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| Spoilers ahoy!Well, the new Battlestar Galactica series has come to a close, and like most everyone else on the internet who's followed the show, I feel I must share my opinion of it. I've waited awhile to let the finale sink in, and I think my view on it has crystallized sufficiently enough to be called final.
I didn't like it. Here's why.
First, here are the parts that I sort of liked:
- The battle. Oh come on, you knew I would list this first. It was obvious they were saving their budget for the Final Battle, and it was great stuff. It's hard to mess up this aspect of the show.
- The music. Bear McCreary has, predictably, done great work. In fact, I think the music was always the best part of the series. I would highly recommend the soundtracks for the third and forth seasons.
- The acting. It's been spotty in places, especially when Tricia Helfer tries to emote concern or Michael Trucco tries to emote surprise, but here it was solid all around. Trucco, in particular, has greatly impressed me in the past few episodes with his Hybrid impression.
- They actually addressed all the characters, and led them to a resolution of some sort. We can debate whether things like Roslin's death could have been handled to be more effective, but at least it was there.
Things that were just okay:
- Cavil's suicide. It made sense, in terms of his character, for him to die by his own hand, but it was anticlimactic and extremely sudden. I actually laughed a little at it.
- The Opera House. I actually kind of like the concept of it being the Galactica itself, and it was handled well, with the dramatic reveal of the CIC. I had always thought that it would turn out to be an actual place from the past (probably on Kobol), which was important in some previous Cycle, or to the Cycle itself. It's not necessarily a let-down, but given the sheer amount of buildup they gave us for it, it could have been bigger.
And now, the rant.
- The morals that Ronald Moore tried to bring out in the end seem to come completely out of nowhere. There is a major emphasis on "Technology needs Heart to guide it." The moral of the show, so far, has frequently been shown to be "you need Faith and Love in order to survive in the long run." A dominating plot arc for the entire show has been the cylons trying to figure out how to biologically reproduce. It has been shown (and hammered home repeatedly) that only a pairing between human and cylon, where love is present between the partners, can conceive a viable offspring. The "God Plotline" has made it abundantly clear that things will work out if you have faith in the supernatural. There has been no indication at all that technology needs to be given up, and yet in the last act that's exactly the moral we're being told. It is too sudden.
- The Colonials' decision to give up said technology and mingle with the neanderthals is an astronomically illogical, poorly-thought-out idea, and flat-out contradicts the series' established tone and style. In the first season, when the survivors set out, we watched them tackle logical problems that a band of postapocalyptic survivors would face. They had to find water, food and fuel, organize themselves, establish a government and a balance of power, and so forth. But in the finale, when they head off into the wilderness, no consideration is given to any of the many, many things they will need to tackle. They need to watch out for predators, learn to forage for food, learn how to cultivate crops, build structures, even make fire. These people have lived their entire lives in a civilized environment, dependent on technology. They're a random sampling of survivors, so logically they should have as many wilderness survival skills as any random sampling off the street. Oh wait...
- ...some of them do know survival skills. Gaius does indeed come from a farming background, but that was with modern (or even futuristic) equipment. How well do you suppose that translates to farming with no equipment? And apparently Helo and Athena know how to hunt. Why haven't we heard about this before? Quite frankly, the writers pulled that one out of their asses. And Helo's got a bad leg now, so it's almost certain he will face a tough time in the wilds.
- The decision to split up was done for purely dramatic purposes, and was an out-and-out bad plan. Even if they all lack wildernesss skills, they stand a better chance of survival if they stick together. All in all, Earth is depicted here as, well, a pastoral landscape, and an unusually hospitable one at that. I know a lot of people are going to make the connection to the Garden of Eden, saying that they were led to the Promised Land in the end, and that God prepared this place for them to live, but that explanation doesn't work. Roslin died after they reached Earth, meaning that it's not the Promised Land. The Promised Land is Adama's proposed cabin. Meaning that Earth is just Earth, and subject to normal laws of nature. That includes predators, sickness, accidents, and all manner of vagaries which were all ignored in the episode. This is the kind of logic break that I just can't overlook.
- In another, somewhat less-egregious logic break, Racetrack's nukes. Her dead hand fell onto the Launch button just as her tumbling ship spun around to face the Colony. We have no indication that this was the work of God. It comes off as simply a fantastic coincidence. But wait, I hear you say, there are no coincidences when Divine Meddling is involved. Well I'm sorry, but there's nothing in the show to indicate that God caused that. Sorry.
- Also, why the happy ending? The only major character to die was really Anders. Roslin's death was inevitable and we had been frequently reminded that it was coming, and Racetrack and Skulls were, let's face it, side characters. Tory died, which was a bit of a (welcome) surprise since I thought that Tyrol already knew or suspected that the others set up Cally's death. But Everybody else went their separate ways into the aforementioned pastorale. Quite frankly, I would have been perfectly satisfied if everybody died (except Hera for plot reasons.) There's a physics for this stuff, guys.
- Starbuck just disappeared. They never addressed her nature or her resurrection. This particular mystery had been touted almost incessantly throughout season 4, which characters all around, including Starbuck herself, wondering just what she was and how she came back. Then, a few episodes ago, she came to grips with the fact that nobody could explain it, and she made peace with thte fact that she was an enigma. I thought that that worked fine as an ending to the plot arc, though I hoped that it would be revisited and properly answered later on. But they kept dangling that particular carrot before us, bringing the issue up again in Someone to Watch Over Me and often using clips of it in pre-episode recaps. It was clear they really wanted us to wonder about it. It had been suggested in several instances that she was an angel somehow, or possibly (and less plausibly) a cylon. But in the end they don't address this. It never even comes up. To me, this is inexcusable. You don't hook the audience with a mystery, offer some guesses and theories to keep it in our minds, and then completely drop it in the end.
I feel I should say a few words about the use of mysteries as plot hooks, and about Black Boxes as plot devices. It is perfectly acceptable to leave something open to speculation or interpretation, a Black Box in the plot which the audience is meant to open for themselves. It is quite another to leave a plot thread hanging without resolution. "Resolution" here does not mean "explanation," but rather fulfillment. It is clear that we were meant to speculate as to the nature of God in the series, his plan, the nature of the cycle, and Starbuck's true nature. But it's very difficult to pull off a Black Box, since the task is to fulfill the mystery in question, rather than answering and explaining it away. You have to give the audience just enough to go on, while still leaving some crucial things unexplained. What constitutes fulfillment is different for every viewer: for some, only a little bit of informatiton may be sufficient to keep them wondering and speculating; for others, more detail or attention might be needed to call their attention to it. I did not feel that they sufficiently addressed the issue of Starbuck's nature, and consequently it came off as just something they dropped out of laziness.
Now wait, I hear you say, laziness? Well, yeah, laziness. You could argue that there wasn't enough time to address it, but I would contest that. I felt that the last three episodes before the finale (Someone to Watch Over me, Islanded in a Stream of Stars, and Daybreak, Part I) were all paced far too slowly, and that both parts of the finale spent too much time on flashbacks which only amounted to fanservice. Come to think of it, that's all that the finale was: fanservice.
All in all, I felt that the finale was poorly-written but well-executed, if that makes sense. By going out with such a happy ending, I feel that they forced to ignore a lot of the harsh realism that's been the hallmark of the show...and, indeed, any semblance of realism at all. I will watch the extended cut on DVD, but I doubt it will change anything. It will probably only include padding scenes.
As I believe I've commented about before on this blog, I like it when the end of a story reveals a unified structure, giving new significance to everything that's come before and making me go back and reevaluate it all anew. That did not happen here. But it's not just that it doesn't fit my own tastes: so many of the important events of the show have now turned out to have little-to-no purpose in the grand scheme of things. Major plot arcs like Pegasus, New Caprica, the events of Razor, the freeing of the Centurions and, perhaps most seriously, Baltar's messiah status and ensuing religion, ended up being just stops or detours along the way, links in the chain of causal events which otherwise served no purpose in the unified scheme of the story, and sometimes not even that.
The show's writers have freely admitted that although they knew the ultimate end, they've been making this stuff up as they go. I was willing to go along with it during the series because, hey, we writers all make the story up as we go, to some greater or lesser degree. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, withholding judgement until the end, to see if their plan worked. I began to doubt right around the New Caprica arc, when the cylons were revealed to be considerably less competent and imposing than we had been led to believe, then again in season 3 when we got to see the somewhat-underwhelming and slightly-silly interior of the basestars, then over and over as the entire nature of the cylons was essentially retconned beyond all reason. (REBAR? I should trademark that...) Now, in the end, as they've delved into fanservice for its own sake, tossing prior mysteries and logic out the window, I am forced to conclude that, although some aspects of the series have been great, most notably the acting, directing (usually) and music, the writing was not all that great. On a small scale, on the level of dialogue and character actions, it looks good. But there's more to it than that. There's large-scale plot construction too, what Eric Walker calls "deliberate artifice." The writers behind BSG were just that: writers. They could not be authors, though they tried.
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| On the subject of the Event Horizon of Nerdiness, it's subjective and varies with whatever we're talking about. I'd say that for MMORPGs like WoW, the Event Horizon is the point at which you do something like get married in-game, or spend more time in-game than you do at a job. With Warhammer, the painting of the figurines isn't necessarily the Event Horizon. After all, the figurines are blank when you buy them...it's just common sense that you'd want to paint them, if only to tell them apart on the table.
In other news, I was made aware yesterday of a job opportunity opening up, which would allow me to break into my chosen field, give me some great experience, and earn me some money. It's a 2-4 month contract position working at an entry/junior level, for a well-respected company. Naturally, I sprang for it as soon as I got the email yesterday, but it wasn't until today that I learned a little more about it.
It's in the Twin Cities.
I am completely baffled as to how a staffing agency in Minnesota got ahold of me for this. The only thing I can think of is that I submitted my resume to them shortly after I graduated, they kept it on file, and their database just now identified me as a match for a job opening. Amazing.
So now I'm looking into possibly moving home in March, working this contract position and building up some money and experience, paying rent on my room out here in SA even though I won't be living in it, and picking up my grad program where I left off in August. I really don't have anything to say here, beyond what you might expect. I'm disappointed that I won't be staying out here in SA, but on the other hand there's nothing really holding me here at the moment. I'm happy to be moving back home (good food, yay), but this means I'll have tetmporarily suspended my goal of living on my own. Of course, this is all if they decide to hire me, which isn't necessarily a given yet. I'll find out next week sometime, after the phone interview.
In other (other) news, I got ahold of a copy of this thing in electronic format. Don't ask how or why. I regret that I don't have a screen capable of displaying its pages at readable sizes.
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| Launch +53 daysI've decided that I don't care whether or not anybody reads these blogs. I'll just use them to jot down whatever is on my mind.
Has it really been 53 days since I moved into this place? 53 days in this single room? Hard to believe. How fast time slips by as you get older. I've done remarkably little with myself since I moved in. But hopefully things will be taking off soon.
It's hard not to just recap my life thus far, but I have to keep in mind that nobody is reading this anyway, so nobody needs to be filled in with backstory or anything. I'll just ramble on as if you know what I'm talking about.
Went into Games Workshop the other day to get some more information on the job openings they have available. I previously dropped by there once before, when trolling around the Alderwood Mall for jobs, but I didn't stay long enough to really look around. This time, the employees were occupied, and so I basically had to kill a little time.
It was....surreal.
Up in front of the store was a table where an employee was apparently demonstrating Warhammer 40,000 to some kids. Their dad was standing by looking on, and apparently this was just another fun outing with dad. Go eat at McDonalds, kill some orks, just another day... It struck me as absolutely hilarious that the employee was actually making Warhammer 40,000 - Warhammer 40,000 - seem like a game kids could play and enjoy.
Behind the kids' table were two desks (for lack of a better word) where guys were assembling/painting their models.
Behind these two was...another kids table! These kids were a little more serious though. They were just starting a game of Tau/Eldar vs. Tyranids, while a grunge-looking high-school guy looked on. I watched this for awhile, and had to stop myself from going "What are you doing? Don't send your Avatar out into an enemy melee army without support! This isn't a movie, he doesn't have Awesomeness Armor. Move up the damn Harlequins at least, geez." Or, "Dude, move your Kroot up. These are Tyranids, get a meat shield going!"
Up until now, I had been marvelling at all this. It's a culture which, as a "nerd", I ought to be familiar with, if not partly involved in, but it still struck me as quite the odd place. I could identify the models on the shelves, and the units on the tables, but I had never been tempted to collect and play with, let alone painstakingly paint, these things. It's a world I had never quite fallen into. I never crossed that event horizon of nerdiness. The scary thing is that now, as I strolled through this apparently-bustling store, I actually wanted to be a part of it. I knew how much disdain it would earn me from people on the outside, but here was a community that I could actually be a part of. Besides, they seemed nice, and I might even find some healthy competition among these players. I kept going.
Next to this was another table where some older players were engaged in some kind of urban scenario. I didn't see any armies on the table, so maybe it was the tail end of a 40k game.
In the very back was a larger table, where three even older players were playing what I assume was standard Warhammer. They were older, as in, older. They must have been veterans, so I didn't go back to see what they were doing. Instead, I wandered over to a rack of codexes and picked up the one for the Necrons. I was amazed that, through my Dawn of War background, I knew almost all of the units. Every time I turned a page, I wanted to grab the shoulder of the nearby model-painting guy and show him an Immortal, or a Grey Knight, or an xv88 Broadside Battlesuit and go "Hey, I know these guys!"
But all this aside, I was shocked at how Warhammer 40,000 is actually played. There is no grid, no hex, nothing on the playing area to denote distance or position. Instead, unit movement distance is measured in inches, and players move their units by literally pulling out a tape measure, measuring out so-and-so many inches, and just moving the piece accordingly. That's absurd! What's to stop someone from fudging it by a quarter of an inch and getting extra movement out of their units? And do determine line-of-sight, players literally get down behind their unit's piece and eyeball it. If they can see the enemy unit, they have line-of-sight.
Truly, a different world. How can such an imprecise system work? It's like ork technology...they believe that painting your vehicle red makes it go faster, and so vehicles painted red do go faster.
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| Gettin' riled upWe're reading a speech by Robert Horn, who developed the technique of information mapping. Information mapping is a system for presenting information in a highly structured, piecemeal manner which has been tested and developed to make the information in question as easy to assimilate as possible. Now, all this sounds great and all, but when he starts talking about how the paragraph is an ineffective unit of text, I get a little bit defensive. ("Hey, don't be dissin' the paragraph! Let's throw down, you and me! LET'S GO RIGHT NOW, COME ON! WALL OF TEXT ATTACK!" *lens flare, whoosing anime lines* And so forth.)
I've grown up with the paragraph. I work in paragraphs. He argues that the paragraph is an ill-defined thing (which I completely disagree with) and that they are too cluttered with extraneous writing (derp, that's the writer's fault). But I can't argue with the science, and if "information blocks" have been experimentally proven superior to the paragraph, then I guess I better move out of the way, because I'm a creature of paragraphs. Besides, it's just technical/expository writing, it's not like he's trying to uproot creative writing too.
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| On graphocentrism (or: Eat it, Chomsky) 
For the first time in my college career, I am somewhat disturbed by what I'm being taught in my classes.
In my Information Design class, we covered the origins of writing and how it relates to speech. Historically, speech came first, of course, and since children learn to speak before they learn to write, it is usually thought that speech represents a more natural, "root" form of human language. Writing is thus thought of as subordinate to speech: words are but the graphic representations of phonemes and vocalizations.
I have to say, I'm not too happy with this. In fact, my instinct is to argue that it's not the case at all.
Up until about the 7th century AD, words didn't have spaces between them, and text was generally meant to be a direct representation of speech. People would read (those who could at all, that is) out loud, sounding out the words as they went. But when text began to have spaces between the words, people started reading silently. Never mind the reasons why. I would argue that this was the critical point wherein written language and oral language parted ways.
Oh, there is still a relationship between them - see the beginning of this sentence for an attention-getting marker held over from oral language. But I, for one, do not imagine text being spoken out as I pass my eyes over it. I sometimes notice things like alliteration and cadence, which call to mind how those words might sound if said aloud, but some of the most effective prose I've read was effective not because it was sonorous.
Cognitive scientists would tell you that a lot of people read this way, in terms of neurophysiology:
Text > Sounds > Language processing > Abstract Comprehension
I tend to omit the "Sounds" part of that progression as I read. On those occasions when I am really "in the zone", I go straight from the text to the language processing, skipping over that so fast that it hardly registers as a step, and perceive the meaning of the words abstractly. In expository or academic writing, I perceive things directly in clusters of ideas, joined by logical relationships. In fiction, I perceive things visually, reconstructing the story as it might look if it were playing out.
This tendency to imagine things visually is interesting, because it marks me as a true graphocentrist through and through. Graphocentrists view written language as being superior to oral language, and the eye/vision as superior to the mouth/speaking (or ear/hearing). This might be due to my natural inclination towards visual comprehension, or to my long training in reading, and someone else, raised in a different environment and possessing a different brain chemistry, might have an equal proficiency and preference for oral language.
But I can't just let it go that easily. Getting back to my initial point about the causal relationship between oral and written languages, I believe them to be mostly separate entities, joined not to each other, but to a third entity: the language itself. I think that, while both media attempt to express ideas in the medium of language, language is a separate thing, exising outside the ken of either the written word or spoken sound, residing in the cognititon of whatever person is generating the idea. Neither text nor sound is sufficient to perfectly convey the linguistic form of an idea. For example: text lacks the added bandwidth of prosody, rendering words connotatively sterile except in the hands of skilled writers. Conversely, speech is limited by its fleeting nature, meaning that truly elaborate constructions are very difficult, if not impossible, to both create and understand: ideas must be expressed in quanta fitted to the short-term acoustic memories of the speaker/listener involved. In essence, both media have to not only represent the idea, but the language as well.
...where was that train of thought going? I forget, but I do remember that they have good pizza at the student center.
I wonder if there's a paper in there somewhere.
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