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    Too Powerful - Least Credible are the Ori

    The following was quoted prior:

    First come the The Goa'uld were bad, but they were interesting. The whole symbiote things was interesting.. and it made for a cheap enemy too, because it was an alien in a human body and not for silly Star Trek "everybody is human" reasons. Granted, the comic book bad guy dialogue did make the Goa'uld a little cheesy, but really, all in all they were O.K.

    Next, The Replicators were also bad, and they were SOMEWHAT interesting. Legos with attitude aren't that scary, but they weren't a virtual copy of the Goa'uld.

    Next, we get the "new and improved" Apophis in Season 8. He takes over a larger kingdom. He has bigger ships. He has more troops. He's worse, but there's no great creativity there. He's just "System Lord" 2.0.

    Then we have "worse than the Goa'uld" in the form of Anubis-Ascended. The whole "half ascended" bit was supposed to make him scarier, but really he was the same as any other Goa'uld in motives. He still had to gloat. He still had to dominate others in much the same way. Not until the end, in "Threads" when he wanted to destroy all life in the galaxy and start over did Anubis really differentiate himself from other Goa'uld. Sure, he had "worse" warriors than Jaffa, but they weren't very interesting. Sure, he had slightly more tech than other Goa'uld, but really, is slightly better tech anything other than just more of the same? Anubis is "System Lord" 3.0.

    Then we have the human-form Replicators. They still want to do the same thing as regular Replicators, but they add a comic book villain element too. Now we can talk to them. Other than that? Not so differernt. These are Replicators 2.0. But they aren't bad enough, so we need to personalize it more. We create history between Carter and Fifth, and now he has a personal grudge against SG1 and humanity in general. Replicator 3.0. Still not enough, let's personalize it some more with a RepliCarter, who is about as personalized as you can get. Replicator 4.0. More of the same. Just "crank up the volume".

    For Stargate Atlantis, we have the Wraith, who are a lot like the Goa'uld. The Goa'uld use humanity as unwilling hosts and slaves, while the Wraith use thumanity as unwilling food. Both the Goa'uld and the Wraith have unnatural regenerative powers, and through either nature or technology live forever. Both use the same comic book villain lines. Both are more technologically advanced than humanity. Both rule large swaths of their respective galaxies. Both are dependent upon humanity for their very lives (the Goa'uld as hosts, the Wraith as food). In order to make the Wraith "worse than" the Goa'uld, instead of space enslavers, they are space vampires. So really, in a lot of ways, it is just more of the same.

    Now, in season nine, we have the Ori. "Worse than the Goa'uld" we are told. But really, aren't they just another form of ascended being just like Anubis but? Shouldn't they be calling it "Worse than Anubis"?

    It seems to me, rather than concentrating on making an enemy "worse than" the predecessor enemy, a more INTERESTING enemy would be a good idea. This whole "Worse Than" craze really is no way to drive a series. Interesting is a lot more important than "worse than".

    #2
    You have to much time on your hands to be thinking all about your reasons there..

    It is after all only TV

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      #3
      I thought stargate pretty much was a comic book in tv series form. which im fine with. i enjoy comic books.

      Comment


        #4
        more interesting would be more fun.

        personally? nuby was a joke. he was a cheesy baddie and i found baal to be far more threatening (at least until ex deus machina and the stupidity there)

        i still find baal kinda interesting since he's more multi-faceted. you never quite knowwhere you stand with him.

        the Ori? no matter what we do with the Ori, we'll lose

        we kill them and we'll have planets and planets full of peopel ticked off at us. we kill their followers, well that just makes us mass murderers killing people for believing in 'bad' gods

        we'll never convert the believers, their belief is too deeply engrained

        no matter what we do, we lose. we're in an unwinnable war
        Where in the World is George Hammond?


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          #5
          All I have to say to that is... what would you suggest?

          Can you post a reply, which details an "Interesting" apponent. Who would be cheap to create (unless of course, as well as posting an interesting bad guy, you also have tonnes of cash to create this), based on budgets.

          Also you say they're not interesting, or are just the same thing over and over again. But hey your still here 9/10 years later. Some thing must have sparked your interest. Or have you been watching for the hell of it?

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            #6
            for interesting we need motivation. concrete motivation. heck, even with the ori we only have daniel's and orlin's word that they're bad. we can't prove it.

            the lucian alliance are interesting...kinda farscapy and andormedy esque space pirates, but they are interesting. they have potential to be both good and bad, which lends an uncertainty to dealing with them. You never know what they'll do for sure

            teh Ori?

            they're good, we're bad, we must worship or die.

            so all we can do is try to out-tech the near omiscient beings....didn't the asgard try that with the Replicators? Failed quite spectacularly.

            if there is no way to really win, then it's simply an exercise in futility and we, as earth, are put in the position of telling people that they're worshipping the wrong gods and that they're not gonna get ascended (go to heaven) but will just die...but we can't prove it so take our word for it.

            It's like Wargames, there is no way to win this game. Even if we defeat the Ori we will still lose because people will hate us for killing thier gods because we have no way to prove that the Ori aren't gods.
            Where in the World is George Hammond?


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              #7
              Just because you can't think of a solution doesn't mean there isn't one.

              And you like the Lucian Alliance? What can they do? Launch a few Hataks at us? Been there and done that. Besides, they don't seem have any qualms with Earth, they're more just "out there".

              Pretty boring if you ask me.

              Comment


                #8
                i didn't say that i particularly liked them, but at least they bring an air of unpredictibility to the table. unpredictibility can make things interesting. the Ori steadfast dogma is predictible. and i find that predictibility boring

                the ori hate us and want to kill us simply because we don't believe the way they think we should behave. and i doubt there's anything out there that'll change thier minds, just as there's no way we can prove that they're bad.
                Where in the World is George Hammond?


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                  #9
                  Not no way. We have already seen that there are some people in the Ori galaxy that don't trust the Ori. We just need many more of them.

                  At the end these worshippers are still human, and, even if it takes something super-drastic (I don't know what, blowing up a galaxy?), they can be convinced. Somehow.

                  Even if the Lucian Alliance is unpredictable, there's a limit to their power. Fact is they control a few dozen Goa'uld ships, and as such would probably never pose considerable threat, at least not as much as the Ori.

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                    #10
                    shiznaw I think you meant "new and improved Anubis" in Season Eight. Apophis is way dead, there's no way he got out of that one.

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                      #11
                      Setting aside my theological objections to the Ori, I really prefer the Goa'uld (minus that bag of dirty laundry known as Anubis) as villians. I still say that there's nothing more insidious as what the Goa'uld do. The Ori kill you. It might be horrible while it lasts, but than, you're dead. And, yes, the Ori can bring you back, but it seems like they would only do that if they thought that it would convince you that they are gods. If they saw that didn't work, you'd probably die and stay dead, and then at least as far as they're concerned, your problems are over. But, to watch yourself committing attrocities, sometimes to your nearest and dearest and to have no control and also to have no hope that it will at least end when you die, that's horribly devastating. And, equally as devastating to watch your loved ones committing the acts if you're not the one who's a host. Even if the Goa'uld is removed, I can imagine a lot of ongoing psychological damage from both sides.

                      After the Goa'uld, I found Replicarter a pretty interesting villian (as long as I ignore the actions of everyone else in Gemini). At least AT played her interestingly. The battle of wills between her and Daniel in Reckoning 2 couldn't have been as powerful if both parties weren't forces to be reckoned (heh) with.

                      For me, it's not how powerful an enemy is (although an enemy has to be powerful, because I think the heroes should start off as the underdogs) that really says how interesting they are. So, for me, what a villian can do is part of it, but that's not the main question I ask when I decide what makes an interesting villian.

                      Also, except for the clones, I find Ba'al is still interesting even if he's not doing the same things he did in the days of Goa'uld power. He's still sneaky and seductive and evil. Very interesting combinations even without a flanged voice (but I still prefer the flanged voice).
                      Last edited by Dani347; 11 March 2006, 08:03 PM.
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                        #12
                        I'm not that creative a person myself, but I was hoping that shiznaw would at least present a possible villain that just point out similarities between the different villains of Stargate.

                        I see a complaint of no resurgence of originality, yet nary a solution to the perceived problem is offered. "Why would you want Half-Life 2 when someone already made Doom, it's just FPS 9.0?"

                        I don't mean to sound hostile, and if it comes that way I am sorry, I just like reading solutions to more than what seems to be a rant.

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                          #13
                          Sometimes, and I don't know if this is the case, a person can perceive a problem, but they don't necessarily have a solution.

                          Now, if I didn't just want the Ori to be gone period, I would say a way of making them more interesting would either to make it personal (which is why, imo, Apophis still tops the list of best villians) or to individualize them and have the actors playing them just be interesting in their portrayals. I know some people see the Goa'uld as all the same, bad flashy dressers who want power, but to me there are extreme differences between Apophis and Ba'al. If Apophis was alive, I can't imagine him adapting his villiany to suit the times, the way Ba'al does. Would Apophis ever admit that he wasn't really a god? I doubt it. I also see Khalek as having been different from both Ba'al and Apophis (and he had more personality than his dry cleaned papa) But, so far my impression is the Ori are really all the same. They think the same, they act the same, they talk the same -through the priors. What one wants, they all want, and the methods that one uses to get what they want, is the method they all use.
                          I'm a girl! A girly girly girl!

                          Okay, you got me. I can't accept change. This message may look like it was typed on a computer and posted on the internet, but it is actually cave drawings delivered by smoke signals.

                          Naquada Enhanced Chastity Belts -SG1 edition. On sale now! Heck, I'll give them away

                          Daniel Jackson Appreciation and Discussion -because he's more than pretty

                          http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=89


                          Daniel Jackson: The Beacon of Hope and The Man Who Opened the Stargate

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                            #14
                            Personally, I'm liking the Ori so far as an enemy. I just can't wait for us to actually engage some of their warriors in battle on the ground. It would be cool to see a Prior leading the attack, as well. And in season 10, we will get a
                            Spoiler:
                            human version of the Ori. Adria, Vala's daughter
                            . That should be cool IMO.
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                              #15
                              The Ori remind me of the Dominion in Star Trek: DS9, a mass of individual, yet collective, evil bad guys ... be it the 'great link' of shapeshifters or a bunch of ascended beings ...

                              You know who were the best villains in SG-1? The Aschen. Sinister, but you'd never know it because of all the cool tech they openly provided ... then, when you realize you're in deep doo doo, it's too late, because they got you.

                              PS I thought they were going to make the Aschen arc a trilogy. I'm still waiting for the third episode.

                              Too bad you can't make the Ori sterile.

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