Is Religion Killing Good Sci-Fi Shows? [minimal politics]
- Thread starter jefferiestubes8
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All those guys named Adam don't seem to mind; but, indeed, a divinely powerful being should be referred to by a name specific to itself, like Baal or Zeus.
Just kidding, but it's a fair point. A omnipotent god probably wouldn't need a name at all, since the point of names is identification and definition, and also since you can't have another omnipotence--and a number of people, from Spinoza to Cauvin, have argued persuasively that you can't logically even have another regular potence with a true omni-potence running the show, but that's another discussion--why bother with a name at all? If it, the deity, does have to bother dealing with the little people, description is probably sufficient: Lord, Skyfather, Change, God.
Of course, BSGod isn't omnipotent. It's semipotent at best, that's why all it can do is dick around and change things in small ways, instead of (as you would expect a powerful objective phenomenon to do) intervene directly and just give the Colonials the coordinates for Earth five minutes after Caprica eats it, atomically speaking.
I have no idea about Lost, so do not cite Lost. Never watched a single episode. Not out of any particular grudge, mind, but as a consequence I have no opinion on the show.
Although stj reminded me of the matter-antimatter reactor of genre par excellence, Signs. Signs had a ending slightly worse than BSG's, actually, but at least managed to waste about eighty fewer hours of your life getting there.
Dude, check this. There was some mystical stuff going on. I'm not arguing that it wasn't. It's a trivial claim that can be proved by nothing more substantial than watching "Daybreak." I'm arguing that these elements were concealed until very late in show, and used at nearly M. Night Shyamalan levels of ineptitude when they were revealed.
The problem with melding science fiction and mysticism is that the fantastic can be always be explained in science fiction.
Compare BSG to Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's Ladder could have been a science fiction film; indeed, if you interpret it in a strictly rationalist manner, it is, even at the end.
Both BSG and Jacob's Ladder initially offer potential rationalist outs for audiences who choose to take them; in fact, Jacob's Ladder is far more forgiving, because (again) the story is better crafted. In any event, in BSG, the part of the psychosis-inducing war drug imbibed by Jacob Singer is played by Cylon technology. Where in Jacob's Ladder, it's possible that Jacob is simply going crazy, in BSG it is explicit that many people are secret Cylons, and it is even strongly implied that everyone may in fact be a Cylon from a previous generation (implied by what, you ask? by the physical indistuishability, despite obvious physical distinguishability; and by the "has happened before, will happen again" crap). In any event, when characters are capable of projecting (the VR tech, potentially explaining visions), processing vast amounts of information (Hybrids, to a degree regular Cylons, particularly Leoben, potentially explaining "prophecies"--and we have those ourselves, it's called "abstract thought") and downloading (potentially explaining Kara's resurrection).
And, yeah, it's partly sour grapes, because the ending I constructed in my head is not the ending I got (it sort of is, given that I do my best to imagine I'm in an alternate reality where the writer's strike went on another year). So what if the ending I constructed in my head actually made sense (or at least somewhat more sense); I get that it's not the ending, and that it is of substantial importance only to me.
But back to the comparison to Jacob's Ladder: there, the mystical elements are entirely subjective, in Jacob's head; in BSG, the mystical elements are literal constructions with objective reality, and potentially explicable in terms of the show's science right up until the last couple of minutes Starbuck is on screen, where it is revealed she is a physical manifestation of the BSGod's will.
That is the difference, and it's simply unfair to the viewer. It leaves too many questions which have no satisfactory answers (why would BSGod use Zombie Starbuck as an instrument, yet give it no more than a smattering of information it needs to complete its task?; how does a spectre physically interact with its environment?). In that light, it is nothing more than a deus ex machina. And it's a deus ex machina that doesn't even do the work of a deus ex machina, which is to resolve questions with finality, no matter how unsatisfyingly it does so.
And don't even say that a god out of a machine that doesn't work is appropriate for a show about robots who act like below-average children. That would just be cruel.
stonester1 said:
"Unanswerable" is not, strictly, the same thing as merely "unanswered." Those are just called "plot holes," and one of things I hate about BSG is that it had the nerve to create giant plot holes because it was being written season by season and maybe even week by week and then think those plot holes were filled because they invoked the lamest divine intervention since Jaoquim Phoenix hit the Martian Manhunter with a baseball bat. Or that part in the Iliad where Aeneas is teleported to safety by his mommy. I leave it up to the reader to choose the sophistication level of the cultural reference.
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On the distinction between "plot holes" and "unexplained" [and thus the need to add mystical elements]:
I think that having the same expectations of continuity and consistency of vision for a multiseason TV series and a standalone movie is unrealistic. Whether we like it or not, the realities of ratings pressures, degree of control exerted by suits, the inertia of a successful show, and even vagaries like the writers' strike and its effect on shows like Lost and Heroes, means that there are going to be holes in nearly every TV show. The Lost writers mentioned that they felt as if they were drifting before they got ABC to give in and name an end date.
I'm not giving TV shows a pass for arc problems, but I do think there are some structural pressures built in... not all of the unexplained things are due to shoddy writing.
When the same thing happens in a movie, fire away!
I think that having the same expectations of continuity and consistency of vision for a multiseason TV series and a standalone movie is unrealistic. Whether we like it or not, the realities of ratings pressures, degree of control exerted by suits, the inertia of a successful show, and even vagaries like the writers' strike and its effect on shows like Lost and Heroes, means that there are going to be holes in nearly every TV show. The Lost writers mentioned that they felt as if they were drifting before they got ABC to give in and name an end date.
I'm not giving TV shows a pass for arc problems, but I do think there are some structural pressures built in... not all of the unexplained things are due to shoddy writing.
When the same thing happens in a movie, fire away!
You have articulated this far better than I could. This made a mockery of sitting through hours and hours of BSG expecting a satisfying conclusion.
Completely satisfying to me. I loved it.
LOVED the mystical elements. They weren't "tacked on", they were there from the beginning and worked perfectly, in my view.
All these "why" questions...why not? There are answers...for example "Zombie Starbuck". She DID have the information she needed to complete the quest. And the quest was not just about humanity, it was for her, too. Her own personal journey.
These and other questions/answers could be arrived at with a little thought, and don't need to be spelled out. They don't amount to "plot holes".
Unless you are one of these types who need all the "answers" in a connect-the-dots fashion.
I personally don't.
LOVED the mystical elements. They weren't "tacked on", they were there from the beginning and worked perfectly, in my view.
All these "why" questions...why not? There are answers...for example "Zombie Starbuck". She DID have the information she needed to complete the quest. And the quest was not just about humanity, it was for her, too. Her own personal journey.
These and other questions/answers could be arrived at with a little thought, and don't need to be spelled out. They don't amount to "plot holes".
Unless you are one of these types who need all the "answers" in a connect-the-dots fashion.
I personally don't.
GOD: And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy". What are you doing now!?
ARTHUR: I'm averting my eyes, oh Lord.
GOD: Well, don't. It's like those miserable Psalms-- they're so depressing. Now knock it off!
ARTHUR: Yes, Lord.
GOD: Right!....
That oracle cliche gets old. A chosen one needs to complete a very important task, but doesn't get clear information. And in the end, it's always this "the path was the goal" shit.
Oracles are man-made, which is why they were never clear. When a movie's storyline is set up like the cheap rhethoric of a fun fair fortune teller, I can't help but to cringe and leave.
Reminds me of the episode where some primitive people thought Picard was a God. This kind of overreaction made it impossible for Picard to talk to them properly.
Oracles are man-made, which is why they were never clear. When a movie's storyline is set up like the cheap rhethoric of a fun fair fortune teller, I can't help but to cringe and leave.
Reminds me of the episode where some primitive people thought Picard was a God. This kind of overreaction made it impossible for Picard to talk to them properly.
This comment resonates with me; I agree with it. I occasionally find myself in the middle of situations where one side is confidently arguing that the Bible clearly shows that biological evolution and an ancient earth are impossible concepts, while the other side smugly proclaims that science definitively proves that there is no God. Both groups wrong (IMO), but each arrogant about their superiority over the other, "misinformed and mislead" individuals. I can see and appreciate a middle ground between the extremes.
In science fiction, I feel that there is room for all aspects of human existence, including religion as represented by issues that can not be explained by science. I obviously would not want all science fiction to incorporate religious or supernatural or fantasy themes, but I am OK with the diversity out there. I have grown to accept (if not completely love) the way new BSG ended, in spite of being the kind of guy who owns all the Trek Tech manuals and blueprints.....
Ahh, but in mythology and religious writings, omnipotent deities don't always choose to intervene directly like that. Often they choose instead to give humanity free will, the option to make its own mistakes. One of the most important principles of wielding power wisely is knowing when not to use it.
In this case, just handing the Colonials the directions to Earth on a silver platter would've done more harm than good. The cataclysm, like all the other cataclysms before it, happened because of humanity's inability to transcend its intrinsic failings. If the cycle were to be broken, humanity and, err, Cylonity needed to go through a transformative ordeal and learn to recognize their need for one another. As is so often the case, the journey was more important than the destination.
And I don't understand why you think those elements were concealed until very late. The concept of prophecy as a guiding force for the characters was introduced right at the beginning. Laura Roslin began having seemingly prophetic visions in episode 8 of the first season, visions that turned out to be accurately predictive. The prophecy of the "dying leader" was introduced two episodes later. Two episodes after that, the fleet discovers Kobol, in keeping with the Pythia's prophecies. Frequently thereafter, throughout the series, events occur that correspond to either the Pythia's or Roslin's prophecies. By the mid-second season, Baltar's "Head Six" identified herself as an angel from God. The religious themes were made very clear throughout the series and we were given abundant evidence that prophecy and divinely influenced destiny were very real forces within the series' universe.
It's just that the evidence was presented in a naturalistic context that made it ambiguous whether it represented reality or just certain characters' beliefs. You and I both chose to resist the evidence that the prophecies were real, to hold out hope that there would turn out to be a rational explanation for all these things that didn't seem to make rational sense. The end of the series made it clear that the supernatural elements were indeed meant to be real. At that point, I was able to admit that we'd been shown abundant evidence of the reality of mystical forces throughout every season of the series, going back to Roslin's first chamalla vision if not sooner. I don't know why you're not able to admit that. Just because the evidence was ambiguous doesn't mean it wasn't there at all.
Yes, obviously. That's part of what I'm saying. The evidence was kept ambiguous. The show deliberately left us guessing whether the things we were seeing were mystical or technological. But as I've already pointed out, they always eventually showed that the technological explanations were red herrings. We were led to believe that Six was a chip in Baltar's head, but then that explanation was demolished in the mid-second season. We were led to suspect that Roslin might be a Cylon sleeper because of her visions, but that turned out to be misdirection.
You seem to be thinking that it has to be black or white, that if it's not clearly mystical, then there's no evidence of mysticism at all. That just doesn't make any sense. This whole show was about shades of gray. What I'm saying is that the evidence was there all along, it was just deliberately left unclear. As with a mystery story, we were given all the clues we needed to deduce the real explanation, but those clues were presented ambiguously and surrounded by misdirection. What you're saying -- that it was wrong for them to leave it unclear until the end -- is like complaining that a mystery novel is badly written because it doesn't reveal the murderer's identity in the first chapter. That's just an illogical argument. There's nothing wrong with concealing the truth until the end, so long as the clues are there. And BSG did give us abundant clues. It just didn't make it easy for us to understand what the clues meant. That's not bad writing, it's just mystery writing.
Ah yes, the soliton wave from TNG.
Maybe it is more powerful than it appears but doesn't want to interfere too much for reasons Christopher pointed out above. Or maybe it does communicate clearly, but what's being communicated appears unclear because mere humans aren't advanced enough to connect the dots quickly. I can tell a cat what to do in a way that's immediately clear to a human, but the cat won't understand what I'm saying.
What was the ending you had in mind?
Some rambling thoughts after reading 7pages....
Plot holes and ambiguity are different though, in my point of view.
Ambiguity leaves things open to interpretation and doesn't cause any contradiction to established facts.
Plot holes, on the other hand, ignore certain key details or don't answer specific questions THAT SHOULD HAVE AN ANSWER.
Seems difficult enough for movies to not have plot holes, let alone a series written over several seasons by multiple writers.
In regards the subject of true/hard/real SciFi vs. fake/false/light/soft SciFi... Real hard science would make most shows and especially space opera boring. How in the world could you tell any story from Star Trek to BSG without having FTL? Even hard scifi stories have elements of speculation that may or may not come true. Speculation is part of the process. Who cares if our science can't figure it out/contradicts it right now? These scifi stories with their warp drives, fancy communicators and talking computers are what inspire real life science to develop such cool technological marvels.
I'm hard pressed to think of any stories that are hard SciFi without any elements that aren't false/speculative/impossible by today's scientific standards.
Is religion killing good sci-fi shows? No. Religion is dying. Religion is losing its grip on society all over the world. There is no way religion is responsible for killing good sci-fi shows.
Good writing vs. bad writing, ratings vs. monetary return, visionaries and risk takers vs. corporate executives and stuffed suits. These are what kill good sci-fi shows.
Plot holes and ambiguity are different though, in my point of view.
Ambiguity leaves things open to interpretation and doesn't cause any contradiction to established facts.
Plot holes, on the other hand, ignore certain key details or don't answer specific questions THAT SHOULD HAVE AN ANSWER.
Seems difficult enough for movies to not have plot holes, let alone a series written over several seasons by multiple writers.
In regards the subject of true/hard/real SciFi vs. fake/false/light/soft SciFi... Real hard science would make most shows and especially space opera boring. How in the world could you tell any story from Star Trek to BSG without having FTL? Even hard scifi stories have elements of speculation that may or may not come true. Speculation is part of the process. Who cares if our science can't figure it out/contradicts it right now? These scifi stories with their warp drives, fancy communicators and talking computers are what inspire real life science to develop such cool technological marvels.
I'm hard pressed to think of any stories that are hard SciFi without any elements that aren't false/speculative/impossible by today's scientific standards.
Is religion killing good sci-fi shows? No. Religion is dying. Religion is losing its grip on society all over the world. There is no way religion is responsible for killing good sci-fi shows.
Good writing vs. bad writing, ratings vs. monetary return, visionaries and risk takers vs. corporate executives and stuffed suits. These are what kill good sci-fi shows.
To be honest false, speculative and impossible makes good science fiction. One of the reasons I love Trek so much is they play it straight knowing perfectly well how hugely enjoyable all the cod science is. I don't mind religion and I don't think it ruins science fiction; it's just a facet of the human condition which is, after all, what all these shows are about.
Heck, there shouldn't be any. If a story has no speculative elements, it's not science fiction at all, just regular fiction. The whole point of hard SF is to write about things that are predicted/postulated by theory but have not been achieved in reality. And it generally involves some extrapolation beyond established theory, though what keeps it "hard" is that the extrapolation is as rigorous as possible; i.e. if you postulate something imaginary, you apply realistic physics to determining how it would behave.
For instance, Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg and Starquake postulate the existence of life on neutron stars, something which is entirely imaginary. But that speculation is rooted in what we know of neutron star physics, and the nature, properties, and behavior of that life are worked out consistently with known physics. And Forward's work was just about the hardest hard SF you'll ever find.
It's especially rediculous to claim that science can prove that there is no God. Science can only prove or disprove things through empirical observation. Your standard Abrahamic God deliberately exists outside the realm of what can be empirically observed (or at least He does 99% of the time). In the absence of an empirical nature, God must be discussed largely in rational terms. Certainly reason is the only possible means by which God could be 100% disproven.
He's a Columbo fan.
I think it's when a resolution to a mystery feels tacked on when it gets annoying. If I get the impression that this was really the way the writer intended it to be from the very first page or minute, I have no problems with it. But sometimes you get the feeling that the writer had no clue when he brought up the mystery and eventually just called it a night when he wrote "it's purgatory" to resolve it.
It is nobody else's fault if you missed or chose to ignore clues along the way. Especially when the season premier of a series is entitled "Man of Science, Man of Faith" you should note that the series will pretty much be about Science AND Religion.
It is not Lost's fault that the final resolution came down on the wrong side of the equation (ie. Science and Faith are both integral to the human experience) for some people.
Nevertheless, both BSG and Lost are primarily character driven series and I would argue that there is not much difference in the way religion/faith is used and the SF element is used. Neither show ends up preaching any religion to the viewer; rather the religious elements in both shows are used to show the spiritual and emotional struggles of the characters.
For example, the final scene of Lost simply shows that the characters who had been Lost (figuratively and literally) in their lives, only found meaning and purpose when they came together. That is the message of the show (if there is any) more than preaching that an afterlife exists.
By the way, I have not seen a good part of Lost yet, including the ending, and I keep having to dodge what appear to be spoilers for it. Please don't mess it up for me.
Rosebud was Keyser Soze's butler, who was on Earth all along.