Rebooted Battlestar Galactica movie

[Havok]

Adama and Roslin were looking out for their interests by crushing the revolt but they did something better by loosening their grip after they'd done the violence.

Not to gloss over your other points, but this is the one that matters...

What exactly were Adama and Roslin's interests again?

Oh right, SAVING HUMANITY FROM EXTINCTION. That was their selfish interests. I mean what were there? Like 45,000 humans left in all of existence at this point? It would be fucking criminal of Adama and Roslin not to crush asinine revolts at this point. Sure if they had been able to ditch the Cylons and were just cruising through space looking for Earth that is one thing, but this was a perpetual military mission, led by the military and run by the military because they were at war.

If Roslin doesn't survive the initial attack there is no government left at all. It is a testament to Adama and the military present that they even let a government restructure itself in this situation. She was a fucking school teacher for fucks sake, and now you want her to be in command at the most important point in their history? Give Adama a medal.

As I said, survive first, then have your labor strikes and collective bargaining. What's the difference if you do it "now" or once you survive and find Earth? Oh right, one can possibly doom the human race and BONUS, you are trying to negotiate with the military that is the most on edge they have ever been in their existence and one is when you at least aren't running for your lives any more and people will be much more reasonable and level headed and you are in a situation where the military shouldn't be in charge any more.

I mean, if Adama was going to make himself a dictator, he was going to make himself a dictator and it doesn't matter what you do.

[Havok]

I will grant this though.
At that point, I don't think anyone was competent enough to really do anything correctly and expecting rational behavior would be foolish.

[Gandalf]

All they were doing was surviving. People (and their children) were locked into their roles, forming a rather unpleasant caste system. Plans had to be made for Colonial society to last aboard the fleet, because having one increasingly angry lower class and another entrenched one above them doesn't help society, regardless of external pressures used by the upper class to justify their actions.

[Darth Nostril]

They are running for their lives pursued by an implacable enemy that had already cheerfully genocided the rest of their race. The time for career choice discussion is when the ragged remnants of humanity reach safety.
(The Peace with Cylons movement started and run by a traumatised Cylon are traitors to humanity plain and simple.)

If Roslin doesn't survive the initial attack there is no government left at all. It is a testament to Adama and the military present that they even let a government restructure itself in this situation. She was a fucking school teacher for fucks sake, and now you want her to be in command at the most important point in their history? Give Adama a medal.

If Roslin hadn't survived then there would have been no one to persuade Adama from counter attacking and abandoning the civilian ships, he was hell bent on vengeance before she talked him out of it.

And that whole abandoning high tech at the end? It's not like they really had a choice seeing as they left all the gear suitable for colonising behind on New Caprica
(Land the ships on the moon and bury them! Really? ... what are they going to do that with, guys in spacesuits equipped with shovels?)