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| Hey, how about we throw all our technology away, fly our ships into the sun, and die out |
The ending we ultimately got threw out everything Moore and Eicke had espoused over the course of the show: the survivors unanimously agreed to throw away all their technology, fly their ships into the sun, and settle on what turned out to be the real earth, albeit in the distant past. Eventually, they would evolve into us. First, they would descend into primitivism and thousands of years of ignorance, savagery, disease, and early death.
This is their righteous, back-to-the-trees happy ending.
It was pathetic.
First of all, the fleet always had a criminal element, and the idea that some of these psychopaths wouldn’t hide tech away so they could then take over and dominate the earnest, gullible pro-luddite masses is beyond belief.
Previously, the show had always emphasized that you can’t get total agreement with large numbers (or even small numbers) of people on anything. Someone is always going to object, game the system, or find an angle that will allow them to dominate.
Second, Moore presents humans giving up all their tech to live off the land as a positive.
Seriously?
On an alien planet where they don’t know the plant life, what’s edible and what’s not, with a bunch of people used to living at the top of a complex, interdependent technological ecosystem of specialized workers, is insulting to the intelligence of the audience and an abandonment of the show’s earlier dedication to nuance.
The vast majority of the survivors would soon die from disease, all their knowledge would be lost, and it would take tens of thousands of years before our civilization evolved and even a small fraction of that knowledge would be regained.
Even if you're anti-technology this seems like a very unrealistic and poorly thought out conclusion.
Rushed, limited by budget, run down by years of running a complex and largely superlative show, probably impacted the finale script.
Who knows?
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| One of the biggest mysteries of the reboot is why they wore their undershirts on the outside |
Is Ron D. Moore a genius writer? Absolutely. BSG revitalized sci-fi, made it relevant and exciting and much watch TV.
That does not mean, however, that his decisions were always flawless.
This was also during the beginning of internet culture, and plenty of viewers speculated on where the show was going. Moore wanted to keep people guessing, and according to some, altered the show's path to thwart their predictions. And yet, a properly set up show progresses logically, so some prediction is inevitably going to be correct. That shouldn’t change the show’s course. True? Not true? Hey, I read it on the internets, so...
Where the original Battlestar shone, for me, was in the big ideas: the lost survivors seeking haven on earth (very melancholic, wistful, and eerie), ruthless machines bent on exterminating organic sapients, and… controversially, the Beings of Light and good ol' Count Ibli-dibli.
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| Oh, Count Ibli-dibli, how we've missed you! |
Moore’s BSG cut out the Beings of Light angle, as well as our classy count. This was one of the most fascinating elements of the original series: that higher beings with technology that could easily be mistaken for magic, existed; they even had an evil counterpart, possibly the devil himself, out to deceive and destroy the gullible.
That really caught my imagination as a child.
Initially, Starbuck’s mysterious return in the re-imagined series hinted towards the Beings of Light, but this hope was dashed, and her return was left largely unexplored.
The idea that civilization is cyclical was intriguing, and gave the show interesting places to go.
Alas, it was not to be.
For all its flaws, the cheesy 1978 version had wilder concepts than the reboot, which was more conservative and focused on verisimilitude. From one of the first pop culture warnings about killer AI to Chariots of the Gods, Holocaust and persecution references and ascended light bulb beings, BSG 1978 had it all.
Moore's 'The Cylons (don't) have a plan' never panned out (there was no 'there' there), and the vague politicking within the Cylon leadership fell flat. There was some mystery around Starbuck returning, which they then didn't bother exploring because reasons. And that was it, as far as mystery and wonder went.
On an episode by episode basis, Moore’s version is far superior and easier to rewatch. No question. The acting is phenomenal, the dialogue superb, the characters well rounded.
But I miss the more intriguing elements of the 1978 version. I loved Count Iblis and his bright light nemeses. Same for the Imperious Leader, too (who had the voice of Count Iblis); he was usually squatting atop a ridiculously high plinth, which made me wonder what the heck he did up there all day, iconic as it was. When Baltar took the chair, I couldn't help but wonder how he got down to go to the bathroom.
Funnily enough, I mistakenly thought the halo of mesh around the Imperious Leader's head was some kind of external neural net, but as it turns out, it was actually a cape collar.
Such a disappointment.
Both shows fired my imagination, just in different ways.
Moore’s modernized iteration has influenced shows like The Expanse, and that’s a good thing.
The Expanse is phenomenal.
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| The inheritor of the BSG crown: The Expanse |
