The Stargate Franchise - A First Timer's Watchthrough

That refueling sequence is one of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise. Simply beautiful.

 

Yeah, that is an amazing moment. The visuals are amazing but also the concept of a ship literally scooping up solar matter to power itself, is really awesome. It's one of the reasons why I said that Destiny is a remarkable ship. In fact, I feel like SGU will make you appreciate the Ancients again. Obviously, Destiny was built back when the Ancients were at their peak and it shows because the Ancients really built an incredible ship. They built a fully automated ship with FTL capable of travelling between galaxies, with a stargate, and can refuel itself on the stars itself, and it has lasted tens of thousands of years, still travelling from galaxies to galaxies. That is pretty amazing.

 

Was the age of the ship every disclosed on the show? It is the best thing about the series. I wish they kept more of the action funny of SG1 and Atlantis and just focused 100% on the awesome damn ship.

 

They said it was launched hundreds of thousands years ago at least they do in the introduction to each episode so far.

 

Older than that. Stargate is understandably loosey-goosey with dates beyond ten thousand years ago, with most of the height-of-the-Ancients stuff being "millions" of years ago, with no further specificity. Given that the Stargates on-board are crappier than the ones in the Milky Way, and theorized to be older (though it's possible they were simply cheaper), that'd make Destiny somewhere over fifty million years old, since that's the how old the Antarctica Stargate was said to be in "Frozen" (and also, that it was one of the oldest yet discovered). The Stargate wiki says a couple hundred million years in some places, but I couldn't source that figure (or rather, I followed the source, and it didn't say anything close to that), and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the Ancients having their capital on Earth before, during, and after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

 

Water

Not as good as Light, but it was decent. Eli surely loves referencing movies like Planet of the Apes and Aliens though, and I loved his "Everyone is lying" line. The Alien Bugs from Air III made a comeback and made a really interesting face towards Scott as they were preparing to come through the Stargate. I wonder if that leads to something down the line. I think the best thing I can say about this episode was they are starting to use the Stargate more, finding a planet to replenish the water supply. Also, Young is slowly becoming my favorite character, and I still can't get a handle on Rush yet, even though he's saved the ship at least 3 times.

 

Earth

I'm starting to get a little concerned about how the Stones are used. I think it might be confusing if they keep using the stones in a crunch like they have been, and scenes like Telford and Young switching back and forth while they were having sex is actually a pretty good example of "stone abuse". Now we have a love triangle with a former married couple and Colonel Telford. I can't say I'm excited for that. I'm also not excited for the teen angst of Chloe and Eli's scenes. I'm also not a fan of Janelle Monae, but evidently they got the singer to play her self in this episode. Is this going to be analogous of The Bronz in Buffy and they are going to get various musical acts on SGU? Evidently she won't be the only one.

The best storyline was the plan to try and Bring Destiny home. Once again we're put in a position of not trusting Rush and I think that makes him a pretty interesting character. I loved how he put limitations on the plan and didn't tell anyone. Also, Telford seems to be a coward, running off like that.

 

No we never really get The Bronz type of situation on the ship. Sometimes they will have a musical montague but that's it. Cold Play never shows up on the ship all ready to entertain the crew or anything like that. The stone abuse will sort of be around but how we think of it will change with a majot character revelation at some point. They will also do what I think is some clever uses though of the whole people in other people's bodies as well down the line.


Jason

 

Well, Zelenka sort of spilt the beans in season one of Atlantis

Once they started launching the bigger ships, I think they should have gone public, if not earlier.

 

Can you imagine the shitstorm and conspiracy theories if the US announced they had giant spaceships And got us into an interstellar war with aliens without anyone IRl?

 

You know one thing I NEVER liked about SGU? The music choices, particularly at the end of episodes.

I have always felt science fiction, ESPECIALLY space based series, should have conducted, orchestrated music. It gives it an epic feel, which space deserves. NOT pop songs, or emo songs like we got in SGU. It would make the show feel dated in the future, because popular songs rarely stay popular. Especially the crappy music of the last couple decades.

I actually told Martin Gero this (he was a guest at DragonCon not long before we found out it got cancelled) and how I would love to have seen a little more humor in SGU.

 

<whispers> Orville </whispers>

 

Yeah, I consider "Earth" to be a weak episode. But the next episode "Time" is really strong. Then you get the episode "Life" which goes to back using the stones to show us the earth drama of some our characters. But after that, it gets back to Destiny with some good scifi for the rest of the season.

 

I don't know. The real life Pentagon announces there are UFOs, releases the full videos and everyone seems to not give a damn. And we start Space Force.

 

Problem is we see him privately throughout the episode when everyone thinks they're about to die, and he clearly expects likewise. That was one of my problems with the early part of this show, they kept trying to shove the idea that Rush is a shady and untrustworthy bastard with his own agenda to the point it looked as though they were trying far too hard. I say early part of the show, though truth is this goes on to some degree throughout the entire series.

IIRC, Janelle Monae is the only singer to actually appear on the show. There's always contemporary songs used for the montages in the episodes, but I don't remember any other singers actually appearing in the show.

I don't know, the song "Worst Day Since Yesterday" that gets used in an upcoming episode is actually pretty good, but otherwise, yeah a lot of the song choices were bad.

Though one has to remember context. At the time this show was made, BSG was making waves for, among other reasons, not having the sort of conducted, orchestrated music one typically associates with space-based sci-fi, so there was probably pressure on this show not to do such music itself. Granted, emo pop songs are not a better choice, but that's what we got.

Probably because the UFO announcement came in the middle of a global pandemic where people have far more pressing day to day concerns than UFOs were spotted five years ago.

 

I don't think that matters at all. People don't give a damn that 100,000 Americans are dead, you think they give a damn about about UFOs? The only people who would care are the crazy cult members who think aliens mean that their god doesn't love them enough or something stupid.

 

Oh, I am a BIG fan of THE ORVILLE. It's exactly the kind of show we need now.


Also, while BSG didn't really do orchestra, the lack of orchestra actually suited that series. It fit there, and it still managed to feel epic much more often than not.

My main gripe still stands. No emo music in space based series.

 

The government did not admit to real little grey aliens or anything. They simply released videos showing unidentified objects in the sky. Technically UFO's but not necessarily of the ET variety. I think if we actually made public contact with real extraterrestrials, the world would care a lot about it. But people are not going to care much about videos that just show some unidentified obscure objects.

 

I have to agree with that. So many videos of the like have been seen over the decades that it will just gloss over the typical person.

Actual first contact... I can't imagine a single person on the planet would not take notice. That could likely be THE moment in history that trumps ALL other moments in history.

 

I read up on her to make sure it really was Janelle Monae, and it said she was one of only a handful of people to appear as themselves in this series. That's why I was thinking something along the lines of the Bronz in Buffy, but they don't necessarily need to be singers. Still, it seemed a little out of place for someone like her to be in a series like this, which is why I mentioned the whole thing about how much is this series going to spend on earth vs. how much are we going to get on Destiny. It kind of takes away from the whole idea that they are lost.