Rather than post a review, I’m just going to address some of the complaints that people have brought up with the show.
- Robots are BAD. BSG warned us!
Yeah… you’re missing the point, which is that the mistakes of the 12 colonies (in terms of letting our technology get ahead of society – our heads getting ahead of our hearts) are mistakes we’re making today. Yeah, the shots of robots as they exist today was heavy-handed, but how can you NOT see the comparisons? I thought the runway-walking robot was the most eerily reminiscent of the Cylon skin-jobs, and honestly if I’d worked on the show for this long, I’d see connections everywhere also.If you think the last four minutes of the show with the robot montage was heavy-handed and lame, then stop the frakking episode when Hera’s looking up into the sky right after Adama talks to Laura. *pats you onna head*
- I’m pissed that Starbuck just disappeared.
What, exactly, did you expect? We know she died on the Cylon Earth. We know she came back, sans resurrection. We know she’s not a cylon. We know that at the very least Cylons (and Baltar) can ‘project’, perceive, and share realistic imaginings, at least some of which originate from something outside themselves. What’s LEFT besides some kind of paranormal group perception of Starbuck’s spirit? Nothing, that’s what. With all the other choices eliminated (albeit only because the fans guessed at them and thus eliminated them as options due to the creator’s pathological aversion to ever doing anything the viewers predicted), what we saw was the only option really left.And don’t tell me that Kara “should” have been the daughter of the missing 7th Cylon model, Daniel. Yeah, it would have been nice, but if she’s half-cylon, then Hera is no big deal, and the whole damned show is about Hera and the union of the two species, so that. isn’t. an. option.
- I’m pissed Starbuck and Lee didn’t up together.
How much would it have robbed Kara’s farewell to Sam if she’d then walked off into the sunset with Lee? Utterly. It was enough for me to see that Lee wanted it, and that Kara was Done. Completely. Done. Sam will see her on the other side, and he won’t have long to wait. - I’ll buy the Head Six and Gaius being angels, but I don’t love it.
The problem with ALWAYS writing something that the fans don’t expect, EVERY TIME, and then having to EXPLAIN it later, is that sometimes you paint yourself into a corner and are left with only one explanation — the one no one really expected, because they didn’t really like it.With that said, one of the things Battlestar did in the final season is invent a new myth of the origin of humanity. That’s a huge, epic thing, and it behooves such a grand and spiritual topic to include… you know… spirits. Call it heavy-handed, or deus ex machina, but it’s a creation myth; such things don’t run toward the subtle.
- I never wanted BSG to end in OUR world.
Then you haven’t been paying attention, because the writers have said for TWO YEARS that the fleet would reach Earth. Suck it up. - They couldn’t even kill off the ship in a satisfactory way.
A) The fleet wanted a fresh start. B) They wanted to leave no trace to find later. Sun-diving is the only viable solution. Also, Galactica sailing into the heart of our Sun is, in my opinion, one of the finest sendoffs such a storied ship could ever have; like a viking warrior being sent to out to sea on a burning funeral barge. - Cavil’s death was useless. Cavil did the math. The fleet has Hera + one of the Final Five just died = the Cylons are never going to get Resurrection. Also, reproduction is right out because a) the three remaining ‘enemy’ models are pretty much incable of love and b) they’re all guys. They’re dead; Cavil’s just the first one to realize it.
- Too unbelievable to me how everyone so easily disavows technology once they find Earth.
How about you get hunted across 100,000 light years of space by your own technological creations and then see if you wouldn’t rather go back to farming in a small agrarian village on a simple, untainted world. Pretty believable to me. - It pissed me off that they abandoned the Daniel storyline; Model #7.
Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one — that was something I would have liked to see them explore and do something with. Having it not be Kara’s dad was – I understand why they didn’t, as I said, but you know… don’t mention him if you’re not doing something with him. - NOBODY died, except for those already dying a couple bad guys.
You didn’t get enough death over the last five years? Really? After De and the Mutiny? Really? - Adama never wants to see his son again? After all that, he’ll just leave Lee?
Again, yeah… you got me there. That was kinda… yeah. Then again, Lee wants to explore, and Bill wants to build his cabin and be with the memory of his wife-that-wasn’t. Not like they’d see each other much anyway. Still, to really be circle-of-life-y, it should have been Lee leaving the Old Man. - Everything is just… God’s plan?
I’ve always liked the more realistic, gritty side of BSG, not so much the mystical stuff. I can buy that objection, but the fact of the matter is, LONG before the end of the show we’ve had prophecies coming true, and mystic clues providing a path, and visions shared between multiple people — I mean, everyone LOVES that the vision of the Opera House finally came true… how the hell is that going to happen without some kind of supernatural element? The ‘divine influence’ thing wasn’t the huge leap that everyone makes it out to be. It simply wasn’t. Sometimes Astronomically Impossible things happen – and as Baltar says in the final episode: “Why not call it God or Gods or Divince Influence Beyond Our Understanding?” Sure. Okay. Good enough for me. - We saw what happened to the characters, but it felt like nothing was left to ponder about their personal journeys.
Umm. That’s cuz the journey was over. They’re done. Duh. - I can’t believe Baltar and Six got away with being (wholly or partly, knowingly or unknowingly) responsible for genocide on Old Caprica.
Yeah… our last administration just got away with eight years of war crimes — the president? Not only scot-free, but with a seven million dollar book deal out of it. Almost all those largely responsible for the current financial crisis will likely end up on well-appointed private islands when it’s all said and done. Baltar retires to farming. How is that unrealistic? Don’t talk to me about ‘what the story requires’; art imitates life, and in THIS life, leaders responsible for bad things usually do not come to bad ends. Besides, punishing Baltar wasn’t the point of the story.The fact of the matter is, the Fleet DID recriminations and trials already. It didn’t work, and the reason it didn’t was this: by the end of the journey, everyone had done horrible things. Everyone. There is no one left but Hera who could – in clear conscience – cast the first stone at ANYONE else.
When the crew was spying on the natives of Earth, and Adama was joking with Baltar, there was a sense of relief, you know? “Thank god I don’t have to give a frak what you’ve done in the past, anymore. It’s done. We’re all going to go our seperate ways. It’s done. We’re done. No more stress. No more pain. It’s done.”
Clean slate.
Garden of Eden.
In the end, the show was what it was: a piece of artistic creation by someone who is not me. As such, there is no way it would scratch every single itch I had, or do everything as I would have done. That’s what art is: one person’s expression, take it or leave it. Nine tenths of the time, the art of Battlestar’s story was entirely worth taking it for what it was.
To all those people nerd-raging about how Ron Moore betrayed you or “Ron Moore is dead to me”, get a grip; you just got five years of great story and enjoyment out of someone else’s work. You didn’t even pay for it; it was free. And don’t talk to me about the time invested in viewing; compared to the time involved in creation, multiplied hundreds of times over for each of the people involved in the show, the time you spent with your ass on a couch hooting and hollering and teaching yourself to say ‘frak’ instead of ‘fuck’ is utterly insignificant.
The crew and cast took a five-year-long present and gift-wrapped with a big bow on top, and people are bitching that they would have wrapped it up differently?
Okay…
Get out there and create something; something even half so vast and complex, then bring it to a close.
It’s your frakking turn.