Battlestar Galactica non-spoilery reaction

[amanuensis1]

1) When BSG does indulge in cliché, it does it with style.

2) Watching the finale makes me want to run back and watch the whole series again from the beginning, and that does not always happen with a beloved series. I've turned my back on entire adored series in the past after finales that left me sulking.

3) Thanks for giving me conclusions I wanted, conclusions I liked better than those I thought I wanted, hurting me a little in good ways, and for keeping the ribbons and bows down to a tasteful, albeit sparkly, few.

What a fantastic series.


Spoilers will be indulged in the comments.

Comments

[the-dala.livejournal.com]

Watching the finale makes me want to run back and watch the whole series again from the beginning

This.

Man, what a ride.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Yes. I've seen people bitching about the cliches, but I like this set of cliches far better than Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies. These characters earned some peace (though I can't imagine subsistence farming being all that easy or peaceful), and I'm pleased they got it.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

1) Yes, totally.

2) Yes, and OMG Yes (HP anyone? BtVS, though that applies to the entire last season.)

3)Not overly happy with the conclusion of the battle scenes, which came across as a bit 'oh, crap, we need to wrap this up asap to keep this ep under 2hrs', but overall, pretty much agree with this assessment. I liked the circularity of it.

[orchidchaos.livejournal.com]

The cliches were handled gracefully. The last five minutes were gold. Pure gold.

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Clichés or conventions? Maybe there's little difference. When ending a story after five years, conventions sometimes have to be dragged out, but all of the ones in the finale have been hinted at for a while.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

And I'm totally gonna do it, too.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I was expecting a LOT of deaths, but it felt like we had plenty anyway, yanno?

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

2. HP tried to do a damn good job killing my love for the series. It couldn't do it completely--too much love for too many of the characters--but when I think of HP I still think of school-age Harry and all the potential. Another example which leaps to mind is Xena.

Funny how pretty much all anime series have left me happy even after their finales!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

YAY for Adama not suiciding or anything after Roslin's gone. YAYYYYYYYY.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I think "story is not set in future but in past and characters end up on primitive planet Earth and the story hints at the repeating cycle of human nature" counts as a cliché, myself. When you're using the same plot as Teenage Caveman... But I think they did as classy a job with that particular ending as one could. And made it their own, really.

[orchidchaos.livejournal.com]

On the Roslin note: Angsty Schoolteacher Caprica Roslin was frakking sexy as hell.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

*nods*

The whole "they end up on another planet and hey! it's EARTH and they're Adam(a) and (Mitochondrial) Eve!" is such a cliche that SF magazines stopped publishing variations on it around 50-60 years ago. Maybe it's fresh on television but in print SF? Old old old.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I had said that the one ending I DID NOT WANT was "everyone dies and the only ones left are Hera and some other kid and they do the Adam and Eve thing on some other planet" because, dude, you do not get more painfully cliché than that, but even though they teased us with that particular gem anyway, it wasn't the focus, so, I'm content to see them do a different cliché in a well-done fashion.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

God, yes. I was astonished to realize what they can do with makeup, in terms of making Roslin look every bit the dying middle-aged mama, if they could also get her to look that gorgeous at the same time. (Acting doesn't hurt either. ^_^ )

[ellid.livejournal.com]

You definitely have a point. For me, the bigger problem was the racial overtones. That really, really bugs me and probably always will, alas.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I'd be glad to read your thoughts!

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

The historian in me made Xena impossible to watch due to the consequent stabbing out my eyes with rusty railway spikes impulse.

And I was thinking the other day that I should re-read the HP books... then I realised that'd mean re-reading DH and that idea died on the vine. The war between my hatred for the book and my completion OCD would probably make my head explode and that would be messy and icky, so I thought best to not even go near it.

Wow. I think this is the goriest lj comment I've ever written. Go me!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I lol'ed. Quite earnestly. :D

[ellid.livejournal.com]

The idea that once again, Africa isn't *really* the origin of humanity because a bunch of primarily light skinned space aliens with higher technology came along and "intermarried" (read: absorbed/dominated because, hey, even if they've given up high technology they still know how to smelt metals and make wheels) with the dark skinned natives. And that the Mother of Us All was a little girl with light skin, even though recent genetic and artistic evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color#Genetics_of_skin_color_variation) suggests that humans were primarily dark skinned as recently as 13,000 years ago regardless of where they lived.

Add in that the significant religious and mythical names (that mysteriously were passed down pretty much intact for 150,000 years) were *all* taken from Greeks, with the exception of Adama/Adam, and once again, despite the fact that it's 2009, despite BSG being so deep and political and thoughtful, the cultural matrix is still Eurocentric and (with a handful of exceptions who seem to be mainly Asian) white.

It bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It bothers me even more than the profound fatalism of the ending ("this has happened before and will happen again" - whatever happened to free will, Mr. Moore? Or are you secretly a Presbyterian or a Muslim or a member of some other religion that believes in predestination?).

Sorry to ramble and spam your journal, but this has been bothering me ever since last night....

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad you did bring it up! I admit it didn't even occur to me to think about this. Only now do I see where that might have offended.

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Good point! It has been used before - a lot, actually, but they did do a good job making it unique to the show.

Loved it when Gaius mentioned it was possible to breed with the locals and Adama was like, "You have a one-track mind, dog. Nah, I'm joshing you!"

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

Awesome finale. Frakking AWESOME.

I honestly didn't expect it to end the way it did, for any of the characters. BUT I LOVED ALL OF IT. EVEN THE PARTS THAT HURT. MY HAPPINESS MAKES ME CAPSLOCKY.

Like you, I totally want to rewatch from the beginning now.

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

The cultural matrix is still Eurocentric and (with a handful of exceptions who seem to be mainly Asian) white.

BSG had a few black characters, but besides Dee and the black Cylon model, they weren't featured prominently.

The race/color question is a little bothersome, I admit. I thought about it during the Eve epilogue, but dismissed it at the realization that it's impossible for the show to be politically correct about everything. That sounds sort of mean, doesn't it? I apologize.

"this has happened before and will happen again" - whatever happened to free will, Mr. Moore?

Angel!Six and Angel!Baltar talk about that very fact. It's suggested that a complex organism can eventually arrive at new decisions, though, and it's inferred this may not have to happen again if us humans are careful not to enslave our mechanical brethren. Also, throughout the entire series, free will shapes the content and details of the destiny that the characters share if not fact that destiny exists. I think when looking at the question of free will in BSG, it's about the entire series, not just the finale.

Randomness

[dmlpacker.livejournal.com]

Err this has nothing to do with BSG...

Anyway, I just started episode 21 of Kuroshitsuji. I have to say, Maylene's past surprised me like no other O.o

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*snickers* "Also, you have no sense of humor." I laughed so hard!