http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/en...nell-olmos.html
Interview that expands on the ending. It's pretty long. Interesting thoughts. Prior to reading this I had jotted down a few of my own thoughts, which I posted to a different forum. The copypasta is below, if you feel like reading over my own ponderings.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The end is a biblical reference. The society of the colonies was corrupted. The sequences we saw of their lives before the end showed their discontent and contempt of their situations. Adama was disgusted by the military protocol. Roslyn with her own life and the political situation. Lee and Kara felt some connection, but Zach stood in the way—it was wrong. The cyclons initiated the Apocolypse. The survivors endured a sort of purgatory. Chased and harried by the “demons” of their past, they fled and suffered greatly. The average colonist lived in some dank ships hull on rations and hard labor. Discontent reigned and their old ways gradually fell apart. They lost their colonial identities and old beliefs and allegiances. They were culled to a chosen few, suffered false prophecy and false hopes, and eventually came to their redemption. Even Baltar was redeemed in the end, going back to the “innocence” of farming.
That’s what new Earth is. Bad anthropology, but good mythology. It’s a new beginning. A garden of Eden, mitochondrial Eve and all. Humankind was purged of its sins and given a fresh start. They cast off their “wicked” ways (technology) and began anew. For the colonists it was probably pretty easy to choose: stay on the ships with low/no supplies and sporadic government (if any) by military/force and continue worrying about cylons or whatever else, or “go native” on the new planet. They also saw how cylon Earth ended up. And new Caprica. Why rebuild again (and with what?) when on-ship you are down to the “last tube of toothpaste?” And that was in the military supplies, which are probably a lot better off than the civilians.
IMO that’s what the ending was about. Redemption and a new beginning. From the end of the world to the beginning. Again.
In regards to the cylons. Cavil is the devil figure. He is pure technology. He fails to see that the “resurrection” Hera promises is a resurrected human race on new Earth, not cylon resurrection. His suicide is a petty act of spite. H refuses to be taken alive or be killed by another. It’s a final act of control.
Starbuck is the harbinger of death for the cylons. Her crash landing on cylon Earth led to the death of all those cylons. Perhaps her presence triggered a civil war. Maybe it fractured some peace they had. The arrival of an alien life caused mistrust to bloom.