Written by: Clayton Neuman, AMC Blogger
Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore describes how the finale reflects his views on religion, and what he sees in store for the future of the franchise.
Q: How does it feel for you now that Battlestar Galactica is over?
A: It’s bittersweet at best. I’m very happy with the way we ended. I think we went out strong. I’m proud of the show, so it’s a really good feeling, but it’s hard. It’s been quite a family for a lot of years now.
Q: I’ll bet you won’t miss people asking you about the Final Cylon.
A: Actually I’ll miss that too. There’s a special joy you get having a show on the air that people are interested in, and wanting to know what happens next. You really want to enjoy that while you have it.
Q: The series ends explaining a lot of the mysteries with the existence of a supreme being. Does that reflect your own beliefs?
A: I would say the show is reflective of my religious views in that I don’t have really firm religious views. I’m an agnostic in the truest sense of the word. I think about these things — I grew up Roman Catholic, I’ve been interested in Hinduism, in Eastern religions, but I’m not dedicated to anything — I go through periods where I think maybe it’s all nonsense; maybe it’s the Matrix…I’m open to various ideas. And I think the show has been a lot about exploration of ideas, and the basis of faith and how can you come at it: one God, many gods, no gods, who knows.
Q: It’s fascinating how people have always been able to shape the show around their own beliefs, politically as well.
A: Politically and philosophically we wanted to raise more questions than we answered, and we wanted to keep shifting the audience’s perspective. The show is very much a forum for people to be challenged and to walk away from the show going, “God, I can’t believe they do that.” The idea that it would confuse people in terms of their moral judgments or their religious feelings was exactly what I wanted.
Q: You took a lot of risks with the story over the years. Did you ever worry you’d lose your audience?
A: It’s sort of my favorite thing. I like taking those chances. There’s just a lot of TV out there. The audience has seen a lot over the years, and they’re very familiar with 3-act structure. They know where your narrative is supposed to go, and I think when you can find ways of surprising them and taking them off stride, that’s gold. And yeah there’s risk that you blow it, risk that you lose them, or they’re pissed off. But that’s what makes it fun. I just felt as a storyteller that if I was in the audience watching it, I would sit up and go, “I can’t believe they just did that.” I want that reaction from my audience.
Q: What do you see for the future of Battlestar Galactica?
A: I like the universe, I like the characters. There’s certainly places where we didn’t tell all the stories there are to be told. I mean, there’s an entire missing year on New Caprica, which would be a great place to tell a completely different series of stories. I can’t see us regathering the cast to do those stories. I think that’d be yet another reimagining or those are books or comics or something. Because those stories in that missing year would not feel like the show that is Battlestar Galactica.
Q: What’s going on with your next series, Virtuality?
A: Fox has watched it, they’re in internal discussions about it. It’s a risky show for them. They don’t have any other programming like that. It was always sort of a long shot in terms of will they find a place for this on their lineup, and they were up front about that from the beginning. They said, “It’s a riskier one for us, we like it, we believe in it, but at the end of the day if this doesn’t happen let’s not all be shocked.” And we kind of went into it with that attitude, and that’s where we are. It’s a challenging ambitious piece that’s really different. And that’s good and bad for any network.
Someone should get him a news flash that Fox does not do well with “risky” shows. He shouldn’t get his hopes up about Virtuality, no matter how awesome it may be.
he could put it in the Sci_Fi channel, oh what, they are now Syfy, the idiotic reality ghost hunting b-movie wrestling channel.
maybe BBC america can pick it up or he can put it http://www.scifi4me.com
Nice interview. He looks so familiar to me, was he ever a actor at one point? Maybe I watch too many soap operas.
Jenny
Anachronite:
Thanks for the plug.
I’m hoping we can put a variety of programs on the site. We’ll see how it works out.
To comment on Moore’s take: “Politically and philosophically we wanted to raise more questions than we answered”, I would like to see a show that addresses things from a particular viewpoint and sticks to it. There’s something to be said for a moral clarity of the story – even if it’s one you don’t agree with. For instance, there was never a doubt about the perspective in “The Dark Knight”. The movie takes on the moral grounds that evil exists and must be fought by almost any means necessary. But it also showed that even good has self-imposed limits, which I really thought added a certain nuance to Batman’s character.
Science fiction, as a whole, should act as a mirror to show us ourselves, to help us examine “the human condition”, but it should also leave us with the idea that there IS a future. Otherwise, what’s the point? I’m not saying every SF story has to be “happy utopia” – because we all know that’s not how humans operate. But BSG went dark to the point of bitter alcoholic stupor – and I found it very off-putting toward the end. After New Caprica, I just kept feeling like I’d been stuffed into a bag of rocks, rolled down the side of a volcano, and beaten with a hammer. The emotional ride was too one-sided – mostly down.
I’m writing this having not seen the finale yet, so that opinion may change, but overall, I think BSG could have been a little more balanced emotionally.
JPH
SciFi4Me
It’s abundantly clear that Ronald Moore has no clue what a religious view is. By his over usage of abstract references to god, angles, supreme beings, blah, blah, blah, blah, its obvious to the rest of the world that Mr. Moore has the understanding of religion that a 12 year old has of sex. After the mess he made with the last two seasons of Battlestar I am embarrassed to say I was a fan of the show.
“angles”? I think his angle on angels was pretty illuminating. 😉
ok im keen to see any new scifi and bsg new version was unreal for the first few seasons , but after watching the whole show it got caught up in profecy and religion well a type of religion can some one tell me what starbuck is ?? and what it means i dont think that was known , growing up when the original bsg was on i was upsett they didnt stick with that , original concept a reptilian race called the zylons with robot warriors who attacked a planet of aliens who where friends of the 12 colonys and when we defended them the zylons turned there eyes on us , this new bsg ended up being a new type of terminater , i here they are making a bsg movie based on original series hope this is so . i did like new series but wish they would have called it something else , like hip hop version of old song you like it at first but a year down the road your listening to original version and saying how could they have destroyed such a good song .
If anyone hasn’t read the Virtuality pilot script yet then go and do so! People should get behind the show and generate some buzz.