I think I expected a little more attention to detail than what we got.
Moore's Galactica, what exactly was number 6?
- Thread starter JesterFace
- Start date
Then maybe more shows should be written this way, because a lot of shows that were “well planned out” weren’t even close to being as good as NuBSG.
Just because ythewriters of a show don’t know how the show will end from the beginning, doesn’t necessarily mean the show will suck.
And the criticism of this is what, exactly?
There’s no reason for writers not to just wing it as they go along, UNLESS they have made a choice for prophecies and dreams to be a primary driver of the story. Prognostication without payoff is narrative blue balls.
If you’re going to have a mysterious force controlling things from behind the scenes and creating the protagonists entire motive for action, you don’t need to have the entire resolution planned out, but you need to have a solid idea of what it is and its motivations and capabilities. The best mystery reveals are the ones that allow you to look back at past events and say “Oh, that makes perfect sense now!”
If you’re going to have a mysterious force controlling things from behind the scenes and creating the protagonists entire motive for action, you don’t need to have the entire resolution planned out, but you need to have a solid idea of what it is and its motivations and capabilities. The best mystery reveals are the ones that allow you to look back at past events and say “Oh, that makes perfect sense now!”
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Yeah, I was always a little frustrated we never got a clearer indication of exactly what the One True God's plans and motivations actually were. Once the One True God became such a driving major driving force of the story, they really should have gone into started to give at least a bit more information about Him.
At least with Lost we were given a basic idea of what the Island is, what it's purpose is, and why at least the majority of what happened on it happened.
At least with Lost we were given a basic idea of what the Island is, what it's purpose is, and why at least the majority of what happened on it happened.
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God doesn't need to be explained; God just is.
If the social environment of the late 70s in Hollywood had made Glen Larsen feel like he could've been more overt about the religious underpinnings of BSG conceptually, I feel fairly confident that he wouldn't have bothered to explain anything otherworldly or miraculous that might have happened to the characters along their journey, so RDM and David Eick not explaining those kinds of things isn't strange or objectionable to me.
If the social environment of the late 70s in Hollywood had made Glen Larsen feel like he could've been more overt about the religious underpinnings of BSG conceptually, I feel fairly confident that he wouldn't have bothered to explain anything otherworldly or miraculous that might have happened to the characters along their journey, so RDM and David Eick not explaining those kinds of things isn't strange or objectionable to me.
OK, that might been enough for the who/what, but at least a bit more of why He was doing the things he was doing would have been nice.
I may not be remembering exactly, but in the original there were "Beings of Light" that were basically like Angels, but actually just more evolved/advanced beings that existed for a very long time (I think they actually helped aid in the early civilization that developed in the original colonies)
So nuBSG "god" and "angels" doesn't actually have to be the classical God/Angels. It may just be like a Babylon 5 Vorlon type situation (which is sort of what the Beings of Light were in the original BSG)
Yes they were also referred to as “Seraphs” and “Custodians of the Universe” which were supposed to be the ascended Lords of Kobol.
That's just lazy writing.
No.
It's a philosophical point of view based in religious faith and that is consistent with the religious underpinnings of the BSG property as a whole.
See my comment about Glen Larson and how I believe he would've handled a more overt presentation of BSG's religious elements had the social climate of Hollywood in the 70s made him feel like he could have done so.
Yes.
It's just another example of Ron Moore being unable to write an ending. He's always sucked at it. But then again NuBSG was full of stuff that ultimately had disappointing answers or just went nowhere to begin with.
LOST got away with it because ultimately what made the show interesting wasn't the plot and mystery. We all realized that stuff was nonsense. What made the show worth watching was that the characters had more thought put into them and their backstories than your usual bunch of TV characters. We came for the mystery, stayed for the characters.
NuBSG didn't have that.
^ You have your point-of-view and I have mine, which is that there was no narrative reason for the concepts of God, the 'Head Angels', and Starbuck's resurrection, destiny, and disappearance to be explained based on the religious underpinnings of the BSG property and the specific theological views of Glen Larson (views that I share) that are ingrained in the property.
Regardless of your feelings about religion, when you make it the sole determinant of the ending you undercut the agency of the characters and the relevance of their choices.
And alienate the majority of the science fiction audience that doesn’t believe in it. Nobody who isn’t religious likes being proselytized to. If a TV show is a religious show they should make it obvious in the first episode, not appear to give the characters control over their fate then say “Nevermind the result is what God wants no matter what decisions they make”.
And alienate the majority of the science fiction audience that doesn’t believe in it. Nobody who isn’t religious likes being proselytized to. If a TV show is a religious show they should make it obvious in the first episode, not appear to give the characters control over their fate then say “Nevermind the result is what God wants no matter what decisions they make”.
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And Lost actually did answer 95% of its mysteries. Just they never had anyone step out from behind a big curtain, cackle evilly and say “Haha I was controlling everything the whole time!” so inattentive viewers missed most of them.
Yeah, my complaints about BSG have nothing to do with the religious underpinnings. That part works just fine. It's the unlikable people that I struggle with.
It was hardly the sole determinate of the ending. The Second Earth was a brass ring, an overt, instant reward for the characters' virtue and self-sacrifice that allowed the show's quest to end in parallel with it's thematic and character arcs, but it was their decisions that put them in a position to get to it. If the crew hadn't volunteered to rescue Hera (or if Sharon hadn't actually fallen in love with Helo and gone back with him to the Fleet in the first place instead of killing him and keeping the baby with the other Cylons), if Adama or Cain had gone through with killing the other, if they'd decided to give up after they found the First Earth, if they'd decided to fight to the death during the original Cylon attack... the characters were manipulated and guided by outside forces, yes, but they were hardly pawns who had no control over their own fates.
Personally, my head-canon is the reason the Opera House vision varied over the course of the show was that it was becoming more specific as the characters drew closer to the final confrontation between Human and Cylon, their choices and actions gradually narrowing down the possibilities for the exact shape it could take. So at the end of season one, all that was certain was that Baltar, Hera, and possibly Caprica Six would be there. By mid-season 3, it had become guaranteed that the Final Five would all be there. And by the end of that season, that Athena and Roslin would be nearby, but prevented from being there.
It'd be interesting to do some sort of "Sliding Doors" story involving a prophecy, and all the different valid ways it could come to pass (as well as the invalid events it can rule out), but I've never figured out a good perspective for it.
"No plan survived first contact with the enemy" would be a good explainat for what happened with the Cylons and their plan.
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