# Battlestar Galactica Finale Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206 "2009-03-20T19:33:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/381 "2009-03-30T03:18:30Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > They’re giving up their technology and almost all other aspects of their society and institutions. They are scattering themselves across the planet and soon will be completely isolated from each other. There will be no communication. There are no cultivatable crops. You have to give the producers some slack in that they aren’t scientists. If you look carefully, the colonial survey map of Earth has the Great Lakes, in their modern form, on it. That’s pretty amazing survey work considering the Great Lakes did not exist 150,000 years ago, or even 15,000 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/382 "2009-03-30T14:45:37Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Maybe that’s a point for scattering themselves across the planet. Put all the thugs on a distant continent and it will be millennia before they come back to commit genocide on the rest of 'em. So they’re the ones who get stuck in Australia. Very sensible. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/383 "2009-03-30T16:25:47Z")
Just to further clarify the colonists’ reasons for discarding the technology that eventually led to the war, remember Adama’s speech way back at the decommissioning: > [@](#): > > The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but… sometimes it’s too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question “Why?” Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/384 "2009-03-31T09:41:00Z")
I’ve been too busy to get back here until now, but I hope to expllicate my thinking concerning the question of how many Starbucks we saw throughout the series: > [@ambushed](#): > > My main – make that **overwhelming** – problem with the whole “God/Higher Power did it” quasi-resolution is that “It” sure as hell picked some ridiculously contrived moments to act and bizarre methods to intervene (and please don’t give me that completely arbitrary “god works in mysterious ways” cop out). It’ll reify the Angel Kara (and **only** Angel Kara) as well as her Angelic Viper with its Angelic direction-finder, but won’t do so for Angel Six & Angel Baltar or any other physical beings/objects? We first see Starbuck-A’s Viper completely destroyed in an explosion proximate to the fleet (IIRC), so who and what crash on Earth1? That’s got to be the **second** incarnation of Starbuck and her Viper (Kara-B and Viper-B), right? Then, months later, the reified Angel Kara-C and Angelic Viper-C show up? And leads the fleet to Earth2? Where she is de-reified? Jeebus!:smack: > [@Lightray](#): > > So you’re basically taking what was presented, making it needlessly more complicated in your head, and are now having troubles figuring out what was going on. > > The Kara body they found on Earth _was_ the Kara who died on the Maelstrom gas giant. Full Stop. That was the point of her finding the dogtags with her wedding ring on them. To indicate that it was _her body_. Also note that the Viper had been utterly wrecked, as was shown in “Maelstrom”. > > There is utterly no point to postulate another body, anywhere. > > Whatever it was that reincarnated Kara, _and_ created her spooky new Viper with its spooky radio, _and_ powered-down the entire fleet and the Cylons when it dropped her back into the fleet is fully able of snatching her remains from the Maelstrom gas giant and dropping them back on Earth. > > There is, therefore, no reason to obsess over some _third_ Kara Thrace. There were only two: the one dead in “Maelstrom”, and the angel Kara that later comes back. > [@jackdavinci](#): > > Kara A’s destroyed ship was transported to Earth, we see the wreckage and body. Kara C is some kind of cleaned up copy of her and her ship. Kara B is just Kara A;s remains transported to Earth. There’s only 2 Kara+ships, not 3. What these arguments from **Lightray** , **jackdavinci** , and others have in common is that they neglect or ignore the _ **overwhelming** _ extent of the destruction of Kara-A and her Viper! [Watch it again.](http://www.viddler.com/explore/ambushed/videos/1/) The audience sees the complete and total destruction of Kara-A and her Viper. Nothing larger than a thimble could have remained intact after that! But when we get to Earth1, Kara-C and the audience discover an _unreasonably intact_ big chunk of a Viper complete with an _unreasonably intact_ big chunk of a Starbuck! **Lightray** says I’m _“… basically taking what was presented, making it needlessly more complicated in [my] head, and are now having troubles figuring out what was going on.”_ No, sir. I am taking what was presented on its own terms and pointing out how flawed it was and how the pieces didn’t fit together properly in the finale. Because there are only two possible resolutions within that universe to what we actually saw on the screen: (1) “God” incarnated an **entire** intermediate Starbuck (Kara-B, complete with resurrected dogtags) and **entire** intermediate Viper (Viper-B), which could fly to Earth1 and crash there in the big pieces we see on Earth1, or: (2): “God” sloppily grabbed up (perhaps just _some_) of the several quintillion pieces of Kara-A and her Viper that “God” could get its hands on, whereupon “It” transported them to Earth1, then glued those parts together into larger separate pieces like a jigsaw puzzle! I still insist that option (1) is less contrived – in an Occam’s Razor kind of way – than option (2), but in any case, as I wrote in my first post in this thread: “It” [“God”] sure as hell picked some ridiculously contrived moments to act and bizarre methods to intervene (and please don’t give me that completely arbitrary “god works in mysterious ways” cop out). Of course, the _actual_, real-life explanation for what we see is that Moore, et al., simply fucked up again! The Maelstrom explosion was a vitally important scene, and he either cheated or, more likely, he blew it because he hadn’t thought everything through sufficiently well and so was forced to fudge parts of the story as he went on. In previous threads, you’ll see that I’ve criticized various parts of BSG on the same grounds: i.e., that they hadn’t thought through some of even the biggest plot elements with sufficient care. That is and has always been my only general complaint regarding _Battlestar Galactica_. Please don’t get me wrong: _ **I loved the series!** _ But there is one word above all others that best relates my opinion of the series’ finale… [INDENT][INDENT] **Kludge.** [/INDENT][/INDENT] ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/385 "2009-03-31T10:31:54Z")
There’s one on every corner, man. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/386 "2009-03-31T11:24:58Z")
The Kara on Earth 1 was just the leftover bits from building the New Improved Crazier Kara 2 with Invisible Poofing Power! ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/387 "2009-03-31T12:19:01Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > There’s one on every corner, man. In one of the flashbacks, Starbuck said she wasn’t afraid of dying–but of being forgotten. So I’ll be drinking my lattes in her memory! ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/388 "2009-03-31T23:41:39Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > [Watch it again.](http://www.viddler.com/explore/ambushed/videos/1/) > > The audience sees the complete and total destruction of Kara-A and her Viper. Looked to me like a few chunks went flying and the rest of the wreckage destruction was covered up by the fireball. If you watch real explosions, they have big bright fireballs too, but that doesn’t indicate disintegration. In any case wasn’t the premise of that episode that the ship was destroyed by pressure? The fuel and munitions probably exploded around the wreckage. ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Clark\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_K)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/389 "2009-04-01T00:54:42Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Looked to me like a few chunks went flying and the rest of the wreckage destruction was covered up by the fireball. If you watch real explosions, they have big bright fireballs too, but that doesn’t indicate disintegration. In any case wasn’t the premise of that episode that the ship was destroyed by pressure? The fuel and munitions probably exploded around the wreckage. I agree that you can’t tell much about the wreckage from that video. The fireball covered up the bulk of the ship. I also agree with **Ambushed** that Moore & Co. made it up as they went along and so the finale had a certain “kludge” feel. The jigsaw pieces didn’t all fit together perfectly. But I’m OK with that. This was art and storytelling, which isn’t always neat and perfectly planned out. ---
**Author:** ![Meltdown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Meltdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meltdown)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/390 "2009-04-01T17:31:55Z")
[Obama Depressed, Distant Since ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Season Finale](http://www.theonion.com/content/news/obama_depressed_distant_since?utm_source=a-section) > [@](#): > > Obama watched the finale just as he had every previous episode, alone in the White House screening room with the volume turned all the way up. Sources said he emerged exhilarated and told several aides that the show’s writers “wrapped things up the best they could, though the very end was a little much.” > > The commander in chief also bragged that he “totally called” the fact that “All Along The Watch Tower” would be used as the jump coordinates for the FTL drive. > > Despite his initial excitement, by Monday morning the absence of the hour-long Sci-Fi program had begun to affect the president. > > “I’m a little concerned,” first lady Michelle Obama was overheard saying at a fundraising event Tuesday. “When Firefly was canceled, he walked around like a zombie for a week, and Serenity was the only thing that snapped him out of it. Last night he said he felt like he had just discovered David Axelrod was one of the Final Five, whatever that means.” ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/391 "2009-04-01T17:39:33Z")
Heh, maybe Obama should send a “Stimulus Package” to Joss Whedon for the sole purpose of restarting Firefly 😉 and while he’s at it, have him call for a decree to restart Farscape and MST3K, and to outlaw “reality” TV… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/392 "2009-04-01T19:22:49Z")
Posted on April1st, I note. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/393 "2009-04-01T20:30:39Z")
> [@Clark\_K](#): > > The jigsaw pieces didn’t all fit together perfectly. But I’m OK with that. This was art and storytelling, which isn’t always neat and perfectly planned out. “God’s plan is never complete”, said Angel Six. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/394 "2009-04-01T20:41:50Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > “God’s plan is never complete”, said Angel Six. So, maybe we should hire someone else already? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/395 "2009-04-01T20:42:39Z")
The Lords of Kobol bungled the job when they had it. That’s why we tried God. ---
**Author:** ![Corner\_Case](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/corner_case/32/234_2.png) [@Corner\_Case](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corner_Case)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/396 "2009-04-03T14:22:59Z")
I’m trying to put into words what is satisfying and unsatisfying about the ending. The entire series has been about the characters, their motivations, and what they do when presented with … life. The ending didn’t have enough of the characters dealing with the end - it had exposition about the characters dealing with the end and then exposition about the characters affects in the world. Adama has a bittersweet ending that was 98% complete. He committed to Roslin, married her, and buried her. What was missing was that I wanted to see what his next commitment was. He will build their cabin, but will he stay alone or continue to lead the colonists way to surviving? Lee and Kara were incomplete. Lee expounded about exploring but wasn’t doing it. Kara didn’t even expound herself - she just said she was complete. I almost wish Lee’s final shot would be him climbing a great mountain in a blizzard, loving it, and talking to a Head-Kara (we know because she’s standing without a coat in that blizzard). They speak about moving on and yet are still together. They speak about fulfilling their dreams and doing it on their own terms. Lee keeps climbing and the shot tracks back and shows him in a beautiful wilderness. Galen just expounds about leaving people and going north. I would rather have seen him trudge over a hill in the highlands and see a baeutiful valley to the right and a cozy village to the left and have him pause as we wonder which way he’ll go. Does he want to be alone or try one more time to give a new people a chance? No one has to mention “northern lands”, just fly him to an area recognizable to Scotsmen and let the scenery inform the audience. The others just walking away, where we assume they went on to have _some_ life is less satisfying than seeing them create a final choice. Tigh and Ellen should have setup a campsite. Tigh is commanding a group of farmers. Ellen is lounging in a chair and pulls Tigh down to sit. They laugh and Ellen hands Tigh a drink from the makeshift still next to them. Baltar should have some people listening to him talk about farming. Someone talks the yoke of a makeshift plow to follow his instructions and he gently, under the others protest, takes the plow and shows them how to do it instead of relying on others to do the work. Some scenes like this would be more in keeping with having the characters show us their future and make it rather than espouse it. The epilogue was great as far as a plot ending. It just jarred me away from the character’s ending. I loved the robots and the _All Along The Watchtower_ end for the plot. But, besides being less than 150K years later, it should include this (plagarised from James Hogan’s _Gentle Giant’s_ series): A student runs up excitedly to an archaeologist. he holds out a tarnished and worn pair of Adama’s admiral rank pins, a recognizable portion of Laura’s glasses’ rims, and something we should have been setup to recognize as Kara’s dog tags. He says he found them in the umpty-thousand year old soil of the dig. The archaeologist looks, pauses, and throws them away disgustedly on the similar pile of nonsensical junk on the table. He tells the student that these stupid jokes of placing modern things in the dig has got to stop and if he finds who did it he’s gonna shoot 'em into space. Thus ends the series showing Adama and Laura’s eternal love and Kara’s wish to be remembered both fulflled and lost. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/397 "2009-04-03T17:20:15Z")
> [@Corner\_Case](#): > > …Adama has a bittersweet ending that was 98% complete. He committed to Roslin, married her, and buried her. What was missing was that I wanted to see what his next commitment was. He will build their cabin, but will he stay alone or continue to lead the colonists way to surviving?.. I think many of us will be amending & expanding the BSG characters’ stories in our minds. And on discussion boards. (Not to mention fan fiction.) Perhaps Lee will look up his dad in a while. To see if he’s got any ideas about boat building… ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/398 "2009-04-03T20:02:47Z")
While I really enjoyed the finale, the one thread that I don’t think was ever resolved was Leoben. When we first met him he made it seem like the cylons, or at least his model, had a more concrete connection to their god and to the workings of the universe. This seemed to imply that he had special insight like a hybrid, or maybe he had his own head angel guiding him, or maybe the cylon god was a mainframe somewhere and he could see into it’s prophetic calculations somehow. That he was just lying doesn’t seem satisfactory because he always took a special interest in Kara and seemed to know she would be special. And he was always spouting prophecy. Then again, he seemed genuinely shocked about Kara’s dead body duplicate. These things never added up for me. We should have seen why he seemed connected to special knowledge about prophecy and the cylon god, and why he was surprised about Kara after always being the one to say she has a special destiny. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/399 "2009-04-03T21:24:15Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > While I really enjoyed the finale, the one thread that I don’t think was ever resolved was Leoben. When we first met him he made it seem like the cylons, or at least his model, had a more concrete connection to their god and to the workings of the universe. This seemed to imply that he had special insight like a hybrid, or maybe he had his own head angel guiding him, or maybe the cylon god was a mainframe somewhere and he could see into it’s prophetic calculations somehow. That he was just lying doesn’t seem satisfactory because he always took a special interest in Kara and seemed to know she would be special. And he was always spouting prophecy. Then again, he seemed genuinely shocked about Kara’s dead body duplicate. These things never added up for me. We should have seen why he seemed connected to special knowledge about prophecy and the cylon god, and why he was surprised about Kara after always being the one to say she has a special destiny. I’ve read that Callum Keith Rennie had other commitments that limited his appearances in Season 4.5. (Xena stayed on Old Earth to die for similar reasons.) He will be in **The Plan**. Too bad that “real life” got in the way. I’d have started watching the show earlier if I’d known he was in it… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206/400 "2009-04-03T22:34:11Z")
I think it would have been much better to leave “real life” entirely out of the finale. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battlestar-galactica-finale-thread/490206.md?page=21)