Earth

[Agent Richard07]

***THERE WILL BE SPOILERS UP TO "REVELATIONS"***







This is a momentous occasion. It's the culmination of nearly four years of watching BSG. It's so big it needs a thread of its own. The fleet has arrived at the 13th colony...

Earth.

Early in the show's run, I was totally fascinated with the Earth mythology and would often wonder what it would be like when we finally got to see it. Would it be our Earth? Would it be a BSG version of Earth? What kind of plans did Moore have for their ultimate destination? How would Earth fit into the grand scheme of things given that colonial society is nearly identical to our modern day western culture? I loved the mystery and the speculation. The whole Earth bit was a big part of what made the show great.

The subject of Earth was touched on every now and then in discussion, but ultimately, it took a back seat in a very long bus to a lot of other issues. Eventually I moved on as well, putting Earth in the back of my head, but not forgetting about it completely. Various episodes would touch on the 13th colony, including the show's eyebrow-raising season 3 cliffhanger, but everything felt like forward movement and nothing more. Excellent forward movement, and good teases, mind you, but not much else. Fastforward to a few months before season 4 and I found rumors about what we could expect to see. Supposedly the mid-season cliffhanger would have Starbuck and Leoben standing on a beach near some ruins or something like that, and it was supposed to be Earth. Again, it sounded mildly interesting, but not exciting. Then the last week or so brought us more spoilers and previews. We'd see the fleet and the Cylons set foot on an abandoned post-apocalyptic Earth. Finding out that so much was going to happen got me excited again. The long journey was over and I was going to see it.

Now I've seen the episode and WOW! The arrival was a grand thing to witness indeed, and now we have a lot of new questions along with a few of our existing ones. Thankfully the show will get a chance to explore them. No Voyager-style ending here. I think my biggest surprise is how quickly and suddenly we got to Earth. Just last week, it still felt so far away.

So there you have it. We're here. On Earth. Finally. ...and we're going to get something out of it. I can't wait.

I see that everyone has been totally into the Cylons and who the last one is, but how do you feel about the whole Earth angle on BSG? Are you excited about it? Is it a big deal to you? What did you expect to see?

[Spider]

I've always felt they'd find Earth in ruins because it fit the mood of the show, so I'm not really suprised. Loved how they did it though.

[Brent]

Well, i mean what else could they have done really, it was either going to be a young Earth or an old Earth, or present Earth, it seems to be an old Earth, so no shocks really. I am interested to see what happened to it though, how we met our end, it seems the colonials are the descendents of Earth people, and the final 5 were from Earth. I'm really curious about that viper and signal though, no one on Earth is there to build that new viper.

I like the Earth angle, and can't wait to see where it goes.

[Frontier]

I am very fascinated by it. I really have so many questions. Is this our Earth post-apocalypse? Is it earth of the far distant past, post-apocalypse? Will the Colonials settle there?

...Is it even Earth?

I noticed that they never really gave us a clear shot of any of the land masses from orbit. My only thought is that, maybe, this isn't really Earth.

Next year will be really interesting.

[Brent]

That is an interesting theory, maybe it isn't Earth at all, maybe its the homeplanet of the final 5? Hrmmmm

[Admiral Buzzkill]

As far as I could tell, no green was visible in any of the orbital shots - and of course, there sure was none in the scenes on the surface.

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I wonder what happened? I think that the last Cylon, the Cylon God, HeadSix, whoever brought Kara back, are all one in the same... and that person/force is EEEVIL and responsibile for wiping out mankind. That force destroyed Earth, and that force created the "skinjobs" and compelled them to try and wipe out the 12 colonies.

[David cgc]

While they didn't show any continents, the coloration and angles fairly screamed out "This is Earth!" by evoking all the orbital photos we're so used to seeing (it was the perfect shade of blue). While that could just be a masterwork of misdirection, I think it would just be cheap, after giving us the false rise, to have a false fall to go with it. I'm sure they'll find Earth isn't as bad as it looks at first glance, or that another place is the nearby Promised Land, but to give us that sucker punch, and then reveal it was a false Earth? I don't like it.

[Agent Richard07]

Frontier wrote:

---

...Is it even Earth?

I noticed that they never really gave us a clear shot of any of the land masses from orbit. My only thought is that, maybe, this isn't really Earth.

Through all my excitement I noticed the same thing. I was looking for a recognizable landmass, but saw nothing.

[Mr. Adventure]

Whatever the answer is I think this IS Earth. It would be really hard to swallow a "fake" and now we have to find Earth again.

[TechnoBoY]

That broken bridge shot made me think of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Just me?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I think they may remain cagey about showing us a recognizable globe - not because this is a "red herring planet" and they haven't found really found "Earth" yet, but to maintain some ambiguity about whether what they call "Earth" actually is our Earth.

[Brent]

TechnoBoY wrote:

---

That broken bridge shot made me think of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Just me?

How did you know it was a bridge? I couldn't make heads or tails of aything, i even paused it and looked closely for a few minutes

[bigdaddy]

It was "our" Earth, they showed what was left of some bridge in NYC. If you can't see that you haven't watched enough movies or need glasses, or both.

I loved how they did it, they all partied and such, the fleet in orbit as the sun rose, and then landing. Then the screen goes black and they are all sad, it was perfect, I loved it.

And I don't think this is Earth Earth, I think they need the final cylon in order to open something, much like what was needed with the arrow and the temple on Kobol or whatever the planet was called.

[jep316]

We didn't see the Moon either...that would be a dead give away if it's the real Earth or not..at the end of last season when Earth was shown the Moon was there..so maybe that's a clue of what this Planet really is.