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Chief Petty
During the sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica’s third season finale, the song “All Along The Watchtower” by Bob Dylan reverberated around the heads of the four humanoid Cylons, Colonel Saul Tigh, Samuel Anders, Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol and Tory Foster. Many followers of the series have speculated about the use of the song and one guess is that the song was used as a way to show that that human beings like Lieutenant Athena and the Cylons are actually just forty light years away from Earth.
To make this hypothesis more believable, one would have to make more supplementary assumptions. First, it would have to be assumed that the song is some kind of radio wave being transmitted from a satellite. Second, the satellite might have been created to circle a particular planet in order to receive frequencies, which will in turn be sent back to Cylon hardware only. If the song can only be heard by Cylons, then that suggests that the satellite was created by the Cylons in order to further their search for the Blue Planet.
Taking all of this into account, what then is the relevance of the Bob Dylan tune? Well, contrary to what many have believed about where the meaning of a song can be found, the relevance may actually be found on the date the song was created rather than what the song is saying. Stepping into actual history for a moment, Bob Dylan wrote “All Along the Watchtower” after he survived a motorcycle accident, and it was released towards the end of 1967. Now, going back to the world of Battlestar Galactica, supposing that the show is taking place in real time, then it reinforces the fact that Earth is a short distance away. If this were true, then the Cylons are actually inching closer and closer to their desired destination.
Confusing as it might be, this hypothesis is quite interesting. It certainly provides a different perspective, but if you take into consideration what the show’s composer, Bear McCreary, said about his selection of the song, the aforementioned hypothesis would immediately lose its strength. McCreary said in his online journal that when he chose the particular song, he was told not to make it sound anything close to the original or any remake thereof. In addition, the composer chronicled his process of reinventing the song to make it sound less Earthly and more galactic. If this is the case, then the song the Cylons heard was not Dylan’s original recording, and therefore could not have been the year 1967 in Earth.
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For more info about Battlestar Galactica or especially about Battlestar Galactica – The Bob Dylan Connection please review this website http://www.buddytv.com
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