I liked 'Stargate:Atlantis" better than "Battlestar Galatica"!

[Borgminister]

Since I'm on the subject, I think "cinema verité" is a better way to describe the show than saying it tried to be "mainstream".

Except that the camera man always seemed to be going through delirium tremors....

 

[Leroy]

I think BSG would have been much bolder if he had just taken the logical stance that these travellers originally came from our Earth and all the messy consequences of that story, especially if the denouement were set in a recognisably contemporaneous Earth. It was a copout having "Earth II" and it was a copout not having any Earthers to say WTF?

That's one of my primary complaints about the show is that if it was not made up as they went along you'd swear they were foreshadowing that the series was indeed set in the future and the people from Kobol, the Colonials and Cylons were descended from the people of our Earth. I also didn't like how everyone goes Luddite in the end with no protest.

I also would have liked to see a remake of the "Greetings from Earth" story like they did with "The Living Legend" but that gripe is pretty minor.

The problem I had with the Atlantis finale is that it was just another "Earth is in danger!" episode rather than giving the conflict with the Wraith any kind of meaningful closure.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

People are complaining that BSG didn't look alien enough? Really?

Yeah, that really misses the point doesn't it?

The numbers of viewers per week gets straight to the point

people tuned out in massive numbers


and no I'm not a Benedict fan, 80s BSG really sucked
if the new can only boast its better than the original that's really not much of a boast.

I'm not even sure its better than shows like Enterprise

 

[Borgminister]

Funny how people can say "they tuned out because it was shit" or "they tuned out because they are stupid", depending on whether they like a show.

Sort of like "shit floats" and "cream rises".

 

[TEH BABA]

BSG has the better canadian babes.

 

[sidious618]

^^ Not if your interests involve creativity.

I thought it was a creative, cool look for the show. Much better than Stargate, Star Trek or Andromeda has given us. You may not like the look but its look is something that has been consistently commented on as being nice by critics and fans so you're clearly off track here.

Since I'm on the subject, I think "cinema verité" is a better way to describe the show than saying it tried to be "mainstream".

BSG is not mainstream, I agree. Its plot was quite labyrinthine. If Moore wanted the show to be mainstream he'd have made it like... Stargate Atlantis.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

BSG has the better canadian babes.

And NuBSG's soundtrack is better.

 

[Chrisisall]

Both shows sucked in my opinion. If you want storytelling and moral conflict, watch Babylon 5. If you want sci-fi adventure, watch Farscape.

Reluctantly must agree here.

 

[RoJoHen]

Funny how people can say "they tuned out because it was shit" or "they tuned out because they are stupid", depending on whether they like a show.

While others of us tuned out because we had to work Friday nights.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Funny how people can say "they tuned out because it was shit" or "they tuned out because they are stupid", depending on whether they like a show.

While others of us tuned out because we had to work Friday nights.

Well theres always the DVD's via Netflix.

 

[RoJoHen]

Funny how people can say "they tuned out because it was shit" or "they tuned out because they are stupid", depending on whether they like a show.

While others of us tuned out because we had to work Friday nights.

Well theres always the DVD's via Netflix.

Well, I bought the DVDs, but that has nothing to do with ratings.

 

[crouteru]

Ratings are bollocks these days. I discovered BSG through DVD and didn't start watching it on TV until season three. DS9 had declining ratings throughout and is often considered the best trek.

 

[RoJoHen]

Ratings are bollocks these days. I discovered BSG through DVD and didn't start watching it on TV until season three. DS9 had declining ratings throughout and is often considered the best trek.

I tend to agree. Most people I know watch TV shows on DVD and usually not until they've been out for a few seasons.

 

[MyCylon]

I adored nuBSG. I found it to be worthwhile creatively, intellectually as well as emotionally. Although I feel other shows were better in individual areas, I've yet to see one that manages to excel on just about every level the way nuBSG did in my opinion.

Stargate: Atlantis, I just could just never get into. It didn't really surprise me in the sense that I felt the same way about its predecessor. Although I really wanted to like that show (I enjoyed the movie back in the day, liked the idea of the stargates and was delighted to see RDA back on screen) it just never managed to click. It didn't work for me creatively, intellectually or emotionally.

So, in the end, I simply liked nuBSG a lot more.

 

[EnsignRicky]

I liked Battlestar Galactica better than Stargate Atlantis.

 

[RJDiogenes]

While I agree that Moore's creative claims for the show's style strike me as somewhat dishonest, it's not really possible to do truly strange and alien on a TV budget--at least, not in a fashion that I would accept. I doubt it has as much to do with this conspiratorial mainstreaming you speak of as much as it was simpler to create a series that didn't look idiotic if they recycled real-world items for clothing and props. Why pay more to custom-build a whole world when real life has done most of that for them? As long as we're comparing nuBSG to SGA, I saw what happened when Stargate tried that alien style, and it looked mind-bendingly, brain-searingly, drool-inducingly moronic. I mean, seriously, seriously stupid. I would much rather have the "unimaginative" style of nuBSG, where my intuition can look past the visuals so as to see the story and characters involved, rather than a (failed) attempt to be alien where the cardboard sets pull me out of the narrative.

Well, we're definitely in disagreement here. I have no need of realistic SFX at all; I want them to be visually and aesthetically appealing, and creative, but I couldn't care less about realistic. I'd rather watch Starship Exeter than yet another humdrum "sci fi" show where the spaceships look like factory basements and the characters all dress in bondage gear.

I suspect you'll try to cast this another way people who like that kind of thing are perpetuating a lack of imagination, but so be it. If it's a failure of imagination to overlook visual shit, then so be it.

Well, we could digress into a side discussion of how photorealistic special effects have negatively impacted the imagination of the contemporary audience if you want.

There's only so many ways or times I can say I feel you're wrong, so simply consider me to have said it again, and for a final time. We're clearly never going to agree on this.

I, for one, hold out hope.

It's possible that several Earth cultures, past and present, existed in Colonial society, we just never saw much of them. Kobol for example seems to have had their version of ancient Greece. It even had an Oracle at Delphi. And like I said, the world Moore created and the explanations behind it work for me even if part of it was in fact an attempt to be contemporary and mainstream. Also, as Gep Malakai said, it probably wouldn't have been possible to do a truely alien culture that looked good and naturalistic on whatever budget they had. For me, it was better that they shot a scene in an actual opera house in Vancouver rather than try to create a bluescreen backdrop the way Enterprise did when Archer appeared at the stadium in San Fransisco. I've always been glad that this show did away with a lot of unconvincing CGI, obvious sets and fake backdrops. Stuff like that wouldn't have gone well with the cinema verité style Moore was aiming for.

Well, as I said above, I don't need realism in my imaginative fiction. I can appreciate Jack Kirby as much as I appreciate Michael Whelan.

Since I'm on the subject, I think "cinema verité" is a better way to describe the show than saying it tried to be "mainstream".

Eh, that's just saying it in French. C'est la vie.

I thought it was a creative, cool look for the show. Much better than Stargate, Star Trek or Andromeda has given us. You may not like the look but its look is something that has been consistently commented on as being nice by critics and fans so you're clearly off track here.

Well, I've been off track for liking SF for over forty years. It's just that I'm used to getting it from mundanes, not fellow fans.

BSG is not mainstream, I agree. Its plot was quite labyrinthine. If Moore wanted the show to be mainstream he'd have made it like... Stargate Atlantis.

Well, it's a matter of expectation. Atlantis is set in a version of the here and now, so you'd expect the characters to wear contemporary clothes and use contemporary items. But it's not quite right to see aliens who lived ten thousand years ago wearing stuff that was on sale at Old Navy in 2008.

 

[Gepard]

The numbers of viewers per week gets straight to the point

people tuned out in massive numbers


and no I'm not a Benedict fan, 80s BSG really sucked
if the new can only boast its better than the original that's really not much of a boast.

I'm not even sure its better than shows like Enterprise

Yay! I'd been missing your copy/paste anti-BSG posts. Tell me, do you think you could post that Starbuck image a dozen more times? Thanks!

 

[Agent Richard07]

Well, as I said above, I don't need realism in my imaginative fiction.

I don't need it either, but it is nice to have something like BSG that does provide it. I consider it another welcome flavor of televised/cinematic scifi.

 

[Demiurge]

The best nuBSG was exquisite.

The worst was absolute dreck.

Unfortunately there was a considerable amount of the later. There was an entire season that was awful.

nuBSG tried for more, certainly - and often missed the mark.

There are certain eps I'd love to see again from nuBSG.

But I wouldn't want to watch the entire series again. Hell, even any particular season.

The same isn't true of Atlantis. While it wasn't always deep, I often enjoyed it, and while it didn't try as much, it also didn't fail as spectacularly as nuBSG often did.

The funny thing is I don't have a problem with mysticism in a scifi show. I'm fine with that and religion.

What I don't like is clear problems with the scripting, and simply not resolving many of the major arcs in a plausible manner.

When you combine that with their penchant for nauseating melodrama of an absurd scale -

Yeah, Atlantis hands down. It shouldn't have been better, but then nuBSG should have known where the hell it was going. Almost the entire 4th season felt like a retrofit to try to make the thing make sense. It didn't succeed.

Maybe 'the Plan' will give us some of the answers that we were missing. Maybe it will establish exactly what the Plan was that was in the opening credits every season. Because I sure as hell didn't see it.

 

[RandyS]

Since I'm on the subject, I think "cinema verité" is a better way to describe the show than saying it tried to be "mainstream".

Except that the camera man always seemed to be going through delirium tremors....

No doubt from all that booze and speed Moore and Eick passed around.