Who will play NuRodney?
Where should Stargate go now?
- Thread starter Methos
- Start date
Rayon, protected from UV by the shields.
A couple of days ago my housemate pulled out a rayon aviator's escape map of Europe his girlfriend found in her grandfather's things. I was immediately in awe. It was in pristine condition, the same as the day it was printed, 70 years later.
That is pretty cool. Okay they are made of Rayon. There must have been hundreds of unused ones in the place, really they should have turned them into clothes, bandages, wall hangings..
The whole series could have been swathed in those quilts! It would have been a totally different color!
The whole series could have been swathed in those quilts! It would have been a totally different color!
Aesthetics are subjective. The look of Destiny could have been very appealing to those Ancients at the time. Or, they may have realized that taste varies so much over decades, let alone millennia, that making it 'look nice' was pointless, and a more functional approach was more appropriate.
I'm betting Destiny's look was far more a result of thinking what a ship full of desperate and stranded people should look like, to convey a sense of strandedness and desperation, than what an Ancient ship would actually look like. If it was bright, powerful, and impressive, the audience wouldn't have bought into the idea that the crew was desperate and stranded.
Heh, and unagreeable and unlikable as all the characters were S1, I'm pretty sure they could be is a Hot Pink Room, with Bunnies and Unicorns on the walls, and we'd still buy they were desperate
YES let's get some relatable desperation!!
Here's a premise that just occured to me.
The show has largely been about our past (mythological gods, ancient artifacts, etc). Sending an archeologist into space was a twist, because space was about the future.
As the show went on we mastered technologies, established outposts, and pretty much conquered the galaxy, kind of killing the original premise along the way. What will mankind have done next?
Reveal the Stargate program to the public, expand and settle onto countless alien worlds, build starships and giant space habitats. We maintain a population growth rate of 2% because we never hit the limits imposed by living on a single planet, so in 300 years the human population is 2.7 trillion, with about 400 planets as heavily populated as Earth is today. Our cultures blend and merge and incorporate small influences from the primitive human settlements that had been spread by the Goa'uld. Violence becomes almost unheard of, and people fully expect to live 200 or 300 years using advanced Ancient and Asgard medical advances, along with our own.
**** pitch ****
And then one day in 2325 AD, a couple of SG teams from the year 2014 step out of a stargate, their homeward jump path having gone through a solar flare. The local Earth government realizes the arrivals are from some of the famous SG teams that had mysteriously vanished centuries earlier, but who had already made humanity's final expansion possible. Perhaps the elite SGC relics from the past can fix some serious problems that the stayed-at-home, soft, self-indulged, unmotivated, tenth generation, virtual reality-addicted couch potatoes can't.
******
Every planet will still look like British Columbia, but now they'll include Vancouver and its suburbs. Instead of creating Asgard, Goa'uld, Ancient, and alien sets, most of the show will be filmed on regular streets, malls, parks, and houses. Instead of dreaming up different primitive versions of human cultures, it will be about future versions of human cultures, extrapolating from current trends or drawing from a host of sci-fi novels, but we'll get to see the future from the perspective of our familiar SG teams who are, along with us, trying to relate to these new cultures and the future.
The show will look and feel vastly different from SG-1, SGA, and SGU. Perhaps it will be a bit more like "Fringe", but with the added element of hundreds of future Earths, and far future ones, not just two parallel ones in our near term. On most of these other planets we settled, the humans will have recreated a look quite similar to *cough* Vancouver, or LA.
By anchoring the premise on the Stargate, it lets you write almost any futuristic story arc for Earth's future ("Blade Runner", "Running Man", "Drudge Dread", "Fringe", and countless others) and then just stick the particular storyline on one of the planets we settle, so you can get a long-running series from individual sci-fi stories that would only hold up for a half season or less. And you always have the possibility of aliens, galactic invasions, and whatnot (the old story arcs) with most humans on most planets being too self-absorbed to really care.
I'll call this one "Stargate - Futures"
The show has largely been about our past (mythological gods, ancient artifacts, etc). Sending an archeologist into space was a twist, because space was about the future.
As the show went on we mastered technologies, established outposts, and pretty much conquered the galaxy, kind of killing the original premise along the way. What will mankind have done next?
Reveal the Stargate program to the public, expand and settle onto countless alien worlds, build starships and giant space habitats. We maintain a population growth rate of 2% because we never hit the limits imposed by living on a single planet, so in 300 years the human population is 2.7 trillion, with about 400 planets as heavily populated as Earth is today. Our cultures blend and merge and incorporate small influences from the primitive human settlements that had been spread by the Goa'uld. Violence becomes almost unheard of, and people fully expect to live 200 or 300 years using advanced Ancient and Asgard medical advances, along with our own.
**** pitch ****
And then one day in 2325 AD, a couple of SG teams from the year 2014 step out of a stargate, their homeward jump path having gone through a solar flare. The local Earth government realizes the arrivals are from some of the famous SG teams that had mysteriously vanished centuries earlier, but who had already made humanity's final expansion possible. Perhaps the elite SGC relics from the past can fix some serious problems that the stayed-at-home, soft, self-indulged, unmotivated, tenth generation, virtual reality-addicted couch potatoes can't.
******
Every planet will still look like British Columbia, but now they'll include Vancouver and its suburbs. Instead of creating Asgard, Goa'uld, Ancient, and alien sets, most of the show will be filmed on regular streets, malls, parks, and houses. Instead of dreaming up different primitive versions of human cultures, it will be about future versions of human cultures, extrapolating from current trends or drawing from a host of sci-fi novels, but we'll get to see the future from the perspective of our familiar SG teams who are, along with us, trying to relate to these new cultures and the future.
The show will look and feel vastly different from SG-1, SGA, and SGU. Perhaps it will be a bit more like "Fringe", but with the added element of hundreds of future Earths, and far future ones, not just two parallel ones in our near term. On most of these other planets we settled, the humans will have recreated a look quite similar to *cough* Vancouver, or LA.
By anchoring the premise on the Stargate, it lets you write almost any futuristic story arc for Earth's future ("Blade Runner", "Running Man", "Drudge Dread", "Fringe", and countless others) and then just stick the particular storyline on one of the planets we settle, so you can get a long-running series from individual sci-fi stories that would only hold up for a half season or less. And you always have the possibility of aliens, galactic invasions, and whatnot (the old story arcs) with most humans on most planets being too self-absorbed to really care.
I'll call this one "Stargate - Futures"
All right, I've given it a bit more thought.
Stargate - Futures
Premise: A few SG teams from the present gate 300 years into the future, after humans from Earth have expanded to hundreds of alien worlds and their population is in the trillions.
Making the handful of relic SG team members relevant in a highly populated, advanced future:
Every culture that went through the stargate was steeped in SG mission reports which described their destination, and most first-contacts were made by SGC personnel. To these worlds, SG members are a bit like a blend of the early explorers of North America, the Pilgrims, and the Founding Fathers, giving them a gravitas that future squabbling politicians can never match. Almost all of the planets, whatever their differences with each other or the current core worlds, will meet and hear out what an original SG member has to say. This makes the SG team members natural diplomats and troubleshooters. If not George Washington, they are certainly Miles Standish, Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Davy Crockett.
The human worlds have largely finished their exploration and expansion phase, and most of them never even really did that. They just saw the videos of new planets and signed up to leave Earth for a known destination that had already been surveyed by SG personnel. Most can't produce anyone who has any experience with alien cultures or technology, or who have been in actual combat against unknown aliens with unknown odds. When faced with something unknown or alien, the SGC people are still the elite SGC people to call, even to the future humans.
With the sudden expansion of humanity, each nation and people breaking free to claim their own planets, borders disappeared, as did border disputes and wars between nation-states, which eliminated the militaries and eventually anyone with any military experience. SG team members are like relics from our more violent past and are among the very few who have the training, discipline, and experience to actually go into certain situations that arise from time to time. They are Judge Dredd.
If more uniqueness is required, posit that most humans, especially those in Earth's core systems, can't travel through the stargate anymore because they enhanced themselves with an alien biomedical nano-technology, one of whose side-effects was that the nanites, and thus their carriers, can't transit through a wormhole. This had been a built-in feature the aliens had added to limit potentially out of control nanites spreading between worlds through the stargate system, and since it took years to manifest, nobody realized that the technology carried a price. They are the magicians who can walk between worlds instead of flying there in ships. (You could even posit that the nanites can't translate through hyperspace, another plague-protection measure from the alien designers)
If few people are traveling through the stargate system, then most people aren't encountering lifestyles and circumstances much different from their own, and the diffusion of new ideas and technologies will have become more limited. Some planets might still be struggling under fairly primitive conditions, while people from very advanced worlds are bathed in luxury and convenience. The more primitive worlds have trouble applying technology to their situations, while visitors from the more advanced worlds normally sent to help have trouble just coping with life on the primitive worlds (They sit and bitch about no restaurants and no internet access). The SG personnel easily bridge the gap. They are the Peace Corps.
Some of the dictatorial countries (like Syria or North Korea) got their own planets and then were vastly more successful in cutting off their people from outside information and influences. The stagnant, oppressive cultures became vastly more so. The SGC personnel, unlike the pampered people of the core worlds, are quite familiar with those types of societies and how to undermine and overthrow them. They fight oppression, they bring revolution.
And most of all, they're the 20th century lens through which we see and judge the future.
I'm not sure if this idea could be at all compatible with my Stargate - Ecosystem idea, which was a way to encounter even more aliens and alien situations, but the Goa'uld could be easily introduced because it's highly plausible that Ba'al wasn't the last Goa'uld, he was just the last one they knew about. In this future, humans are so dominant that the Goa'uld realize they're better off living essentially as vampires; hidden, mythical, and slowly growing, often taking positions of power in what seems from the outside to be an ordinary world. New communities of them could be interesting, with new internal dynamics "We don't have to rule, my brothers, we just have to thrive."
Another obvious recurring theme is human cultures that have trampled all over planets that were supposed to be protected or off limits, everything from illegal mining to thousands of tourists who go to look at the cute little aliens. So often when the team mentions a pristine world they previously visited, one with a fascinating culture or interesting species, they invariably step out of the gate into a cityscape that looks like a Chicago or Miami. (Humans expand and pave over everything).
It seems like this would be a way to lower production costs because you're eliminating most of the wardrobe, props, and special sets, while expanding the number of interactions they could have, and the level of social commentary those interactions could carry. It even sets up more comedic commentary since alien jokes are a harder than jokes about things like a planet of fat kids with slurpies, and planets founded by fanatics of every wacko social trend that's hit Youtube.
Perhaps a good final twist would be that the leader of the teams is still Jack O'Neill, but the Jack O'Neill that had resulted from illegal Asgard cloning experiments, appeared as a kid, and had gone back to school. He should be graduating about now.
Stargate - Futures
Premise: A few SG teams from the present gate 300 years into the future, after humans from Earth have expanded to hundreds of alien worlds and their population is in the trillions.
Making the handful of relic SG team members relevant in a highly populated, advanced future:
Every culture that went through the stargate was steeped in SG mission reports which described their destination, and most first-contacts were made by SGC personnel. To these worlds, SG members are a bit like a blend of the early explorers of North America, the Pilgrims, and the Founding Fathers, giving them a gravitas that future squabbling politicians can never match. Almost all of the planets, whatever their differences with each other or the current core worlds, will meet and hear out what an original SG member has to say. This makes the SG team members natural diplomats and troubleshooters. If not George Washington, they are certainly Miles Standish, Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Davy Crockett.
The human worlds have largely finished their exploration and expansion phase, and most of them never even really did that. They just saw the videos of new planets and signed up to leave Earth for a known destination that had already been surveyed by SG personnel. Most can't produce anyone who has any experience with alien cultures or technology, or who have been in actual combat against unknown aliens with unknown odds. When faced with something unknown or alien, the SGC people are still the elite SGC people to call, even to the future humans.
With the sudden expansion of humanity, each nation and people breaking free to claim their own planets, borders disappeared, as did border disputes and wars between nation-states, which eliminated the militaries and eventually anyone with any military experience. SG team members are like relics from our more violent past and are among the very few who have the training, discipline, and experience to actually go into certain situations that arise from time to time. They are Judge Dredd.
If more uniqueness is required, posit that most humans, especially those in Earth's core systems, can't travel through the stargate anymore because they enhanced themselves with an alien biomedical nano-technology, one of whose side-effects was that the nanites, and thus their carriers, can't transit through a wormhole. This had been a built-in feature the aliens had added to limit potentially out of control nanites spreading between worlds through the stargate system, and since it took years to manifest, nobody realized that the technology carried a price. They are the magicians who can walk between worlds instead of flying there in ships. (You could even posit that the nanites can't translate through hyperspace, another plague-protection measure from the alien designers)
If few people are traveling through the stargate system, then most people aren't encountering lifestyles and circumstances much different from their own, and the diffusion of new ideas and technologies will have become more limited. Some planets might still be struggling under fairly primitive conditions, while people from very advanced worlds are bathed in luxury and convenience. The more primitive worlds have trouble applying technology to their situations, while visitors from the more advanced worlds normally sent to help have trouble just coping with life on the primitive worlds (They sit and bitch about no restaurants and no internet access). The SG personnel easily bridge the gap. They are the Peace Corps.
Some of the dictatorial countries (like Syria or North Korea) got their own planets and then were vastly more successful in cutting off their people from outside information and influences. The stagnant, oppressive cultures became vastly more so. The SGC personnel, unlike the pampered people of the core worlds, are quite familiar with those types of societies and how to undermine and overthrow them. They fight oppression, they bring revolution.
And most of all, they're the 20th century lens through which we see and judge the future.
I'm not sure if this idea could be at all compatible with my Stargate - Ecosystem idea, which was a way to encounter even more aliens and alien situations, but the Goa'uld could be easily introduced because it's highly plausible that Ba'al wasn't the last Goa'uld, he was just the last one they knew about. In this future, humans are so dominant that the Goa'uld realize they're better off living essentially as vampires; hidden, mythical, and slowly growing, often taking positions of power in what seems from the outside to be an ordinary world. New communities of them could be interesting, with new internal dynamics "We don't have to rule, my brothers, we just have to thrive."
Another obvious recurring theme is human cultures that have trampled all over planets that were supposed to be protected or off limits, everything from illegal mining to thousands of tourists who go to look at the cute little aliens. So often when the team mentions a pristine world they previously visited, one with a fascinating culture or interesting species, they invariably step out of the gate into a cityscape that looks like a Chicago or Miami. (Humans expand and pave over everything).
It seems like this would be a way to lower production costs because you're eliminating most of the wardrobe, props, and special sets, while expanding the number of interactions they could have, and the level of social commentary those interactions could carry. It even sets up more comedic commentary since alien jokes are a harder than jokes about things like a planet of fat kids with slurpies, and planets founded by fanatics of every wacko social trend that's hit Youtube.
Perhaps a good final twist would be that the leader of the teams is still Jack O'Neill, but the Jack O'Neill that had resulted from illegal Asgard cloning experiments, appeared as a kid, and had gone back to school. He should be graduating about now.
If Daniel Boone or George Washington popped out of a gate tomorrow I doubt they would take on any kind of active role in our life. They would be of huge historical interest but that would be about it.. and I think the SGC team would be in the same boat. Just because everybody respected Scotty didn't mean he was put in charge of anything.
I would LOVE to see Stargate set in future earth. It certainly takes more planning and plot than random medieval villages which are all the same story.
I'd still love to see how Stargate would deal with this place:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8idvQeM0kA[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8idvQeM0kA[/yt]
What the heck, I never heard of that MLB. The ships look good, the hair, the drums, the black leather gloves, the twin moons.
Hey, you got three or four episodes right there.
They think they're so much smarter that they won't listen to the SGC personnel, and so they stick them on a morning talk show to discuss their uniforms and what it was like to use toilet paper instead of the stones. Friction, arrogance, historical blindness, and a clash of personalities and perspectives, with some people of course siding with the SGC team, perhaps exploiting them for political opportunity to get some cheap jabs at an opponent, and others trying to get some celebrity to rub off on them.
Me too. There's not a whole lot you can do with just a village elder.
Oh those are great ideas gturner!
But we do need a decent budget for it, unless you're just going to cgi some flying cars into the driveways of Vancouver suburbs. What are earths big problems now would be interesting.. hopefully it doesn't look like Trek's bland parkland style.
But we do need a decent budget for it, unless you're just going to cgi some flying cars into the driveways of Vancouver suburbs. What are earths big problems now would be interesting.. hopefully it doesn't look like Trek's bland parkland style.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Maybe I should've made my point a little plainer then, it'll take more money than before filming in Vancouver isn't as cheap as it used to be and the locations are for the most part gone. All the talk of getting rid of the "Rein fair" look of SG1 is going to take some money, more money than it used to take.
The "Stargate Futures" idea I tossed out should be cheaper than the Rein Fair look because you could shoot it on normal city streets and on sets used for normal shows (offices, houses, factories, etc). That would mean the budget wouldn't need to be much higher than any other random TV show.
