Battlestar Galactica - Final Season - Page 17 - The Lounge Discussion and Review on Literature, Arts, Culture

A little more of the Graham Hancock lost civilization twist (making Adama into the white bearded guy in the mayan spaceship) would have suited me. But then, that would be 12,500 years ago.

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03-21-2009 , 04:14 AM

#402

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

Well I guess I'll be the dissenter

Bravo.
Bravo.
Bravo.

I thought everything tied up nicely and was honest and true to the characters and series as a whole.

Excellent ending. Excellent series.

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03-21-2009 , 07:31 AM

#403

HobbyHorse

Allegedly Attractive

Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 10,223

First question: Is Ron Moore a Scientologist? Wasn't this ending pretty much what Scientologists believe regarding the origins of human life on Earth?

Last edited by HobbyHorse; 03-21-2009 at 07:38 AM.

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03-21-2009 , 08:38 AM

#404

ianlippert

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 4,960

well now that I've found the real thread i'll post what I post in OOT

Spoiler:

Id say it was the biggest disapointment to any serious I've seen. The mess of an ending that was babylon 5 was better, lol.

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03-21-2009 , 09:22 AM

#405

buddha01

adept

Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 918

I just watched it and I was crying like a baby, I thought it was awesome, ok it bounced back to a strip bar once to many times but I feel satisified with the ending and I felt they did a great job.

Come on that was a great ending in my opinon, I dont know what production house was behind bsg but they delivered in spades, Im thankfull for the A class entertainment.

May the gods be with them.

bud

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03-21-2009 , 11:05 AM

#406

vig

adept

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,041

Quote:

Originally Posted by renodoc

A little more of the Graham Hancock lost civilization twist (making Adama into the white bearded guy in the mayan spaceship) would have suited me. But then, that would be 12,500 years ago.

No, it would have been more like 45,000 years ago. Traditional historians talk about the 12,000 year timeframe, but you have to go further back to get into some really weird things.

Yes this is the reason I liked the season finale.

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03-21-2009 , 01:02 PM

#407

renodoc

Casino Olympics Champion

Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 8,357

Now that I've slept on it-

I'm still in the piece of frakkin crap category.

Tell me some answers--

Spoiler:

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03-21-2009 , 01:26 PM

#408

mephisto

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 5,372

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dominic

Well I guess I'll be the dissenter

Bravo.
Bravo.
Bravo.

I thought everything tied up nicely and was honest and true to the characters and series as a whole.

Excellent ending. Excellent series.

I'm with ya bro 100%. I thought the ending was excellent and tied up everything very nicely. Kinda disappointed how your avatar wasn't there, his character was so good.

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03-21-2009 , 01:36 PM

#409

nuclear500

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 10,516

Quote:

Originally Posted by mephisto

I'm with ya bro 100%. I thought the ending was excellent and tied up everything very nicely. Kinda disappointed how your avatar wasn't there, his character was so good.

He was, but he didn't play a sig. part.

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03-21-2009 , 02:24 PM

#410

HobbyHorse

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Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 10,223

I'm definitely in the meh camp on this one. I really didn't have any expectations going into it because I had no clue how they were going to tie this all up. All of the battle scenes were excellent - but I'm still not sure what the relevance of all the flashback scenes were...I mean, they worked much better last week in the first part than here.

My main disappointment with this was the grand buildup of things like the Opera House, Starbuck, Hera, the Final Five etc. that all just seemed to go pffft in the end. There was no satisfying closure with any of these things...and as someone from another board said Moore just used the age-old trick of the "Deus Ex Machina" as the means to resolution. Sucks as much now as it must have 2,000 plus years ago.

"Goddidit" and that's all he wrote folks.

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03-21-2009 , 02:49 PM

#411

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

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Originally Posted by HobbyHorse

Think of last week and this week as one, three-hour movie - that's what it was. It wasn't made to be broken up and it won't be in the DVDs. The flashbacks were important to show how the characters got to where they were - Boomer's final choice, Laura's reasoning for going into politics, Adama's declining a private-sector job - all led them to who they were during the run of the series.

from another site:

And that’s what all those flashbacks told us; when these characters made the key decisions that put their lives on this course. Boomer stayed with the Galactica instead of bailing out, and that brought her to this moment. Adama stayed in the service, rather than bail out for a cushy job in the private sector. Rather than waste her time on affairs with (admittedly hot) younger men, Roslin chose to join Adar’s campaign, which eventually brought her to the Galactica.

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My main disappointment with this was the grand buildup of things like the Opera House, Starbuck, Hera, the Final Five etc. that all just seemed to go pffft in the end. There was no satisfying closure with any of these things...and as someone from another board said Moore just used the age-old trick of the "Deus Ex Machina" as the means to resolution. Sucks as much now as it must have 2,000 plus years ago.

"Goddidit" and that's all he wrote folks.

I understand this criticism, but I think it all fits tonally with the show as a whole - what makes you think they were going to answer all those questions when the spine of the series was a wrestling match between "are we divinely led and inspired or are we on our own in the universe and thus responsible for our own fate?"

I have no problem with Starbuck at all - what's wrong with not knowing exactly why she came back to life and led the fleet to Earth? It's interesting. It's thought-provoking. It's so much better than getting some standard sci-fi explanation.

The only thing I have issue with is the whole "let's go back to nature" stuff. And why exactly is Adama not going to ever see his son again?

But that's nit-picking. this show was so good for so long that I'm not going to worry about a few loose ends. Series finales are notoriously difficult and will rarely satisfy everyone.

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03-21-2009 , 03:49 PM

#412

caretaker1

old hand

Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 1,804

To renodoc:

Spoiler:

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03-21-2009 , 03:49 PM

#413

vig

adept

Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1,041

Quote:

Originally Posted by renodoc

Now that I've slept on it-

I'm still in the piece of frakkin crap category.

Tell me some answers--

Spoiler:

Your first two issues revolve around issues with divine intervention. Usually I can do a psychological profile on this issue, but I'll leave that on hold for now.

As for your third issue, I understand that Hera was lame. She's more symbolic than anything else.

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03-21-2009 , 03:58 PM

#414

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

I really think the show ended as it should have - with a few unanswered questions. What exactly was Starbuck, Head Six and Head Baltar? Who knows? Angels? Demons? Hallucinations? I have no problem with that question being left to us to debate. that's what makes a piece of art great - it's willingness not to give all the answers - even if the artist himself isn't really sure what the answer is!

The whole show is about pre-destination vs. free-will. In that regard, the finale was perfect.

Art as great as Battlestar Galactica, Lolita, the Mona Lisa or All Along The Watchtower is worthwhile and discussion worthy BECAUSE it doesn't give us all the answers.

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03-21-2009 , 04:10 PM

#415

HobbyHorse

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Here is why I disagree with you about the ending, Dominic -

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I have more trouble with the "God did it!" (or, if God doesn't like that, "TPTB did it!") ending. I'm a religious person myself, and have always enjoyed the religious themes on the show, so it worked for me personally. But, I think the show has pretty much relegated the religious themes to Baltar's mostly-comic subplot for about two years now, and because of that I just don't think it totally worked. It ties everything together, which I like. And I like how for all of his b.s. Baltar was actually on to something, and manages to make even Cavil believe. I like that HeadSix wasn't lying and that she and HeadBaltar really were messengers of God. I just think that using "God did it!" to tie up pretty much every loose end was too much, given how sidelined religion as a major theme has been in recent episodes.

Quoted from another site...

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03-21-2009 , 04:41 PM

#416

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

well, I'm not a religious person at all and I don't see the ending as a deus ex machina at all. The point to the ending is we don' know "who did it." And neither do they.

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03-21-2009 , 05:35 PM

#417

whiskeytown

sleepless songwriter

Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 8,342

as I stated in another thread - it's like losing a crazy girl you've loved for 5 years - ups and downs but probably the best 5 years I'll ever get for TV drama -

I will miss it and can't wait for "The plan"

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03-21-2009 , 05:42 PM

#418

soweak.

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 689

I thought the last 40 minutes or so (post battle) were the best in TV in recent memory (especially compared to the ends of other shows; specifically thinking of The Sopranos). I thought RDM wrapped up every character near perfectly and that the whole 3 hour episode was far and away one of the finest series finales ever written and produced.

For those upset that there was too much 'deus ex machina' in the finale, what did you expect with a show that has basically been showing us that some of what happened cannot be explained logically?

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03-21-2009 , 06:41 PM

#419

phillipemoren

banned

Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 2,186

The problem with not explaining Starbuck is that there was no reason for her to die anyway. If they never killed her then the same exact plot couldve happened in the final season. But since they did kill her and bring her back to life and then make the entire final season about omg what is she, then they need to explain what happened. Saying GOD did it is lazy and a disservice to the fans.

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03-22-2009 , 12:21 AM

#420

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

Quote:

Originally Posted by phillipemoren

I don't agree. If she didn't die but everything played exactly as it did, you'd all be going "wtf, how did Starbuck know where Earth was?"

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03-22-2009 , 12:47 AM

#421

Fabian

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Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 9,201

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dominic

I don't agree. If she didn't die but everything played exactly as it did, you'd all be going "wtf, how did Starbuck know where Earth was?"

Because her father was Daniel. She'd basically have been an older Hera, the very first human/cylon hybrid. That explanation seems like it would have worked to me.

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03-22-2009 , 12:50 AM

#422

HobbyHorse

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Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 10,223

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabian

Because her father was Daniel. She'd basically have been an older Hera, the very first human/cylon hybrid. That explanation seems like it would have worked to me.

Apparently Ron Moore explicitly said in most recent podcasts that Daniel is not Starbuck's father and they never had intention of him being Starbuck's father....lemme see if I can find it...

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How about fan theories over the show, like mention of a missing Cylon named Daniel? After his name was mentioned, the fans just went wild online. Did you intend for that to happen, and was he supposed to inspire this big fan-driven backstory?

You know, the Daniel thing is going to be one of the great fiascos of the show, in terms of what fans thought and what the truth was. Because Daniel was not intended to be anything more than an interesting bit of backstory in that episode. And that's how we approached it. It was just a story that Cavil and Ellen tell each other, that sort of goes to the idea of who Cavil was and how deep his resentments were, and his jealous nature - and [we wanted to] do a Cain and Abel allegory. That was all it was.

And then after the show aired. I started picking up all this stuff about how fans were obsessing about Daniel and how [people thought] Daniel was Kara's father, and he was the big surprise. I started thinking, "Oh ****, slow down people, I don't want you to really get invested."

I usually don't like to go out there and say, "Oh, that's a bad theory," because part of the enjoyment of watching the show is coming up with ideas. But this was gathering such momentum, I didn't want people to be going into the finale and really be waiting for the Daniel shoe to drop, when there's no shoe. It's one of those things where you're inside the show, [and] you look at it, and go one way. And then it's broadcast, and an audience sees it, and then they seize on this piece that you never really anticipated, and then you're sort of amazed. And you're saying, "Slow down, no - come back."

Well we listen to every single thing you put up there, because they usually do come back at some point, so I'm not surprised that name-drop took off.

Yeah, I kind of feel bad about that. It's like, "Oh man." [Laughs]

In my mind, they dropped the ball with Starbuck. But then again, I don't read a lot of sci-fi and/or watch a lot of sci-fi shows so maybe this is just typical of the genre and I'm being unfair with my expectations.

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03-22-2009 , 12:52 AM

#423

Dominic

Tripod

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 74,273

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabian

Because her father was Daniel. She'd basically have been an older Hera, the very first human/cylon hybrid. That explanation seems like it would have worked to me.

that whole "Daniel was Starbuck's father" was wrong. The producer's said so.