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Stargate Universe
Last night I finally scraped together the two hours to watch the premiere of Stargate Universe. Since the last two series really ran their course and deserved to end, I was skeptical. At first blush it appears that the show is just Atlantis + Voyager, shot in the documentary style that practically every sci-fi show since Firefly uses. But I enjoyed it, and figured we should have a place to discuss it. The TV landscape needs more real, good sci-fi: there's not a lot of it left, even on the moronically renamed Syfy channel. But maybe this one will have a solid season. I just hope that future episodes don't have so many commercials. I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
Firefly wasn't shot documentary style, the special effects had some panning and zooming that first started in star wars episode II
One way to get rid of many of the advertisements is to watch it on Hulu. Granted you have to wait before episoded become available and the entire season of a given show isn't always available, but in general it's a lot better than sitting through lots of useless advertisements.
Justify my text? I'm sorry, but it has no excuse.
I liked the show... but they they still need some thinking writers. Why not use a "Keno" to close the hatch?!
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
Stargate: Why simply beat a dead horse where it lay, when you can transport it anywhere in the universe?
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
I'd still like to see a B5 feature film. Too bad that JMS hasn't been up to it since the passing of Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs. I still think that B5 is rather underrated/unknown in the general population (although it has a large following here on /.) and suspect that it could do very well at the box office with the right storyline.
I've watched a lot of Sci-Fi but I always wind up coming back to B5. It's the only series that I care enough about to invest the money to buy up all the DVDs. I can still pick up new things when I re-watch the series. How do you go wrong with characters like Londo, G'Kar and Garibaldi?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Who still wastes their time watching commercials?
I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
Yeah really, luckily I watched it via DVR after it had started recording for at least 40 minutes before I began watching it. I haven't seen so many badly (and annoying) placed commercial breaks in a pilot airing since the Star Trek: Enterprise premier. After getting a 720p torrent of the show and then watching it again, it is far more enjoyable (Thanks SiTV!).
This space is not for rent.
It's taken alot of stuff from Battlestar Galactica and Lost - not nescesarilly a bad thing - The previous series rather relaxed attitude to Sci-fi is still there, albeit reigned back slightly in favour of what seems to be a more character-oriented series. Notably the lack of any 'big bad' in the first episode bodes well for the focus being on internal struggle rather than on any kind of external threat.
One of my biggest gripes with the final series of SG-1 (and most of Atlantis) was the reliance on Deus Ex Machina to save the day (Especially in the closing episode of Atlantis) and the constant ressurection of characters through various means, Dr Beckett's clone, Dr Wier's seemingly endless robot clones and Daniel Jackson's repeated Ascensions/Falls.
Stargate's been one of my favourite series since I was a teenager (I've been watching SG-1 since series 3, and having watched Series 1 and 2 on repeats) - The audience has grown up, but the show really hasn't. SGU will hopefully fulfil that role, without alienating any newcomers
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Call me out of touch, but this is actually the first stargate thing I have seen since the original movie.
So it transports matter well, I get that (humans and objects can move through), but what about air? Couldn't they just open the new gate to any planet with a good atmosphere and just top up the ship with breathable air?
The people I was roped into watching this with kept shouting at me to stop picking on it, but I want to know how they are limiting this thing...
"oh yes you can put any matter you want though it so long as it is solid or liquid" but then how do their bodies get through it when all the air is displaced out of their lungs?
...
All the contrived, pointless tropes of Stargate with none of the cheeky self-deprecating humor.
Also, Gaius Baltar has no place in the Stargate Universe. Honestly, practically every sentence that came out of Robert Carlyle's mouth it felt like he was being fed his lines by an invisible woman in a red dress. Only he wasn't. His character just has zero definition, and there's no way to sympathize with him.
Sadly, it's all we have.
as explained in season 1 of SG-1, particles (such as air)are kept from traveling through the event horizon by the cool ancient technology as a way to help protect both ends from the environment on the other side.
I didn't like it. Seemed as if they rounded up the disfunctional people; from military personnel with discipline issues to an MMO geek who's living with his mom (who seems like a Wesley Crusher stand in for the show), and decided they'd be an exciting group of people to sail across the universe on a ship that's about as functional as its crew. I find the makeup of the "crew" absurd, and expect they'll spend the time SG-1 would have used to explore the galaxy, make friends, and fight bad guys to backstab each other and generally angst their way across the universe. Say what you will, but with Jack, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel doing their job, I felt like the people of their universe could at least know they had quality people on the line. Even the Atlantis group seemed to be made of folks with extraoridinary levels of competency in their fields. These guys...well...these guys open sealed doors with flashing red lights on busted up spaceships.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
Personally I look forward to every episode in the stargate series. I was a big fan of SG1 for a while, and while I didn't like atlantis at first, I eventually did- realizing that it was its own thing.
At first I was kind of scared with the direction they were taking it with stargate universe. I don't like watching drama shows. I thought back to the new battlestar galactica- which was okay- but honestly not my favorite series.
I just hope they don't try too hard to copy what battlestar galactica did. I kind of have the feeling that they want to- given the similarities of characters- Nicholas Rush is a over emotional long haired scientist guy who is possibly evil possibly insane- just like gaius baltar. I have a feeling that they're trying to adama-fy Col. Everett Young- but that wont work. Edward James Olmos defined that character. They cant duplicate him.
What i'm hoping is that they will realize they're going to fail if they copy another series, and they warp the characters a bit so that they're not the same. I'm hoping that once they do that- i'll lose the sour taste in my mouth.
Anyway- I do like the gamer dude- Eli Wallace- but I feel like it was kind of an obvious ploy of them to put him in- they know most of the people who watch the show are fat male gamers who went to college (like myself). Regardless- that should inject some humor into the series- and that is the main reason I loved the series- because of the witty comic relief- like when Jack O'neal made some wise crack at the big scary aliens- or when Rodney Mckay yelled at the other characters for forgetting something that was blatently obvious to the viewer- but would've been left in the background in any "first generation" sci fi series - like startrek and such.
Anyway- I feel like i've geeked out enough for one blurb, I may as well be the fat comic book guy at this point- so i'll cut my blurb short.
The ship has been flying a lot longer than the Ancients planned. That's because they learned to ascend, and never ended up using the ship.
When they were digging through the supplies which came from Earth, there were Ancient crates right there too. So not only have they not looked all over the ship, but they've not even opened boxes which they've seen.
1. Scientists are evil scheming power hungry liars that screw everything up.
2. Politicians are selfless and caring human beings who will gladly give up their lives for you.
3. Thirty year old gamers living with their mom are solving for the Grand Unified Theory by playing Warcraft 18 hours a day.
Well, at least they didn't leave out the patronization.
*sigh* to me it feels like the era of good science fiction is over.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
There are many things that make B5 awesome, but the single most compelling reason for its awesomeness is the cohesive storyline. It is the only video (tv/movie) that feels like you are watching a book. Great arc episodes, fantastic writing of dialog, and growth of characters that you have never seen before make it unique and memorable in TV history.
The StarGate Universe however has always felt like a high-school writing class in comparison. SG:U could develop into a good show, and as my TV sci-fi choices are limited I will watch it.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
My thoughts exactly - it's Voyager (Stuck in the middle of nowhere) + Sliders (Limited time window to explore planets without any control of which ones).
That's not to say it's bad - I enjoyed the first episode(s), apart from the annoying flashback (they'd better be one-offs because if it turns into Lost then I'm out) and I think it's got a lot of potential if they're clever about it.
One thing that gets me though; the ancients built thousands of Stargates with 9 chevrons - 6 co-ordinates, 1 point of origin, 1 "area code", 1 apparently special one - and then only ever use the 9th one to allow them to get from one specific Stargate (that was seemingly in the wrong place) to one specific ship. Why the hell didn't they just give the ship its own "area code" instead?
Can't believe I'm being this nerdy but everything you mention there is consistent in the show's canon :)
As you push things into the event horizon, they are dematerialised and stored in a buffer in the stargate - so if you stick the staff weapon (or your head) halfway in it's not "there" any more. Once the stargate decides the whole object is inside, it sends the data in the buffer to the other stargate via Sci Fi Awesomeness. It's sorta established that this is *not* instant. When the data gets there, the receiving stargate receives it into the buffer, and once the whole object is in the buffer, rematerialises it out of the event horizon.
So what happens when you shut the gate off depends what stage in this process you are at: if you shut off while a object is partly into the stargate then the bit in the stargate vanishes, no part of it was sent yet (the other half I guess is left in the buffer, but the buffer gets cleared when the gate connection *opens* at least). If you shut off while the 'signal' is in transit between the gates then you get the materialising in space scenario, which rematerialises it without its actual structure (just dumps the fundamental particles back out into 'reality'). Teal'c gets trapped in the buffer because the gate is malfunctioning and is refusing to rematerialise the objects it receives; they have to get him out before anyone else dials into the gate because this will clear the buffer and destroy his stored pattern.
So yah, it basically does transmit each object as a single "packet", but there is a buffering phase inside the stargate at each end to allow this, and the gates don't bother to push partially buffered objects back out if the connection is cut (guess the ancients weren't too big on safety).
You need to get yourself a girlfriend.
A girlfriend with a MythTV box.
Hey, as long as we're fantasizing here, might as well go for broke...
I watched it without reading a single review or press release. I had no expectations of what was to come. Warning some vague spoilers may be below.
Within 5 minutes it is clear that this is an attempt to graft BSG onto SG and in an attempt to milk both fan bases for the combined monetary gain. No doubt this idea seems brilliant in the board room.
But the execution is the worse of both worlds. It sucks all the fun, and chemistry among lovable characters out of Stargate and replaces it with a superficial BSG veneer of angry distrust and melodrama. Nothing is left of Stargate, but the gate mechanism and some tired cameos.
The have nothing of BSG world that made it great. Instead they assume dark, dire, angry, whiny = deep. It doesn't. It just equals annoying.
This seems like what you would get if your made your writers watch a few episodes of BSG and make a list of BSG items. Then crib the ones you can get away with (IE nothing to do with Cylons).
So we get dark dingy sets, angry distrusting characters, angry mob scenes, obligatory pointless sex scene, heavy flashback, heavy melodrama. None of the the heart and soul from either show.
After seeing this appear to be a cheap BSG knockoff a quick bit of googling revealed that they at least admit this is what they were trying to do.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/08/tca-press-tour-stargate-universe-producers-aiming-for-battlestar-galacticalevel-quality.html
"creators of "Stargate Universe," the upcoming spinoff of the long-running "Stargate SG-1," took the stage today, panelists promised a fresh, more "Battlestar"-like take on the space opera."
I am annoyed by the cynicism and lack of originality in trying to give Stargate a BSG makeover and by the end result which felt like punishment to watch.
YMMV of course. Some people apparently loved it.