Mely says it best. Despite the inadequacies of execution, I do want to say a word about what could be an interesting play on the male hero narrative. Ordinarily, in action/sf stories like this, we encounter a young man, bright and talented perhaps but also shiftless, afraid of commitment, underachieving. Then everything goes to hell and he discovers his best self, emerging at the end a man of character. It's a venerable pattern.
What could be really cool about Lee's story is that we met him just as everything went to hell; we as audience know him only in his hero-role. I like the idea that he was a lesser man before this, and we just don't know it because of our context, even as I think the execution was botched from the get-go. It would have been nice, perhaps, to meet someone from his past other than Kara and his dad -- maybe a civilian -- who has all sorts of once-accurate beliefs about him. What looks like growth when we see the whole process may look like multiple personality disorder if we meet the hero first.
What could be really cool about Lee's story is that we met him just as everything went to hell; we as audience know him only in his hero-role. I like the idea that he was a lesser man before this, and we just don't know it because of our context, even as I think the execution was botched from the get-go. It would have been nice, perhaps, to meet someone from his past other than Kara and his dad -- maybe a civilian -- who has all sorts of once-accurate beliefs about him. What looks like growth when we see the whole process may look like multiple personality disorder if we meet the hero first.