Amph “So Say We All.” - The Battlestar Galactica Discussion Thread

Hearing the four "colonial cylons" recite lyrics from the Bob Dylan song got me thinking: what language do they speak on BSG? I know it's "English," but I always assumed that that was for the benefit of the audience and in "reality" they speak some form of archaic Greek.

I know: I'm over-analyzing a TV show.

 

I really liked the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, but I feel this last season was dragging. This last season seemed to be filled with alot of "filler" episodes; i.e. airlock episode.

Although, there were interesting elements that weren't really covered by other SciFi Series; racism; caste system; clash of cultural differences.

I would rather have a strong ending to the Series as opposed to lingering show scrapping for interesting plot points. It would be like watching a great athlete still playing past his prime. Battlestar may have past it's prime.

 

I hope Season Four concentrates more on plot stories rather than issue stories.

 

^
Same here. That's what the first two seasons were built on.

Pondering the thought if the fleet were to reach Earth, would they be equipped to fight the Cylons? What if the 13th Colony turns out to be a bunch of Amish people. What if the people of Earth reject and turn away the fleet?

Earth being the final destination of Battlestar Galactica, I can't but help to think about Robotech: Macross where the SDF-1 and the citizens of Macross race back to earth with constant attacks from the Zentradi.

 

I haven't watched the episodes where Baltar made the Cylon detector in quite a while, so I forget how it ended. If they'd tested the people on Galactica, wouldn't that have detected Tigh and the Chief as Cylons?

 

Interesting thought... Maybe they didn't get around to testing everybody? Or, more likely, because these Cylons are so "fundamentally different," they couldn't be detected by Baltar's method.

 

I'm almost positive they didn't test everybody, but only a few people(who knows if Tigh and/or Tyrol were among them). I know they didn't test everyone because I remember Baltar saying that it would take 11 years to do that(although that's probably for everyone in the fleet, but still).

 

In case anyone is interested, the original Battlestar Galactica is going to be playing on the ION network(used to be PAX). I believe the listing said April 7th, going to be doing a marathon of it.

 

Cool. They used to air the original Galactica, but I've never seen any of them.

 

Oh, and as for the Cylon Detector, I think after it "failed" to detect that Boomer was a Cylon, he stopped using it.

I still want to know if Ellen is one or not.

 

It didn't fail. He lied and then he lied about the fact that it failed.

 

Speaking of the original series, what happened when they reached Earth? I remember the scene of the flying motorcycles, but what else happened?

 

That's why she put "failed" in quotes; remember that when Boomer was revealed as a Cylon, Tigh naturally assumed that Baltar's detector didn't work.

 

Come on, man. It would be so awesome if we found out that there was, say, a Cylon sleeper in Europe that almost took over the world in the 40s code-named H1-TL3R. Think of it.

Oh, wait. I guess you have a point after all.

 

I was also quite suspicious of Ellen, especially given the way they killed her off.

 

I'm just half done with Episode 9.

Episode 8 best line: "I know you **** in your rack."

Eisode 9 best line: This is funny to me because here is Baltar on trial fro his life and he says to Felix, "...and you missed butter fingers!" lol

 

Remember that Baltar changed his machines workings to show that Boomer wasn't a cylon, perhaps the same was true for Tigh and the others, if indeed Baltar changed his machine for Boomer, it would show "not a cylon" for the rest.

 

How was that for a lesson in visual storytelling? The camera back sup from the fleet and we see the cylons are right there as well, it reaches its height and comes back down in the same arm of the Milky Way that Earth is in shwoing they are nor far from their goal, and a bit closer in to the center of the galaxy, and of course we see Earth. Any pics out there of the lights on the Earth?

The other parrallels from the old show was that the ships becamse helpless when the gods took them aboard their lightship. In the old show there was a drawing done by the kid Boxy shwoing the way to Earth. Starbuck looked at it and said he had gotten a part of it wrong and corrected him in front of the others including Adama. He explained that he didn't know how he knew, only that he knew which came after he was aboard the lightship. So in this show we see it is Starbuck again who knows the way. She also knew the way according to maps she drew over and over, thinking them just an interesting pattern, long before she was taken.

As for getting to Earth I don't have any fear of them screwing this up judging just from the quality of the show thus far.

I would liked to have seen Baltar take the stand, but it looked to be more in character for him not to, to then run from the room, and then start thinking of himself later on. Cult of Baltar indeed.

 

Galactica 1980 was horrible. Hopfully the writers of the current series would not resort to those story lines. I think they are strong enough to avoid it. And, I would also like to see the series end with the story being complete and not drag it out. Four years of Galactica are probably enough. If there could have been a way to keep the quality of the show without the lag between seasons and half seasons, I think the ratings would have held or increased. It's a shame there is no way one of the "big three or four" networks could not carry it. It's probably the best kept secret from the average viewer who does not check out Sci-fi.

The mystery of Ellen is interesting. The situation in which she was found after the Cylon invasion and the way she died make me wonder if she is one of the five. My bet is still Roslin. If Tigh could really be a Cylon, what is to keep her from being one? The only people we can eliminate being Cylons are those whose birth can be confirmed such as Lee could not be a Cylon.

Wow! What a series! It's a great show. For me, because I am conservative, I wish some of the sexual and language elements were not a big a part of the show. These elements actually seem to have lessened somewhat the last half of the season.

 

[image=http://epguides.com/Galactica1980/cast.jpg]

I pray to God the series finale doesn't involve flying motorcycles.

 

One of the director interviews said that he was not opposed to breaking out the flying motorcycles again.

iirc.

 

^Not understanding sarcasm ftl.

 

Yeah, Ron Moore goes, "We're dusting off those old motorscycles for the series finales!"

He always makes me laugh. He's a solid guy.

 

I just don't see why this would be so lame. I think it would rock for the fleet to show up around present day (that's right - present day!) Earth with the whole of the Cylon fleet hot on their tails, and then desperately try to explain everything to the various world leaders. Conversely, a situation where the Cylons reaching Earth is not an immenant threat could lead to seriously topical conflicts between our military and theirs (like, for example, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff insisted on Galactica sending Vipers to Iraq - or something like that). It's clear to me that present day Earth and the humans from the BSG universe share some connection since their religion became the religious and mythical basis for Greek and Roman society. What is the reason for that? Maybe the 13th colony made it to Earth but was driven back to barbarism for some reason and forgot their own history, only to have it show up later as religion, and then myth. In my mind, the possiblities for coolness are astounding. Science fiction has always been about the examination of human society through the eyes of outsiders, and what better outsiders to do it than humans from the other side of the galaxy with their spacefaring battleships that can travel faster than the speed of light.

 

Uh, no present-day Earth, thanks.