Did anyone actually like the ending to nBSG?

[Vympel]

I don't know, but I think they were trying to show a symbolic connection though. That's what all the other flashbacks were about; how the characters got where they were at... Adama went back to the fleet, Lee almost slept with Kara which caused her to feel guilty and pass him in a flight test that later killed him. adn got all three (The Adamas and Kara) to galactica.

Laura calls Adar and tells him she'll work on his campaign for mayor as she lights up a cigarettein a practiced move. Laura developed cancer just before she took a shuttle out to Galactica's decommissioning ceremony as a member of Adar's gov't
So, not sure f it is scientifically correct, but thematically, sure.

I don't think the cigarette was intended to to be significant - I thought it was just her living up to her deal with whoever she was talking to on the phone - i.e. either going out with this human Gumby, or joining Adar's campaign. She decided she couldn't go through with the former, so she decided to go for the latter.

[DrMckay]

Yeah, okay. That could work too. I just thought Moore was going for more symbolism there, he seems to really pack it in there

[White Haven]

Honestly, you want to do one single change that goes a long way towards redeeming Daybreak? Have Anders plant the fleet at anchorage somewhere in the outer solar system, and replace the 'lol modern day' ending with a 'roidfucker expedition rounding a beefy rock of some kind to discover the fleet waiting patiently there. Does it fix everything that was wrong with the ending? Nope, but it keeps the ending as close to canon as possible while preserving both the Fleet against future need and the experiences and warnings of the previous generation of humanity to serve as a lesson to a society that's advanced enough to understand what they mean. I.E. 'This is what killed our entire civilization and at least one other we know about. Don't make our mistake.'

[Starglider]

I agree 100% with the critique in the OP. I don't mind so much though, because the sentient centurions apparently escaped in a starship with a viable means to start their own civilisation. The colonials and clones all dying horribly from self-inflicted primitivism is A-OK in my book, fitting even, if it means the real Cylons can go off and be awesome without interference. I just hope they took the opportunity to purge the religious nonsense from their databases.

[tim31]

The above post is so close to self caricature as to confuse me.

[Starglider]

The above post is so close to self caricature as to confuse me.

Confirmation of self-evident axiom : puny meatbag is easily confused?

[starfury]

BSG as emo sci-fi from Mr. sean Malstrom, hater of the current Tech loving gaming

I felt this as grimly appropriate for this as thread, as it stated for all hated nerdly brutal takedowns of the BSG finale, nerds sure couldn't stopping lavishing praise before when RDM went for the naturalistic Sci-fi talk and everybody went along with it, only Darth Wong and maybe the mainstream who simply treated it as the Iraq war in outer space and therefore never got too invested in it seems not to fall for this, as frankly they were never treated it as some from of high art and so weren't so dissppointed.

[Vympel]

The problem with that piece is that most of its criticisms really have little to do with "emo battlestar galactica", its mostly saying the show's breaking its own rules. I disagree. This is an especially bullshit criticism:-

-Ron Moore began the series chastising Star Trek Voyager because the Voyager ship never had any damage, kept having a reset button hit after every episode, and had an endless array of torpedoes and shuttles. Yet, Battlestar Galactica keeps hitting the reset button on every character, has an endless array of vipers, and bizarrely makes political morality tales when there is no reason for it to exist to forward the plot.

Nonsense. Galactica starts its journey with about ~30-35 Viper Mk IIs (i.e. taking into account miniseries losses) and a handful of Mk VIIs. No inordinate number of losses is sustained amongst the Viper wings up to Season 2 when they meet Pegasus, who adds her sizeable Viper VII wing. After Pegasus is lost, her wings are taken in by Galactica, and the number of engagements after that are not sufficient to whittle down her Vipers by any significant degree. There is no justification whatsoever for claiming that there is an endless array of vipers.

-Ron Moore does not know how to write women and apparently neither does anyone else on the writing staff. Every woman on the show is ‘special’ in some way. (Starbuck: harbinger of death, angel of aurora. Roslin: dying leader with cancer. Cain: insane tyrant.) Even the cylon females cannot just be ‘female’, they, too, must be made ‘special’. Head Six, Caprica Six, Boomer, Athena, super human Tory, and final fifth Ellen are all ‘special’. The only normal woman was Dee who had no scenes and proceeded to blow her brains out (who wouldn’t if you were the only woman that wasn’t special?). All the other females on the show act like men, literally. On the other hand, all the men are written like emos. They are constantly having temper tantrums, crying, or weeping.

This is true to an extent. The amount of weeping / temper tantrums etc in the final season post-Revelations Earth got intolerable.

[Stofsk]

Don't forget that Pegasus also had (for some reason) onboard manufacturing facilities to build vipers too. Similarly, Galactica had manufacturing facilities to replace spent ammunition.

Voyager didn't even really acknowledge the problem, they just had a neverending supply of shuttles. The only thing they showed explicitly was building the Delta Flyer.

As for season four, I find it almost completely intolerable.

[CaptJodan]

While not the soul problem with the end of the series, I'd say the combination of the Luddite ending and not explaining shit with God or Kara were pretty much my main beefs. Sure, the idea of Galactica going after Hera was a bit cheesy, but I could live through that to get a pretty decent action sequence (let's not forget, the last time Moore ended a series, it was stock battle footage). But I just couldn't stand the Luddite ending or the "we finally learned to try and live with our machines as equals, let's forget all that and start over. Let's not let it happen again, by letting it happen again" ending.

This ending actually makes me feel a Voyager style ending for the show would have been better. It's certainly where I stop when re-watching it. They jump, they find Earth, and the show ends. And que fan fiction. (I'm not really advocating that, but there are some benefits given what we got instead)

[Vympel]

Don't forget that Pegasus also had (for some reason) onboard manufacturing facilities to build vipers too. Similarly, Galactica had manufacturing facilities to replace spent ammunition.

Yeah, Pegasus being able to build new Vipers was bullshit. It was discussed as if building a fighter is just a matter of mining ore and not the extremely complicated business of machining the parts and intergrating the avionics and what not.

Galactica having manufacturing facilities for ammunition, I didn't so much mind, it didn't stretch credibility as much, and they may have adapted other equipment from the fleet for the purpose.

Not to mention how Galactica did get damaged in the series. By the end of the show its once near pristine hull was totally fucked. Not to mention it nearing the end of its service life was a major plot point.

As for season four, I find it almost completely intolerable.

I liked it much better than most of Season 3, myself.

[Stofsk]

Don't forget that Pegasus also had (for some reason) onboard manufacturing facilities to build vipers too. Similarly, Galactica had manufacturing facilities to replace spent ammunition.

Yeah, Pegasus being able to build new Vipers was bullshit. It was discussed as if building a fighter is just a matter of mining ore and not the extremely complicated business of machining the parts and intergrating the avionics and what not.

Galactica having manufacturing facilities for ammunition, I didn't so much mind, it didn't stretch credibility as much, and they may have adapted other equipment from the fleet for the purpose.

They're both very difficult to accept, though the Pegasus being able to build replacement vipers is more a stretch. If they had said that Vipers and Galactica used coil guns then ammunition wouldn't necessarily be so big a problem, because you wouldn't need explosive propellant in traditional bullets or shells.

Not to mention how Galactica did get damaged in the series. By the end of the show its once near pristine hull was totally fucked. Not to mention it nearing the end of its service life was a major plot point.

I don't have a problem with Galactica being used one last time in what amounted to a suicide mission, since it was at death's door anyway, and they were going to abandon it.

As for season four, I find it almost completely intolerable.

I liked it much better than most of Season 3, myself.

Season 3 was weaker than the preceding two seasons, but it had some good episodes in it. Season 4 was almost entirely a let down. Everything about it in retrospect pisses me off.

The way season 3 was written, it felt like season 4 was going to reveal a crapload of things. Strike that - the way the preceding three seasons were written made it felt like season 4 was going to rock - but it didn't. Not only was the finale a terrific letdown, but so was the entire season. That's unfortunately how I feel about it. Like that dude said in the blog you linked to, I had the thought that BSG took place in our future, and that the massive revelation would be that humans actually came from earth and went to kobol, not the other way around. That blog actually reminded me about the Temple of Athena scene in season 2, which showed the constellations of the zodiac from earth's sky.

[Uraniun235]

There were other things about Kobol that got hinted at and then never touched on again. Like Athena smugly proclaiming that the Cylons knew "a lot more about your gods than you do". Like what? Oh wait that was probably just a "oh hey I bet this would sound cool" line.

[Ford Prefect]

Yeah, Pegasus being able to build new Vipers was bullshit.

They're both very difficult to accept, though the Pegasus being able to build replacement vipers is more a stretch.

On exactly what basis are you guys making this claim, exactly? Is it a technological thing, do you just think it doesn't make sense for a battlestar to be borderline self-sufficient or what?

[Minischoles]

No, for me the ending of the show is when they jump into Earth orbit and Galactica breaks her back, followed by bringing the rest of the fleet in. Then you miss out most of what makes the ending so dire.

I stated my objections in the first thread, and I can't be bothered to go over them again.

[Stofsk]

Yeah, Pegasus being able to build new Vipers was bullshit.

They're both very difficult to accept, though the Pegasus being able to build replacement vipers is more a stretch.

On exactly what basis are you guys making this claim, exactly? Is it a technological thing, do you just think it doesn't make sense for a battlestar to be borderline self-sufficient or what?

I think it's a stretch for a battlestar to be so self-sufficient that it can restock on not only ammunition but also space fighters. The ammunition isn't as bad though, because manufacturing bullets is orders of magnitude less complicated than building a space craft. For space craft, think about the different kind of materials you'd need, the complicated electronics, avionics, and computer systems, constructing the drive/powerplant systems, and how if you have this capability onboard a battlestar, by necessity that means you dilute its combat performance (depending on how extensive the manufacturing facilities are; I don't have a problem with a space carrier analogue having lots of workshops for space fighter maintenance, but maintenance doesn't equate manufacturing).

I don't have a problem with Chief Tyrol making the Phoenix by cannibalising trashed vipers that were never going to fly again. Comparatively speaking, that's a bit more plausible. To highlight how implausible this sort of thing is, imagine if a Nimitz-class supercarrier had the capability to build replacement F/A-18s as part of its design? Would anyone design a supercarrier like that?

[Anguirus]

Ok, I like how everyone...even the people who quoted this passage...is forgetting that I said "Scientifically and logically, the finale is shite." Of course there's no fucking collective unconscious, except in RDM-land. However, the show takes place in RDM-land where there are freaking angels walking around steering the course of human society.

"Your lives are going to be less eventful" =/= "Get ready to die of dysentery." Besides, these are people who ground a living out of the Planet of Rocks for an entire year before kicking the Cylons off of it, they aren't going to piss their pants and die when a leopard shows up.

Also, the BSG people got to heaven just like Sheridan got to heaven. They both disappeared in a flash of light (at least in BSG this was accomplished by established technology) and went to the edge of the galaxy to be happy. B5 had almost as much fantasy as BSG.

[K. A. Pital]

I didn't like it. It didn't explain shit. The Cylon angle was completely bongled, and the humans going primitive on earth was just a load of stupidity. So was the plot-hole ressurection (excuse me, "angels", lol).

Even considering all the mystic shit in it, it still ended badly - the ending was poorer than the show itself. Which is bad, because the show it good.

[PeZook]

The bit where Adama sat at Roslin's grave describing his day to her was really touching, though: they should've showed people landing on Earth, starting to build a city, looking brightly towards a new, fresh start, and then ended it with the aforementioned scene.

After all, their colonization effort could've failed for any number of reasons, and we don't need to be explicitly told they rejected their technology!

Better yet, make it a million years or even ten million instead of a mere 100 thousand. Few enough artifacts of even an advanced civilization would've survived to the present day that that it becomes plausible we didn't discover them yet. You could then show all those ancient pictures showing "UFOs" and quote the Maharatma passage Duchess invented that then got pasted all over the Internet

All you needed to "break the cycle" was where the Colonials were at the end of the show: allied with the Cylons, setting the Centurions free, and gettin a fresh start. The ludditism was not only stupid, it was completely unnecessary for the story to work.

[Vympel]

On exactly what basis are you guys making this claim, exactly? Is it a technological thing, do you just think it doesn't make sense for a battlestar to be borderline self-sufficient or what?

What Stofsk said. In real life, fighters are the product of the work of literally countless sub-contractors providing every single part that goes into every single other part that goes into one system of the aircraft. Colonial Vipers are no different- the idea that Pegasus has a manufacturing plant that can build a new airframe, new engines, new LCD screens for the cockpit, new joysticks for the pilots, new seats for them to sit in, new guns, new fuel systems, etc etc etc is simply not credible. Heck, nearly each one of those things is the product of the work of an entire factory by itself, and Pegasus just happens to have a capability to build all of it? Because they found some ore? Bull-and-shit.

It wasn't even necessary given Pegasus' obviously considerable Viper complement - 61 Viper Mk VIIs were damaged alone (with not enough parts to repair them all, remember) in the aftermath of the attack on the Cylon staging area in 'Razor', with 32 more destroyed, and yet in 'Pegasus' she's still able to put up enough Vipers to challenge Galactica's ~30-35. Combined with Galactica's wing the fleet had more than enough Vipers to cope for the remainder of the series.

All you needed to "break the cycle" was where the Colonials were at the end of the show: allied with the Cylons, setting the Centurions free, and gettin a fresh start. The ludditism was not only stupid, it was completely unnecessary for the story to work.

Indeed. There were many more clues that the show took place in the future than the past in the first place, thats what's so frustrating.

[PeZook]

Yeah, setting it in the future would've worked, too. Humanity returning home after tens of thousands of years of exile, brought upon themselves with their short-sightedness, now redeemed and ready to begin anew.

Sounds much better than we got, and the necessary changes would've been trivial to make.

[Crossroads Inc.]

All you needed to "break the cycle" was where the Colonials were at the end of the show: allied with the Cylons, setting the Centurions free, and gettin a fresh start. The ludditism was not only stupid, it was completely unnecessary for the story to work.

Indeed. There were many more clues that the show took place in the future than the past in the first place, thats what's so frustrating.

That has pretty much been my argument from day one as to why the Ending sucked so bad. It just made no logical sense, and trying to "in universe" explain it away fails every time.
As stated from early on in the show it was hinted that "earth" was OUR earth and that the show took place far in the future. the most damning evidence was the fact that on Kolbold, at Athenas tomb we are shown the 12 Symbols of the colonies AS SEEN FROM OUR EARTH.

It is pretty clear, looking back on it, that around the end of the 3rd season, what ever plans there where from BSG's ending, where scrapped and began to be Re-written all for one purpose, that of making Hera "Mita-Eve" which, as explained early, is also stupid giving that Mita-Eve isn't what RDM thought she was.

We go round and round on the whole thing, but what it comes down to is just bad writing and shoehorning in something that doesn't fit. For most of us it was generally accepted "Earth" was our Earth, that all this took place in the far future. The whole business with "Cylon Earth" with Kara, with the angles, and finally with "Hera/Eve" was RDM masturbating to his own delusions and obviously re-writing things.

[Morilore]

I loathed the text, but liked the subtext of the finale: "desperate dying humans at the end of their rope throw caution to the wind and rush headlong into a suicidal battle for the sake of one little child, gods/God/ASB/the Force take pity on them and bring them to salvation out of fucking nowhere. Proving their worthiness as a species, yadda yadda yadda." The downfall of the script was pseudoscience: Mitochondrial Eve doesn't work that way, hunter-gatherers don't work that way, biological evolution doesn't work that way, technological evolution doesn't work that way, the "collective unconscious" doesn't work that way, constellations don't work that way, and the only way to patch this up is to say "but GOD does work this way, hallelujah!" Which is a painfully stupid way to use God in a story.

The clues that the story was set in the future, combined with the authors intimating that it occurred in the past, still make me think of a time-travel ending, though. It has some precedent in science fiction: FTL + strong gravity field = ??? Plus it would mesh with the Colonial's "eternal recurrence" religion. Plus it would deal with the idea that our modern things are so much like the Colonials' things while keeping the "culture obliterated" ending without stupid "collective unconscious" bullshit.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The ending, up to the jump to Earth, was good. As an episode that is. Galactica's last hooray cant really be faulted, except for Apollo and Starbuck not flying planes and only loosing 4 Vipers despite being outnumbered etc.
Like I said, the battlestar's last hooray was epic.

However, the ending itself was just WEIRD. IMHO they could have ended it after series 2. I always thought I coudl discern a big shift between series 2 and 3. The SFX changed for one thing, but the mood changed as well.

I'm rambling now. But anyway, they could have and possibly SHOULD have ended it after series 2, with perhaps a similar epic escape from new Caprica, with the Galactica or Pegasus being sacrificed to cripple Cylon fleet, allowing remaining ships to escape and to find Earth. Not funky nuked Cylon homeworld. Not Earth in the distant past, but EARTH. Modern-day, earth. If anyone is interested, I found an excellent fanfic that wraps up the Season 2 BSG in a crossover with West Wing:


http://community.livejournal.com/recolo ... n/823.html

[Iosef Cross]

To highlight how implausible this sort of thing is, imagine if a Nimitz-class supercarrier had the capability to build replacement F/A-18s as part of its design? Would anyone design a supercarrier like that?

A Battlestar has, about 4-5 times the length of a Nimitz (hence, about 100 times the volume, probably more since a battlestar is fatter than a carrier) and much more advanced technology. If 10% of the ship mass is used for manufacturing facilities, I think that it's operational performance wouldn't suffer much, and that gives 10 times the volume of a Nimitz carrier, just to make vipers.

I find that kind of self sufficiency perfectly reasonable.