I agree that the enigmatic Kara, head Baltar and Six are angels. Upon further reflection, it’s also possible that they had one other thing in common: all had experienced death and been resurrected (somehow) to become immortal (somehow). In the original mini-series (and in all the subsequent opening credits) we see Baltar crouching behind Six as a nuclear blast rips through his mountain retreat. Is it realistic that he survived that blast? Perhaps the seeds of his immortality/angelhood were sewn in that original mini-series.

Since you’re here, can you give us the RLDS position on black church members at http://mormonmatters.org/2009/03/14/positive-black-history-in-the-church/ ? I’d really appreciate it.

The rest of it I liked. As you pointed out the classic series said that “there are those that believe that life here, began out there…” Whereas it’s true that there are those who believe that (and even more of those who believe that humans aren’t part of the evolutionary process of life on earth), those beliefs are preposterous. For example, Larry Niven’s “Known Space” universe posits that all other earth life is unrelated to humanity, who are instead the alien offspring of a species known as the Pak. Whereas the Niven concept is just silly, I think that the BSG finale puts this idea together about as well as you can.

I don’t think that the Galactica humans and cylons need to stimulate so much culture or technology, since they are all deliberately going to work on giving those things up — incredible though that decision may be. (I probably would have preferred to go off with the centurions on the base ship.)

Meanwhile, I don’t think Kyra, and the head Baltar and Seven entities were left unexplained. They were angels. Messengers from the God(s) who are directly this cycle that has happened before and will happen again. What we don’t see are the Gods themselves, but given the experience of Star Trek V, that’s probably for the best.

Literary Issue: The characters populating earth have names that are significant to our world history, yet they have been placed there at the wrong time to have been the basis for those cultural events:
Names and stories can be passed along without writings backing them up. Why not? We must exercise a little common sense that throughout all the “different” ages of humanity, there is overlap. The whole world isn’t destroyed and re-populated and the ending and beginings of new eras. The eras interact, share, trade stories, songs, religions… Point being, it doesn’t have to be written to be passed down.

I was disappointed in that I didn’t know what Kara was though.

And with no one imagining them, I thought head six and head baltar were angels. I thought that was the point. Maybe I’m just a “ward crazy.” Peace!!!!

The news article at the very end stating they had located Mitochondrial Eve is the most important thing from the episdoe for all of your historical problems. Mitochondrial Eve is said to have existed about 140 000 years ago(ish) which explains why the writers chose this. Since it is clearly implied Hera is Mitochindrial Eve, this suggests that the reast of the colonials did NOT breed with the native human inhabitants, and in fact, that the entire human species decends from Hera alone (Mitochondiral DNA is only passed down through the mother, unlike most other aspects of human biology)

150,000 years was likely selected ebcause it best fit the theme of Hera being the future of the human race.

Also, even if writing and language had been taught to the locals, history has periods where this has been lost, and often our only records of writing are from accidentally cooked clay tablets, or stone, and the colonials would have likely used paper (to fit their tradition) it would be possible to have had humans writing long before we have a record of any written language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

Another concern I have are the assumptions by earlier posts that seem to be drawn from the statements in the show. When Lee said he we could teach the inhabitants language, it does not mean they ever did. When Baltar said they could breed with the inhabitants, it does not mean they did. A lot of the conclusions are based on speculations; not necessarily on what the series finale clearly stated. Also, the discovery of Eve does not necessarily illustrate that Eve was the mother of humanity. I interpreted the discovery of Eve as another error made by humanity when it comes to certainty about our past.

Overall, I think BSG series finale offered solid closure to good sci-fi series.

I agree that the “technology always leads to the downfall of mankind” is a bit trite in sci-fi (Anyone remember the hippie episode of ST: TOS with Spock jamming out on the bicycle wheel: “Stepping into Eden, yeah, brother . . .”?) Two thoughts on that: 1) Head Six seems to think that it won’t happen this time (Head Baltar calls her an unlikely optimist), so they are saying it’s not inevitable, and 2) is it technology or slavery that inevitably leads to man’s downfall, our inability to take resonsibility when we create sentient life? Maybe it’s more of a diatribe against man’s self-absorption and lack of empathy.

What I do have a problem with is introducing significant populations of humans on all the habitable continents, and then making little Maya the mother of all living. Having made such a big deal about Maya being a human/cylon hybrid, and unique and all, It doesn’t wash with the her being the mother of all living, making our human race actually a hybrid human/cylon race, and, yet, humans in this world are the same as humans in their world. And I’m a little confused how the racially diverse humans, without racially segregating at their dispersion, could have led to the ethnically identifiable groups we have in the historical period. But, again, 150k years is a long time, so that can be passed off.

Beyond that, I have a problem with the notion, assumed in Lee’s decision to not build cities, that all human problems are caused by technology. It’s just a little trite, especially since his stated objection was that our scientific reach exceeded our spiritual grasp, but nothing, apparently, was done to change that. It was a non-character driven solution to a plot problem, and I don’t think it works.

14 — Hera was not Heracles mother. She wasn’t anybody’s mother (except Hephaestus, if you want to count that). Zeus was everybody’s father. Heracles was named after Hera to try to keep her from trying to kill him (it didn’t work). The cutesy Disney representation of that relationship was as wrong as every other cutesy representation they made of every other relationship they made from one found in an original story.

So perhaps we can imagine there have been a few more million cycles around the Kobol, Earth, Caprica, Planets x, y, and z curcuits before we get to our earth’s shot at doing better. We can even include one where Boxy and Muffit are the future of mankind to make everyone happy.

One thing that did rankle me was Baltar’s announcement a couple of episodes back that Kara was an angel. And, guess what, he’s right! Or at least in the ballpark. It seems that whole reveal could have, and should have, been handled a bit more delicately.

I read somewhere, can’t remember where, that one of the writers said that the series is, at its heart, Kara’s story and looking back, I tend to agree. There are a ton of other aspects and I always found the show to be well-written and intellectually challenging. And the one message that I took away from the finale is that it would really suck to be an angel; to exist in this sphere above humanity and below a deity. To not belong fully to either realm, have to guess one’s true mission, and, in the end, only hope to be remembered. I thought that message came through loud and clear.

The Baltar/Caprica Six storyline also came to what I consider a meaningful conclusion. I am still trying to decipher the Yin/Yang between these two, because it obviously isn’t as clean-cut as it is in Eastern philosophy and it tends to tumble around a bit. Maybe I’ll figure out something as I mull it over a bit more.

The rest unfolded pretty much the way I thought it would. Humans basically win. “Bad” Cylons (Who were really weren’t that bad, but just doing what any species–human or machine–would do to ensure its continued existence.) lose. Roslin dies. Ellen and Sol re-united. Helo and Athena are basically Adam and Eve with Hera (appropriately named) is the mother of the human race. Big time gaps, of course. I agree with those above who quibble about the timeline and how it really doesn’t make sense, but paraphrasing another poster “It’s just television.”

As for the original vs. the re-imagined product, I was never a fan of the original. In fact, I didn’t start watching the re-imagined series until the second season because I simply thought the original was a live-action cartoon show more in the vein of the Tom Baker “Dr. Who” years than a serious, thought-provoking series and I feared the re-imagined vehicle would resemble the original. I was happy to find out I was wrong and through the magic of DVD was able to catch up on the show’s plot, theme, and mythology.

I don’t say this as an attack on those who preferred the original to the Moore project. Different tastes are what makes the world go around.

Whether one prefers the old or the new, I think all can admit they both were quality shows with remarkably different tones due to the changes in our society and recent history.

As for the usurpation, let Glen Larson put whatever he comes up with on the big screen, and we’ll see (if he could ever get funding which is doubtful). It’s impossible to imagine a family-friendly cheese-fest (albeit with more neatly tied up mythology) playing to today’s audience. The original series lacks the subtlety and complexity that the new series had. It’s not even a fair comparison really. Just try to find a show that pre-dates 1980 that has that much subtlety and complexity. It’s not easy. Remember, the original was made in the era of Fantasy Island and the Love Boat. There’s your benchmark.

You say:

“um…I’m going to take a chance and say you are among a small, small minority of people pinging for the ‘greatness’ of the original show. I think the reason people remember it is because they experienced it when they were kids. Now, however, it’s horrifically dated and simplistic. If you want something that operates on the level of the old Battlestar Galactica I suggest watching, oh, ANYTHING else on the Sci Fi channel.”

Actually Mr. MarkFradl, there is anything but a small, small minority out there of us who favor the old story. What Moore did was unforgivable. We were the ones that brought the show back for Desanto and Singer to REPRODUCE IT, and then they failed us! You Moore-ites are the ones that are the newcomers to the phenomenon, that did nothing but USURP IT! And then Moore threw Richard Hatch a bone, and now Hatch has apostatized from the true glory of the original. It turns out that Hatch only wanted to be part of it, and that was his price. He lost his vision. He was our hero figure for some time. Now we have nothing, and its all you people’s fault. Larson, according to the new report from last month, has the movie rights, and he will yet bring back the show to the big screen in all its glory. It’s Moore who cant usurp it on the big screen! Larson is going to save the original vision, and it shoudl have been him all along! You don’t understand the core of the mythology and you pick on the goofy things. That’s like picking on Luke Skywalker’s whiny-ness and missing the big picture of the mythology of star wars.

um…I’m going to take a chance and say you are among a small, small minority of people pinging for the ‘greatness’ of the original show. I think the reason people remember it is because they experienced it when they were kids. Now, however, it’s horrifically dated and simplistic. If you want something that operates on the level of the old Battlestar Galactica I suggest watching, oh, ANYTHING else on the Sci Fi channel. There’s enough cardboard acting, one dimensional characters, and three-minute-plots-stretched-to-an-hour to satisfy anyone pining for the days of ol’.

My favorite ridiculous memory of the old show is when kamikaze cylons started a huge fire on the ship and Adama was knocked unconscious. The whole episode the crew struggled to extinguish the blaze until Adama woke from his injuries and managed to say “Let space put the fire out.” Then they opened the airlocks. Really, that was the masterstroke no one else could think of? “Thank Gods, the wise Captain realized that fire needs oxygen! Brilliant!”

The new Battlestar has themes discussed in college classrooms and UN panels. The old Galactica was barely able to carry a comic book.

I loved that the finale was all about breaking the cycle of violence and destruction to the planet and each other. New Caprica and the original earth had both been nuked. Apparently the only way to escape that fate is to eschew technology and the bomb. Yet here we are again facing the same technology. What will we do this time? The past is not fate and perhaps this time we can learn from our mistakes in the past.

I loved that in the end the distance between the gods and humans is non-existent and they have always been us. Kara Thrace is simply an angel among humans who was mysterious but never realizes as such. Was she an angel only after her crash and death on original earth? Was she a sort of resurrected angel like in Mormon thought? I think the purpose of the flashback was to indicate that she was always an angel among us — notwithstanding her drinking and sexual infidelity.

I loved that the characters came to a completion of the meaning of their lives and their roles in breaking the cycle and establishing a new order.

I loved the notion that even tho we have recreated New Caprica, we can yet escape New Caprica’s fate — the message of the Book of Mormon essentially. (So throw me in jail for the allusion)

I loved that, in the end, it was all about a new start.

I guess I could hate all of the meaningless interludes to flashbacks that really were extraneous to the plot. However, there was a sense of growth of characters and their purpose even if they all get they ultimate dream.

I suppose the notion that an advanced civilization was handed to a very primitive hominid culture is supposed to be some kind of explanation of the sudden explosion of language and advanced human culture on the earth (and it was a vast explosion. Neanderthals were in fact genetically distinct but compatible with present day homo sapiens. They didn’t survive. If the show was supposed to be scientifically accurate then it fails at many levels.

However, did you notice that all of the characters were speaking modern English? That language didn’t exist until about the 16th century. So if you’re willing to suspend disbelief about English being spoken by Neanderthals, then I guess we can just accept that this is a sci fi series that requires a good deal of suspension of disbelief.

What was the deal about Hera’s daughter and why was she the hope for both the humans and the cylons? It turns out that resurrection arising from cooperation and unity of will is really the last hope of the cylons . . . a hope they failed to realize because one of them deserved to be killed without any justice or retribution for the killer. What was with that?

In Greek mythology, the goddess Hera was queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus, the king of the Greek gods. Hera was goddess of marriage. Since Hera’s husband was Zeus, king not only of gods, but of philanderers, Hera spent a lot of time in Greek mythology angry with Zeus. Hera is the mother of Hercules who is both divine and human. Is that the link?

Do you intend the meaning of “written history” as the period
beginning with the Early Bronze Age of the 4th millennium BC?

Or do you subtly imply something…different?

I merely ask. Nothing more.

Are we to believe that the oral traditions that pre-date written history by 140K years are going to sufficiently carry on specific names like Thrace, Apollo, Hera, and Athena? It just seems too far back in time for that to be likely. But then, there’s the theory that it’s all inevitable (all this has happened before, all this will happen again) that somehow makes it plausible for ice cream sundaes to evolve at the same rate regardless of the historical circumstances of a planet of people. I don’t doubt that they were going for this last approach, but I think it would have been much stronger had they landed 15,000 years ago (infiltrating early Egyptian and Hellenistic societies) rather than 150,000 years ago.

Now I fear because of the new re-imagining, that nobody will ever take a series or movie based on the OLD story seriously, because now everybody thinks that this new zombie is the true heir of the old show.