Galactica Season 4 (Spoilers Within)

[Alluveal]

I liked it. I think it ended well. I was thoroughly pleased up through the 150,000 years later point when it seemed like the creator was winking at the camera.

The robot montage at the end was super lame.

The whole "He doesn't like it when you call him God" was . . . I don't know. WTF? I almost take it as Moore saying, "yes, I am God of this show, but I don't like being called that..... look at me reading a magazine."

It could have ended with Adama looking out at the horizon.

I get Starbuck's deal. She was an angel and stuff was left ambiguous. The real Kara died in the maelstrom and what came back was something "else" with Starbuck's memories, etc. Just enough to get them to Earth. That's part of the "Leap of Faith" deal, imho.

Cavil taking his own life was kind of funny. Here he was talking big but when push comes to shove, he eats a bullet. What an assclown.

So, the 2's, 6's and 8's stayed. The rest went who knows where? Were the rest destroyed? We know D'Anna is still on Earth #1.

I didn't find the music/button pushing thing to be silly, though. I liked that part.

Makes me wonder:

Lee went to Greece maybe, named a country "Thrace" after Kara.
Romo became Romulus from Romulus and Remus?
Galen went north. I think that's pretty cool.

Galen offing Tory was so awesome. I was hoping she'd answer for Callie's death and she did in a big way. Callie has the last laugh now, beeyatch!

I enjoyed the fact that they spent a lot of time on resolution. But, my logical mind (and trust me, I'm not a whiz at logic stuffs here) wonders how they introduced all this crap into today's culture, like language, opera, democracy, laws, etc. Sure, they could hand down information like that, but 150,000 years it's gonna survive and be almost exactly like it was on the 12 colonies?

Adama taking Roslin for a ride over the wilderness was really amazing. I loved the way her story ended.

Didn't really dig the whole flashback deal. I'm sorry, I just couldn't get into it. Yeah, I get why they showed it, but I wasn't interested in that. It was distracting.

Anyway. I cried my little eyes out when Sam told Kara, "see you on the other side." Like he knew what she was this whole time. Nice.

 

[vacantlook]

I'm not sure what to say about the finale. I'm glad it's over. The Kara stuff and the God stuff really got painted over with broadest of a brush possible just to give it something that resembled finality, but it really wasn't actually explained. So for that. I'm glad that they did tie up Tori's having killed Cally. Cavil killing himself actually kind of made me laugh because it kind of sums up the absurdity of the story of the show in a way. With all this ending and everything, I have to ask, did I miss something, where was D'Anna?

So, yup, humans came about on Kobol and on Earth and they're magically capable of reproducing. It's "God's plan". Might as well have slapped a giant flashing sign up that said "Fun with 'Intelligent Design'". Well, here's another for "God's miscellaneous plan".

As for the preview they had of Caprica, it so does not look interesting at all to me.

 

[Alluveal]

Hmm, I didn't really take all the religious overtones to heart. For those with faith, they'll see it as something spiritual. For those who are hardcore science-types, they can toss it up to something else. I just assumed that Baltar and 6 would create a super religious type society.

I thought Caprica looked really interesting, actually.

D'Anna is on Earth. She told Adama and/or someone else that she'd take her chances on Earth. Everyone else left.

Not sure what happened to the other models: Kevin Spacey model, Simon and any other Cavils.

Was kind of a letdown that they never really got into the whole Leoben/Starbuck weirdness. He fell off the radar after he was with Kara when she discovered her viper w/the body inside.

 

[GKarsEye]

The deal they made before Galen freaked out- resurrection for peace- it's so obvious it's weird they didn't just try that before. ok maybe they couldn't because they weren't in quite as desperate a situation as they were the moment they made that deal, with guns pointed at everybody, but still- if survival was really all Cavil wanted, seems like they could have just resolved all this a year ago.

So, the 2's, 6's and 8's stayed. The rest went who knows where? Were the rest destroyed? We know D'Anna is still on Earth #1.

Yeah I thought of that too. Deanna aside, you still have angry Cavil, Dr Black Guy and Kevin Spacey models out there, right? They wouldn't take the inevitable end of their race lying down I would think.

A minor point but one that bugged me- after Galactica jumped to earth, how did the rest of the fleet catch up? How did they know where to find them?

Adama taking Roslin for a ride over the wilderness was really amazing. I loved the way her story ended.

Didn't really dig the whole flashback deal. I'm sorry, I just couldn't get into it. Yeah, I get why they showed it, but I wasn't interested in that. It was distracting.

I've come around to the flashbacks, especially Roselyn- I liked seeing her as a student-fucking seductress. A nice break from her deteriating condition.

As for the preview they had of Caprica, it so does not look interesting at all to me.

I think it was Recoil earlier who called it a soap opera, and it did certainly look like that.

 

[Recoil]

OK so here are my thoughts.

All in all, I agree with GKE in that going in with low expectations was key, because I was pleased with it.

The final attack on "The Colony" was pretty damn cool. I see I wasn't the only one that thought the Colony looked like a Shadow Battle Crab. As soon as we saw that thing we were like "Shadows!" I also thought it was neat seeing the Centurians attacking with Lee Adama and the rest, with their red "friendlies" stripe painted on them. At first, I also thought it was kind of cool that they had so many "original" Centurians on the Colony since that was set up in Razor and a nice homage to the original --- then I saw how lame their CGI was and wished they werent there. They reminded me of the martians in "Mars Attacks" for some reason. Oh well, was still a cool exchange.

Athena offing Boomer was also quality. I liked Baltar holding the corridor when Lee returned and their little exchange.

The Opera House "resolution" was real plot thread out there that they summed up in a lame way IMO. Early in the series it was supposed to be so meaningful. What it really boiled down to was...what? Baltar and Six finding Hera and....leading her to....C&C? And why? So Cavil could be there and snatch her up and hold a gun to her head? I mean really, they were wandering through the ship and they were already going that direction. I just goes to show that when this show tries that artsy symbolism stuff, it not only fails, but its clear they never knew what to do with it. I think this is one of the threads they should have left out there to a degree unanswered instead of just showing it as a parallel for what was going on in the Galactica during that battle.

One thing that made me laugh out loud: "Gimmie that phone! This is Cavil. Hold your fire! Stand down!" I was watching this finle with a few friends and I was like "WTF, not even an authorization code or something? Hell they could have had anyone make a prank call and end this thing?"

Cavil offing himself was funny and in a weird way fit his character. I read somewhere last night that the script called for him attacking the five or something, and getting pushed off the platform they were on and falling and dying, and that Dean Stockwell called RDM and basically said that he thinks when Cavil realizes that things are really over he would take it upon himself to off himself so they agreed. Made me chuckle when it happened but I thought it was OK.

LOVED Tory's ending. When they were explaining that they were going to all know each other secrets her lame-ass "well lets just remember we are all Cylons and we all made mistakes right?" Hah! That was so awesome. Watching her squerm and then Galen choking the life right out of her. Fantastic.

I am glad that they found our Earth in the past. As I think I posted earlier in this thread somewhere, I thought it was a nice tie to the original series with a twist. The whole "life here began out there" aspect of it. Difference being it wasnt the 13th colony that founded our Earth and the Galactica was in our present day, in this series it was the Galactica that founded our Earth.

I actually liked the fact that they had Hera be our "Mitochondiral Eve." In fact, before they revealed that, but after they found Earth my buddy was explaining to us about how it was discovered that we all have the same female gene in us and that we all came from the same "eve" and then a few minutes later, they ended it that way as well. Funny timing. I liked it because it made Hera as important as she was built up to be, and it was a neat way of showing how she helped become the "missing link" between ancient man and homo sapien.

Starbuck as an Angel? Sure. I know RDM went on record as saying he would never bring the "Ship of Lights" from the original series into BSG but might use some of its concepts. So deep down I was thinking that Starbuck was something like that. I really dont get how she could go through this malestrom and end up crashed on old Earth...but whatever. She died, was resurrected, lead humanity to a new home. Not a big fan of these sort of things, but I guess it fits and I didnt have a huge problem with it. I dont think she was an "Angel" all along, rather she was herself until she died, and was resurrected by "God (even though he doesnt like to be called that)" or whomever is steering events in the series, and then was just herself reincarnated.

So Baltar and Six were just seeing "Angels" in their heads all this time too eh? As with Starbuck...sure. I did think it was kind of neat to see those to "Angels" in present day Earth still keeping watch on things and discussing whether or not it will all happen again, and Six seemed to think it wouldnt that the cycle was broken.

Finally, the scene with the Galactica and the fleet going into the sun. Sort of a B5-ish sendoff, but done well.

So all in all I liked it, and am glad they choose to have the fleet discover our Earth in the past. When they first showed up, I thought they were going to find Ancient Egypt and the like and help build the Pyramids or something to that effect, as was alluded to in the original series monologue, but Im glad they chose to have it be MUCH farther back (150,000 years) and be more along the lines of being responsible for the evolution into Homo Sapiens and starting early civilization.

Overall, no complaints. I might rewatch it again in a bit to take it all in one more time, but it was a worthy ending.

 

[Recoil]

So, the 2's, 6's and 8's stayed. The rest went who knows where? Were the rest destroyed? We know D'Anna is still on Earth #1.

Not sure about D'Anna, but it was supposed to be known that The Colony was completely destroyed along with all on it. That said, are there still fleets of Baseships out there? Sure. And apparently they are one jump away from our Earth (unless it was a super LONG jump). Still, since we are alive today and there has been no Cylon attacks, I think we are meant to believe, story wise, that since they never did get back resurrection technology, and the little info they received before Galen "pulled out" was destroyed with the Colony, that the Cylon Skinjobs out there eventually die off since they couldn't reproduce. So that part should be wrapped up.

Lee went to Greece maybe, named a country "Thrace" after Kara.
Romo became Romulus from Romulus and Remus?

I just dont see how any of this could be. It would be neat to try to make those sort of connections, but remember, they are 150,000 years in our past! Ancient Egypt and Greece were a mere 6000 some odd years in the past. They are so far from being in the same era its impossible to say that. There was NO civilization or language when they arrived and the tribal humans they found werent homo sapien per say. So their purpose was in getting humanity started. It was over a hundred thousand years before there were such things as countries. Now maybe the names got handed down over the many many thousands of years, but it certainly couldnt have been the Galactica crew directly founding and naming them as such I dont think.

I enjoyed the fact that they spent a lot of time on resolution. But, my logical mind (and trust me, I'm not a whiz at logic stuffs here) wonders how they introduced all this crap into today's culture, like language, opera, democracy, laws, etc. Sure, they could hand down information like that, but 150,000 years it's gonna survive and be almost exactly like it was on the 12 colonies?

I think this is closer to it. I dont think its meant for things like opera, democracy, and all that to be "handed down" from the Galactica crew. They get things started, thats all. Their decendants find their own way based loosely on their teachings and things just develop along the natural order of things. Like Lee said, they wanted a fresh start.

And...maybe you have Angel Six and Baltar helping things along too.

I thought it would have been nice if in present day Earth when they made the Hera discovery that they would have found a raptor with all the logs and info from the Colonies that was buried or something...would have been a neat touch.

 

[Recoil]

Sorry about the triple post, but I was reading another thread on the finale and someone posted this:

"Starbuck the White eh?"

Never though of it in those terms, but yea, she sure was Ghandalf wasn't she? That's probably the best explanation/comparison made so far.

 

[Galahad]

Yeah I thought of that too. Deanna aside, you still have angry Cavil, Dr Black Guy and Kevin Spacey models out there, right? They wouldn't take the inevitable end of their race lying down I would think.

Well the main Cavil put a bullet in his own head (which kinda made me chuckle for some reason... it just seemed odd the way he did it). As for the others, the colony took some pretty major hots from nukes... is it possible the remaining cylons will get sucked into the singularity?

A minor point but one that bugged me- after Galactica jumped to earth, how did the rest of the fleet catch up? How did they know where to find them?

When Hoshi finds Adama on Earth, there's a throw away line about him being so glad to see a raptor show up at the rendezvous point.

 

[Galahad]

Galahad, you got your human origin point. We started on our own, but space people (who are biologically exactly like our native ancestors) came in and gave us civilization. But of course since Hera is "mitochondrial Eve," we're all 1 / one-quazillionth Cylon.

Yes I actually liked how they handled that. It would have been lame if the colonials actually were us.

Which reminds me, black people- all proud of your TV hero figures of recent years, like President Palmer from 24? Well you can just forget all that, because BSG just told us that while Africa is indeed the birthplace of humanity, our black African ancestors couldn't have done it without technologically advanced white colonizers with a violent history. Hah-hah!

Yes, this crossed my mind also. Very funny.

 

[Recoil]

Well the main Cavil put a bullet in his own head (which kinda made me chuckle for some reason... it just seemed odd the way he did it). As for the others, the colony took some pretty major hots from nukes... is it possible the remaining cylons will get sucked into the singularity?

There is an interesting post-finale interview with RDM linked below. He states that originally it was supposed to be really clear that the nukes knocked the colony out of orbit and that it did indeed get sucked into the black hole destroying it and all aboard, but that in edits in post production some parts got left off and it wasnt as clear has he would have liked in the final product.

Still, I'm sure there are some base ships floating around out there somewhere, but as I posted above, without resurrection technology, I'm sure they have all died off in the last 150,000 years.

RDM Interview HERE

Nothing earth shaking (no pun intended) but interesting read I guess.

 

[Truth_Seeker]

This was the worst TV series conlusion EVER!!!

I want my money back, Ron Moore. :scream:

And since when Sci-Fi shows explain their mysteries with God. :wtf:

 

[Garovorkin]

Yeah it works. Ron Moore had a camero in it.

 

[GKarsEye]

Thanks for the interview link, Recoil. Allow me to highlight this part:

Given how much of the show was made up on the fly by you and the other writers, looking back, how well do you think everything hangs together with the finale factored into it?

I think it hangs together better than it has any right to. I do feel good that the process I always believed in and really defended -- about feeling the story instinctively as you go through it, and not being tied to, "Oh, we know exactly how it's going to end up" -- that that was true. We were able to get there and could say, "We've been making this mosaic, and now we just need to put the final touches on it and we'll have a complete picture." There's loose threads and things that don't quite work, but I think that's in the nature of almost any show. By and large, I think we did a pretty good job of it.

Well, there it is in a nutshell I guess.

 

[vacantlook]

He "instinctively" told the story? Yup, it shows. Plots and characterizations fluctuated at whatever direction the whim was blowing in the wind at the time. And the story suffered for it.

 

[Chilli]

I suppose this would be as good a time as any to eat my hat- yes, the earth they found was not our earth. Those of you who called it were right, and I disagreed. Instead, Starbuck knew the coordinates in piano music disguised as secret numerical system form. Or something. Then she disappears. Ok.

Thing is, though .. I was full of shit when I said that they never showed us the continents on the planet they found from space. I went back and checked - they give us quite a clear view on North America from Space when they arrive at the nuked planet.

Courtesy of the Battlestar Wiki, as I'm too lazy to make my own screenshots, the nuked planet:

So the makers went Miri on us .. and no one on the show noticed it.

Which fits nicely with my general reaction to the final - it was great, but does not change anything about how much this show sucked, as a whole.

All the stuff that we couldn't understand was angels, gods, destiny. Right.

Many other good points have been raised here. I groaned when they found the primitives in Africa, and decided to mate with them and bring them culture.

The Opera thing was extremely lame. Cavil's end was extremely awesome. And the Cylon colony was a Shadow battlecrab.

 

[vacantlook]

I too can bee counted amongst those who saw the cylon base and and thought "Shadows!!!!"

 

[Chilli]

Oh, I got it wrong, btw - the shot from Earth I posted was from an Earlier episode, in which they zoom in on it from infitinity - we don't see Galactica approaching it.

So I wasn't as full of shit with my they-never-showed-us-the-nuked-planet statement as I thought I was.

 

[Galahad]

And since when Sci-Fi shows explain their mysteries with God. :wtf:

Quantum Leap
At a stretch, War of the Worlds (film and series).
Signs (film... but then a big reason why a lot of people don't like that film, is because they went with expectations of it being a straight sci-fi... when actually alien invasion is merely the vehicle through which Shyamalan explores the genuine key themes of the film itself.).

I (and admittedly I have a bias) personally do not agree that atheism should have the monopoly on the genre. That's not to say I think every show should be holy evangelicals in space. I just believe that all science fiction should be judged on the merits of it's story and characterisation... and not classed as a soap box for a certain point of view. If a writer wants to infer God is at work behind he events of a series... fine by me, if someone wants to insist it's all random chance, equally fine. At the end of the day I know where I stand myself, I just want to see a fair spectrum of views and beliefs laid out on the genre buffet table.

Essentially... is there any hard and fast rule that says science fiction has to assume an atheistic position? I would argue not.

 

[vacantlook]

I don't mind a sci-fi story having characters that believe in God, I just don't like the story presenting God as a real being that actually acts in the story. If it's some story that isn't sci-fi, I don't mind a God character, but my expectations of sci-fi is that it's more realistic than other genres, and the reality is that if God exists, we don't have any proof of that existence whatsoever.

 

[Recoil]

Why should any of that matter?

Sci-Fi

Science. Fiction.

There was plenty of science in BSG. Also some fiction. Why does having God as a mild plot device get people on the whole "it isn't science fiction" soapbox? Makes no sense.