Careful Spoilers...and I'm serious. Don't read this unless you've seen the finale. My Battlestar experience has been fraught with reading things I shouldn't have.
I, for one, LOVED the finale. Loved it. And I'll get to why in a second. The one giant black fly obscuring my total joy is of course the last two minutes and the social commentary by the creators of the show. That two minutes of social commentary is why I HATE sci-fi. It seems to me that most sci-fi writers can not resist the allure of the blatant and bald social commentary. The whole fracking show was social commentary and then they spit in all the work they had done with those last two minutes.
However, I am not dwelling.
The last ten episodes or whatever it was - had some serious serious problems. I did not buy the Caprica/Tigh affair. At all. What a huge waste of time - and where did it go? Nowhere. Nowhere at all. Bad writers. Bad. Giaus - way too much Giaus garbage - I actually felt that way through the whole series. The finale and his role in it would have still worked without all the yammering on about whatever it was he was yammering on about.
But the great moments of the finale - finding our Earth at whatever point that was supposed to be post dinosaurs pre bronze age or whatever -- I, like Maureen was having a little nerd fest with myself. Starbuck with the music and the numbers jumping the Galactica into range of our Earth - fabulous.
But what the writers did right - and have always done right were the little character moments. The wrap ups of little plot lines that end up being such a big deal.
I loved, and could not have loved more the Starbuck story. Everything about it - so good. And that the flashback revealed what it did about her nearly cheating on Apollo's brother with Apollo - it just sort of showed that they really didn't deserve a happy ending. They'd been too wrong too many times. I loved it. She was redeemed utterly for her mistakes, but she just couldn't have it all. A bittersweet character with a perfect bittersweet ending.
Chief - oh sweet chief. Finding out about Kallie and nearly getting them all killed. Amazing. And then choosing to go to an Island in the Highlands were there weren't any people. You know he's Scottish.
The President and The Admiral - perfect. For me that's got to be the longest running successful romance in tv history. They played every card just right between those two.
So? How did you guys feel?
3 comments:
Oh, I've got thoughts. And most of them mirror yours. :-)
One little juicy bit for me was that one of the few ongoing romances that actually did have a happy ending was Gaius and Caprica Six. Kind of loved that after all the mind games the "head versions" of each character played on the other... After all the crap that went down, I actually believed they were in love and meant for each other at the end. Loved that line when she said she was proud of him for volunteering to fight and that's what had been missing. She'd never been proud of him. Nice.
A few things were kind of cludgy. The CIC (or whatever it's called) standing in for the opera house was kind of weak after all the set ups of that vision... I found it a bit of a let down. And yes, they didn't need those last two minutes and those last two minutes didn't entirely make sense to me. I mean... If the "head" versions of Six and Gaius were some kind of god-like beings or angels... then why the frak did real Gaius look like one of them? One of the cylons being made to look like them was a big enough stretch... I just need to come up with a theory in my head that makes sense about this. OH, but they did do all that Gaius is the messiah stuff... Maybe Gaius was supposed to be made in the image of one of the angel-types? Don't know. Still not entirely sure what I think of that bit.
Also didn't buy it (or like it) when Adama said goodbye to Lee. I mean, sure, he wanted to go off with Roslin to be alone with her while she died... but unless I heard wrong, he told Lee he'd never come back. So, he's going to live the rest of his life in total isolation, pining over Laura? Paleeze.
I loved it as well, but really, my love for this series, sort of pre-disposed me to love it going in.
My favourite part was the president thanking Doc Cottle.
And the nerd fest in what the song meant. Loved that as well.
Loved that they gave us these parting glimpses into the characters before any of the war happened.
Most of all, I love that this show took Sci Fi and made it brilliant, and relevant and the best of storytelling.
I miss it already.
Sorry I missed this posting until now. I'm SO glad you liked it, too. I felt the same way you did about the last 2 minutes...do you really have to hammer home how horrid we all are for having technology? But I just pretend that part didn't happen and think to the 'real' ending with Adm. Adama on that mountaintop by Laura's grave. That was perfect.
As for the bit with Caprica/Tigh...I actually did see that as necessary. Because at first we thought there were two hybrids, Callie & Tyrol's baby and Hera. Then, there was the possibility of a 3rd with Caprica/Tigh. But then Tyrol's baby turned out to be human and Caprica lost her baby, so it made Hera all that more special. All that more unique. If she'd been kidnapped, there wouldn't have been this overall feeling of her being the ONLY hybrid and how they MUST save her.
The Gaius stuff worked for me, because there was an entire ending built about the head characters which turned out to be angels and the running religious/'one true God' theme. Some were nonbelievers, some believed in the 'old' gods of Caprica, and Gaius showed us this 'new' religion which was a warped religion, really. But one based on this 'one true God' idea.
What I absolutely loved was how they used God and angels in this science fiction setting...which really had not been done before in science fiction. (which ticked a bunch of people off who are most likely irritated with religion and God and want no part of it in their science fiction...unless, of course, it's a made up fake god from some other planet, etc.)
Maureen, why did the other angel look like Kara? So people would listen to her! And the same is true for the Gaius and Six head characters. They took form of something familiar. Would Gaius have listened to some other being in his head besides Six? I doubt it. These two had a connection since Caprica, as they showed in the flashbacks...which the angels used to their advantage.
I got goosebumps and started crying when the Galactica came up over the moon...I KNEW it hadn't been our earth they found earlier and was so glad to find out I'd guessed right. I cried almost the whole last 45 minutes, and if that isn't good storytelling, then I don't know what is.
I also liked the flashbacks, but saw them in a different light. I really liked the comparison of the 'real' Kara vs. the angel Kara. The 'real' Kara was emotional and acted on wild impulses and made sometimes crappy decisions. The angel Kara was so much more in control of herself and content in some ways that the 'real' Kara never was. Which made the angel Kara's disappearance that much easier to take. We'd mourned the 'real' Kara months ago.
Brilliant. Loved it. Looking forward to "Caprica"!
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