Comments on: BSG Channels Star Wars

By: Brother Mark, Amen

Brother Mark, Amen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:48:12 +0000

This is physics-based Gnostic mythology for sci-fi fanboi skeptics that couldn’t indulge in such silliness otherwise. Or something like that.

By: MBrown

MBrown — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:12:58 +0000

Well, you have the elements of the two forces (humans and cylons) having different belief systems: polytheistic humans and monotheisitic cylons, with cylons seeming to be driven in part by their religious belief.

During the first season or so, prophesy played a big part as well, which for me means religion as well. At least after they left New Caprica, those elements seems to take somewhat of a backseat, to be replaced later by Starbuck resurrected.

It seemed clear to me toward the end that while “God” existed in the BSG universe, he/it was more a force then the God of Bible/Koran, etc that we go for.

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:30:25 +0000

Here’s another one. These are actually pretty fun to make:

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/7713/lenin.jpg

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:56:57 +0000

Here’s the updated shot with 2 lightsabers:

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/9955/blocktwosabers.jpg

And here’s a red one:

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/2277/benbernankesaber.jpg

The main problem with the lightsaber trick that I learned is that if the saber has both dark and light backgrounds behind it then the glow appears to be faded on the lighter backgrounds (like the blue one in the first picture).

By: Roderick

Roderick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:32:00 +0000

I don’t think that until the Final 5 made mention of being visited by ‘angels’ that the idea of Virtual-6 & Virtual-Baltar might be that as well seemed possible (I always figured they were some internal dilusion).

As soon as Baltar found out he had no chip back in season 1, I assumed that in-head Six was real and was the new show’s equivalent of the old show’s angels. And once Caprica Six turned out to have an in-head Baltar I thought it was definitely confirmed.

Starbuck, IMO, was never an angel. She had no powers/abilities.

I think she was an angel-in-training — again, as per the original show.

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:31:49 +0000

I don’t have a problem with “God” being in the story, but saying “God” a lot by itself isn’t enough say religion “played a part”. I mean, there’s a lot more to religious thought than having mysterious stuff happen and then saying “God” a lot. God never really redeemed anybody, punished anybody, fought with other Gods, etc in this story.

That’s a good idea Roderick, I’ll see what I can do. I thought about using the pen hand but it looked like it was at a funny angle or something.

By: MBrown

MBrown — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:02:57 +0000

Starbuck, IMO, was never an angel. She had no powers/abilities. Just that “God” had brought her back from the dead to fulfil her destiny, and when that task was complete, she disappeared to ‘got to heaven’.

While we may not like it, religion has always played a part in BSG, both current and pass. It just differed how it was handled (Count Iblis and the angels in the original; Lord of Kobol, angels, and the like in the new one).

By: Roderick

Roderick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:42:21 +0000

You could really stick a second lightsabre in his other hand too. Like Anakin fighting Dooku at the end of AotC.

By: Anon73

Anon73 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:31:12 +0000

On a bit of a fun note, here’s a picture I made last week of some funny lightsaber action:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1125/blocksaber.jpg

By: Roderick

Roderick — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 01:29:40 +0000

Plus alt-Starbuck and Virtual Six don’t really act like any angels I’ve ever seen.

How many angels have you seen?

On the original BSG, there were two kinds of “angel” — the good ones and the evil ones. (They weren’t necessarily angels in the traditional sense; they were “more advanced beings.” Though given Larson’s Mormon background the difference is fuzzy.) On the new BSG, the angels are (if Baltar’s speech is right) neither precisely good nor precisely evil, but they have some sort of interest in our survival.

On the original BSG (or more precisely on G1980, including the unproduced episode “Wheel of Fire”), Starbuck was a normal human who was raised to angelhood by the good angels. More or less the same deal on the new series, I reckon.