NBSG Razor [SPOILERS]

[Gandalf]

That was a pretty decent showing, although it felt as though the whole point of the story was to show that Starbuck was bad juju and that the old Cylons were back.

[Vympel]

I thought that was it for the old Cylons? Just the guardians of the Hybrid?

[ray245]

Can someone post a full summary to people who didn't download it?

[JLTucker]

Can someone post a full summary to people who didn't download it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_galactica_razor

Or, you can wait until late this month when it airs on Sci-Fi.

[Ubiquitous]

It was pretty good, but I have never been a fan of 'going back' so soon in a shows timeline. Yes, it was cool to see the old Cylons, but I feel they were underused somewhat. And the whole movie seemed a tad pointless, unless season four reveals more from the tibbits we can take from Razor.

[Dahak]

Didn't the show contain...less than could be seen in the Razor-flashbacks that floated around?

[Gandalf]

If the Cylons were shown to be experimenting with existing humans, could this be an explanation for those who heard "All Along The Watchtower"?

[NeoGoomba]

Didn't the show contain...less than could be seen in the Razor-flashbacks that floated around?

Razor only used the last two Adama flashbacks I believe. I guess the other flashbacks were created to give them a sense of context without having Razor to watch. But the Razor dvd supposedly will have an extended cut, so maybe more of that footage will be added in some capacity.

[ray245]

Can someone post a full summary to people who didn't download it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_galactica_razor

Or, you can wait until late this month when it airs on Sci-Fi.

I live in singapore...so the only legal way to get it is to wait for the DVD...although there is other ways.

[Netko]

It was pretty good, but I have never been a fan of 'going back' so soon in a shows timeline. Yes, it was cool to see the old Cylons, but I feel they were underused somewhat. And the whole movie seemed a tad pointless, unless season four reveals more from the tibbits we can take from Razor.

I'm guessing that the Kara revelations from the end will have consequences in S4 - they felt like the writers wrote themselves into a corner with S3 and now needed some retconning to strengthen their "final 5" in the storyline, which until the rather trippy S3 was much more realism (as opposed to mysticism and symbolism) based.

Overall, I liked Razor - felt it was a throwback to a more military morality theme that got sidetracked in S3. Still, it wasn't excellent - the tendency that I dislike that started in the latter half of S2 and especially S3 is evident - namely, the telling of battles rather then showing them (compare, for example, the duration of Starbuck's dogfight with new/old Raiders to any dogfight in S1 or most of S2), some plot points were just glossed over (the Gina subplot, for example, felt like it was included simply because it had to be because of continuity), the newly introduced character of Major Pegasus XO (sorry, can't remember the name - too lazy to look it up) was good, however considering her final sacrifice I can't help but wander if some of her character development time could not have been used for more interesting things, franchise wise, etc.

[Turin]

I'm guessing that the Kara revelations from the end will have consequences in S4 - they felt like the writers wrote themselves into a corner with S3 and now needed some retconning to strengthen their "final 5" in the storyline, which until the rather trippy S3 was much more realism (as opposed to mysticism and symbolism) based.

I've heard this particular complaint before and it never made sense to me. nBSG has had intense spiritual/mystical elements from 33 on. Baltar in the opera house on Kobol? The president having mystical visions?

Just came back from seeing Razor on the big screen here in Philadelphia, which was a real treat. It was fun seeing a show like this with a big audience and laughing and cheering and whatnot. I was also really interested to see the audience demographic. The last Star Trek movie I saw had an audience mostly composed of groups of 15-24 males. There was virtually no one under the age of ~25 or so, and a lot of folks much older than that.

Only a couple of complaints and they're all technical in nature. The acting of the actress who played Kendra Shaw was a little subpar for the show. Jamie Bamber and Katie Sackoff IMO have both come pretty far from when they were in the miniseries and she doesn't really stand up well against either of them. The editing of the timelines was a little odd as well. I think the choice to use flaskbacks to when Adama was still Husker was disjointed, particularly when you've already got a flashback to the Pegasus/Cain story going on at the same time as the Pegasus/Lee story (which itself is a flashback for the audience who is current through the end of S3). Seeing the movie without the typical advertisement interruptions ended up emphasizing this, as there's a pause where the show will obviously break for commercial when aired on SciFi -- when it airs this will break the scene up better for the audience, I think.

Overall I was pretty happy with the way the stories are tying up to lead into S4, and this has certainly whetted my appetite for the end!

Spoilers:
The revelations at the end weren't too unexpected for me, as I've been pushing a "there are two somewhat unrelated groups of cylons, one old and one new" theory for a while, although I didn't think the two groups of cylons would be actually contemporaneous. Seeing the face of God was unexpected, though. I really expected that to remain unknown throughout, and it also clashed with my original theory that the cylon God was an AI from the era of Kobol. Well, that theory's shot!

And it was very fun to hear "By your command" and have a whole theatre roar and cheer together!

[Uraniun235]

I've heard this particular complaint before and it never made sense to me. nBSG has had intense spiritual/mystical elements from 33 on. Baltar in the opera house on Kobol? The president having mystical visions?

It has had elements, but the thing about Season 1 is that it does not take a side; is Roslin really having a vision, or is she just tripping balls? Does Baltar really have a little demon living inside his head, or has he been shoved over the subtle line between genius and insanity by the revelation that he has helped to engineer the downfall of humanity? It wasn't definite then... and further, it was quite a bit subtler, since it had the vagueness of prophecy to cloud things a bit.

Now we've got Kara Thrace being "the chosen one" or some such bullshit, the Cylons are themselves talking about the Colonial gods as though they really did exist... hell, maybe they should bring in Count Iblis while they're at it.

[Turin]

It has had elements, but the thing about Season 1 is that it does not take a side; is Roslin really having a vision, or is she just tripping balls? Does Baltar really have a little demon living inside his head, or has he been shoved over the subtle line between genius and insanity by the revelation that he has helped to engineer the downfall of humanity? It wasn't definite then... and further, it was quite a bit subtler, since it had the vagueness of prophecy to cloud things a bit.

And? And everything should remain entirely unexplained the whole time in order to fulfill some preconceived notion of "this show is N% realistic?" What's wrong with leaning one way or the other? Particularly as we see that a lot of the mysticism has some basis in reality (such as what we see at the end of Razor)?

Now we've got Kara Thrace being "the chosen one" or some such bullshit, the Cylons are themselves talking about the Colonial gods as though they really did exist...

What's bullshit about it? There are plenty of non-mystical explanations as to why Kara is "chosen" which don't require even much in the way of mental gymnastics to explain. My personal theory at the end of Kobol's Last Gleaming was that we were witnessing a cycle of history with respect to the cylons and humans, and that there were "original" cylons from Kobol who might be the missing 5. Razor blows some of that theory out of the water, but Kara's return is completely reconcilable with her being a cylon of one form or another. No spooky magic shit required.

hell, maybe they should bring in Count Iblis while they're at it.

Obviously you haven't seen Razor yet.

[Turin]

Apologies for the double-post but a couple of more thoughts in review (unrelated to Uranium's comments):

This was a pretty ambitious script, as Moore decided to interweave two distinct plotlines to create a new character (Lee's XO Kendra Shaw), attempt to redeem a character in the eyes of the audience (Cain), and give us all the background information we'll need to understand the final Cylon plotline into Season 4. Plotline #1 is the story of the Pegasus from the time the cylons attacked until they meet the Galactica. Plotline #2 is a story that follows in the aftermath of the Season 2 episode Captain's Hand. This second plotline makes me mildly agitated from a continuity standpoint, but I think Moore makes it work in a way that we'll see the after-effects only in Season 4.

The thematic elements introduced increasingly towards the end of Season 3 were followed through here well, particularly the theme of forgiveness of human fallibility. In "Crossroads," the final episode of S3, we as the audience (and the crew, obviously) were invited to attempt to forgive Dr. Baltar in the same way that we & the crew have been quite forgiving of the other protagonists, who are all deeply flawed. Razor takes this a step further and invites us to attempt to forgive Adm. Cain through her proxy Kendra Shaw, which is obviously a much harder step. Particularly when you finally see Cain's atrocities first hand. The original contrast between Cain and Adama is broken down. Originally we were given Adama as human and Cain as inhuman, but in Razor we're presented with Cain's inhumanity as an unavoidable part of human fallibility. It's an uncomfortable lesson, of course.

I was a little surprised at the relationship between Gina and Cain, but I think it was handled pretty smoothly considering the genre (Which would probably normally be like "hurr hurr LESBOS!!!!! Hurr hurr!!!) I did think that Shaw's injected drug use didn't play well with me, even though it was blatantly set up to be compared vs Starbuck's similar substance problems. This is probably a cultural issue, as frankly American audiences are less likely to be sympathetic to an IV drug user due to our recent history with heroin use in the inner cities, when compared to Kara's alcoholism, which is unfortunately tolerated in the US. YMMV.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Could someone please tell me what all the big revelations are from this episode? I have no cable and no DVD funds, but I'd really like to know what's up with all the "face of God" or "Count Iblis" cracks or the talk about two separate Cylon factions. And what exactly happens to or is revealed about Starbuck?

[Turin]

Could someone please tell me what all the big revelations are from this episode? I have no cable and no DVD funds, but I'd really like to know what's up with all the "face of God" or "Count Iblis" cracks or the talk about two separate Cylon factions. And what exactly happens to or is revealed about Starbuck?

Hopefully you're going to get yourself some cable prior to S4 if you're a fan then!

Spoilers:
The revelations are actually all slightly vague. The main plotline is set right after Captain's Hand, and Lee & his new XO are tasked to find out what happened to a missing raptor. Pegasus runs into raiders like they've never seen before, and one of them crash-lands in the Pegasus landing bay thanks to Kara's flying. We find out that these raiders (which are oBSG-style) are First Cylon War era, and we learn from #8/Athena that the cylons talk about their God is related to a group of cylons who left the main "collective" (or whatever) after the war.

These cylons were called the Guardians, and Adama Sr. seems to think he knows what this is about, as his last mission in the war was to rescue captives from a secret cylon installation that was doing weirdo experiments on humans (cue eerie music and flashback). Yadda yadda there is a daring raid by the Pegasus with Lee and Dad aboard to these mysterious cylons, hoping to take out whatever the Guardians are hiding via mildly contrived special ops mission with Kara and New XO (Shaw) leading the mission. Shaw sacrifices herself after being shot as part of her atonement for the things she did under Cain, but discovers after everyone has left and she's holding the trigger to the nuke they brought, that there is Something Sinister nearby. She finds the ship's Hybrid, which is (apparently) the Original Hybrid, who is an old man in a vat, and the one that the cylons call their God. God decides to fuck with Shaw and tell her that Kara Thrace is the "Harbinger of the Apocalypse," that she will bring the end of the human race, and not to follow her. Shaw manages to get out a warning to Lee & Co but only something to the effect of "I have to warn you about Starbuck" before she is jammed by the cylons. Cue dramatic nuclear detonation by Shaw. The end.

That skips over the Cain/Shaw plotline entirely, of course, but it should give you enough to work with.

[Uraniun235]

And? And everything should remain entirely unexplained the whole time in order to fulfill some preconceived notion of "this show is N% realistic?" What's wrong with leaning one way or the other? Particularly as we see that a lot of the mysticism has some basis in reality (such as what we see at the end of Razor)?

"as we see that a lot of the mysticism has some basis in reality" seems to assume that this was preplanned or predetermined by the writing staff beforehand. I'm skeptical of that; I think they're making shit up as they go along. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although it can be easy to fuck up.

As for explanations, personally, I was hoping that Baltar would either be genuinely crazy or have Cylon nanites implanted in his skull or something. I was hoping that Roslin would just be hallucinating. Personally, I feel like the show isn't being true to what it set out to do; neoBSG started out as a "grittier and more real and more grounded" series, and now I feel like they're indulging themselves in whatever crazy "holy shit wouldn't this be crazy keen" plot direction they feel like pursuing.

You wanted to know where the "neoBSG is getting trippy on us" complaint was coming from. I told you where it came from; the tone of the show has changed. You like the change; others don't. From here it's a matter of personal taste. Do you understand now?

Now we've got Kara Thrace being "the chosen one" or some such bullshit, the Cylons are themselves talking about the Colonial gods as though they really did exist...

What's bullshit about it?

I'm not a fan of "this person is the 'chosen one'" plots... especially not when the character in question is a spoiled and self-destructive brat.

hell, maybe they should bring in Count Iblis while they're at it.

Obviously you haven't seen Razor yet.

I have, actually, though that thought hadn't occurred to me.

[Uraniun235]

ADDENDUM: Also, saying that the S1 mysticism was clearly correct because it was supposedly vindicated in Razor is probably out-of-context, because I'm pretty sure that back in 2004 the producers had no idea they'd be where they are today. In the context of viewing the Season One material on its own, the validity of the mysticism presented is very much left ambiguous.

The tone of the show has changed.

[Aeolus]

The fleet yard showed a Galactica-type Battlestar... which didn't seem much smaller (if any) than Pegasus.

there was at least 1 long thin battlestar

[Turin]

"as we see that a lot of the mysticism has some basis in reality" seems to assume that this was preplanned or predetermined by the writing staff beforehand. I'm skeptical of that; I think they're making shit up as they go along. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although it can be easy to fuck up.

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that there is a "story bible" for the series that Moore is using. But seeing as how it's possible that I heard that in an interview with Moore, who has been demonstrated to be a liar about such things, I'm skeptical too. It's really an almost unavoidable consequence of the episodic TV format -- you never can be certain you're going to be picked up next season. That being said, if the writers never intended on going in a more mystical direction, I'd find it hard to believe they'd bother putting in those elements in the first place unless they wanted to go for a more "psychological thriller" theme. Because the alternative to that is never having any of those plot elements resolved, which would be unsatisfying.

You wanted to know where the "neoBSG is getting trippy on us" complaint was coming from. I told you where it came from; the tone of the show has changed. You like the change; others don't. From here it's a matter of personal taste. Do you understand now?

Sure, and that's fine. I agree the show has tilted in one direction. What I was taking a little umbrage to was an implication that the mystical elements were being created de nova, as if they haven't been there in some form all along... which apparently wasn't what you were implying, so apologies on that.

[Netko]

I wasn't implying it either. Those elements were always present, but I agree with U235's viewpoint that the focus on them lessened the show. However, it is also quite obvious that they didn't have the prominence they have now until after the New Caprica episodes (the midseason break was one of the first ones where the mysticism was really unexplainable in any other way - everything up until then could be explained away with more or less problems). Because of such a relatively fast build (2/3s of a season) up of those elements from a relatively marginal and certainly secondary plot point to the main plot, I feel that Razor's mystical elements were needed to retcon the heavier mysticism presence into an earlier storyline point, to shore up the foundation of the mysticism plotline.

[Turin]

Because of such a relatively fast build (2/3s of a season) up of those elements from a relatively marginal and certainly secondary plot point to the main plot, I feel that Razor's mystical elements were needed to retcon the heavier mysticism presence into an earlier storyline point, to shore up the foundation of the mysticism plotline.

I'm curious whether or not this was the result of Moore having 4 seasons to do what he at one time claimed he wanted 5 seasons for. Razor did feel a little expository at times.

[Skylon]

Saw it Monday in the Bronx. I enjoyed it myself, not BSG's finest hour, but solidly what I expect from nBSG (ie: I'd give it a "B"). Fun crowd too. "By your command" got the applause and cheers it deserved (much as I detest oBSG).

- I honestly thought I'd heard Shaw was going to be a recurring character in season 4. Guess not.

- There was some nice spaceship porn.

- I guess this will tie into season 4 with the bit about Starbuck's "destiny". I would not be surprised either if these Cylons had something to do with the "Final 5". Is there a connection?

- Fisk sure had to jump and say an enthusiastic "Yes sir!" a few times to stay alive didn't he?

- I did like how Gina's Cylon side kicked in once exposed, kicking the crap out of Marines. Further, Cain's relationship with Gina further adds to the fact that this woman really got fucked up by events after the fall of the colonies.

- Cylons really need to fucking learn when to send the human models around though (why the hell was another Six boarding Pegasus?)

- I liked how Cain's speech after the destruction of the colonies parallels Adama's. Adama looked for hope to give his crew, even if he did pull it out of his ass, complete with "So say we all!" (even though he wasn't religious). Cain got them psyched for revenge so they evoked "So say we all!" in a quest for payback.