BSG thoughts

[somedaybitch]

within the context of the show, tonight's ep was spot on, with some really excellent characterization and killer storytelling.

lots of folks seem to want to draw current world parallels for the show on the whole, and especially in light of the season 3 premiere. i think they're looking at the wrong war.

while watching, what *immediately* came to mind to me tonight was World War II. the resistance, the camps, the collaborators, the deep divisions within the ranks of the Cylons, the random nighttime arrests and detentions...the taking people away in trucks out to the forest, lying to them about stopping to stretch their legs and then butchering them like animals. the genocide that started it all.

stuff i adored:

- Adama sending Boomer, and reinstating her first.

- what Leoben is doing to Kara.

- Galen not knowing that Felix is the contact.

- where they took Apollo. which felt totally out of character to me until the scene with him and Dee in his quarters.

- Helo as XO.

- Helo essentially telling Boomer not to make him regret his trust and love in her.

- the resistance disagreeing with Tigh's extremism, and Tigh's extremism itself. his line about sending soldiers on suicide missions in two wars and how there's no difference between them dying in a viper and them dying on a parade ground.

- Cali.

- Jammer appealing to Boomer.

- Jammer cutting Cali loose.

- Zarek pulling Roslin to the back of the crowd.

- Roslin.

- not!Al cylons being the most virulent.

- Caprica Six and dead!Boomer.

- the Old Man.

- Anders and his wicked case of Caprica!dejavu.

- Anders and Boomer hugging.

- the return of SixinhisHead.





bexxa listened to the podcast and posted this;

That said: in the podcast commentary for "The Occupation" and "Precipice," Moore says flat out that while there are obvious parallels to present-day Iraq, the writers did consider the wider picture of war in general, and WWII/Vichy France, the West Bank, the American Revolution, and even the Roman occupation of Gaul.

i love it when i perceive stuff the way it was meant. doesn't always happen. doesn't make me "smarter" when it does, but rather it's cool when the ideas/influences that a storyteller is seeking to convey make it across to even one person in the intended audience.

also? i forgot to add that i LOVED Ellen Tigh. her character arc is utterly spot.on.

Comments

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Word. There was so much awesome, and while you can draw a lot of paralells with a lot of wars, WWII was foremost in my mind as well. But after a while, I stopped worrying about that and was just sucked into this war w/ the Cylons...

And the AWESOME horror of being able to kill a person over and over and they come back.

Oh delicious mindfuck.

Good stuff.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

But after a while, I stopped worrying about that and was just sucked into this war w/ the Cylons...

which is the point, really. to view the story within the context of itself.


And the AWESOME horror of being able to kill a person over and over and they come back.

yeahhhhh. that was pretty sick shit. disturbingly funny as well.

[kazbaby]

You hit all the awesome points of this premiere.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Ellen was fabulous. I think her days may be numbered (I'm spoiler-free but I have a feeling), and it annoys me that just when I'm starting to really appreciate her, she's probably wearing a red shirt. Not to mention the fact that if they do kill her, then the cast is down to Roslin as the only middle-aged female regular. When I first saw her with Cavil, my first assumption was that she was shacking up with him to protect herself. I wasn't really holding it against her, because hell, of course she wants to survive. The realisation that she was actually doing it to protect her husband made me feel like a complete asshole for having assumed otherwise.

Mind you, she's still a vapid drunk with delusions of being Lady Macbeth, but at least she means well. And I have a feeling she and Tigh may have a horrible showdown, with him thinking she's betrayed him by giving up other members of the resistance. Which, of course, she has, and if she were smarter and/or less terrified (imagining your spouse being tortured to death probably doesn't encourage clear thinking), she'd realise that he'd never want her to turn informant even if it saves his life.

But releasing Tigh and only THEN starting to press her for information is a damn good strategy by Cavil. They're dysfunctional both together and apart, and Tigh's half-psychotic at this point, but they genuinely love each other, for all their fighting and drinking and sleeping around (thank God they're canonically childless. I quail at the idea of a kid raised by them). Let her save him, then give her a few days to look at his injuries close-up, observe his ongoing physical pain. Cavil's not stupid, and he's playing on her better nature rather than her greed and ambition.

I don't think people who are comparing the show to Iraq have the wrong war, as such. The use of the term 'insurgents' to describe the human resistance, the police hiding their identities, and the depiction of a suicide bombing all suggest that Moore & Co. are drawing some very deliberate parallels. But the story can evoke Iraq and also evoke Vichy France without contradicting itself. Heck, read any history book and there are certain patterns which seem to occur in most wars of occupation, no matter the era or location.

Anyway, ultimately I don't think Moore & Co. would want to hew too closely to any one historical conflict because for dramatic purposes they want to keep the audience on our toes. A lot of the events seem very familiar because we've seen similar things in war movies or on CNN, read about them in history books or newspaper articles. And having those familiar things on screen works dramatically, not only because it shocks the audience to be seeing the situation from the suicide bomber's POV, but also because it's so immediate. The conscious parallels to contemporary conflicts may actually make the viewer more invested, because the action the audience sees is vaguely reminiscent of real events they've seen on the news.

But we don't know how precisely the writers are going to have the plot shake out, because they're creating a new story. Ultimately Baltar isn't Marshal Petain, because he's an entirely different character faced with a different set of decisions than Petain had. Similar yes, but not the same. At this point I have no idea what's going to happen next, which is just as it should be in a drama. Obviously I have a strong suspicion that the Cylons nuking New Caprica from orbit and then blowing up what's left of the Fleet isn't going to happen, or if it does, it'll only happen after the show's been cancelled. But beyond that practical consideration, all bets are off. I have no idea where the plot is going, but I'm interested in finding out.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

huh. i don't get a red shirt perception of Ellen at all.

I don't think people who are comparing the show to Iraq have the wrong war, as such. The use of the term 'insurgents' to describe the human resistance, the police hiding their identities, and the depiction of a suicide bombing all suggest that Moore & Co. are drawing some very deliberate parallels. But the story can evoke Iraq and also evoke Vichy France without contradicting itself. Heck, read any history book and there are certain patterns which seem to occur in most wars of occupation, no matter the era or location.

people are saying that he's writing a show to illustrate his opposition to Iraq specifically. i think that's narrow-minded and kinda stupid frankly. not just because it's projecting, but also because both he and Eick have quite specifically stated the exact opposite.

he's writing about War At Large, not a war in particular....which is specifically why parallels can be drawn that go all the way back to Ancient Rome. they're using the genre for what it was intended, an examination of Questions At Large.

emmocv

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Have actually watched 3.01 and 3.02 again since the last reply (hey, I had potatoes to peel. It was re-watch or die of boredom. We'll gloss over the part where if I hadn't been watching I might've finished the potatoes much more quickly). On a second viewing, it does come across as more anvilicious than the first time. I think in part because I spent the first viewing convinced that any moment now somone I liked would die in a hail of bullets. Second time around I could concentrate a little more. Also, I was less distracted by everybody's horrendous hairdos, having already seen them.

After a second viewing, I'd say the eps could have done with a little more subtlety. The heavy-handedness didn't ruin it for me, but I'd like a little less in the next ep. At this point the majority of the Cylons are coming across as cartoon evil. Hopefully Moore & Eick were trying to set a mood for the season, get through a truckload of exposition, and be action-packed and edgy enough to pull in new viewers. They were cramming a LOT into two hours. Well, less if you count commercials. And a lot of the stuff they were cramming in was either catch-up exposition to tell the new viewers something about the characters and the old viewers something about what had happened to said characters over the time jump, or expensive special effects rather than actual plot. So I can give them a pass on going overboard with the style in the premiere, so long as they get more subtle over the course of the season. On the bright side, I doubt they have the budget to keep up that level of pyrotechnics throughout the season!

I'm very pleased you didn't get a red shirt vibe from Ellen. I had convinced myself she was doomed, and now I feel rather better about her potential survival. I was all, "oh no, they're making this character sympathetic. They must be going to kill her." Mind you, I thought that about pretty much every scene in the first viewing. I was so sure there'd be a bloodbath. It was nice to be wrong.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

Also, I was less distracted by everybody's horrendous hairdos, having already seen them.


heh

So I can give them a pass on going overboard with the style in the premiere, so long as they get more subtle over the course of the season.

ditto. it's really hard to set tone on what's essentially a cold open.

I was all, "oh no, they're making this character sympathetic. They must be going to kill her."

heh. even when i wanted to shove her out an airlock, i've always sympathized with Ellen. she's totally self-absorbed, but not in a malicious way i don't think. she's just...a kid almost.

Mind you, I thought that about pretty much every scene in the first viewing. I was so sure there'd be a bloodbath. It was nice to be wrong.

they certainly set the cards wild enough for it, yo.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

The only one whose hair had actually improved was Gaeta, who looked really hot with the longer hair, and the trying to get his boss to the ceremony where said boss is supposed to go kaboom, and the running desperately, and the conversation with Tyrol where Tyrol is so contemptuous of him and calls him a collaborator, and the complete righteous rage he brought to Baltar's signature of the death warrants. And yeah, his hair looked really hot in every one of those scenes. Not sure if it's the hair that's the draw so much as the super agent man all angsty and furious and sexy.

I go to the same church as Alessandro Juliani's mother, and this morning happened to be sitting one pew in front of her. I had to bite my tongue to avoid screaming "Oh my God, your son was SO HOT on BSG last night. How do you stnad the hotness, what with being related to him?" Lucvkily, I'm pretty good at biting my tongue. Avoided her in the coffee hour afterwards for fear of humiliating myself amd possibly getting seved with a restraining order.

Ellen's always been semi-sympathetic to me. I mean, many of her weaknesses are because she's just not that bright. Her attempts at Lady Macbeth-ing in early S2 were totally incompetent. And she totally thought she was doing the right thing by identifying herself to the hostage-takers in Sacrifice. And in her deals with Cavil to save Tigh she really thought her Mata Hari act was working great.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

heh. i think his hair is making him look younger which is striking me as making him more vulnerable for some reason.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

people are saying that he's writing a show to illustrate his
opposition to Iraq specifically. i think that's narrow-minded and
kinda stupid frankly. not just because it's projecting, but also
because both he and Eick have quite specifically stated the exact
opposite.

he's writing about War At Large, not a war in particular....which is
specifically why parallels can be drawn that go all the way back to
Ancient Rome. they're using the genre for what it was intended, an
examination of Questions At Large.


Honestly, I can see where people are getting that from, so I wouldn't
see it as narrow-minded or stupid. Yes, Moore & Eick are making points
about War at Large (good phrase), and throwing in references to
various historical conflicts. The 'stretch your legs' scene with the
appearance of the firing squad was very, very WWII movie. As were the
Cylons' legalistic insistence on maintaining a fig leaf of democracy
and not commencing mass executions until after they'd filled out all
the necessary paperwork in triplicate. Judging by the death warrant
scene, I'm thinking maybe the reason the Cylons took forty years to
come back to the Colonies was because it took them that long to get
all the bureaucratic forms filled in so they could commit genocide in
an orderly and well-documented fashion.

So yes, multiple historical parallels worked in, but I do think there
were specific references to Iraq as well. The use of the term
'insurgents' surprised the hell out of me when I first heard it.
That's not a catch-all word like, say, terrorist, that's a very
specific word associated with a very specific conflict. If Moore and
Eick *weren't* trying to draw some parallels to Iraq, then they did it
by accident, and I have a hard time believing it's just a coincidence
that particular term would occur in the script repeatedly, and in the
mouths of several different characters. Particularly in combination
with the suicide bombing and the police hiding their faces to avoid
reprisals.

Incidentally, I think having all three of those in the same ep was a
bit much. Like I said above, a wee bit more subtlety would be good. If
the inferences are too obvious, then the storytelling gets bogged down
in a quicksand of political arguments and the show suffers. It stops
being about the dramatic storyline and the characters, and becomes a
Message. Granted, suicide bombing has been around for decades (I think
it was the Tamil Tigers who pioneered it) and BSG already had one
sucide bomber in Litmus, so they weren't necessarily trying to draw
parallels with that. But the term insurgents and the issue of police
having to hide their identities are both associated with Iraq in the
contemporary consciousness. I mean, Moore and Eick would have to be
complete morons to do all of that by accident.

So no, certainly not the only parallels that can be drawn, nor should
they be, but yes, I think Moore and Eick are putting some
contemporary, specific political inferences in as well as the War at
Large, Questions at Large, snippets evoking real historical conflicts,
and storytelling needs of a drama. It's damn hard not to conclude that
they're making SOME deliberate references to Iraq, given the script.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

So no, certainly not the only parallels that can be drawn, nor should they be, but yes, I think Moore and Eick are putting some contemporary, specific political inferences in as well as the War at
Large, Questions at Large, snippets evoking real historical conflicts, and storytelling needs of a drama.

in so much as we're at war now, yes. but again, and maybe i stated this badly, i don't think their purpose is IraqIsBadBushHitlerZomg!!!! i think they're examining Humans At War and trying to move the camera around to catch as many angles as possible. there's a huge difference between the two.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I agree.