beccatoria | BSG: We're getting a divorce. You can keep 4.5. I get everything else.

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BSG: We're getting a divorce. You can keep 4.5. I get everything else.

Firstly I'm sorry for being very behind on replying to comments. My life is kind of crazy just now. Which is probably part of why I'm...feeling really weird about BSG.

The more I think about the finale, the more I'm disappointed in it, which...I really didn't think I would be. Because I'd lowered my expectations somewhat. But...I guess shit happens.

But I don't want to let it negatively affect my opinion of the entire show any more than I have to. So I am taking radical action and attempting to do something I hate doing: instituting personal canon. I'm just flat out refusing to acknowledge parts of it happened.

(Except I totally WILL acknowledge them at times because I'm like that and will callously appropriate visuals for vids. I mean I actually, if I have the heart to do it, even have a 4.5-centric vid in the works.)

But basically this is now my canon:

Mini - 4x11 Sometimes a Great Notion + No Exit.

Plus selected background scenes of awesome Cylon integration like the Cylons on the memorial wall. Or sitting in the Pilot briefing room with Starbuck in the gorgeous teaser to Someone to Watch Over Me.

Plus the moment Kara starts playing All Along the Watchtower and then plays her father's music to Sam.

Though really, if pressed, I'd just cut that down to Mini - 4x11 + 4x15 as the bonus backstory episode. I just want to save the two semi-decent things that came after (cylons on the memorial wall & Kara and her piano-playing.)

This means that:

1) Nicky is still a cybrid. ETA And Cally's suicidal/infanticidal behaviour makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE. /ETA.
2) Liam is still alive.
3) Ellen Tigh is still awesome and I can still love Saul.
4) Tory is still kick ass and leading and stuff on the basestar.
5) Massive implication that Daniel is Kara's father.
6) Boomer is more interesting this way. (I actually didn't mind her double-double cross but her final triple-cross was highly meh.)

I'm also vaguely considering canonising the very last two minutes of the finale because I actually liked that bit and without the sucky prior context of anti-technological and ONLY ONE HYBRID crap it's a fun fourth-wall break.

So it's like, we finish at 4x11 and then we have these floating pieces - No Exit, Kara playing the piano, Cylons on the memorial wall, a completely contextless suggestion that we're all hybrids. Like a trailer for the awesome this season could have been without the suck factor?

And I'm kind of totally okay with the lack of concrete answers since BSG disappointed me so hard with them and I'm now thinking, it's a far better show when it's just asking questions and inventing insane shit with no reason behind it.

I don't find this kind of thing easy, but I'm serious people. I WILL TAKE BACK BSG USING EVERY WEAPON AT MY DISPOSAL DOWN TO MY OWN EYE TEETH. (See? SEE ME REAPPROPRIATE DIALOGUE?)

WHO'S WITH ME?!

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Works for me.

My only stipulation is that I want it to stay canon that Hera can project. Also, that she likes to project vanilla cupcakes in lieu of her boring real food.

I have no problem with this!

To be honest, I think that there's a very good argument to be made for Hera's projection abilities being canon pre-4.5 anyway. She's also a part of the Opera House visions which Athena explicitly describes in a cut scene as being like projecting.

Good point. And Sharon inexplicably having the Opera House visions while awake when she's chasing Hera and finds Natalie would suggest that Hera's projecting hard enough to affect others, maybe unintentionally. But I'm still stipulating the vanilla cupcakes, because damnit, that was CUTE! In a desert of fail, one clings to the small oasis (oases?) dotted here and there. "No Exit" = water; piano-playing = water; vanilla cupcakes & bed bouncing = water (for some of us).

Um, on second thought, I'm not sure I agree iwth making "Sometimes a Great Notion" the cut-off (with No Exit as a post-cut-off oasis. Or maybe lake. A whole ep's bigger than a few scenes). Could we maybe cut it off partway through the ep, before Dualla blows her brains out? That would save us from TWO scenes of Olmos chomping on the scenery like crazy (with Dee/Lee in the morgue, and then with Tigh in his cabin). And would also leave Dualla alive. Um, just a thought I toss out there. I *like* Dualla. And she'd never been shown as suicidal before that ep.

In fact, the whole point of h er death was a plot device to allow the mutiny to get kickstarted. Because Felix was her FRIEND, and I'm sure he would've found a more constructive way to express his very understandable concerns about Adama's decisions. Someone else can blow their head off instead. How about Romo Lampkin? Unless you need h im in your alternate S 4.5. I won't have a tantrum if you want to stick with the whole ep, but I figured it never hurts to speak up. The worst you can do is tell me no!

indeedy.

YAY!

Wow, this is a rather radical and funny notion. But desperate situations and all that. ;-) A show is pretty bad when one has to take back the canon, right?

WHO'S WITH ME?!
Goodness, I don't know. It's like you are asking me to mutiny. TPTB have screwed us over one last time, huh?

So intriguing. Do I get to be a ~~message-sending-double agent~~ princess too?

I don't even know where I'd even begin my own personal rewrite. I liked the Felix arc despite its utter lack of satisfying-to-me resolution or effect on the greater fleet that we saw.

But gosh, your way he gets to live. Ooooh.

Edited 2009-03-25 00:32 (UTC)

Well, that's the thing - I think that so much of the show was so good, that's the only reason I want to take back canon so badly.

Because, yes, I AM MUTINYING! If RDM can break the fourth wall, the dammit, so can I! In reverse!

So I'm taking the Star Wars approach to this baby, and the same way I encourage everyone, just for their own personal catharsis, to "rewrite" the prequels so they suck less, I am encouraging everyone to tweak their own personal 4.5 canon! This is just mine, and anyone who wants to share in any part of it can!

See, I'm kind of with you on the mutiny thing. I really liked that it happened, and, while I hate to say this because I completely understand why it was so painful for you to see him die like that, I even kind of liked the deaths of Gaeta and Zarek as part of it.

But it's so intertwined with Laura sucking and the lack of greater resolution that I'm kind of...it's cleaner for me to just excise the whole thing and have there be references in No Exit and other retained canon that there was a mutiny without specifically showing it?

Plus, like you said, my way he gets to live...

*entices*

So intriguing. Do I get to be a ~~message-sending-double agent~~ princess too?

YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE, DAYBREAK, AND DON'T LET ANYONE EVER TELL YOU DIFFERENT!

Oh noes! I do not know if I can mutiny! (This was probably one problem with the arc.) I do not know if I want my boy to live or die for his cause.

Am I Hoshi or Racetrack? Racetrack or Hoshi? Decisions, decisions.

And strangely, I do not know if I can reclaim, either. Meaning I do not know if I can let go of what really happened yet and make my own.

She who hesitates is lost, lost, lost!

Um, would this reedit be to music or like a real epiosde?

*is intrigued*

(Maybe I am Kelly? Oh noes!! This means the Quorum lives! Um, and Wheely ship. :-))

DUDE YOUR ICON! HEE!

And believe me, I completely sympathise with the difficulty in divorcing oneself from canon. This is the first time I've actively been...distressed enough/in love with the good bits enough to want to do it.

And I'm still not certain how well I'll succeed. Because the "real" thing will always be there and I think one of the biggest barriers to my ability to just say, "HERE'S WHAT I THINK!" is the loss of...community? The loss of a group of people to discuss the 'real' thing with? But...maybe that's why, at least for myself, I want to make a visual representation of the whole thing so at least on my own rewatches I can be more okay with how things turned out and maybe there's at least be some people who know what my version of things is?

Bah, I don't know!

But yes, it would be a re-edit like a real episode. I'm not sure how well I'll manage to do since stuff like the soundtrack will be an issue, but I can at least try, right?

(And unfortunately no, the Quorum still dies as we still get that scene in No Exit where Lee and Laura are discussing the fallout from the mutiny!)

Hee! Icon. I love Wheely ship. :-)

Unfortunately, I can not mutiny myself. Despite the BSG PTB betraying their oath to us. :-(

I can, however, be a princess and pass along the occasional important missive. I quietly support all mutinies!

Jake and I will keep a light burning for ya. I'm glad you found something to do and focus your energy on. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Having been there... well, I can offer you an ear, if you need to talk. Or an eye, if you need to mail. Probably only the latter, for the next few days, as I'm still/again staying with my parents. Although actually, it might be easier to phone you from there than from my own place, so talking is definitely not out of the question - but I'd need to investigate how to do it, so... we could talk tomorrow evening, at the earliest.

Yay! I would love to chat either in audio or email form! I have lots to chat to you about, including your awesome thesis. Although fair warning, not spoiling you for BSG might be hard. Although to be honest I also think that you ought to be spoiled for this crap. :/

Anyway, I'll send you an email later! :D

OOH OOH! *raises hand, bounces up and down*

I am so in it's not even funny. We are coming for all of you! With VIDS. I accept Mini - 4x11 + No Exit. I am sad to let The Oath go but it led to FAIL so it cannot live. *is icily pragmatic*. And I will appropriate pretty pieces of video from the rest but COMPLETELY DISREGARD the meaning, so it's okay.

Yeah, I wish I could keep the mutiny episodes because there was some really great stuff in there, but...the fail of what it lead to *cries*

I am...so in on this idea I am actually seriously considering making my own 4.5 fanedit wherein I attempt to make an actual episode (probably an extended episode) of all the good stuff from Deadlock, Someone to Watch Over Me and Islanded in a Stream of Stars. And just have the whole thing ending with Kara playing the All Along the Watchtower while the mystical Opera House visions start up again.

Yes. Yes I am beyond help and...apparently that damn serious about reclaiming my show. It's kind of a relief to feel angry enough to want to do something about it instead of...just bland and tired and disappointed.

*is icily pragmatic*.

JUST LIKE REAL!LAURA.

And I will appropriate pretty pieces of video from the rest but COMPLETELY DISREGARD the meaning, so it's okay.

EXACTLY.

I've already deleted 4.5 from my DVR. Does that tell you something? The whole thing was just seriously unpleasant. I'm also keeping No Exit, (minus the last minute) but I'm discarding Sometimes A Great Notion because I <3 Dee, and thought her suicide was b.s. too.

Beyond that, I'll keep Daniel, and of course, (and on this you may differ) Kara's undying love for her Cylon husband. Because they are my OTP.

And with that, I'm good.

I hate to say it, but even though I do like Dee, I kind of liked both her and Felix's deaths as hammering home the pointlessness of all. But that's...even at the time I was aware it was a very difficult line to tow well and I'm... Basically I accept the criticism of why and how the show did it and am not sure I'm not giving it credit it doesn't deserve?

I don't differ from you on Kara and Sam though. I was always a Laura/Lee shipper and never liked Kara/Lee much except as siblings. I found Sam utterly boring in The Farm but basically changed my mind as soon as he came back in Downloaded. Sam's just awesome. I loved all the stuff we got of her and Sam in season four - I totally never expected it.

I'd love to keep the "you were just Sam, my Sam!" speech, but at the same time, it's not necessary - especially for people disregarding the last minute of No Exit! - and I think her loving him is pretty much clear from her hovering around him constantly after he got shot.

In my fantasty fan edited "finale", I think what I'd do is juxtapose Tigh holding that dying Eight's hand and her saying, "There must be some kinda way out of here," with the moment Anders' brainwaves start again. Then the scene later with Kara playing him the music which would be really near the end, would - in my head - indicate he was going to wake up. Like...right after the closing credits. So there. *is stubborn*

Awesome. And I can totally get behind this plan. And you are right, her love was already clear in No Exit, so all the rest is unnecessary.

It'll work for me.

Well, 'Deadlock' certainly needs to be airlocked. And you know my plan for, not rewriting Season 4, but presenting a revisionist version of it. ;)

Ooh!
Good golly, that sounds like an excellent idea. I hope you will make your revisionist history public once it's written.

Oh, yes, I plan to. It was conceived as a Lee/Laura fic, but it's becoming more gen as I think about it. It almost has to be as I try to incorporate more moments from the series. Not that Lee and Laura won't be getting naked at some point. ;)

Yeah, to be honest, as I said, I quite like the mutiny episodes, and a good deal of the individual scenes from A Disquiet Follows my Soul. But they also have non-Cylon Nicky and Laura being lame and the mutiny itself is referenced later so it's a little easier to disregard it. Although...I'm tempted to just fan-edit those too.

And basically the post-No Exit stuff is only about me a) getting rid of the awful bits of Deadlock and b) getting rid of the finale because...while I liked bits of it okay, the Earth bits are kind of...what's continuing to bother me and retrospective make me question the whole thing. It's harder to reclaim what I like of the finale, because it's so tied in with the stuff I don't. But...pre-finale. Yeah. I'm planning to reclaim most of the Deadlock - Islanded stuff that was awesome anyway. Which, really, is everything except the A/R crap, stuff referencing Insane Nickyless Chief, Hera's kidnapping because it leads to the finale and Insane Chief but not because I dislike it in principle, and Dead Liam.

It's weird because...this course of action makes me sound like I unmitigatingly hated most of S4.5. Which I really didn't. Or I wouldn't be so desperate to save all the awesome bits. It's just, if i have to ignore the ending, I might as well go back and fix the few things that really ticked me off at the same time.

I'd note that my way, we also end up with no A/R and pretty much end with a heavy focus on Laura/Lee and politics as they rebuild the Quorum... ;)

ALSO YOUR REVISIONIST HISTORY WILL BE GLORIOUS AND MIGHTY AND I WILL NOT STOP BUGGING YOU ABOUT IT UNTIL IT'S FINISHED.

I guess I love your fic not only because it'll be everything I wanted vis-a-vis Laura/Lee done by someone who'll do it well but also because the more I think about it, the more I think there were some startlingly beautiful ideas in 4.5, but that the execution was often very messy and wrecked a bunch of crap. And that maybe we'd all be happier if we treated it as a template for our own revisionist histories?

My 4.5 vid will only include the parts I like. Someone else can have the rest.

YES. MINE TOO.

Yours is the first "This is where I would reclaim my personal BSG" that I completely agree with. Well, almost - I'm a fan of the mutiny eps. But it could totally end right after that, with some kind of random bonus of the Cylons at the memorial wall and Starbuck playing the piano with her head!dad. You know, like how "Buffy" really ended at season five EXCEPT FOR the musical and that one Anya-centric episode.

(Oh, and I secretly really like that very last fourth-wall-breaking scene too, so that can stay. I'm trying very hard to figure out how to ONLY SAVE the Caprica/Baltar/Julius flashbacks and the "I know about farming" as he breaks down into tears, while discarding pretty much everything else from the finale, some of which we will Never Speak Of Again. *g*)

Is there some way we can tweak the mutiny eps so it still happens, but Sparky survives? I don't know, say after he discovers Zarek has used Gaeta's followers to murder the Quorum. Instead of getting pissy at Zarek but pressing on, he arrests Zarek and then gives himself up? He'd still end up on the prison ship along with the others, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be killed. Zarek would be the one facing the firing squad.

I would really like that. But also I'm not sure I could fan-edit it to look like that. I don't think the footage would co-operate. Plus...I'm sad to admit, I was kind of okay with Sparky's storyline even if I feel guilty about it because there should have been a stronger emphasis on the fact he had points.

If, you know, I ever actually made any fan edits anyway.

I do, however, entirely support people making up their own imaginary canon for 4.5 and am essentially now going to hope everyone treats 4.5 as a blueprint from which to take what they want and totally ignore the rest.

So if you want prison ship Sparky? I AM WITH YOU.

Yay! :D To be honest, I agree with like ALL of your caveats too. I desperately want to save the Caprica/Baltar/Julius flahsbacks because they were AWESOME (and the only good flashbacks in the entire thing.

And I also - as you know - really, really loved the Caprica/Baltar stuff in the finale. I'd love to find a way to save that, especially the farming, but I don't think I can since...well, it makes it too obvious for my fragile psyche that Liam's dead and that they landed on shitty Earth with no technology. :(

But - and I am insane I know it - I might actually be planning to edit together an extremely edited down version of Deadlock, Someone to Watch Over Me and Islanded in a Stream of Stars. Complete with seeing if I can re-order some of the scenes to make a completely different narrative in places. Like, Liam lives, Sam is foreshadowed to wake up, the ending is a massive mythic crescendo of the Opera House, and then the last two minutes are like, Caprica's crazy prophetic dream or something. I DO NOT KNOW. But I have plans and I'm rather afraid I will actually enact them.

If I do, I'm also highly tempted to edit down a version of the mutiny episodes, and to put the Caprica/Baltar/Julius flashbacks in there as Gaius' crazy "nightmares" when he runs away from Lida. Or something.

LIKE I SAID, I PROBABLY NEED HELP.

I like your spirit, Becca, and I'm with you in the need to fix the cannon.

But I think for me, I'm just going to end my series with Revelations, with its wonderous ambiguity and irony and plain old truthiness (as Steven Colbert would say).

Oh, and Adama and Roslin have been frakking since around Maelestrom.

But I look forward to seeing your project -- maybe you're right!

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BSG: We're getting a divorce. You can keep 4.5. I get everything else.

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Getting a divorce from your fandom.

Re: Getting a divorce from your fandom.

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