Started watching it on Pluto and only in the first season but I’m liking it. I’ve seen random episodes here and there and my dad rented the movie once it was available at blockbuster. Plus it’s cool to see a show with Air Force members as an Air Force vet. I assume since it ended before the woke era there aren’t any major girlboss moments.
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I mean, their commander is literally fucking MacGyver.
The whole team has just obvious plot armor. Even other teams are like, "Yeah, we're SG6, you guys are legendary because it's only you guys that keep not dying."
Except you, Daniel. How many resurrections is this for you?
What a great job for Richard Dean Anderson... he just shows up to work and wings it in every episode.
I don't believe he ever read the script or the writers wrote his part like "what if the actor just showed up to work without reading the script, what would he say?"
It works in the show because his character is used for explaining to the audience what's going on, but it's not really making use of his acting chops.
If that's the case then it is probably the special sauce in the dish that is O'neill. If he were Kirk-ing it up the whole time it just wouldn't be the same
Plus, I think both the writers and the actress have publicly expressed some regret at those more egregious yet exceedingly rare instances.
This was of course back in a time when actors were really people instead of promotional sponsors, and were totally chill with getting along with fans instead of treating them all like peons.
Oh, DO NOT LOOK AT MICHAEL SHANKS TWITTER, he's a radical lefty so you'll hate him even more than Daniel Jackson does naturally.
I agree with Pierre Bernard.
Oh I'm not even remotely surprised. I'd expect almost nothing less from most Canadian actors.
Then they mock her doing it a few seasons later.
There were a lot of babes on that show. I always had a thing for Nirrti personally but Osiris was pretty hot too.
Adria was the hottest. Literally, she was on fire at some point.
IIRC there are maybe 2 or 3 episodes with "muh sexism/racism" but considering that the series ran for 10 seasons that's pretty minor. It's still probably my favorite series ever.
Season 1 was a bit slow IMHO. It felt fairly low budget and there was too much character introduction and not enough action when I rewatched it. Although that's maybe not an issue if you're watching it for the first time.
The later SG Atlantis felt slightly woker with that weird mystical girlboss but other than her it's still great.
SG Universe ... well, we don't talk about SG Universe.
I’ve heard a lot of people don’t like SGU. What did they do wrong? Totally change the lore?
They basically turned it into a highschool drama.
It also suffered from major one-upmanship. They raised the stakes to a point where it was about the secret behind the creation of the universe. It was so over the top that it didn't fit in with anything that came before.
Not the commenter you posted at, but I just have to reply ;)
They changed the lore, the format, the focus, the acting..
It’s a product of its time. mostly aping the directing style of the Battlestar Galactica reboot with the ongoing mystery of Lost and musical cues matching every drama at the time, which is fitting because of all the romance shit thrown in. At best it’s jarring compared to SG1 and Atlantis. At worst it’s painfully derivative. Still. The character of Dr. rush can be fun to watch (I’d describe him as ruthlessly pragmatic) and there’s a soldier with nice breasts.
Oh, thanks for the heads up
They tried to be too much like Battlestar Galactica, what with all the scheming and interpersonal conflicts going on left and right. Wrote themselves into a lot of weird dead ends. Lacked clear direction. Way too big of a cast and most of the characters were bland or cringey.
Also at this point of the franchise, they'd already delved through just about everything in the Milky Way Galaxy and Pegasus Galaxy. I don't know if there was much fun they could've had exploring the Ori or Asgard galaxy (forgot the names), since the Ori one is basically... more of the usual "primitive medieval peasants who aren't totally primitive" and with how the Asgard subplot played out... hmm.
Actually, they COULD have played off of that unfinished business with the more "grey" Asgard remnants encountered in Atlantis. That actually could've been a very different and new kind of threat. Since the fuckers are purely about science and reasoning (where-as most of the previous villains had been simply power hungry and posed as powerful gods, or were literally hungry)
The Ori were complete trash. Those seasons were completely extraneous. Chore to sit through any of it. Even the space battles sucked. Ori ships looked like oversized toilet seats.
You could tell the writers just despised the Catholic Church and did everything in their power to demonize Catholics. There wasn't any subtlety to it, either. It was just pure cringe.
Aye, the Ori were definitely based loosely on a general "Christian" theme, with an emphasis on Catholic vibes. Like that kind of thing was okay when it sprang up in individual episodes, but it was just kind of yawn-inducingly boring and repetitive as part of the main story.
The Lucian Alliance thing was also kind of a bit of a snorefest. Conceptually, there was nothing wrong with it, but something about the execution was just not really engaging. Had similar issues with Baal and his clones, although he was at least occasionally fun in a few episodes.
Yeah, the Lucian Alliance was complete garbage. Another underwhelming group that came out of nowhere and just illustrated how bored the writers were with their show. They don't really make sense either, because the whole premise of the Go'uld was to keep the non-Jaffa population of humans ignorant and technically illiterate. That was essential to their whole 'I am your god' spiel.
You will get a lot of different answers to that question but personally one of the reasons I dislike SGU is that it literally lifts what is clearly a joke from season 10 of SG-1 but runs with it 110% seriously.
I'm not sure what the spoiler tags are for this site so I'm going to try and remain generally vague about what happens while also making a large chunk of text to make it difficult for things to stand out:
At some point in universe a tv show starts up based on the military program. It's classic 90s sci-fi, as in horribly cheesy with extremely cheap effects parodying both the actual concept of SG-1 as well as 90s sci-fi. The US Gov let it run despite how on the nose about the actual program it is because it offers some deniability about the Stargate. Later on there's an episode dealing with a movie being made that pokes a lot of fun at various sci-fi shows from the time, in particular Farscape because the movie being discussed is getting made after "dvd sales did well" regardless of how the original parody show got cancelled. When discussing how the movie should be made someone makes a comment about how the studio execs want to reboot the show but with a "Young Adult" cast and make it into an interpersonal drama show. In other words a CW show. That's what SGU ended up being. The main cast are all early-mid 20s causing drama between each other because the Chad soldier, who literally first appears on screen in SGU fucking another soldier in a supply closet, ends up as the eye candy for the lead female who is the object of affection for the isekai'd nerd who gets whisked away from his perma-online MMO lifestyle to have adventures IN SPAAACE!
As others mention it's very like the BSG remake of the time and in addition to the issue I mention above the whole thing just doesn't feel like a Stargate show at all. It could easily be a random sci-fi show with nothing to do with Stargate which begs the question of why bother to make it when it turned out like that?
SG: Atlantis is similar enough to SG-1, for better or worse, that it still feels like a Stargate show with both the general story and cast fitting the SG-1 templates. While this touches on a lack of originality as a criticism point it does mean it retains enough to be marketable to the existing SG-1 audience.
Plus the characters from both SG-1 and SGA are for the most part extremely memorable and welcome. SG-1 has better core characters and fewer supporting ones but they are all great. General Hammond and Doctor Fraser for example while not being active SG team members are still very much part of the show. SGA however doesn't really gel as a team until Jason Momoa joins the show in season 2 because Ford never gets developed into anything interesting character wise. SGA does have a much larger supporting roster however and almost all are characters the audience enjoy such as Beckett and Zelenka, even the antagonistic ones.
Thank you for the breakdown. I may check it out after I watch SG1and SGA
I don't disagree with what everyone here is saying about SGU, but I did really like what they did with Young, the military leader in that show. Basically, he's a fuckup without being an idiot or bad at his job. He's just in way over his head and makes wrong calls. It was a 'love to hate him' thing, but with a protagonist, which I'd never seen done before at the time.
That said, it was all subtext and not at all intentional. They were going for "Rush and Young are both strong personalities who are each correct sometimes. Also, every SG show has nominal power sharing between the military and civs." The problem is, Rush was correct almost every time and held all the trumps. Young had absolutely nothing on him and should've accepted it was no longer his mission.
Rush was utterly duplicitous, though, and had no real standing amongst that group, because he blew all of his credibility with his shitty schemes.
Absolutely. But as (pretty much) the only one who could get the ship to do anything, Rush was the only one who was indispensable, and he knew it.
Thanks!
They end up getting the Russian team treatment though so it ends well :p
Teyla was one of the worst characters imaginable. A failed female Teal'c replacement. She was completely useless. They allegedly hired her because she had knowledge of the local trade networks, but she turned into black G.I. Jane with sticks for some apparent reason, and her knowledge of local trade networks was completely non-existent.
Til she is black
She's from East Africa, half-Bantu. She does look pale and has many Caucasian features, but we all know why they hired her for that role, and it wasn't for her acting chops.
Although I stopped watching after the end of season 8 (10 seasons total), I can tell you that you will enjoy it quite a bit as the series progresses.
The soft reboot with 50% new cast was not a good plan, but they didn't feel like they had enough foundation to start Atlantis yet, is my guess.
There was nothing particularly offensive about the new AF general casting, or the younger lead, but they were very... bland.
Claudia Black's character, on the other hand, I despised.
Well do remember, only 1/4 of the casting was new/changed. I think Ben Browder did a pretty good job, but I don't think he was "quite" the right fit as the stand-in for the new team leader. Generally I have few complaints, save for how I really wish he'd been given more opportunities to do some brilliant work like he had with Farscape. Michael Shanks and his character remained superb, even when Claudia Black was not quite performing so well.
Claudia was, so hit or miss. 60% miss I'd say, and I think a lot of it's because the writers just couldn't narrow down who her character should be for the longest time. And then they settled for a generally boring direction with her. New base general (forgot his name) did alright, but he didn't have quite the same spark as Hammond.
Beau Bridges, best known for being the younger brother of the Jeff of the same name.
Can't beat Don S. Davis for the serious general we wish the Air Force had, though in my experience, Beau was closer in temperament to most flag officers. He had that politician veneer that most senior officers had, while Don had the grit that I'd expect from a man who'd started his career as a private, not a lieutenant.
Nah, I hated every direction they took her skanky Mary-Sue ass equally. I didn't like the slag, I didn't like the never-before-seen former Gou'auld host, and I didn't like the campy misfit. She didn't belong in a serious military outfit, and unlike the cast of the original series, she hadn't earned any leeway. An actual military outfit would have treated her like Teal'c would have been treated in Season 1 if he couldn't fight and consistently betrayed the team and abandoned the mission for personal reasons multiple times. i.e. taken out back and buried in a very deep grave.
rofl, she was terrible.
Core fireteam yes but overall it was closer to half.
RDJ actually left after s8 preceded by Don S David leaving at the end of s7 to make things easier for RDJ acting wise who wanted to stop and spend more time with his daughter. Changing Jack from in the field to behind a desk made things easier on RDJ but even then that only lasted a single season before Beau Bridges came in as Landry.
So in addition to the "team lead" being replaced with Mitchell so was the base CO.
As was the lead medic, finally, when Lexa Doig was cast, a casting that would lead to her marrying Michael Shanks.
That's 3 of the main 6 swapped out in some way or another, although Fraser was certainly more of a secondary supporting character than Hammond ended up being since originally Hammond was far more antagonistic.
He was originally going to be cast as Sheppard in SGA but the filming of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars prevented that. Instead Cameron Mitchel was created filling a similar role but on the parent show rather than spin-off.
Vala was never intended to be a recurring character, or even return after her initial appearance in 'Promethus Unbound' in season 8, so the character the show ended up with later on was very different to the previous one off she was expected to be. It wasn't helped that Claudia Black's pregnancy also interfered with her appearances after 'Beachhead' in a similar way to Amanda Tapping's prior to the same episode. In Sam's case however they "phoned her in" during her chat with Mitchel in the s9 pilot so any evidence of her own pregnancy was minimal across a screen and required zero mobility and it was resolved by episode 6 rather in Vala's case where it started, meaning she would miss most of the rest of the season.
Yeah, I suspected Claudia was not intended to be a recurring thing originally. Didn't know about the pregnancy circulating issues though, but that doesn't surprise me. Issues like that are can be a common challenge for shows.
Forgot about how Browder was intended for SGA. Kind of glad it didn't play out that way, simply because of how much I enjoyed the performance of the actor that did end up playing Shepard.
Claudia Black's character was ham-on-a-stick. Worst acting in the series.
One bit that's never addressed outright is how Mitchell's SG-1 isn't really a traditional military unit anymore. Mitchell technically gives the orders, but everyone else has more experience than him. Even the civilian scholar has more outright combat experience than him, let alone experience with alien shit. The writers seemed somewhat aware of it, and wrote the team members as being more independent, but leaving it unaddressed made it feel out of place.
Mitchell directly addresses that in s10e04
Yeah it fell apart after S08 but damn were those 8 seasons awesome, especially if you're familiar with ancient history and particular the ancients' own records of ancient history.
So you stopped watching at the end of the series. Moebius was a pretty good series finale I thought.
Richard Dean Anderson is such a gem.
Yes he is. Plus my mom was a huge Macgyver fan when I was a kid so I watched lots of that show
SG-1 is very good, though the last 2 seasons were sillier, and could count as slightly girlboss-y.
I found SG-A to be good as well, and not much Girlboss moments at all. A character I hated in SG-1 actually became a fav.
There is no SGU.. ..
I plan on watching Atlantis after this when I get a chance
SG1 and SGA run concurrently at some point and the story jumps back and forth. I think Atlantis starts at around season 7 or 8. Search for "stargate watch order" or something like that if you make it that far.
First season of Atlantis is pure gold in my opinion. Perfect setup and story arc. I won't spoil things, but I do think they may have done almost too well during that season, and maybe wrote themselves into a literary predicament.
I remember the early episodes of SGA were glorious. Well written, great picture / architecture style, nice fleshing of the Ancients.
It slowly went down in quality with a few very good episodes still to be found later. Some episodes felt the characters were "written wrong" and some plot developments made me lose interest.
Won't spoil further than saying I felt a sharp enjoyment drop around the integration of the "Galaxy natives" to the unit.
Put SGA season 1 on your watchlist if you haven't.
SG Universe would have been interesting on its own, but it was not "Stargate" in vibe nor quality.
The long "Somehow, Alchoolism in Space" arc was fucking garbage.
Yeah, I still enjoyed SGA for quite a while after the first season. It's only the main plot that took a bit of a dip after the first season. I'd say it took another season or two after that for other issues to crop up.
I think the replicator subplot, while actually kind of cool in a lot of ways, also felt a little forced. Particularly towards the end, as the show kept dangling a "dead, but maybe not totally dead" character in front of the audience.
That exactly what sprung to mind as the worse aspect of the show's decline. The Replicator arc(s) and how they dealt with Elizabeth. Stopped caring. A clash with Replicators had good potential, they screwed it up.
Very much so.
Similar mishandlings between the Wraith and the Atlantis team were also a major issue. The only exception to that was maybe "Todd", but I think the way Todd was overused as time went on ended up ruining the mystique and threat the Wraith represented. Sort of mirrors how Baal in SG1 grew increasingly underwhelming as time went on.
Also, the entire plotline with the retrovirus was just awful, all the way through.
Oh no, I had blissfully forgotten Todd existed.
I find it annoying when SciFi shows go the route of "akshually, this extremely brutal, overwhelming, demonic enemy which only kills, consumes and destroys has the same struggles as humans and are relatable! Aren't your expectations subverted by our deep, super smart plot twist?" No, it's been done to death and you twist the lore the show set up to introduce that, likely specifically to build up an "ah ah, expectation subvertion!" trick that degrades the "aura" around the enemy.
To use another show with a terrifying all-powerful enemy Startreck : The Borg should just remain The Borg. I don't need my "expectation subverted" with a story arc about teenage Borgs having some highschool drama at Borg School.
To me, the worst offender was Michael though.
He should have died from a "cure-inflicted auto-immune disorder" or something, because by the second time he came back in the story, I didn't want to watch that anymore.
Someone made an unofficial watch order which includes the movies. I used it and everything seemed to line up pretty well.
Cool! Thanks
If only we were so lucky.
Not in the "traditional" sense that is now woke writing but there are a few moments it borders for better or worse. Carter's line in the pilot about her reproductive organs being on the inside rather than out for example however even the show ends up highlighting how much of a dumb thing that is to say.
Closest the show ends up are a few episodes dealing with the various primitive societies that are a staple feature of the show's exploration. There's a very early episode where SG-1 encounter a group of Mongols lead by Shang Tsung from the OG Mortal Kombat movie and women there are very much property for that tribe until Carter stages some emancipation type thing but as is the case with almost every new planet it never gets brought up again past the episode in question.
And regarding some spoilers for later seasons there is a female led faction of a particular group who try to lean on the "wammen stronk" line a bit much which gets a bit boring fast.
Thanks. Although pre woke era women power themes weren’t nearly as obnoxious as today.
Question for you, was the reproductive organs comment in the episode you saw? I think I read it was removed from some versions because it was considered that cringe by the writers later on.
Honestly might have been but I don’t remember
It's that insignificant to the whole thing, which is also likely why it was removed, that any edits made to remove it would be missed unless you have prior knowledge the line is coming.
Other question; were there tits in the pilot? Because that's removed from some versions too 👀
Wow. I didn’t know that was in the pilot. What channel did it originally air on?
Really doesn't feel like a finale, especially given what happened in the previous episode.
And it shows, hard.
indeed
Shol'va!
SHEL KEK NEM RON!
Stargate remake is gonna be insufferable... its gonna make stargate atlantis and especially stargate universe look good lol.
Baal is by far my favourite character from the original.
RIP Cliff.
Never watched the show except maybe an episode here and there, but I liked the Stargate movie which I guess is a prequel to the SG1 show where they go into the Stargate for the first time and meet the G'ould. Recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it already.
I saw that when I was young. My dad rented it from blockbuster. At the first comic con I ever attended I met the guy who played the pharaoh kid.
If you watch the movie close to the series you notice a few plot holes but the original movie is great.
"Give my regards to King Tut, asshole!"
When you first experience the thought "oh come on, another temperate Canadian forest episode??" just remember it gets better and is worth it
Ha! Thanks
So have you been enjoying sg1 so far? Im considering looking up a plot/episode list so I can relive it over a week or so without committing to a whole series rewatch
So far I am enjoying it. Fun show that expands on the movie
I don't even care much for the movie. It's decent but if it didn't spawn the show itd be forgettable to me. Enjoy.
That’s true. Very few people think of the movie when you say Stargate.
They had a few girlboss moments, but they quickly realised that they sucked and quit doing it. Carter still gets her share of the heroics later in the series, but it's done much better.
I would say if you are into sci-fi and exploring a multitude of worlds
It is almost an anthology of "what if" parallel world scenarios like Sliders, original Star Trek, or even The Twilight Zone, and exploring those alternate ideas is really the core of good speculative (science) fiction. It is a series that combines elements of Top Secret Conspiracies, Military Drama, and Ancient Aliens. Add on top of that an unknown-to-the-public conflict with galactic brain slugs that have been controlling civilizations for millennia, but rather than gradually uncovering the truth like in The X-Files, we follow a team on the inside procuring their technology for the US Government. I always thought was a cool subversion of the modern sci-fi trope of humanity coming together and doing things for the greater good. No, our characters are US soldiers (or airmen) unashamedly fighting for the USA. At least early on.
Did you ever see the movie? Much of what they did in the TV show was retooled but it at least introduces the lore. They do not go to ancient Egyptian settings on SG-1 though. The team is pretty much always in the woods of British Columbia.
Season 1 can be a little rough, but generally I like some of the early seasons the most.
Stargate SG-1 is a middling show that begins to crater after season 5 or 6. It doesn't deliver on its promise and just peters out. At one point they start to encounter disposable bad guys in the vein of the power rangers. Just ridiculous.
Stargate Atlantis isn't particularly great. The villains in that show are horrible (space vampires), the rivalry between the lead character and some primitive rando (Kolya or something) was underwhelming and the casting was a disaster. Half the cast ended up being replaced because they were vapid stand-ins from the get go. The show also had feminist plot elements (Mom knows best) of having a 'female base commander' and a female Teal'c (terrible actress).
Stargate Universe had a big budget, resulting in competent set designs and special effects, but the cast and drama were mediocre. It shouldn't have been a Stargate show to begin with, because they obviously had something else in mind.
That is the nice thing of 80s and 90s series, they rarely contain woke propaganda. I watched a couple of Stargate films on TubiTV for free but I don´t know if they are still available.
I mean...it's very much there it's just that you're used to it...watching 20's to 40's stuff and comparing to 80's was eye opening for me.
That, and in the first episode. I don't think there were really any other particular instances beyond those.
Good to hear. I have started getting physical media again. Started with all 7 Police Academy movies and Blazing Saddles
I have an entire shelf that's almost full purely by SG-1. Thankfully they went to the slim cases at s8 otherwise they wouldn't fit. As it is I barely have room for Star Wars original trilogy SE and my Command & Conquer boxset.