Battlestar Galactica goes out with a whimper AND a bang Date: 2009-03-24 12:56:10
I'm probably the last person on the planet to post about this, but BSG ended its run as scheduled last week. Throughout the series we have seen some very cool special effects, dialogue and drama - but there has also been a fair share of nonsense, boredom and inconsistency.
In some ways, the finale was what I expected: the biggest mystery of all, the death of Starbuck, was not explained. Instead we were fed some lame-ass story of her being some kind of revenant entity sent back by God to complete her mission. Even taking this plot abomination into account, it still doesn't begin to explain how her remains got from the gas giant to Old Earth, or how the frack she got the FTL coordinates for New Earth into her head just in the nick of time. Oh well.
The battle scenes were short but wonderful, as usual. It was all pretty dramatic, underscored with an epic soundtrack, but overall too few characters actually died during the final showdown:
Tory
Though Tory really had it coming, it was absolutely unconvincing that the Chief couldn't wait five seconds until the download was complete before he strangled her, when the fate of two civilizations depended on it. And in order to buy into this insane character motivation you have to discard the fact that he didn't love or even like Cally, so why does he have to kill off two entire species in retaliation for her death again?
Cavil
Aside from his eventual and completely out-of-character suicide, I loved every scene with Cavil. As usual, he had some of the best lines ("...I don't wanna rush you or anything BUT YOU'RE KEEPING TWO CIVILIZATIONS WAITING!") and he really kicked some ass in a very cool way when he invaded Galactica with that platoon of centurions.
President Roslin
She's been dying for four years now, this really wasn't a surprise. And it was one of the nicer moments, too. The goodbye scene with Adama was one of the few truly moving moments.
Boomer
Finally, someone just shot her and got it over with. This character has been going nowhere for too many episodes, but they still kept her around whenever they needed someone to do something really stupid and twisted. Sadly, her death wasn't as satisfying as it should have been, as she got shot for performing the frist and only selfless act of her entire life. The utterly needless flashback cut-scene (they all were totally useless filler material by the way) didn't help to conceal the fact that it absolutely made no sense for Athena to shoot her for actually returning Hera.
Anders
I never understood why they couldn't just let him die earlier. After that bullet to the head he was braindead for fuck sakes! Well, at least he was good enough for piloting the entire fleet into the sun, an act that actually had me screaming at the screen for its abysmal stupidity.
However, even more impressive were the plot holes the finale failed to stuff. In the end, nothing mattered. Nothing at all. The final stand of Galactica at the black hole was dramatic but it didn't have any impact on the plot. Starbuck already new the right coordinates, and Hera wasn't really that special after all. The ending is beyond bleak, but they sugar-coated it so much it's hard to notice: the Cylons as a species are all condemned to die within hundred years, because they are seemingly too stupid to rebuild the resurrection technology after their only copy of it blew up. And the humans? They dumped all their knowledge, destroyed all their technology, and eventually all died off on New Earth, completely failing to make any kind of impact or leave any kind of legacy behind from which the new civilization could have learned anything to avoid the mistakes their ancestors made.
It may have been a Hollywood ending with its classical moralistic overtones, but it only mildly disguises the fact that the writers didn't have any clue how to tie it all together. And, keeping this in mind, they actually didn't do such a bad job with the final episode...
The Cylons - they did not have a plan.
In some ways, the finale was what I expected: the biggest mystery of all, the death of Starbuck, was not explained. Instead we were fed some lame-ass story of her being some kind of revenant entity sent back by God to complete her mission. Even taking this plot abomination into account, it still doesn't begin to explain how her remains got from the gas giant to Old Earth, or how the frack she got the FTL coordinates for New Earth into her head just in the nick of time. Oh well.
The battle scenes were short but wonderful, as usual. It was all pretty dramatic, underscored with an epic soundtrack, but overall too few characters actually died during the final showdown:
Tory
Though Tory really had it coming, it was absolutely unconvincing that the Chief couldn't wait five seconds until the download was complete before he strangled her, when the fate of two civilizations depended on it. And in order to buy into this insane character motivation you have to discard the fact that he didn't love or even like Cally, so why does he have to kill off two entire species in retaliation for her death again?
Cavil
Aside from his eventual and completely out-of-character suicide, I loved every scene with Cavil. As usual, he had some of the best lines ("...I don't wanna rush you or anything BUT YOU'RE KEEPING TWO CIVILIZATIONS WAITING!") and he really kicked some ass in a very cool way when he invaded Galactica with that platoon of centurions.
President Roslin
She's been dying for four years now, this really wasn't a surprise. And it was one of the nicer moments, too. The goodbye scene with Adama was one of the few truly moving moments.
Boomer
Finally, someone just shot her and got it over with. This character has been going nowhere for too many episodes, but they still kept her around whenever they needed someone to do something really stupid and twisted. Sadly, her death wasn't as satisfying as it should have been, as she got shot for performing the frist and only selfless act of her entire life. The utterly needless flashback cut-scene (they all were totally useless filler material by the way) didn't help to conceal the fact that it absolutely made no sense for Athena to shoot her for actually returning Hera.
Anders
I never understood why they couldn't just let him die earlier. After that bullet to the head he was braindead for fuck sakes! Well, at least he was good enough for piloting the entire fleet into the sun, an act that actually had me screaming at the screen for its abysmal stupidity.
However, even more impressive were the plot holes the finale failed to stuff. In the end, nothing mattered. Nothing at all. The final stand of Galactica at the black hole was dramatic but it didn't have any impact on the plot. Starbuck already new the right coordinates, and Hera wasn't really that special after all. The ending is beyond bleak, but they sugar-coated it so much it's hard to notice: the Cylons as a species are all condemned to die within hundred years, because they are seemingly too stupid to rebuild the resurrection technology after their only copy of it blew up. And the humans? They dumped all their knowledge, destroyed all their technology, and eventually all died off on New Earth, completely failing to make any kind of impact or leave any kind of legacy behind from which the new civilization could have learned anything to avoid the mistakes their ancestors made.
It may have been a Hollywood ending with its classical moralistic overtones, but it only mildly disguises the fact that the writers didn't have any clue how to tie it all together. And, keeping this in mind, they actually didn't do such a bad job with the final episode...
The Cylons - they did not have a plan.
Comments
 Paul McM |
Paul McM says
(2009-04-27 06:47:12)
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Udo says
(2009-04-27 07:18:30)
Well, I cede that much of my commentary amounts to matters of opinion. As such I believe that if the "Plan" had occurred to the writers somewhere in those 4 years, they would have communicated it through the plot. The "Plan" may be explained in the BSG movie but it will be glued-on as an afterthought to ameliorate the collective Fridge Moments of the audience, like so many other things. I did understand that the coordinates came from the song, btw. I'm just so appalled by the "God made me do it" explanation that apparently accounts for every single action of the characters. That's the definition of Deus Ex Machina, and while it may be religiously in tune with the spirit of our times, it's also the worst possible storytelling technique known to mankind. I know Hera was described as the mitochondrial ancestor of all mankind, but it's hard to imagine that the natives could only breed with humans that carry the special mitochondria. In fact, Baltar went so far as stating natives and humans were genetically compatible to begin with (another classical SciFi cliche that has no realistic explanation besides God). About Tyrol and Cally: this is one of the many things where substantial character background was silently swapped out from under our noses. After Cally's death he went around telling everybody that he was depressed to have ended up with Cally because he couldn't have the woman he really loved. And then all of a sudden, in the finale he loved her so much that he kills Tory in a fit of blind rage? And while we're at it, remember that ridiculous storyline where Tigh and Six are supposed to be so very much in love, and we're treated to this monologue by Ellen who explains that his heart belongs to Six so very deeply and bla bla bla. A few episodes after, everything is forgotten and Ellen (who is not at all the same character she was originally by the way) is now portrayed as his unwavering soulmate. About consistence: the whole timeline is messed up. I thought it was a pretty cool concept that the conflict between humans and machines arose so many times before, on the original earth and on Kobol before that. However, those Final Five who are supposed to have been around for the last 2000 years, what exactly did they do all this time? How were they placed into the world? And by whom? It seems unlikely that they could have "given" the Cylons resurrection technology when the Cylons were "invented" 60 years ago on Caprica. Or are we calling all artificial life forms Cylons now? And if so, why are they all exactly alike and compatible with each other? The whole construct doesn't really make sense, only if you - once again - invoke God to glue over the holes. For me, it would have been that much cooler if they had taken one of the many contradictory stories and executed it in a way that makes sense. Instead it appears the writers went with every cool idea that occurred to them and didn't worry for a second about how it all fits together (they even admitted as much regarding the circumstances of Starbuck's death and resurrection), because they knew they could always invoke God over any inconsistencies and call it a day. Don't get me wrong, BSG was/is very good drama. I even loved the Caprica pilot, despite the fact that it is not only stuffed to the brim with Christian morality but also contains a good measure of fundamentalist extremism up to and (possibly) including suicide bombing as a legitimate form of religious protest. My gripe is that while it makes for compelling entertainment, it's also kind of stupid behind the scenes, and that annoys me. Because the way those projects are executed suggests deeper meaning where there is none in the end. And because I'm a huge nerd, I guess. |
Kera was significant as at the end of the episode it states that 90% of modern days humans were descended from her.The fleet was disposed of and the technology as a fresh start was needed, as they saw what happened on new caprica.
Also tyrol did love Cally, this is pretty obvious, as he is taken over by blind rage and kills tory, thank god, because she was frakking annoying and the most useless character in the whole show as far as im concerned.
.................and the cylons did have a plan........the movie Battlestar Galactica the plan reveals what it is, it scheduled to be released in the Autumn.