no_takebacks | DPP: Vent at Joe's Bar

Hey, I know I said I was going to post a two day thing? Eh... I changed my mind! :D I'm not sure if we've done this one before but I figured I'm going to go for it anyways. Tomorrow's post is going to come a little bit late in the day and I might do the two-day challenge then, because it's a little involved and takes a bit more time.

Anyways, what are we venting at Joe's about?

Unpopular Pilots (and other Fandom) Opinions.

I thought some of these might be coming up since we've been thinking so much about the scenes and the voting. Ever feel alone in what you think? Are you afraid to speak your mind sometimes because the other shippers don't agree with your opinion? Well pull up a barstool, get a drink, and spill it. Bartenders are, of course, the everyman's therapist.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

I'm already squirming writing this, as I've taken flak for a variety of these. So be patient. I promise I'm actually a reasonably sane person despite these opinions.

Issue 1: I actually didn't much care for Lee at the beginning of the miniseries *gasp!* Now, before I start receiving hate mail, I'd like to point out that I am now a HUGE Lee / Kara shipper, but I actually needed him to grow up a little before I could see the connection between them. (His tough guy viper pilot vibe and the pissy “oh my gods, I ACTUALLY have to do this stupid decommissioning crap” attitude from the mini really got to me.) Once he started maturing and changing – especially in regards to his relationship with Kara – I was hooked.

Issue 2: No one will admit it, but I think Sam Anders was telling Lee the truth when he said “You don’t think you’re the first, do you?” Yes, I actually believe Kara cheated, more than once, during her marriage. Few others will say it, (it’s easier to just think Sam was trying to hurt Lee) but I think that cheating is actually much more in keeping with Kara’s personality than being monogamous. This, of course, doesn’t change my opinion that she and Lee were destined for one another. It’s just another of her interesting facets.

Issue 3: I couldn’t stand Dee. I have no patience with her. I was completely unsympathetic to her suicide. *eek!* This sounds so bad, but the fact is, I found her – from the very start – to be completely manipulative and horrible. My friend Ryan (who loves her) has already told me what an awful person I am for saying all of this, but I feel like coming clean here. “My name is K and I can’t stand Dualla.”

Issue 4: I never thought Saul Tigh was a reasonable choice for a cylon. Surprising?, yes. Believable?, no. I felt like Ron and co. were out partying in Vegas when they were supposed to be writing, and discovered, come Monday, that they had miscounted, and only come up with four out of the final five. Someone, suffering a hangover, said: “Hey, who’s the least likely person on board to be a cylon.” Someone else, still drunk, said: “Saul Tigh.” And the rest was (badly written) history.

Edited Date: 2010-05-27 03:48 pm (UTC)

From:

ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com

Issue 1: I get it. Some of us have a kink for daddy issues, but I get why you wouldn't have loved him at first sight.

Issue 2: I have to agree. Especially with how she treated Sam overall once they got off NewCap, telling him she just wanted to hurt someone and it might as well be him, the booty calls and immediately kicking him out, etc. She didn't respect what they had, no matter how religiously she held their vows.

Issue 3: My name is Amy and I also can't stand Dee. Not even with Billy in the beginning. To me, she started as the example of the young, money-for-college-in-peacetime soldier that should have stayed terciary. And don't get me started on her knowing Lee loved Kara and would one day leave her for Kara in UBEX and still marrying him. I mean, as a motivation, settling for what you can get certainly happens all the time in RL. I don't want my TV shows to try to make sympathetic characters out of the people who make do, though.

Issue 4: My first thought at the reveal was, wait? Do the Cylons age or not age? Did they make him and Cavil and Ellen old to start with? If the "final five" are a couple of thousand years old, do they age really slowly? Eenie, meenie, minie, mo! Tigh!

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

"Eenie, meenie, minie, mo! Tigh!"

That made me laugh out loud ninjamonkey73!

From:

rayruz.livejournal.com

I don't think any of us were really supposed to like Lee in the mini. Actually I started with 33 so when I went back and saw the mini (I was already in s4.5 by then) I was like "who is this whiny asshole and where's my baby?"

From:

scifishipper.livejournal.com

Lol! Poor leland had such a giant stick up his ass. Sometimes it's hard to believe that kara went for him - well except for the extreme hotness, of course. And the endless fodder for teasing. ;)

From:

rachelindeed.livejournal.com

Hee! Your unpopular opinions entertain me, thanks so much for sharing them.

I think Lee was largely unlikeable in the miniseries ~ purposely so, in fact. So I'm not shocked at all by that opinion, I quite agree. Jamie Bamber said something about that in an interview way back when, that one of the things he liked about Lee was how much room he had to grow. He said something along the lines of: "When we started out, he wasn't what I expected at all from the young hero. He was chippy, and adolescent, and not sorted." I think that describes miniseries!Lee to a T, plus it's charmingly British (I love Jamie Bamber!) The director of the mini even says in commentary that he gives kudos to Jamie for playing Lee with an edge of unlikeability. There are a few scenes in the mini where you see his potential - the brig, "the lady's in charge," slowly hugging his father back - but also lots where he's just plain being a jerk. Though I have to admit his delivery when his Dad starts to ask if he's alright and then switches to asking about his plane and he just says, "We're both fine. Thanks for asking" gets me every time. Sometimes bratty!Apollo is fun. But no, although I always *wanted* to love Lee, I didn't *actually* love him until Bastille Day. That's when I understood what was remarkable about him. It's interesting that you saw him as a pure Viper jock early on, actually. I don't think I ever saw him as that - if anything he seemed unhappy to be stuck in Vipers for most of the miniseries and didn't relish battle the way Kara did, and in 33 it was clear he wasn't confident and needed to be pushed into settling into his leadership role. He questioned himself more than most characters, even from the earliest episodes. That doesn't say "jock" to me - Kara always seemed to fit that image more in my eyes, though that was never all she was.

I also think Sam was telling the truth. I don't think Kara was incapable of fidelity and commitment, but I think she was pretty casual about that particular relationship (except in moments of crisis), and I think she was miserably unhappy in her own off-screen way for much of that year.

I have sympathy for Dee, though I think her suicide was selfish. The writers suggested that she walked into a - not completely loveless, from her perspective, but definitely not honest or truly loving - marriage with her eyes wide open, and that speaks to me of desperation. She lived like she was dying all the time; she focused so much on others in part because I don't think she liked looking at herself very much. She tried to take charge of relationships and be the voice of reason because it gave her a sense of worth, I think; I truly think she felt she had to be useful to be valuable, and in part that may explain why she gravitated to Lee over Billy - helping him was a way to be more important, more useful, more valuable. It's a messed-up way of thinking, but all these people are messed up. I don't think she and Lee knew each other very well, I honestly don't think they paid that much attention to the people they really were underneath the people they pretended to be. But I'm sorry for her because she was betrayed and unloved and she had to live through hell over and over, and because she ultimately despaired. I think it was cruel to use Lee for a last artificial burst of happiness without thinking for one second of how it would make him feel when she killed herself, but people who have reached the point of suicide are incapable of contemplating how their loss will hurt others. I'm sorry for her, and though both of them made terrible choices I still think Lee has a lot to answer for in the way he handled that relationship.

Tigh as a Cylon - it did come out of the blue, and it's *really* hard to imagine him as being some kind of scientist inventing resurrection technology, but I enjoyed the fallout so I didn't mind :)

From:

kag523.livejournal.com

I really enjoyed your commentary on Jamie Bamber and the way he was willing to play up the unlikeability aspect! To expand, (and explain), my "viper jock" comment is actually based on Lee's behaviour during the first scenes were he lands his viper on Galactica. Galen Tyrol is trying to talk to him, and Apollo pretty much just blows him off. 'Jock!' was my thought when watching it. Later, in the pilot ready room, Apollo has an irksome moment when asked to fly his father's viper. Its these two scenes that are my basis for the comment.

Does that mean anyone (besides me) needs to agree. NAAAH! But that tells you where I'm coming from.

You ROCK, by the way, Rachel! I always LOVE LOVE LOVE your thoughts and opinions. Seriously, I want to steal your brain next time I'm working on a fic. LOL

From:

rachelindeed.livejournal.com

You don't need to steal anyone's brain writing fic, you are putting us all to shame! Bravo!!

Also, I can completely see how those two establishing scenes spelled "jock" to you, he really does come off as clearly thinking he's too good to be on this creaky old ship, and it was seriously NOT COOL of him to take out his annoyance on Tyrol and/or his fellow pilots. If you want to yell at Dad, Leland, then yell at Dad, don't deflect and make everyone else pay for your bad mood.

I think the end of the world was good for him. The boy needed to grow up fast.

From:

damao2010.livejournal.com

Well, I guess I have found my first unpopular opinion. I loved Lee Adama from the very beginning. Yes, I have said it. I loved him even when he was absolutely obnoxious to the Chief in this very first scene aboard Galactica. I guess I chose to see that behavior as more of a façade than a true character trait. His line to the Chief regarding his father's retirement (something like "I'm sure someone will miss him") was enough to show me he must have had his reasons for behaving like that.Yes, as ninjamonkey73 has said, I have a kink for daddy issues. Of course I know that is not an excuse for lashing out at other people, but it was evident he had a lot of BOTTLED UP anger and resentment towards his father and when people are angry they often act stupid. And if he had continued to behave like that, I would have changed my mind about him. Also, and here comes another unpopular opinion, I think people tend to cut Kara much more of a slack for her obnoxious behavior.

From:

ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com

There's this weird respect (and I have it, too) for how unapologetically obnoxious she was. Lee seemed to have regrets sometimes, so we hold him to a higher bar, I think.