The Stargate Franchise - A First Timer's Watchthrough

I'll be blunt: I couldn't even sit through the whole thing. About 30 mins in I started skimming just to make it to the end...which stunk to high heaven. Aside from the superficial stuff like the low production values (which honestly doesn't matter all that much to me) the tone is all over the place, the story is weak and contrived, and the characters range from merely "tolerable" to "what are they doing here again?"

It feels like they were trying to channel Indiana Jones and the Brendon Fraiser 'Mummy' movie...which is not a terrible idea on paper, but they missed the mark by a mile. The thing lurches back and forth from attempting to be serious and dramatic one minute, to wondrous and whimsical the next...and then it's somehow a slapstick roadrunner cartoon and back to hammy fan film territory.

I feel sorry for the actors (especially Connor Trinneer) since for the most part they're doing their level best with what they have, but what they have is really, REALLY badly written.

It's honestly the only part of the Stargate franchise that IMO probably should be skipped. Though I mean, if you're THAT curious and can find a nice peg-legged parrot owner of the sea going persuasion to let you have a look then go ahead, but I certainly wouldn't spend money on it.

I think you misspelt "ill conceived and hamfisted attempt at a prequel to the original stargate movie"

 

Like I said before, it is not good. It's a fan film with low production value, bad writing and bad acting but they do shoehorn stuff at the end to make it fit as a prequel.

 

I know, I just meant that the attempt to dovetail with the movie right at the end was clunky as all get-out. I mean it's that bad, I'm tempted to "spoil" it in the clear just to save people the irritation of sitting through it.

 

It's a bummer that Origins ended up so bad because the idea sounded great on paper.

 

I have to admit, this discussion is making me morbidly curious enough to watch Origins (even moreso than Universe since there's less of a time investment)...but not enough to pay for the dubious honor of doing so.

 

Common Descent & Epliogue

These episodes were extremely good, with Epilogue being probably the best episode of Universe I have seen yet. I have to start with this though and I am going to talk about the current political climate, almost in passing, because in juxtaposing what these episodes showed and thinking about what is going on today, I kinda lost it emotionally.

Epilogue showed us basically Destiny and it's descendants building up an entire civilization in 2000 years. There were ups and downs, and arguments politically but in the end there was more positive than negative. I look at the things I saw in the last week in regards to George Floyd's death (Which is abominable), the systemic racism that for some god forsaken is still going on today, the riots, the various assaults on different people and property, and just the utter hatred in the world today and I juxtaposed that with the end scene of the dedication of the school and about how Destiny was about the Journey. Well, I actually cried harder after this episode than probably any other time in the last week, and I'm still feeling emotional. This was an episode with a very optimistic but real message of hope, and it feels like there is no hope in the world today. I think it's really hard to really go into detail about how I felt after this episode without going on a political rant, which I don't want to do, but I really did cry hard after this episode ended. I've actually cried quite a lot at times during these never ending lock-downs and the stuff I saw over the last week. I want to live on that world where Destiny dropped off those people.

The rest of these episodes reminded me a lot too about Children of Time from DS9, only it was cool to see the actual development of the new civilization. They went from pretty much nothing on their backs other than clothes to that beautiful landscape at the end and honestly if they had ended Stargate here I would have been happy. I really liked the various flashbacks, from TJ finding out she is going to get ALS (The way they handled that was also very tear jerking), Young's story and his death, and the scene where Volker said they were happier with Rush not there was very real but very cold.

Overall, these episodes were a treat. I would say this series has had some good episodes and stuff that came close to great (Like that three episode stretch of Trial and Error, The Greater Good, and Malice, but there hasn't been that episode which struck a hard emotional cord with me like Epilogue just did. I think the last time I cried this hard after an episode was The Visitor, but I think with maybe what is going on in the world today, and this episode aired in 2011, this was a lot more poignant for me than the writers intended.

Here is the ending scene:

 

I've been waiting for you to get to this two-parter. I LOVE these two episodes. Yeah, the final scene is incredibly moving and beautiful. But the concept that the crew of Destiny became the founders of an entire space-faring civilization and seeing the development from a primitive settlement to a modern planetary civilization was fantastic. Also, we don't know what happened to the ships that Novus sent out. We are only told that it will take them hundreds of years to reach their destination. But we do know the Destiny deposited the humans they found. And we know that Novus sent out colonies through the stargate like the one that Destiny found. So presumably, this human civilization founded by the Destiny could eventually, given enough time, spread humanity across that galaxy. Imagine another 2000 years! The Destiny may have spawned human civilizations across an entire galaxy!! Very cool and thought-provoking!

 

If you put it that way, it really does bring the franchise full circle. We went from the Goa'uld transplanting humans throughout the Galaxy via the Stargate network to Destiny in a sense doing the same thing but for more positive reasons. And the Ancients engineered it all.

 

Well, you made me curious enough Universe to try finding a complete Blu ray set, but in that regard Amazon was a bit frustrating, and it looks like I'd have to spend more than I'd like to spend on something I'm not even sure I'd enjoy.

 

Do you have Amazon Prime? The episodes are on there right now. That's how I've been watching.

 

It's also I think on Hulu I think.

Jason

 

I don't think season 2 was released on blu-ray in the US, nor were the last three seasons of SG-1 (which were made in HD).

 

Blockade

The drones are back and they are blocking every star that Destiny needs to replinish it's reserves. This was a pretty exciting episode, even though is it more or does Rush seem more like a prick than usual. He really doesn't like working with others, even if he did compliment Eli (To Young) at the end. The flying through the Blue Giant scene was great, and I hope Park isn't blind permanently.

I do have a question though. Is there a method to the drone attacks that I missed? I wonder why the drones haven't attacked the planet where Destiny left the Nuvos expedition and they were able to grow and flourish. If the Drones are interested in technology, is there a reason why they haven't attacked a fully technological world?

 

I remember "Blockade" as my favorite episode. One thing that always stuck in my mind is Young getting fed up with the "exact time to failure" trope.

I don't think we ever got a reason why the drones didn't attack the Novus civilization. It's possible they only arrived at that region of space recently. And since the Novans didn't have FTL spacecraft, they couldn't track ships to other colonies, and would have to stumble on to them individually.

 

I do not.

 

I've got all of SG-1 on DVD, all of Atlantis on Blu. Disappointing to think they couldn't even release all of SGU on the same format.

 

Especially since SGU probably would look the prettiest on Blu-ray out of all of them.

 

Gauntlet

This series ended on a really sad note. I mean I already talked about how I broke down crying at the end of Epilogue, and while I'm not crying now (Even though thinking about Epilogue later I might), to see this series end like that is pretty sad. I think Season 2 of Universe was where it was starting to find it's legs and I think in terms of story and character usage, it was a fine good show. I mentioned earlier that I think I might like it more than Atlantis, but maybe that was excitement getting in the way. Atlantis was longer and the production values on that series were really good. I just think where Universe wins out is they used this entire cast much better than Atlantis utilized it's entire cast. In terms of Gauntlet, Destiny is running out of power, the Drone ships are attacking them at every turn, and Eli comes up with the plan to put everyone in Stasis for 3 years so the ship runs on reduced power and goes into another galaxy. It's a fairly standard plot, and I know it wasn't meant as a series finale, but to see it end with Eli looking out the observation deck and Destiny flying away as we fade to black, it makes me sad that this series couldn't get what Farscape and SG-1 got in order to finish the story. I'm surprised they never even got a Syfy (I hate the term but we are in the Syfy era of the network now so I guess I have to use it) Saturday Night Movie or a December mini-series. Overall though, I did enjoy it but I do think Epilogue was a much better "finale."

So that's Stargate Universe and (maybe) The Stargate Franchise. While I am curious about Origins, I'm not sure in reading your guys' comments and reviews on Itunes and elsewhere it is worth the 3.99 rental price. I need to watch how I ask this question because I know the board rules on illegal streaming, but I was wondering if this series was something I could see on a site like Vimio. When I was rewatching Battlestar Galactica a couple years ago, I found the two webisodes, The Resistance and Face of the Enemy, on that site but I can't find Origins. I think because of that indecision, if I do watch Origins I can always update this thread even if it does end up on the second or later pages of this forum in the future.

With that said, I wanted to make some final thoughts on Stargate as a Franchise. I'm really happy I stuck through this entire thing, and posting in this thread has been such a great time. I'm so thankful for your guys' participation because it honestly made watching the episodes much more enjoyable. This really is the sci fi I miss these days too. You get a little bit of everything, great characters, great female characters (Sam Carter is very Iconic, and was the reason I didn't think Emancipation was that bad of an episode), great sense of humor (The stuff between Jack and Daniel, McKay when he wasn't being annoying) and just a sense of wonder that I really miss in sci fi today. Today feels too grounded in realism, while shows like Stargate and Farscape set their own realism and played in that box. The arcs and stories had so much variety that if you didn't like an episode one week, the next episode could be one of the best things ever, while still advancing multiple arcs throughout the season. All in All, Stargate was just fun. Now Universe decided to go darker and I think that hurt the series in the early going but like I said, the series was finding itself in Season 2. That series just used it's characters very well and they were starting to form chemistry. I think what hurt it the most was how separated it felt from the rest of the franchise. Like I said, there were times when the actual Stargate felt like an afterthought. Still, it's use of character and story was what this series was getting very good at in the second half of Season 2 and I think Season 3 would have been very very good.

So thanks again for guiding my watch through of this franchise. It was a blast. Five favorite episodes of Season 2 of Stargate Universe:

Epilogue
Pathogen
Trial and Error/The Greater Good/Malice
Twin Destinies
Blockade

 

If you want it might be possible to get like a 7 day free trial of Amazon Prime to see the Stargate Orgins. Not sure if they have that offer but sometimes these services do.

Jason

 

I have amazon prime. It’s not there.