397 replies to this topic

[Edward the Great]

Shryke, on Mar 14 2009, 21.24, said:

Again, who was gonna object?

Lee objected to the plans to rescue New Caprica, why not object to these plans?

[Crazydog7]

Shryke, on Mar 14 2009, 02.50, said:

Well, considering the fact that this is actually Pt 1 of 3 of a single episode, I'm betting these flashbacks are going somewhere still.

Though I'm starting to get tummy rumblings saying 'Time Travel!!!". Mysterious flashbacks and a black hole?

My favorite part was Laura Roslin-The tender years.  Seriously that post on scifi.com forums made me laugh my ass off.  There was a time when they would have deleted such a negative comment from the boards almost immediately.  

Well don't worry Scifi network this show you have managed to drag out for 1 year beyound its shelflife is your last money maker and when it goes you guys can kiss your asses goodbye inside of 6 months.

[Shryke]

EHK for a True GOP, on Mar 14 2009, 22.33, said:

That wasn't his rationalization. Not to himself nor to them. He made no effort whatsoever to sell it on those grounds. In fact there was no selling or convincing of any sort. Just a bit of tape + gruff voice. As to who specifically would object? Bob the plumber. Jonie the deckhand. Carl the janitor. The literally thousands of people on Galactica who we've never met and know nothing about, many of whom (most of whom more likely) would have to have some problems with the notion of throwing away a third of the able military personnel in the fleet for a suicide mission to rescue a little girl.

If it was just the dying basestar, I wouldn't anticipate many problems. But its the basestar, its commander, its XO, the acting President of the colonies, the real President of the colonies, all its best pilots, a large portion of its fighter fleet, many of its weapons, most of its marines, no doubt many specialists and technicians. But the only person sent back to the other side of the line is the fricken doctor? I understand that doctors are important, yet Cottle's not expendable but the de facto leader of fucking humanity is? Give me a fucking break. Everyone just pretended that there was nothing wrong with this exercise is monumental stupidity. How the hell does that not strike you as absurd?

He doesn't need to rationalize it to anyone. Everyone knows the reason. The Cylons took something from us, we're getting it the fuck back. Also, we're killing the hell out of the people who genocided us. Who needs a reason to kill Cylons? Who's gonna object to killing Cylons?

It's not just about rescuing a little girl, it's about hitting back at the enemies of humanity. And humanity has reached it's ragged edge and their fucking tired of getting pushed around and their gonna blow their enemies to hell. And I don't see anyone objecting to that idea.

Edited by Shryke, 14 March 2009 - 10:00 PM.

[EHK for Darwin]

Shryke, on Mar 14 2009, 21.58, said:

He doesn't need to rationalize it to anyone. Everyone knows the reason. The Cylons took something from us, we're getting it the fuck back. Also, we're killing the hell out of the people who genocided us. Who needs a reason to kill Cylons? Who's gonna object to killing Cylons?

It's not just about rescuing a little girl, it's about hitting back at the enemies of humanity. And humanity has reached it's ragged edge and their fucking tired of getting pushed around and their gonna blow their enemies to hell. And I don't see anyone objecting to that idea.

Well apparently Adama, Ronald Moore, and a few others need this memo because the only reason explicitly put forward was to save a little girl. Pardon me if I doubt that evokes much passion from the struggling remnants of humanity, each of whom have already lost just about all of their family and friends. If this is indeed their last suicidal charge into the breach, their 'fuck it all, MASADA BABY!' moment, than perhaps they could've taken some screen time away from drunken Lee swatting birds to develop that a bit. It doesn't fucking take much. Instead we had an hour of (thus far) meaningless flashback followed by tape + voice in the last 5 minutes.

And while I have no doubt that many would be to the tipping point, ready and willing to give up and throw their lives away out of spite and vengeance (which have no doubt, that is what this mission is about for everyone not interested in saving a little girl...which is pretty much everyone not named Adama, Helo, Athena, Starbuck, and Roslin), there are gonna be some who still have a bit of hope left for humanity and see this for the senseless idiocy that it is. But apparently none of them were born with working vocal chords.

[mcbigski]

EHK for a True GOP, on Mar 14 2009, 15.19, said:

Kind of missed the thrust of the criticism. I'm not talking about people choosing or not choosing to personally go on the suicide mission. I'm talking about noone raising an objection to taking a third of Galactica off on a suicide mission to rescue one individual in the first place. Noone bitched. Noone objected. Noone said 'What the fuck are you thinking you psychotic old man?' Personally I find this to be more extreme than Cylon jump drives and if people were willing to mutiny over that, there should be some dissension from this. Choosing not to volunteer is not real dissent. There should have been some objections to any mission at all that would effectively (likely) kill so many essential members of humanity. By actually taking Adama up on his 'cross the line' bullshit in the first place, no matter which side they walked to, they essentially did 'go along with it'.

They could have sold the military necessity of this. Its not like they didn't have any filler the last several episodes that they could have devoted to making the case on screen. They chose not to. And really, the whole show and the whole finale suffers because of it. This is Heroes level ridiculous.

While I think it's kind of a cop out that all of the sudden Galactica is falling apart and can only make a few more jumps before it just disintegrates, assuming that's true, then sending it on a suicide run is the logical choice.  They're stripping down almost everything salvageable from Galactica, so the physical resources lost versus doing nothing are negligible.  The military necessity is pretty obvious.  Either attack with Galactica now, or abandon it in the next half dozen jumps anyway.  They've been making the case on screen, multiple times in every episode since Tyrol saw the cracks in the FTL room.  Frankly, they've been spoon feeding it way too heavy, IMO - how many scenes of either Adama looking at cracks, explosive decompressions, or people putting goo into the superstructure have there been since the mutiny episodes?

Humanity can spare another thousand or so, especially if it means a chance at ending Cavil's pursuit - and not all of the people on the mission are expecting to die, unless the plan is put Hera in a Raptor and then have everyone still alive commit ritual suicide.  I don't get why Hera is essential though - if the future is cross breeds, then they're going to need to breed so many more human/cylon children anyway that Hera would be superflous.

[EHK for Darwin]

mcbigski, on Mar 14 2009, 22.10, said:

While I think it's kind of a cop out that all of the sudden Galactica is falling apart and can only make a few more jumps before it just disintegrates, assuming that's true, then sending it on a suicide run is the logical choice.

No its not. Or if it is, only with a bare minimum of expendable personnel. Because what I'm trying to pound home is that they're not just taking a dying ship with them, they're taking the cream of what's left of humanity and throwing it into the meat grinder to either save one loan little girl or to vent their frustrations over a pint of cylon blood (paid for with gallons of their own).

Quote

Humanity can spare another thousand or so, especially if it means a chance at ending Cavil's pursuit - and not all of the people on the mission are expecting to die, unless the plan is put Hera in a Raptor and then have everyone still alive commit ritual suicide.  I don't get why Hera is essential though - if the future is cross breeds, then they're going to need to breed so many more human/cylon children anyway that Hera would be superflous.

How are they not expected to die? They're sending one crippled battlestar into the heart of enemy territory. A place with one entrance, exit, and upon which all guns are trained. Adama flat out said he expected it to be a one way ticket. Are they gonna have raptors enough to load most every volunteer when they abandon ship? If so, well shit, you're risking even more essential resources. Raptor's don't grow on trees. Humanity can spare a thousand. But not this thousand. The entire military and civilian leadership is gonna be on this mission. The best pilots. Most of the marines (saw alot of them crossing that line). Undoubtedly many techs, mechanics, etc with important, even indispensable skills. They are taking the best of what's left of the species and sending them to their likely death. That is not sensible. And its utterly ridiculous that noone raised an objection to it.

[Shryke]

EHK for a True GOP, on Mar 14 2009, 23.10, said:

Well apparently Adama, Ronald Moore, and a few others need this memo because the only reason explicitly put forward was to save a little girl. Pardon me if I doubt that evokes much passion from the struggling remnants of humanity, each of whom have already lost just about all of their family and friends. If this is indeed their last suicidal charge into the breach, their 'fuck it all, MASADA BABY!' moment, than perhaps they could've taken some screen time away from drunken Lee swatting birds to develop that a bit. It doesn't fucking take much. Instead we had an hour of (thus far) meaningless flashback followed by tape + voice in the last 5 minutes.

And while I have no doubt that many would be to the tipping point, ready and willing to give up and throw their lives away out of spite and vengeance (which have no doubt, that is what this mission is about for everyone not interested in saving a little girl...which is pretty much everyone not named Adama, Helo, Athena, Starbuck, and Roslin), there are gonna be some who still have a bit of hope left for humanity and see this for the senseless idiocy that it is. But apparently none of them were born with working vocal chords.

Yeah, I guess they should have developed the Colonials desire to strike back at the Cylons a little more.  :rolleyes:

[Xanrn]

Ha that post on the SFC forums is great, also so true.

WTF was the point of any of the Roslin and her sisters crap?

Or Kara, Zak and Lee.

Or Lee drunk mastering a pigeon.

Or Adama's interview.

I mean the Anders bit atleast had a little flash of the machine but otherwise was just useless filler.

Baltar's Dad bit was funny and explained a fair bit.

Lee finally gets back into full uniform, sheesh the man is a human yo-yo. Well atleast we will have the glorious last ride of Apollo and Starbuck.

Atleast next week promises some major Dakka.

[TrackerNeil]

Werthead, on Mar 14 2009, 13.49, said:

Galactica and Pegasus have destroyed what, about a dozen basestars since the show began? The Cylons didn't have that many basestars to begin with (since they needed the computer virus to shut down the Colonial fleet, presumably as they didn't have enough firepower to take down the Colonial battlestars in a stand-up fight, even with a sneak attack), maybe 100 tops?

Not a dozen. One basestar was nuked at Kobol, at least one of two was destroyed in the Battle of the Resurrection Ship, and another two were taken out at New Caprica by Pegasus' suicide run. A fifth basestar was infected by the probe virus and self-destructed, bringing the total to five, or six if two basestars were destroyed with the resurrection ship. I expect a few more were destroyed during the civil war, not including the rebel basestar, which for Cavil is as good as (or worse than) a casualty, but we can only guess at that number. So five (or possibly six) destroyed plus one desertion.

However, I agree that there were likely not very many basestars to begin with, given that Cavil didn't have as much time to build a war machine as the Colonials. We know there were 120 battlestars in the fleet at the time of the holocaust, the result of the economy of tens of billions of people over forty years. I'd be surprised to hear the Cylons, less numerous and with a less established infrastructure, started out with half that many.

[Shryke]

Cylons are machines. They don't need to rest, eat or anything.

I'm sure it wouldn't take them long to pump out hundreds of the things. They had like 10 years at least.

[oneeye]

Crazydog7, on Mar 15 2009, 03.52, said:

My favorite part was Laura Roslin-The tender years.  Seriously that post on scifi.com forums made me laugh my ass off.  There was a time when they would have deleted such a negative comment from the boards almost immediately.  

Well don't worry Scifi network this show you have managed to drag out for 1 year beyound its shelflife is your last money maker and when it goes you guys can kiss your asses goodbye inside of 6 months.

Well Eureka will be back soon

Then they are working on SG: Universe and Caprica.

[Ran]

I thought the point of Roslin and her family was clear enough, as someone alluded to up thread: now we know why and how Roslin was able to pick up the pieces following the holocaust so quickly. She had already pretty much lost everything to begin with, losing her whole family in one fell swoop (I assume her mother was already dead at this point).

I think the fact that this is really a long, three hour episode broken into two parts perhaps explains some of the oddities. That said, I remain constantly amazed by the reactions some people have at storytelling that doesn't hammer plot-plot-plot all the time. Maybe the development of the characters is the whole point of the exercise. This show hasn't won critical plaudits because of the cool plots, but because of the implict allegory combined with complex characterization.  As Faulkner said, the only stories really worth telling are those about, "the human heart in conflict with itself."

No surprise that the characters are in the forefront, again. If I had a guess, I think these flashbacks are providing us the truest picture of where these characters were before the Cylon attack, so that we can compare to where they are (and where they're going to be) at the end of the series. And that's how it ought to be, I think, for the closing episode to the series.

Edited by Ran, 15 March 2009 - 07:23 AM.

[Werthead]

EHK for a True GOP, on Mar 15 2009, 03.24, said:

How are they not expected to die? They're sending one crippled battlestar into the heart of enemy territory. A place with one entrance, exit, and upon which all guns are trained. Adama flat out said he expected it to be a one way ticket. Are they gonna have raptors enough to load most every volunteer when they abandon ship? If so, well shit, you're risking even more essential resources. Raptor's don't grow on trees. Humanity can spare a thousand. But not this thousand. The entire military and civilian leadership is gonna be on this mission. The best pilots. Most of the marines (saw alot of them crossing that line). Undoubtedly many techs, mechanics, etc with important, even indispensable skills. They are taking the best of what's left of the species and sending them to their likely death. That is not sensible. And its utterly ridiculous that noone raised an objection to it.

We probably need to see what Adama's plan is before totally condemning it. Remember this is the guy who came up with the atmo-drop, so I'm assuming he has more of a plan in mind than just sacrificing the ship.

Also, there's nothing to stop the Raptors and Heavy Raiders jumping out whilst inside the Colony or anywhere else. Galactica needs to jump into that point otherwise the tidal forces will destroy it. The same is not true of the other ships, and they can jump out of the system from anywhere nearby (like Racetrack and Skulls' Raptor did).

I'm also going to assume that the fact that  Sam 'redeye' Anders is on board is going to be significant. If they can remove the inhibitors from Cavil's Cylons like Natalie did, the balance of military power could change very quickly indeed.

TrackerNeil, on Mar 15 2009, 05.25, said:

Not a dozen. One basestar was nuked at Kobol, at least one of two was destroyed in the Battle of the Resurrection Ship, and another two were taken out at New Caprica by Pegasus' suicide run. A fifth basestar was infected by the probe virus and self-destructed, bringing the total to five, or six if two basestars were destroyed with the resurrection ship. I expect a few more were destroyed during the civil war, not including the rebel basestar, which for Cavil is as good as (or worse than) a casualty, but we can only guess at that number. So five (or possibly six) destroyed plus one desertion.

However, I agree that there were likely not very many basestars to begin with, given that Cavil didn't have as much time to build a war machine as the Colonials. We know there were 120 battlestars in the fleet at the time of the holocaust, the result of the economy of tens of billions of people over forty years. I'd be surprised to hear the Cylons, less numerous and with a less established infrastructure, started out with half that many.

Another two basestars were destroyed when the Resurrection Hub exploded (you see them vapourising in the blast). Two more were critically damaged (one in The Captain's Hand and the first one Pegasus fires on in Exodus Part II), neither of which looked particularly healthy afterwards. The Guardian Basestar was destroyed in Razor, but granted, that doesn't appear to have been part of Cavil's fleet. Discounting that, that brings the total to seven definitely destroyed and three more crippled but possibly repairable (and a lot of people assume the first basestar that Pegasus attacked in Exodus was destroyed as well due to the size of the explosions afflicting it; only three basestars appear in the subsequent combat scenes).

[EHK for Darwin]

Ran, on Mar 15 2009, 07.13, said:

I think the fact that this is really a long, three hour episode broken into two parts perhaps explains some of the oddities. That said, I remain constantly amazed by the reactions some people have at storytelling that doesn't hammer plot-plot-plot all the time. Maybe the development of the characters is the whole point of the exercise. This show hasn't won critical plaudits because of the cool plots, but because of the implict allegory combined with complex characterization.  As Faulkner said, the only stories really worth telling are those about, "the human heart in conflict with itself."

No surprise that the characters are in the forefront, again. If I had a guess, I think these flashbacks are providing us the truest picture of where these characters were before the Cylon attack, so that we can compare to where they are (and where they're going to be) at the end of the series. And that's how it ought to be, I think, for the closing episode to the series.

Eh? A bit of a mischaracterization of the opposition here. We're (or at least I'm) not pissed that it doesn't focus entirely on the plot all the time, but that it routinely neglects the plot in favor of so-called character scenes that are often redundant, excessive, and sometimes even pointless. If you can fit that shit in while maintaining a cohesive plot, properly developed with a strong foundation, fine. But they don't. They skip things that most sensible viewers would think is pretty essential to telling the story. Rush through things that demand to be more fully developed. And its not like they're consistent with their characterizations in the first place. They've been more than willing to alter how a character should (according to what we know about them) react to serve the particular plot twist of the moment. Lee is a regular victim of this schizophrenic character assassination via convenience.

This episode was one of the most glaring offenders. 40 minutes spent on minutia and flashbacks with 3 minutes devoted to the actual main plot of the finale that largely came out of nowhere and could not stand a rational examination because it was not properly developed in the least. And as a send off to the entire series as a whole its doubly disappointing for many of the reasons the Sci-fi board poster pointed out in a rather amusing fashion. This shit is getting really self-important and self-indulgent.

[EHK for Darwin]

Werthead, on Mar 15 2009, 08.26, said:

We probably need to see what Adama's plan is before totally condemning it. Remember this is the guy who came up with the atmo-drop, so I'm assuming he has more of a plan in mind than just sacrificing the ship.

Do we really need to hear the plan to think this might not be a good idea? None of the 'tape-line volunteers' knew the plan, yet noone on either side of the tape raised objections. They just quietly went along with what was described up front as a suicide mission. I find this ridiculous.

[Werthead]

EHK for a True GOP, on Mar 15 2009, 14.05, said:

This episode was one of the most glaring offenders.

I see where you are coming from, but 'this episode' was never supposed to exist by itself. Originally it was one two-hour finale, episodes 419 and 420. Then they wrote and filmed so much stuff they extended it to three (419 and 420/421) but decided not to screen the three hours together for reasons never adequately explained (since next week Sci-Fi are showing all of Season 4.5 in one uninterrupted block from the afternoon through to the end of the finale). These first 44 minutes were never supposed to function by themselves as a single coherent episode. That's why it just stops almost mid-scene. If they'd planned from the start for it to be an episode by itself, it may have been different (or at the very least had a proper ending).

Also, Doc Sherman Cottle? Interesting.

Edited by Werthead, 15 March 2009 - 11:00 AM.

[Jon AS]

Werthead said:

I see where you are coming from, but 'this  episode' was never supposed to exist by itself. Originally it was one  two-hour finale, episodes 419 and 420. Then they wrote and filmed so  much stuff they extended it to three (419 and 420/421) but decided not  to screen the three hours together for reasons never adequately  explained (since next week Sci-Fi are showing all of Season 4.5 in one  uninterrupted block from the afternoon through to the end of the  finale). These first 44 minutes were never supposed to function by  themselves as a single coherent episode. That's why it just stops  almost mid-scene. If they'd planned from the start for it to be an  episode by itself, it may have been different (or at the very least had  a proper ending).

This is something that really annoys me about the BSG writers. In all the years they've been on the air, they've not come to grips with the fact that they have 40 odd minutes every week to tell their story. It may not be nice for an artist to be confined thus, but that's what they signed on for. Yet several times per season we got episodes that were incomplete because they couldn't make it work within the alloted time for whatever reason. That's extremely unprofessional IMO, and saying "the extended version on the DVD will clear everything up" is not a valid excuse.

[EHK for Darwin]

Werthead, on Mar 15 2009, 10.23, said:

I see where you are coming from, but 'this episode' was never supposed to exist by itself. Originally it was one two-hour finale, episodes 419 and 420. Then they wrote and filmed so much stuff they extended it to three (419 and 420/421) but decided not to screen the three hours together for reasons never adequately explained (since next week Sci-Fi are showing all of Season 4.5 in one uninterrupted block from the afternoon through to the end of the finale). These first 44 minutes were never supposed to function by themselves as a single coherent episode. That's why it just stops almost mid-scene. If they'd planned from the start for it to be an episode by itself, it may have been different (or at the very least had a proper ending).

Also, Doc Sherman Cottle? Interesting.

Maybe next week will come around and change my mind, but this development and support needed to happen before the line in the sand + speech moment. And I thought they had ample time to do it. But they chose to spend that time with flashbacks that answered questions that noone was asking. Yeah they were interesting enough character bits, but as I said when they pulled the piano shit, fine a season ago or so, a bit of a waste of limited screen time when you have a few hours of the ENTIRE show left. Its not like these characters haven't been sufficiently fleshed out in the 5 year run. Its not like there's any great internal mysteries about them (from a character standpoint, not from a 'what really happened to starbuck' perspective) that demand answers. They are not going to be any less rich and complex without these scenes. Quite frankly, I don't see why they were necessary. Or at the very least, they struck me as infinitely less important than actually fleshing out the main plot of the episode/finale in a convincing enough manner.

But who knows, maybe they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat next week that makes it all fit fine. I doubt it of course. I fully expect them to disregard all of the shit in this episode that had me raising my eyebrow to the ceiling. I doubt they even regard those issues as a problem. But Caprica? I can almost guarantee we're gonna see a bunch more of that.

[Shryke]

Werthead, on Mar 15 2009, 11.23, said:

I see where you are coming from, but 'this episode' was never supposed to exist by itself. Originally it was one two-hour finale, episodes 419 and 420. Then they wrote and filmed so much stuff they extended it to three (419 and 420/421) but decided not to screen the three hours together for reasons never adequately explained (since next week Sci-Fi are showing all of Season 4.5 in one uninterrupted block from the afternoon through to the end of the finale). These first 44 minutes were never supposed to function by themselves as a single coherent episode. That's why it just stops almost mid-scene. If they'd planned from the start for it to be an episode by itself, it may have been different (or at the very least had a proper ending).

Also, Doc Sherman Cottle? Interesting.

Exactly. You watched 1/3rd of an episode. Don't complain that some stuff wasn't resolved.

And I'm thinking the flashbacks are gonna be like what Ran was suggesting. It's a Before/After thing. Here's how these people started, and here's how they are now.

[kalbear]

If they had just taken those vignettes and put them in eps along the way...well, they'd have Lost. But at least it wouldn't have sucked as much as this ep did.

Seriously. It was really pretty in HD, but just horrible. And I still don't know why they'd allow the BSG, its fighters, and most importantly some of the best trained people in the universe to go away. Idiocy.