That's what bothered me about Sirius's death too. Surprise Veil of Death! Who would have guessed? Now, if she'd set up the HP universe to include frequent, seemingly random deaths from Book 1, it would have fit right in, and we'd all be surprised when it turned out to have greater significance (er, assuming DH does show that). In that case, we would have had a constant fear from the end of PoA onward that Sirius would die, and every time he was almost caught while Flooing Harry or started getting reckless, our fear would ratchet up. Then his death would have come at the end of that buildup and been awful. Or as you say, she could have just introduced the Veil earlier somehow. As it is, we start getting a build-up that Sirius is reckless and might get himself in trouble, but then he dies because he falls through a mystical portal. Huh? I mean, his recklessness contributed a little, since he wasn't quite taking Bellatrix seriously enough, but she could have gotten off a lucky shot anyway, so it isn't a strong enough link.
The best movie ever for Chekov's Gun Rule is Shaun of the Dead. When I saw that for the first time, I told my parents, "Oh, this is going to be a smart spoofy movie! Look, there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the movie. They're going to take it down later to shoot zombies." And of course that's exactly what happens.
I'm hoping S4 of BSG will bring back the show I love. It is really disturbing the way they've set up Kara's backstory to "justify" her character, and almost started showing it as a good thing (it made her tough!). Yuck. What about Tigh, then? Why doesn't he need the same justification for his drinking? (Well, maybe he had a reason now, but who knows how they'll handle that). They sort of started giving Baltar a background (he claims he grew up a poor farmboy on Aerelon and has only been posing as a posh Caprican), but we don't know whether it's true, and they haven't used it to "explain" why he is the way he is.
I think part of the problem with BSG is that they didn't plan it out much beyond the first half of S2 or so. Once they started making more of it up as they went along, they fell back on cliches more. Like Lee apologizing to Lampkin for the co-ed bathrooms, when from everything we've seen, that's the normal state of affairs everywhere. At least it was in the Cloud Nine. Bah. Maybe since this is the last season, they'll plan it out better.
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Date: 2007-07-07 10:38 pm (UTC)The best movie ever for Chekov's Gun Rule is Shaun of the Dead. When I saw that for the first time, I told my parents, "Oh, this is going to be a smart spoofy movie! Look, there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the movie. They're going to take it down later to shoot zombies." And of course that's exactly what happens.
I'm hoping S4 of BSG will bring back the show I love. It is really disturbing the way they've set up Kara's backstory to "justify" her character, and almost started showing it as a good thing (it made her tough!). Yuck. What about Tigh, then? Why doesn't he need the same justification for his drinking? (Well, maybe he had a reason now, but who knows how they'll handle that). They sort of started giving Baltar a background (he claims he grew up a poor farmboy on Aerelon and has only been posing as a posh Caprican), but we don't know whether it's true, and they haven't used it to "explain" why he is the way he is.
I think part of the problem with BSG is that they didn't plan it out much beyond the first half of S2 or so. Once they started making more of it up as they went along, they fell back on cliches more. Like Lee apologizing to Lampkin for the co-ed bathrooms, when from everything we've seen, that's the normal state of affairs everywhere. At least it was in the Cloud Nine. Bah. Maybe since this is the last season, they'll plan it out better.