More thoughts on Battlestar

August 14th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica, science fiction, telemovie

Aug
14

A friend of mine finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, thanks to his Netflix membership and wrote me to tell me how much he and his wife loved the ending – and asking me a couple of questions about the finale.

I think about the finale often, I’ll admit, and I haven’t erased it off my DVR yet, though I haven’t watched it more than twice. I’ve gone back and forth from loving it to being disappointed in the last few minutes of it.

Battlestar Galactica

But as I wrote back to my friend, whom I’ll call S., I realized it really was the perfect ending. It is what the show was about all along. Fate. Destiny. Faith. Whatever the personal belief of the viewers, this is what the show was about.

The belief in the one true god was a dividing line between human and cylon from the miniseries itself. Not the only thing that separated them, but it wouldn’t be the first time religion exacerbated a rift between two cultures.

As I wrote, I realized I was putting an awful lot of thought into my answers, so  I thought I’d share his questions and my answers here, too. I’d love to hear what others think.

• First, S. wondered why Cavil killed himself. His wife thought it was because he believed he’d be resurrected on the base ship, but he disagreed. “I thought there was no further opportunity for resurrection. That’s why he agreed to let Hera go, after he was promised that the Cylons would re-create resurrection.”

He’s right, in fact. There was no further opportunity for resurrection, at least not until the Cylons figured it out again, and that seemed highly unlikely.

Cavil killed himself, I believe, because he saw that his time was at an end. I think he killed himself almost BECAUSE there was no resurrection, rather than it spite of there being no resurrection.

Read full story

2 Comments »

Battlestar Galactica: Classic v. Re-imagined

June 10th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica

Jun
10

I’ve been thinking altogether too much about Battlestar Galactica lately. Not sure why.

picture-31

Maybe because news has come out about The Plan telemovie. Maybe because Katee Sackhoff was cast in Season 8 of 24. Maybe because the Season 4.5 DVD drops next month. Maybe because I have the Caprica DVD sitting on the piano, mocking me for not having watched it yet.

Maybe just because I haven’t been able to cope with the fact that the series is over and it was just that frakkin’ good.

But I was thinking to myself about all the ways the new series was better than the old, and I realized that the old series doesn’t quite get its due among fans of the reimagining.

So I thought I’d do an old-fashioned matchup and see how the two stack up:

Read full story

10 Comments »

Battlestar Galactica: Islanded in a Stream of Stars

March 7th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica

Mar
07

Poor Starbuck. Serves her right for trusting Gaius Baltar.

Oh, did I mention that spoilers abound? Read at your own risk.

picture-31
For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in a stream of stars – pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across the eternal seas of space and time.

That quote is from Henri Beston, from his book, “The Outermost House.”

It has such resonance for last night’s episode.

The Galactica is, itself, an island in the sea of stars, and also is islanded – stranded – in the sea of stars, as it has nowhere to go and is about to fall apart.

And they are “pilgrims of mortality,” with Starbuck the harbinger of death and, herself, dead. Or not.

OK, I have to tackle this episode character by character, as I usually do, or else my pea brain might just explode.

Boomer

I knew it. Boomer does actually love the Chief. Her pretend projected world on Picon was not just a ruse to mislead Tyrol. She loved him, dreamed up a whole place where she could be with him.

With no chance of ever being accepted back in the Fleet and no desire to truly be a part of the Cylon world, she created her own world. Eventually, seeing she had no chance to ever be with Tyrol (New Caprica pretty much solidified that for her), she decided if she was going to be a Cylon, she was going to be CYLON. She aligned herself with Cavil.

Still, she loves Tyrol. If she could be accepted as human again, she’d do it in a heartbeat. But she knows it’ll never happen.

And so she sees in Hera the child she never got to have with Tyrol. She didn’t want to, and that’s why she treated her like so much cargo. But in the end, she saw this child, this frightened child. And Hera knows that – so she calls to Boomer.

Cavil

I’m not exactly sure what he wants from Hera. Is he looking for a way to use Hera to unlock resurrection? To unlock procreation? As a tool? As a guinea pig to dissect?

By the way, wtf is that ship/facility that Cavil is in? Was that the ship the Final Five traveled in to find the 12 Colonies? Whatever it was, it was very cool. Read full story

3 Comments »