Battlestar Galactica the last season
Mar. 8th, 2014 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI knew I would hate the ending. I had read the spoilers, so I knew I hated the ending. So the mood I am now in, having watched the ending, is of my own choosing.
But seriously, I hated that ending.
And it's not the god stuff. I resigned myself to ignoring the god stuff before I sat down to these last two. The god stuff is annoying and boring because it takes all emotional/rational cause and effect out of the story and just leaves the whole thing being Because God. Boooooooring.
What I hate?
They gave up.
And that ending was not in fact about their survival. Not the survival they'd been attempting for all those years.
For years they had been trying to survive as a people, as a civilisation. Their choices, at every turn, were about how much they were willing to let go in terms of social and cultural survival in order to pursue physical survival. And that one last choice? The one to burn their ships, give up their tech, and scatter themselves across the planet? That gave up everything they'd been struggling to save. So their bodies survive. Probably not for very long, all things considered, they've just chucked in a modern society with life expectancies reasonably approaching the century mark and gone back to ... you know, I don't even know prehistoric survival, I was guessing it was that average 35 pulled down by infant mortality, but the relevant wiki page says 25-40 with a severe gender split. So, one of those. They're throwing away technology? They're choosing that. Not just for themselves, and it would be pretty bad if they all were that suicidal but it's worse even, they're choosing that for their kids. Forever. And along with that they've thrown away democracy, the whole system people had been fighting and dying for where you get equal votes, they're throwing away education and the training the episode with the unions pointed out was necessary to make jobs not be hereditary, but hey, they're throwing away all the jobs too. They're willingly limiting their whole lives to hunter gatherers with a tiny bit of cultivation on the side, sans agricultural machinery. And that's all they'll teach their kids. That's all they're offering. Hell, there's no indication they brought what was left of the ecosystems of the colonies with them, so that's... poorly thought through in terms of legacy and survival. But that one last choice, to chuck it all in and, somehow, all 39K of them, go spread out on the land to scratch a living? That's a betrayal of everything that came before. The bodies live, the civilisation dies. Because they've decided it should die. Because they're just too messed up about the war to even want to try any more.
Why would any writer do that? Why even go there?
They've put it far enough back in history they could build their city and stay together and keep trying, and maybe name it Atlantis, I don't know, just have it be lost in the mists, and time took them. But no. They did something utterly implausible and in unison decided to chuck it all in.
And it's an epically stupid way to accomplish the stated goal, because how the hell are they supposed to learn how not to frak up again? Okay, so the stories will still be there, but it'll be all gods and myths and magic again.
If they want things to be different, they teach their kids to be different. That's the only way. Their kids, right then, right there. Because in twenty years those kids will teach their own kids, and all the generations after that will have never known it to be any other way. Throw it all away and hope 'humanity' turns out different somewhere along the line? No. We don't have to evolve, we have to learn. Otherwise they're just saying we're all born wrong or right and it's that belief that props up hereditary power and weren't they being a democracy? It makes no sense to give it all up and hand wave a hope that the future will be different, you build the future, here, now.
So I know I'm not angry at the characters, but the writers? What the frak were they thinking?
And who is that ending meant for? Who would be dreaming on that kind of an ending? And what message is supposed to be in it?
It's a screwed up mess that pays off nothing and wrecks everything.
No.
Hates it.
also it's the final proof the stupid series is not science fiction. stupid god stuff everywhere, and giving up on the idea that tech can improve life, so it gives up on even trying to be science fiction.
boo.
I might possibly be stroppy about this for a while.
... okay, less of the might.
And this is annoying, because I already knew the ending, so I guess I figured I wouldn't have a feelings about it again. Except I just watched these people for long and long and long, and then all that happens?
stupid.
*sulks*
So, hey, surprise, I care enough about the characters to be annoyed about the ending, yet liked basically none of the writing choices the further along it went, or the particular things that happened to most of them. I just get attached and then sulk.
I don't think I'm attached enough to go seek out fanfic, but, as with many stories before it, it would be fix its all the way.
Having seen the whole box set now I'm actually glad I gave up on the show when I did and waited for the set to be as cheap as it was. If I'd been watching one episode a week I would have had a very long time to be in a bad mood. As it is I'm likely to have forgotten about it by Monday.
Other things I kind of hate about BSG, much of which is potentially triggering: dead women, dead women, more dead women. Suicide. Lots of suicide. Dead babies. And the way there's no hope.
Maybe if someone likes the ending there's hope?
But mostly, bad things happen, then they get worse, people make bad choices, then they get worse. If they make a bad choice and then try to do better later they usually get dead for it.
Except Baltar. Who is just... he's so wrong so many times on so many levels, but he survives to the end, and gets to wander off with his lady love or very near equivalent, and I admit when he chose to stay for the final assault then that was the choice I was hoping for, but not so he could make a speech about god and angels. To choose to try made him a better man than he ever had been before. What the story did with that... it's like saying that not just religion but his messed up religion turns out to be right. Which, no. And then it doesn't say it for very long, because boom, the whole thing has been poisoned for the longest time and oh look another dead woman and this time the end of millions of people with her.
So everything is messed up.
And Tyrol gets hugged for that? He gets to wander off? He just murdered a woman, doomed half a race, and nearly got the ship destroyed. Nobody cares.
Also the 'happy' ending features a lot of white people. Watching fates divide up by race is always poison.
Poison everywhere. Messes.
So I don't think it was much good, in the end. It made me care about everyone enough that the ending hurt and made me sad. But from maybe as far back as second season every time it made a choice it chose the things I found least interesting, or most annoying, or possibly actively evil, sometimes.
And that is frustrating, because I liked so many of the parts at the beginning.
I guess I'll just have to write. Then I can choose the ways I'd like better.
But seriously, I hated that ending.
And it's not the god stuff. I resigned myself to ignoring the god stuff before I sat down to these last two. The god stuff is annoying and boring because it takes all emotional/rational cause and effect out of the story and just leaves the whole thing being Because God. Boooooooring.
What I hate?
They gave up.
And that ending was not in fact about their survival. Not the survival they'd been attempting for all those years.
For years they had been trying to survive as a people, as a civilisation. Their choices, at every turn, were about how much they were willing to let go in terms of social and cultural survival in order to pursue physical survival. And that one last choice? The one to burn their ships, give up their tech, and scatter themselves across the planet? That gave up everything they'd been struggling to save. So their bodies survive. Probably not for very long, all things considered, they've just chucked in a modern society with life expectancies reasonably approaching the century mark and gone back to ... you know, I don't even know prehistoric survival, I was guessing it was that average 35 pulled down by infant mortality, but the relevant wiki page says 25-40 with a severe gender split. So, one of those. They're throwing away technology? They're choosing that. Not just for themselves, and it would be pretty bad if they all were that suicidal but it's worse even, they're choosing that for their kids. Forever. And along with that they've thrown away democracy, the whole system people had been fighting and dying for where you get equal votes, they're throwing away education and the training the episode with the unions pointed out was necessary to make jobs not be hereditary, but hey, they're throwing away all the jobs too. They're willingly limiting their whole lives to hunter gatherers with a tiny bit of cultivation on the side, sans agricultural machinery. And that's all they'll teach their kids. That's all they're offering. Hell, there's no indication they brought what was left of the ecosystems of the colonies with them, so that's... poorly thought through in terms of legacy and survival. But that one last choice, to chuck it all in and, somehow, all 39K of them, go spread out on the land to scratch a living? That's a betrayal of everything that came before. The bodies live, the civilisation dies. Because they've decided it should die. Because they're just too messed up about the war to even want to try any more.
Why would any writer do that? Why even go there?
They've put it far enough back in history they could build their city and stay together and keep trying, and maybe name it Atlantis, I don't know, just have it be lost in the mists, and time took them. But no. They did something utterly implausible and in unison decided to chuck it all in.
And it's an epically stupid way to accomplish the stated goal, because how the hell are they supposed to learn how not to frak up again? Okay, so the stories will still be there, but it'll be all gods and myths and magic again.
If they want things to be different, they teach their kids to be different. That's the only way. Their kids, right then, right there. Because in twenty years those kids will teach their own kids, and all the generations after that will have never known it to be any other way. Throw it all away and hope 'humanity' turns out different somewhere along the line? No. We don't have to evolve, we have to learn. Otherwise they're just saying we're all born wrong or right and it's that belief that props up hereditary power and weren't they being a democracy? It makes no sense to give it all up and hand wave a hope that the future will be different, you build the future, here, now.
So I know I'm not angry at the characters, but the writers? What the frak were they thinking?
And who is that ending meant for? Who would be dreaming on that kind of an ending? And what message is supposed to be in it?
It's a screwed up mess that pays off nothing and wrecks everything.
No.
Hates it.
also it's the final proof the stupid series is not science fiction. stupid god stuff everywhere, and giving up on the idea that tech can improve life, so it gives up on even trying to be science fiction.
boo.
I might possibly be stroppy about this for a while.
... okay, less of the might.
And this is annoying, because I already knew the ending, so I guess I figured I wouldn't have a feelings about it again. Except I just watched these people for long and long and long, and then all that happens?
stupid.
*sulks*
So, hey, surprise, I care enough about the characters to be annoyed about the ending, yet liked basically none of the writing choices the further along it went, or the particular things that happened to most of them. I just get attached and then sulk.
I don't think I'm attached enough to go seek out fanfic, but, as with many stories before it, it would be fix its all the way.
Having seen the whole box set now I'm actually glad I gave up on the show when I did and waited for the set to be as cheap as it was. If I'd been watching one episode a week I would have had a very long time to be in a bad mood. As it is I'm likely to have forgotten about it by Monday.
Other things I kind of hate about BSG, much of which is potentially triggering: dead women, dead women, more dead women. Suicide. Lots of suicide. Dead babies. And the way there's no hope.
Maybe if someone likes the ending there's hope?
But mostly, bad things happen, then they get worse, people make bad choices, then they get worse. If they make a bad choice and then try to do better later they usually get dead for it.
Except Baltar. Who is just... he's so wrong so many times on so many levels, but he survives to the end, and gets to wander off with his lady love or very near equivalent, and I admit when he chose to stay for the final assault then that was the choice I was hoping for, but not so he could make a speech about god and angels. To choose to try made him a better man than he ever had been before. What the story did with that... it's like saying that not just religion but his messed up religion turns out to be right. Which, no. And then it doesn't say it for very long, because boom, the whole thing has been poisoned for the longest time and oh look another dead woman and this time the end of millions of people with her.
So everything is messed up.
And Tyrol gets hugged for that? He gets to wander off? He just murdered a woman, doomed half a race, and nearly got the ship destroyed. Nobody cares.
Also the 'happy' ending features a lot of white people. Watching fates divide up by race is always poison.
Poison everywhere. Messes.
So I don't think it was much good, in the end. It made me care about everyone enough that the ending hurt and made me sad. But from maybe as far back as second season every time it made a choice it chose the things I found least interesting, or most annoying, or possibly actively evil, sometimes.
And that is frustrating, because I liked so many of the parts at the beginning.
I guess I'll just have to write. Then I can choose the ways I'd like better.