[goMac]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Because we saw her ship blow up?

Stranger things have happened in the show...

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Because we saw her ship blow up?

Hmmmm. Something just occured to me. We saw something blow up. Could it have been the cylons ship blowing up?

I can't believe they killed off one of the main characters. It's a twist.

[jokell82]

But have they ever reversed something we *saw* happen? Plus it was revealed earlier this year that Starbuck wouldn't be in the next season, which leads to the conclusion that she really is dead.

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

Hmmmm. Something just occured to me. We saw something blow up. Could it have been the cylons ship blowing up?

I can't believe they killed off one of the main characters. It's a twist.

No, we really saw her Viper blow up.

[Eriamjh]

I like Starbuck. I hate Starbuck.

Exactly how does dying fulfill one's destiny (lame plot twist in future episodes aside)?

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Exactly how does dying fulfill one's destiny (lame plot twist in future episodes aside)?

Her destiny is just starting. Out of all the theories, none of them are that she is dead, or dead for good.

In the episode it was made clear that she had to die to get to her destiny. Something lies between life and death and she has to get to. Going by that, while she may not be alive, she's not dead.

[zerock]

she is one of the final 5 ?

anyways she could still be alive, is bsg, is expected.. and i really dont expect her to die like that for real.

[RAILhead]

I'm in the camp that thinks it sure looked like she died, but can't believe it -- if for no other reason than to think the new BSG wouldn't totally throw away the whole Starbuck/Apollo duo.

At least this episode didn't clear the shark when it jumped.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

You guys notice the nice symbolism when starbuck met Adama and the prez in the hallway and the lights went out?

Oh and if you didn't hear the podcast the ending with Adama smashing the ship was IMPROVISED. The bad thing was it was a REAL historical model ship worth hundreds of thousands so the props people off camera nearly had a heart attack.

[powerbook867]

wow, that end scene was improvised? That is some impressive acting.

I am sure the prop people were less than pleased....

[Millennium]

Starbuck is not a Cylon as we know them, nor is she a hybrid: her age doesn't work out right for either of those things to be possible. She's too old to be the child of the Agents we know, and too young to be some kind of "child" of the robotic Cylons from the wars of 40 years ago.

However, is it perhaps possible that the "Final Five" are something quite different from the Cylons we know? In the original BSG, the robotic Cylons were not the first people to hold that name, so perhaps the new series is doing something similar. What if the robotic Cylons encountered a new race, stole their biotechnology, and eliminated their benefactors?

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Something I have always wondered is how old are the current skinjobs? We all assume they are only 3 years old as that is when they first started to sneak around on the colonies.

Nobody has seen them for 40 YEARS so they could have been around doing all sorts of things among themselves or the colonies in that time without anyone knowing.

Perhaps they were created right after the war ended and have had a very interesting history among themselves for 40 years. The current skinjobs could actually be version 2.0 with the version 1.0's being the final five that were considered defective or developed radical ideas that the 2.0's considered wrong and therefor destroyed them and purged their memories of them so they also do not begin to follow their ideals.

The final five which were 1.0 models could have not had resurrection abilities, wanted to die in order to find god or thought of themselves as humans and wanted to live with them. With that in mind one of the final 5 could have been the father to Starbuck and her mother could have found he was a Cylon at a later date which would explain why she was so convinced of her destiny.

Another thing that I wonder how the Cylons "Evolved". You don't go from mindless tin cans to 99.99% human in one small step. Something must have drove the Cylons to make this large step and D'Anna clearly hinted at such by speaking of "The one who programmed us, who made us who we are, how we think". This "Someone" could have easily been a mortal person CLAIMING to be a the true "God" and promised to give the cylons a soul by making them human. For all we know it could have been the original cylon creator who was tying to fix the mistake he first made that lead to the war.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Millennium 

However, is it perhaps possible that the "Final Five" are something quite different from the Cylons we know?

That's certainly what I've been thinking.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

I think I know what is going on to a point.

Starbuck is the Goddess Arora "Goddess of the dawn" (Also known as EOS to the greeks)
Eos - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Long story short:
Starbuck is Arora (the female god with Wings) and her destiny was to fly into the eye of the storm and somehow as a result opens up a path to earth. Her mother (who fought in the first Cylon war) knew this somehow and pushed her to be the best she could be but with her drive she caused a bit of unintentional damage.

In the paintings Starbuck made of the Eye of Jupiter there is always a figure in the middle of it which looks like this:



That symbol looks roughly like the figuring of Arora as it has two circles or wings.



An important note is that in any images of the eye created by someone else does NOT have the figure in the middle. Only the images that Starbuck made. Starbuck says she has always been "drawn" to the symbol and since it is in the middle of the eye in her paintings it explains why she was drawn to the centre and why she flew into it in the end.

Starbuck says "Arora brings the morning star into fair wind. A fresh start." to Adama when she gives him the figurine
.
In other words "she" being Starbuck/Arora brings the MorningStar/Battlestar into fairwind/path to earth.
The fresh star could also mean that since Starbuck has had such a troubled past she will return with a new biginning somehow as she has closed her issues with her mother and destiny.

Adama also attaches the Arora figure to the front of his model ship as the mast head which is the same role Starbuck will be taking because of her death.
\
"As the dawn goddess, she opened the gates of heaven (with "rosy fingers") so that Helios could ride his chariot across the sky every day. As the dawn goddess, she opened the gates of heaven (with "rosy fingers") so that Helios could ride his chariot across the sky every day."

That means that Starbuck needed to fly into the eye of the storm and the result is it somehow opens up a path to earth for the Battlestar to follow. The "Rosy Fingers" could also relate to what her mother did to Starbucks fingers.



In Homer (Iliad viii.1; xxiv.695), her yellow robe is embroidered or woven with flowers (Odyssey vi:48 etc); rosy-fingered and with golden arms, she is pictured on Attic vases as a supernaturally beautiful woman, crowned with a tiara or diadem and with the large white-feathered wings of a bird.

OK so the description of Eos is "Yellow robe embroidered with flowers."



Now look at the pic starbuck drew as a child.



The dress with yellow flowers behind her. The wings of Eos ties to fact the starbuck has her pilot wings and flies. You can also see the storm circle at the top right and that symbol on the left which is in the centre of all the pictures Starbuck drew of the eye.

So in the end Starbuck flying into the eye opened up a path somehow to earth and she will probably be reborn somehow as "all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again".

The whole Loben connection might be because he knew of this somehow by listening to the hybrid ramble and somehow feels he should be involved or just wants to be.

[SirCastor]

okay, Theories aside, it's pretty safe to say that Starbuck actually died here. For those of you with less than perfect memories (like me):

ship during explosion

after explosion

and someone mentioned the raider being visible from Lee's Perspective, I took that one too, just to check. At first I thought that the Raider disappeared before Starbuck showed, but here's a shot with all three...

[Visnaut]

Excellent post, sprinkles. That's some excellent research.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by SirCastor 

and someone mentioned the raider being visible from Lee's Perspective, I took that one too, just to check. At first I thought that the Raider disappeared before Starbuck showed, but here's a shot with all three...

Keep in mind that is not a view from Lee's eyes and he made no mention of seeing the raider.

[SirCastor]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Keep in mind that is not a view from Lee's eyes and he made no mention of seeing the raider.

right. Thus the purpose of the picture.

That said though, I wonder why that shot is in there. The Raider is only visible for Kara, right? And at this point in the episode, Kara's already gone, she's already at the point of giving up, right?
Why was this included?

[Visnaut]

Originally Posted by SirCastor 

That said though, I wonder why that shot is in there. The Raider is only visible for Kara, right? And at this point in the episode, Kara's already gone, she's already at the point of giving up, right?
Why was this included?

Quite possibly there is no special reason. Probably just a result of the shots available to the editors.

[jokell82]

BSG just started here, and I still can't believe there's no more Starbuck.

[Spliff]

No more Starbuck will be like the first day of sun in Vancouver after 3 months of rain. I'm so looking forward to it.

[selowitch]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

BSG just started here, and I still can't believe there's no more Starbuck.

Don't be so sure. She can still appear later in flashbacks, or even return from the netherworld between life and death at some future point. Perhaps it will be linked to her "special destiny."

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Oh and if you didn't hear the podcast the ending with Adama smashing the ship was IMPROVISED. The bad thing was it was a REAL historical model ship worth hundreds of thousands so the props people off camera nearly had a heart attack.

Oh, well. Easy come, easy go.

[:dragonflypro:]

Ok, I have no idea, but…

Ship of Lights.

The original BSG had a 'Ship of Lights' that 'took' Starbuck.

I recall there being a lot of white light… might be an original story line tie in.

[goMac]

Some minor tidbits on Starbuck's fate from Ron Moore (nothing conclusive, but interesting still):

 

When asked about her having to come to terms with her death, Moore noted that her lesson was supposed to be facing death, not actually dying. Also, when asked what damaged her Viper (I thought this was obvious?), Moore said he couldn't talk about that at this point in time.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Keep in mind that is not a view from Lee's eyes and he made no mention of seeing the raider.

Ron Moore has verified Lee did not see the raider.

[mrtew]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

BSG just started here, and I still can't believe there's no more Starbuck.

She'll probably come back as a guy in season 4 and everyone will say, "How can I wrap my mind around a male 'Starbuck'"???

[andi*pandi]

Baltar's new lawyer is interesting. (Needs to have River Tam take him down a notch though, badger him some. )

The whole episode was about Lee's state of mind... liked the scenes with Anders.

[RAILhead]

I would have liked it more if he would have taken his sunglasses off. That was TOTALLY stupid to put it.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Baltar's new lawyer is interesting. (Needs to have River Tam take him down a notch though, badger him some. )

I missed his conversation with Baltar. Ambulance decided that would be the perfect time to cruise by.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Not sure what to think of that last episode. I can tell they were trying to get at something interesting but couldn't quite figure out what the whole point was.

Anyway, for the finale I get the feeling Adama and Lee will become enemies and the fleet might actually become split between baltar/lee supports and Adama supporters. Even more interesting a whole Cylon basestar might switch teams which I have always thought they might do.

Oh anyone catch the relation of what Cally said about the Cylons are trying to create fear and paranoia so the humans destroy themselves without the Cylons having to shoot a missile? That was pretty much a nice summery of what DS9 was.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Even more interesting a whole Cylon basestar might switch teams which I have always thought they might do.

Why do you think that?

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Why do you think that?

Just because they have always shown disagreement between the Skinjobs with even the hard core 6 somewhat switching sides. Either that or the skinjobs themselves have a civil war.

I think it would be an interesting story to tell even if it is a short while. The writers have also mentioned the 4th season will take the show in a totally different direction and have the biggest change yet so I wonder what else could they possibly do?

On another note I could have sworn RDM mentioned we would see the Cylon HomeWORLD in 3rd season but I guess not. Perhaps he had to cut it or just meant we would see the inside of the basestars.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Just because they have always shown disagreement between the Skinjobs with even the hard core 6 somewhat switching sides. Either that or the skinjobs themselves have a civil war.

That would explain why we haven't seen the Cylons. It would be unusual for them to defect in the course of two episodes though. Maybe we'll see more about the Cylon's next season. I think the Cylons are done for this season, except for potentially a shocking reappearance right at the end of the season finale.

[zerock]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

I would have liked it more if he would have taken his sunglasses off. That was TOTALLY stupid to put it.

you really need to listen to Ronald Moore's podcast, it helps understand the episodes more.. for those who need to..

[andi*pandi]

for those of us who haven't heard the podcast, why not just say what moore said about the sunglasses? was he implying the lawyer was blind? going for that Matrix feel? actor was hungover?

[RAILhead]

Right, because some us don't have time to listen to an entire podcast.

[zerock]

well he did talk a lot of stuff i dont remember right now, but i do remember, part of the reason was for dramatic effect, like when he took them off when talking to caprica six

[mrtew]

Originally Posted by zerock 

you really need to listen to Ronald Moore's podcast, it helps understand the episodes more.. for those who need to..

I've tried listening to them but it ruins the show for me... it makes it seem like an drama project or something instead of something that's actually happening out there beyond the stars. I like hearing about it on the forum but listening to those blowhards prattle on about how great they are making the show destroys the reality and coolness of the show imho. So just tell us what the podcast ok?

[UNTeMac]

Does anyone miss the feel of the early shows? I go back and watch some from Season's 1 and 2 and I just miss the way Human and Cylon just plain fought. The human's plight felt desperate and it was thrilling when they won victories.

Now, the show is nothing but one character piece after another. We keep getting hints that something will finally happen to explain everything but I feel like I'm being strung along so they can eek out another season. Let's have a damn space battle! The last great action in this show was when Galactica jumped into New Caprica's atmospere during the rescue battle. I miss that so much.

[Visnaut]

It would get old very fast if all the show amounted to was a galactic cat and mouse game all the time. With explosions.

Don't get me wrong, I loved all of those space battles, but it's not sustainable in the long run. The fleet is running on fumes a lot of the time. In a pure war of attrition like that, the cylons would almost surely win. Anything else would not be believable. Even in this last episode, it looks like Galactica is still licking it's wounds from the Battle of New Caprica.

I like that there's a broad gamut of themes and stories that are told through Battlestar, and that when they do have a massive battle it ends up being a really good one.

[Chuckit]

Personally, I don't want every episode to be a cat-and-mouse game, but episode after episode with no real drama and no plot advancement does get a little tiring.

I love character development, but the way some of the recent episodes have been doing it is just kind of weak. It doesn't advance the characters much and it brings the plot to a grinding halt. Like, you could take half the episodes in this season and completely scramble the order and you wouldn't even notice the difference. I'd much rather have the characters develop naturally than have a bunch of standalone episodes focusing on a single character where nothing happens.

That said, I enjoyed Starbuck's swan song last week and I liked this one too. Let's hope for more stuff happening again next week!

[reader50]

Amazon is finally listing a complete Season 2 DVD set. It appears to be listed twice.

Listing 1
Listing 2

In both cases, the listed price is $52.49, and the release date is May 8, 2007. The price is a significant improvement over the previous price for (2.0 + 2.5) of $69.48. The price improvement finally brings the price-per-ep reasonably in line with Season One.

Details of the new release are very minimal, no run time or features list. It's not clear if the disks were remastered, or if this is a repackaging of the 2.0 + 2.5 disks. It would be better if the disks were remastered, to resolve the several problems caused by doing the split release in the first place.

Existing "Season 2.0" release problems, caused by a rushed release in time for 2005 holiday shopping.
• Missing director commentaries (podcasts) for 3 episodes. (Fragged, Flight of the Phoenix, Pegasus)
• Missing extended cut of Pegasus, which got bumped to the "Season 2.5" release.
• Little in the way of deleted scenes or extra features, despite lots of extra space on Disk #3.

Existing "Season 2.5" release problems, caused by "2.0" being rushed out.
• Pegasus Extended had to be added to this set, taking up precious space.
• Packed with extra content, much of which should have been in "2.0", taking up precious space.
• This half of the set should probably have been expanded to 4 disks to handle all the content crammed in. Instead, it appears that they used higher compression ratios to make everything fit, which takes a toll on picture and/or audio quality.

Edit
Turns out this is a value pack. It's a combo packaging of the 2.0 and 2.5 sets, shrinkwrapped together. No changes in the disks, or the slip cases. The only benefit to this set is the lower total cost.

[mrtew]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Amazon is finally listing a complete Season 2 DVD set. It appears to be listed twice...... It's not clear if the disks were remastered, or if this is a repackaging of the 2.0 + 2.5 disks....

Why don't they just release them on HDDVD already? Geez. I've always wanted to see BSG in HD, especially since I got my stupid 42" TV. Some people have seen it right.... where do you see it? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[jokell82]

It airs on Universal HD, but it's a bit behind (I think they just aired s03e11 this week).

And if BSG comes out for HD-DVD, that's the day I buy an HD-DVD player.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

It airs on Universal HD, but it's a bit behind (I think they just aired s03e11 this week).

And if BSG comes out for HD-DVD, that's the day I buy an HD-DVD player.

Things aren't going so well for HD-DVD right now so I don't think Universal can hold out long on going Blu-ray.

Why the hell are they so firm on sticking with HD-DVD? It can't be THAT much better in their eyes than BR.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Things aren't going so well for HD-DVD right now so I don't think Universal can hold out long on going Blu-ray.

Why the hell are they so firm on sticking with HD-DVD? It can't be THAT much better in their eyes than BR.

HD-DVD is selling perfectly fine. Not to mention their disc capacity is now higher than Bluray. And some stuff like Lord of the Rings is only announced on HD-DVD. I'm sure we'll see an upswing in HD-DVD soon.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by goMac 

HD-DVD is selling perfectly fine. Not to mention their disc capacity is now higher than Bluray. And some stuff like Lord of the Rings is only announced on HD-DVD. I'm sure we'll see an upswing in HD-DVD soon.

Yes it is selling fine if less than half of BR sales is considered fine. Even with the same title on both (The departed) BR sold 20,000 while HD-DVD sold 13,000. Bond in BR is #8 in Amazon charts which is remarkable.

I missed the higher capacity HD disks you mentioned they "now have" though. Surely you aren't talking about those 51 gig disks that aren't shipping till end of year if ever and with no mention if current HD players can handle them. If you are than also mention the 100+ gig BR disks they have in labs. Even so why wait for vaporware 51 gigs in 9 months when you can have 50 gigs 6 months ago?

If HD-DVD thinks they have problems with half the sales of BR disks think about this.

What are some of the biggest selling movies?

1) Spiderman 1 and 2 smash box office hits. Owned by Sony so BR only.
2) PIXAR Movies all sell like MAD in theatres and DVD. BR only.
3) Disney movies. Ignore all the DVD sales of the classic cartoons and consider the biggest selling one of them all.... Pirates of the Caribbean. Opps, that is BR only also.

More titles on BR over HD-DVD with more by end of year.

Toshiba expects to sell 1.4 million players (Xbox add ons included) this year. Now think of how many PS3's will sell this year and don't consider stand alone players or computers.

Oh and sony has $500 dollar stand alone players coming this year.

Yup, things are looking good for HD-DVD.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

1) Spiderman 1 and 2 smash box office hits. Owned by Sony so BR only.
2) PIXAR Movies all sell like MAD in theatres and DVD. BR only.
3) Disney movies. Ignore all the DVD sales of the classic cartoons and consider the biggest selling one of them all.... Pirates of the Caribbean. Opps, that is BR only also.

Huh? Even cheaper HD-DVD players are coming this year. So is LOTR and Battlestar Galactica on HD-DVD. Not to mention HD-DVD has strong backing from most computer companies. I think we'll see Apple ship both HD-DVD and Bluray in their computers this year.

[exca1ibur]

Lord of the Rings is a Warner Bros production I ,highly doubt it will be exclusive. Battlestar Galactica will because its a Universal production, unless they start to make both, which I doubt.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Yes it is selling fine if less than half of BR sales is considered fine. Even with the same title on both (The departed) BR sold 20,000 while HD-DVD sold 13,000. Bond in BR is #8 in Amazon charts which is remarkable.

I missed the higher capacity HD disks you mentioned they "now have" though. Surely you aren't talking about those 51 gig disks that aren't shipping till end of year if ever and with no mention if current HD players can handle them. If you are than also mention the 100+ gig BR disks they have in labs. Even so why wait for vaporware 51 gigs in 9 months when you can have 50 gigs 6 months ago?

If HD-DVD thinks they have problems with half the sales of BR disks think about this.

What are some of the biggest selling movies?

1) Spiderman 1 and 2 smash box office hits. Owned by Sony so BR only.
2) PIXAR Movies all sell like MAD in theatres and DVD. BR only.
3) Disney movies. Ignore all the DVD sales of the classic cartoons and consider the biggest selling one of them all.... Pirates of the Caribbean. Opps, that is BR only also.

More titles on BR over HD-DVD with more by end of year.

Toshiba expects to sell 1.4 million players (Xbox add ons included) this year. Now think of how many PS3's will sell this year and don't consider stand alone players or computers.

Oh and sony has $500 dollar stand alone players coming this year.

Yup, things are looking good for HD-DVD.

Go have out that argument in the HD-DVD vs. BluRay thread, we don't need the fanboy crap in here. As it stands right now no one is winning and everyone (especially the consumer) is losing.

[andi*pandi]

betamax!!!