Did the Wraith get less scary?

[Snowman37]

Did the Wraith get less scary as the show went on? Compare the various Wraith in "Rising" to Todd, Michael, and the Wraith of Seasons 4-5. They just didn't seem as scary as when they were first introduced. For me, it's less about knowing the enemy and more about the makeup and how the actors portrayed them. Does anyone else feel the same way? Episodes like "Midway," "Whispers," "The Queen," and "Outsiders" made the Wraith scary again.

[Gen. Chris]

The actress who played the queen in the first episode (I think she played other ones later) terrified me.

Seriously.

[maneth]

They did, but it's the same thing as happened to the Borg in Voyager. If your enemy is so implacable you can't negotiate with them, it's definitely scary but there's not much room for plot. Once you start negotiating a lot of the fear goes.

[Gen. Chris]

They did, but it's the same thing as happened to the Borg in Voyager. If your enemy is so implacable you can't negotiate with them, it's definitely scary but there's not much room for plot. Once you start negotiating a lot of the fear goes.

Yeah but then a wraith queen feeds on one of her own (after he took the "cure") and they get terrifying again...Lol

[maneth]

To be honest I don't much care what the Wraith do to each other as long as they leave humans alone.

[Gen. Chris]

To be honest I don't much care what the Wraith do to each other as long as they leave humans alone.

Oh agreed, but still...Lol

[Snowman37]

They did, but it's the same thing as happened to the Borg in Voyager. If your enemy is so implacable you can't negotiate with them, it's definitely scary but there's not much room for plot. Once you start negotiating a lot of the fear goes.

You didn't read my post. I'm talking about makeup and acting, not writing.

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

no Wraith are cool and 'never ending'

[Stalinorgel]

Only Todd wasn't scary but really cool
The Wraith queens however lost their touch for me a bit.
All in all I thought the Wraith became more and more vulnerable once their weaknesses were getting known more. Michael was scary all the time, seeing how he was a sort of loner and especially unpredictable

[thekillman]

i am not sure. i think they were.... less washed in the first few seasons. i mean, later on they got rather nicely done hair, whereas previously it was this really rough, rope-y hair.

[AlexanderD]

From a makeup standpoint, I felt the Wraith looked far less fearsome in later seasons. Compare the Queen in Rising to later Queens. Just my opinion.

[LT. COL. John Sheppard]

was anyone scared of the Teyla queen from S5

[maneth]

You didn't read my post. I'm talking about makeup and acting, not writing.

Fair enough. For me it's always all about the writing. Unless the acting is exceptionally poor I don't pay any attention to it.

[The Urban Spaceman]

Bit of a paradox for me, really.

I found Todd a bit scary in his first episode (Common Ground) because even though he was a captive of the Genii he was kept locked up and restrained with an arm-brace -- clearly the Genii understood the threat he posed. He was also suitably creepy, looking half-starved and then growing in strength as he fed on Sheppard, which I thought was very well done. At first he can barely stand and has to be supported by Genii, later he is standing and prowling his cage, trying to grab Sheppard through the bars.

As the various Todd episodes progressed he became less scary as a monster/enemy because his humanity clearly shows through, and even though he's a bit unscrupulous, you know there's no chance of him feeding on the Daedalus crew when he takes it during First Contact.

On the opposite side of the coin, Michael I find scary throughout the series purely because of his humanity. As a monster/enemy sure, he would have been scary as a plain old Wraith, but turned human and taught betrayal gives him the impetus to continue his campaign of violence, especially given that when he becomes Wraith again, his own kind don't accept him and view him as less than he originally was.

I find the conflicting duality of these two Wraith in particular to be interesting; Todd is kept captive by the Genii, but shows some loyalty and honour towards Sheppard/Atlantis because they kept their word to him. Michael turns into a raving Wraith lunatic bent on galactic domination because he was kept captive by Atlantis and feels he was betrayed by them. Both Wraith reflect the treatment they were shown (or perceived to be shown) by the Atlantis expedition, with completely different results.

The rest of the Wraith didn't become less scary, just more predictable and I suppose I became a bit desensitised to them as a whole.

[thekillman]

especially since they got easier to kill....

[Sharra]

Michael turns into a raving Wraith lunatic bent on galactic domination because he was kept captive by Atlantis and feels he was betrayed by them.

I think it was less a case of 'betrayed' than 'experimented upon and tortured.' Twice. To be fair, he was amply justified in his hatred of the Atlanteans, especially Beckett. Much as I adore Beckett and understand his reasons, he was really incredibly cruel to Michael.

But that's getting away from the topic of the thread (though Michael did look increasingly human as the series went on). For the other Wraith, i think thekillman is right, they did 'clean up' somewhat in later episodes, which made them look at least more civilized. I think their outfits started looking more tailored, too, though that's just a vague impression. All that said, I don't think you can separate the dialogue/acting/etc. out. It's all part of the package.

[Brie]

I think the Wraith is such a great enemy but for me I did feel like they got less scary, I mean they were still great although the whole series but in season 1 they were still mostly a mystery, mostly since it follows the people from earth pov and we learned about the wraith at the same time as they did. I think the problem started first when they created the virus that would turn the wraith into humans, now it didn’t really work but seeing the wraith as humans and when we got to meet Michael the first time (before he got all rouge) and I dunno, the mystery that made them really scary and different from the humans went away (it was also in one episode when Todd talk to Keller about feeding on humans to survive and you could tell she was feeling really sympathetic towards him and that was also something that didn’t make them very scary anymore). You also can’t forget when they introduced the replicators and especially in season 4 and they started some “the enemy of my enemy” – alliance and we kept getting more and more of things like that and while I get the idea behind doing it the mystery wasn’t there anymore. It also didn’t help that they seem to have lost some of their powers as time went on, not only that it got easier to kill them but what about their abilities to be able to make humans see things that aren’t there, I think after season 2 we didn’t see any more of that. Oh well, I still liked them, they were a great enemy and it was pretty cool how they looked like some dead fifth member of ‘Kiss’.

[The Flyattractor]

I'm talking about makeup and acting, not writing.

It kind of depends on the actor doing it. Some of the least "scary wraith" were the 2 guys that were in the Midway episode. They weren't tall and had terrible voices.. to me they kinda sounded like Bill and Ted.
Now the Wraith from the ep with the little Satedan buddy of Ronans. He was much better.

[Gen. Chris]

It kind of depends on the actor doing it. Some of the least "scary wraith" were the 2 guys that were in the Midway episode. They weren't tall and had terrible voices.. to me they kinda sounded like Bill and Ted.
Now the Wraith from the ep with the little Satedan buddy of Ronans. He was much better.

They used a lot of the same actors over and over, though...so it couldn't just be the actors

[The Flyattractor]

using the same actors over and over kind of helped.
It gave them a sort of insect like sameness.
They even kind of talked about it on some of the commentaries on the show.