Another topic thread for you folks: at BATTLESTAR's end, Baltar, Caprica Six, and their "Head" dopplegangers were explained...sort of. What did you think of these revelations? Are we seeing angels? Demons? Projections? Hallucinations? God(s)? Aliens?
I'd like to quote BSG/CAPRICA writer/producer Jane Espenson here, from a Q&A she did at Boston Globe's Viewer Discretion blog earlier today:
Question: Starbuck an Angel??? Really???
Espenson: I'm going to answer re Starbuck and the "head" people, too. Well, here's how I always saw it. If someone from a far-advanced culture somewhere in the universe took an interest in humanity, isn't it possible that with their advanced tech that they could have abilities that would seem to us miraculous. Maybe we'd think of them as "Angels." Maybe they're the whole reason we have a myth of "Angels." But that's just me. The great thing about great novels (or tv series) is that some things are left open to your own philosophical solutions.
...That final ending was an image that Ron had in his head since Season One, which amazes me. He always felt that the show ended with a Six and a Baltar walking through Times Square.
Question: I was wondering if the angel Baltar in Times Square was actually Lucifer.
Espenson: I can see that -- there is something very much like the ol' bar bet about Job going on there, isn't there? There's something very appealing to me about Head Baltar having been the original source for the Lucifer character.
Question: ...I'm still a bit stuck on the Kara Thrace story...I don't make the conection on how she was the "Harbinger of Death" - it would seem that she was quite the opposite. Can you elaborate?
Espenson: I took that to be a reference to the fact that she led us to the place at which (pure) humanity ends -- from here on out, what we call human has Cylon DNA in it.
23 comments:
Well, in the original series were the Ships of Light, populated by powerful beings who helped the original Galactica on their path.
So, it's possible that something similar was at work in this BSG.
So, I'd say it's an advanced intelligence, or AI system that transcended normal boundaries of space and time. It would be that force that was behind the head characters, the supernova at the Algae planet, the Watchtower song, and the resurrection of Kara Thrace so she could fulfill her mission.
Could they have spelled it out in some concrete fashion? Sure, yeah. But, then we would have all this fun speculating about it...
The interview that you posted pretty much covers it, doesn't it? I applaud RDM and company for making such a bold decision to leave this aspect of the show open to interpretation. To those who say that they "took the easy way out", I respectfully disagree. It' was terribly risky.
The safe thing to do would have been to spell everything out clearly for the viewer so that no-one would be alienated or left-behind - appealing to the lowest common denominator. I don't say this in condescension to viewers who disliked this aspect of the show. It was hard for me to swallow, too. I'm merely highlighting a difference in preferences. The writers made a choice that was clearly not the most popular one. Viewers generally want answers, not more questions.
I posted weeks ago that I had hoped that the finale would upset me so that I would initially reject it but later accept it after much thought. I wanted to be challenged, and that's what happened. I'm still wrestling with it, and that pleases me.
There was a movie that came out years ago called "Naked. I rented it, watched it, and hated it. When it was done, I turned it off, went to bed, and laid there all night thinking about how much I hated it. It tormented me.
I watched it again the next night ;-)
Even die-hard fans of TOS have to acknowledge that the BSG story is deeply religious. The colonials even battled Lucifer in TOS, remember? RDM and company didn't necessarily take that tack, though. They simply allowed the story to be interpreted in a religious context. The finale and the significant events that led up to it can be interpreted in an areligious context as well.
It's a gift from a writer to leave something to the viewer's imagination. I'm grateful. Think of how horrible any frank depiction of either or any interpretation would have been. What if Lee looked up to the sky and saw Kara blowing him a kiss out the window of an alien craft slowly ascending out to space? Then, she is joined by one of the aliens from Close Encounters, who puts his arm around her shoulder, and they both wave goodbye to him as the ship disappears into the distance?
Alright, I'm teasing. Really, though: Critics haven't really offered any alternatives. They've only shared their dissatisfaction. I'm interested to hear what a better ending could have been.
Peace,
GB
About the "Times Square" scene: there was merely clever editing done. Yes, there are shots of the real Times Square in NYC, but as Baltar and Six walk away from the camera, the street sign, which is *clearly* not a New York City sign, says "Dunsmuir" - which is in Vancouver.
I'm surprised the editors missed this.
I can't resist. This discussion reminds me of a great bit Carlin did about angels years ago. Rated R for language. Enjoy.
Given that one goal of the show was gritty realism, and at one point Gaeta confesses that the odds against them all converging at the algae planet just as it was about to nova are (no pun intended) astronomical, it is curious that Moore chose not to show, nor had his characters mention the glaring lack of any other intelligent lifeforms on their trans-galactic journey (or possibly inter-galactica journey) when the simple math tells us there should be thousands in any path of that distance traversed. It would have been a natural fit to pull from the TOS and use the Ship of Lights. They could have appeared momentarily or even only in an Opera House vision and it could have tied things up more neatly than Moore's "open" ending. One line could have done it all, say when D'Anna had her vision she is told, "We have watched your race repeatedly self-destruct and we wish to help you break the feedback loop." A lot more grounded in the canon of the original show and the context of Moore's own show.
@ radii
Given that one goal of the show was gritty realism, and at one point Gaeta confesses that the odds against them all converging at the algae planet just as it was about to nova are (no pun intended) astronomical, it is curious that Moore chose not to show, nor had his characters mention the glaring lack of any other intelligent lifeforms on their trans-galactic journey (or possibly inter-galactica journey) when the simple math tells us there should be thousands in any path of that distance traversed.
I'm not really familiar with this math, so I can't speak to it. I seem to remember Sagan talking about these probabilities, though. How many lifeforms should they have encountered? Are you saying that the series would have been more palatable to you if the colonials had encountered at least one other life form (well, aside from algae - that is a lifeform, right?), much like TOS?
It would have been a natural fit to pull from the TOS and use the Ship of Lights. They could have appeared momentarily or even only in an Opera House vision and it could have tied things up more neatly than Moore's "open" ending.
You're right. Your version of the end would have been more tidy.
One line could have done it all, say when D'Anna had her vision she is told, "We have watched your race repeatedly self-destruct and we wish to help you break the feedback loop." A lot more grounded in the canon of the original show and the context of Moore's own show.
I have a few minor objections here.
1.The message you described was delivered multiple times throughout the series. You're right, though: It didn't come from the mouth of the prime mover himself; it came from his delegates.
2. The production of this series was not predicated on the fidelity to TOS. RDM and company openly kept and discarded elements of TOS, as they saw fit, to create their own version of this story. I only referred to TOS to make the point that this series was not as overtly religious in tone, which I though would have some appeal to the areligious viewers who are also fans of TOS, that's all.
3. The context of Moore's own show was always mystical. Granted, within that context, the style of the show was always cinéma vérité. Answers, though, were rarely given to the viewer without being embedded in mysteries, visions, puzzles, and prophecies. I respectfully disagree with you on this one.
GB
At first I was hoping for a ship of lights solution for Starbuck (and the head people). But in the end, I like the way it ended, Baltar's CIC speech did link things together. While it didn't give a 100% here is what everthing thing is, it did give a base for an answer.
Didn't Moore give an answer for Starbuck being the Harbinger of Death in one of the podcasts? Basically it was because she found the rebel ship, the rebels gave them the hub, and because the hub was destroyed, she brought death to the cylons where before they had none.
Well I never thought I'd EVER be referencing this on Sitrep, but here goes. I heard this exchange the other night on another TV show, SAVING GRACE, and a light went off for me:
Earl: "You thinkin about converting to Hinduism?"
Grace: "Maybe..."
Earl: "Well, Brahman comes from the verb brh. In Sanskrit, "to grow." Brahman is the supreme cosmic spirit - eternal, genderless, all-knowing, all-present, with unlimited power. And the Mundaka Upanishad..."
Grace: "Come on Earl...what the.."
Earl: "The Upanishads are sacred Hindu scriptures, the Mundaku Upanishad says Brahman is infinite. That the infinite proceeds from infinite. Then through knowledge, realizing the infinitude of the infinite, it remains as infinite alone."
That last bit resonated for me with the final BSG Six/Baltar scene which has many scratching their heads or rolling their eyes. Art attempting to make sense of the infinite...
I found the finale to be a really mixed bag.
On one hand you get the massive battle above the colony and the eventual fate of humanity and the Cylons- which is good, then you have the producers' refusal to answer any of the questions posed throughout the entire series- not so good.
I was left with a very hollow feeling about the whole series, It seemed to me as if the team behind such a great series got so wrapped up in the story and the metaphysical discussion they had developed that they forgot they would actually need to answer the questions!
Virtual Baltar and Six were angels or agents of God- what? Why?
Starbuck was an angel bought back to guide the humans and Cylons to a new Earth which suddenly appeared- why?
Too many unanswered questions and as a viewer I shouldn't have to settle for 'well it's up to the viewer to make their own mind up', as producers, it should be their job to finish the story.
For me, BSG will now always be about the ups and downs of the journey, not the poorly thought-out ending.
Personally, I don't mind ambiguity, in fact I think it's great. But that's not what they did. Baltar named his visions "angels." Head!Baltar said, "he doesn't like to be called that" meaning it WAS God, he just didn't like the moniker.
I would have liked even one line that actually gave us ambiguity, say for instance during Baltar's speech he says, "I see beings - are they angels, devils, aliens, I don't know, but I do see them and I believe in what they tell me" rather than deliberately saying "angels." I mean the dude was a scientist!
It's all well & good to have Jane Espenson come along later and say, "well, they could just as easily have been aliens" but that needed to be in the show.
@chavy: Everything *doesn't* need to be in the show. Espenson has her own interpretation, per above, just as I do, and you do, etc...You hear Baltar say "angels" and you interpret that in your own way.
Angels, in a sci-fi story? Not always what they seem...
I liked the finale. But I also didn't like it. I've watched it three times now. I found it emotionally satisfying (if a little bit sentimental) but I wonder if they broke with the conceit of the
show---to make a "naturalistic" Sci Fi show. RDM always said he wanted
to make it feel real. That's why he gave the characters bullets and nukes instead of lasers and other "futuristic" weapons. And he dressed them up in "normal" clothes instead of funny space costumes and had them use corded phones and terms like wireless. It was a show about us---humans and our AI creations that turned against us.
So I wonder if they broke that conceit with the finale leaning heavily toward some "higher power" orchestrating events. I don't have a
problem with religion or with a show, even a Sci Fi show, dealing with religion. Battlestar dealt with it in great ways, but it never came down on one side or the other. It never gave us any easy answers. It's okay for some of the characters to believe in the religion or myth of their own society--Starbuck was always a believer in the Gods--but RDM went past that in the finale and wanted the viewers to believe in it. I don't know yet how I feel about that.
If RDM isn't asking us to believe in a God or Gods, then isn't he
asking us to believe in some natural force in the cosmos that
occasionally becomes directly involved in human/cylon affairs? And
wasn't RDM implying that this powerful natural cosmic force is
intelligent? And isn't that a worn-out idea that belongs on Star Trek, not Battlestar Galactica?
Also, in response to Jane Espenson's the head characters could be super advanced aliens--the conceit of the show was also that there would be no aliens on Battlestar. I believe that was in the show's bible.
I'm happy to see that Baltar is RDM's favorite. Mine too! Only major criticism I have of RDM and the "angels" is the way they included RDM in that final scene. A little too obvious IMO. Should've hid him a bit more. He's just right there--POW--scanning a Nat'l Geographic. Step away from the camera, Ron.
Yeah. It's not so much that there is a lot of discussion about the show and how it ended. It's just that so many (in my opinion) appear to be apologizing for it. I respect Ms Espenson's take, but that still doesn't make it a good ending to a great show. It wasn't.
Same with the previous post about the Renuciation of Technology (which I loved).
For example:No explanation of the almost 4 years in the making Starbuck/Leoben relationship? Should I wait for God to get around to that or will I learn about that in "The Plan"? With only 2 hours and still many other dangling plot lines I'll probably get the answer from God first.
Excellent show overall. Art, even.
Bad ending.
simple math tells us there should be thousands (of intelligent lifeforms) in any path of that distance traversed.
Really, you know the odds of life developping on planets that could potentially support it? Could you share this 'simple math' with us?
Anyway, I love most of the ending. Leaving it a little open like they did allows us to keep speculating, keep looking for answers ourselves. I suspect that that is far preferable to if they had explained every little detail.
Kara: She could have been a sort of head entity since she reappeared. We have seen head entities interacting with the physical world on several occaisions. You can see head Six physically hold Baltar up on more than one occaision. She could have been brought back by 'God' to fullfil her destiny as a sort of Angel, but without her knowing she was an Angel. Just before she jumps the ship, when they replay Leoben calling her an Angel, the word 'angel' is repeated. So she's returned as an Angel to complete her destiny, then taken over to the otherside.
God: Could be anything. Could have a rational explaination. Could be a super-advanced AI that has developped over several cycles of 'all this has happened before, and all this will happen again'.
The Music: I guess it's just something that a select few 'hear' at certain times and places in the Universe. Anders heard it and played it. Kara's Dad heard it. Hera, the rest of the Fina Five, then later on Bob Dylan.
Still lots to think about though, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
@Simon
There is something known as the Drake equation
Here's a link to SETI's page on the subject and if you use their inputs already loaded it predicts 1000 advanced communicating civilization.
Some more research led me to a range of 600,000 to 1 for intelligent communicating civilizations, and if we take average of 300,000 and divide it by say .08% for the estimated distance the Fleet traveled within the Milky way, they potentially could have made contact with as many as 200 races.
Yet we saw evidence of none ... yet we got angels and an "IT doesn't like that name" god.
I get it, it's a show, they made stuff up. But they used science where it suited them and then just abandoned it when it didn't suit them - at the end when they'd written themselves into a corner.
Logan is exactly right - they should have gone with canon and had the Ship of Lights alien race ... it would have tied it up in a more satisfying way
It doesn't bother me that the head characters remained unexplained or that Baltar thought they were angels. Didn't Anders, in his brief period of lucidity, say the 13th tribe cylons had differing explanations for the pre-apocalyptic messengers they saw -- intepretations including, but not limited to, angels? Works for me.
What frankly doesn't make sense to me about these "angels" is why they lavished so much time and attention on Baltar at all (other than for our considerable entertainment). If memory serves, Caprica's "head Baltar" pushed her to re-evaluate the whole genocide thing, so that served a significant purpose in the survival of the human race. But with Baltar, it seems the agenda was (a) to get him and Caprica to bring Hera to the CIC at the right moment, and (b) for him to be primed to make a pivotal speech that would bring the warring sides together. But then it all fell apart when Tyrol strangled Tory, and the destiny of the human and cylon races was accomplished entirely without Baltar or Caprica; at that point they were pretty much just along for the ride. Am I missing something? Did Baltar's Head Six play a role that proved ultimately constructive and pivotal?
@ Radii
First, let me say that I respect your point of view here. However, I'm surprised that you held in with the show for this long. You knew from the outset that there were not going to be any alien encounters in this series. Moreover, the fleet would have had to encounter 200 races before you were satisfied with the show. That's a pretty tall order. Why didn't you walk away after the mini-series?
It's interesting that you are using these statistics to support that the colonials *should* have encountered other life-forms. Any statistical calculation, just like what you shared with us, only has a certain predictive value. Despite the chances of something happening, no matter how probable it may be, it doesn't mean that it will happen. As Douglas Adams once wrote, "Space is big."
Mind you, they weren't *looking* around for any other life-forms, either. They were running for their lives. There was no sight-seeing. They stopped as needed. Also, the fleet did not traverse across the galaxy like they were driving on a highway. They erratically jumped from here to there, trying to find targeted destinations. To make the kind of encounter you describe, they would have had to have crashed into another race of space-traveling folks, like a car accident in the middle of nowhere.
I don't need to belabor the point. You get it. You've conflated two arguments here: 1) The ending is disappointing because the natures of certain aspects of the show were not explicitly explained to the viewer, either visually or narratively. 2) RDM and company broke a code of science fiction by not including aliens. You're right, then: A satisfying finale for you would have included the appearance of an alien who explained all of the mysteries to the characters.
I didn't see where Logan said that the Ship of Lights should have been included in this series. However, there could have been a Ship of Lights - you may just not have seen it.
OK, now that last part was supposed to give you goose bumps ;-)
@GB, No Radii is right, in my comment above (the first comment in this thread) I certainly think it might have been useful for RDM to use the Ship of Lights. Of course, he didn't have to lift it exactly as it was in the old show, he could have adapted the basic idea as he did with Pegasus.
Yes, in the way he solves these issues now, it's left to interpretation.
Perhaps that's more interesting a way to go, and certainly it inspires these debates and discussions.
I'm just saying that the original show had a "higher power" that was explained within SF themes of "parental aliens" who guided our path. (As with the First Ones on Babylon 5, for example.)
He simply could have explained that the Head Characters were representatives of the Ships of Light/Lords of Kobol. RDM already established on the show that the Lords of Kobol lived with mankind on Kobol. The Lords objected to mankind creating the first cylons. So, the 12 tribes went to the colonies, and the 13th went to Cylon Earth.
All he had to do was bring the Lords back into the picture directly, and he could have shown them raising Kara from the dead, and giving her a new viper to conclude her mission.
He could have also used them for a backstory wherein the Lords of Kobol could have established human life on Kobol by having taken some humans from our Earth sometime in the early history of earth's hominids.
Thus, it would have had a circular story, of the humans form the colonies and the final 5 Cylons from their earth, returning to the REAL ancestral home of human beings, our earth.
Brad Ideas has a similar thought.
RDM wouldn't have even needed to explain if the Lords of Kobol were gods, advanced Cyborg AI, or aliens, it still could have been left vague.
I just think the story could have benefited from a greater personification of these "angels" or godlike entities than just the head apparitions of Six and Baltar, who's last line is "Silly me. Silly me."
Maybe his last night should have been:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I wish Logan had written the ending.
Personally, I didn't need to see aliens GeneralBoy, I was merely making the point they managed to find angels-on-my-Battlestar and "god" which science says we shouldn't find but did not find aliens that the law of averages says they probably should have at least found evidence for.
What ultimately matters for us fans is what is compelling viewing, and with so much canon left gathering dust it seemed so strange for Moore to take the direction he did - and it proved unsatisfying for many. As Logan has pointed out, Beings of Light or Lords of Kobol could have suited beautifully the needs of the story without shifting the focus entirely to them ... and it would have felt more natural coming from the canon and backstory.
If Moore's ending had proven satisfying, none of us would be chewing the fat over all this.
@Eric: regarding InfiniteSix's effects on Human Baltar...you seem to be forgetting the events of the first two seasons of the show! Go back and watch it again -- the Six "in Baltar's head" pushes him towards almost every major action he takes. Her running commentary of secrets, ideas, and suggestions has massive impact on the RTF. If I remember correctly, there are only a few big decisions Baltar DOESN'T make without her. Two I recall right now are, encouraging Boomer to shoot herself and having the affair with Gina (and ultimately giving her that nuke).
Neither of those things worked out too well, did they.
One of the most compelling comments I've heard from TPTB this season is what Espenson says above: that RDM had the final image of Six and Baltar in Times Square in his head since the beginning.
A lot of folks seem to wish that the show had ended on Adama at Roslin's grave. That moment is moving and emotionally satisfying, but it would have been a pretty small ending. What RDM & Company chose as their actual ending made a lot more sense, putting a proper finish on the much larger allegories and layers that have been building on this show since the start.
@ ProgGrrl: Well, I was mostly just trying to sort through the culmination of the Opera House stuff as it ultimately played out in the finale, and I'm still unsure how he mattered as much in the "end times" events as much the angels suggested he did. Although, I've since realized that he did help keep Hera safe during the assault on the ship, so that is certainly something. And maybe Cavil's cease-fire, which Baltar's great speech helped to broker, did in fact save Galactica from destruction? (I really do want to figure this out, I'm not trying to be a hater).
Your point is well taken about the earlier parts of the show. In fact I recall that Head Six helped Baltar with the pivotal presidential campaign promise to settle the fleet on New Caprica. The disastrous outcome of that attempt to rebuild their society was probably necessary to prime the fleet for the idea of starting fresh on Earth 2.
Tighclops here
@ Radii - The Drake Equation isn't the best point of reference for proof of interstellar life. It's nothing more than a thought experiment - it has no actual basis in scientific fact and is a gross oversimplification of the factors necessary for life to emerge on a given planet.
From Wikipedia -
"Criticism of the Drake equation follows mostly from the observation that several terms in the equation are largely or entirely based on conjecture. Thus the equation cannot be used to draw firm conclusions of any kind. As T.J. Watson states:[13]
The Drake equation consists of a large number of probabilities multiplied together. Since each factor is guaranteed to be somewhere between 0 and 1, the result is also guaranteed to be a reasonable-looking number between 0 and 1. Unfortunately, all the probabilities are completely unknown, making the result worse than useless."
Likewise, in a 2003 lecture at Caltech, Michael Crichton, a science fiction author, stated:[14]
"The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. [...] As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless..."
It's a fun thing to play around with, but it shouldn't be used as if it is a fact in an arguement about the existence / nonexistence of extraterrestrial life.
And completely regardless of the Drake equation -
Tigh: The Galaxy's really a pretty barren place when you get right down to it. (paraphrased)
The number of habitable planets in the Battlestar Galactica galaxy seems to be incredibly low - this is why it is so vital that the fleet upgrade to Cylon FTL drives after Earth when they are searching for a habitable planet.
The Colonials Found a total of 6star systems that could support life (remind me if I am missing some) -
The Star System the Colonies was in
The New Caprica Star System
The Algae Planet Star System
The Earth Star System
The "New Earth" Star System.
The Kobol Star System
Three of those star system (The Colonies, Kobol, Earth) were already inhabitied by Colonials or Cylons.
One of those star systems ("New Earth") had "alien" life on it (albeit, life they could breed with).
Only two of the 6 habitable planets they encountered were completely uninhabited - the Algae Planets and New Caprica.
I'd say for the galaxy being a pretty "barren" place according to Tigh, the rate of planetary habitation is actually relatively high!
I'm not trying to insult you or criticize you - I'm just trying to point out that life is more abundant than it seems in the BSG-verse, and that basing expectation of seeing "aliens" in the series on the Drake equation isn't the best way to do things.
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