Hello, I am looking forward to Stargate Universe and I was wondering what people thought about what the most important things to them that Stargate Universe should have. For me I would say this:
1. Good cast that interacts well together. In Stargate SG-1, I think the SG-1 team of Teal'c, Jack, Daniel and Sam is a great example of really good casting. They not only have to be good actors individually, but they have to be able to express an interesting range of emotions and interact in good ways. To me, it was enjoyable to watch these 4 all the time, a danger is if you get too much in one direction and the characters or character interaction becomes annoying.
Now that Stargate has quite a lot of money, they cast a bunch of big actors and probably did that mainly in their minds, whereas, I can bet you that the SG-1 team probably were all in the same room to see how they fit together before they were cast. So I do like the cast lineup as individuals, I just hope that they mesh together in interesting ways and don't get too much towards one emotion (example, 1 sarcastic person is a good balance, 5 is probably too much. If you cast a stargate team with 10 angry and irrational people, it would become unwatchable, but one hothead can add drama, though even 2 can be annoying.) Part is writing and part is the natural tendencies of the actors. So I hope for a tight SG-1 like crew. I enjoyed this crew a ton. Atlantis was not bad too, not as tight as SG-1 but that's just my opinion. A good example would be say the tightness of The Next Generation crew compared to Voyager, agian, just my opinion but I think it's shared by others.
2. Cool bad guys - In a series that has regular bad guys it is important that the bad guys be interesting. (Stargate Universe may switch off because they are changing entire universes, but it is hard to know how long they will stay in each universe. I think the Jaffa were so interesting, loved the resistance, the ranks with the masters pretending to be gods etc. The Wraith were a little too horror for me, just preference, I just disliked them. And you know how many Stargate Atlantises heavily feature the Wraith? Enough that it makes it hard to watch for me if I want an episode without Wraith. Now it can't be perfect, but it has to be a bad guy most people don't mind watching (And most don't mind the Wraith but I think that the Jaffa have a broader appeal than the Wraith). I think there are two main types if bad guys in sci-fi, the ones who talk very little and just kill everyone, like The Borg or early Replicators, and the ones who are dynamic. I think both should be mixed, but a preference on dynamic bad guys, though I have to admit, there is something exciting about the good guys running away from Replicators and trying to outsmart them. But the one dimentionals have less flexibility, if The early Replicators were the only bad guys in Stargate it would not be very dynamic.
3. Good writing - This is an extremely complex one that I will leave with a simplistic answer, that the writing needs to be 'good', whatever that is, and I don't even want to try to describe that one.
So that's it for me. Let's just put it this way, if I don't like the main characters and how they interact, and I don't like the bad guys, then a show like this becomes unwatchable for me. In fact, even one 'annoying' character or character that the fans really dislike (and not in the supervillian way but in an annoying change the channel way) then it can really throw of the show. So I am hoping they take their time with the characters and bad guys and get it right. Of course once the main characters 'work', then pretty much every episode becomes watchable, and even the "weak" or less well written episodes become enjoyable. You can change the bad guys, but the core cast can't be changed, or can only be changed very slowly so what I want most is to like the main characters if that makes any sense.
1. Good cast that interacts well together. In Stargate SG-1, I think the SG-1 team of Teal'c, Jack, Daniel and Sam is a great example of really good casting. They not only have to be good actors individually, but they have to be able to express an interesting range of emotions and interact in good ways. To me, it was enjoyable to watch these 4 all the time, a danger is if you get too much in one direction and the characters or character interaction becomes annoying.
Now that Stargate has quite a lot of money, they cast a bunch of big actors and probably did that mainly in their minds, whereas, I can bet you that the SG-1 team probably were all in the same room to see how they fit together before they were cast. So I do like the cast lineup as individuals, I just hope that they mesh together in interesting ways and don't get too much towards one emotion (example, 1 sarcastic person is a good balance, 5 is probably too much. If you cast a stargate team with 10 angry and irrational people, it would become unwatchable, but one hothead can add drama, though even 2 can be annoying.) Part is writing and part is the natural tendencies of the actors. So I hope for a tight SG-1 like crew. I enjoyed this crew a ton. Atlantis was not bad too, not as tight as SG-1 but that's just my opinion. A good example would be say the tightness of The Next Generation crew compared to Voyager, agian, just my opinion but I think it's shared by others.
2. Cool bad guys - In a series that has regular bad guys it is important that the bad guys be interesting. (Stargate Universe may switch off because they are changing entire universes, but it is hard to know how long they will stay in each universe. I think the Jaffa were so interesting, loved the resistance, the ranks with the masters pretending to be gods etc. The Wraith were a little too horror for me, just preference, I just disliked them. And you know how many Stargate Atlantises heavily feature the Wraith? Enough that it makes it hard to watch for me if I want an episode without Wraith. Now it can't be perfect, but it has to be a bad guy most people don't mind watching (And most don't mind the Wraith but I think that the Jaffa have a broader appeal than the Wraith). I think there are two main types if bad guys in sci-fi, the ones who talk very little and just kill everyone, like The Borg or early Replicators, and the ones who are dynamic. I think both should be mixed, but a preference on dynamic bad guys, though I have to admit, there is something exciting about the good guys running away from Replicators and trying to outsmart them. But the one dimentionals have less flexibility, if The early Replicators were the only bad guys in Stargate it would not be very dynamic.
3. Good writing - This is an extremely complex one that I will leave with a simplistic answer, that the writing needs to be 'good', whatever that is, and I don't even want to try to describe that one.
So that's it for me. Let's just put it this way, if I don't like the main characters and how they interact, and I don't like the bad guys, then a show like this becomes unwatchable for me. In fact, even one 'annoying' character or character that the fans really dislike (and not in the supervillian way but in an annoying change the channel way) then it can really throw of the show. So I am hoping they take their time with the characters and bad guys and get it right. Of course once the main characters 'work', then pretty much every episode becomes watchable, and even the "weak" or less well written episodes become enjoyable. You can change the bad guys, but the core cast can't be changed, or can only be changed very slowly so what I want most is to like the main characters if that makes any sense.
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