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

[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.