BSG Discussion Thread: “Razor” November 25, 2007 zuzu Giving us a little something to tide us over until next March. Plus: Michelle Forbes!
I haven’t seen Razor yet due to my lack of a television. Urk! I’m getting really impatient for season 4, as well. How did everyone else like Razor?
Minor Spoilers: We (my wife and I) thought it was pretty good. We had an interesting argument about Admiral Caine’s command style; while we both agreed that her basic plan was flawed and she was on the wrong track, my wife thought that her handling of the mutinous CiC officer was way out of line, and I thought it was about right. She was a bad admiral but a good captain, in other words. We also disagreed about the civilians who were massacred. That was way out of line but it was pretty clear to ME, anyway, that they weren’t “innocent civilians”. They were innocent civilians until they resisted the military’s effort to take their stuff. Which is understandable, but under the circumstances I have to go with the military’s need to survive. Again a bad strategic decision on Caine’s part (she WOULD have been better off assembling a mini-flotilla and drawing on the civilian supplies over time) but not tactically unsupportable. Moving past disagreements, we looved looved loooved the vintage Cylon gear. Hope they throw us a few more bones on that score, but we’ve probably seen the last of them. Which is a shame, because seeing those classic raider flipping and firing and jetting around was bad ass. I was personally gratified to see that the episode had at least one MoMovieMeasureMoment (MoMoMeMo, for short), when Kara and the major chat in the galley. Arguably the scenes where Caine and 6 stare at each other while she’s in the brig are also conversations, and not about men, but they didn’t technically SPEAK, so… Overall, a very worthy effort and a nice backfill of part of the Galactica story.
I know for a long time me and many other BSG fans have waited to see some treatment of being queer in the BSG universe. That? Was not what I had in mind. I was spoiled going in regarding the Helena/Gina relationship, but I was sorely disappointed in the execution of it in the show. I expected to see it built up – scenes between the two of them, intimate moments, something to show us how they feel about each other instead of telling us so blatantly and obviously. Then, I expected to see some kind of struggle, some kind of echo of Baltar/Six here. Something from Helena to show that she went through any PROCESS at ALL between ‘woman I’m sleeping with = Cylon’ and ‘take that thing off my bridge and rape it while you’re at it’. And I would have liked to have seen a lot more from Gina, too. She TELLS Baltar later that she was a soldier, following orders, but by that point she is so broken that I always suspected she was just telling herself that to distance herself from what happened to her. I just felt that Helena and Gina both were drastically under-served in a script that should have been, largely, ABOUT them. And also, while I didn’t like or dislike Shaw, I was left with a whole big heaping helping of wtf-ever about her. Not a smart choice, show. And don’t even get me started on the wtf-ery of Lee Adama. Shallow end of the pool observation? Young ‘Husker’ Adama? SMOKING HOT.
I don’t really feel like the debate right now, so I will pass over Quiet Truths post, except to say this: refusing an illegal order is the duty of the officer corp. Caine *complementing* Shaw on her ability to turn off her emotions shows how broken she is as a character. That not only doesn’t represent a personal attribute, it represented a failure as officers for Shaw and Fisk. For the most part I thought it was great. Once again the performances were all top notch. I have to say, though, as a long form film, the kind of dialog match-cuts with the time shifts started to seem hackneyed by the middle of the movie. I also really felt there was a lot of things BSG has done well historically that were kind of missing here. There wasn’t much of a sense of “place” in the action scenes like you normally get. At best the “establishing” shots were dradis screens just showing two lines of diamonds. Not that interesting. I know this is kind of petty too, but there just seemed to be a shortage of scenery. The BSG team has done a great job of using sets, even recycling sets, and establishing different feels for the crew quarters, the decks, Adama’s quarters, the ready room, etc. Is it just me or did like 90% of this move take place in “Generic Hall #1” or “Generic Hall #2”? The two off-Battlestar sets in the whole thing, the Civvy ship and the antique Base-Star were both really uninteresting. And while I know that you aren’t supposed to take this stuff too seriously, the whole idea that “Red Team” could just be floating around that close to that much omnidirectional shrapnel when the raptor blue up and nobody takes a chunk? Razor was good. By regular TV standards, it was great. Still, it didn’t leave me with the sense of OMFGZ!!!!one! that, say, Exodus I+II did.
refusing an illegal order is the duty of the officer corp Sure. But the order that he refused was “launch the fighters to continue the attack we had planned, despite the change in the tactical situation”. Militarily stupid (though that’s debatable) but nowhere close to illegal. Notice that her crew were shocked that she shot the guy rather than sending him to the brig, but they weren’t all “geez, we shouldn’t be fighitng Cylons, that’s wrong.” Fisk, on the other hand, should have refused the order to shoot family members as a coercive tool, but that was a different order. And it was kind of clear from his reactions that his thinking was along the lines of “crap, this is a wrong thing to do, but if I refuse she’s gonna shoot my ass too” – which to me set up an interesting progression of how the moral discipline of a military force can start to unravel if the CO doesn’t set the right tone. Even though Caine’s actions in CiC were technically justifiable, they made it impossible for her XO to serve as a check on her decisions (which is one of the functions of the XO in a real life military organization).
It is a shame that every time a woman in pop media has a role with power, they are portrayed as emotional out-of-control commanders. The only thing that saved the situation? At the end, admiral Adama said that he doesn’t know that he would not have done the same thing if he were in her place. I think I’m going to critique this on my site later.
“The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.” —Katha-Upanishad.
I don’t agree with April. Caine was a male character in the original Battlestar Galactica and I appreciate making gender interchangeable without prettying up a ruthless character. More generally, all the main characters in this movie were strong, capable, smart, flawed but interesting women. How cool is that? But I was disappointed with the portrayal of the relationship between Caine and Gina. It was all either subtext requiring knowledge from the series or they blatantly stated what was up so we could move on and not look too closely at a lesbian relationship. Such an opportunity missed. We could have gotten a much richer view of Caine from just a few more lines here or there on their intimacy or the betrayal. I still know nothing about queerness in the BSG universe. Did the crew disapprove but keep it to themselves because Caine is their superior? Was the lack of any real comment on Caine and Gina because nobody cares and queerness is cool with all? A language note: Is anyone else continually distracted by the non-gender specific use of “Sir”? I can’t decide whether or not I like it, but it always distracts me when used for a female superior.
Was the lack of any real comment on Caine and Gina because nobody cares and queerness is cool with all? That’s pretty much the way I took it.
I like the old robot Cylons better than the new robot ones. That’s about all I have to add, not having seen much of the new series other than this episode/movie special and a couple of boooring Balthazar in the Dock bits. I guess since I’m intrigued that I’ll have to watch the whole damn thing now, which I’ve heard good and great things about so that’s not a bad thing. And if the pilots go back to the crazyass Egyptian flighthelmets, I’ll probably buy the new series. Just don’t give us a Dagget or I’m killing a puppy.
I was disappointed in Razor. It was great to see BSG again, but it totally does not make up for how SciFi Channel is frakking us with the Season 3 DVDs and Season 4. I felt the whole thing was very disjointed, taking place in three different timeframes, not to mention the main story taking place in the past from our point of view. I liked the reveal of the relationship between Caine and Gina, but I felt like that should have been fleshed out more. The new girl was okay, but I felt I had nothing invested in her, so I didn’t really care what happened to her. I wanted to see more about what turned the crew of Pegasus into such monsters, instead of simply showing stuff we already knew, albeit in more detail. I would have enjoyed it more if this had been stuck in the middle of a season, but as a big event presented to us so that we forget that we are waiting a year for the DVDs and the new season, with the newest season possibly split over two years…it just didn’t work for me, especially as I don’t really see it affecting any of the storylines in the upcoming season. But I’m still totally going to watch it every day for the rest of the week.
Hi, writers? When you make a point of blatantly inserting rape into a narrative, you actually do have a responsibility to the segment of your audience for whom that means something. I’d appreciate you not linking it directly to lesbian revenge/punishment for a sexual crime, as if that’s the only reason why it would’ve possibly happened and a more “humanizing,” “understandable” view of Cain for ordering it. I hated every inch of this movie. Sorry. It turns out I’m this awful secret moral absolutist who believes some decisions are never okay, and I don’t appreciate being told to sympathize with people who rejected their own humanity. On the plus side, Kara’s the herald of the apocalypse and harbinger of death. Oh my god, is it March yet? Is anyone else continually distracted by the non-gender specific use of “Sir”? I can’t decide whether or not I like it, but it always distracts me when used for a female superior. I’ve actually heard that discussed on a commentary once. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really notice it, but it was interesting — the creator acknowledged that there was no non-gendered or female equivalent that carries the same weight as “sir” (“ma’am” seems just slightly more condescending or matronly) so they made the choice to call everyone “sir” to keep it egalitarian. (They debated “Madam President” for the same raeson, but ultimately went with it instead of Mister.) Yeah, it’s egalitarian by adopting the male version as the default, but it’s a cultural bias most of the audience probably wouldn’t have been able to get past otherwise.
My first comment’s still in moderation, but I wanted to add – Ailei, I totally agree with you about Gina and the relationship as a whole being underdeveloped, and the disturbingly smoking hotness of little Billy Adama.
Is anyone else continually distracted by the non-gender specific use of “Sir”? I can’t decide whether or not I like it, but it always distracts me when used for a female superior. Yeah, I just don’t know. Isn’t that just kind of a pro-forma thing in Sci Fi? Star Trek has adopted that model from TNG onward, with the odd exception of Janeway, who in the Voyager pilot made a point of wanting to be called ma’am. *That* whole thing was one of the many many shitty points of that show, though.
I was sorely disappointed by it. The whole Kendra storyline was boring for me, I would have been far more intrigued by them just running with the Caine backstory and giving it more time. I think everything (especially the Helena/Gina story) was shortchanged by doing it this way. I had also hoped that it might be “the story of the Pegasus”, allowing us to see stuff from mid Season 2 to Season 3 onwards from another perspective that might make the reveal at the end of Season 3 make more sense. The creepy Hybrid ending was nice, of course, and plays more with the whole ‘The show is all about Freewill’ idea. The old-school cylons were just candy fan-service to the fans, though, and I loved every minute of it. (Especially them gracing us with a “By Your Command.”)
I was pleasantly surprised that there were relevant plot details in Razor. Is Kara a Cylon? If she’s not going to lead them to Earth, then where? Also, have the latest model Cylons gone rogue, as intimated by the hybrid to Shaw at the end? I thought it was fascinating and right on that the Cylons apparently worship a hybrid. Up until Razor, I wasn’t sure who the God was that the Cylons referred to. As I watch BSG, I often wonder how much of what happens is part of a detailed plan by the Cylons. How well have the Cylons planned everything out? Of course, I don’t really understand what they are trying to do . . . do they want to destroy humans? What about on New Caprica, when they seemed to want peace? Has that faction of Cylons lost? It doesn’t make sense to me that the Cylons would want to eliminate humanity. It seems more probably that they want to dominate. Unless they fear the humans can wipe them out. In short, I’m counting the days until Season 4. I agree that the movie was disjointed, but I at least it provided food for thought. There were many interesting concepts that weren’t properly fleshed out, which was the main problem with the movie.
I loved Razor. How much of that can be attributed to my desire to see BSG on television again, I cannot say. That said – Nicole, I agree with you on the some actions are never OK bit – which is why I find my own fascination with Cain and now with Kendra Shaw to be so disturbing. The first time I watched the Pegasus arc in season 2, I was convinced that Cain was pure evil. But as I re watched it, listening to the podcasts or in despair because I want more BSG and I want it now, I found myself warming to the character. There is something about her, perhaps charisma? that fascinates me, though I still personally condemn her actions. Now that I’m thinking about it a bit more, my reactions to Cain and Kendra, but really more Kendra than Cain, are very similar to my reactions to Starbuck. It took me a few episodes to warm to Kara Thrace, but now she’s my favorite character in the show, for many reasons. i’ll have to think on it a bit more, but I think that Kendra’s character shows resonances of aspects of Kara’s character that fascinate me and in the end make her my most favorite of all of the characters. Now I wish that Kendra hadn’t blown herself up… and DUDE Season 4 needs to get here ASAP. Harbringer of death, end of humanity, the apocalype? Kara Thrace? I’m so there. A few more short commentaries: – Trying to explain the time jumps to my parents, who saw the original series and have only seen an episode here or there of the reimagined series was hellishly difficult. – I liked seeing Six/Gina impersonating a human, it’s been awhile. – Why o why did Lee have to say the words “Black Market”? I like to pretend that episode never happened.
My boyfriend and I had a long discussion afterwards about how Adama could easily have gone the same way as Caine, had they not had the Civilian fleet and the President with them. Rewatching the first miniseries, that road was certainly open to them. Caine’s absolute ruthlessness makes some sense in light of the hopeless situation they seemed to be in. Galactica had a civilian fleet to protect from the beginning; on the Pegasus, everyone was gone. For all they knew, they were the last humans left. So to take the attitude of “we’re gonna take these fuckers down with us” makes sense emotionally. Vengance will slowly erase your humanity if you feed it to the exclusion of all else. Everything else becomes expendable. Razor showed how this could happen, and to people who didn’t start out as morally depraved as they eventually became. I agree that the relationship between Caine and Gina could have been fleshed out a lot more. I keep hearing that there will be additional scenes on the DVD, so maybe that will play a little better there.
On the “sir” issue, which I’m a little conflicted about myself, Ron Moore discussed the issue on his blog – Q: “Why does every one call the officers Sir even if they are women? I was in the military but I thought that every one knows to call female officers or presidents Mam.” A: This was something I took from Wrath of Khan. In that film, everyone called Saavik “sir” and I liked the way it played and the implication that the honorific had become gender neutral at that point. On Next Generation, we didn’t encounter a point where a female officer had to be addressed with a “sir” or ma’am” until well into the run — an embarassing moment for the entire writing staff, by the way — and it started a fair amout of debate about which one should be used to address Troi during a crisis (I believe the episode was “Disaster”). My personal feeling was that there was something vaguely condescending about “Yes, ma’am” versus “Yes, sir” in context and that by addressing everyone as “sir” it made a point about the egalitarian nature of Starfleet. It’s certainly a debatable point, and Jeri Taylor, the executive producer running the writing staff at that point, felt very differently about it. Ultimately, we decided to go with “sir” and follow the protocol from Wrath of Khan. When I was writing the miniseries for Galactica, I decided I wanted to use sir for all the female characters and I even toyed briefly with the idea of calling Laura “Mister President” but that seemed like a step too far. Billy does call Laura “ma’am” on occasion, so the term itself does exist in the Galactica universe, but the military invariably calls her “sir.”