BSG Finale thoughts
No heat in the office this morning, which is a bad thing on the coldest day of March so far. The landlord says it should be back on soon. We'll see.
So, in the interest of maintaining feeling in my fingers, I thought I should do some typing. I've been meaning to say what I thought of the BSG finale, but I'm glad now that I waited for others on my FL to post, because I'm finding the objections of others very interesting.
I've been surprised by the number of people who are complaining about the "deus ex machina" aspects of the finale. In a story in which the gods have had so much play, why are people surprised when there actually turns out to be gods (or god) in the story? Would it somehow make it superior science fiction if it turned out there was some higher race, like Q or something, manipulating the humans and cylons over and over instead of "god"? Considering the shared dreams, the visions (Baltar, Caprica Six and Starbuck), the prophecies, etc., the answer had to be either manipulative superior races or higher powers. Personally, I'm fine with the higher power answer.
And really, the story never explicitly said it was a higher power. It could have been a race, like Q, allowing the humans and cylons to believe it was god. Maybe that's what RDM was hinting at when he had angel!Baltar say that god doesn't like to be called that.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm an agnostic. So, seeing how I don't think we can know for sure whether or not there is a higher power, maybe I'm less predisposed to object to a story having higher powers than an atheist would be.)
That said, I was, at the time, very surprised by the willingness of the colonists to chuck modern technology. My first thought: they're all going to get eaten by predators, because they are totally unprepared for this type of life! In thinking it through, though, I decided that maybe this was a kind of penance/suicide thing.
Look at it this way. You've been given fairly conclusive proof of the existence of a higher power at this point. It's been made clear that this higher power has allowed both of your societies to be destroyed, and that the higher power wants a different type of society. Do you try to rebuild that different type of society based on your failed one, knowing that the higher power will likely snuff you out again? Or do you chuck it all and try to live as simply and unobjectionably as possible, to avoid the wrath of the higher power? Personally, I'm not sure, because I've never been faced with proof of a dissatisfied higher power. Who knows what I'd do?
Knowing how infrequently the colonists have agreed on anything, and knowing how much the cylons rely on technology, I like the idea of some subgroup going out and founding Atlantis or whatever. And then, of course, having the higher power snuff them out once the Earth2 humans reached a point where the Atlantian society could mess up their evolution.
I thought it was a good ending, and really can't come up with an ending that would have been more satisfying.
So, in the interest of maintaining feeling in my fingers, I thought I should do some typing. I've been meaning to say what I thought of the BSG finale, but I'm glad now that I waited for others on my FL to post, because I'm finding the objections of others very interesting.
I've been surprised by the number of people who are complaining about the "deus ex machina" aspects of the finale. In a story in which the gods have had so much play, why are people surprised when there actually turns out to be gods (or god) in the story? Would it somehow make it superior science fiction if it turned out there was some higher race, like Q or something, manipulating the humans and cylons over and over instead of "god"? Considering the shared dreams, the visions (Baltar, Caprica Six and Starbuck), the prophecies, etc., the answer had to be either manipulative superior races or higher powers. Personally, I'm fine with the higher power answer.
And really, the story never explicitly said it was a higher power. It could have been a race, like Q, allowing the humans and cylons to believe it was god. Maybe that's what RDM was hinting at when he had angel!Baltar say that god doesn't like to be called that.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm an agnostic. So, seeing how I don't think we can know for sure whether or not there is a higher power, maybe I'm less predisposed to object to a story having higher powers than an atheist would be.)
That said, I was, at the time, very surprised by the willingness of the colonists to chuck modern technology. My first thought: they're all going to get eaten by predators, because they are totally unprepared for this type of life! In thinking it through, though, I decided that maybe this was a kind of penance/suicide thing.
Look at it this way. You've been given fairly conclusive proof of the existence of a higher power at this point. It's been made clear that this higher power has allowed both of your societies to be destroyed, and that the higher power wants a different type of society. Do you try to rebuild that different type of society based on your failed one, knowing that the higher power will likely snuff you out again? Or do you chuck it all and try to live as simply and unobjectionably as possible, to avoid the wrath of the higher power? Personally, I'm not sure, because I've never been faced with proof of a dissatisfied higher power. Who knows what I'd do?
Knowing how infrequently the colonists have agreed on anything, and knowing how much the cylons rely on technology, I like the idea of some subgroup going out and founding Atlantis or whatever. And then, of course, having the higher power snuff them out once the Earth2 humans reached a point where the Atlantian society could mess up their evolution.
I thought it was a good ending, and really can't come up with an ending that would have been more satisfying.