It's a testament to the acting that the holes in the writing are filled with the actor's real flesh and bones, but in my mind that's separate from the actual *show* (just as are, say, the camera angles).
So you would define the "show" by the script? I would define the "show" as being all-inclusive--the script, the performance, and the staging. Just keeping my terminologies correct before I go on.
You're right that there is a vast difference between something that is witty in the writing and told well in the offing. However, things that aren't written down still exist in the ether of world-building to a degree. It does feel like BSG uses characters and events to certain degree of randomness, often to the detriment of side characters. I just would argue that that doesn't mean that the side characters weren't operating in the spaces we don't see in interesting, full ways.
This last run, with the ridiculous caricatures on Team RAGING ASSHOLE, is a particularly bad example of never graduating characters from outlines, what with the rapists and the Pegasus crowd. However, I liked that with Narcho he brought up that, in fact, Adama and Roslin and the Terror Twins never addressed the problem either. It's almost like the writers are accusing themselves because they left in this part with Narcho. They basically admitted, yeah, we left you to twist in the wind, and since "they" write for the leaders of humanity, those leaders are implicated, too. It seems random, but I think a lot turned on that simple little speech.
I said that there should be a reckoning, an attempt to address the ugliness that Gaeta stirred up or else it would be pointless. Having the writers admit that they let Adama ignore the racism and petty criminality in the name of just keeping it together, even in just that scene, is pretty self-introspective for them. I would hope they would continue with that and recognize and return more and more to what Adama used to believe--that humanity has to be worthy of survival.
In re: Boba Fett: Here, the problem is that Lucas returned to the well to poison it. He made Fett grizzled and almost a veteran in the Star Wars trilogy, which is a hard lure (l-oo-re) to pass up for fans. Fett had mileage on him that we didn't get to see (based on how dinged up his armor was alone). It's that sort of creative touch that can elevate a ZOMGAWESOMEBOUNTYHUNTERDUDE into a character. It is the detail that launched a thousand fanfictions. I don't believe for a second that Lucas had a backstory for this character, just that he knew enough technically not to make him shiny and new. Like Terry Pratchett says, it's the old guys in dangerous professions to watch out for--they've been able to survive in a job that tends to kill off the stupid and weak. Be afraid, be very afraid.
I think that same sort of worldly experience clings to each character on BSG, and I think a lot of the writers (as we've had proven) don't think far enough ahead to wonder if their bad-guy-of-the-week really would go from the limited experiences he/she has to this new place. I think you can argue a lot would (Narcho and the rapist fuckhole make total sense, for different reasons but ultimately because: Pegasus), some less so. I have yet to see a compelling argument for Racetrack being on Team RAGING ASSHOLE. She is definitely someone without a character for all that she has been around longer than the rest of the identifiable mutineers put together. They have places to take their rage; she never registered an opinion one way or another. It was just a way to pull your heartstrings--Oh no, not Racetrack!--and there the show failed to elevate her to character status. That's an example where I'd agree that the show doesn't have characters. She's a familiar face, that's it.
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Re: What We Talk About When We Talk About Battlestar
Date: 2009-02-09 10:13 pm (UTC)So you would define the "show" by the script? I would define the "show" as being all-inclusive--the script, the performance, and the staging. Just keeping my terminologies correct before I go on.
You're right that there is a vast difference between something that is witty in the writing and told well in the offing. However, things that aren't written down still exist in the ether of world-building to a degree. It does feel like BSG uses characters and events to certain degree of randomness, often to the detriment of side characters. I just would argue that that doesn't mean that the side characters weren't operating in the spaces we don't see in interesting, full ways.
This last run, with the ridiculous caricatures on Team RAGING ASSHOLE, is a particularly bad example of never graduating characters from outlines, what with the rapists and the Pegasus crowd. However, I liked that with Narcho he brought up that, in fact, Adama and Roslin and the Terror Twins never addressed the problem either. It's almost like the writers are accusing themselves because they left in this part with Narcho. They basically admitted, yeah, we left you to twist in the wind, and since "they" write for the leaders of humanity, those leaders are implicated, too. It seems random, but I think a lot turned on that simple little speech.
I said that there should be a reckoning, an attempt to address the ugliness that Gaeta stirred up or else it would be pointless. Having the writers admit that they let Adama ignore the racism and petty criminality in the name of just keeping it together, even in just that scene, is pretty self-introspective for them. I would hope they would continue with that and recognize and return more and more to what Adama used to believe--that humanity has to be worthy of survival.
In re: Boba Fett:
Here, the problem is that Lucas returned to the well to poison it. He made Fett grizzled and almost a veteran in the Star Wars trilogy, which is a hard lure (l-oo-re) to pass up for fans. Fett had mileage on him that we didn't get to see (based on how dinged up his armor was alone). It's that sort of creative touch that can elevate a ZOMGAWESOMEBOUNTYHUNTERDUDE into a character. It is the detail that launched a thousand fanfictions. I don't believe for a second that Lucas had a backstory for this character, just that he knew enough technically not to make him shiny and new. Like Terry Pratchett says, it's the old guys in dangerous professions to watch out for--they've been able to survive in a job that tends to kill off the stupid and weak. Be afraid, be very afraid.
I think that same sort of worldly experience clings to each character on BSG, and I think a lot of the writers (as we've had proven) don't think far enough ahead to wonder if their bad-guy-of-the-week really would go from the limited experiences he/she has to this new place. I think you can argue a lot would (Narcho and the rapist fuckhole make total sense, for different reasons but ultimately because: Pegasus), some less so. I have yet to see a compelling argument for Racetrack being on Team RAGING ASSHOLE. She is definitely someone without a character for all that she has been around longer than the rest of the identifiable mutineers put together. They have places to take their rage; she never registered an opinion one way or another. It was just a way to pull your heartstrings--Oh no, not Racetrack!--and there the show failed to elevate her to character status. That's an example where I'd agree that the show doesn't have characters. She's a familiar face, that's it.