BSG: Daybreak II

[beccatoria]

The first hour had some beautiful visuals and decent action sequences. Romo Lampkin as President was ridiculous. I liked Cavil. I wish Baltar hadn't proselytized at him, but oddly, I really loved pretty much everything Caprica/Baltar and the show somehow managed that difficult task of getting me to buy into Baltar's fifty-seventh redemption. Perhaps because not buying into it would have broken my heart.

I was a little disappointed that All Along the Watchtower and the Opera House weren't as awesome or weird as they could have been, and most of my points from my last post about my disappointment with the post-humanist technological commentary still stand.

But the Opera House and Watchtower segments were very pretty and that saved a lot for me. I guess I feel that there's a real, objective argument that RDM missed a MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY with Daniel, but if he wasn't going to go that way, at least he didn't prevent that reading. Because I honestly think, regardless of his intentions, any sane person watching the show will at least stop and very seriously wonder if the show was trying to suggest that Dreilide was a surviving Daniel copy. I never thought her Cybrid status was the reason for her resurrection anyway. Different issues.

So yeah. In general, the action and character stuff was largely okay. I was disappointed that most of the Big Questions came down solely to religion rather than also technology.

I still DO NOT UNDERSTAND shooting all their cool shit into the sun. And I find that anti-technological message quite depressing. Even if I thought Kara's goodbye scene with Anders and his final flight into the sun were quite beautiful.

Two things really, really bothered me.

1) Tory's death. It's not the fact that she died, it's how and why and the way everyone treated it. It was gross. It was disturbing in a way I don't think the show intended. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

It was the way it was shot, too. Like...like RDM has read the anti-Tory sentiment on the internet and the whole thing was...I don't know. There was no consideration to Tory's viewpoint. I felt that Chief came off simultaneously as righteous avenger and complete fucking violent psycho.

And yeah. The way it was shot and the way he killed her and the creeptacular nature of it pinged all sorts of "Violence against women," alarms with me in ways that a lot of the other deaths of women on this show have not. Maybe also because of the history that they were once romantically involved. I don't know.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

And can I point out that not three episodes ago, Chief was out a-murderin' innocents to save Boomer? Can I point out SAUL TIGH that actually someone did do that to Ellen, and it was him? Can I ask if it's appropriate to have this...warm hug from Ellen for a man who just murdered someone she was supposed to love deeply because, OH WELL. SHE GOT WHAT SHE DESERVED.

I just...yeah. I've said before and I maintain that what Tory did to Cally was one of the hardest things for me to watch on BSG. It was ugly and terrifying. But this is the show that keeps sympathy for baby murderers and the architects of genocide and collaborators and wife killers. Where the hell was Tory's point of view? Where the hell was the sympathy for her?

I just...most uncomfortable moment ever.

Really, there's nothing that'll make this better.

2) WTFCOLONIALISM?

Did they actually just decide to go to Africa and civilise the natives?

I actually really loved the ending robot montage, even if I found the head characters' final acting to be a little off, somehow. I like the idea we're all cybrids. Which is part of why I wish there were more confirmation that we're descended from many cybrids not just Hera because she's not really much more than a consolation prize for the cylon race if every other contributor to our genetic material was human. But yeah. I like that even if I think they're being overly literal with making it actually, literally, for sure Hera there.

But I do think that the...I dunno. The giving the best parts of ourselves to these noble savages stuff was kind of problematic. In combination with the 268s decision to stay and help contribute to the world because apparently what the Cylon needed to learn to be "good" is that they can CHOOSE to exist to help humans. I really would have liked to see a motivation on their part stronger than, "we want to help you cus you're awesome, humans!"

Cus personally, I'd rather live on that awesome basestar with my metal siblings and hot water watching supernovas with the ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my head.

But that's just me.

To be honest, while the overtones of the writing fail, I think history itself saves the show somewhat on the colonialist front.

Because history proves that they fail. There was no agriculture 150,000 years ago. Nor for a looooong time after that, I think.

For all their grand plans, and their ultimate contribution to the genetic pool, they don't build civilisation. They fade. They teach their children to read and write, but their grandchildren can barely scratch their own names in the dirt with sticks, and their great-grandchildren don't even believe that they ever lived in space. Or maybe the trajectory is longer than that, but you get the point.

I wish it had been...reverse-colonialist more obviously because I could have gotten on board with that. As...an elegy. As a tragedy, but one that...ultimately serves a purpose in us. As a weird, "we're okay with our total lack of future," tragedy.

So yes. I deal with it by laughing my ass off imagining them all running around dirty and naked in ten years when their clothes have worn out with their illiterate half robot neanderthal children.

BECAUSE OMG, the other thing. I HAVE A NEW SHIP, Y'ALL:

CYLON/NEANDERTHALS. Because soon they will be able to bond over their oppression by humans. And the Neanderthals aren't going to hold a grudge against the Cylon for their murderous ways and the Cylon totally won't judge them for being illiterate and unable to speak.

And then we can have NEANDERBRIDS:

Neanderbrid Dave: How many mammoth in herd?
Neanderbrid Bob: One. Zero zero one one. Zero. One.

YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT.

So yeah. I thought the first two-thirds had some gorgeous images, was fairly mainstream but at least didn't wreck anything. The ending was...weird. In that irritating, "you have good ideas yet somehow you've managed to make them suck," way that 4.5 has.

Also, I hope Caprica gets a replacement goldfish baby, that Roslin comes back from BEYOND THE GRAVE to punish Adama for turning her into the Corpse Bride, that Adama was going on about the cabin because he was ACTUALLY SENILE and will momentarily commit suicide (srsly, wtf was going on with that?), and that the Centurions come back in a few years to pick up any of the survivors who've discovered that dying of simple infections and living without toilet paper is kind of sucky.

Oh, also, my theory on why there are humans on Earth? This hasn't just happened on Kobol and Earth (the real one, not this one) and Caprica. It's happened more than that. Many, many, many times. Even on this Earth once before. There's a diaspora of humanity. Didn't they leave people behind on New Caprica by accident? Might there not still be people in the Colonies?

And now it's over and I have no idea what to do with myself.

Also I have no idea whether or not I liked it. I didn't hate it. I did, at times, wonder if it was going to irrevocably change my view of the whole show. I...don't think that's happened, though.

I still think that RECLAIM WITH VIDS is the way to go. But I'm not sure how long it'll be 'til I have another. I've ground to a halt on my D'Anna vid, though if I don't start on it again soon, I'll make an actual effort to make myself.

HMM.

Comments

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

SO MUCH WORD ON EVERYTHING TORY.

I can't even deal with how much I hated that, the show finally marginalized her entirely and destroyed Chief for me all in one moment and its aftermath.

I thought earlier today that I had reached some kind of peace with this as the ending by just forgetting/ignoring/rationalizing a lot of the awful bits. But too many of my constructed readings keep falling down the more I think about it. Even the character bits I enjoyed often go right along
with thematic fail.

The "we are all Cybrids" thing is one of the few aspects that works for me, and I'm loving your notion about how this is one one iterations of many of these cycles of time for humanity. It makes everything more blended in a way the show failed to address. And makes us pretty frakkin' screwed in exactly the same way.

Despite the above statement on us as hybrids, I'm still not sold on the notion that it needed to be literally about us so explicitly. Which I'm aware is crazy because it seems like the plan had always been to end up in our past, but I don't think any of the metaphor falls down if they, you know, don't get to our Earth. Which is one of the reasons I hate the ending sequence still. Because it is about us, but I'm not entirely sure what they're trying to tell us about ourselves right now and I suspect I have issues with it.

For all their grand plans, and their ultimate contribution to the genetic pool, they don't build civilization. They fade.

This? Is why I think that it was actually a really depressing ending, not the hopeful note they may have intended. I dislike the notion of civilizing the noble savage, but having them disappear so completely just makes me sad.

And I want to adopt a Neanderbrid now.

[frolicndetour.livejournal.com]

This? Is why I think that it was actually a really depressing ending, not the hopeful note they may have intended. I dislike the notion of civilizing the noble savage, but having them disappear so completely just makes me sad.

See, apparently the intention (ie I read an interview) was that all of the similarities between our civilization and colonial civilization are due to the fact that we learned it from them, so they didn't disappear. Which might not make sense in terms of how we know it actually happened, but I'm happy to just look at BSG as an 'AU' version of Our History and run with that. Because the alternative is WAY more depression than what was intended.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I understand looking at it that way. I think for me, even within the show, 150,000 years is just such a long time, and there have been so many cultures and stuff that I can't really see an exact line there.

So my way of...looking at it is that yes, we are absolutely similar to the Colonials and the Kobol folks and the Cylons from the original Earth because we are all part of the same cycle and we're all inter-related and complex systems repeat themselves like mathematics and so we end up evolving in the same ways and evolving the same cultural tics simply because, as my favourite line in the whole show says, "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again."

But I can't see it as a direct parallel. That we wear ties because our ancestors 150,000 years ago did? Or that's why modern western politics resembles their so closely?

Because even if it's AU Times Square, that's still 150,000 years to reach a comparable level of technology, and I know, I totally know I'm overthinking the whole, "it's a metaphor" thing but I can't help it. No civilisation in our entire history has ever lasted even a tiny fraction of that length of time, continuously. Except, perhaps, the stone age aboriginal Australians with their myths of a time when Australia was totally covered in rain forest.

But I totally respect and envy your ability to look at it this way.

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

I'm a little bit of the opinion too that the scale of time is too great for such direct parallels. And disappearing completely is probably coming on a bit strong from me too, but it was played as such a hopeful ending and the sadness inherent in it struck me almost immediately. Which I did can see played on the show if I squint, but it was a little light for me to say that it was intentionally there in the larger moments of saying goodbye to everyone. Probably part of it is, well, the show ended too, and I'm busily rationalizing a fair number of things that happened on Friday anyway. I hate having to add our entire history into the mix. Though I'm very interested in the idea of what fragments of knowledge might have been passed on in a more subtle way maybe.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I can't even deal with how much I hated that, the show finally marginalized her entirely and destroyed Chief for me all in one moment and its aftermath.

YES. THIS. EXACTLY.

I think I like that it's specifically us mainly because the whole show is so clearly a cypher for "us" anyway, that even if it was an AU Earth I'd still have all the problems I have about what they're saying about "us". Although, like you, I have no idea what that is. And I'm inclined to be grateful because I also believe I wouldn't like it and this way I can imagine it's something better than I fear.

The other reason I like that it's literally us is that, while it's not a mindbreaking idea for folks like us who have probably thought about this already and for quite some time, I think to a more mainstream audience it really might be a surprising and thought-provoking idea? Or perhaps just that since it's the only place they really let Cybritidy flourish this season, I'm kind of on board with their just making it as CRACKED OUT as possible?

This? Is why I think that it was actually a really depressing ending, not the hopeful note they may have intended. I dislike the notion of civilizing the noble savage, but having them disappear so completely just makes me sad.

I do understand that. On one level it is tragic. I'm also kind of okay with a tragic end for this show. It's about the death of two great races, and...are they resurrected?

I don't think that they just disappear completely. Firstly, on a shorter scale, I'm sure they do maintain a strong sense of their own community and societies. I doubt any of the Colonists who land live to see the disappearance of their everything they ever were.

On a longer scale every civilisation disappears. Every culture. Every language.

They might have failed to compress 150,000 years of evolution into a couple of decades of teaching the early humans how to speak and make more complicated tools, but their integration into the population of Earth (whether biologically or socially) is going to affect things. Will make a difference.

Things end, and fade, and it's sad and depressing, but it's also...what happens and it doesn't mean they disappeared without a trace.

It means they changed. They got colonised. In 150,000 years I don't expect human civilisation - if it exists at all - to be anything like ours. But I also don't think that means that, as a culture, we've failed. Or that our legacy is gone, just because they don't remember us.

I'm wary of reducing it to biology, but on that large a scale, it really is the only remaining link, and I think changing the entire evolution of a species is a pretty damn big legacy. Even if the stories of the individuals who affected it are more poignant, tragic and all about...fading?

Sorry for going on about it. It's just an idea I both love and am uncomfortable with at the same time. So I babble. ;)

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

I think I like that it's specifically us mainly because the whole show is so clearly a cypher for "us" anyway, that even if it was an AU Earth I'd still have all the problems I have about what they're saying about "us"

No, I agree that a simple switch of location doesn't solve anything and create potentially more problems for them to solve and screw up. And you might have a point about perspectives on this. Growing up reading scifi, I've been pretty comfortable with the idea that it's always us, so my response to the show announcing that is, "Yes. And?" And it's in the answer of that question that I'm not sure what we're left with, because there were a few pretty strange ideas implicated in the finale, starting with the anti-technology bent. So for me at least, holding up the mirror isn't a satisfying conclusion. But I might be out of the norm on that.

On a longer scale every civilisation disappears. Every culture. Every language.

Yes. And this is such an intensely uncomfortable idea (though true) to me personally, that my initial reaction is, OMG, TRAGEDY! A large number of my older relatives are very concerned with ancestry and I've followed this theme of recording narratives in the photography that I do. So viewing on a personal level how quickly information is lost, to the point I'll probably wave vaguely at any potential offspring of mine and go, "well, your great-grandmother was Czech", it does strike me as terribly final being taken on such a large scale. But you're right that it is just what happens.

It's a bit strong for me to frame it as disappearing forever, because I don't really think that's what the show was trying to tell us. There's legacies and then legacies, and there is a kind of elegance to this particular story melding into our larger history, even just biologically, and ours into the whole of "all of this has happened before." I wish I'd gotten more of this sense from the show, because as played, I don't really see how they changed the cycle in any way, if that was the goal. Unless the message is that it's now our responsibility to do so?

Sorry, I'm getting rambly myself at this point.