The Defiance Thread - News about the Show and Game

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by PlainSimpleJoel, Dec 14, 2012.

  1. PlainSimpleJoel

    PlainSimpleJoel Fleet Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2002
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
    Since I heard about Rockne O'Bannon new project - Defiance - I wanted to know more. It's gonna be something different, as comparing TV and gaming together.

    SFX posted this link on FB. Impressive people working behind this. I really hope this is successful.
     
  2. Kegg

    Kegg Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2009
    Location:
    Ireland.
    It's an interesting concept, and is definitely the most promising looking sci-fi show for 2013. Looking forward to it (even as I acknowledge the attempt to tie it into a videogame is the least interesting part of the project for me).
     
  3. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    It's funny, a few months back I was having a conversation with someone I knew about Falling Skies. He began asking "what's that other show, the one that's basically a rip-off of Falling Skies?" So I typed into Google "Falling Skies rip-off" and the very first result was about Defiance. Next time I saw my friend, I said "I typed 'Falling Skies rip-off' into Google and it came up with a show called Defiance." He responded "Yes, that's it. I knew it was called something that reminded me of Star Trek."

    Okay, to be honest, Defiance doesn't sound anything like Falling Skies aside from being set on an alien occupied Earth. Defiances sounds interesting, and I'll be sure to check it out when it airs, but I thought the story was amusing all the same.
     
  4. Enterprise is Great

    Enterprise is Great Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2004
    Location:
    The Island
    I'm interested in the show but the game influencing the show business has me a little worried. Exactly how is that going to work? I've read some articles explaining it somewhat but I still don't get it.
     
  5. Kegg

    Kegg Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2009
    Location:
    Ireland.
    ^
    The videogame and the TV series are set in two different cities but in the same setting, so I suspect there will be little direct interaction between their two plots. In the first season I'd expect - at most - an offhand line about something that happened in the game world.

    As season two is being developed and in-between seasons they could let what players do in the game world shape where they want to take it that year, but I'm sure they'd control what kind of choices those would be.

    I dunno. It's an interesting idea, but beyond respecting the lore of the game setting as equal to the TV show (which is the exact opposite of say the Star Trek model) I don't see them getting a lot out of it.

    It's the same genre, but if he thinks Falling Skies invented post-apocalyptic alien invasion shows weeeeell.... no.
     
  6. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    I've been following Defiance closely since it was first announced and right now it's my most anticipated new series for next year.
    For a while they've been doing a making of series which is available on their official youtube channel. These videos give a pretty good idea of what to expect, and IMO it looks really good. They seem to have put a lot of thought and care into what they are doing. They also have to the full comic con panel up on Hulu. I only watched the stopped once they started focusing more on the game, but I thought I thought there was some interesting stuff about in the show in their.
     
  7. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    Defiance has released a new, more character focused trailer.
    The more I see for this the more excited I get.
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Unfortunately O'Bannon isn't involved past the initial creation. The showrunners are Kevin Murphy of Desperate Housewives and Caprica (not the same Kevin Murphy who was Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000) and Michael Taylor of Voyager and BSG.

    I think the main draw for me here will be the cast. Tony Curran and Jaime Murray are worth watching, and I really liked Stephanie Leonidas in MirrorMask, though I'm disappointed that she's using an American accent here. (I mean, she's playing an alien! Aren't aliens usually British?) Julie Benz is pretty good too.
     
  9. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    Damn, I didn't realize that. I knew that Kevin Murphy was one of EPs, but I had thought O'Bannon was still involved. I loved Caprica, and I'm a fan of Julie Benz, Grant Bowler, Jaime Murray, Finollula Flanigan, and Mia Kirshner, so there's still a lot of reasons for me to look forward to this without him.
    Do you know if he's any more involved with Cult? I was wondering how he was doing two shows at once, but if he's off Defiance that would explain it.
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    I'm not paying any attention to Cult, sorry. I didn't even remember that O'Bannon was involved with that.
     
  11. Snick27

    Snick27 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2001
    Location:
    Pittsburgh Pa
    Heard the game is pretty good too. Its in Alpha testing i believe right now. Not sure how both will connect with each other and if many will actually play the game.
     
  12. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    I got to admit, that is a pretty good trailer.
     
  13. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    I read an article on IGN that that did talk a little more about the connection between the two. Here's some of what they said about the connection:
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    The idea of players' choices actually setting events on the show into motion disturbs me. The storytelling on the show should be driven by the needs of the show and the characters, not by the random vagaries of gameplay. I'm hoping that the interaction is more just an illusion -- that there's a particular sequence of events that all the different players of the game have to go through in order to achieve some assigned mission objective, and that mission's success is the setup for something that happens in the show. So it's still the writers of the game and show deciding what happens, but since the players are acting out the scenario as written, it gives them the illusion that they're "causing" it to happen. At least, I hope that's all it is.
     
  15. TheNatureRoy

    TheNatureRoy Lieutenant Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2011
    Rest easy:

    http://www.deadline.com/2013/01/defiance-premiere-date-april-15-syfy/#more-398600
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    ^Which reassures me about the show, but gives me a more jaundiced view of the game, because it means the much-hyped interactivity is just a snow job.

    Oh, well. It's not like I had any interest in the game in the first place. The more I can just ignore the game while watching the show, the better.
     
  17. EmoBorg

    EmoBorg Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2012
    Location:
    in the 10 dimensions of reality
    The Votans are like the Xindi or the Covenant of the Halo games. They are a multi species ailen group that wants earth but unlike the Xindi or the Covenant they want to live on it instead of destroying it.

    The back story says that they have terraforming technology. If that is the case, why didn't they head to a Goldilocks planet that has no sentient life and take over it. Humans have nukes and certainly will not take kindly to aliens arriving with planet terraforming technology.
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    They're refugees from a destroyed star system. It stands to reason that they didn't have the luxury to find an ideal world, but had to settle for what they could reach.
     
  19. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2004
    Location:
    Arizona, USA
    Based on my playtime with DCUniverse Online, that is how most MMORPGs work. It's not really a big player choice type of game, it pretty much one where you have a bad guy to find or an item to find, and you just fight your way to them.
     
  20. Kegg

    Kegg Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2009
    Location:
    Ireland.
    JD - It varies. Playesr are usually able to make quite a number of choices, but in terms of game choices they don't affect the world, just the player (a player can choose which of two NPC factions to support, but that choice does not mean either 'wins').

    Basically regardless of how they implemented game actions having an effect on the TV series story it wouldn't please you.