Starfleet Jedi

A Vs thread in Gateworld has proven without a shadow of a doubt that the Stargate universe is the weakest universe ever created in the whole history of mankind and that about 2 cherry bombs can obliterate any ship in that universe. With that in mind against which universe do you think this universe has at least a moderate chance of surviving before being turned to atoms in milliseconds?

Well the problem is that their ships can't even stand on their own, as they're supposed to handle, by default, a stress greater that one or two cherry bombs could apply, even if all of suddenly, on a single point.
They better all go for ascension and find an alloy recipe to withstand those pesky bombs.

Besides, we know it's the weakest universe. Do you know any TV SF franchise that got its three shows canned before the creators provided a conclusion to their stories, with writers and actors immediately looking for another job without even waiting to see what could happen, got two close-to-gold AAA video games canned, never managed to make a single sequel to the '94 movie and can't do better than hope sell non canon fan written books?

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Besides, we know it's the weakest universe. Do you know any TV SF franchise that got its three shows canned before the creators provided a conclusion to their stories, with writers and actors immediately looking for another job without even waiting to see what could happen, got two close-to-gold AAA video games canned, never managed to make a single sequel to the '94 movie and can't do better than hope sell non canon fan written books?

Whoa hold it there Mr O. SG-1 lasted over 10 years that's a record still unsurpassed even by Smallville which is running it's 10th and final year now. And they did conclude the Ori story arc and made another SG-1 movie Continuum. Atlantis was canned by the creative team itself because the ratings for the show were excellent at the time,


The only show that was canned by the network because it suffered in the ratings dept. was Universe and even that one was beginning to show a bit of promise but not enough to save it from the ax in this trying harsh economy times. If anything the creative team though they could not fail and they were proven wrong, as the saying goes "Pride goeth before a fall"

PunkMaister wrote:Whoa hold it there Mr O. SG-1 lasted over 10 years that's a record still unsurpassed even by Smallville which is running it's 10th and final year now. And they did conclude the Ori story arc and made another SG-1 movie Continuum. Atlantis was canned by the creative team itself because the ratings for the show were excellent at the time,

SG-1 should have lasted seven years and ended with Lost City. After Full Circle, it would have been perfect as well. Daniel would have not been resurrected on and on (it literally became a joke in late SG-1).
The eighth season just was pure Replicator and Goa'uld stuff, no worthwhile stand alone material, but at least good enough on the downside of the mountain, still enjoying some success because of sitting on the laurels of much more awesome former seasons. It still got too much Carter-centric, and too weepy.
The Ori arc was badly handled, and the new cast sucked big time. Not that the actors were bad (they're not), but the characters didn't fit. Just too cartoonish. I'd bet my house you would never see a Vala character getting close to something as important and serious as the SGC IRL. And there was no good authority structure either. They didn't know if they should promote Carter or put a male lead, and it showed. Mitchell was at the head of a soulless SG-1 squad. Oh, the muscle porn btw.
The Ori were so over powered that they had to neuter them in ways even more pitiful than with the Wraith. Mind you, since the writers had split efforts on both running shows, it also explained the lack of quality and foresight. They had clearly not planned anything enough.
The Ori arc was concluded in such a cheap way, and Ark of Truth was a miserable TV film with Continuum a notch above it.
Lost City, on the other hand, would have made a good movie, as it was planned out to be at first. But no, too much money to make, so they had to stretch the show's life and go on.

The only show that was canned by the network because it suffered in the ratings dept. was Universe...

Nope. ALL of them were canned because of lack of solid foundations. SGA was truly getting pathetic. They had come very close to close the shop at the end of season 4, in fact everybody thought they were done, but they tried to bump the story in their fifth season and make more mature writing... you could feel a very minor difference in the first S5 episodes, and then it returned to the shit SGA used to be since the beginning of S2, only to end on one of the most retarded and terrible finales I've ever seen. Mind you, Stargate turned out to be quite good at making truly horrible finales or disastrous second parters to good enough cliffhangers.

Only Universe was getting better and really making Stargate look more serious and sexy, with notably a real budget on exotic/alien sets, which were completely non existent in SGA : there's never been a a single really alien looking planet I can remember in the whole damn show!
But it closed because of bad ratings and SGA whiners wanting more dumb Stargate, while in truth, Universe was really getting closer to the Showtime era SG-1. What killed SGU also was the fact that it may have been too much influenced by nBSG (and followed SGA's cancellation).

But I had always thought that SciFi never wanted SGA to turn into a more serious show because it was running alongside BSG, and one BSG was already enough on SciFi, so MGM had to pour a more light-earted and upbeat show, while writers pretended writing "dark stuff" (can't count the amount of shrieking SGA fanbois pretending SGA was dark and all that... must have been the massive amount of pseudo vampires I guess).

Then you had Wright deciding to do his own version of SG-1's CotG, which was perfect in its original format, really. No, the ----er had to remove the nudity despite the fact that it made total sense in the episode (but at the same time, this warped puritan didn't see a single problem with showing Vala burning alive in full view in season 9, go figure), and cut some stuff and redo some sounds to sell more DVDs. His team managed to literally screw up with the external shot of the Abydos pyramid, which is both wrong and fuglier than a quick rendering on an old Bryce engine.
Etc.

The debacle you can read about on SG websites is tantamount to that. Mullie and Mallozzi, the two Lords of dumb plots, proudly managed to run the franchise into the wall and have been quick to jump to a new show by now, which apparently better suits their style: the new Transporter.
*sigh*
Behind the scenes, SGA was a complete drama: actors obviously having a better connection with the show's backstory than the writers : Andy Frietzell - the chick playing the Queens and Keepers - being obviously much more interested in exploring the Wraith culture than the writers and producers, and Flanigan having to remind the writers that after Beckett's overdone heroic death (bagpipes and all that after dying because of an exploding tumor blowing up in his face - no kidding :/ ), maybe it would be good if the characters would speak about him in the next episode, just to show that there was a continuity : The writers had found that idea luminous (!).
Oh, and the writers later brought Beckett back with some of the cheapest tricks ever penned by man, and they pretended having left clues of that return since season 2 or 3 or some crap like that.
I won't come back on the Lafanzano case either, which just demonstrated how pig minded these guys were, or how Mallozzi insulted fans at least twice, very openly. Yes, they could be annoying at times, but I've never seen such a lack of respect for the fanbase no matter what. That's the Lemmings episode and some more recent stuff after the show ended.

Stargate went down that fast because it was handled by total hacks, and paled in light of Firefly and Farscape, or even late Enterprise (and actually, for having watched a few earlier ENTisodes, I can tell you that globally, it was quite above SGA/late SG-1 in many ways).

and even that one was beginning to show a bit of promise but not enough to save it from the ax in this trying harsh economy times. If anything the creative team though they could not fail and they were proven wrong, as the saying goes "Pride goeth before a fall"

The Ori arc had some premise in the first season, and even there they literally turned them into 2D big bad guys, instead of making the stuff much more subtle. No, it was just easier to paint the Ori as totally bad, as some anti-science religious fascists with no tolerance for geeks of outer space. And somehow, they had access to the plane up there, the one that holds plenty of super tech and magic science, yet couldn't come with anything better than a slow ass invasion. And once again, they got kicked by a Deus Ex Machina of epic proportions, by Myrrdin who got his idea... from the same plane above. Nothing epic, nothing huge. Just some shit, one single prop that cleaned the Ori galaxy's plane of higher beings. Welcome Doctor Who.

So SGU was a huge breath of fresh air, but it was starting with a massive burden, that of saving the franchise. Add the crisis and MGM having lost plenty of money god knows how, and add SciFi which has a habit of canning shows at the merest sign of grind, and voila!
They had plans for a SGA movie, but it's been completely shelved so now they find themselves with SGA which has ended on "Enemy at the Gates" at Atlantis parked near San Francisco, but CLOAKED OMG THAT MAKES SENSE!1!!, another SG-1 movie which will probably be epically turdish, and SGU, which at some point they tried to make fans believe they were going to try to find a way to finish it - hello! most actors are already appearing on other shows.

Is that the recipe of success to you?

My measure of success is based on it's longevity Mr O not on the plotholes and mistakes made during it's run for over those 12 years had they lost as much money as you claim it would not have lasted for as long as it did. Compare that with Enterprise that lasted for only what? 2 seasons?

Anyhow eventually I do not doubt there will be a real Reboot of the franchise much like it happened with Trek and I hope that they do not repeat the many mistakes made in the TV TOS

PunkMaister wrote:My measure of success is based on it's longevity Mr O not on the plotholes and mistakes made during it's run for over those 12 years had they lost as much money as you claim it would not have lasted for as long as it did. Compare that with Enterprise that lasted for only what? 2 seasons?

Anyhow eventually I do not doubt there will be a real Reboot of the franchise much like it happened with Trek and I hope that they do not repeat the many mistakes made in the TV TOS

They don't need a reboot. The universe is quite solid enough if you remove all the crap wrapping. What it needs is good writers, a risk taking vision and a humble but strong formula that hinges on a very good chemistry between characters, and an universe that works with interesting villains.
Good writers, to expand upon the Asgards and correct that horrible plot we had in "Unending" - I'm talking about a sensible return of the Asgards - and at the same time the humans becoming the underdogs again, eventually with a slap on the wrist because the power creep and destruction has gone waaay too far for the show's own sanity and sake.

Good writers to give dimension to the Ori and the departure of the Alterans, not something as hamfisted as it were. A good continuation of the Priors, some ascending, some actually putting their hands on things the Ori left behind them which eventually lead newly ascended people to act in malevolent ways or in ways that seriously question certain "good guys rules". The whole wizardy Ori arc could really give Stargate a good omph as a spin off if it were given its own material to work with. It would also be dead easy to show how all Ori didn't die: you just need some of them to have floated beyond the range of their galaxy, beyond the range of the Sangraal. You just need to have some Ori to have enjoyed more material pleasures and thus, as having found themselves either "all solid", or between two planes like Anubis at this very moment, found themselves saved from the weapon. Why they didn't help Adria or even got detected by her, we don't know, and don't need to be told, as we don't know what Adria really knew. She pretended she had all the power from all the Ori because of the vacuum. The point is that even if some Ori remained, Adria had been so popular, such an icon, that no Ori, no matter how fiery he/she could be, would have been a match of the popularity of Adria, and thus her capacity to focus faith and belief in her.
With her locked away in some eternal battle, now things can become more interesting, and it's totally possible that the Ori may decide to appear much more real more often in order to draw a more concrete attention from the followers. Plus with countless Priors left on the loose and the Doci's belief and authority shattered, there's a huge potential here for a fantastic story. Whatever is left of the Ori and their galaxy is a fantastic background. Imagine what the new main "team" could be.
The reality is that it just got packaged and sold in some silly way, and it needs more depth and subtlety, like SG-1 used to have in its early days.

Good writers to rejuvenate the Wraith. Here as well, there's a huge potential for something more complicated and intriguing that mere hissing aliens that suck the lifeforce out of people. There's actually plenty of subplots to create and cultures were Wraith and humans may even live in peace after having incorporated the life drain/gift power into their culture, religion and politics.
And Atlantis is just too powerful for the humans to keep, and it belongs to Pegasus, not the Milky Way. We literally stole it, basically. There's a need to destroy or lock Atlantis away. We already have the database, which by act of plot, won't be decoded within millenia if all goes as planned. The city can die, it can be sacrified, or taken away.
It would also be interesting to see what Wraith who has spent millenia feeding upon humans would do once ascended. Some would surely enjoy the relief and feel sorry, and perhaps a few others would snap and be incapable of dropping their pulsions, just like Daniel Jackson couldn't stop feeling close to his friends despite being an ascended being.

But that requires brains, thoughts and works, and pre planning, which long time gaters who have paid attention to the backstage info know didn't exist.

As for Stargate Universe, it needs to keep going. The overall plot got deeper, but the aliens were kinda bland and not really engaging and the show may need to add more action to it, or something that makes it a tad more space opera than it is/was atm.

Finally, regarding merchandising and other products, someone needs to stop fucking over big projects. The case for Stargate Alliance needs to be settled, money paid, as there's tons of material that could be reused there. The FPS/RPG is a good system, the game could easily sold above 1 million on PC alone, and there has to be plans for sequels and DLC content.

But above all, what Stargate needs is to leave SciFi. That channel has always kept a blade above the franchise's head, and ever kept dumbing it down. Stargate has never been better than when it was on Showtime, and SG-1 only got to season 10 because its first half simply was that strong.
Of course, knowing the fact that Wright and co didn't really like the more edgy style imposed by Showtime - which is just all too ironic considering what they tried to do with SGU - I wonder if the main problem isn't also some of the powers that be.
Luckily, many are leaving the adventure.

I liked the idea of the Ori at first. The medieval esthetics were a little grating, but I could tolerate them. But I agree the invasion arc was handled horribly. It's one of the worse examples on the series of the writers having no sense of scale.

That they were made into all-evil monsters was a little disappointing, but then I honestly didn't really expect anything else. It's Stargate SG-1, after all.

About the deus ex machina ending, I'm not sure that was entirely the fault of the writers. Depending on when they were told the show was going to be canceled (IIRC it was somewhere halfway through S10), it might've been really the best they could do with the time they had left to them. Then again, they did set up for the Ancient uberweapon MacGuffin earlier, so maybe they really wanted it done like that all along and just cut down on the long chase for the Holy Whatever.

Ark of Truth was quite abominable, even given the premises. So, they had an hour and a half to finish the story, OK. They pretty much needed a high octane deus ex machina for that. But why then piss away half that screen time on a completely useless Replicator subplot that went nowhere? Just because they couldn't think of any other way for Mitchell or Carter to get to shine a little? And of course, the heroes are basically unnecessary, since Morgan could've done everything on her own instead.

I did like the scene where the Doci walks in on them and has the dramatic music playing when he TK punches Tealc and the others for some reason, though.

I would have liked to seee a whole new direction, we had already done the "gods" thing to death, the replicators "adapting enemy" had been done as well.

So not to put the writers under too much pressure or anything but how about summat original maybe?.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Only Universe was getting better and really making Stargate look more serious and sexy, with notably a fucking budget on exotic/alien sets, which were completely non existent in SGA : there's never been a a single really alien looking planet I can remember in the whole damn show!

Star Gate was at it's best when it was silly, and fun. The single episode fillers were the best. The serious story lines are what killed it.

Just about ever episode of anything that people on sites like this say is awesome sucked.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Of course, knowing the fact that Wright and co didn't really like the more edgy style imposed by Showtime

Please forgive me but I'm not sure what you mean by SG-1 seasons 1-5 being "edgy". The show was funny, entertaining, a great hoot but it was a fairly light hearted "adventure town" style show with limited interconitunity, which is nothing wrong, instead of the more brooding or "shocking" style shows which earn the moniker "edgy".

Now as to second guessing the folks who are paid to do this with my lowly and unsupported opinoins well... <rant> I'd have kept the Priors and ditched the peasent folk, Origin's ultimate goal is to convert each believer into a Prior which takes decades to centuries to achieve through mental discipline, and while keeping the whole worshipping the Ori thing have it questionable if the "gods" are really listening or if the Priors are merely keeping the pilot light on because that's all they know. I'd also make them more manipulative b*stards pulling strings to achieve thier ends rather then a retread of saving the galaxy.

I'd also kept the gua'uld as (one of) a weekly threat but degraded them from unstoppable titans to something closer to highwaymen with former systemlords piddling around in a banged up ha'tack or something raiding lower tech planets for basic resources. </rant>

Just my thoughts.

sonofccn wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Of course, knowing the fact that Wright and co didn't really like the more edgy style imposed by Showtime

Please forgive me but I'm not sure what you mean by SG-1 seasons 1-5 being "edgy". The show was funny, entertaining, a great hoot but it was a fairly light hearted "adventure town" style show with limited interconitunity, which is nothing wrong, instead of the more brooding or "shocking" style shows which earn the moniker "edgy".

In comparison to the later stuff under the prime of SciFi, it did have that edgy thing, albeit little of it, but it had it. And it begun with the full frontal nudity which was nothing cheap at all. The plots were more mature. "The Devil You know" and the sacrifice the female Tok'ra had to do to get away, the accidental/murder of a journalist to preserve the Stargate program, etc. There was a darker and more mature spin, globally, either in the writing style or the ideas, and not the emo-dark-vampire-cut-my-veins stuff. There were more ideas, more intelligence, more diversity. That's not huge amounts of edgeness, but it can still be felt if you're paying attention and a long timer.

The problem with the Ori was that they were basically a retred of the Goa'uld with less personality. While there were multiple goa'uld with interesting personalities, and which were even occasionally sympathetic. There was never a part of the ori arc where I felt as much sympathy for Apophis as when he was captured and turned over by SG-1 to be tortured. lastly, the Ori filled the same niche as the Goa'uld did previously, instead of parasite infected humans impersonating gods, we get ascended beings impersonating gods. Both had their violent religious cults and the soldiers of both even used similar weapons. Paired with the fact that the priors never had the internal politics or personality as the Goa'uld did, and they really don't seem to have a point beyond extending the series.

Yes, quite. I find them more interesting now, for the reasons explained above. Now there's not an unique order maintained artificially anymore, because of one single homogeneous and massive power. Plus the humans over there were not genetically modified. For some odd reason, they're also exactly like us, and that means a lot of stuff which can happen between the two galaxies, that means lots of natural relations, and also much less cosmetics.
Heck, with the Ori gone, or some remaining but vastly weakened because of the faith tap having fell suddenly dry, if there's only one single due of supergates in activity, what we have here is a new DS9 wormhole, with everything it implies in terms of political relations, economy and military. The Ori galaxy is like a vast field to explore, with plenty of stuff left over by the Ori and the Alterans, and possibly a lot of new things to add to make the situation richer (why would have the Ori remained united after the Alterans left?). Oh boy I'd so love to write for that.

While I always felt the Goa'uld had more potential for being fleshed out, that potential was pretty consistently squandered. Many of the Goa'uld were killed off within an episode or so of their appearance, which really limited their development as characters. I consider Apophis to be potentially the best villain of SG-1, as he had genuine reasons to pick fights with SG-1 for getting his wife and kids killed, and him tortured, but there were lots of episodes in-between appearances where he was not mentioned at all. The same goes for plenty of other 'important' Goa'uld like Kronos who must have been in all of two episodes, as well as Osiris, Hathor, and Yu. A lot of Goa'uld had a big build up after which they were killed off almost out of hand, meanwhile there would be lots of episodes in between in which goa'uld took a back seat. It really led the goa'uld down a slope that by the time the replicators got them, you wondered why they were ever considered a threat in the first place.

Similar situation happened with the wraiths.

Unfortunately, since they are now gone, any future shows will likely have to focus on the leftover ori worshipers, since the goa'uld are pretty much a non-threat right now, similarly to the Wraith. There really is not much in the way of influential aliens to build off of left. Any future series will likely have to do with plain ol humans. They probably could turn something interesting out of the ori remnants, but SG is full of missed potential and close misses, so I am not particularly optimistic.

Aurochs wrote:While I always felt the Goa'uld had more potential for being fleshed out, that potential was pretty consistently squandered. Many of the Goa'uld were killed off within an episode or so of their appearance, which really limited their development as characters. I consider Apophis to be potentially the best villain of SG-1, as he had genuine reasons to pick fights with SG-1 for getting his wife and kids killed, and him tortured, but there were lots of episodes in-between appearances where he was not mentioned at all. The same goes for plenty of other 'important' Goa'uld like Kronos who must have been in all of two episodes, as well as Osiris, Hathor, and Yu. A lot of Goa'uld had a big build up after which they were killed off almost out of hand, meanwhile there would be lots of episodes in between in which goa'uld took a back seat. It really led the goa'uld down a slope that by the time the replicators got them, you wondered why they were ever considered a threat in the first place.

Similar situation happened with the wraiths.

Unfortunately, since they are now gone, any future shows will likely have to focus on the leftover ori worshipers, since the goa'uld are pretty much a non-threat right now, similarly to the Wraith. There really is not much in the way of influential aliens to build off of left. Any future series will likely have to do with plain ol humans. They probably could turn something interesting out of the ori remnants, but SG is full of missed potential and close misses, so I am not particularly optimistic.

Yes, with the power creep, the writers have virtually sterilized their own universe off any interesting aliens. I remember that the rumours for the SGA movie had the Tau'ri find a weapon of mass murder or some kind, specifically tailored against the Wraith, and they could unleash it to "free" the galaxy. At that point, I and other people who were very critical of the show and its moral values "looked" at each other and just wondered if they were serious with that crap. I figure they can't picture anything but a silly exit where the Tau'ri have to win, even if it means spin doctoring a mass genocide into a noble human act.