Star Wars contains no more fantasy than Star Trek, maybe less as at least in Wars you don’t see human/hutt hybrids running around and different species even speak their own languages which is why there is a market for translator droids.
I enjoyed it a lot. It doesn’t quite stand up to repeat viewings, but the first time through was great. I liked the finale too. I say just watch it and don’t let any opinions here sway you.
So, horses=fantasy, spaceships=science fiction?
No but I would say totally impossible magic does equal fantasy, for instance:
1.Both SW and ST contain psychic powers, so they are even there.
2.Humans and aliens freely breeding, pure fantasy. The clumsy attempts in Enterprise to explain it as the result of genetic engineering makes no sense as there is a strong taboo in the Trekverse against genetic engineering due to the augments. Additionally there were hybrids in Trek like the Klingon/Romulan ones born in a isolated and hidden jungle prison, so they had state of the art tech for interspecies fertility there?
FTL engines are sci fi, light sabers are sci fi, warp engines are sci fi.
I agree the very ending was horrible, but I think the show did well almost to the end. In fact, the first hour or so of the finale was pretty damned great. So, I’d recommend quitting about 70 minutes into the series finale.
The epilogue was possibly the dumbest thing I have ever seen, it took a show that was timeless allegory and inserted footage that will be horribly dated in less than a decade. As well as Ron Moore inserting himself clumsily into the show.:smack:
I loved the first two seasons of the show, and felt that seasons 3-4 had a mix of good and bad. There’s some really great stuff in the last two seasons that would be a shame to miss, but there’s definitely an increase in the amount of filler as well. And yeah, the finale is quite divisive - I may be unique in that I don’t outright love nor hate it. There are elements of the finale that I absolutely adore, and there are some that I get angry just thinking about. There’s also a lot of stuff in between.
I think it ultimately depends on why you like the show. If you’re in it for the hard sci-fi trappings or the long-term plot arc, you’ll probably be disappointed. The former gradually diminishes over the course of the series (although it never goes away completely), while the latter suffers from the same problem that plagues a lot of modern serialized dramas, which is that the writers didn’t have the overarching story planned out ahead of time, and had to improvise their way out of some of the holes they dug themselves. Often in unsatisfying ways.
That being said, I’ll swear 'til my dying breath that the Final Five reveal is one of the greatest “holy shit” moments in television season finale history.
If, however, you’re in it because you enjoy the characters and/or the show’s unrelenting willingness to tackle Big Issues with depth and complexity, I think you’ll find the remainder of BSG quite rewarding. With a few exceptions, BSG does its characters right and evolves them (no pun intended) over the course of the series in organic and interesting ways. And IMO, it serves as a better meta-analysis of the Bush years than any of its contemporaries - in ANY medium.
Look, the series finale was not pulled out of Moore’s ass at the last minute. It’s what we were leading up to the whole time.
This is a show that had gods, prophecies, visions, destinies, angels, demons, ressurection, and on and on, from the very beginning.
Psychic powers are fictional, and any show that includes psychic powers is fantasy. Dressing up psychic powers in science fiction trappings doesn’t make it science. So in BSG you’ve got a prophecy. We’re so freaking used to prophecies in science fiction that we give it a pass. Except, you know, prophecies are fantasy. I don’t care if the guy making a prophecy is a Vulcan on a spaceship, it’s magic whether he mixes ingredients in a cauldron or explains that Vulcans use 90% of their brains while humans only use 10%.
I just started BSG last year, watching it on BBC-A. I’ve just started season 4.
This is as far into the thread as I’ve gotten. Is it safe to actually read any further or should I expect a thread where the OP specifically states he’s only through season 2, to be chock full of spoilers for later episodes?
Season 3 suffered from SciFi executive meddling: they wanted self-contained episodes and that wrecked the series momentum. You can actually tell by watching the episodes at which point they realized their error and relented in that exective order.
Incidentally, you can safely skip “The Woman King” and “Black Market” without any qualms. The former contributes nothing to the series; the latter has a minor plotpoint in the last 5 minutes that’s revisited later but which no one remembered had happened anyway. And no one likes those episodes, anyway.
Enderw24, based on how all the prior threads have gone… expect spoilers.
Fair enough. Too bad though. I guess maybe I’ll come back in a few months if the thread’s still around.
I gave no specific spoilers, if you can guess what “the big reveal” “a pregnancy” and “the resolution of Tom Zarek’s storyline” refer to well you might be psychic.
I liked “Black Market.” It had economics!
Okay, no one likes those episodes… who isn’t a Cylon. :dubious:
peers narrowly at Mr. Excellent
By the way, anyone know where the airlock switch is on this thread? Just in case?
Count me as another one who thinks the finale was brilliant. One of the best resolutions to an ongoing storyline I’ve ever seen. Addresses all the questions of the series, resolves the character’s situations in a really satisfying way, and provides some great plot developments and a few awesome twists. Exciting, bold storytelling.
As for the show, I think it dips in quality quite a bit for the last half of season 3, picks up again in the season 3 finale, and then produces one amazing episode after another all through season 4, all the way to the end.
This I don’t get, at all. Seems to me he went exactly where he wanted and always intended to go, right from the start. I didn’t see anything in the final season that wasn’t already set up. I mean, Six told us explicitly that she was an angel at the start of season 2.
I jumped in to say this, more or less. I’d like to add my own insight, but I’m fresh out.
I’m taking another pill before I bust something.
I found the series to be immensely satisfying from beginning to end and I liked the ending.
One thing I really appreciated about the show, particularly as compared to the original, is that I had a genuine sense of jeopardy for the entire human race in every episode. Having that ever-present number in the opening credits and on Rosayln’s wall – the total number of humans left in the universe – and that number pretty consistently dwindling over the course of the series always left me thinking, “Holy shit, they really are on the brink of elimination!” And since the series frequently went down the unexpected route of the wrong people dying, I was not sure of the rag tag fleet’s fate until the final minutes of the series.
I give it two thumbs up. 
I wonder if I can overdose on these things…
I liked the whole series too. It was certainly uneven at parts as it went on, and the finale wasn’t all it could have been, and the wrapping up of the loose ends was a little weak, but on the whole I enjoyed it.