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beccatoriaSo, like, I'm waiting FOREVER for this thing to um, magically show up so I can watch it and thus have instead been reduced to reading the PatriotResource recaps which are usually kind of...vague and sometimes even miss stuff out especially nuances.
Still, I thought I'd post my initial responses to the two issues about 4.5 that have been bugging me and that I've hoped the finale would fix. And, you know, if you want to provide me with additional details I'd be mega grateful.
Basically this is one long meta-type meditation on the themes of technology in BSG and I'm pretty much not going to try and comment on specific stuff until I've seen it.
1) Laura Roslin and her characterisation. To be honest I won't have much to say here until I've seen it, I don't think. It initially looks like it won't be the most offensive thing they've done but neither will it make everything awesome or redeem some previous crap. So I'll just watch and see what I feel after I've, um, seen it.
2) The wider thematics of Cybridity. I know I've been a bit nuts about this lately, cus I reacted badly to Nicky and Liam and stuff. But honestly, I have to admit, I'm really disappointed by the way it apparently goes down in the finale.
On the one hand I'm glad that we apparently never get an answer to why Kara's father taught her Watchtower and that he was Daniel because I really feel that if Ron didn't intend for that to be the case (INSANE MISSED CHANCE, DUDE!), he's at least accidentally left it SO OBVIOUS within the text that I honestly think any even vaguely formalist reading will think that it's implied and we should take it as read.
No, it doesn't explain her resurrection, but I never thought her cybridity was the reason for her resurrection anyway.
I did and do like the incorporation of the 268s into Colonial society, but I'm disappointed with the wider failure to capitalise on confusing the boundaries of the human and machine in the personal, rather than the sociologial sense.
It's not just about robot babies, although there is that aspect to it.
It's the the answer at the end of the show is to abandon your technology wholesale, rather than love it more and be more careful with it.
I suppose really, it's that the message, seemingly underscored by reported comments at the end that the human tribes are potentially breed-with-able while the 268s will simply "help until they die" (and yes, I know that doesn't rule out interbreeding but it does place a different emphasis on things), that yeah. The answer is to throw our technology into the sun rather than integrating with it so much we frakking breed with it which is the ultimate kind of...hilarious but bold mindfrak?
And also...the sort of themes I was in this show for?
Which I grant, was always a subtle difference for most of the run. And probably why I didn't realise RDM and I were on fairly different tracks with regards to overall message.
It extends to the religious things too. I'm actually 100% okay with religion being there and real and mystical and defying explanation. I'm even okay with the confused did-they- or didn't-they-end-the-cycle thing. I'm fine with Kara's return never being fully explained (though I sympathise with those who aren't.)
What I wish the finale had explored more fully (which apparently it hasn't, though as I said, working off summaries here), is the relationship between religion and technology, same as I wish the personal relationship between the human and technology were more fully explored.
I loved the idea that religious vision and projection might and could be the same thing. That Roslin, all human, swoons in CIC at the exact moment the power goes off. That is's a crazy machine (the Hybrid) that functions as the metatron; bits of technological data intertwined with scripture. That Leoben sees the foreshadowing that preceeds every moment because he's an overclocked MACHINE, but that is a religious moment of prophecy regardless.
There was a foiler before the episode aired that Daniel still existed in some form and was guiding his loved ones through the Head People, and I love that more than what we got because that still has the element of mysticism, of impossible angelic destiny, but also manages to incorporate the weirdness of technology.
I mean, I'll be okay. Nothing in the finale retcons Hybrids away, or Leoben away, and I'm actually relieved that we got as little about Daniel and Kara's father as we seem to have instead of getting it explained in some other way that categorically prevents my reading of it. I'm just disappointed that my favourite part of the show (now that they've kind of taken Laura) got...less play and got minimised rather than maximised in the finale.
I mean, for instance, Head Six, an apparent actual messenger from God-who-doesn't-like-to-be-called-that, called Hera the first of God's new generation. So even though her actual destiny in the show seemed to be to run away in the middle of a gunfight (and we retconned Nicky for that?!), I'd like to still take it as read that there will be more cybrids and such down on Earth2. But then again, I'm not sure I'll feel that's a reading supported by the ending.
We'll see.
S'what you get for loving the margins, I guess.
Still, I thought I'd post my initial responses to the two issues about 4.5 that have been bugging me and that I've hoped the finale would fix. And, you know, if you want to provide me with additional details I'd be mega grateful.
Basically this is one long meta-type meditation on the themes of technology in BSG and I'm pretty much not going to try and comment on specific stuff until I've seen it.
1) Laura Roslin and her characterisation. To be honest I won't have much to say here until I've seen it, I don't think. It initially looks like it won't be the most offensive thing they've done but neither will it make everything awesome or redeem some previous crap. So I'll just watch and see what I feel after I've, um, seen it.
2) The wider thematics of Cybridity. I know I've been a bit nuts about this lately, cus I reacted badly to Nicky and Liam and stuff. But honestly, I have to admit, I'm really disappointed by the way it apparently goes down in the finale.
On the one hand I'm glad that we apparently never get an answer to why Kara's father taught her Watchtower and that he was Daniel because I really feel that if Ron didn't intend for that to be the case (INSANE MISSED CHANCE, DUDE!), he's at least accidentally left it SO OBVIOUS within the text that I honestly think any even vaguely formalist reading will think that it's implied and we should take it as read.
No, it doesn't explain her resurrection, but I never thought her cybridity was the reason for her resurrection anyway.
I did and do like the incorporation of the 268s into Colonial society, but I'm disappointed with the wider failure to capitalise on confusing the boundaries of the human and machine in the personal, rather than the sociologial sense.
It's not just about robot babies, although there is that aspect to it.
It's the the answer at the end of the show is to abandon your technology wholesale, rather than love it more and be more careful with it.
I suppose really, it's that the message, seemingly underscored by reported comments at the end that the human tribes are potentially breed-with-able while the 268s will simply "help until they die" (and yes, I know that doesn't rule out interbreeding but it does place a different emphasis on things), that yeah. The answer is to throw our technology into the sun rather than integrating with it so much we frakking breed with it which is the ultimate kind of...hilarious but bold mindfrak?
And also...the sort of themes I was in this show for?
Which I grant, was always a subtle difference for most of the run. And probably why I didn't realise RDM and I were on fairly different tracks with regards to overall message.
It extends to the religious things too. I'm actually 100% okay with religion being there and real and mystical and defying explanation. I'm even okay with the confused did-they- or didn't-they-end-the-cycle thing. I'm fine with Kara's return never being fully explained (though I sympathise with those who aren't.)
What I wish the finale had explored more fully (which apparently it hasn't, though as I said, working off summaries here), is the relationship between religion and technology, same as I wish the personal relationship between the human and technology were more fully explored.
I loved the idea that religious vision and projection might and could be the same thing. That Roslin, all human, swoons in CIC at the exact moment the power goes off. That is's a crazy machine (the Hybrid) that functions as the metatron; bits of technological data intertwined with scripture. That Leoben sees the foreshadowing that preceeds every moment because he's an overclocked MACHINE, but that is a religious moment of prophecy regardless.
There was a foiler before the episode aired that Daniel still existed in some form and was guiding his loved ones through the Head People, and I love that more than what we got because that still has the element of mysticism, of impossible angelic destiny, but also manages to incorporate the weirdness of technology.
I mean, I'll be okay. Nothing in the finale retcons Hybrids away, or Leoben away, and I'm actually relieved that we got as little about Daniel and Kara's father as we seem to have instead of getting it explained in some other way that categorically prevents my reading of it. I'm just disappointed that my favourite part of the show (now that they've kind of taken Laura) got...less play and got minimised rather than maximised in the finale.
I mean, for instance, Head Six, an apparent actual messenger from God-who-doesn't-like-to-be-called-that, called Hera the first of God's new generation. So even though her actual destiny in the show seemed to be to run away in the middle of a gunfight (and we retconned Nicky for that?!), I'd like to still take it as read that there will be more cybrids and such down on Earth2. But then again, I'm not sure I'll feel that's a reading supported by the ending.
We'll see.
S'what you get for loving the margins, I guess.
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