[Mars]

See, I just stopped caring, because all I knew was there was no plot I could care about anymore, and all of the interesting supporting characters were dying like flies; but it didn't matter since all of them were about as dynamic as the Pyramids of Giza.

[Mefustae]

See, I just stopped caring, because all I knew was there was no plot I could care about anymore, and all of the interesting supporting characters were dying like flies; but it didn't matter since all of them were about as dynamic as the Pyramids of Giza.

Hey, the Pyramids of Giza practically launched the idea of Stargate. The original Stargate movie based itself on the premise that the Pyramids were landing platforms for alien spacecraft, specifically Goa'uld pyramid ships. As such, your attempt at a cutting remark has actually demonstrated your knowledge of Stargate, not to mention your sharp wit.

Ergo, I'm going to take your statement as a veiled affirmation of your love for the Stargate franchise (or Starchise), which including Stargate Universe!

[ShadowWolf_IH]

I think that what we are dealing with is actually a symptom that goes well beyond the realm of Scifi.  We live in a world of immediate convenience, a world that has lost the meaning of patience.  Our idea of research today is to sit on our couch with a laptop.  We don't even have to shut our cars off, let alone get out of them to get a meal.  You don't have to wait til 8 pm to watch a movie on HBO, you can watch it on demand.  Everything is "on demand."  How does this affect our current view of entertainment?

I'm not a huge fan of Star Trek, the next Generation.  It's a good show, just not one that ever captured me.  Look at episodes from the first season.  The characters were growing, but hadn't yet gelled.  We were getting to know them as they were getting to know one another.  As they got to know one another, the reactions of the actors and the interaction between them became more natural somehow.  The last show that I saw where the characters were a great match and gelled immediately with wonderful interaction from the start was Eureka.  It's not so much that the show was well done, which it was, it was simply that the characters were so defined and grown that after one episode, we knew what to expect, and were comfortable with these people being in our homes.  Warehouse 13 came close, but didn't get to that level.  SGU didn't even come close.  But we didn't give it a chance to grow, the way we would have 20 years ago.

Beyond that, the Syfy channel has in my opinion made some truly horrid choices for things....mostly movies and mini series.  The magic that we experienced watching "Taken" was something to be reckoned with.  Everynight, 2 hours per night for 2 weeks, we sat glued to our TV.  They did a fantastic job, and then when it was over and we were riding high on what we had seen, they threw Frankenfish at us. 

The combination of lousy scripts that keep getting rehashed and redone, scripts that would be more suited to a mellowdrama so we could cheer the good guy and boo the bad guy and fun throwing popcorn at him, coupled with our "on demand" world is truly in my opinion spelling the doom of the scifi channel.  With nothing better to put on the channel, we get to watch wrestling. 

I think that we who build things, not just HLP but any modding site, or not even on the internet, something as inane as making a jewelry box, are more patient than most in matters like this, because we have to be patient to wait for that mod to come out, or for the 8th coat of laquer to dry.  But in that patience we learn that we want substance beyond "large breasted blond trips and gets killed by unstoppable murderer."

I'm as guilty as anyone of this, as CoW and CoW 2 show.  I've learned and am doing things differnet.  It takes time to grow something from nothing, and as the viewer or builder, we need to give things time to grow within us, as without.

anyway....that's my take on things.

[newman]

The fast pace of today's society is definitely a part of it. A bit difficult to have something of substance and atmosphere when you need to make a point in 5 seconds or you'll lose your viewer's attention.

[Quanto]

Speaking as a massive StarGate fan, I hated the **** out of SG:U

It tried too hard to be like BSG, when it should have been Stargate; too much melodrama, too much grimdark and too much shaky camera. **** that ****. Good riddence to a terrible show.
And to be honest, not a single character was as awesome as the Characters from SG1 or Atlantis. Star Gate was always a kinda campy fun series, when you take all the fun out of the show, there really isn't much left for it to stand on. And that is why I think SG:U failed.

[Locutus of Borg]

I'd take any character from SGU over McCay any day

[Nuke]

are you kidding? mccay was ****ing hilarious.

[Mobius]

The original Stargate movie based itself on the premise that the Pyramids were landing platforms for alien spacecraft, specifically Goa'uld pyramid ships.

How do you explain the presence of Nummulites gizehensis there, then?

[Klaustrophobia]

are you kidding? mccay was ****ing hilarious.

i was frankly terrified when mccay was to be a main character in atlantis, but they made him awsome there.  i ****ing hated him in SG-1. 

[Nuke]

thats because he was the outsider, he was that weird uncle you never talk about.

[NGTM-1R]

Stargate has never approached dark well. Later SGA showed it, all of SGU showed it. The franchise simply doesn't do it properly for whatever reason. One would hope they might realize it, but apparently not. Sci-fi as a whole doesn't seem to grasp that either. Their best projects have been, overwhelmingly, fairly light-hearted. BSG was the only thing they've done that wasn't and did well, and when it started full Diablous-Ex-Machina-ing it up too, it went south as well.

They also fell off the line BSG managed to walk about not going into too much detail but still remembering they're on a spaceship, by completely blowing the Lucien attack and how to use depressurizing as a defense. When BSG did that, it was just mentioned in passing as the Centurions being smart. When SGU did that, they made it pivotal to the episode and thereby exposed their ignorance. There were other mistakes along these lines too.

There are times where detail is a bad thing.

[newman]

i was frankly terrified when mccay was to be a main character in atlantis, but they made him awsome there.  i ****ing hated him in SG-1.

That's because you were supposed to. The McKay 1.0 in SG-1 was written to be an annoying coward, and was quite successful at that. They knew they couldn't make a main character like that work, which is why McKay goes through a massive transformation in Atlantis, right from episode one: while they start with him being somewhat cowardly, in the first few episodes they wrote a lot of plot devices that show him turning around to a more heroic character. Even if he's still expressing his fear a lot, he does things like step in front of a gun for Weir, walk right into a black energy cloud entity to save the city, etc. To make sure the transformation was apparent, they had Cavannaugh who basically had all of the McKay 1.0's failings and was even less likable - he was written that way intentionally so McKay would look good next to him. Personally, I found the reimagined McKay character to be one of the best things about Atlantis, the man was hilarious.

[Liberator]

McCay is definately one of the best characters in Atlantis, hell I like him better than Carter for pulling bullcrap solutions outta nowhere cause he can.

[General Battuta]

everything I saw of Atlantis made me vomit

i vomit a lot

[Ransom]

Battuta watch the penultimate episode of Atlantis and nothing else. It is called Vegas and is basically stand-alone. The rest of the season and most of the show was a huge waste of time, but for that episode it was worth it

then they ruined it with the actual final episode which was the biggest poo

[General Battuta]

Yeah I saw the final episode and it was all 'corridor fight', 'it's going to explode with our friend aboard'

but I will watch this Vegas