**SPOILER THREAD AFTER THE FINALE**

[Pearl@32]

after not liking the past few episodes before the finale, i was ready to say good riddance...

but after the finale, i'm ready to say that i'll miss the show... 

season 1 and 2, for sure...

and i'll very much miss Bear's score...

no more songs like "Something Dark is Coming"... that i still lovelovelove...

was nice to hear Adama's celtic theme one last thyme...

Yeah, the Celtic tones when Adama was leaving Galactica reminded me of the episode where they found the tyllium and Lee threw the lighter back to his dad. Then they were all smoking stogies.

I have to catch up with seasons 3 and 4 (when it's released). I misplaced season one...luckily I made some backups. I'd be pissed. It's my favorite.

Gonna play the links now.

[SerenityValley]

Am I the only one lost?  WTF happened to Starbuck?  She wasn't a ghost, cause there was touching.  She wasn't a Cylon, cause they'd have made that clear.

I was disappointed.  Earth is not Earth, but close enough??  And the folks from the fleet are like "Adam and Eve" and we are all descended from THEM??

[AdmiralDigby]

Head Six and Head Baltar are Angels .

I think Starbuck was more like an Avatar sent by God to lead humanity to Earth .
Moses if you like .

Pretty spiffy when you think about it .

I can't wait to watch it again .

[Pearl@32]

Ah, Kara Thrace....light of God and harbinger of Death....plagued by Time Travel maybe?

She was definitely a person, a Colonial. Oracles convinced her mother of Kara's destiny early on. This destiny fits right into "there is another force at work here" that Baltar talked of the intervention of fate. Their collective "unexplained experiences" are not coincidences but fate -- fate as God/higher power/something bigger than themselves. "I'm not afraid to die" ~ "I've been drawing the eye of Jupiter since I was little."

I agree with Digby. I think she died but became an instrument of God "on loan" to help the Colonials and Colonial-sided Cylons find Earth and defeat the Cavil faction of Cylons. To Loeben she was a light of God. To the Hybrids, a harbinger of death.

The difference in time upon her reappearance/return to the fleet suggests something screwy. Time was not the same for her. She began reacting to Galactica's jumps. Her body was not the same.

Was she corporeal? Yes. (This may be a stupid correlation, but I saw it on another board last night and it's ironically funny) Was Clarence the Angel corporeal? Yes. But when the work was done, he was gone. She was gone too.

Baltar's speech. "There are things working in the background we don't understand." (will edit correct line later, FF through ep)

Still ~ The irradiated Earth she helped them to find ~ is that the same Earth but in a different time?

[Pearl@32]

BALTAR: There's another force that's at work here. There always has been. It's undeniable. We've all experienced it, every one in this room has witnessed events that they can't fathom let alone explain away by rational means. Puzzles deciphered in prophecy. Dreams given to a given few. Our loved ones dead. Risen. Whether we want to call that "God" or "Gods" or some sublime inspiration or force that we can't know or understand, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's here. It exists. And our two destines are entwined in its force.

CAVIL: If that were true and that's a big if, how do I know this force has our best interests in mind? How do you know that God is on your side, doctor?

BALTAR: I don't. God's not on any one side. God's a force of nature, beyond good and evil. Good and evil -- we created those. And we'll break the cycle. The cycle of birth, death, rebirth, destruction, escape, death. Well, that's in our hands...and our hands only. Requires a leap of faith. Requires that we live in hope...not fear.

[Eric]

I feel like I'm always raining on parades with BSG.  I used to love the show.  Even though I knew it had a leftish slant to it, it at least seemed like they were exploring it to the best of their abilities (hard for me to blame them for not fully understanding the abortion issue -- that's pro-lifer's fault; not so much theirs).

I think the finale wasn't brilliant, but rather a product of lazy writing.  Any-and-every issue any of us may have had with the series is now conveniently under the "it was 'God's' will" label.  Tribal but fully-compatible humans on (our) Earth?  God made it so.   Pigeons on Caprica?  'God' made it so.  Cylons and Humans procreating?  'God's' fault (with the "must love each other" caveat, of course).  Colonizing Planet Iraqprica?  And finding Cylon Earth for no real reason?   Yup.  Sure "It" had something to teach humans and cylons.  And who knew that 'God' had put Bob Dylan down on Cylon Earth and resurrect him on ours?  And (in the final episode) the dead pilot in the ship who had perfect aim to shoot some nukes into the Cylon colony?  Guess who!

They could have at least given us the benefit of making it a Greek tragedy with gods whom care nothing for humans except their worship and as play toys. Oh, and the moral of the story is something about making babies with a race who tries to wipe yours out will bring peace ... or something.
Of course, it's a boon for Intelligent Designists.  

And if you disagree with me... blame 'God'. :p

[AdmiralDigby]

And if you disagree with me... blame 'God'

Hey what happened to this parade ?
It was all like a shiny box of puppies and sunflowers and now It's all wet ?

*shakes tiny fist*

I do think they missed an oppurtunity to have the Colonials/Cylons settle Atlantis .
( they could still have had scatterlings )

I mean the Atlantis of legend was technoligically advanced so it would have slotted into our own mythology nicely without any messy artifacts laying about .

The more I think on it the more I wish I could've pitched that to Mr Moore .

( might have even led to a new series .... "Atlantis" )

[Pearl@32]

In the lie detector interrogation, why was Adama asked if he was a Cylon? No one knew there were skin jobs. WTF? Just put that in for the frak of it?

Sorry about the pickiness, but this series is chock full of our history, maybe for dramatic effect, but there nonetheless. Moore and Eick deliberately made correlations of the Cylon attack to 9/11 from the get-go. Also, Eick stated in The Last Frakking Special that if it was 1995 ("and economy was prosperous") it would have been a different show altogether.

[Eric]

I agree completely about Atlantis.  That would make more sense than sending off all that beautiful technology into the Sun.  Plus, it would have fit into a timeline for  living Greek gods and Plato had written an account of Atlantis.  It would have also pegged nicely into ancient Greece being the cradle of democracy ...

But then, it being SlyFy, they'd have had to have a crossover with John Sheppard leading the way ...

[Pearl@32]

http://cinemablend.com/television/Why-The-Battlestar-Galactica-Finale-Is-A-Huge-Copout-And-It-Doesn-t-Matter-16337.html

Why The Battlestar Galactica Finale Is A Huge Cop Out And It Doesn't Matter
By Josh Tyler: 2009-03-20 21:48:20

Why The Battlestar Galactica Finale Is A Huge Cop Out And It Doesn't Matter Tonight one of the best science fiction programs in history finished its run on television and, in theory answered all the big questions which have been knocking around in our brains for four seasons. The answer? Oh it's God.

Showrunner Ron Moore finally got to douse us in his pro-god, anti-society, anti-technology philosophy. His heavy religion agenda has always sort of hung around in the series' background, as the show reveled in mysticism and unexplained weirdness. Tonight though he abandoned all pretense and used the series finale as his platform to deliver a big warning: Holy gao se the robots are coming!

Getting weirdly preachy would have been just fine, if only he'd really come up with legitimate answers to the questions that have been hanging over fans' heads for years now. Why the frak does Baltar have an imaginary friend? Answer: It's God! Why isn't Starbuck dead and what the frak is she? Answer: Oh it's God! Why did the cylons destroy the colonies? Oh it's God! How are the humans going to find a home? Oh it's God! Every remaining question was answered tonight and the answer to every question was: Oh it's God.

Look I'm alright with Ron Moore working his own superstitious religious mumbo jumbo into his show if it's going to deliver the kinds of thoughtful programming and incredibly deep, well developed characters Battlestar Galactica gave us. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is substituting random, unsupported theology for actual story closure. What I do have a problem with is reducing everything to one big, Deus ex machina. Sure theology has always been an important part of the show, but in the end it seems Moore's answer is that it's the only part of the show. We've hung around all this time, don't we deserve better answers than that?

Frak that. So we got screwed on the answer department. I'm a little disappointed and maybe you are too. I'm here to tell you that in the end, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Battlestar Galactica's final moments will always be remembered for that brilliant, closing shot of William Adama sitting alone on a hill, promising the ghost of Laura Roslinn that he'll build her that cabin. Battlestar's final moments will be remembered as Apollo looking off into the endless sky and imagining a life of exploration and adventure. BSG's final moments will be remembered as the Galactica sailing off into the sun.

Tonight's Battlestar Galactica finale was a cop out, but it was also the perfect goodbye. Ron Moore dropped the ball on plot but as always, the show delivered where it really mattered: Characters. Ignore the superstitious mumbo jumbo. No one is going to remember all the awful stock footage of robots or the ridiculous, anti-technology plot device in which the entire fleet decides for no particular reason to abandon all technology and start using spears. Scratch that, they had a reason. Their souls weren't ready for science. Funny no one mentioned that notion until five minutes before the credits. Frak all of that. We'll remember the people, their faces, and the lives they've touched. Goodbye Battlestar Galactica. I don't care about the answers, you've been a good ship.