Editing Podcast:Occupation

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|download link= http://media.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/mp3/301-302/bsg_ep301_302_FULL.mp3

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|transcribed by= [[User:Steelviper|Steelviper]]

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|rdm= Y

|mrsron= Y

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This whole bit with [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]] and the eye. In the initial draft, the first draft I was wri- backing up one step, beyond that. In the story outline, before the draft, there was no mention of this. This wasn't something we ever discussed in the writer's room. It just- we didn't really talk about [[James Lyman|Jammer]] later being a suicide bomber. This was something, as I was writing, I was a writing the teleplay and I was getting to scenes where we were starting to talk about how horrible the Cylon occupation had been and why they were fighting back and that there was a real strong sense of rage and injustice from some of the humans. And I realized quickly that you needed to dramatize that. You needed someone who had suffered under the yolk of the Cylons. And various little possibilities slipped back and forth in my mind and I was like, "Tigh is probably- or definitely the leader of the insurgency and the resistance, as the military leader, and so maybe he suffered. Maybe they got him. Maybe they shot him, so he has a bullet wound or something." And then that seemed unsatisfying. And then I started thinking about, well, "No, he should be-". I wanted Tigh to be a visible reminder of the cost that so many people had paid in the C- not only in the Cylon occupation of New Caprica but even further than that. Ever since the show began, all these people have been wounded in one way or another and I wanted some- I realized that if Tigh lost an eye, not a limp, not like a gunshot, not a heart thing. He loses an eye. He's maimed. He's visibly disabled. I though that's a powerful thing to have happen to one of your main characters and also that he is then the symbol of all their losses. And you would never be able to get away with it. You would always be faced with the fact that these people have paid a price, and that Tigh would walk around as a walking billboard that reminds you, "Some of us have paid a heavy price. We have all been hurt in one way or another." That that was something that would carry on through the show.

RDM: No. No one even really complains about it, anymore. I can turn it up a little bit, down low, there.

This is very tedious stuff. This was some of the worst days I think they had on the set, were shooting these Cylon scenes in ''[[Colonial One]]'' 'cause a, ''Colonial One'' is no one's favorite set. I have been begged, repeatedly to destroy ''Colonial One'' by the production team, on many occasions.

Anyway, this stuff, this shooting the Cylon- these Cylons- double Cylons, triple Cylons in this set. They just all hated me for it because essentially everyone hates shooting in ''Colonial One''. The ceilings are low and awkward. The lighting scheme is not the greatest one. [[Stephen McNutt|Steve McNutt]], our [[Wikipedia:Cinematographer|DP]], just would love to burn this set down. Then add on top of that the difficulty of doing all these splits, and all these cross moves, and all these- lots of blu- green-screen and visual effects setups and that's very time consuming and it's all very technical and the actors have to do it many, many times in both positions and then there's all these continuity issues and eyelines and it's just like a complete pain in the ass thing. And so of course I gave them like four pages of dialogue to cover (Laughs) in a set like, we kept doing that trick throughout.

This is the scene I was talking about earlier. This is the- I literally just wrote this intercut on the page. I just started writing the dialogue and how would you reveal the- it was like an exercise in my head. It was, ok there's a secret here and the secret is that somebody's going on a suicide mission, and I don't wanna say even what that's what it is specifically. I don't want it to be known that it's a suicide bomb. I just want a sense of dread and that they're about to do something that will fundamentally change things. And I just started writing this little dialectic, this little back and forth between [[Galen Tyrol|Tyrol]] and [[Saul Tigh|Tigh]]. And then seeing the man actually, the recruitment itself, out on the field. There's a whole sequence coming up in part II, in "[[Precipice]]" that has to do with the [[oracle]], [[Amanda Plummer]], and when [[Number Three|D'anna]] goes to see Amanda Plummer. That was all part of this teaser,  the act one of "[[Occupation]]". That's the way it was written. It was one of the many, like I said before, there were many stories I was trying to touch on in act one. Laura's ended up getting moved into the second act. D'anna and the oracle got moved all the way into the second hour. But, that only comes up here because part of the backstory to what's going on here is that [[Tucker Clellan|Duck]]- Duck says, in one of the cuts that he had seen the oracle and he has nothing to live for, and this was all playing and D'anna had just come from the oracle as well and a lot of these scenes were also interacting with D'anna and her- the fallout of her going to the oracle to be told that she will hold [[Hera|the baby]] in her arms and know true love. And so all these scenes were designed around that storyline as well.

This idea was something that we talked about quite a bit in the writers room, that Adama last season was already on a path to have a "special relationship" with Sharon. That he was already bringing her into his quarters and asking her advice like he did in ''Pegasus''. And that given a year, a year goes by where these two characters were aboard ''Galactica'' almost by themselves for a very long time, for like a year. She had her husban- had Helo, obviously, who became her husband, and he- his son was up there, but his son was on the other ship, and the ship started to empty out. Adama let a lot of people muster out and the reasons why he let people muster out will be covered in a later episode. But ''Galactica'' had become like "a house where all the children have gone home", and somebody will track down that quote, but that in that context with nothing to do, really, and they were just like punching holes in space and going 'round and 'round the planet for days on end and most of the people that he'd become close to were now gone, were now living their lives down on the planet, that Adama would more and more find himself in a dialogue with Sharon, with the vision of the woman that shot him. Not the literal one, 'cause that was the other Sharon, for those of you keeping score, but that he had started the relationship with this woman and that he would continue it and that he would give her more privileges. In fact, when I wrote the description of the cell, it was like, the "lifer" that had gotten special privileges from the warden and she has curtains, and she has things, and material in there, and it's a "comfortable" existence down in her cell. And I started to believe that after a year, these two who would talk, day after day by themselves, would form a very special bond and that that bond would actually have transcended the fact that he knows that she's a [[Cylons (RDM)|Cylon]] and that she can turn on him at any moment. That there was a part of him as a human being that wanted to believe in her, that does want to believe in her. I think that's one of the- that's one of the optimistic ideas of this show. People are always talking about how dark the show is, but to me the show has high ideals within a very dark situation. I think that Adama, this man who has gone through so much, has witnessed so much, has had to rise above so much, and so much tragedy and horror was caused by the Cylons, but there's a part of him that wants to believe that he can talk to Sharon. That he can trust Sharon. That Sharon's a person. That Sharon is someone that he can have a relationship with. He still wants to believe that. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. I think that's ultimately an optimistic view of humanity.

This stuff with Lee and Dualla. This was the subject of much discussion of how the storyline was gonna go. The original story here was that it wasn't gonna be just that Dualla is calling him out and  saying that he's gotten soft, but that Dualla herself had also gotten soft. That she had lost a step. That she was off her game. That their lives aboard ''Pegasus'' had turned into something miserable and they had really fallen into laziness and fallen into a lot of bad habits. That they were unhappy and one of the results of this arc was going to be, when all is said and done, after the rescue, after people get back on ''Galactica'', and I'm not giving anything away by saying people getting back on ''Galactica'', I think we're all adults. We all know that it's gonna happen. But after everybody got back to ''Galactica'' there was going to be a change in what Lee and Dualla do with their lives. They were gonna become much more spartan. They were gonna become [[Colonial Marine Corps|marines]]. They were gonna become really hard core. That they were gonna become razors. That that was gonna be their new mission. That they had learned something and been shamed by what had happened to them in that year off, and that when the dust had finally settled they were gonna make some changes and they were gonna become hard core. And we tried a couple versions of that in script and it just didn't play. I never liked it entirely and I don't think we ever cracked it, so we didn't do it.

This thing with getting the message from the [[Raptor]]. This also was something discussed in the initial break. How this was gonna work. What the rules of it would be. As always, [[David Weddle|David]] and [[Bradley Thompson|Bradley]], two of the writers on the show, were instrumental in figuring out a lot of these kinds of things. They're really knowledgeable in terms of military procedure and protocol and I know Brad has several friends and acquaintances that are in the military and he talks to pilots and he is a pilot and he knows a lot of the stuff, so a lot of these things were run by them first.

I like that. (Laughs.) I don't know why. I just like the way that that's phrased. "Have hope. We're coming for you." That seemed like a very simple message that you'd leave these guys. And this, this is like a really odd way to end this scene, I have to tell ya, but I love it. That Adama stands there and just says, "It's gonna be ok. It's really gonna be ok." And it say- on some level it's a weak moment, 'cause it's not like- it's essentially saying that he didn't always know that it was gonna be ok, and he's not the all-confident guy and that there's a part of him that's really relieved and really, whew, almost emotional about the fact that it's all gonna be ok. But that's why I like it. 'Cause it's an unexpected move to make with your lead, with your hero. So much tv is just, and film, is just predicated on the idea that the hero must always be strong. Hero cannot show weakness. That the hero- and when he does show weakness it's just such a noble thing that he's weak.  

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RDM: No. There's like, there's frailties and there's things that real heroes do that make them human. I think you can show that.

 

The bi- the [[Gaius Baltar|Baltar]]-[[Number Six|Six]] storyline that starts there is actually had started earlier in the original draft and the scene that is now in the second part, in "[[Precipice]]", where they're in bed and they wake up and they're having problems. That was actually, embarrassing enough, also in act one (Laughs.) of "[[Occupation]]". So you can see that "Occupation" began life as a very bloated act one where I was doing so many different things. And act two got kicked all the way down the line into the next episode.

Terry: Now you gotta get them all riled up.

This is as dark as the show gets. I mean, this is really putting it out there. When I was writing this stuff, I was writing this stuff with the suicide bombing, and there's Duck, and I was like emotionally caught up in it, really. It was tripping me out a bit as I was writing these scenes of him standing in the police ranks, h- we know he's got the belt on. What's he gonna do? And then, oh my god, he actually does it. I mean, it's really- it's really horrifying stuff. But it's true. That's why I want to do it. It really happens. People do this. Look at this.