An Easterly View....

[rogueslayer452]

I realized I never really talked about the Battlestar Galactica series finale, or gave my opinion on it after it aired. I think due to the incredible polarized reaction by fandom I was kind of standing back from it a bit. Perhaps I will one day give my full overview of my thoughts and everything, but as it stands I will say I absolutely adored it, and the more I rewatch it the more I appreciate and love how it all ended and I couldn't have pictured a better ending to a fantastic series.

But today I want to discuss something that the finale touched on that I've been thinking about lately.

The decision of abandoning technology has been much for debate amongst fans, I have thought about it over and over again and while I do agree that the finale was kind of quick to clean things up a bit, I don't have a huge problem with them abandoning technology and living simple rural lifestyles. I don't think all the humans (and even Cylons) agreed to abandon everything completely, and I'm sure it took much persuasion and they kept certain things they needed to survive, esp if they were going off separately all over the planet, but after everything I think most just wanted good, solid ground underneath their feet. Being on the run, jumping back and forth through space in a confined space as the ships they were on, I think many had their share of technology and wanted a fresh start. Was it the smartest decision to make? Probably not, but I don't think it was unrealistic or illogically done so they could have the cycle repeat with the epilogue meta in the end (which I loved, by the way.)

I'm not denying that the finale wasn't perfect and had its fair share of issues here and there, but overall I wasn't overly bothered by that aspect like a lot of people seem to be, and I don't think it deserves the hate it receives, tbqh.


Yeah, I just have a lot of ~feelings about this finale and this series in general.

On a related note, my Caprica toaster finally arrived! \O/ I contemplated on getting it, going back and forth on "do I really need it?" since I really don't eat toast, but finally ended up going "fuck it" and buying it anyway. Let me say that if it had stayed the original price I wouldn't even bother, but since they lowered it way down I just couldn't resist. ;p

Comments

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

*nod* I have such a fondness in my heart for that epilogue. And NOT just because my angel babies are strolling around together in modern-day NYC, even though that's literally all I wanted out of the finale. ;)

Because my take on that scene - I think you're right that Six's hope and optimism that things might be different this time is key, and the fact they're sort of rolling the dice and arguing about it. I get where people see the technophobia and silliness*, but I think that was because of imperfect execution, if anything? (Especially after hearing RDM talk about that robot montage; he made it sound much more ambiguous than I think came through.) I don't read it as "OH NO MODERN TECHNOLOGY, OUR ROOMBAS WILL DESTROY US ALL." It's just "Yes, we are on our way to creating Cylons, we're testing the lines between people and machines and the world is going to shift when that happens, please be careful." How are we/future BSG cycle of humans going to deal with that?

(*Although I also love the silliness, because my show is CRACK BEAUTIFUL CRACK and there is Jimi Hendrix and angels and it ends on a big cosmic punchline and I'm not sure you *could* do it seriously. 150,000 years later, it's not like HeadSix and HeadBaltar are going to be less smug and snarky.)

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I don't read it as "OH NO MODERN TECHNOLOGY, OUR ROOMBAS WILL DESTROY US ALL." It's just "Yes, we are on our way to creating Cylons, we're testing the lines between people and machines and the world is going to shift when that happens, please be careful." How are we/future BSG cycle of humans going to deal with that?

That's what I got out from it too.

The meta epilogue is something I love more and more every time I watch it because it just adds more thinky thoughts, because when you look around us we are more technologically advanced than we have been over a decade ago. It's an optimistic hope wrapped in a warning of precaution to our own human curiosities about taking things too far, as we've seen what could happen, now what are we (as a human race) going to do about it? Can we be the surprising shift in the cycle that head!Six talks about?

I just have a huge appreciation for the epilogue in general. I wished more people did, but oh well.