The Russian-Star Wars connection

I blogged at Language Geek a few days ago about a huge amount of Russian language learning material that is available for free from the Princeton.edu website. I’ve started working through the lessons, and in lesson 2, at the end of the lesson PDF file, there is a box containing some information about Star Wars and the Russian language. I thought it was interesting, so I figured I’d share. For some reason, the Cyrillic text isn’t wanting to be copied out of the PDF (I keep ending up with a string of question marks), so I just took a screenshot of the PDF:

(Click for full size)

Heh.

Battlestar Galactica, Crossroads, Part 2

Well, last night was it: the last episode of Battlestar Galactica for 2007. It was an absolutely amazing episode. If you’ve not watched it yet, I’m warning you: get away from this post right now. Massive spoilers ahead! Having said that, if you have watched it:

I can’t believe they introduced four new Cylons. I think everyone was expecting one new Cylon, but four? And the four they chose! Sam and Tory Foster (the President’s aide) aren’t big deals; Tigh and Tyrol, however, are huge. I’m anxious to see how Tigh’s character progresses in the next season. When will the others find out about the new Cylons? How will they respond? How will Admiral Adama respond? They’ve been friends for their whole lives; they’ve hated Cylons together for years. And now it comes out that Tigh is a Cylon.

Tyrol is a huge deal for one major reason: there are now two human-Cylon hybrids instead of just one. Hera, from Athena and Helo, and Tyrol and Cally’s child (who’s name I can’t remember at the moment). I haven’t quite figured out what the big deal is about the hybrids, though. Roslin from the start has been obsessed with the hybrid kid, and now she’ll have a second one to obsess about.

While the other two, Sam and Tory, aren’t as huge as Tigh and Tyrol, they still introduce some interesting problems. A Cylon helping the President? That won’t bode well with the population if it gets out. And, if Starbuck rejoins the Colonial Fleet (more on her in a minute), I’m sure her husband being a toaster won’t go too well, either.

On the topic of Starbuck… well, I’m lost. I don’t think she’s a Cylon anymore. The end of the episode, with Starbuck dropping in next to Lee and saying “hi”, was a major surprise. I think they’re going into uncharted water with her, probably furthering the whole subplot about her being a prophet of some sort. Whether she ends up being divine, or a Cylon Starbuck trying to trick Lee, we won’t know until 2008, but I’d wager that it’s the former and not the latter.

Regarding Gaius Baltar’s trial and the outcome, I was actually happy with it. As I’ve mentioned before in my posts about Baltar, I hate him. He’s arrogant, sneaky, and just generally unlikable. However, that doesn’t change the fact that what Lee Adama said is true: just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you can kill them. He was also right in that, while Baltar did surrender to the Cylons and signed the death order, what choice did he have? None, really. He could have refused, they would have killed him, and then went on with their plans anyway. I was also happy to find out that Admiral Adama saw the light and voted for Baltar’s acquittal.

There’s one last bit that I’m wondering about. I know nothing about Sam and Tory’s past, and very little about Tyrol’s, so I’ll skip them and get right to Tigh. We know about Tigh’s past: he’s been in the Colonial Fleet for nearly his whole life, and Bill along with him! So if he’s a Cylon, does that mean Cylons that look like humans grow like real humans? When Cylons have died before, and are then shown being downloaded into a new body, the bodies have been fully developed. We’ve never seen a child Cylon. But if Tigh really is a Cylon, the Cylon human-lookalikes have to be able to grow, otherwise Tigh would have looked exactly the same for the past 40 years while he’s been in the service with Bill.

I hope they have all of this figured out, because currently, from my point of view, it looks like they’ve opened a can of worms they might have needed to leave closed. Any ideas?

Battlestar Galactica: Maelstrom

I just got around to watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, Maelstrom. I’d recorded it to my DVR box Sunday night for some reason or another; anyway…

Wow. What an episode. I’m still a bit shocked over what happened at the end, with Starbuck dying (kind of, anyway; see below). It was certainly not something I was expecting. I’d heard rumors about Katee Sackhoff leaving Battlestar Galactica this season, but I figured if she were going to die, it’d be during the season finale.

Now, having said that… about that dying bit. I’m not totally buying it. What with the “destiny” stuff from the Cylon Loeben, coupled with the mandala thing that Starbuck has been drawing her whole life, I’m quickly starting to think that Starbuck is a Cylon. The text on the last page of the episode guide at Scifi.com is also making my internal speaker yell “Danger, Will Robinson!”:

Now, with her body trapped in a doomed Viper and her mind lost in visions, she must overcome that fear if she is to be whole.

I think if Starbuck were really dead, it’d simply say that she perished, or was killed due to the ship imploding, or something along those lines. But “she must overcome that fear if she is to be whole“? I don’t think Starbuck is really gone; I’m thinking she’s one of the final five Cylons.

Of course, I could be totally wrong: she could be dead, and that could be that. But I really don’t think that’s the case. I’m also hoping that’s not the case; Starbuck is one of my favorite characters on the show. I’ve really enjoyed the character, even if she is a bit puzzling at times. She’s not too hard on the eyes, either.

Battlestar Galactica – Still good, but dragging a bit.

Last night I watched Battlestar Galactica, A Day in the Life. It was a fairly good episode. It explored the relationship between Chief and Cally as it’s progressed (or not) since their child was born, as well as some life history of Adama’s. At the end there was also some good hinting at the fact that Adama and Roslin are going to “get together” (I suddenly feel like I’m talking about Grey’s Anatomy).  It was cool to get to know Adama a bit more, and to see into his past. Cally and Chief’s story was interesting as well, even though I find Cally to be quite irritating. (Is that just me or is her character just supposed to be annoying?)

While it was a good episode, I’ve gotta’ say: it’s not as good as the season started out.

Season 3 started out with some amazing episodes. Occupation, Precipice, and both parts of Exodus were absolutely excellent. I think every fan of BSG probably still remembers when Galactica dropped into orbit, launched the Vipers, and then jumped out again; it was a pretty cool moment. While the show is still pretty good, the past few episodes (and really, this season as a whole after the huge bang of a beginning) have kind of been dragging. The episodes themselves aren’t bad, it’s just I’m starting to feel like the creators of the show don’t know where to go with it now. The humans have gotten away from the Cylons for now, and it has been 49 days since the last contact. They’ve captured Baltar, but haven’t yet started his trial. It seems we’re just kind of jumping from one stand alone plot to another: Chief and Cally in the airlock, the racist doctor who was killing patients, the Colonial Pilot who escaped from the Cylons. What ever happened to that guy, Bulldog? He escaped from the Cylons, he damn near killed Adama, and then, apparently, he disappeared. A whole episode devoted to him just for him to never be seen again? Bleh, I say.

I wish the makers of the show would get back to how the storyline was moving in Season 2: lots of fighting between the humans and Cylons, and lots of major plot developments. While Season 3 is coming along alright, the main plot is dragging, or perhaps just.. stuck, completely. Where are they on finding Earth? When is the trial for Baltar going to begin? What’s the deal with Starbuck’s past, which was hinted at very briefly, a few episodes back? Quit introducing new, mostly extraneous stuff and give us some juicy plot bits, folks. Please.

Battlestar Galactica: Rapture

Last night was the return (finally!) of Battlestar Galactica, after over a month of waiting. It was quite a comeback episode! If you’ve not seen it yet, I highly recommend you stop reading here, because there are some spoilers below!

There were a few things in this episode, ‘Rapture’, that really blew me away. The first one was when Apollo asked Dualla, his wife, to go after Starbuck, the very woman who is probably going to destroy Apollo and Dualla’s marriage. Talk about a slap in the face. D. was clearly upset, but went ahead and did it. I noticed that when she got to Starbuck, she took a bit of pleasure in stabbing needles of morphine into Starbuck. I can’t say I really blame her. I know I’d be in a rather foul mood if I were in her position.

Helo shooting Athena to send her back to a resurrection ship so she could get their baby seemed a bit off to me. I don’t understand why she didn’t just do it herself. She knew she’d come back, and having Helo shoot her was just throwing more psychological pressure on him. Then again, perhaps that’s where the makers of the show were going. I did, however, like when Helo called Roslin on her lying about the baby (after Roslin said that Helo had endangered the entire fleet). It was about time someone gave her the facts. If she hadn’t ferried the kid into hiding upon birth, they wouldn’t have been in such a situation to begin with. I like Roslin’s character for the most part, but occasionally, I do wish they’d throw her out an airlock.

There was, I must admit, a moment that I literally cheered a “hell yeah!”: when Chief knocked Gaius out with the butt of his gun. I’ve been clamoring for quite a while now for Gaius to get what’s been coming to him. That thud on the back of his head was the first step in that happening. It’s about time the slimeball pays for all of his treachery.

There was one aspect of the show that seemed quite odd to me, namely the “rescue mission” bit, when the sun was getting ready to go supernova. In one scene, Admiral Adama is ordering a rescue mission to be sent out immediately. In the very next scene, the rescue mission is back and everyone is safely aboard. It felt mighty rushed. I think that the writers perhaps wrote too much to fill in an hour, and so they had to snip the actual rescuing. Not a huge deal, but it did come across as rather clunky.

The last bit I’ll write about is D’Anna (Lucy Lawless) being offed by the other Cylons. I suppose she had it come to her: she’d slowly been becoming more and more rebellious towards the other models. While he’s treacherous, I really love the character of Brother Cabil, the Cylon that “shut down” all of the D’Anna models. He seems to have retained a lot of the smartass-ishness of Admiral Al Calavicci of Quantum Leap.

While speaking of D’Anna, I was mighty bummed about not seeing any of the final five Cylons when D’Anna had her vision. I didn’t expect to see all five – I know they’ll drag it out for a while – but they could have given us at least one face, couldn’t they? Maybe let us know if Gaius is a Cylon or not? Or, perhaps even shed some light on that last cryptic bit of the episode with Helo and Starbuck? Is Starbuck a Cylon? I actually thought for a brief moment during Helo and Starbuck’s conversation, that she was going to go haywire, kind of like Sharon did when she shot Adama.

I’m really anxious to see where the plot goes with Starbuck. Her being one of my favorite characters, I’m really getting worried about her leaving the show. I’ve read a few different things about her perhaps leaving; whether it’s permanently or just a break, I don’t know. Either way, if she does end up leaving, I know I won’t like it. Oh well. I suppose there’s one way to end this post on a happy note: we don’t have to wait another month until the next episode.

Battlestar Galactica tonight – don’t forget!

I just wanted to post a quick note to remind you all that the new Battlestar Galactica episode is on tonight at 10PM EST. We’ve waited about a month for this one, so let’s not forget it!

Over a month until the next Battlestar Galactica episode? Gah!

Last night was the last episode of Battlestar Galactica for the year. The episode, The Eye of Jupiter, was an excellent one. It was also one hell of a cliffhanger, which is to be expected from the mid-season finale. I’m spoiled when it comes to BSG cliffhangers, though. When I watched the first 2 seasons of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, I didn’t have to deal with commercials, and I certainly didn’t have to deal with the usual 1 week gap between each episode. If an episode ended in a cliffhanger, if I had the time, why, I just started up the next episode. At worst I had to wait until the next day to check out how the story panned out.

Now here I am, after a knuckle-whitening cliffhanger, having to wait over a month for the next episode. Yes, it’s dismaying: the next episode of Battlestar Galactica won’t be airing until January 21st of 2007. When I heard about this, I very seriously considered crying (but decided against it).

To help me get over my anguish, I’ve written out some thoughts about last night’s episodes. Most definitely spoiler-full (including a few from the preview of the next episode), so don’t read it if you’re anti-spoiler.

• When Gaius Baltar boarded the Galactica with the Cylons, I honestly expected (and wanted) Admiral Adama to punch Baltar in the face. Or perhaps for Laura Roslin to say, “Shoot him out the airlock.” That’s been one of her often-used solutions. Got a problem with someone? Out the airlock with you, ye’ brigand!
• I don’t really know what to think about Lee, cheating on D. with Starbuck. Starbuck I can understand. I love the character, but she’s never exactly been a good girl. Hell, the very foundation of her character is being a badass with a vulnerable side. But Lee? I never saw the cheating coming from him. Of all the character, I probably would have bet on him as not doing it.
• Ending the show with Adama getting ready to nuke the planet is a bit silly. We essentially know that he won’t really nuke the planet. Even if the nukes are launched, they won’t detonate. Half of the main cast is on the ground! Sadly, they ruined the little bit of suspense about that with the preview for the next episode (did I mention it’s not until January 21st?): they showed some of the crew from the ground on Galactica. So we went from “we basically know they won’t nuke the planet and kill half of the cast” to “okay, they just showed the cast on the Galactica, no nukes went off.”
• Speaking of the preview for the next episode, it also showed D. talking to Starbuck, saying that Lee had sent her to save Starbuck. Wow. That’s a bit of a slap in the face, isn’t it? Lee cheats on D. with Starbuck, and then sends D. out to save her? Ouch.
• So is Baltar a Cylon or not? With them bringing it up over and over, and being all mysterious about the 5 unseen Cylons, I’m starting to really consider it. I really hope he isn’t though, because that would mean he could die repeatedly and still be on the show. Just think: a never-ending stream of Baltars. Yuck. I don’t like Baltar at all, can you tell?

Sigh. January 21st of 2007. I wonder, do you all think if I mailed the SciFi channel a dozen times a day, they’d air it early? Yeah, me neither…

Battlestar Galactica: The food question answered (sort of)

I’ve blogged previously about the issue of food on Battlestar Galactica: specifically, where are they getting it? With some 40,000 odd people on the Colonial Fleet, that’s quite a few mouths to feed. Previously I speculated that perhaps they were growing food and raising cattle or poultry on some of the civilian ships. Last night’s episode, The Passage, touched on the food issue. The food on the Colonial Fleet became contaminated, and unless they found food soon, the entire fleet would soon starve. They do find food on a planet, sort of: they find edible algae on a planet beyond a star cluster. It has to be put through their “food processing” machine before its edible.

Based on the episode, does the fleet, after all, harvest food from planets? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t planets that support food edible by humans – particularly plant food, which would produce oxygen – support human life? Which slingshots us back to the question I posed previously: if they’ve passed all of these planets that could support human life, why didn’t they set up shop there? I suppose they might have passed them up simply from fear of the Cylons finding them. As I recall, New Caprica was in a place where (supposedly) the Cylons would never find them. That turned out real well…

Another question that comes up based on last night’s episode is this: if they’re harvesting edible plants from planets for their food source, does that mean the entire fleet is vegetarian? Okay, everyone: tonight’s dinner is cooked algae! Tomorrow’s dinner will be steamed algae. The next night will be….

Technorati Tags: battlestar, bsg

Battlestar Galactica lingo invades Dilbert

When I checked out the Dilbert comic for today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that some Battlestar Galactica lingo invaded:

Granted, he misspelled it (it is, after all, frak and not frack), but I’ll forgive Scott for that. That he used the word at all clearly indicates he’s a cool guy. I wonder if we’ll see the word frak show up more and more in everyday language? I use it all the time, but I am, after all, a Battlestar Galactica junkie.

Technorati Tags: bsg, battlestar

Battlestar Galactica love

Tomorrow is Friday. A month ago ago, I wouldn’t have really cared, other than it was the signal that the weekend was upon us. Now, Friday means something else entirely: a new episode of Battlestar Galactica. My love of the show has grown exponentially since I started watching it. At this point, I’ve watched the miniseries, all of season one, all of season two, and all of the episodes so far in season three. All I’ve got left to watch now are the Webisodes, and I’ll be completely caught up.

I’m curious as to where the storyline is going to go with Colonel Tigh. In episode six of season three, ‘Torn’, Colonel Tigh and Admiral Adama had a bit of a confrontation, when Adama told Tigh to straighten his act up or get the frak off his ship. Tigh responded that the man Adama had known for 30 years didn’t exist anymore, and that Adama wouldn’t be seeing him around anymore. When I first saw this, I thought that perhaps Tigh would commit suicide. That’s rather doubtful though (but not entirely out of the question, I suppose). I’d say that he might get cleaned up and lose the booze, but that’s even more unlikely: the mean alcoholic is basically Tigh’s character. Take away the booze and I think his character would deflate like a popped balloon. Maybe he could lose some of the anger and bile that Adama mentioned, and just be a nice alcoholic? After his fair performance on New Caprica as one of the resistance leaders, I could see him being a decent ship commander, if he’d just lose that crappy attitude towards.. just about everyone.

There’s something else I’m curious about, something which I mentioned in a previous post about Battlestar Galactica: where are they getting their food? In the first two seasons, they had episodes that covered the issue of water, as well as the issue of fuel to keep the fleet moving. They have yet to explain where they’re getting all of that food. Granted, at the start of season three, there’s around 40,000 humans left (as opposed to the 50,000 at the beginning of the show), but still: 40,000 mouths is still quite a lot of mouths to be feeding on a daily basis. They can’t be harvesting it from planets they go by, because any planets that produce livestock / vegetation would be able, in theory, to support human life. In which case, the question of “why didn’t they set up shop there, long before getting to New Caprica?” pops up. Are they growing food on Cloud 9? If the fake sunlight produced there can make folks tan, I suppose it could make plants grow, too. Do they have a whole ship devoted to raising cattle or chickens, KFC style? I can’t even really think of what they’ve eaten throughout the show. There have been a few scenes in the mess hall area on Galactica, where it showed people eating, but I can’t remember what it was they were chomping on. Anyone know off hand? Or perhaps, judging by how often characters are shown doing so, most of the people in the fleet don’t eat, and instead, exist solely by drinking whiskey? In which case… where are they getting all of the grain to make said whiskey?