Battlestar Galactica Season 4

  playbynumbers said:

yeah the jimi hendrix song at the end of s3 was the single stupidest thing i've ever seen on bsg

lol yea, and thats saying alot

  catsonearth said:

yea, its the complete opposite of something like babylon 5 or star trek in that respect. no aliens in bad make up or prosthetics, they play it totally realistic. its just humans and cylons. there's mythology and mysticism, but its not silly like those things tend to get in sci-fi shows. but don't fear, there is plenty of spaceships flying, battling, blowing up, plenty of beautiful space shots and weird alien technology, it just blends so seamlessly into the show that it just feels natural.

that actually just sold me, thanks catsonearth

expect me to rant about this within a week or so. is the mini-series online?

yea, i'm guessing it was the song that did it for most people. i thought it was weird at first and kinda cheesy, but once i listened to ron moore talking about it, i understood where they were coming from and now i think its pretty awesome. adds to the many layers and implications of the BSG universe. i think the act of adding something very recognizable culturally into the mix threw a lot of people off, but i think it serves a purpose in the story, poetically and literally. it got exactly the reaction the writers wanted, which was for the audience to go "wtf? how do they know that song?!" is the bob dylan song a part of their history, is their song a part of our history, were both songs simultaneously coaxed by the same cosmic inspiration into two completely different places in space/time?

yeah i read ron moore's explanation at the time (i think you posted it in the s3 thread), and nope, that's still totally retarded

edit: imo!

edit2: maybe it will be shown to be unretarded ... but i doubt it. i'm guessing ron liked the song back in high school, or something. mostly the choice of song was what annoyed me. there are a thousand better ways to show cross-cultural flux etc

edit3: some or most of those ways not even involving songs.

BSG is the best show out since Firefly, good thing its being Made by a network that knows

how to treat a good show/

I own all three seasons and Ive seen Razor.

Its all good stuff except i thought that episode where it was all cut into a boxing match was kind of weak.

I think one of the five other cylons is gonna be Starbuck or the PRez just cuz its got to be some of the main human characters and no matter what its gonna be kind of a stretch.

The only real hint so far is when Xena was talking to the images of the five and was like " Im so sorry I didnt know"

But that could be referring to any of the humans cuz there all mean to em an stuff.

Anyone else out there ever see SPace Above and Beyond ? That show was pretty kewl, it got cancelled way to early. Good show tho, even had good critical response.

  AltLucifer said:

The only real hint so far is when Xena was talking to the images of the five and was like " Im so sorry I didnt know"

But that could be referring to any of the humans cuz there all mean to em an stuff.

 

Anyone else out there ever see SPace Above and Beyond ? That show was pretty kewl, it got cancelled way to early. Good show tho, even had good critical response.

we are told who four of them are in the last episode of season 3, yes i used to love space above and beyond, i mentioned that in my bsg hate thread and was told it was cheesy i think.

  playbynumbers said:

yeah i read ron moore's explanation at the time (i think you posted it in the s3 thread), and nope, that's still totally retarded

 

edit: imo!

 

edit2: maybe it will be shown to be unretarded ... but i doubt it. i'm guessing ron liked the song back in high school, or something. mostly the choice of song was what annoyed me. there are a thousand better ways to show cross-cultural flux etc

 

edit3: some or most of those ways not even involving songs.

i agree to a certain extent...i'm not a fan of that particular song at all, but if things are going the way i think they're going, then the lyrics have some kind of symbolic relevance. aside from lyrical importance (if any...remains to be seen), i think they were going for mass recognition and mass confusion with the choice of song - certainly a bob dylan song that was covered by jimi hendrix is gonna be one of the more recognizable pop culture picks and also because of the context of those artists and the period in time/culture they're so closely associated with, it has a certain "wtf?" factor that you might not get by using something else. the only thing i could think of that would be more universally recognizable (even to people who've never necessarily listened to the music) would be the beatles and alls i can say is...thank god they didn't go that route.

i dunno, maybe my faith is a bit blind, but i trust that they wouldn't introduce something so out there unless there's some reason behind it, whether prophetic, symbolic or literal...who knows. i hope it pays off though. they've done so many great things already, i'll give them as much slack as they want. they've already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know what they're doing, so i'm just along for the ride at this point.

verily, i trust the writers to a huge degree ... but it did concern me, lol

so the first half of Season 4 is done and we still don't know who is the 5th...

"earth" or "earph" depending on if you believe they actually "made it" has been nuked

the "dying leader" is still alive when they get there so Hmmmm

is roslin the "dying leader" or does this mean someone else

if starbuck is the harbinger of death, whose death? the cylons? or humans?

what's her "destiny" and why was her mom so sure she had something special

(who's her father? a hybrid? the 5th? something else (being of light?)

who's sending the fm radio signals to the fleet?/who's pulling the strings/beings of light?

what's the story with the peeps who have "visions"/head trips - caprica six, baltar, roslin, starbuck

anyone got theories?

the producers have said:

the 5th is not one of the "last supper folks"

and that once revealed, when watching the miniseries/beginning of season 1, it will be pretty clear from the beginning, with hindsight...

i can't believe we have to wait until 2009 grrr

are they gonna drop the Caprica mini series in the fall like they did with Razor?

anyone got inside dirt?...

i am thinking starbuck was the harbringer of death for the cylons. her visions lead to the rebel faction of the cylons and ultimatley to the destruction of the resurrection hub.

the 5 were suppose to know the way home. so starbuck is a prime suspect. as is roslin. i want it to be commander adama, though.

didnt Lucy Lawless say that the last of the final 5 wasnt on battlestar?

when she said that, there were loads of prisoners on the cylon ship. if it's just some relatively unknown then it'll be very annoying.

and ron moore has confirmed that none of the characters in the last supper photo are the final cylon. so it's not anyone there and not anyone on the fleet. the fifth cylon is probably on earth.

  catsonearth said:

and ron moore has confirmed that none of the characters in the last supper photo are the final cylon. so it's not anyone there and not anyone on the fleet. the fifth cylon is probably on earth.

if they are on earth, then it will be someone we havent seen yet...

think itll be a "big" name cameo? we already have lucy lawless and the quantum leap guy... think we'll get another sci-fi tv star?

or will it be some unknown?

the only individually-named chars that have been talked about since day one and arent either cylons or in the fleet are the gods

amirite?

  analogue wings said:

the only individually-named chars that have been talked about since day one and arent either cylons or in the fleet are the gods

 

amirite?

nah, there are a bunch of individually named characters that we've never really seen - president adar (actually, we did see him briefly in a flashback), joseph adama, zach adama (saw him briefly in flashback as well). then we also have dead characters who we've seen before that aren't currently in the fleet like adm. cain, kendra shaw, etc. i'm of the mindset at this moment that it's impossible to guess who the 5th cylon is because we have no idea where they're going with the second half of s4. it all depends on the direction they take the show in during the final act and they've set up about 80 different paths that are just as likely as the next. also, i've heard that every time someone tries to guess the 5th cylon, god kills a kitten.

i doubt it will be a big name cameo of any kind...just too hard to pull off in these days of rampant spoilers and leaks. they wouldn't be able to keep it secret. people seriously get paid to sift through paperwork and memos just to find spoilers for websites. it's kinda insane. as soon as the contract was signed it'd be all over the internet and then the surprise they've been building up this whole time would be spoiled. in all likelihood it will either be someone we're already familiar with (like, one of the regular actors playing a different character from who we know them as), someone who has appeared briefly before or someone completely new. just my guess anyway.

i just started getting into the show and there are some aspects that are hard for me to understand such as

-why is there a double of the asian cylon helping that guy get off the planet? what purpose if any does that story thread serve?

i dont care if you spoil it for me

-if #6 is really an actual cylon transmission going into the doctors head and not a hallucination, why dont the cylons always know where Battlestar is at any given moment? she has appeared several times while he has been on the bridge and in other vital areas of the ship, surely she can see the map and navigation if she can see other people on the ship.

-why would any of the cylons on board as sleeper agent be still sleeping this far into the show? do the humans serve some greater purpose for the cylons? the reason i ask is because why wouldn't the cylons on board just become active immediately when the war starts and try to kill as many humans as possible, if the goal is to destroy the humans.

-why does the surface of caprica look totally unphased by a nuclear holocaust? wouldn't buildings and vegetation be decimated?

its hard to have the amount of suspension of disbelief id like to have with these questions lingering. especially if the show has built up to this important question of 'who is the 5th cylon' , i would like to get these cleared up

  Awepittance said:

-why is there a double of the asian cylon helping that guy get off the planet? what purpose if any does that story thread serve?

i dont care if you spoil it for me

the cylons stop being genocidal bad guys and turn into hand-wringing whiney bitches.

  Awepittance said:

-if #6 is really an actual cylon transmission going into the doctors head and not a hallucination, why dont the cylons always know where Battlestar is at any given moment?

still not answered after 3 series

  Awepittance said:

-why would any of the cylons on board be sleeper agent sstill not activated this far into the show? do the humans serve some greater purpose for the cylons? the reason i ask is because why wouldnt the cylons on board just become active immediately when the war starts and try to kill as many humans as possible, if the goal is to destroy the humans.

the remaining sleeper cylons are "controlled" by an as yet unseen third party.

at some point the "goal" changed from exterminating humanity to some religious gobbledegook involving earth. i'm not really sure when or why this happened. i'm also not sure why the humans would help the cylons get to earth when, based on past behaviour, it's just more humans for them to exterminate.

the cylons now seem to expect the humans to forget that they exterminate 99.9% of them, and instead give in to to their arrogant cultural imperialism and convert to their religion. so basically the cylons are America.

edit: I guess I'm not watching the show for its logical story arcs LOL

  analogue wings said:

  Awepittance said:

-why is there a double of the asian cylon helping that guy get off the planet? what purpose if any does that story thread serve?

i dont care if you spoil it for me

 

the cylons stop being genocidal bad guys and turn into hand-wringing whiney bitches.

 

  Awepittance said:

-if #6 is really an actual cylon transmission going into the doctors head and not a hallucination, why dont the cylons always know where Battlestar is at any given moment?

 

still not answered after 3 series

 

  Awepittance said:

-why would any of the cylons on board be sleeper agent sstill not activated this far into the show? do the humans serve some greater purpose for the cylons? the reason i ask is because why wouldnt the cylons on board just become active immediately when the war starts and try to kill as many humans as possible, if the goal is to destroy the humans.

 

the remaining sleeper cylons are "controlled" by an as yet unseen third party.

 

at some point the "goal" changed from exterminating humanity to some religious gobbledegook involving earth. i'm not really sure when or why this happened. i'm also not sure why the humans would help the cylons get to earth when, based on past behaviour, it's just more humans for them to exterminate.

 

the cylons now seem to expect the humans to forget that they exterminate 99.9% of them, and instead give in to to their arrogant cultural imperialism and convert to their religion. so basically the cylons are America.

thanks for answering me so fast, so to clarify as of season 4 we are still not clued into the Drs visions being real cylon transmissions and/or hallucinations? i guess to me it seemed obvious they were not hallucinations, but are you saying that its still technically up in the air? And if they are real transmissions and if the cylons goal is not to kill all humans anymore then i suppose i can forgive what appears to be a huge plot hole to me on why Battlestar can remain hidden at all from the cylon attack forces. So in the later seasons of Battlestar the humans end up working with some cylons? I just finished season 1 and so far none of the sleeper cylons have been discovered, i already spoiled myself and know who they are by seeing a random commercial on sci fi channel where for some reason it showed every single sleeper cylon

  Awepittance said:

i just started getting into the show and there are some aspects that are hard for me to understand such as

 

-why is there a double of the asian cylon helping that guy get off the planet? what purpose if any does that story thread serve?

i dont care if you spoil it for me

it isn't really ruining anything for you to say that the cylons, while able to replicate humans perfectly, haven't yet been able to reproduce naturally. they believe reproduction is one of god's mandates, so they're trying to figure out what they've been doing wrong. the copy of sharon with helo on caprica is an experiment to see if having love between them will enable them to reproduce naturally. helo and boomer (the sharon on galactica) had a pre-existing relationship that would lead them to logically believe that given the right circumstances, he could easily fall in love with a sharon copy.

  Awepittance said:

-if #6 is really an actual cylon transmission going into the doctors head and not a hallucination, why dont the cylons always know where Battlestar is at any given moment?

i can't fully answer this because it hasn't yet been revealed what the true nature of baltar's vision of 6 is. we do learn down the road that there is no chip implanted in his head and many instances lead us to believe that she is something more than a hallucination (ie, she knows things that baltar himself could never know). but what she is exactly is still a mystery.

  Awepittance said:

-why would any of the cylons on board be sleeper agent sstill not activated this far into the show? do the humans serve some greater purpose for the cylons? the reason i ask is because why wouldnt the cylons on board just become active immediately when the war starts and try to kill as many humans as possible, if the goal is to destroy the humans.

well, you're asking the right question. i'll just say that not all the cylons have the same agenda. for some the goal is to destroy humanity and take their place in the universe, some are following another belief system.

  tauboo said:

i don't know why i said roslin seems likely to be the cylon. i'm aware of all the things the make that not likely. i just forgot all that and was thinking, adama's best friend and lover both being cylons would be fun.

 

  Awepittance said:

-why is there a double of the asian cylon helping that guy get off the planet? what purpose if any does that story thread serve?

i dont care if you spoil it for me

it's not some pointless side-plot or anything

please spoil it for me then because ive watched all of season 1 and it seemed very pointless to me, why did the cylons need to go back to get that guy left on caprica? it makes absolutely no sense to me . I think of all the unanswered questions this one is the most irritating. (nevermind i think cats on earth just answered this)

  catsonearth said:

well, you're asking the right question. i'll just say that not all the cylons have the same agenda. for some the goal is to destroy humanity and take their place in the universe, some are following another belief system.

haha thanks, so im not totally clueless. At first when watching the show i looked at it in kind of a Terminator-ish way where any cylon was just a vehicle or piece of some sort of large consciousness like Skynet or the Borg. So you are saying the cylons aren't controlled by an overarching computer system necessarily. Im probbaly being overly analytical about the story,but its crucial for me before i invest more time into it

  Awepittance said:

thanks for answering me so fast, so to clarify as of season 4 we are still not clued into the Drs visions being real cylon transmissions and/or hallucinations?

well, other characters have frequent mystical "visions" now, so you can forget about any visions necessarily having a technological or logical explanation. Baltar has visions of people other than 6 now as well. Also the real-life "Caprica six" doesnt acknowledge being in Baltar's head

  Awepittance said:

So in the later seasons of Battlestar the humans end up working with some cylons? I just finished season 1 and so far none of the sleeper cylons have been discovered, i already spoiled myself and know who they are by seeing a random commercial on sci fi channel where for some reason it showed every single sleeper cylon

well i guess you have 5 standalone eps where a character that appeared 2 eps before turns out to be a cylon to look forward to.

the cylons start having flakey religious epiphanies and wanting to get to Earth just like the humans. the religious ones split with the hardline genociders and start trying to work with the humans

  Awepittance said:

  catsonearth said:

well, you're asking the right question. i'll just say that not all the cylons have the same agenda. for some the goal is to destroy humanity and take their place in the universe, some are following another belief system.

 

 

haha thanks, so im not totally clueless. At first when watching the show i looked at it in kind of a Terminator-ish way where any cylon was just a vehicle or piece of some sort of large consciousness like Skynet or the Borg. So you are saying the cylons aren't controlled by an overarching computer system necessarily. Im probbaly being overly analytical about the story,but its crucial for me before i invest more time into it

no, each model has it's own distinct personality traits, which we are to assume were created with a certain purpose in mind, though it's never stated what their specific purposes are. the 6s are pretty obviously designed to use sexuality as a way of manipulation/infiltration, the 8s (sharon/boomer) seem to evoke strong emotional connections from humans (and vice versa), etc. they don't have a hive mind and can each be molded by their own personal experiences and develop their own distinct personalities.