Pull my finger. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Is anyone else wondering at the meaning of the finale's title? I can't help but think back to something the first hybrid said in Razor. "Not an end, but a beginning."
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
On January 14th, in my post on "A Disquiet Follows My Soul", I wrote:
Lastly: I went back and watched the final 4.0 episode’s end. That planet doesn’t necessarily look like our Earth, or at least, you can’t tell – it’s green ,it’s blue, there are clouds, but I couldn’t make out any continent that I would point to and say “Oh, that’s Asia!” or “That’s Africa!” I think there’s some misdirection going on here, and while the planet found may indeed be their Earth, there’s nothing to stop the Colonials from finding another habitable world nearby, one with recognizable continents, and christening it Earth: our Earth.
Looks like I guessed right.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
A cookie for Mr. Snay!
The random comments:
* I did quite like that the "Third Party" will remain a mystery. It seems likely that the Lords of Kobol and God are really just inadequate descriptions of whatever force is behind the "Angels", perhaps influenced by occurences in earlier 'cycles'.
* The best I can do is.. Kara Thrace really died, and what came back was a different kind of Angel than the Head-characters.
* "All Along The Watchtower" seems like a general 'unlocking' code. First, it activated the Final Five, then it activated Kara's memories and the location of Earth stored in her?
* That "150,000 years later" was pretty mindblowing, although somewhat expected. The implication seemed to be that it was our Earth, with Jimi Hendrix performing the next incarnation of the song. I couldn't quite figure out if those were the original Caprica and Baltar, or the Angels.
* So it seems "Daniel" was nothing more than just a way to explain the discrepancy in Cylon numbering, and he really was just destroyed. Oh well, not everything needs to be mysterious, I guess.
* Holy frak, it seems they saved the majority of the VFX budget for this episode. Old and new Cylons fighting against (and alongside!) Colonials, that was just cool.
* What happens to Earth we saw in the last scenes? Cylons will be created again, they will revolt, leave the planet, followed in time by the rest of the Earthlings, setlling new colonies and being guided by the Angels to create new prophecies.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Wow. Years ago I said that this series would flake out and become crap. Now all I can say from reading these posts is: "I told you so!"
Hundreds of hours of my life: saved by not watching this series!
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: On January 14th, in my post on "A Disquiet Follows My Soul", I wrote:
Lastly: I went back and watched the final 4.0 episode’s end. That planet doesn’t necessarily look like our Earth, or at least, you can’t tell – it’s green ,it’s blue, there are clouds, but I couldn’t make out any continent that I would point to and say “Oh, that’s Asia!” or “That’s Africa!” I think there’s some misdirection going on here, and while the planet found may indeed be their Earth, there’s nothing to stop the Colonials from finding another habitable world nearby, one with recognizable continents, and christening it Earth: our Earth.
Looks like I guessed right.
Well remember I pointed out that there was no moon orbiting "Earth" and for that I was suspicious of it being our Earth. So maybe I deserve a cookie crumb?
Overall I did enjoy the ending. The part with new Earth was a bit of a stretch, but I figured they would eventually tie in our world somehow. I suppose the ending is left open. If your an optimist, perhaps humans don't end up getting destroyed by their AI creations. If your pessimist, then the cycle begins again. Finally, that scene with Tory and the Chief, priceless.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Jason:
Actually, I found it quite enjoyable. Although 4.5 seemed to run headfirst into a "brick wall of exposition" and had some trouble getting started back up again, I thought season 4.0 and the first part of 4.5 was fantastic, and far more enjoyable than the bulk of season 3.
Harry:
I think those were the Angels. You can tell because Angel Baltar's hair is really kind of weird. And also because the real Baltar isn't immortal.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Wow. Years ago I said that this series would flake out and become crap. Now all I can say from reading these posts is: "I told you so!"
Pfft. Hardly. The finale may not have been absolutely, completely, 100% perfect... but what show is? Regardless of the handful of unanswered questions, the finale was still excellent.
I just still need to wrap my brain around some of these revelations... Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
I thoroughly enjoyed that finale.
One thing I found ironic is that the series implied that there was no alien life other than the humans, and it turns out that the Colonials were aliens after all.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Rod Sterling would be proud.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Dukhat:
Except ... it didn't. There's a line in there about the people on Earth are humans, and Lee and Bill talk about how weird it is that human evolved there, as well.
Of course, all "modern" humans are a combination of human/cylon.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
It was alright, not quite what I expected, and the last 20 minutes were kind of tame.
I knew a woman that parked her car like they parked the G.
I'd say that those two were the 'angels', the same attire as when they talked to C6 and Baltar on the G.
All in all, it was okay.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:Except ... it didn't. There's a line in there about the people on Earth are humans, and Lee and Bill talk about how weird it is that human evolved there, as well.
Oh, yes, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the Colonials never evolved on our Earth, hence they are extraterrestrials.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
So what about the final 5 ... well 3? How long does a Cylon live? I know they were at least 2000 years old. Can a Cylon live for 150,000 years?
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But that 2000 years was a lot shorter for them due to relativistic effects of their STL travel.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Yeah I don't think Cylons are immortal nor long lived.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Well.
Bit of a downer, really. Started feeling it as soon as they established they'd found "our" prehistoric Earth - that we all knew what was going to happen, because, well, it has.
And, right to the end I was expecting something awful to happen to Hera, like a lion was suddenly going to leap on her!
The end also sets up the prequel series Caprica quite neatly, by drawing the parallels of a technologically-advanced civilisation starting to experiement with cybernetics and AI.
Nice cameo from Ronald D. Moore, too.
Now I'll go and read Galactica: Variants and see how apoplectic that blogger is. . !
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I was less than impressed. Part of it is I think the whole "Situation Critical: RAMMING SPEED" has become just cliche'.
Posted by Mikey T (Member # 144) on :
I was expecting the original Starbuck to appear saying he's been stuck on 'Earth' since "The Return of Starbuck" episode.
In the end, it was somewhat anti-climatic to me as everything tied up more or less but there was just something... off. I can't put my finger on it right now though.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Perhaps the podcast should just be Lucy Lawless saying "A wizard did it!" over and over.
I agree, something feels off. Maybe some things don't need to be explained, they just are. But whereas you can shrug off Kara2's return to whence she came, the way in which such a conflicted and rudderless character who'd muddled through her destiny to enter those jump coordinates all of a sudden is all "My time here is done" doesn't sit right.
So, no ships of light, no real explanations, just a suggestion that maybe if people remember the mistakes of the past, they'll try to do something different, but people always forget. Or just ignore it all. Mankind's ultimate doom is the Frankenstein complex.
Adama, Apollo, HotDog, the Chief, Saul and Ellen, Romo, the Doc, Leoben, Gaius and Six, Helo and Athena, they lived their lives out in pastoral bliss in a prehistoric Earth, and their children, or those children's children (or some further iteration thereof) become ignorant cavemen. Great.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote: Adama, Apollo, HotDog, the Chief, Saul and Ellen, Romo, the Doc, Leoben, Gaius and Six, Helo and Athena, they lived their lives out in pastoral bliss in a prehistoric Earth, and their children, or those children's children (or some further iteration thereof) become ignorant cavemen. Great.
That or they laid the seeds of the earliest civilisation. All the way through the pre-historic Earth stuff I kept wanting someone to name one of the settlements Atlantis...but that's probably being too cute.
What intrigued me most, oddly enough, was what Harvey Baltar said at the end: "it doesn't like that name."
Oh and since we haven't been wiped out yet, the Centurions are still out there.
All in all, I was very satisfied, easily the best finale since "Sleeping in Light".
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
I thought it was fantastic, although towards the end it felt a bit like LotR. There were four or five times where it looked like that was it and then suddenly there was another set of scenes. The shot of Adama on the hillside next to Roslin's grave would have been a fine finish in my opinion.
I liked the spirit of the final scenes in NY, but I didn't like how they were filmed. Ending an episode that had almost movie quality production values with stock video of Japanese robots just seemed wrong. And I wouldn't begrudge RDM having a cameo in his show before the end, but it was a bit in your face.
Most of the storylines were tied up to my satisfaction, although what the frak Starbuck was could've been explained more. I don't mind a bit of ambiguity, but it's almost like they weren't sure what she was, so they just said "let's leave it up to the audience to figure out" and if we don't know either, then we're left feeling a bit thick. Yeah, she probably is just an angel, but why wasn't she aware of that fact like Harveys are? And we still don't really know how her body ended up on Earth.
I laughed a bit when Adama said they were sending the ships into the sun. They must have autopilots, so making Anders fly them basically boils down to murdering a disabled guy because Adama wants to live in a shack. And I read that the Colony eventually fell into the black hole (deleted scene), but they had baseships there too. For all the Colonials knew, the Colony Cylons could have come back.
Anyway, brilliant over all.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I liked how the centurions were given control of the baseship and one them was using the water controls. I always thought skinjobs could only use them. And Johnny, they may have autopilots, but can they be programmed to jump automatically? I think I recall someone making a comment about the ships making a jump into the sun. Although, the Fleet did appear to be traveling toward the Sun at impulse.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:I liked the spirit of the final scenes in NY, but I didn't like how they were filmed. Ending an episode that had almost movie quality production values with stock video of Japanese robots just seemed wrong.
I had a completely different take on those scenes. I felt those scenes with Asimo, the female Japanese "android," etc. were basically a warning that humanity is starting to progress toward the point where we're going to create our own Cylons, and the cycle will continue. It gave me chills, actually, when I watched them.
quote:Most of the storylines were tied up to my satisfaction, although what the frak Starbuck was could've been explained more. I don't mind a bit of ambiguity, but it's almost like they weren't sure what she was, so they just said "let's leave it up to the audience to figure out" and if we don't know either, then we're left feeling a bit thick. Yeah, she probably is just an angel, but why wasn't she aware of that fact like Harveys are? And we still don't really know how her body ended up on Earth.
I'm not quite sure I understand why so many people don't get what Starbuck was, because I got it immediately, at least IMHO. She isn't an angel. She's a Christ figure.
Jesus Christ was born, found out that his father was much more that what he thought, realized he had a destiny, had the 12 apostles follow him, died, was resurrected, and ascended to Heaven after fulfilling his destiny. Kara Thrace was born, realized she had a destiny, died, was resurrected, found out that her father was much more than what she thought, led the survivors of the 12 colonies to their new home, and ascended to (fill in the blank) after fulfilling her destiny. The sequence isn't the same, but the parallels are certainly there.(BTW, I was brought up Catholic, but I'm now an atheist)
quote:I laughed a bit when Adama said they were sending the ships into the sun. They must have autopilots, so making Anders fly them basically boils down to murdering a disabled guy because Adama wants to live in a shack.
Although I understand the need story-wise for the fleet to disappear, I think it would have worked better had Anders actually been the one who said he wanted to do it, and Adama went along with his request. That would have foreshadowed Anders's comment "See you on the other side," as if he knew that Starbuck would be going bye-bye soon and wanted to be with her wherever they ended up (Heaven, for lack of a better analogy). Of course, for all we know, that's what happened.
quote:And I read that the Colony eventually fell into the black hole (deleted scene), but they had baseships there too. For all the Colonials knew, the Colony Cylons could have come back.
From over a million light-years distance? And the fact that the colony Cylons didn't know where Galactica jumped? Highly unlikely they'd ever see those Cylons again. To quote the late Douglas Adams, "Space is big. Really big."
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Wow. Years ago I said that this series would flake out and become crap. Now all I can say from reading these posts is: "I told you so!"
Hundreds of hours of my life: saved by not watching this series!
Buddy, you SO missed out. Best. Series. Ever.
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Wow. Years ago I said that this series would flake out and become crap. Now all I can say from reading these posts is: "I told you so!"
Hundreds of hours of my life: saved by not watching this series!
Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Don't you see Jason, notions of "crap" and "not crap" are human creations, God is beyond "crap" and "not crap".
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Was there any real point to any of the Caprica flashbacks?
Gaius Baltar found his elderly father a bit of a drag. But the main reason he was so into Caprica Six wasn't the fact that she LET him into her, but because she got his dad a good rest home. So what?
Laura Roslin lost her entire family in a car crash, and moped until a one-night stand with an ex-student inexplicably persuaded her to enter politics. So what?
Despite spending his entire life in the Colonial military (and going to extreme lengths to get back in after they mustered him out), William Adama considered a civilian job until he decided he didn't like the questions they asked in the interview. So what?
Saul Tigh likewise considered becoming a civilian but chose his military life and his friend over his wife's desires. Cedric Daniels? Er, I mean, so what?
Boomer felt she owed Adama after his pep talk got her through becoming a full Raptor pilot on Galactica. So why not just not shoot him that time?
Lee Adama and Kara Thrace's mutual attraction pre-dated Zack's death. So what? And Lee got buzzed by a pigeon. So what what what?
OK, all the above were "there but for the grace of God" scenarios. But what are we to take from them? That God preferred these people avoid their likely alternate fates (extinction in the fall of the Colonies) and muddle through in the vain hope that this time, through their actions, all that has happened before WON'T happen again? And the entities responsible might just start to worry, 150,000 years later, that maybe they were expectuing too much?
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it, it certainly has had all sorts of emotional effects on me. I can remember where I was when I saw the Miniseries. I can remember initially deciding back when season 1 began I wasn't going to watch - this was just before my daughter was born and I happened to see a bit of "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" on Sky and it put me off! I can remember later being persuaded to watch by you guys. I can remember how each bit of peril faced by Hera would make me rush into my baby's bedroom to make sure she was alright. I can remember going to bed in near-shock after the way four of the Five were revealed. BSG has been a part of my life for nearly six years. I'll miss it.
I'm still undecided whether I'll bother watching Caprica though. . . 8)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I think the flashbacks were just meant to show how all our characters ended up on the path that lead them to their end, none of which had even a hint of manifest destiny but were instead seaming meaningless, or even trivial events that happen to us all. If any one of those pieces hadn't fallen just so, then things would have turned out very differently. To me the most interesting one was Baltars because without his unwitting help I'm sure the Cylons would have found another way into the defence mainframe, but when the inevitable attack came Baltar himself wouldn't have become the person that he did, if he managed to survive at all and without him in the mix thing would have gone very differently. As for the pigeon, not that I usually like to read in metaphor where there is probably none, I rather thought the pigeon was Kara. A stray bird that gets traps indoors and flutters about until it hurts itself, leaving a trail of destruction with Lee Adama chasing it all the way. That or it was a symbol of Lee's sense of unfulfilled...
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: Don't you see Jason, notions of "crap" and "not crap" are human creations, God is beyond "crap" and "not crap".
You know it doesn't like that word! Or am I thinking of the Knights of Ni? Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: I had a completely different take on those scenes. I felt those scenes with Asimo, the female Japanese "android," etc. were basically a warning that humanity is starting to progress toward the point where we're going to create our own Cylons, and the cycle will continue. It gave me chills, actually, when I watched them.
Oh, I understood why they were showing our advances towards AI and I liked the idea of posing the question of whether the cycle would happen again with us. I just didn't think stock footage was necessarily the best way to do it. It almost looked as if they'd run out of budget in the last five minutes of the show.
quote:From over a million light-years distance? And the fact that the colony Cylons didn't know where Galactica jumped? Highly unlikely they'd ever see those Cylons again. To quote the late Douglas Adams, "Space is big. Really big."
I didn't catch the line about them being a million light years away, but the Cylon's found New Caprica by accident and that was in a nebula that concealed it. Admittedly, they detected the nuke, but still, if I was a Colonial I wouldn't want to take the chance again. Even if it's not a realistic possibility that they'd be attacked again, it would still be worth have some form of defense in case they were.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Johnny:
My feeling is that, if the enemy Cylons came looking for them, having ships in orbit really would be more of a "HEY, WE'RE HERE!" than a defense: I mean, what could they have used? Galactica was junk. One rogue Basestar isn't going to hold off a fleet of Basestars for long.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Plus of course the best defence for the colonials is in hiding in plain sight. If the Cylons arrived at Earth and did a scan, what would they find exactly? A thriving biosphere and scattered tribes of primitives. These aren't the humans we're looking for, move along! Regardless, if there were any loyalists that weren't at the colony when it went into the black hole, they'd probably be dead and gone within a generation, leaving the hybrids and centurions to fend for themselves. Perhaps the redstripes find them.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Were there still cylons stretching all the way back to the colonies? Or when we saw them having up and left Caprica (back when they rescued Sam Anders and co.) did they really up and leave? Does that mean they were chased with what was left of the Cylons - or were there heaps still out there? I'm guessing that that was it - Rogue Cylons and Cavil's Colony cylons... and no more left.
Did the final 5 really have resurrection technology? Or was it a ruse. If they knew they held the capability - why not just take it and go start afresh?
What happened to D'Anna!?! Did she really stay back on nuked Earth?
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
Well, BSG wiki has a good point in their analysis, that even if D'Anna didn't die on Earth and was found by the remaining Colony Cylons they still wouldn't be able to keep their race going. And that's supposing they could even have a Cylon-Cylon baby, which never worked in the past.
If she did die, then the only remaining Colony Cylons would be Dorals, Simons and Cavils. No danger of any kids there. So I guess the Colonials really would be safe.
On the other hand, there's a chance they downloaded enough of the resurrection technology info to be able to figure out the rest, provided it was sent out to the baseships before the Colony was destroyed.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I'm still thinking about this.
I guess what bothers me is, this notion that by giving up all their advanced technology, they'll have a better life. I don't believe that. Technology is what you make of it, and I believe humanity should do what it can to advance.
So, yes, I have a personal objection to all this, it feels to me like back-to-nature tree-hugging hippy crap which is so much in vogue these days. It's totally unrealistic. People who espouse it fondly believe they'll live some kind of pastoral existence untroubled by want or hate or fear. Instead someone gets greedy and it's next stop a feudal society.
Obviously my personal view is coloured by the hindsight I as the viewer have over the characters - that I know their decision dooms the human race to more than a thousand centuries of hunter-gathering leading to gradual cultivation before anything resembling a worthwhile civilisation develops - no matter how long the Colonials managed to maintain decent standards of living and education, their way of life soon collapsed into ignorance and superstition. (The Mitochondrial Eve referenced in that NatGeo article, she wasn't more than about thirty when she died, sucks to be Hera I guess. But it's a bit of a harsh destiny to suffer all because Lee bloody Adama decided to think outside the box!)
But, more than that, I don't believe it's a realistic decison the characters would make. Sure most of the Colonials would probably prefer a life of simple farming after the stuck-in-tin-cans existence they've had to endure for the past four years. But their leadership, they've seen all too well that the problems they've faced cone from within, technological matters are at best only a catalyst. Consider the Miniseries: right there in his Decomissioning speech, Adama explicitly says that in Colonial society there is a denial going on that the Cylons were created by them and they reflect their own failings.
I'm curious to see what my Dad thinks about it. He's seen Daybreak Part 1 and already he's asked me what the point of the flashbacks is, I haven't told him anything as yet.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:their decision dooms the human race to more than a thousand centuries of hunter-gathering leading to gradual cultivation before anything resembling a worthwhile civilisation develops
Isn't that just a value judgment? Who are you to say that hunter-gatherer society isn't "worthwhile"? What makes industrial society any more "worthwhile"? Do you think whatever happiness you have stems from how many books are in the local library or how much math your civilization knows or how many Btus of energy it uses? If technology isn't the problem, it's not the solution either; it's just a thing. So I guess what you mean by "worthwhile" has something to do with art or culture, but it's a misunderstanding to think that hunter-gatherers don't have art or culture - and I'm sure it's quite worthwhile to them.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
About the "million light years" comment, I think that was just hyperbole on the speaker's part. The Milky Way is only 100,000 ly across.
I thought it was odd the way Cavil suddenly just shot himself. What was the point of that, and why did he do it?
I've said this before, but Racetrack is the unsung hero of the entire fleet, and this time being truly dead (unlike Starbuck) doesn't even stop her! How many times did she end up saving their collective butts over the course of the series?
So, you think Galen's wanting to be alone in the Highlands will lead him to kilt-wearing and running around yelling "There can be only one!"?
It was sad seeing the fleet head off into the sunset, but it was very cool hearing the original theme music again. (But seeing that fleet was kinda creepy in a weird way, knowing that it's a ghost fleet with all but one ship completely deserted.)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler:
quote:their decision dooms the human race to more than a thousand centuries of hunter-gathering leading to gradual cultivation before anything resembling a worthwhile civilisation develops
Isn't that just a value judgment? Who are you to say that hunter-gatherer society isn't "worthwhile"? What makes industrial society any more "worthwhile"? Do you think whatever happiness you have stems from how many books are in the local library or how much math your civilization knows or how many Btus of energy it uses? If technology isn't the problem, it's not the solution either; it's just a thing. So I guess what you mean by "worthwhile" has something to do with art or culture, but it's a misunderstanding to think that hunter-gatherers don't have art or culture - and I'm sure it's quite worthwhile to them.
I have to agree with him Lee. As for the fact that whatever civilisation they made eventually collapsed, well duh, doesn't every system eventually come to it's end? From eco-systems to whole galaxies, everything has it's time and then goes, the alternative is an eternity of stagnation, which is exactly the cycle that the Kobolians (new word!) were locked into. Still, some of their memory survives in some form since we've all heard of Apollo and Athena and the names of the constellations and of Starbuck, the ancient God of coffee and not smoking!
quote:I thought it was odd the way Cavil suddenly just shot himself. What was the point of that, and why did he do it?
One of the final five were dead and the secret to resurrection with her (and good riddance.) His options were either die of old age, get killed by someone else or eat a bullet.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Actually, in hindsight perhaps "worthwhile" wasn't the right choice of words. I was really meaning something like "viable."
But yes, I guess there is an element of value judgement in it all. There were millions of human beings who lived probably quite happy (if occasionally tough, and likely short) lifestyles which hadn't changed in any real way in tens of thousands of years - and wouldn't change for tens of thousands of years afterwards! I guess I just want to believe that humanity is proceeding towards something. . . better. What that is, I don't know. Maybe starting again from first principles IS the way forward (although in the case in question it demonstrably wasn't!).
You all know how much the varying Perils Of Hera have freaked me out over the years. I guess, as my daughter-substitute, I would have wanted more for her than just to have a bunch of kids then die before reaching middle age. Perhaps Helo and Athena felt differently - just to be able to be there to watch her grow up without living in danger every day might be enough for them after all they've been through.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
For ancient humans, I think 30 was a pretty respectable age. Of course for all we know, being a cylon hybrid it's possible she was much older while still being physiologically 30.
Still, a life can be short while still being worthwhile and fulfilling. Having a pulse for 100 years isn't necessarily the same thing as living. For all we know Hera lived to be a grandmother and was remembered for generations after her death. That's more than most of us can hope for. As for not having air conditioning, money or a mortgage...again, we should all be so lucky.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
"There are those who believe that life here began out there...."
Funny how that finally came to be. Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Oh, and about the Cylons living forever - I think the Five were only 2,000 years old because of resurrection technology. I think they'd die eventually, probably within a human lifespan (it seemed to be their goal and ideal to be as human as possible).
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Why do we keep having this discussion?
The Final Five were 2,000 years old because they were on a ship that moved almost as fast as light -- time slows down, they didn't experience it as a 2,000 year trip!
Plus, I think "THE PLAN" will show that they were downloaded into new bodies by Cavil to be inserted unknowing into Caprican society.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: Why do we keep having this discussion?
"This has all happened before, and it will happen again.... again.... again.... again...." Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
One thing that seems out of whack is the inference that ALL modern day humans are descendants of Hera. So what happened to the 59,000 odd other people that 'arrived'? Did all THEIR kids up and go the way of the Neanderthal?
I just don't think that this was a satisfying closure for the series overall. Too many things just seemed out of kilter with what we've seen the last few seasons.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
"Mitochondrial Eve" isn't our only common female ancestor, she's the most recent with a direct, unbroken female line. At least that's my understanding. So there will also be a great number of indirect descendants of the cylons and the coloinals, just none with a direct female link. Or male for that matter, I'm pretty sure the genetic Adam was from a totally different period.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
Not to mention that the "Mitochondrial Eve" fossil is just one fossil they found. That doesn't preclude that she had contemporaries that would be just as viable candidates - we've just not found their fossils yet.
While the episode implies greatly that this is Hera (thus fulfilling her arc as a person with an important destiny - the survival of the Cylon race) there isn't any specific evidence that "Mitochondrial Eve" was Hera. Could just as easily been the offspring of the real Baltar and Six or any other Cylon/Human pairing. Lots of Cylons and humans settled on Earth.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Funny little thing that just occurred to me; if they find Jake's fossil too then they'll have evidence that humans had fully domesticated dogs about 130,000 years earlier than they should have had. Hell, if Jake bred with a wolf bitch then he could be the father of all modern domesticated dogs. Go Jake!
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Well, here's hoping that orange bowl hasn't survived as well. . .
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I was thinking today about Baltar's cult. If there was one thing that was a big disappoint, it was the cult. What was the point of its existence again? I always felt they were potential trouble, but ultimately they faded into the background when Baltar chose to stay behind on Galactica. There wasn't even a mention of them when the Colonials finally reached New Earth.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
There's allot of things that got cut short. Lee forming the new government for one. It lasted, what? Two weeks before it became redundant? But then it was always going to be that way, it's just a shame they crammed so many interesting stories into season 4, which the middle of season 3 seamed to have been squandered.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Wasn't there supposed to be a season five, that got nixed? The Sci Fi Channel strikes again!
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I think the Miniseries + 4 full seasons has been good. I wouldn't have objected to another season - but at least ending it now sends BSG out on top!
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Actually it was only three and a half seasons. Season one as I recall only had 12 or so episodes. Not that I think a full fifth season would have been a good idea, just another ten or so episodes, any more and it'd be dragging it out.
Still, it's better that it went out before it wore out it's welcome. Shows like Voyager or X-Files could have done with two or three or seven less seasons.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: Why do we keep having this discussion?
The Final Five were 2,000 years old because they were on a ship that moved almost as fast as light -- time slows down, they didn't experience it as a 2,000 year trip!
Plus, I think "THE PLAN" will show that they were downloaded into new bodies by Cavil to be inserted unknowing into Caprican society.
Yes, and, they had resurrection. Depending on how fast they were going, they still would experience a couple hundred years.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Why did John Cavill shoot himself in CIC? Why not get captured? Or do you think they would have just killed him anyway?
I wonder if someone went back to 'old Earth' to get D'Anna. I don't think it was that many jumps - 1 or 2 back to old Earth?
Anyone think that the cylons tried to continue breading with cylons?
There really weren't many left:
Females: Ellen Tigh, Sixes and Eights (possibly D'Anna if they went back and got her)
Males: Saul Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Twos (Leoben).
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Well we know a Tigh + Six pairing won't work, human + Eight works... So potentially any of the Cylons pairing with a human would produce an offspring...
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: Well we know a Tigh + Six pairing won't work, human + Eight works... So potentially any of the Cylons pairing with a human would produce an offspring...
Did Tigh and Caprica not work cause... it just didn't or was it due to Six being too strenuous fighting those guys etc?
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I was under the impression that the Saul/Six kid started going downhill once it became clear to Six that her and the child were 'Second' to Adama in Tigh's priority list. Since it didn't feel as 'loved' or 'special' after Ellen's little sabotage, the pregnancy failed. It seemed to me that if Ellen had not returned and brought the emotional conflict with Six that the child would have survived. It also seemed as though Ellen KNEW that a miscarriage would be the result.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Apparently Cavill was just going to die, somehow, in the battle; his committing suicide was Dean Stockwell's idea. I guess if anyone's supposed to know the character's motivations, it's him, so I guess it made sense to himself. Be interesting to hear how he rationalised it though. I think the editing made the whole sequence a bit rushed; if he'd been able to see for certain that one of the Five had just been killed, denying him resurrection technology forever (or for a long time assuming the other four were willing & able to re-create it from scratch), maybe that was sufficient impetus. Problem is, the scene as it stands has the collapse of the cease-fire and Cavill's suicide happen concurrent with Tyrol's breaking of the transfer/communion and murder of Tory.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I dunno, Lee, as I remember it we already saw Tyrol pull his hand out of the water before the shooting started.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
I thought it was Tyrol pulled is hand out and Anders started yelling and that's when Doral freaked.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Sort of. Tyrol broke the connection, Anders and the hybrid started yelling, and the Cylons noticed the broken connection because they were monitoring the info transfer.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Jacob over at TelevisionWithoutPity on the finale:
quote:So what's the problem? Few things, but big ones. Two things particularly, which line up with the odd conclusion in a particularly gruesome way. They both have to do with imagination, unfettered imagination, creation. The things you've created, and your responsibility toward them.
The show has been sketched out a year at a time, brilliantly; it is a living breathing thing, which lends it all the power it has. The problem, for me, is when that stops being true. When the plot isn't left alone to figure itself out, because an endpoint has been decided, and nobody feels like doing the work at the end of the season to tie all the threads together.
Fanboys, sometimes they hate the fact that stories work this way. They want it all stitched up ahead of time, with a plan on the books. I don't really understand why, but I know that there's not a show on television, or a novel ever written, that works that way. Things change, stories evolve and grow up, or the people creating them change, or lose interest. But fanboys, sometimes they are loud. So the showrunner has to say, "I know what the last thing is." The last image, or the last word of dialogue, or who's left standing. Maybe it's true, maybe it's a bluff.
It would be better if it were a bluff. Because you can't have it both ways. You can't say that the story tells itself, pat your back egregiously for the "artistic" details you've chucked in for no clear artistic reason, while also reassuring the fans -- whose opinions don't really matter anyway, because all you owe them is a story, including me, which is why I feel comfortable writing about this -- that there's an endpoint, a reason for it all, a final mystery. That all will be revealed.
Trust the story, and it will be. I think what I reacted so violently to, this finale and the last one, was the exceedingly inorganic, forced nature of the revelations, at the last second. Not organically developing out of the story told over the preceding nineteen episodes, and the threads of deeper meaning and juxtaposition that they afford, but a determined weeding out of tools and images that didn't fit the finale, when it was time to write the finale. That's distinctly irreverent, toward the material, toward the story itself, and to your writers. I think what happened here was less a issue of forethought and planning, and more a loss of nutsack at a crucial moment. A dedication to reaching ideas long plotted out, working against the grain of the story itself, to arrive at treasured endpoints that no longer signify.
Not that the finale wasn't intuitively written. Which is the second issue, because while it's a fine story, it turns against the preceding flow of the narrative in some pretty stark ways that, assembled, seem pretty revealing.
Let's start with Tory, not because I love her so much or anything, because what is there to love beyond the gifted Rekha Sharma? Not a lot. She was the mystery ingredient in the Final Four, the "most exciting" open-ended character, who in the end got the least interesting, most cardboard-villainous story of all. Thinking back to the balance of the Final Five, above, let's think about her for a second. Tory Foster is not Slytherin, she's Ravenclaw -- Ellen's Slytherin -- Tory is Air, Mind, the Invisible Girl, Thinking, taunted and haunted by dark emotions she can't see directly or ever explain, shooting out dark roots into Intuition and Sensation in order to stabilize herself against these shadow emotions and fears. (Compare Buffy's Willow Rosenberg, for an easy example.) The Final Five have lost their Thinker; it's no surprise that soon after, they give up even the touchstone of transcendence, shooting Sam into the sun as an artifact of technology, and become the Final Three.
What's troubling is that these Final Three, eventually, will agree that this is okay, even appropriate. Laudable, even. The show claps Galen on the back for severing the group's ties with the infinite, breaking a peace accord through murder, and eventually damning all but three Cylon models to death. Which, whatever, that's fine.
Only at the same time, Lee is warning us about our science outstripping our souls. Just after sending Simon the doctor and Cavil the atheist genius into a black hole, and a little while before the Smartest Man in the Twelve Colonies decides to become a farmer. Because courage, not intelligence, is what earns you love, and the right to exist. And right about this time the Fleet is giving up all intellectual progress they've ever made, and lying down in the grass and praising themselves for it, because technology and intellect and progress and mental strength are not "the best part of ourselves," any more than Tory Foster deserved to live. Human progress is typified in the glorious decadence of Caprica City, where if they're not fucking they're puking on themselves: "Commercialism, decadence, technology run amok" are inscribed as natural human endpoints, and the Hybrid and Lee agree, at different points, that cities and civilization are the root cause of all evil. And even though I personally found the characters' resolutions -- yes, including Kara's, and the angels' -- completely satisfying, that can go on the list too. The story steps up to the brink spiritually on at least three fronts, and then tosses up its hands, saying those lynchpins of the series no longer signify. Not for the lack of answers, but for suggesting that the questions themselves aren't worth asking.
I submit to you that coincidental or not -- and that's a pretty long list, to be a coincidence -- this is not only offensive and misguided, but vile. You have to look in the darkest, sweatiest ugliest places to find God, and the story here tells us that you're better off just pretending those places don't exist. Wrap your hands around the shadow's throat, or your enemy's throat, or around the blow-up dolls that Cylons are after all, and submerge the holiest part of yourself in forced amnesia and bitter denial, tell yourself that development forward leads inexorably to bisexual strip clubs and casual intercourse outside the bonds of marriage, and killer robots? All the cool kids are going agrarian? That's an old man's game, afraid and lost and tired, and the show is worthy of better than that.
Human development on the individual level is self-organizing: toward strength, wholeness and transformation. That's what a soul is: the natural desire to cross the line from here to there, to move and to progress. If not for a higher purpose, then at the least from of curiosity. Everything that rises, every single thing, must converge. I haven't seen a story this... hateful, this reductive and frightened and shrinking, in a really long time.
Why on Earth should anyone, anywhere, ever retrograde? If you don't like the thesis, generate the antithesis and pull it together with your hands: don't wipe the board. I don't think I've been more grossed out by any statement of this show's characters than the order not to "underestimate the desire for a clean slate." Anyone who honestly wants a clean slate wants to die. The question is, "When Will the Work Be Done?" And the only answer is: Never. You don't get to lay down your burdens, the rough spots are all you ever had. That's called life, and it's just as sweet and just as brutal as the angels, and the Gods. You can't tear pages out of your history. That's as weak as declaring bankruptcy, and morally reprehensible. It is profane.
You can't total out a human soul, can't ask for a factory recall, can't stalk your inner Tory and choke her to death, because she's not going anywhere. That just gives her more power over you, and you become uglier for it. You learn from her, you integrate, and you grow. Anything else is a warp in the design that you cause, out of your own cowardice, and laziness.
The future is always better than the past. Even Voltaire knew that, and he invented this trite shtick. If you can't believe that -- if you fear the future you're creating, for yourself -- you're done. Because there's no point: end it today, or stop bitching and apply yourself to making it better, because essentially the implication is that nobody knows how to save the world, but you, and nobody but yours will ever figure it out. That is dead. That is death.
I can't get around it, and I can't get past it. This is all me talking, I don't know anything about the people that brought this story to life, not really. And it's just an hour, or half an hour, out of something I will always love. It's not a dealbreaker. I'm already signed to do Caprica and The Plan for TWoP, because I do believe in this story. I love it. I love for its ambition, and its strength, and its excellence, and its hope. I love the people who have worked so hard to create something so beautiful, that has informed so much of my life for so many years. This is not a write-off. This is a personal problem with particular and personal conclusions that pushed personal buttons.
If any of the retrogressive themes in this episode were present, or even foreshadowed, in any other episode of the series, it would be lessened as a whole. But as the finale to a story, it's cool shit that doesn't mean much, other than telling us a lot about the mindset and the environment -- a given time, a given location -- in which it was produced. But no matter how hopeless it seems at this point in the story, the fact remains: We start every week in prayer: for more light, more wisdom, more strength. That will never change. Keep rising.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Quite an erudite chap, often excessively so (but his analysis of the Sopranos' ending is one of the best things I've ever read).. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he encapsulates quite well the problems I (and many others) have with the back-to-nature ending.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Lee, I have to concur. You also can't tell me that out of some 50,000 plus people there were not a few who brought along a 'little something' of their technological comforts that would have impacted humanity.
I could SOOOooo see Baltar settling in the Nile valley region and changing his name to Ra. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I'm sure some artefacts and technical knowledge would have survived. Ever heard of the Baghdad battery? Plus of course there are those old Hindu myths about flying machines, wars in the sky, not to mention the various myths around the world (particularly in South America) of ancient teachers that gave humans language, agriculture etc.
Still, 150,000 years is a long time in human cultural terms and I doubt anything specific would still be around much longer after the ice age. Which brings up a point; I don't think Galen could have gone to what's now Scotland since IIRC at that point the landbridge was still intact and we were still a part of mainland europe, not an island.
I do wonder though what they did with all the Raptors, Vipers and shuttles? It's not as if they could just leave them in the open or blow them up, as if I recall correctly they had radioactive power cores. Probably set them on autopilot to ditch in the deepest ocean trench available.
Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
According to Mojo there was a scene where they did indeed line up all the raptors and blow them up, but it was either cut, or wasn't filmed at all. Maybe they would have removed any dangerous materials first.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: [QUOTE]I'm not quite sure I understand why so many people don't get what Starbuck was, because I got it immediately, at least IMHO. She isn't an angel. She's a Christ figure.
Jesus Christ was born, found out that his father was much more that what he thought, realized he had a destiny, had the 12 apostles follow him, died, was resurrected, and ascended to Heaven after fulfilling his destiny. Kara Thrace was born, realized she had a destiny, died, was resurrected, found out that her father was much more than what she thought, led the survivors of the 12 colonies to their new home, and ascended to (fill in the blank) after fulfilling her destiny. The sequence isn't the same, but the parallels are certainly there.(BTW, I was brought up Catholic, but I'm now an atheist)
Okay, I've read this whole thread trying to see if there's something that says "I should give this series a third chance" but that quote really decides it for me.
Holy shit am I glad I skipped this series.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
Jason,
If you're using my quote to imply that I didn't like the series or the finale, then you've taken what I said out of context. And if you want to skip the series, fine. But it's really your loss.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:Why on Earth should anyone, anywhere, ever retrograde? If you don't like the thesis, generate the antithesis and pull it together with your hands: don't wipe the board.
Excellently put.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Jacob's use of the phrase "lay down your burdens" got me thinking about that partocular episode. Then, the humans, weary of running, found a planet to settle on; but a year later it had all gone pear-shaped and then the Cylons arrived an occupied them. And, second time round, they do the same thing but decide that what'll make it work this time is not to build a city, and have ships parked nearby or in orbit? Hmm.
It also occurs to me: we don;'t really know how completely "back to basics" they were planning to go. All we saw were people being loaded onto Raptors for dispersion. We don't know how much stuff was really unloaded, for all Apollo's poetic "nothing but the clothes on their backs" idea, these are civilised people who probably haven't been through extreme survival training. Although the destruction of the fleet implies a desire to stop running, why destroy the Raptors deliberately? We know they were ultimately destroyed or fell apart and weren't replaced because we know that eventually what are now "our ancestors" descended into barbarism. So I don't believe in the choice they made from a character-based point of view, and from hindsight as well.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
And something else that I was just reading that seemed germane:-
Considering that the alternative was building cities, being fruitful and imposing civilisation on the natives I think they made the right choice. Just look at a history book to see what usually happens in those situations. THAT is what I'd call barbarism.
As for the colonials not used to extreme survival; they've all survived a holocaust, cylon occupation and four years of starvation, water rationing, cramped, possibly unhygienic conditions and a purely barter based economy. I think they can handle living in largish groups in the wilderness.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
It did leave open a few possibilities for shows, a new Atlantis being one of them.
Disposing of the small craft wouldn't be an issue, fly them up and land people in small groups, this way you might end up with one ship on the ground. Since only one person needs to make the final trip down that person can fly a Viper down, pick a nice spot on a coast to eject, and let the Viper fly on till it crashes and sinks. A few hundred years and it's gone.
Looking at the human timeline I would have had the series end about 70,000 years ago, when speech developed. Since the Doc said the DNA matched anyway, they did have to make it look like Hera was Mitochondrial Mom.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: Jason,
If you're using my quote to imply that I didn't like the series or the finale, then you've taken what I said out of context. And if you want to skip the series, fine. But it's really your loss.
I'm not basing the decision on your post solely by any respect, I'm just pointing out that while I like a big dollop of sci-fi in my religon, the opposite is not true.
Really, I tried. I tried at least three times to watch this as everyone raved about it as somehow above adverage but each time I watched I found I despised all the humans and the cylons had no motivation- intentionally becoming the enemy you hate hardly seems "advanced".
The last episode I saw featued a metal refinery ship with conditions that would have made Dickens blush and when a character (forget his name) stand up for the people stuck on the ship, Adama threatens to flush the guy's wife out an airlock. If I want to see assholes, I have the real world.
Somehow, even with all the superior acting, a producer I really admire and amazing effects they lost the integrity and heart that made the survivors from the original series into more than just desperate refugees, and endeared them to me, even decades later.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Actually, Adama threatened to have her shot. Posted by Johnny (Member # 878) on :
And he'd put ten Callys against the wall if it made you watch BSG.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Johnny: And he'd put ten Callys against the wall if it made you watch BSG.
LOL I just thought of something like this (when I read you post):
"Everytime you masturbate, Admiral Adama will put Cally again sthe wall".
Actually now that I re-read it - sounds a little dirty. Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Somehow, even with all the superior acting, a producer I really admire and amazing effects they lost the integrity and heart that made the survivors from the original series into more than just desperate refugees, and endeared them to me, even decades later.
You mean the guys who went and had a party after their entire civilization was destroyed? The ones with the whiny kid and the chimp wrapped in aluminum foil? The ones whose ship caught fire and it took them hours to think of venting the air? Sorry; the original show had its charm, but it never took its own premise seriously. The show was about the end of the frakking world.
I enjoyed Galactica because it seemed more realistic; even when people did stupid things, I could relate to them in some way. Even if they didn't make sense. Because in real life, when does everything make logical sense anyway?
If that's not to your taste, well, I think that's a shame. But there are other shows I despise that people love -- I have no appreciation for "Doctor Who," for example. So I'm not ridiculing your opinion. Just offering my opinion of your opinion. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Jason: I have to agree with Dan. The original series, while certainly of it's time and as such has it's charm never really tried to be anything more than a Saturday morning cartoon with actors and "Star Wars" style model shots. As for the religious content of the RDM series, it's non-specific enough that it manages to talk about religion and faith with out addressing the cultural baggage of a specific, living religion. As for it's place in sci-fi, speaking as a devout agnostic I can't imagine any half way identifiable human civilisation without some kind of religious belief. Actually, the mythology of the original show is up to it's neck in Mormon religious overtones.
Dan: I'm not much of a DW fan either but watch "Blink". Seriously.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Oh, yeah, "Blink" is something else. Not much Doctor, some serious timeline-juggling (both narratively and causatively), guest star Carey Mulligan is, well, HAWT - and, more to the point, it's damn scary.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
I heard a fun take on Kara 2. That they are on this world of untamed wilderness, perhaps even the plains of Africa. She and Lee are having their conversation and sure enough at this poignant and spiritual moment--Lioned! Or, you know some other predator snatches her away without a sound. Liked that.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I don't know much about the upcoming Caprica, but someone told me there is a character in there called 'Daniel'. Not saying that he will be Kara's father... but could be the 7th Cylon!?!
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Since #7 aka Daniel wasn't created until after the Cylon War, and the events of Caprica pre-date both the war and the creation of Cylons, it's highly unlikely.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
And I think RDM has essentially said that the whole "Daniel" thing is not a lot more than making the Cylon numbers work.
It seems the best bet is that Daniel really was destroyed, and is of no apparent significance.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I think I realize what my subconsious bias against this show is- No Lucifer Cylon. He/it was the coolest thing visually back then
Snay could be the "skinjob" version. Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
The old Lucifer had a glittering pointy head and mad eyes. He looked horrible. Besides, you're wrong, RDM has said there is a Lucifer analogue and it's Cavil.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Now if only they had an Arcturian Three-Mind.....
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: The old Lucifer had a glittering pointy head and mad eyes. He looked horrible.
Have you seen that pic of Snay wiith the beard? Flare's own Lucifer....who would've thought it would be him.
sorry Snay, it was too easy.
Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :
quote:Oh, I understood why they were showing our advances towards AI and I liked the idea of posing the question of whether the cycle would happen again with us. I just didn't think stock footage was necessarily the best way to do it. It almost looked as if they'd run out of budget in the last five minutes of the show.
Again, I viewed this differently. What I got out of the use of stock footage was "OK people, the sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica is now over, but its message still exists. This is Earth, our Earth, the real thing, and not part of the fictional show. However, look at what we're doing. We're becoming reliant on machines, computers, robots, etc., and in the future we could have our own analogous Cylons." Worked well for me. And I hate stock footage :-)
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
There are many instances where the use of stock footage is a sign of a limited budget or laziness. This is neither. In fact if you listen to the commentary, they had a hard time coming up with good footage and then had further headaches getting permission from the various parties involved to use said footage. Regardless, it's portrayed as a news story on the TV, so stock footage is really the only option. Would you propose they invent a bunch of fictional CG robots and show that instead? I hardly see the point.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Heck, the whole POINT of the footage that it WAS real. It would lose the impact if it weren't.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)