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!"

A bit deus-ex-machina for me, but I'll give it an up-vote any way. What the fuck.

that double-ending isn't good, especially the "deus ex machina" (i.e. the thrusters) but i like this anyway.

deus ex machina was the best line.

DEUS EX MACHINA!

Am I the only one who hated this movie, thought it was completely contrived and stupid, and found Denzel Washington to be overacting?

For instance, in the course of their day, Denzel and Ethan end up saving a girl who is being assaulted in a back alley. Later in the movie, one of the guys Denzel has hired to kill Ethan Hawke finds the girl's wallet in Ethan Hawke's pocket. The girl turns out to be the thug's sister and so he chooses to help Ethan's character. Deus ex machina. Is that not just a bit of an outlandish coincidence on which to pin your story?

Insofar as you can hate a piece of art, I hate this movie. To me it's just an example of successful marketing and people's increasingly "fast food" take on culture these days.

the video is great, but the deus-ex-machina ending sucks bigtime.

While I appreciate the sentiment, it seems a little too deus ex machina.