BatGal 2.0 (Bull)

[wombat1138]

I still haven't seen the new Battlestar Galactica. I don't think I've read any of Emma Bull's books, either. However, I'm pretty sure I know quite a few people who like either or both, and for that reason among various others, I feel compelled to link to Emma Bull's dislike of the new BG.

Comments

Also, the sexiness of 6 was presented in the mini

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

chiefly as a way of making Baltar look the complete prat. Without it, his motivation would be far less intelligible, *and* he would have fewer weaknesses to play on. Instead of getting the completely amoral and chameleonlike functioning sociopath polymath genius who doesn't recognize his amorality (b/c he's a solipsist!) and who can thus go on charming and weaseling his way into and out of any situation - an evil, invulnerable Spock, he would be - we get The Triumph of Venus with Aristotle and Phyllis in modern guise, the supergenius literally led around by his dick, creating at once low comedy and high horror very skillfully, I thought. Amor vincit omnia.

And long before Gina, you find yourself feeling *sorry* for Six and your skin crawling at that realization. First off, he betrays her, even before the Pearl Harbor Strike - lies to her and cheats on her and then grovels to her when caught. His headgames - and her having fallen in love with an utterly worthless and contemptible man - make you cheer when she gets him but good, and the fact that she's a Secret Agent who was using him when he thought it was the other way around makes it all a bit of karmic payback and again you find yourself cheering for her - the Bond Girl who lives and wins - until you remember, oh yeah, *we're* the good guys and she's The Enemy--

And then all the ambiguity and Turin-Test fun of is it real? is she just faking *everything*? in the emotions of AIs - and I really think a lot of the tv fen haven't read anywhere near enough book sf based on the discussion bords I've lurked at, they don't seem able to process the concept of "sentient computer" or "biomechanicals" very well at all, let alone the moral questions.

So her killing the baby is presented as an act of Dark mercy and chilling tenderness - a merciless warrior she, perhaps, but capable of pitying and sparing the innocent offspring of her hereditary enemies from the coming holocaust, in so far as it was in her power. The profound sadness conveyed in her expression then was truly unnerving.

And would we think she was evil at all, if she were the human agent infiltrating the Cylon civilization and using feminine whiles, logical headgames and superior technology to defeat them? Again, see Bond Girl, or The Matrix. She happens to be a fanatical religious zealot fighting for the wrong side - at least in the tribalism of species. But we don't know the full story of humanity's relations to the Cylons - and we also know that the humans of the federation lie as easily as they breathe. "We're your children," Six says over and over again, in frustration at the Shocked, shocked! to find violence/betrayal/lust/hypocrisy among Cylons of Baltar et al.

Which brings us back to the creepy-squicky-sex stuff. Love, and orifices, begetting, and Divine Union - this is what "theology of the body" *really* looks like, stripped of its euphemisms and covering fade-outs. Be fruitful & multiply. Behold, the Bridegroom cometh...