io9 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #inthefinalanalysis more → 
Battlestar Galactica Didn't Need Outer Space
San Francisco, 8:27 PM
Mon Nov 9
25 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors: tips@io9.com
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz | Email
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders | Email
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner | Email
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis | Email
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan | Email
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier | Email
Ed Grabianowski | Email
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan | Email
Lauren Davis | Email
Chris Hsiang | Email
Lynn Peril | Email
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins | Email
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox | Email
Interns:
Tim Barribeau | Email
Julia Carusillo | Email
Alex Eichler | Email
Cyriaque Lamar | Email
Caitlin Petrakovitz | Email
Mary Ratliff | Email
Josh Snyder | Email
| posts about #inthefinalanalysis more → |
Battlestar Galactica Didn't Need Outer Space |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
04/02/09
yeah, this is what i'll nitpick about. linguistics.
04/01/09
BSG certainly was a drama, but you could have explored the same themes, (slavery, religion) in any other setting, say World War II (Jews fleeing Nazis), or Ancient Rome (slaves fleeing the Romans amidst the rise of Christianity).
And, yes, I realize sci-fi is certainly considered a genre unto itself today, but I suspect that has more to do with marketing than with any author's intent.
04/01/09
exactly. It's been that way for, what, the past 4 decades? where is this "science fiction is about science" coming from? It's historically been a metaphoric vehicle for discussing political, social and interpersonal issues. If I want to read about plain science I'll read a text book.
04/02/09
To wit, if you're going to make someone gay, why not only make them gay, and not space-gay? If you're going to address slavery and power, why not do it with realism and in our real world? It's not like there aren't enough situations here and now where there are effective slaves.
If the fantastical only serves to ease the author's intent, then it implies that SF is only easy "real fiction." I don't know if I can support that.
03/31/09
And THAT is why I get so frustrated with people preemptively complaining about "Caprica" not being SF but "just" a "drama." That totally misses the point of what SF really is. And a show about people dealing with what happens when they create A.I. is SF plain and simple, whether or not it features spaceships and lots of FTL travel.
03/31/09
Other than that, yes. "Caprica" is set on another planet where people routinely travel between planets and they have A.I. All science fiction things.
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
Drama is the opposite of comedy. Science fiction (and for that matter, soap operas) can be either.
03/31/09
AAAARRRGH!! STOP MAKING US THINK!
heh
I enjoyed this analysis, very thought-provoking. I'm a bit depressed at the thought that we will always need someone to oppress even if we have to build them. Maybe we can "break the cycle".
One statement irked me though.
They want to be able to have babies when and how they want, just the way twentieth century feminists did.
Did feminists really achieve that goal? If so, what do you broads want now?
03/31/09
03/31/09
Nah, but really. It's not like the reproductive rights thing has really been settled, right? Roe v Wade is still being challenged or threatened. Medical advances like in vitro, birth control, and fertility drugs* give women more options but access is limited by income or legal/religious restriction.
I think people will finally get control over their reproduction when we figure out artificial wombs or therapies that allow women to be able carry a child to term safely at a later age when she is more financially secure. At the same time there should be a concerted effort to SLOW DOWN the population growth*. More through education than legislation though, illegal birthing creches sounds like a horrible possibility if birth laws were to be passed.
Hmm, I think I just advocated more choices and more control at the same time. I guess it's all a bit of a me (grey area).
But yeah, I had some serious questions about feminism and reproductive rights. I can be serious, too!
*Oh, and Octomom, you are totally not helping.
04/01/09
Roe uses science, by accepting a conceptual turning point between where the mother's rights trump the state's rights, lying somewhere around where viability for the fetus is achieved.
Now, if that's the standard, once we have the magiwomb3000, there is no turning point, and there is no point where the mother's interests trump the state's.
Creepy? Yes.
03/31/09
However, in context of the other parts of the ending, that of the shedding of technology, the ending is decidedly less noble in tone. Instead of "we need to take care in doing this," that result in light of a total and uncontested rejection of almost all technology suggests the answer is "we shouldn't be doing this." And that leaves me really uncomfortable.
The thing is, slaves did come about in the 'alterna-history' of BSG that leads here. And it did come about, I'd be so brave to argue, as through that rejection of technology. Technology levels the playing field more than it separates. With less technology, it's more about physical power and natural imbalances. Yet, the BSG method of finding that perfect society was through a rejection of that leveler...which only made it easier several generations down the line to take slaves.
So, while I will give it credit for exploring the questions, it ends up answering them in distrubing ways.
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
And maybe not as core as Adama/Roslin, but still key players: Grace Park (Boomer/Athena) and Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta) are both of Asian descent, (Korean and Chinese, respectively) Rekha Sharma's (Tory) family comes from India, Kandyse McClure (Dee) is from South Africa and Tahmoh Penikett (Helo) is apparently of the White River First Nation in the Yukon (thanks, wikipedia!)
I think they did a pretty good job of including people of all colors as integral characters.
03/31/09
03/31/09
But, I will admit that I'm biased: I'm a sociologist.
03/31/09
He notes that Jules Verne wrote these hugely technical adventure stories, and really liked to pick on H.G. Wells for being too soft and not scientific enough--because Wells focused on social issues like colonialism and class conflict. But over a hundred years later, more people (according to Sawyer) are buying and reading H.G. Wells than Jules Verne.
03/31/09
The other part of the problem is that Verne's SF is almost more science than science fiction. It reads more like a lecture with action segments. As such, the science that's behind it is really hurting.
Additionally, all of Welles' social themes? When "The Time Machine" was remade, the director is quoted as saying all the themes aren't relevant anymore. His stories can be read without the themes shouting out at you, though, which may be part of it. But most of the time, a modern rethink of the work includes none of it.
Besides, it's not like Verne was devoid of social themes, he was just infinitely more interested in what amounts to the world of the imagination.
03/31/09
Then again, he made a rather crap movie, so I'm not sure I'd wholeheartedly swallow his judgment on this.
04/01/09
Actually, thinking on it more, there are plenty of ways that Welles is old hat politics. Socialism isn't what it used to be.
03/31/09
03/31/09
I was ok with the way they treated a lot of the social processes that happen during catastrophic diasporas--changes in religion, relationship with technology-they got a lot right. The decision not to build cities and whatnot was ok, too. Wanting to simplify is not inconsistent with the disasters they'd undergone.
03/31/09
03/31/09
@SlayBelle: Yeah, I said primary characters. It's just interesting that RDM&Co spent all of this time developing some really wonderful female characters, only to end them all in some way or another.
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
03/31/09
Yep, sounds right.
(sorry, I agree with what you said, but couldn't resist the cheap joke)
03/31/09
Then there's also Marx, religion being the opiate of the masses that made life under the thumb of the ruling elite somewhat more tolerable.
People who face adversity always find religion.
03/31/09
And people who have plenty tend to make them. At least as far as Buddha, Moses, and Baltar are concerned. Ah, the easy life makes for such psychodramatic shock when one realizes how others live.
03/31/09
04/02/09
04/02/09