How Atlantis SHOULD have been..

[cylkoth]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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The "Poisoning the Well" cure could have accomplished that. No mutation necessary.

The purpose was to create a (visually) distinct group that would be at odds with our heroes and the other humans in Pesagus, with the overt bias and prejudices at the center. Plus broadening the Wraith, showing them actually not in conflict with other beings by removing the haunted house monster trope they're saddled with...much like the one in the s2 episode (the prison island), that was shown as having cut a deal with the leader, allowing them to progress in exchange for providing victims.

[Gertch]

Morpheus 02 wrote:

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Mine would be Lt. Ford. From the first episode, it seemed like he was pretty well experienced with the Stargate. He had no qualms about literally diving into the wormhole.

I have to agree with you here. Ford was a great character. They could have also killed off Shepard and forced Ford to advance sooner. But he should have been made the focal point of the team.

Drop Teyla and Ronon. They were uninteresting baggage.

[Harvey]

I think Ronon would have been great as a recurring character, but he had no place on the team for all of season two and three. By season four he is no longer pulling a gun on people in an instant, but that still doesn't explain why this guy was allowed on the team all those missions previous.

Better to leave him as a runner. A character who wants revenge against the Wraith. Sometimes this puts his interests in line with our heroes, and sometimes it pits him against us. We never know what the case may be.

[archeryguy1701]

I have two big things. First, I think they needed to be cut off a lot longer, and have there be a much bigger focus on them being cut off. I think an interesting plot would have been if they actually either lost Atlantis at some point or had it destroyed, so they were on the run, or had to try and retake it from an old enemy.

My second thing was the replicators. Now, I want to say that I love the Replicators. The bugs are awesome, and SG1's human-forms were a good concept. Atlantis' replicators aren't straight up bad, but it annoyed me because it seemed lazy. We are in a new series in an entirely new part of the universe, and we still have Replicators. Wraith: Good, original idea. Genii: Good, fairly original idea with lots of potential. Replicators: Retread-ville.

[TemporalFlux]

The biggest mistake they made was in the premise. SG-1 was an exploration of myth; Atlantis should have been an exploration of legend. Where SG-1 explored Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology and Mayan mythology, etc.; Atlantis should have explored vampire legend, werewolf legend, etc. - everything from centaurs to pixies to golems to trolls. Atlantis should have been Stargate meets Lord of the Rings; but as it was, the Atlantis production team seemed frightened of the idea and always stayed shy of it by creating scenarios that were never explicitly connected to the legends.

[hxclespaulplayer]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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9. Have Shep take off his shirt more often.

Women... *rolls eyes*

being waiting to roll my eyes at a woman in that context. If I wanted to see Teyla take off her shirt, I'd be called sexist :P

[USS Kongo]

1: Atlantis should have remained cut off from earth for far longer than just the first season. In retospect, the first season of this series is turning out to be one of the best just for that reason, IMO.

2: They should not have killed off Beckett.

3: No frigging replicators.

4: They should have kept Weir.

Sean

[Jono]

Probably won't be a popular opinion but when the Ori were introduced into SG-1 I thought it would have been great to also push them into Atlantis

[Morpheus 02]

TemporalFlux wrote:

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The biggest mistake they made was in the premise. SG-1 was an exploration of myth; Atlantis should have been an exploration of legend. Where SG-1 explored Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology and Mayan mythology, etc.; Atlantis should have explored vampire legend, werewolf legend, etc. - everything from centaurs to pixies to golems to trolls. Atlantis should have been Stargate meets Lord of the Rings; but as it was, the Atlantis production team seemed frightened of the idea and always stayed shy of it by creating scenarios that were never explicitly connected to the legends.

That would have been an interesting concept...wondering how that would fit in terms of earthlings being exposed to them, however, and starting the legend.

i would imagine that there would be some time traveling in addition to the travel from Pegasus...

[Borg451]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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My (Entirely Moot) List of Demands:

1. Keep Atlantis cut off from Earth and force Our Heroes to survive by their wits.

2. If/when this premise runs out of steam, have Atlantis re-connect with Earth but without the assumption that the mission there is worth the security risk to Earth. Atlantis needs some focused mission that makes the risk worthwhile, more than just randomly collecting Ancients tech.

3. Kill off Teyla or recast/rewrite the role so that she isn't so painfully boring.

4. Give Jason Momoa acting lessons and tell him to stop mumbling his lines.

5. Develop the Genii in the direction they were going - villainous, sure, but also simply driven by the need to survive in a Wraith-plagued galaxy. Hang onto Koyla as a recurring foe thru the entire run of the series.

6. Lose the haunted-house cheesiness of the Wraith. Make them a normal society of intelligent beings who wouldn't seem the least bit monstrous if their food source was, say, baked rutabagas rather than humans. Make their "farming" of humans seem banal - they corral humans onto planets not too differently than a large Iowa pig farm - with a political hierarchy and economic system that is orderly and functional, rather than treating them as a bunch of idiots who barge around the galaxy shooting at each other.

I'd prefer that their makeup be way toned down, so that they don't even look too different than human. To have them still feed on humans would be eerier if they didn't look like monsters. The more normal and functional the Wraith appear, the scarier they are.

7. Don't mess up Michael by having the Wraith reject him. The Wraith should treat him better than humans did, accepting that he is a victim and needs help. That would avoid the silly mad-scientist plotline that has been inflicted on Michael instead.

8. Be careful in writing episodes that Our Heroes are not accidentally depicted as utter morons for not thinking things through and making boneheaded mistakes. Examples: not thinking through the possibility that Michael's regression won't work (and therefore they will have to murder someone who appears human; if this is too unpalatable, don't regress Michael to begin with!) and that nonsense where the Wraith got the directions to Earth from Atlantis' computers, that should never have happened!

9. Have Shep take off his shirt more often.

10. The "Poisoning the Well" cure plotline was interesting - should have done something with that.

11. NO REPLICATORS! Gah!

12. The Ford problem, hmm. Maybe instead of having Ronin be the big bad muscle-guy, Ford should have been more in that vein - still young, green and gung-ho but also more of a bad-ass. To have him still have to take orders from Shep would have set up more of an equality and contrast in their scenes - Shep is older and wiser, but Ford is better at kicking butt and maybe a bit of a loose cannon.

13. NO RENAISSANCE FAIRE PLANETS! Gah!

14. Hire an entirely new roster of writers and producers, and move production to New Mexico so we can finally have proper-looking alien worlds and not pine tree forests up the wazoo.

15. The idea that Wraith-feeding caused irreversible aging never really worked well as an idea - it means that Our Heroes are not even allowed to be touched by a Wraith because then they'll have to wear aging making forever after - and the writers starting fudging that notion eventually anyway. The Wraith damage needed to be conveyed through some other means than the makeup department so that it could be genuinely irreversible but still a credible threat to main characters.

The "Poisoning the Well" cure could have accomplished that. No mutation necessary. At some point, would people from Atlantis be desperate enough to use the cure so that they would have at least some immune fighters? Weir probably would never okay it, but I could envision some situations where it would seem the better option.

Maybe Ford is part of that group and he is one of the few survivors. Do you punish him for doing something so unethical or recognize his value to the team as a result? If Ford is the only immune one, suddenly he has a real purpose in the story. if he was badass enough to take a 50/50 risk of death, that adds an interesting new dimension to the character. I would expect someone like that to get himself killed before the show ends, but until that point, he'd be a great character to have around.

Teyla needs to get her shirt off more

[explodingmuffin]

I think what really ruined the show was all the character shuffling. I thought the show was amazing at first; it had a really fresh feel to it, being in a long-lost city of a somewhat mysterious alien race instead of just a military base. I liked all the main characters a lot, personally.

But they had to mess up their little family, getting rid of Weir and Beckett was a bad idea, and bringing on Sam and Woolsey (much as I love Robert Picardo) was just bad. The Replicators were annoying, I thought we got rid of them in the last show? They just seem like those ants that invade your house every summer that you just can't kill completely. Bringing back Beckett was good, but trying to sort of bring back Weir was weird.

They shouldn't have made a ton of changes to this show. It was fine the way it was.

Just wanted to throw my two cents in. I'm so sad they ruined a good show like that >.<

[MeanJoePhaser]

1. I agree with no replicators.

2. Keep Beckett.

3. Add a sleazy, well-travelled informant character, like Huggy Bear or Quark

4. More of Richard Kind's Harry Mudd wannabe.

5. Find a better character than Ronan. Why does "warrior" = "dumb thug"?

6. Dump the wraith entirely at some point.

7. Add a blonde, busty cyborg chick.

[Gep Malakai]

MeanJoePhaser wrote:

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4. More of Richard Kind's Harry Mudd wannabe.

The rest of this forum will crucify you. It's been nice knowing you!

[cylkoth]

MeanJoePhaser wrote:

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3. Add a sleazy, well-travelled informant character, like Huggy Bear or Quark

4. More of Richard Kind's Harry Mudd wannabe.

Hey, they can always import Vala's daddy to the Pegasus Galaxy... Team him up with Luciuos. Comedic hilarity ensues.

Runs and hides...

[Harvey]

Gep Malakai wrote:

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The rest of this forum will crucify you. It's been nice knowing you!

Well, I'm bringing the torches.