{"id":44669,"date":"2023-05-03T09:06:56","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T16:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=44669"},"modified":"2023-05-03T09:06:56","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T16:06:56","slug":"almost-everyone-gets-battlestar-galactica-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/05\/almost-everyone-gets-battlestar-galactica-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"(Almost) Everyone Gets Battlestar Galactica Wrong…."},"content":{"rendered":"

The most cited article I\u2019ve ever written was also my first professional publication: \u201cWhy Your Mormon Neighbor Knows More About This Shows Than You Do\u201d in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy <\/em>from Open Court Press (not to be confused with the Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy <\/em>from Blackwell Press).<\/p>\n

One reason I wrote that article was that while there were a few scattered articles, websites, and other venues that acknowledged LDS\/Mormon influence on the original show (and the faint traces of it in the more recent version), nearly all of them got something wrong \u2013 often egregiously so.
\n
\nAnd while my essay has been cited a few times since then, it doesn\u2019t seem to have improved matters much.\u00a0 A quick survey of BSG related academic work shows most scholars who write on this stuff have not read my essay. Since there\u2019s not a whole lot written on the topic, ignorance is no excuse; many just aren\u2019t doing the da[ng] research.\u00a0 However, there are some happy exceptions here and there.<\/p>\n

However, the history of writing on BSG and \u201cMormonism is overall a dismal one. In Smart Pop\u2019s So Say We All<\/em>, for example, the only essay that deals with Mormonism and the show is so terrible I have to believe the actual editors (as opposed to the celebrity guest editor Richard Hatch who likely had nothing to do with selecting or fact checking any of the essays) just didn\u2019t care about quality or truth.\u00a0 That essay uses a very clearly anti-Mormon book One Nation Under Gods<\/em> to argue the new BSG is closer to LDS theology because the Colonials are polytheistic and Mormons also worship multiple gods (which \u2013 well, we could get into debates about monotheism vs. henotheism, but even if you claim we\u2019re really henotheistic, we are not in any practical sense polytheistic, since we don\u2019t \u201cworship\u201d multiple gods).<\/p>\n

The first academic article to really make any hay of the issue of Mormonism and BSG was back in 1983, when BYU professor James E. Ford published “Battlestar Galactica” and Mormon Theology\u201d in the Journal of Popular Culture<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s fairly good, even if all he does is just point out the similarities between the show and LDS theology (he doesn\u2019t really do much with it beyond that).\u00a0 However, it\u2019s clear he didn\u2019t double check his details or have a copy edit of any sort \u2013 James Talmage is called \u201cTalmade\u201d and the character Baltar is called \u201cBoltar.\u201d\u00a0 However, his most interesting claim (one I disagree with) is that the use of LDS theology in the show come across as \u201cgeneralized and philosophied [sic].\u201d<\/p>\n

This is much like Orson Scott Card\u2019s claim that BSG is no more than superficially LDS. This may even seem true, as An Analytical Guide to Television Battlestar Galactica<\/em> only mentions Mormonism in passing twice, once to call series creator Glen A. Larson a \u201cformer Mormon\u201d and another to mention he was raised Mormon.\u00a0 While the book is otherwise exhaustive on detailing myth, folklore, and other raw material for the worldbuilding of the show, somehow LDS theology just never figures into this analytical guide. On the other hand, if you read my essay, I argue that the original series is, at its core, quite \u201cMormon\u201d but that because it\u2019s in a deep layer and most people are quite ignorant of LDS theology and belief, later writers and creators (especially in the comics and novels that try to continue the original series) either ignore it completely or get it bizarrely wrong.<\/p>\n

As one final note, I have never been able to track down series creator Glen A. Larson\u2019s status as a Church Member. Attempts to contact him directly never went anywhere.\u00a0 One source refers to him as a \u201cformer Mormon\u201d, yet I have had a few people (online, so you know you can totally trust them!) who said they had met him that he was either active or inactive or indifferent or even outright apostate.\u00a0 Schrodinger\u2019s Mormon, I guess.<\/p>\n

However, here is a copy of the program from his funeral, for those interested:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most cited article I\u2019ve ever written was also my first professional publication: \u201cWhy Your Mormon Neighbor Knows More About This Shows Than You Do\u201d in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy from Open Court Press (not to be confused with the Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy from Blackwell Press). One reason I wrote that article was that while there were a few scattered articles, websites, and other venues that acknowledged LDS\/Mormon influence on the original show (and the faint traces of it in the more recent version), nearly all of them got something wrong \u2013 often egregiously so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1254,53,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-latter-day-saint-thought","category-arts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44670,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44669\/revisions\/44670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}