I'm with dag for once. By Ron Moore's own admission, the writers painted themselves into a corner without a game plan, which I might be fine with if it wasn't so painfully obvious. I loved the mystery behind various things (head-Six's existence, Kara's apparent death and reappearance, the dreams and prophecies, etc.), but I expected an answer that made sense and wasn't completely out of place and so unsatisfying.

I don't resent them for a supernatural explanation, but I do for abandoning everything that was so good about the writing and settling on a pathetic and hollow deus ex machina. If you're going to write a show like this, for fuck's sakes, come up with a game plan. Ron Moore said the show was envisioned with a beginning, middle, and end, but I'll eat my liver if this was the ending he had in mind.

There was plenty of supernatural hints, but they kept it ambiguous enough that it made sense. The end betrays that completely. The constant involvement of prophecies, Baltar as Jesus was nicely tied up to be a massive hoax, and that would have made sense, instead it doesn't!

Raaaaaage! *smacks head on the table*

>> ^EDD:
>> ^dag:
Makes me miss BSG- but then makes me remember the betrayal of the creators at the ending. Deus ex machina FTL.
(no, this nerd has not forgiven)

dag, if the ending was the first time you noticed there was a teensy bit of supernatural and the 'divine' involved in the story, you might as well have not been watching at all. This nerd is at a loss as to why all the numerous allusions about the constant involvement of a god or gods in human and cylon plights were OK for you and others (gwiz among them, prominently) until the time came for the story to end. Then it's deus ex machina all of a sudden.

>> ^dag:
Makes me miss BSG- but then makes me remember the betrayal of the creators at the ending. Deus ex machina FTL.
(no, this nerd has not forgiven)


dag, if the ending was the first time you noticed there was a teensy bit of supernatural and the 'divine' involved in the story, you might as well have not been watching at all. This nerd is at a loss as to why all the numerous allusions about the constant involvement of a god or gods in human and cylon plights were OK for you and others (gwiz among them, prominently) until the time came for the story to end. Then it's deus ex machina all of a sudden.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Makes me miss BSG- but then makes me remember the betrayal of the creators at the ending. Deus ex machina FTL.

(no, this nerd has not forgiven)

>> ^rottenseed:
Oh so here's the deal. Computers are the spackle for shoddy writing. Computers are used by Hollywood both to fill in plot gaps and to provide an easy way to wrap up an episode, movie or get past a character's adversity. For more proof...watch "The Italian" job or "Oceans 11/12/13".


Machina ex machina.

The point of the skyline of Shanghai is vacuous. What is the point? I have seen both sides of the river in Shanghai, and in a city of over 20 million, there are plenty of examples of shining modernity and squalid poverty.

I have to agree that this guy, at least, has an oversimplified view of how the world really works. The "free market" seems to be a deus ex machina to these folks. What defines the "free market"? When you get down into the weeds, it's not such a straightforward answer. For example, the speaker expresses some opposition to corporations. I would like to query him on how the "free market" would operate without the investment/risk diversification provided to investors by corporations.

Okay, i get that the dog is a little slow and that the rabbit has some uncanny access to deus ex machina, but I can accept that as suspension of disbelief and move on.

However, how were they underwater for like 5 minutes without ever needing to breath?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I have boycotted it. I refuse to get fooled by another beautifully crafted dues ex machina. They burned their bridge with BSG.

Deus ex machina has been used for about 2500 years, so I guess you could say it wasn't too original

Oh sure, it all seems so promising doesn't it? Get ready to be royally fucked by deus ex machina.

^ I'm on the same wavelength as you. I could spend a couple pages flaying it to pieces, but I've enjoyed the show so much, I'll forgive the total deus ex machina ending that didn't answer hardly any questions.

Two nits I do want to pick. First is the issue of Greek mythology and Zodiac. Did the greeks find the Scrolls of Pithia, some 147,000 years after the Colonials landed? If not, why did they end up with their own version of the exact same frakkin pantheon as the Colonials, long, long, long, long after they must have died out?

Second, is agriculture. As much as the colonials seemed to want to give up technology, they all seemed to be talking about building subsistence farms and shacks. 150,000 years ago, that was a technological revolution larger than the printing press in terms of how it shaped human society. No, it's not the same as laying down a futuristic city in Tanzania 150,000 years ago, but our contemporary society would be some 140,000 years more advanced than it is today.

However, I think they're doing a similar thing to what Babylon 5 did when it ended -- wrapping up character plot, and giving us new major revelations that raise more questions than they answered. They both think they have a new series to slowly work out the rest of their plots (Crusade for B5, Caprica for BSG).

Based on the trailer for Caprica, it looks like the theme of God & Resurrection will be front and center, and since the elevator pitch for that series is that it's also about the genesis of the 50-years-ago branch of cylons, it has an opportunity to answer questions about the final 5, and why they kept saying "this has all happened before..."

All in all it was a good ending on the character front, though I was deeply saddened by their choice to have Roselyn die, and Starbuck vanish. I think they deserved happier endings.

I thought it was excellent up to the deus ex machina ending...

Then it suked - relly hard.

hey!
i have the perfect script for this!

it opens with a shitty montage of Rochester, NY and how every tech job at Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb has been outsourced.
then it cuts to the protagonist's shitty breakup with a quirky single mom 5 years ago, while his brother develops a shitty crack habit, despite knowing better, because he's the only guy having an even shittier time than the protagonist!

i'm just trying to work in a Good Will Hunting-type ending,
without making it feel like a deus ex machina.

oh, and it needs a director.
the one we hired is way too much of a perfectionist.

I thought this was a great movie, though I must admit that I am a little conflicted about the movie's ending. I understood from the get-go that this movie was about the most brilliant violin ever created, but I still had a hard time reconciling that with the story of an instrument expert (Samuel L. Jackson) committing theft to procure said instrument.

Now please, please, PLEASE don't tell me that even 'distinguished folks' also break the law. Yes, I already know that. They do it every day. However there was something that felt just a little bit tawdry and deus ex machina about the ending to me. I realize that no divine intervention took place, but for this guy to walk away with this beautiful instrument like the most supreme cat burglar ruffled my feathers just a wee bit, to the point where it detracted from the quality of the whole film.

I hate to be a stickler film critic, but I felt like the ending pulled the rug out from under me. HOWEVER, I won't be TOO harsh. I reserve such harshness for such movies that like 'Magnolia', which totally stole my heart until the goddamn motherfucking frogs rained from the sky like a hail storm. Even Old Testament Yahweh rolled his eyes at the one, saying "Oy! Once was enough!"

DFT: of course that's what I said. What you call "the meaning" of the film is what I call "the theme". I personally don't think "it's no country for old men" (AKA "Its a cruel cruel world") is much of a meaning so much as a theme because it reflects an attitude, a world view rather than a motivation or revelation. Yes, it's a cruel world, if you want to look at it that way. Not only do I NOT want to look at it that way, I kind of resent someone spending two+ hours trying ardently to convince me of such without any better reasoning than "see this evil guy? he gets to walk and thus the world is cruel" I found the movie a huge disappointment and a big bummer because the ending could have been written as "...and so the world turns"

I don't need to see a movie about evil bad boogeymen who are more real than life itself - I already know there's boogeymen. I already know it is "futile" to attempt to stem the tide of evil. I already know I am only one person and cannot wipe out evil by myself. I already know that change causes this world to become foreign and frightening. What I'd rather see is a reason to keep going on despite these "facts" of life. What I'd rather watch for two hours is someone finding peace despite such overwhelming odds. What I'd rather hear about is someone finding an answer that works for them (even/especially if it isn't MY answer) rather than "wow this sucks"

And what good is it to speculate that the scary mofo went on to be just as evil and scary but without a sense of "purpose" or "justice"? He's still scary and evil and still killing people at whim. His possible "realization" doesn't change the theme whatsoever.

And I expect my movies to adopt a change. Period. I disliked this film for the same reason I disliked "To Live" - there is nothing, no honor, no epiphany, no revelation, no deux ex machina, no inner turmoil, NOTHING that changed - just "hey life goes on"
Well shit, I KNOW "life goes on", that is to say "NO DUH" and that means if the life in questino is EVIL then "evil goes on" again I say "NO DUH" but I really have no care to see a movie tell me this. There is absolutely nothing life-affirming or personal change-inducing about such a message. It falls flat to me because its useless.