2009年3月30日星期一

Battlestar's diving ending


So Battlestar Galactica is over. Again.
It is unlikely that many a fan of science fiction, or intelligent story-telling of any genre, over the age of 11 mourned the end of the original series. But the resurrected version that drew its final breath a week ago was transcendent television, by any measure. Those unfamiliar with the program should read no further. Bookmark this post, rent the DVDs and return when you're done.
After four years of ambiguous exploration of the battle between science and faith, the writers chose to end on a decidedly spiritual note. Starbuck is an angel. Boomer and Roslyn's shared dream turn out to be prescient visions that permit the founding of a new civilization. "All Along the Watchtower" is, well, I'll let creator Ron Moore explain it: "The music, the lyrics, the composition, is divine, eternal, it's something that lives in the collective unconsciousness of everyone in the show and all of us today."
Hmmm. That's going to make a lot of fans unhappy. Religion wins?
I admit that I was expecting something different, something less ethereal, although exactly what I can't say. I would have preferred more rational explanations for how Kara Thrace rose from the dead, and for the voices inside the heads of Baltar and Caprica 6. I know there's more a few ScienceBlogger types who are disappointed with those particular revelations.
But I also understand that whatever outcome the Moore and his partner David Eick chose, a good many fans would be less than pleased. So they came down on the side of the angels, more or less. And they did it with style.
They could have tried to tie up every loose end, but they didn't, leaving a variety of minor plot lines unresolved. That was wise. If there's one explanation for the popularity of this incarnation of BSG, it was the show's refusal to moralize and provide easy answers to its treatment of political and social dilemmas. So why should the finale be any different?
Like any respectable work of art, there remains plenty to think about. Is Caprica 6 correct when she suggests that the cycle is broken? After all, the humans who settled on the new Earth vowed to abandon their love affair with technology and get back to what matters. But 150,000 years later, we end up with New York. Again.
As the credits role, the essential question of just what it is to be human goes unanswered. It was never made clear what the difference between Cylons and humans comes down to. How much technology can a species absorb and retain its identity? What are the ethics of creating life? They're serious questions, evocative of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner, the Borg of Star Trek, and countless other sci-fi works going right back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I'm sure they will be front and center when the prequel series Caprica airs. But don't expect any pat answers then, either.

没有评论:

发表评论