By the Lords of Kobal, what a lousy ending. (BSG spoiler)

[Jokerman]

Don't know if there are any Battlestar Galactica fans in this forum but in case you haven't seen the ending you may not want to read any further because I'm about to drop the mother of all spoilers:

















Ready?













Here it comes:

















God did it. That is all.




I really didn't mind all of the religious references throughout the series and in fact, I was even somewhat intrigued when they made one side of the conflict mono-theists and the other side polytheists. I thought, cool, a sci-fi storyline that includes a religious conflict, this could get interesting. Boy was I wrong.

In the end all we got was nothing more than Deus Ex Machina. The loose ends were all neatly tied up by one simple thread. God was manipulating the story all along.

[progressoid]

1. Yep

I got pissed about this over two years ago but I kept watching anyway.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=263&topic_id=24060#24067

I was still hoping that they wouldn't use the god/gods cop out (Baltar: "you know he doesn't like that name") :eyes:

But the way they kept writing in those little "mysteries" and "visions", sadly, it seemed inevitable to give god the credit. It could have been an all time great science fiction story. Instead, it became more of fantasy than scifi to me.

Regardless, if I still have cable in a few months, I'll probably try to watch The Plan and Caprica prequels.

[laconicsax]

2. Were you really surprised by that?

The entire series has been centered around divine intervention and the fulfillment of religious prophecy.

Is it really Deus Ex Machina if the last minute answer is God? Wouldn't that just be Deus?

[phantom power]

3. That sounds mega-disappointing.

Now I'm not sure I'll bother watching the series.

[laconicsax]

4. What's the problem with a fictional series including a fictional character?

Gods are fictional. Galactica is fictional. At the end of the day, none of it ever really existed.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. "Goddidit" is sloppy, lazy writing

Most science fiction fans demand better than that.

[laconicsax]

6. In this specific case, I disagree.

The series focused heavily on fulfillment of religious prophecy, prominently featured shared visions, had characters that exhibited extraordinary abilities bordering on the supernatural, and one character that came back from the dead.

Many aspects of the story were centered around supernatural events. To dismiss the supernatural aspect of the ongoing storyline as purely natural would not have been true to the story.

The show was frequently closer to being fantasy in space rather than sci-fi.

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. That is not where I had problems

I have no issue with the use of religion or visions or mysticism: these are a fundamental part of what it means to be human. But to write yourself into a corner and then have a god descend in a box to resolve your plot is crap. Science fiction, fantasy, romance, western... regardless of the genre, "Goddidit" is lazy, sloppy writing and terribly disappointing.

[progressoid]

7. That's exactly what I said to someone yesterday,

It's not that I'm opposed to a religious or mystical theme (it worked pretty well in King Lear ;) ), but that in science fiction we tend to expect to have moved beyond that.
What we got was a story that started out as SciFi but morphed into mystical fantasy that just happened to take place in space.

[phantom power]

8. I think there are two problems...

One is that it's lazy writing, as TechBear mentioned.

The other reason is that it's trite, and safe. Very very uninteresting. It follows exactly the same worn-out pattern as the trite ending of "Signs" and the trite ending of "I am legend" (the movie).

You set up a story where there are very strong atheistic themes, and for really good reasons, and then, at the very end, suddenly it all turns out that it's all about god!

Surprise!

:boring:


Every time I see this, it feels very much like some corporate marketing suit overrode the writers because they were afraid the religious nutcase contingent would give them bad press. Except maybe Shyamalon, who just likes to write woo.

[laconicsax]

10. What strong atheistic themes?

The one where the president was fulfilling a religious prophecy?
The one where three characters had shared religious visions?
The one where Baltar had recurring hallucinations of a woman who claimed to be an angel of god?
The one where the same apparition professing to be an angel of god had supernatural powers?
The one where Starbuck died, somehow came back to life and encountered her dead body?
The one where Baltar began a monotheistic cult?
The one where a child who was the focal point of shared religious visions had extraordinary abilities?
The recurring theme of fate and predestination?
The one where characters would credit a supernatural entity with events in the series and no natural explanation is offered?

[phantom power]

13. I think of it this way:

here you have a series whose plot is tightly interwoven with two competing religions. The series has already explored themes of religious crusade, and even dealt with the religious bigotry behind the US occupation of Iraq, via allegory.

Whenever you have two or more competing religions, it begs the obvious: since one of them must be wrong, why not both? Wouldn't it be interesting to develop that as part of the conclusion of the series.

[laconicsax]

14. How do you propose they whip that out in the finale?

The series never even hinted at the possibility that natural explanations existed for the supernatural claims and the extraordinary evidence behind them. It never hinted, as a plot point, that neither religion is correct.

Many of the loose ends going in to the finale were how and why questions about supernatural or seemingly supernatural events. To use the finale to suggest that both the Colonial and Cylon religions were wrong would have required naturalistic explanations of the shared Opera House vision, Starbuck's apparent resurrection, Hera's unusual abilities, the nature of Baltar's six hallucination, and the other seemingly supernatural events.

[phantom power]

15. I would say you are probably right...

it's more of a direction I would have liked the series to take, over time, than a bomb to drop for the finale.

[laconicsax]

16. That would have been an interesting show to watch.

Though I'm not sure it would have prevented the post-New Caprica doldrums of the 3rd season.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. Yeah, I hated that

For that and other reasons, I thought it was a wasted 2+ hours.

In fact, that crappy finale made me feel that I'd wasted my time watching any of the series.

[and-justice-for-all]

11. That is pretty lame...

did they even find earth or was it all a bad dream? In the end, that is a pathetic way to end the series...with a cop out.

I thought they were all Cylons.

[Beetwasher]

17. Honestly, It Didn't Bother Me, In Fact, I Really Enjoyed It!

I thought it was terrifically done and I'm an atheist.

It IS fiction/fantasy after all, and I have no problems w/ god(s) being used in fantasy/fiction. That's where these ideas belong after all.

[Jokerman]

18. I still think it was a cheap writer's trick.

Had they let me know in the early episodes that some sort of "unseen entity" was controlling the story line I may or may not have quit watching, but I wouldn't have been so disappointed with the ending. Yes, many of the characters were religious but that's true of numerous stories that don't pull "god did it" out of nowhere in the end.

It would be like ending the "Soprano's" by having an assassin's bullet about to strike Tony's head when the angel of Big Pussy appears and stops it in mid air. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the way the Soprano's ended but it seemed to me to at least be true to the style of previous episodes. Galactica's ending made the previous plot lines irrelevant.

To me, the angels create more story holes than they fill. If their "god" had the ability to direct the story why did it allow billions to be slaughtered in the colonies? Was it because the "one true god" of the cylons was punishing the humans for worshiping other deities? Why did it lead them to a destroyed "earth" before sending them to our current planet? If these people's journey was predestined by a higher power, NOTHING we watched them do over the past four years mattered.

This is just a rant because I still feel cheated. I don't really expect answers to any of these questions but I know that I'll take a pass on anything else that has Ronald Moore's name attached.

Thanks for the response.

[salvorhardin]

19. Here's the thought I had

The cylons started off as machines, including the "skin jobs". So who gave them the belief in a monotheistic god? And then we have Head Baltar's seeming throw-away line right before the cut to the Musical Mecha Review: "You know he doesn't like to be called that." I think it's implied that the writers were invoking Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") and that what's being called a god is another greater advanced species or perhaps machine entity.

On the other hand, I have a rather disturbing suspicion that maybe the he-who-doesn't-like-to-be-called-that they were referring to was Ron Moore and his ego in which case frak Ron Moore.

I also really hated the way they ended Starbuck's character. What a giant cop out. And it's entirely unbelievable to me that after struggling to save themselves for so long that everyone would just give up everything and go native. No lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury... Yeah, right. Not a single person, human or cyclon, thought ahead to two or three or four or five years when everybody's clothes are nothing but tattered rags and they're all exposed to the elements, when people are dying in horrifying agony from ruptured appendices and other things easily curable with modern medicine, when people are starving because farming without the use of crops that have been carefully cultivated for thousands of years is really, really, really hard? And then that's what they all choose, for themselves and their children? No way. No frakkin' way.

[Jokerman]

20. You may be on to something there.

"maybe the he-who-doesn't-like-to-be-called-that they were referring to was Ron Moore and his ego"

That's the best explanation I've heard so far.

What about Hera as "Mitochondrial Eve"? Doesn't that mean that every single genetic line died out except for hers? Apparently going native didn't work out very well for the other 38,000 survivors.

[Beetwasher]

23. We're All Part Cylon!

:wow:

[Beetwasher]

22. Right, They Leave Open The Possibility It Wasn't "God", But Some Advanced Being

I also like Baltar's exposition and defense of his reasoning that there WAS this unseen force. In fact, were I in Baltar's shoes I might have to come to the same conclusion given what he's seen and what he's been through. Of course, his conclusion was "I MAY BE CRAZY but..."

So IOW, being the skeptic he is, he ALLOWS for the possibility HE IS crazy!

I had the same thought about them "giving it all up..".

[Beetwasher]

21. I Don't Think It Was A Trick, It Was The Intent From The Beginning

I dunno, I thought the clever part of the writing is that it kept me enthralled for four years and emotionally invested in the characters. I enjoyed the show and didn't expect that ending, but it did make everything make sense, IMO.