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?

[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!

[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.