Stargate Universe 829
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
Firefly wasn't shot documentary style, the special effects had some panning and zooming that first started in star wars episode II
Re:firefly (Score:4, Funny)
Are you trying to imply Firefly was some sort of fiction?
Hulu? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hulu? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hulu? (Score:5, Insightful)
I downloaded the 720p High Definition Bit Torrent version Saturday morning and watched it with commercial free with my friends that evening.
The SiFy logo and animated banners, however, are still annoying.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're probably of the LCD generation but go and set up a CRT with interlaced scanning and get back to us when you figure out that viewing 540-line fields is inferior to a progressive scanned image.
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Personally, I think it's more annoying, but it probably depends on the person. As a lifelong Sci-Fi fan, the new "SyFy" name really irks me, and I suspect a lot of people here on Slashdot would agree with me. If you go ask a bunch of random people on Facebook, you probably will find they don't care.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
At least it's not bluediculous or greendiculous.
Re:Hulu? (Score:4, Interesting)
Which is why I say FUCK EM.
I wrote a letter to them awhile ago, quite awhile ago actually, where I bitterly complained about the fact I was paying for the SciFi channel and they were RUINING the experience of Stargate Atlantis with that stupid overlay of the SciFi logo constantly and those advertisements.
Seriously? Advertisements for their own shows, animated no less, that take up 20% of the lower screen?
It's the stupidest thing I have ever seen. A movie costs approx. $11 and they don't pull that crap. I was probably paying around $10 a month for the SciFi channel on a few digital receivers.
Well I canceled. Told SciFi I canceled too. I don't even have an interest in pirating SciFi. Actually, the interest is the same amount of interest I have in German gay scheisse porn. Zero.
If Stargate Universe really is that good, then the whole 1st season will be out on DVD soon enough. I will get it through my Netflix account and watch it then. If it is really good, then I will probably buy the 1st season for my collection. Have SG-1, and Atlantis already.
So you know what? SciFi channel wins. I won't pirate their content, I won't watch their content, and I won't pay for their content either.
Fuck EM. Deep and Hard.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a better way is to build a mythTV box and simply let it strip out the commercials.
far better to watch it in HD on my 42" plasma than the tiny 22" monitor on my computer at a less than SDTV resolution from HulU.
Re:Only 42"??? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Only 42"??? (Score:5, Funny)
A girlfriend with a MythTV box.
Hey, as long as we're fantasizing here, might as well go for broke...
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I watched a show on Hulu using Chrome and it threw up a blank screen everyonce in a while apologizing for not being able to load a commercial.
I forgave it.
Better yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait for someone to re-edit it into chronological sequence and download it off the 'nets.
Jumping back and forth with the flashbacks was annoying as hell.
Re:Hulu? (Score:4, Insightful)
It detracts from the ratings. Unlike movies, where they claim torrents steal money from their pockets, shows depend on their viewers. The more legitimate viewers they get, the more likely the show will stay on the air. They can watch the viewers on TV, adding in +3 and +7 for DVR counts, and find out how many times it's been watched on iTunes and Hulu, along with other websites. What they can't count is how many people have torrented the show. More people torrenting mean less people being counted, which means lower ratings, which means cancelled shows. Torrent may be great for people outside of the country who won't see it, but within the viewing areas (in this case, US, Canada, and the UK), it hurts more than helps.
Re:Hulu? (Score:5, Insightful)
What they can't count is how many people have torrented the show.
Then how do they come up with all those estimates about how much piracy is costing them?
Re:Hulu? (Score:4, Interesting)
but was impressed at how quickly I liked the characters
I thought they were all pretty awful apart from Rush and Eli, although Eli did have that godawful 'a man died today' line. *shudder*
Oh, and that math puzzle in the video game thing was just idiotic.
Troubleshooting skills. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, someone would still have to die, who would hold the "shakey cam" while it presses the button?
Seriously, bad focus + shakey cam can just fucking die imho.
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:5, Informative)
Shakey/bad focus cam was invented to hide really REALLY bad CG or incredibly bad choreographed fight scenes. They did it first on the Borune Supremacy because they did not want to hire real actors or peopel that could actually choreograph a fight. So they shook the hell out of the camera and basicvally did the "I cant use a camera" filming style to hide that the movie actually sucked.
Now everyone uses it because you can spend 1/3rd on your CGI if you shake the hell out of the camera. Several of my friends that do CG on hollywood movies hate it, because they dont get to do their craft, they just do the half assed cheap version with shakey cam. It saves nearly 1/2 on the cost of CG compared to doing it right and having the guys compost it perfectly.
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Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:5, Funny)
I liked the show... but they they still need some thinking writers.
They don't need writers. What they need is more lens flares [nymag.com]. You can't have a Sci-Fi show without them, ya know?
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:4, Insightful)
Similar lack of thought has plagued a lot of other shows. For example, why didn't anyone in the Star Trek universe ever come up with the idea of using warp drives as weapons in a systematic way? A runabout crashing into a borg cube at warp seven would do quite a bit more damage than a photon torpedo, I would imagine. I guess kinetic energy just isn't "futuristic" enough. Hell, Picard tried to use ramming speed with the Enterprise on at least one occasion that I remember, one would think they would have realized that would be a hell of a weapon, and that they could store hundreds or even thousands of them on a ship like the enterprise (assuming they removed the crew compartments).
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:4, Funny)
Picard tried to use ramming speed with the Enterprise on at least one occasion that I remember, one would think they would have realized that would be a hell of a weapon,
I remember captian kirk trying to ram everything he could with the ship....
KIRK:"Scotty! There's a giant hole there, let's RAM The ship in it!"
McCOY:"Dammit Jim you can to around screwing the entire universe!"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In Startrek physics, Ek would be close to 0 at warp since space-time moves rather than the ship. However, causing a warp field to transect a vessel rather than form around it would likely cause the wholesale destruction you seek.
Back to SG:U - The opening shots documented the ship turning parts of itself on to receive the people coming through the wormhole. Engineers who could design an intergalactic vessel would not design the CO2 scrubbers to be always on for tens of thousands of years (much less maintain
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider this. We could build cars, boats, airplanes, etc, with 100+ year lifespans. They'd need a lot of redundant systems, over-engineering, and be massively expensive and power-hungry.
Or, we can assume that we'll still be around in a 100 years, and still able to build newer, and better system with the technology we've discovered in 100 years.
This is actually a recent phenomena, roughly coincident with the Industrial Revolution. Before that, things
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A runabout crashing into a borg cube at warp seven would do quite a bit more damage than a photon torpedo, I would imagine. I guess kinetic energy just isn't "futuristic" enough
There's at least a plausible defense here in that warp drives might not generate much in the way of kinetic energy. It seems like maybe if you could warp space-time you could make weird pockets of gravity or whatever to tear a ship apart, but then maybe it'd be hard to project a warp field very far, and another ship with warp engines might be able to counter the effect easily....
Um.... erm.... I mean.... god, did I really just write that? Sorry.
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Stargate and Star Trek both talk about plotting courses to destinations; one would assume that they're doing this to avoid obstacles.
Remember, just because they don't talk about it doesn't mean it isn't happening ;)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Incorrect. They are warp-capable not warp driven.
"The propulsion system of the torpedoes is a warp sustainer engine. The engine coils of the torpedo grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube's sequential field induction coils. A miniature matter/antimatter fuel cell adds power to the hand-off field. When launched
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand we know from previous shows that Ancient technology seems to check "who" is pressing buttons. Many pieces of tech require the "Ancient gene" specifically, but it's not too far-fetched to suggest that various controls have to be pressed by an actual person (to prevent, for instance, random pieces of debris pressing important buttons).
At a minimum, it would have been nice for them to mention this possible solution. One of the most amazing things about the Stargate series is how for most problems, they will discuss/try a wide variety of solutions before finally finding the right one. In this sense it's much more like real engineering/science... which is satisfying.
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>>>First, why did the point of origin for the 9 symbol address have to be Earth's symbol? They weren't on Earth, and they weren't using the Earth gate.
Precisely. Which is why it didn't work until they changed their point-of-origin to the new planet. Please pay closer attention to the fake, make-believe magic incantations. ;-)
>>>if no one has been on the ship since it was launched, why are the CO2 scrubbers full of gunk?
For the same reason why your car's engine oil would turn to with gunk
Re:Troubleshooting skills. (Score:4, Informative)
They made a big deal out of the ship "waking up" during the opening credits. My guess is that things like life support were shut down until the ship detected someone trying to connect to the gate.
My big complaint about the plot is that any race planning to send an automated ship on a multi-thousand year trip with no crew would surely have built some kind of automated repair system. Where are the little R2D2-equivalents that should be running around patching stuff? Maybe something similar to replicators, but carrying containers of goo that can be turned into spare parts as needed.
Big SG1 fan, not impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
Stargate: Why simply beat a dead horse where it lay, when you can transport it anywhere in the universe?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FLAW: It's only about 50 million LYs from here to the edge of the universe. (suspension of disbelief just broke)
You're off by a factor of a thousand [wikipedia.org].
Re:Big SG1 fan, not impressed. (Score:4, Informative)
Good summary. Here are the random thoughts that popped into my head during the premiere:
- That ship traveled the distance of about ~50 galaxies in 10,000 years. According to scientists there's about 3 million LYs between each galaxy, so the ship covered that's 150 million lightyears. FLAW: It's only about 50 million LYs from here to the edge of the universe. (suspension of disbelief just broke)
O RLY?
The lower bound for the diameter size of the universe is 78 BILLION LYs.
The VISIBLE (observable) universe is a little under 50 (again) BILLION LYs in any direction.
babylon 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
B5 WAS an excellent show.
I borrowed a co-workers VHS tapes to watch the show because at the time, I missed the first 2 seasons or so.
I was extremely hooked on the show. It's characters, the writing, the time arc - it was very well done. Some day I will own the whole show and rewatch it.
I wonder if it would be possibly to do a new show post B5, maybe set 100 years later or something.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder if it would be possibly to do a new show post B5, maybe set 100 years later or something.
They tried at two spin-offs.
One was Crusade which took place either a couple of years after the final season or concurrently with the final season. It was alright but got messed around by the network and was cancelled after 1-2 seasons.
The other was Legend of the Rangers. I believe this took place further down the line after Crusade, as GKar was done with his walk-about from the series finale and his telepath companion had left him. However this attempt only made it so far as a pilot TV movie. It wasn't
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I found the Shadow War to be much less compelling than the Earth Alliance Civil War. One can only imagine what JMS would have done with that if he had devoted Season 5 to it (as originally planned) instead of compressing it into Season 4.
I wouldn't mind seeing a story where the megalomaniac Sheridan got his comeuppance. Rebelling against Earth because a dictator comes to power and shreds the Constitution is one thing. Creating your own private army filled with outsiders and imposing "take it or
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>>>One can only imagine what JMS would have done with that if he had devoted Season 5 to it (as originally planned) instead of compressing it into Season 4.
>>>
No need to imagine since JMS already answered this question a couple times. He:
- Moved the season 4 cliffhnager (where Sheridan is betrayed by Garibaldi and captured) from episodes 422 to 418.
- He moved episodes 501, 502, and 503 to the end of season 4.
- He left the rest of the season 5 story intact.
>>>I wouldn't mind seein
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole thread is off-topic, but I'll bite. B5 has had several straight-to-DVD feature films, trying to tie events in the mythology together into an entertaining story. The trouble is that they have to be moments away from the main mythology, or which were overlooked in the main story for presumably very good reasons, and are generally not as satisfying as the series itself was. You could re-do the main plot as a film, but it wouldn't be an epic any more.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>>>I still think that B5 is rather underrated/unknown in the general population
Actually B5's Nielsen Ratings (viewership) were only 1% below that of Star Trek DS9, and equal to Hercules and Xena, so it's about as well known as those shows in terms of how many people saw them.
Must.reply.to.thread.about.Babylon5..... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
I loved it! (Score:2, Interesting)
I have to say it kept me on edge of seat grinning, the detail and visuals were stunning, the music was very very well done!
As for the characters, the acting was quite good, i can see some of them growin
Im delighted to have a new Stargate to watch, and this new direction
lets be honest SG1 last seasons and SGA got very tired and boring
Thats what i love about this, I dont feel like im watchin yet another McGuiver episode or can predict the ending by watching the first few minutes
Stargate Universe has what was
Commercials, What Commercials? (Score:3, Insightful)
Evil Doctor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But it's been so long since Lost in Space came out that most people either don't remember Dr. Smith, or don't even know who you're talking about. :)
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Bad Commercial Breaks... (Score:5, Insightful)
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!).
Potential (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Potential (Score:4, Interesting)
Blame fan support for Danial Jacksons repeated reincarnations, if I remember correctly they originally didn't plan to bring him back after his first "death" but a large percentage of fans kinda freaked out.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One of my favorites lines from SG-1 was in Season 7.
Scientist: Dr Jackson is going to die when he sees this.
Soldier: What!? Again?
Counting the movie, and not c
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I get the feeling that we'll find out it was actually Rush that contacted the Lucien Alliance in order to attack the planet, so that it'd free enough energy from the core to dial the gate. If I'm right then I'll likely stop watching it, as me guessing a major plot point like that was par for the course for Atlantis :P
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gilligan!
Firefly (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't get why Firefly was canceled. It was popular among geeks and trend-setting. It even had the potential to be the next Star Trek-like franchise. I suppose bean-counting overrode "buzz". They didn't give it time. Shame
Re: (Score:2)
It even had the potential to be the next Star Trek-like franchise.
Star Trek stopped having potential somewhere around 1995 [wikipedia.org]. Now it's all about recycled plots, recycled characters, reset buttons and lens flares.
Re:Firefly (Score:5, Insightful)
It was on Fox.
I wish it was more complicated, but there it is. US network TV has no patience for a new show, especially Sci-Fi or Fantasy. If it doesn't get good ratings (top 3 in time slot) within its first month, its more or less dead in the water.
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Re:Firefly (Score:5, Funny)
If Firefly had been called Starfly it'd have suceeded
Look at the 3 biggest Sci-fi franchises.
Star Trek (5 TV Spin-offs, 11 Movies, countless books, 40 years old)
Star Wars (7 Movies, 1 TV series, countless books too, 30 years old)
StarGate (1 Movie, 2 DVD Movies, 3 TV Spin-offs, lots of books too, 15 years old)
Then you have BattleSTAR Galactica, 2 Spin-offs and one in the works, also 30 years old.
Next time you're pitching a script, put STAR in the title name somewhere, it'll go far!
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Not always true [wikipedia.org]
Re:Firefly (Score:5, Interesting)
SG-1 (Score:2)
Is there any reason I should I finish out SG-1 before watching this?
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this makes a clean cut with most of the later mythos of SG-1, save for some ancient tech stuff.
SG-1's ending was still interesting to watch so you might as well.
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Once you get the whole Ascension thing and have watched "Prometheus" (So end of Series 6) you're pretty much up to speed on what's needed for SGU tech-wise. Maybe watch the first Series of Atlantis to get some Ancient tech ideas, but it's not really that worth it.
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3 thumbs up (Score:2)
I think the new series started very well, though I don't know how long they will last with the good plots.
The Keno is cool, but if this is really Ancient ancient technology, why haven't they showed up in some other ancient places , like atlantis.
Appallingly mediocre. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Appallingly mediocre. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. I wish I had mod points atm for you. What made SG1 and Atlantis good shows was entirely in its "oh wow...another sci-fi cliche huh, ya well let's get it over with" style of meta-humor. Let's face it, the stories, plots, acting, etc. weren't ground-breaking. They were cliche, guilty-pleasure sci-fi elements.
The "big bad guy" each season; the unfaltering hero; the strong-but-secretly-vulnerable female lead who had constant, unspoken sexual tension with the unfaltering hero; the comic relief side genius guy who would develop a spine throughout the series. Atlantis and SG1 was pretty much just this over and over. But it was fun, it was still compelling and most importantly, it didn't take itself too seriously.
McGuiver was classic. Towards the end, you could almost see that he wasn't in character at all. It was like he was reading his lines in this "God, this again? Really?" voice. Even the unfaltering hero had a goofy, self-deprecating wit about him. This is what made Mal of Firefly so endearing and it's something that so many writers these days don't seem to understand. The days of the Rambo-like tough guy hero are over.
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And to be honest, if you can't sympathize with a smart guy running around trying to put out fires while everybody else is running around like a chicken with their heads cut off because they don't know what to do... you probably don't belong on
My thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
Stargate Voyager (Score:2, Funny)
Typical intro to a spinoff (Score:2)
It was typical for a spin off series. Lay down the ground work for the viewers new to the series, throw in some background on the individuals, add cameos for the stars from the previous series and hint at whats to come. Most importantly don't mess with the formula.
As for the episode. It still amazes me how the writers handle "The Ancients". Come on. Someone sends out a robot spaceship for a indefinitely long journey and it doesn't have a way to repair itself? "The Ancients" are so omnipotent that they
Re:Typical intro to a spinoff (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Typical intro to a spinoff (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Depends on your definition of "real" and "good"... (Score:3, Interesting)
Flashback format getting old... (Score:2)
Using a flashback for things further in the past, sure, but stuff that happened two days ago? Give me a break. I'm sure the writers (or network) want to get on with the action, but is a linear story so bad, espec
Stargate B-Team (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Stargate + Voyager + Battlestar Galactica + Petra (Score:2)
That about sums it up.
I'll keep watching for now.
In case you missed the final reference ... compare SG:U ship [clubphoenixrising.com] to Not of This World album cover [blogspot.com].
Oh, also, with all the kids in SG:U, I keep wanting to call it "Stargate University."
The bold new face of science fiction! (Score:5, Funny)
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'm reminded, surreally of Space: 1999 (Score:3, Interesting)
The Wikipedia article on SG:U seems to imply that, whilst they're stuck on a starship they can't actually drive the thing where they want to go and are restricted to hopping on and off via its onboard stargate when they get near interesting things. So it's a bit like Voyager but somebody stole their steering wheel.
Space: 1999, a British sci-fi (60s or 70s, I'd guess) had a similar setup but it was based on the slightly more bonkers-sounding premise that the crew were stuck on a moonbase and that the entire moon had been catapulted across the galaxy. When the moon went through an interesting neighbourhood they'd sometimes hop off and take a look around, then they'd jump back on again before it left. Surreal stuff! Despite the dodgy science and costumes they actually had some quite good episodes with interesting plot ideas.
As an SG1 fan, I'd just like to say "Please let it be good! Please let it be good!". That is all.
Cynical attempt to milk BSG and Stargate franchise (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [latimes.com]
"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.
Re:SPOILER!!!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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I'm guessing that the automated ships that seeded the universe with gates had instructions to leave gate addresses somewhere around the DRD for the exploration ships that (like "Destiny") were expected to follow, on autopilot, opening for twelve hours when they found one of the seeded gates. Rush & Wallace are going because they know what to look for and should be able to find the return address. Hey, that sounds just like the premise for a movie...
Re:SPOILER!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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I have not seen this show. But it is likely one of two things.
1: its an outgoing wormhole? stargate wormholes are one directional, with the exception of a feedback signal from the destination gate.
2: its programmed into the bios of the stargate to filter what goes through. The standard programming prevents atmospheric pressure from venting through the gate for a variety of reasons (some gates are miles below the ocean at huge pressures and some are in the vacuum of space)
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The rules of the stargate are quite strange and often "expanded" to create some plot. But I give them that their explanations are often quite clever.
A third point is that a stargate actually has a way to recognize objects. It only sends the object if the whole thing passed the event horizon. Otherwise it just would rip people and stuff apart when they try to pass.
I've never figured out what is really supposed to happen when you shut off a worm-hole in mid-transit. In one episode of SG-1, some heavy material re-materializes inside of the nearby planet's sun (causing/solving the red sky and eminent doom). In another episode, Teal'c is trapped inside of the buffer, and his atoms are not just randomly lost at some point in space between the two gates. Also, there is at least one episode I can recall where a Jaffa retreating through a gate has his staff weapon cut in ha
Re:SPOILER!!!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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Nice idea, It'd have been a more visceral scene too. Might not have passed the muster for it's timeslot though :P
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If Lost was episodic, it would be another gilligans island.
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Re:Sliders! (Score:4, Interesting)
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?