Did anyone actually like the ending to nBSG?

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

The Worst Ending in the History of On Screen Science Fiction is the best I've read on the subject. He most certainly doesn't have an axe to grind.

Oh, Jesus, that guy's a fucking idiot. And he most assuredly DOES have an axe to grind. I followed his blog for a long time. He's the personification of the smart guy who's such a robotic literalist he comes off as stupid. He's ONLY upset that the show did not take place in the future, which was his pet theory, and what he often insisted was the best way to end the show. Note that under his "How it could have been great" section he details long reasons why the ending could have been saved if the show was revealed to be set in the future. Sure, he may pad that essay with a list of other reasons why he didn't like the ending, but take special note of the part where he says it ALL could have been fixed if the last scene of the Head People in New York had been replaced with showing the ruins of something we know today such as the Pyramids or Mt. Rushmore. All his talk about Gods, political shifts is pointless when he said one single change in the final three minutes could have saved it for him.

I actually found his blog from a board where people made fun of him all the time for this attitude. One example was how often he quoted a blog post from RDM where he responded to someone saying that he hoped he wouldn't keep the idea that humans came from Kobol and settled on Earth and ignore evolution. RDM said "I have ideas on how to include evolution in the show but I haven't decided how to do it. But "Life here began out there" was an integral part of the original show that I decided was crucial to maintain."

Cut to him saying on message boards "RDM said he's going to include evolution so the show takes place in the future." And actually posting that quote, and getting mocked mercilessly on MBs for putting words in his mouth.

And despite all of his talk about how there was NO evidence the show was set in the past, I was there on his blog at the start of the last half of the last season after they got to Earth saying "I think it's in the past. Here's why." And I turned out to be right, but he was too goddamn stubborn to listen.

Another funny exchange about how he shouldn't count on the science being perfect:

ME: "Look, they get shit wrong in this show. There should not have been a habitable planet around a star about to go supernova."

HIM: "Clearly it was not a supernova, despite what was said in the show

The words "Artistic license" were not in this guy's vocabulary.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Ghetto edit: That last quote should have read:

HIM: "Clearly it was not a supernova, despite what was said in the show, because if it was, the neutrino burst would have killed everyone on the surface of the Algae Planet."

[Vympel]

Oh, Jesus, that guy's a fucking idiot. And he most assuredly DOES have an axe to grind. I followed his blog for a long time. He's the personification of the smart guy who's such a robotic literalist he comes off as stupid. He's ONLY upset that the show did not take place in the future, which was his pet theory, and what he often insisted was the best way to end the show. Note that under his "How it could have been great" section he details long reasons why the ending could have been saved if the show was revealed to be set in the future. Sure, he may pad that essay with a list of other reasons why he didn't like the ending, but take special note of the part where he says it ALL could have been fixed if the last scene of the Head People in New York had been replaced with showing the ruins of something we know today such as the Pyramids or Mt. Rushmore. All his talk about Gods, political shifts is pointless when he said one single change in the final three minutes could have saved it for him.

Well yeah, obviously, everyone has their personal idea of what made this finale bad (except those people who liked it). That doesn't make the rest of his thoughts somehow invalid.

[Vympel]

Browse through here for the kind of production facilities you need to build a modern fighter engine like NPO Saturn's AL-41F1S (Article 117S) for the Su-35S:-

http://www.npo-saturn.ru/?pid=164

Look through the "Production Base" categories especially.

[Skylon]

"Worst Ending in the History of On Screen Sci-Fi"?

I'd give that honor to Matrix: Revolutions.

[aieeegrunt]

Everything is always going to be "WORST ENDING/CHARACTER/SMOOTHIE EVER" with nerds though, they are such ridiculous drama queens.

[Anguirus]

^ Indeed, we are. Let's not exclude anyone.

[Vendetta]

They didn't abandon their resources (well, except for the ships), they distributed them evenly amongst the survivors. They just threw away any possibility of making more of them by spreading people around in camps instead of building a permanent settlement.

That was rather the problem though. The ships are their single biggest resource.

Even given the constraint that they can't go anywhere in them any more, they could at least make planetfall with such as were capable of it, even messily and with some damage, and use them as shelters from weather and predators and a focal point for their new colony (as happened with the Macross), especially given that they have some simple machining facilities on Galactica to make ammunition, that's a pretty enormous resource right there.

[Stofsk]

Not to mention ships in orbit can also provide such things as orbital observation of climate patterns (ie where are the best spots to start colonies) and early-warning of environmental hazards ('lol guys hurricane's coming').

[Vympel]

I'm pretty sure whatever resources they distributed didn't include guns, their medical equipment (as if Doctor Cottle would ever go along with this bonehead plan) etc. If it did, we would've seen some people actually carrying guns as they starting trudging about Africa to get eaten by wildlife and speared by some random native ...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah. The whole "abandon our ships" thing seemed daft. Fr one thing, what happenned to all the Raptors, and Admiral Adama's Viper?

[Haruko]

I wish I could remember where it was said, but the statement along these lines pretty much summed up the problem: what better way to ensure that our descendants don't make the same mistakes with technology than making sure they don't know what happened.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I wish I could remember where it was said, but the statement along these lines pretty much summed up the problem: what better way to ensure that our descendants don't make the same mistakes with technology than making sure they don't know what happened.

Yeah.... Most of the earlier bits of this thread pretty much laid out why that was a BAD idea.
Imagine if some ancient civilization destroyed itself through Global Warming... And they wanted to make sure that future civilization doesn't repeat their mistake, by making sure we never know what Global warming is!

Doesn't exactly work

[Sarevok]

Hypothetical question.

If in 2007 someone wrote the finale as fanfiction what would your opinion be ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

My opinion would be something along the lines of wtf?

[Crossroads Inc.]

It would be "dear god what deluded fans mind did this come from? No writter worth his salt could possible think like this?

[Krisnack]

I'm late to the party, but here goes.

I didn't really mind it. Sure it did drag on, the a good half hour could have been shaved off, but on the whole it was okay. I was it of an illustration of Omar Nelson Bradley's statement that: "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner."

Humans needed to spend a bit more time evolving, learning to think out the long term consequences of things. Although I don't know the the human population was 150,000 years ago, so perhaps they didn't have as quite a big impact as I thought.

And it worked. Humans today seem to have an inbuilt fear of creating something that will turn on them. Take the story of the Golem, or that of Frankenstein's monster, the later of which only became destructive and malign after being treated like crap.

[Anguirus]

I'm pretty sure whatever resources they distributed didn't include guns, their medical equipment (as if Doctor Cottle would ever go along with this bonehead plan) etc.

Why?

Look, let's give credit where credit is due, and blame where blame is due. No one says this, and I sure as hell didn't see everyone piling up their guns and meds in their ships.

Also, remember how they were running out of meds two years before? Landing on a planet with actual plants and things is the first mechanism by which they could possibly get more medicine. Cottle probably did a backflip with joy. (Oh right, I forgot, everyone gets killed by lions two minutes later, my bad.)

[Havok]

I'm pretty sure whatever resources they distributed didn't include guns, their medical equipment (as if Doctor Cottle would ever go along with this bonehead plan) etc.

Why?

Look, let's give credit where credit is due, and blame where blame is due. No one says this, and I sure as hell didn't see everyone piling up their guns and meds in their ships.

Also, remember how they were running out of meds two years before? Landing on a planet with actual plants and things is the first mechanism by which they could possibly get more medicine. Cottle probably did a backflip with joy. (Oh right, I forgot, everyone gets killed by lions two minutes later, my bad.)

Uh, more plants = more medicine? No, sorry. You need hundreds and maybe thousands of hours of research in actual laboratories to get the kind of medicine Galactica was using. You don't just plop down on a new planet, where you know absolutely ZERO about the fauna, with what, 2 doctors and as far as we know, no one with the skills to actually do the type of research needed, and just start to make new medicine.

I'm with you that they absolutely distributed what they had, but with what resources and personnel they did have, new medicine was not any where on the horizon.

[Vympel]

Why?

Look, let's give credit where credit is due, and blame where blame is due. No one says this, and I sure as hell didn't see everyone piling up their guns and meds in their ships.

I didn't see anyone carrying any guns. And I said medical equipment - not meds. i.e. all the stuff on Galactica's shipbay (and other ships). And of course they didn't bring that stuff because they obviously didn't bring any generators to power anything electrical, that would go against the Holy Church of Ludd.

Also, remember how they were running out of meds two years before?

Some meds, not all, clearly, but thats besides the point.

[Uraniun235]

Humans needed to spend a bit more time evolving, learning to think out the long term consequences of things.

How does evolution play into that? How could anyone expect humanity to "learn to think out long term consequences" when people no longer have the means to share and accumulate the experiences and conclusions they've arrived at? How do you even have the gall to claim that present-day humanity has somehow received those lessons when our own history - hell, our own current events - shows an appalling lack of foresight and appreciation for long-term consequences? Are you high on drugs?

[Anguirus]

Uh, more plants = more medicine? No, sorry. You need hundreds and maybe thousands of hours of research in actual laboratories to get the kind of medicine Galactica was using.

Believe me, I know. But, better to have a source of flora than absolute jack squat.

I didn't see anyone carrying any guns.

I'm not going to freeze-frame the final scene and see who's packing heat, but this is a very dubious claim to make given that we only see a few dozens of people out of thousands of settlers at the end. There's not anything in the dialogue, stupid as it all is, to indicate that the Colonials, of all people, have decided to swear off bullets.

And I said medical equipment - not meds. i.e. all the stuff on Galactica's shipbay (and other ships).

Ah, I see. Well, we see that they brought all kinds of equipment down from the surface and were powering it (presumably with portable generators). Medical equipment is easily in the cards, considering that they stripped Galactica's landing bay practically bare before they (sigh) torched it.

[Themightytom]

I enjoyed the final right up until the Hera/ operahouse scene that wasn't in an opera house. I knew immediately there would be massive cop out on the way. Everyone straight up lost their minds when they got to earth, everything from that point onwards was terrible EXCEPT the Adama Roslin scene in the raptor. I do like the way that was handled, and the music score was pretty nice as well.

Not good enough to save it of course.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yup, it was going well up until the "Truce in the CIC" moment.

After that, it was only the Adama/Roslin raptor scene and Adama sitting by her grave that stopped me giving up

[Junghalli]

You don't just plop down on a new planet, where you know absolutely ZERO about the fauna, with what, 2 doctors and as far as we know, no one with the skills to actually do the type of research needed, and just start to make new medicine.

I'm with you that they absolutely distributed what they had, but with what resources and personnel they did have, new medicine was not any where on the horizon.

Well the local humans and hominids might have been able to tell them how to find some medicinal plants. Although I doubt they'd have been able to get much more than a few crude painkillers, emetics etc. from that, plus some placebo effect inducing rituals, and I wouldn't be surprised if quite a bit of whatever medical traditions the locals might have had were worse than useless ("I'm gonna drill a hole in you to let the evil spirits out").