Replicators & Asurans

[Snowman37]

A lot of people seemed to like the replicators on SG-1. However, it seems people were tired of them come Atlantis (Asurans) and The Ark of Truth. How come? Personally, I never grew tired of them. They reminded me of the Borg from Star Trek in that they were relentless and nearly impossible to defeat. Some people say that The Ark of Truth should have been exclusively about the Ori. However, why not bring in the replicators? Morena Baccarin (Adria) was only available for one day of filming, so perhaps that resulted in a larger replicator subplot than was originally intended? Then there's the Asurans from Atlantis. How come the expedition kept calling them the replicators? They really weren't replicators. The Asurans simply wished to be left alone, or was that the Wraith's doing? Regardless, I understood the threat to Atlantis, by why would they go gunning for Earth? That assumption in "First Strike" never made sense to me. Anyway, the Goa'uld went on for eight years, the Ori two years, and the Replicators ten episodes and a movie. How is that overused? The Wraith were Atlantis's central enemy for all five seasons. The Asurans were only there for nine episodes. Again, overused, really?

[VampyreWraith]

I liked the replicators on SG1, just not in Ark of Truth.
I liked the Asurans on SGA.

[darth_timon]

As a particularly fearsome and challenging enemy, it could be argued that, like the Borg in Voyager, they were overused. Plus, Atlantis was rehashing the replicator theme.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Personally I liked all versions of the replicators.
Guess it's always gonna come down to personal preference, I think the none Human bug Reps were the more interesting enemy and not being similar to Humans in appearance made them sit apart from always seeing Humans everwhere SG1 or the SGA team went.

In the beginning it was interesting that they'd evolved into Human forms in Unnatural Selection, but I guess by the time it came to the Asurans making an appearance some viewers of the show got bored of the Human style aliens always making an appearance.

Me personally I think they've always been defeated too easily, by Deus Ex Machina.

[Snowman37]

I liked the replicators on SG1, just not in Ark of Truth.

This is what baffles me. Was it the depiction, or that it took away time from resolving the Ori saga?

As a particularly fearsome and challenging enemy, it could be argued that, like the Borg in Voyager, they were overused. Plus, Atlantis was rehashing the replicator theme.

Were they? I'd hardly call 10 of 214 episodes overused. As for The Ark of Truth, we hadn't seen them for two years, three if you count the viewers having to wait a year for the movie. Granted, that's discounting the Asurans on Atlantis. As for the Asurans, you seem them as a rehash of the human-form replicators? Couldn't the same be said about the Ori, a rehash of the Goa'uld?

Personally I liked all versions of the replicators.
Guess it's always gonna come down to personal preference, I think the none Human bug Reps were the more interesting enemy and not being similar to Humans in appearance made them sit apart from always seeing Humans everwhere SG1 or the SGA team went.

I agree, the replicator bugs were more threatening. I liked how SG-1 went with one human-form replicator leading a plague of replicators. What made the Asurans stand out was that they were all human-form replicators, more or less, without the bug-like replicators. For me, they were different enough.

In the beginning it was interesting that they'd evolved into Human forms in Unnatural Selection, but I guess by the time it came to the Asurans making an appearance some viewers of the show got bored of the Human style aliens always making an appearance.

I guess one could argue that it wasn't the replicators that people grew tired of, but rather, the human-form replicators? Still, we saw far more of the Goa'uld, Ori, or Wraith than all of the replicators and Asurans combined. Why are they expected to be used so sparingly?

Me personally I think they've always been defeated too easily, by Deus Ex Machina.

Were they? The only time the replicators seemed defeated too easily on SG-1 was with the deactivation code in The Ark of Truth. As for Atlantis, super-all-knowing-McKay was too capable of hacking the Asurans. He should never have been able to do that, at least not without a whole team of hackers anyway. However, I loved the defeat in "Be All My Sins Remember'd." Build an Asuran, she draws all Asuran nanites toward her into Blobzilla, it becomes dense, sinks into the planet, planet explodes! For once, we got a solution that didn't involve super-hacking. haha

[VampyreWraith]

This is what baffles me. Was it the depiction, or that it took away time from resolving the Ori saga?

I would have rather had the entire movie focus on the Ori, and I didn't really see the need to bring them back again at that point. Having the replicators there seemed to take away from the Ori part of the story.

[The Urban Spaceman]

The Asurans simply wished to be left alone, or was that the Wraith's doing?

Yes, that was because of the Wraith.

Spoiler:

Basically, they re-wrote the Asuran programming, essentially telling the Asurans to 'stand down'. It was only after McKay made some fundamental changes to the Asuran base code programming that they started up their fight again. Not only did they resume attacking the Wraith, they also changed strategy by destroying the Wraith food supply (humans) and even managed to work around the order the Lanteans programmed into them -- to not attack their masters.

[KEK]

People always complain about the Replicators coming back, but then end up loving the episodes it results in. New Order, Reckoning, First Strike, Be All My Sins Remember'd etc. - they all had a positive reception.

[garhkal]

It is ironic... But i agree, i loved the bug form replicators more than anything else..