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Battlestar Galactica Official Final Season Thread

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Treo360 said:
I always thought that putting Hatch in the series was just a measure to "shut him up." I remember reading that he had nothing but negative things to say about he re-imagined series. I'm glad he's out, pity it took so long to give him the boot.

lol. He did a fine job and he's entitled to his opinion. If they didn't want him on the show I'm sure they wouldn't have ever given him a role. I don't think Ron Moore is a child.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
He had his own vision of a new Galactica series, and for fans of the original, his ideas were pretty great actually. He even went so far as to film a 7 or 8 minute trailer to pitch it back in the day before Moore's version got picked up. That trailer had a number of of the original actors from the first series reprising their rolls in a "20 years later" kin of approach. It's hard to imagine his "vision" now, because this version turned out so good, and I haven't heard him say anything negative or against the show once it launched and got on track.

Personally I think he was great in the roll of Zarek. I won't miss the character, as he was always an evil bastard, but Hatch was excellent in the roll.

For those that don't know the backstory.

Hatch wrote, co-directed and executive-produced a Battlestar Galactica trailer, called The Second Coming that won acclaim at science-fiction conventions. He produced the trailer to pressure Universal into creating a new series of Battlestar Galactica that would have been a direct continuation of the original series. Original actors John Colicos (Baltar), Terry Carter (Col. Tigh) and Jack Stauffer (Bojay) appeared in the trailer along with Hatch himself. It is presumed that the actors would have appeared in the series itself. Hatch also believed that he could persuade Dirk Benedict to return and play Starbuck.

He also co-authored a series of novels based on continuing the voyage of the Battlestar Galactica with his character (Captain Apollo) replacing Adama as Commander of the Galactica.

However, Battlestar Galactica returned to television screens as a re-imagining, rather than the sequel for which Hatch had campaigned. Initially, Hatch was bitterly disappointed by this turn of events and was highly critical of the prospective new series on his web site. However, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the new series' producer, when he appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 25th anniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience. [1]

In 2003, Hatch was offered and accepted a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series. He plays Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician, who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building; Hatch has said the character was presented to him as a Nelson Mandela figure, and that he views Zarek as challenging the status quo and working for the common man. In an irony probably intended by the show's producers, Hatch/Zarek spends most of his first episode in heated debate with Captain Apollo, the role that Hatch had played in the original series. He has appeared in several further episodes of the series as a guest star.

In 2004, he stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that he had felt resentment over the failure of the Galactica continuation and was left "exhausted and sick... I had, over the past several years, bonded deeply with the original characters and story... writing the novels and the comic books and really campaigning to bring back the show". After accepting the Zarek role, "it was a very deep and profound struggle for me to let go and realize that I was not the creator of the series and it didn’t belong to me... I’ve finally come to terms with and accepted that."
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
NimbusD said:
The other nit pick would be that everything seems to have wrapped up a bit too nicely, being as we started with Dualla commiting suicide, the fleet tearing itself apart, some amazing scenes of Olmos declaring that no one participating will be spared. Then all we see is the two heads of the coup be exicuted without the others who made it possible (again it could have been time/budget constraints) but the way these episodes have been heading I was fully expecting to see hotdog or racetrack up there.
Adama was more than a little ticked off when he said that nobody would be spared. It was hardly a practical position to take, and Adama knew this. That's why he refused to kill the rebelling marines that he encountered in the ship. Why he didn't back Starbuck up when she was planning on killing the guy etc.

Too many people had died already, and it wouldn't really help fleet cohesion if he did slaughter them.
 
Wolfwood0 said:
You guys misunderstand me. I know that the religious aspect of the show has always been there and im not talkng about people turning to religion in tough times. I dont even have any real problem with Baltar's cult.

Im talking about specifically the episodes that delt with validating the prophecy, which imo have been alot more prevalent the last 2 seasons. Before there were internal conflicts that delt directly with their survival, (the presidents mutiny, the Pegasus, new Caprica,). But after that there was a lull where all i was hearing was "prophecy this", "you have a destiny that". I didnt hate the episodes, but i couldnt help but think that the earlier slice of life episodes were better.

Now we get to the last to episodes which everyone on this thread is hailing as a masterpiece and the reason is because they got back to business dealing with real people with problems other than "do we believe the prophecy or not".

You might not agree but hopefully i have explained myself well enough.

God I feel exactly the same way. What drew me to the show initially was this intense "HOLY FUCK WE'RE IN SPACE AND WE HAVE NO FUCKING WATER" premise. It was completely engrossing. There were, of course, moments of similar engagement throughout the series, but yeah, the religion stuff completely overtook it. I'm liking a return to that mood currently.
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
God I feel exactly the same way. What drew me to the show initially was this intense "HOLY FUCK WE'RE IN SPACE AND WE HAVE NO FUCKING WATER" premise. It was completely engrossing. There were, of course, moments of similar engagement throughout the series, but yeah, the religion stuff completely overtook it. I'm liking a return to that mood currently.

I think people are drawn to different elements much like lost. I've always enjoyed the political side of the show and how the fleet is reacting versus some of the more mystical elements of the show or who's the final cylon and such.

In lost lots of people love to speculate about certain mysteries I could care less about.
 
Stoney Mason said:
For those that don't know the backstory.

Thanks for the history Stoney!

I've actually read the first couple of BSG books from Hatch, and they were pretty darn good. In his vision, 20 years have passed and he's in command of the Galactica. Starbuck is the flight commander, and Athena (Apollo's sister in the original version) is the President. The fleet is on the edge of the galaxy, and they haven't seen the Cylons in some years. Turns out the Cylons were in the midst of a massive revolution, but the new Imperious Leader was still determined to find and destroy the fleet.

In one of the books they find a planet that they think they can colonize, but it turns out to be in habited with a race that is in contact with the Cylons, leading to the return of the bad guys. The last book a I read they had found the Pegasus again, and Commander Caine had set up a base of operations on the edge of known space. He build several orbiting foundries and was cranking out newly designed vipers and had three new battlestars. Caine was planning a return to the colonies to take them back from the Cylons. I never read beyond that, but it was a sweet premise. I believe in the last book I read, the Pegasus was destroyed, but the Galactica, along with the three new battlestars, were planning on moving ahead in the serch for Earth.
 

JayDubya

Banned
Still wish Zarek was the 5th instead of mass quorum summary execution man, but we'll see where this goes with Ellen, I guess.
 

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
Gias had a vision (adama getting shot), could he be the dying leader that saves humanity instead of Roslin?
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
I really hope Caprica or some other show can pick up where BSG is gonna leave off and deliver some good drama...I'm gonna miss it so much
 

MrCheez

President/Creative Director of Grumpyface Studios
I haven't followed this thread so I apologize if bringing this up is beating a dead horse around here, but...

Anyone think we're ever going to get an explanation for Baltar's visions of Six in the first few seasons? :/ It almost seems like it's something they've forgotten about.
 
That scene with Felix and Gaius. :eek: Amazing.

BenjaminBirdie said:
God I feel exactly the same way. What drew me to the show initially was this intense "HOLY FUCK WE'RE IN SPACE AND WE HAVE NO FUCKING WATER" premise. It was completely engrossing. There were, of course, moments of similar engagement throughout the series, but yeah, the religion stuff completely overtook it. I'm liking a return to that mood currently.

This was good in the first couple of seasons but there was a point where the show needed that tonal shift to keep things fresh. I'm so glad that the show has changed dramatically throughout its run, there was a point where cylons as a 1 dimensional unseen enemy and another OH SHIT WERE RUNNING OUT OF PAPER like storyline weren't gonna cut it. I like that the third and the fourth season in particular have made such a strong balance between the elements that have made this show so good.
 
The Storyteller said:
This was good in the first couple of seasons but there was a point where the show needed that tonal shift to keep things fresh. I'm so glad that the show has changed dramatically throughout its run, there was a point where cylons as a 1 dimensional unseen enemy and another OH SHIT WERE RUNNING OUT OF PAPER like storyline weren't gonna cut it. I like that the third and the fourth season in particular have made such a strong balance between the elements that have made this show so good.

You can still tell stories about survival for a very long time. You're floating through space counting on a fleet of like twenty ships. There's any number of permutations there that can alter circumstances. Anyway, it's not like it ever became unwatchable or anything but eventually they reached a point where it didn't matter that the Battlestar was a washed up Intrepid that has to be humanity's last hope. Everything settled into a status quo and they shifted more into the mythology of the tribes. That stuff has always been interesting, but never as gripping, to me at least, as the more ground level stuff about surviving and battling Cylons and humans they disagreed with.
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
You can still tell stories about survival for a very long time. You're floating through space counting on a fleet of like twenty ships. There's any number of permutations there that can alter circumstances. Anyway, it's not like it ever became unwatchable or anything but eventually they reached a point where it didn't matter that the Battlestar was a washed up Intrepid that has to be humanity's last hope. Everything settled into a status quo and they shifted more into the mythology of the tribes. That stuff has always been interesting, but never as gripping, to me at least, as the more ground level stuff about surviving and battling Cylons and humans they disagreed with.
Yeah, i don't see how it shifted from that theme at all. The scrolls of Pythia have always been a major driving force for the story. Season 1 and 2 has the characters on Kobol looking for the coordiantes for earth as described in the prophecies. Season 3 we have New Caprica. The fleet having settled down finds themselves fighting for survival from the cylon occupation and it dealt with the aftermath of its effects on the fleet as a whole.

Survival has been THE major continuing theme and pretty much every issue raised in the last 2 seasons was related to the end goal of finding earth, so that the human race could survive. It only made sense that as the characters came closer to their goal, that they would go deeper into the mythology, but even then, the alliance with the rebel cylons - season 4's major plotline - was all about preserving the human race. How was making a pact with the cylons in any way settling into a status quo?

I actually think it has been fairly light on mythology aspects as well, aside from the final five revelations. We don't know anything about the tribes as yet. Starbuck is an enigma, but hardly the major force of the story and Head Six has been relegated to the side (though im sure she will come to the forefront in these final eps). The only real difference in season 3 and 4, is that they aren't being relentlessly pursued by the cylons, but it made sense to move away from that.

The show became much more thematically satisfying to me when the writers began to show the point of view of the cylons. It seems to me that people are mistaking the lack of pew pew lasers!!! and the immediate threat of cylon destruction as a shift towards more mythology, which i just haven't found to be the case.

I also have to join in with icarus-daedalus and The Storyteller in saying season 4 is the best yet. The way the writers are playing off 4 years worth of discontent festering within the fleet is seriously powerful stuff.
 
Spotless Mind said:
The show became much more thematically satisfying to me when the writers began to show the point of view of the cylons. It seems to me that people are mistaking the lack of pew pew lasers!!! and the immediate threat of cylon destruction as a shift towards more mythology, which i just haven't found to be the case.

Well, I don't mean that at all. I'm talking about on a scene by scene basis, there was a shift from stuff directly related to the survival of a species to stuff like people in weird outfits cajoling Laura Roslin into reading her scripture and overlit sequences in opera houses. For a little while that stuff was off balance. What the show was always expert at, though, was propelling it forward through character. No matter how hokey and annoying a lot of the religious stuff was in the show, Baltar and Roslin both pretty much knew it, but we still had to sit through a lot of exposition about it.

You can have dozens of episodes without any space fighting (which we've had for a while now) and still have intense scenes about survival. I'm sure there are people out there who just want the last reel of Jedi spread out over four seasons, but I certainly am not one of them.
 

Mission

Member
Mindlog said:
I could have sworn the second pilot said, "Just follow fucking orders." Lampkin is the goddamn man.

I am pretty sure I heard it too. I intended to re-watch it but so far I didn't.
 

Darklord

Banned
Whats going on with the other Cylons? The non-friendly ones? We haven't seen them for a while now. Same with any Centurions. You got a feeling they'd rebel then that story just dropped off the place of the planet.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Darklord said:
Whats going on with the other Cylons? The non-friendly ones? We haven't seen them for a while now. Same with any Centurions. You got a feeling they'd rebel then that story just dropped off the place of the planet.
If they were smart, they'd just go home.
 

B.K.

Member
Darklord said:
Whats going on with the other Cylons? The non-friendly ones? We haven't seen them for a while now. Same with any Centurions. You got a feeling they'd rebel then that story just dropped off the place of the planet.

Maybe they're jumping around looking for the fleet. Space is a big place.
 
I started watching BSG from the beginning (on DVD) last summer and just finally caught up with broadcast as of tonight. The most recent two episodes were absolutely incredible, some of the best they've ever done, and that's saying a lot. This has to be one of the best TV series ever made.
 
icarus-daedelus said:
I dunno. How many more planets looking like blue-green-tinted Canadian wilderness do you guys really want them to desperately search for food/water/tylium (or however the fuck you spell it) on? Resource deficiency-of-the-week ftl.
Exactly. :lol Saying it shifted away from survival issues is wrong on so many levels. It's just presented in a more intensely character driven way and more low-key situations within the fleet in comparison to incoming cylon baseships nuking the crap out of the fleet.

I like the space battles and tension and scary robots from the earlier seasons, but I also like the slightly more chill pace this season because it's allowed a lot of character building, theme exploration, and, believe it or not, more time for plotlines like that of the last two weeks to simmer and build. I also feel like the fundamental POV shift, post-Downloaded, towards inclusion of the human-variety Cylons is one of the best and most interesting things this show has done, though it hasn't been without its bumps. Variety is the spice of life, food, and television, and the first two seasons still exist on DVD if you prefer their style.
More eloquently put than me. :D Agreement x1000.

BenjaminBirdie said:
Well, I don't mean that at all. I'm talking about on a scene by scene basis, there was a shift from stuff directly related to the survival of a species to stuff like people in weird outfits cajoling Laura Roslin into reading her scripture and overlit sequences in opera houses. For a little while that stuff was off balance. What the show was always expert at, though, was propelling it forward through character. No matter how hokey and annoying a lot of the religious stuff was in the show, Baltar and Roslin both pretty much knew it, but we still had to sit through a lot of exposition about it.
I'm having trouble remembering any major quotings of the scriptures from Roslin in season 3 and 4. Actually, i think season 1 and 2 were much heavier on this stuff. The "hokey" opera house has also been a major iconic image for the show since season 1. The show is in it's final season. Sorry, but i would like to see how this figures into the show at some point. The series has always been heavy on the religious imagery and themes. I still don't see this big shift. The big shift you are speaking of was the switch to the POV of the cylons.

You can have dozens of episodes without any space fighting (which we've had for a while now) and still have intense scenes about survival.
To each their own, but that's exactly where i think the writers have succeeded.
 

Phoenix

Member
Darklord said:
Whats going on with the other Cylons? The non-friendly ones? We haven't seen them for a while now. Same with any Centurions. You got a feeling they'd rebel then that story just dropped off the place of the planet.


Oh I'm sure we'll be seeing them soon enough....
 

Kapsama

Member
Phoenix said:
What I'm really curious about is whether or not the damaged basestar is still more than a match for Galactica. Its pretty clear through all their battles that Basestars >>>>>>>> Battlestars in terms of firepower and sustaining damage. I think the only benefit the Galactica would have is CAP since the cylons don't seem to have any raiders anymore.
I think it's the opposite. Basestars seem much more fragile than Battlestars.

btw. a crossover ending with Stargate Atlantis would have been awesome with the Rag Tag Fleet arriving just as the Hive ship is attacking Earth. :D
 
Phoenix said:
What I'm really curious about is whether or not the damaged basestar is still more than a match for Galactica. Its pretty clear through all their battles that Basestars >>>>>>>> Battlestars in terms of firepower and sustaining damage. I think the only benefit the Galactica would have is CAP since the cylons don't seem to have any raiders anymore.

If there was a Galactica RTS this wouldn't be in question!
 

Big-E

Member
I think Basestars are less durable than Battlestars. Remember Pegasus was outnumbered and still fucked up a lot of them and caused a lot of damage before committing suicide.
 

Karakand

Member
Darklord said:
Whats going on with the other Cylons? The non-friendly ones? We haven't seen them for a while now. Same with any Centurions. You got a feeling they'd rebel then that story just dropped off the place of the planet.
Casualties on the altar of writers wasting time for 1.5 seasons.
 

Kak.efes

Member
Big-E said:
I think Basestars are less durable than Battlestars. Remember Pegasus was outnumbered and still fucked up a lot of them and caused a lot of damage before committing suicide.

That's from Exodus, and yeah, it obliterated a Basestar within seconds after it engaged it with it's forward cannons. Also from Exodus, wasn't Adama expecting to outlast multiple Basestars over new Caprica? Long enough for the ships on the surface to escape? Only after many more appeared, did he concede they would fail.
 

Zen

Banned
Kak.efes said:
That's from Exodus, and yeah, it obliterated a Basestar within seconds after it engaged it with it's forward cannons. Also from Exodus, wasn't Adama expecting to outlast multiple Basestars over new Caprica? Long enough for the ships on the surface to escape? Only after many more appeared, did he concede they would fail.



I think Ron Moore said during the ramp up to the series that a BaseStar was 'superior' to Galactica in every way. Remember the Cylons and the 12 Colonies fought to a stand still last time.

Since the series has progressed, I've been under the assumption that Basestars are more easily damaged, but have a greater amount of indirect fire, range, missiles, and fighters. They're designed to stay at a distance and control the range of the conflict whilst raining down so much offensive that it overwhelms the target. Battlestars like Galactica seem to be more oriented toward suppressing incoming fire, and Pegasus seems geared towards being a tough ship designed for direct engagement with the Basestars, able to absorb enough damage from the Cylon missiles and fighters that it can get up close, so to speak. Galactica was made during a different era, of course, so it could have been quite capable of powerful direct engagement in its day, but the main tactic for Galactica is typically to throw up a very impressive wall of flak.

In the mini series didn't 1 Basestar punish Galactica enough for them to withdraw? But Galactica didn't have a full Viper wing, or what not, at the time.
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
Drozmight said:
I bet they're going to have to ditch galactica and move to the rebel basestar because galactica can't jump anymore or something.

And take Adama's ship from him? I can't believe they'd do that.
 
Drozmight said:
I bet they're going to have to ditch galactica and move to the rebel basestar because galactica can't jump anymore or something.
They'll probably just do the upgrades they wanted to do before the uprising, problem solved.

Also, god damn at the trailer for the upcoming episode.
 
Just to give another dap to Richard Hatch, apparently the original plan was for the quorum to support Tom Zarek and then for him to kill them anyway in that scene from the last episode.


He complained to Ron Moore rightfully that it didn't make any sense and it was changed to what actually occured in the episode.
 

rhino4evr

Member
so, I have a feeling we will get some big revelations tonight. I accidently watched the preview last night, and it gave away a lot (as usual)

so my main question about the 5th Cylon is
if she is one of the final five, and gets resurrected, wouldn't she be younger? Sol and Ellen have been together for a long time, and have grown older together. So its obvious Cylons can age. Having Ellen resurrect as an older cylon doesn't make any sense. Unless they only resurrect at their current age.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
rhino4evr said:
so, I have a feeling we will get some big revelations tonight. I accidently watched the preview last night, and it gave away a lot (as usual)

so my main question about the 5th Cylon is
if she is one of the final five, and gets resurrected, wouldn't she be younger? Sol and Ellen have been together for a long time, and have grown older together. So its obvious Cylons can age. Having Ellen resurrect as an older cylon doesn't make any sense. Unless they only resurrect at their current age.
They seemed to have always been
old
judging by the flashback on
earth
.
 

rhino4evr

Member
Freshmaker said:
They seemed to have always been
old
judging by the flashback on
earth
.

true, but you are fogetting that Odama and Sol grew up together. They have even mentioned it in the show, when Ty confessed to Odama.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Who's Odama?

I get the impression between the 2000 year gap and how unfamiliar they are with other Cylons that they initially weren't resurrected through the same means that current Cylons are. (It'd also be impractical for one of them to be resurrected as a baby relative to the storyline.)
 

Walshicus

Member
rhino4evr said:
true, but you are fogetting that Odama and Sol grew up together. They have even mentioned it in the show, when Ty confessed to Odama.
You're doing that just to piss me, off aren't you...
 

MotherFan

Member
rhino4evr said:
true, but you are fogetting that Odama and Sol grew up together. They have even mentioned it in the show, when Ty confessed to Odama.

Perhaps not all the final five arrived on the colonies at the same time? Plus, look at Anders and the Chief. They are younger than Saul. So, I don't think we know when exactly each of the final five resurrected. Plus, all of them are the same age they died on earth.
 
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