BSG producers on Hera, Starbuck, and cornerless paper

[alexiscartwheel]

Ron Moore and David Eick answered some questions for the folks at National Geographic: Battlestar Geographica: Galactica's Secrets Revealed in the "Yellow Magazine".

I get what they were trying to do with the pull forward and the mitochondrial Eve voiceover, but I still think the Ron Moore cameo is too jarring. And Hera is the mother of all because it's really all about love. Hmm. I agree that love is good, but that doesn't explain how she knows "All Along the Watchtower," now does it?

I'm, of course, most interested in what he had to say about Starbuck:

Starbuck—the hotshot pilot who died and then was alive again, and in the finale just vanishes—has people asking, what exactly was she?

Moore: You know we just made a decision to be ambiguous about exactly what Starbuck was. That there was a certain mystery about who and what she was. I liked the note that we ended on. She knew that her journey was over. She had completed her destiny, and it was time to leave. I mean we also know that she literally died and was resurrected. And that there is a certain obvious resonance with a certain Christian myth and notions of life after death. Ultimately she's connected to the divine. She's connected to something else that we can't quite understand or connect with fully. And the more you try to explain it the less satisfying it becomes.

I agree that there's a strong possibility that no explanation of who or what Starbuck was could be satisfying. I also agree that Kara sensing that she fulfilled her destiny and feeling at peace because of that is a good thing. I just don't like her suddenly vanishing. Since Kara remains a mystery no matter what, I'd rather her be a mystery that gets to stick around on Earth. I liked Lee's sentiment that it didn't matter what Kara was, only that they were both still alive.


Kara is too awesome to vanish, even if she's already died.

What do the humans in the show have against right angles on paper anyway?

Moore: Now that's one of the deepest mysteries of the entire show. That is the Da Vinci Code of Battlestar Galactica.

Eick: That's purposely left unsolved just to torture the fans. All I know is the prop guy from the miniseries who had that idea lived in infamy for the next five years, with assistants shaving corners off of everything in sight, saying "I want to strangle whoever had this idea."

Ahahahahaha!! I commend you, evil prop genius!

Also in the "we don't know what this means" file, I read somewhere, I think on io9 (I've apparently closed the tab already, and I'm feeling too lazy to go look again), that the whole Lee/pigeon thing doesn't symbolize anything in particular. Ron Moore just thought it was cool. *facepalm* Sometimes it is better if the writers just don't tell you what they were thinking, eh? I do have my own theory on that scene, though, so there.

Comments

[sagacious-c.livejournal.com]

What? I thought the pigeon thing was somehow related to Kara. For it to be pointless is silly, and if that's true then yeah I totally agree that I'd rather not know that they didn't think about it. :P

Thanks for that link to the National Geographic interview. I'm a proud subscriber and looooove the National Geographic Society, so part of me got a little defensive/offended at that bit when he responded to one of the questions with "Really good pictures, and every once in a while I'd even grace the magazine with my full attention to an article." I don't know, it just seems a little rude to tell the magazine.

One thing I don't understand the mitochondrial Eve thing: wouldn't that mean we're all descendents from Hera -- but weren't there tens of thousands of humans settling on Earth? None of them continued to reproduce?

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

What? I thought the pigeon thing was somehow related to Kara.
Yeah, me too. The first episode my reaction was "What the frak?" but when it flew away, I thought it was clearly about him and Kara and finally letting her go.

When I read that answer about the pictures I thought it was weird too! (I do agree the photography is awesome, but that's totally a an awkward backhanded compliment there.)

About Hera: It's really funny how you think up some of the same questions I do, cause I wondered the same thing. Then I realized that Hera's descendants can just intermarry with any other colonial descendants, BOOM! they're all descended from her.

[ex-jo-blogs.livejournal.com]

OK, I can't contain my irritation at the BSG writers any longer. This could be because I am SO hungry...

I think they could have easily come up with a satisfying explanation of what Starbuck was. Even the one they did use (that she was connected to the divine) could have been more satisfying than it was, if it had been done a whole lot better. Because of the lame way they ended the remaining characters' stories in the finale, I now look back on the whole of the last season with disappointment because it seems now there was no grand writing plan whatsoever and all I can see are holes and lazy storytelling. It's as though they got bored and decided to just ditch all the characters and plotlines they can't be bothered to write a decent ending for. First Dee, then Gaeta, now Starbuck, Lee ... etc.

What about Leoben? One two-second glimpse of him nodding his agreement to Lee's ridiculousy unbelievable plan is not satisfying. Where was D'Anna? Did I miss something? I could have sworn she was alive the last time I looked.

The only ending I liked for any of the characters was Baltar and Six. Helo, Athena and Hera was OK but kind of meh. Same for Bill and Laura, Saul and Ellen. The rest of them - no feeling of closure whatsoever.

I hope you don't mind me wailing my disappointment all over your journal. It's just I loved that show and those characters so much!

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all. I'm definitely not one of those "you must agree with me on everything or else" types, and you have good thoughts, so I wanna here 'em!

I understand how you feel about the lack of a masterplan. It so strange that in some places they brought back elements from earlier in the season and previous seasons all the way back to miniseries, but other things are forgotten or unexplained. For the most part, I liked what we did get, but some of the dropped threads do make the writers seem a bit capricious.

I watched a replay on Sci-Fi the other night and wondered where Leoben got to at one point. I think at some point they decided Leoben really didn't have anything to do with Kara's destiny, so he wasn't important anymore. D'Anna actually is gone, but it's easy to miss. I forgot that at the beginning of 4.5 she decides to stay on nuked Earth, and she was the only Three still living.

I liked Baltar and Six, and I liked the Agathons, mainly cause I was happy Helo didn't die! I didn't like that Laura died, but I think she had to because that's where her story's been going since day one, and they did her final scenes really well. Lee and Kara... complete lack of closure, and I'm still wrestling between trying to accept and make sense of it because it's canon and just wishing it went differently.

Out of curiosity, what do think would have been a satisfying ending for the various characters? I guess that could be personal wish fulfillment or narrative fulfillment.

[ex-jo-blogs.livejournal.com]

D'Anna actually is gone, but it's easy to miss. I forgot that at the beginning of 4.5 she decides to stay on nuked Earth, and she was the only Three still living.

*headsmack* I remember now. Another character ending that seemed a bit weird but not too awful at the time, but looking back now feels completely ... uhm ...unwoven (I know that's not actually a word but it's late and I can't think of the right one!) into the story as a whole.

I don't think I can say what would have been a satisfying ending for me, because I just can't get my head around the way they butchered the really interesting, subtle universe and story they'd created. My issues with it are bigger than the lack of closure for individual characters. I didn't want Kara to have been brought back to life in a mystical way by a divine power, but that's what happened, so what would have been an improvement on her disappearing the way she did? I can't think of a different way that would have been better within those parameters.

It was ridiculous to me that the survivors happily went their separate ways never to see one another again. Lee's speech about crossing oceans and climbing mountains just made me wonder how he was going to do it without any transport or equipment.

I hated that Chief's pronouncement to Helo that the cylons were blow-up dolls went completely unchallenged (if anything it was supported by the writers in the 150,000 years later epilogue). Then he murders Tory and somehow that's OK because there's no more society or rule of law and he can bugger off to sit in a tree because he's sick of people? Way to ruin another interesting character.

Why did Boomer deserve to die more than other characters who also did awful things, and for it to be OK for Athena to murder her while she was defenceless?

I didn't mind Laura's final scenes but I would have preferred her to die saving people in the infirmary and Bill just to be there for her last few seconds. I'd have found that more poignant.

So many other issues... I'll stop now before I run out of space in this comment!

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

D'Anna definitely left the show with a whimper.

I didn't want Kara to have been brought back to life in a mystical way by a divine power, but that's what happened, so what would have been an improvement on her disappearing the way she did? I can't think of a different way that would have been better within those parameters.

When Ellen came back they had that discussion of resurrection and said the humans used to have the technology, but forgot once they didn't need it anymore, or something to that effect. At that point I really thought that was a clue about Kara and that someone had downloaded her consciousness into a new body. (The ship and tags were a wrinkle that might still have required some divine intervention... I don't know.) Umm... I don't think I'm really going anywhere with this except to says things would have been really different if, like Ellen, Kara was version 2.0 instead of... an angel?

He will wrestle mountain lions with his bare hands. Obviously. I think the idea was that most of the survivors would be in small communities, just spread out across the globe, but seeing Bill, Lee, Chief, Baltar & Six, etc. going off alone gives a different impression.

Boomer's a hard nut to crack. Most of the time when it looks like she's headed toward redemption, it's part of some double cross. In the end she takes Hera back, but that's not good enough for redemption either (whereas Baltar definitely has a redemptive story at the end when he stays to fight... and saves Here). Maybe because even when she's doing something good, it's a payback to Adama? Maybe it's supposed to be a weakness in Athena?

Or maybe she just didn't deserve to die. That'd hardly be a new thing for BSG. I don't think Gaeta really deserved to die. I understand he did under military code and all, but I can see why he did what he did, and definitely wouldn't judge him to be a bad person overall.

[ex-jo-blogs.livejournal.com]

With Boomer, I've always figured we're meant to think that up until the time she shot Bill, she wasn't in conscious control of what she was doing - she only began making choices once she was resurrected. I don't think it was a double-cross when she helped Sam escape on Caprica, and I can understand why she was so messed up and open to being turned against her original 'family'. It's a long time since I watched it, so one day I'd like to go back and revisit her arc in seasons 1-3 and see if my sympathy for her is well-founded.

I thought Kara had been given a new body and it was something to do with what happened to her on Caprica. I hoped Cavil had something a whole lot better up his sleeve than some hazy plan to vivisect Hera involving sticking sharp objects into her brain - that seemingly either never actually took place, despite the length of time she was in the hands of Cavil and the Simons, or didn't happen at all.

I figured that if Cavil and *was* the dangerous adversary we were led to believe, then he would also be behind the recreation of Kara's viper. I hoped the introduction of the Cylon colony was going to actually, um, I dunno, lead to some NEW information that explained things like resurrection, the hybrids, Cylon projection, where the Centurion's religious faith came from etc...

So many things were dropped or not explained to my satisfaction. I think I'm going to just pretend that most of season 4 never happened and someday we'll get a final season that actually lives up to the quality of the best episodes in seasons 1-3.

Oh well - I still have Lost to care about, and the writers on that show seem to be doing quite well at the moment!

ETA - oops, sorry!

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

It's a long time since I watched it, so one day I'd like to go back and revisit her arc in seasons 1-3 and see if my sympathy for her is well-founded.
I'm with you there. Boomer's had complicated arc, and I don't remember all of the older stuff that well. I think that's true for other characters as well; I'll get a much better picture of how their stories went once I can go back and watch from the beginning again.

Simon was just... probing Hera's ear or something? Cylon/Human hybrids have really unique ear canals you know! Cavil and the other Cylons bringing back Kara and recreating her viper and sending her back to rouse suspicion could've been an interesting way to go. There was that suspicion at first that Kara was a Cylon, but the fleet seemed to lose interest in her identity after a bit.

I think I'm going to just pretend that most of season 4 never happened...
That's what fandom's for, right? :)

I've never gotten into Lost. I've seen a couple episodes, but it didn't grab me right at first, and then it seemed too complex and daunting to catch up.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it is better if the writers just don't tell you what they were thinking

Definitely. When I was watching the show I was so desperate to avoid spoilers I wasn't reading anything about the production, and watched thinking most the plot was part of some genius master plan. Now I've finished the series I am reading things, I've been discovering how much the writers made it up as they went along, which is something I'd rather not know.

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

Knowing that some of the significant elements weren't part of a master plan, you start to wonder what else might be completely arbitrary. For me it can impede my ability to interpret for myself, because maybe it doesn't mean anything!

Perhaps this is why I studied 19th century lit at university. Long dead authors can't pop up to talk about their writing process and tell you what they really meant.