with the Bd set, I posted some initial negative comments in the thread in the HD software forum, but I think I'll be posting any follow ups in this one.

As I said there, my reaction immediately following the last ep was one of emotional satisfaction. But the longer I digested it, the more I started to fixate on problem areas,
Specifically these were
-Cavill's comically abrupt suicide
-Sloppy motivation on the part of Adama vis a vis the Cylon colony assault
-the abandonment of technology on earth to live as noble savages

The more I digested those, the more angry I became. This show originally struck me as being fully baked from the mini-series on thru the whole first and second seasons. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing- and the choices characters made and the complications that the writers threw their way were intelligent and logical.
Especially in the case of that last complaint, a lot of this seemed anything but rational and logical. A lot of those things (along with God's inexplicable affection for one Bob Dylan song) seem the epitome of half-baked.

I went back about 8 pages in this thread and was surprised to not find more people like myself who had major  problems with elements of the finale. Problems verging on deal-killers.

I'm still laboring to process all this. This was a show that I was enormously impressed with. 
More often than not, sci-fi/fantasy genre material has let me down- sometimes brutally. up until a few days ago, I was 100% certain BSG wouldn't do that to me. It made too many smart moves in the past for that to be a possibility. 


Edited by Paul_Scott - 8/3/2009 at 02:52 am GMT

I guess I was one of those who was pretty accepting of that as a conclusion. 

Througout the entire series, they had been moving in a direction where sustaining things were impossible.  In the first season, you had them run out of water, parts, and equipment.
In the second season, food became an issue again.
By the middle of the fourth season, repairs to the ship were not possible, the equipment was simply falling apart.  By the end of the 4th season, they knew they simply didn't have the ability to upkeep the ships.

 

This is something that had been foreshadowed from early on.  They didn't have mass production facilities (factories) nor did they have the equipment to build any.  They didn't have enough power to support an infrastructure. 

So, they find a sustainable planet.  Remember, this happened once before.  While some things can be moved to the ground, it's not as though they have any ability to build and impliment a power grid on a plant they find.  Again, no manufacturing base to provide for one.  So, they can go to the ground with what they have.  Which is why when this happened once before, they ended up in basically tent cities.

Now, it happens again in a climate region, and they have even less infrastructure to transport.  What real choices did they have?  I mean, they could move with some equipment, but with no abundance of power or a means to build one, that would be pretty short lived. 

As to Cavil... regardless of anything else, he was still a cylon who had programming that by the end he was aware was defective.  In the past, we had seen other cylons kill themselves or have others kill them on suspicion of defective programming.  Once Cavil was convinced that his programming was faulty to a point where he had damned his own people, as a robot, what would be the logical conclusion?  That his failure warranted his disposal, a command he had given to other cylons in the past was now one he fulfilled for himself.

I have some problems with the way the series ended up, but I'm not sure that your issues aren't ones where it just didn't end the direction we "wanted" it to go, but I can't see how else, from a technological point it could have ended.. any show that would have went with them rebuilding their life from the technological starting point they were at would have been laughable, because lots of people would raise the questions I am: how can you support it infinitely with no industrial base?

Just can't. 

How do you build an industrial base with no resources and your prime workers being basically troglodytes?  Nope.

 

BTW, good books/shows on why you can't transport an industrial base:

Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" and all of the Firefly TV series :)

I don't agree with that at all. Besides not wanting to let a child be butchered or maybe even be used as a part of a weapon against humanity at some point, both Roslin and the Galactica were dying so Adama had nothing to really lose by attacking the Cylons. It was a volunteer only skeleton crew. The Galactica was being scrapped so using it to kill a few more Cylons and at least try to save Athena and Helo's child was better than nothing.