I have enjoyed the new Battlestar Galactica series as a more "realistic" and "serious" version of the original series which I enjoyed as a child. On a side note I'd like to know:
Where the heck is boxer?
Anyway. The series premier from last Friday gave us Tigh as Osama Bin Ladin; beard, injury (And eye for a kidney) and replete with cane. This opener focuses attention on the suicide bomber. It is unfortunate that many Americans will not have watched this episode because if they had they would clearly understand the admittedly simplified justification for the insurgency in Iraq whether one agrees with suicide bombings or not. I think it was also great that the writers showed the dissent in the ranks about the use of suicide bombings since we also know that the persons who perpetrated the 9-11 events also had misgivings about the killing of innocent people.
I think this particular episode ranks up there with my favorite Deep Space Nine episode where Cisco has to justify the selling of arms to mercenaries in order to win the war against the Dominion.
The greatest take away line, well perhaps two, was when Tigh says (paraphrased):
"You may change your mind when you're locked away in detention." This has to be a clear reference to how torture and imprisonment in an occupation can radicalize people. I haven't watched the director's blog entry yet so I could be wrong about their intentions.
Interestingly, the viewer is put into an interesting position. Although this is fiction, the issue at hand is very real. If one sympathizes with the humans then one may find oneself agreeing with the resistance. If one thinks that Colonel Tigh is a hero then one has to question one's take on suicide bombings. Even if you say that he's a hero but was wrong to use a suicide bomber then here in the real world one would then have to consider the Palestinians and Iraqis. One cannot use the excuse that this is all fiction to hide from this moral situation.
The website asks a potent question. Who's side would you choose? If one believes that the Cylons are inherently evil, then resistance to their occupation is "right". Then, why wouldn't the people fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine be any different?
In one part of the online "resistance" webisodes, Colonel Tigh reminds one of his troops that it was the Cylons who first bombed Caprica. Again, if "first wrong" is the moral justification for resistance then again one has to consider the Palestinians and Iraq.
Technorati Tags: Battlestar Galactica
2 comments:
What can I say? Delighted to find we have even more in common. I'm a major fan of *BSG* (although I loathed the original, even as a child).
Two points:
1. Boxy (not boxer) was in the pilot of the new series, and was in several deleted scenes of pilot (and possibly the first few episodes). New Boxy was much better than old Boxy, and thankfully, without any daggit.
2. My guess is that Colonel Tigh was not supposed to be Bin Laden so much as the blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman who was convicted for the 1993 bombing of the WTC. Why? Well... I guess the blindness in one eye. Plus... I think a Bin Laden analogue would have been portrayed as a more charismatic, demagogic figure.
Yeah, my wife and I were continually astouned by how far Ron Moore and company are going in questioning the morality of US violence (linking it to the Cylon occupation) and resistance to that violence (beginning in particular with season 2.5's "Downloaded" in which human resistance fighters bomb a cafe frequented by Cylons). Amazing stuff... and I'm glad that the series refuses any simple "This side always good; that side always evil" formulation. Surely methods and goals are the determining factors of "good" and "evil" status.
Looking forward to more SF-related posts from you, Brother S.
Well I stand corrected on Boxy. Hey I was a kid. I admit the original was kinda campy but I still liked it..then. Did you ever make Cylon raiders from milk cartons?
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