Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[binkpmmc]

And there, in a nutshell, is why I don't particularly want to see more of the giant space battles, and am not particularly impressed with all the new ships. There are way too many shots of people sitting on the bridge saying things like "shields at 20%" and " fire the aft phasers". I've seen it way too many times on way too many shows for it to be fun anymore. The visual effects in space are cool, but that's all. There's not enough for the characters to do, because it's all about the ships.

Stargate was different. The team didn't have to rely on a spaceship and all its gimmicks to get them from one place to another. The stories were based not so much on the trip itself to other planets, but what happened once the team got there. Now, apparently we need great big honkin' space ships and space battles to keep some of the fandom happy, and IMO it's one of the reasons that the characters have suffered. In the relatively short amount of time available each episode, spending x minutes on space battles means x less minutes spent on developing the characters and their relationships with each other. But unfortunately, we'll probably be seeing more of Sam and Daniel sitting on the bridge of the most recent version of earth's spaceship, reacting to a battle, cringing at the sparks that will inevitably fly out of the walls, contributing little if anything at all, while Cam and Teal'c go off in the fighter ships. At least in Camelot,

Spoiler:

Sam got to actually go out and do something for a while. But as Kat said, then she was relegated to the role of observer during the final battle.

Sorry for the rant, but I just hate to see Stargate turn into still another Star Trek type of show.

NC

NC this is an excellent post and you have really hit a nerve and made me think. I knew there was something, in addition to all the crap and other changes, but something inherently wrong with the show and it is exactly this. SG1 and it's 4 team members, IMO, used to drive the action, they WERE the action a great deal of the time, they were the story and their enemy, often times personal enemy, was the story, now its just a lot of people, and way too often the guest star of the week, the leader of the enemy of the week, the colonel in charge of the ship of the week, that gets the focus of the show or the focus of the battle and it ends up being a lot of talking and a lot of CGI effects but little substance and rarely does SG1 drive the action as they did for 8 years - plain and simple for me - it's BORING most of the time.

I thought the majority of camelot was like watching paint dry and the last 10 minutes was right up there in the boring, and sci-fi cheesy, dept. Too many explosions, too many people, including SG1, sitting, standing or floating, around doing nothing except watching with expressions of surprise/shock as their only "action", too many insignificant lines like "shileds at 20%" or "we've lost hyper-drive", too many cheesy shots of people flying through the air in slow motion (what a waste of time -- did they actually have an ep that was short and they needed that to "fill" the 42 minutes? So often they claim to have eps that run too long and they cut out some of the best scenes (RE and Ascension come immediatley to mind). Let's hope they needed the slo-mo nonsense to make up for time they had to fill and that they didn't cut some great scenes of SG1 for that crap. The way I think about TPTB these days though my $$ is on that they cut some good substantive SG1 scenes to get that slo-mo cheese in - sorry I digress - back to the end of camelot) - too much that had no substance and was just fancy CGI that doesn't require solid, exciting, intelligent writing and requires even less acting because there is no substance, IMO of course.

I also agree with so many who have expressed disappointment because by blowing a huge portion of what is probably a small budget these days, especially when you think about how much they must be spending on salaries these days, on this one ep for the sake of nonsubstantive sci-fi schtick, we get crap in many of the other episodes. I want the Stargate, and adventures through and invovlving the Stargate, back and I want SG1 to have to be creative and heroic and smart to get out of their troubles - I do not want the quick and easy sci-fi standard cliche of "beam me up Scotty" - there's no suspense and it becomes laughable and I hate that I now laugh AT this show as opposed to WITH it which is what I used to do, especially when Jack got off a good one.

[ChopinGal]

NC this is an excellent post and you have really hit a nerve and made me think. I knew there was something, in addition to all the crap and other changes, but something inherently wrong with the show and it is exactly this. SG1 and it's 4 team members, IMO, used to drive the action, they WERE the action a great deal of the time, they were the story and their enemy, often times personal enemy, was the story, now its just a lot of people, and way too often the guest star of the week, the leader of the enemy of the week, the colonel in charge of the ship of the week, that gets the focus of the show or the focus of the battle and it ends up being a lot of talking and a lot of CGI effects but little substance and rarely does SG1 drive the action as they did for 8 years - plain and simple for me - it's BORING most of the time.

I thought the majority of camelot was like watching paint dry and the last 10 minutes was right up there in the boring, and sci-fi cheesy, dept. Too many explosions, too many people, including SG1, sitting, standing or floating, around doing nothing except watching with expressions of surprise/shock as their only "action", too many insignificant lines like "shields at 20%" or "we've lost hyperdrive", too many cheesy shots of people flying through the air in slow motion (what a waste of time -- did they actually have an ep that was short and they needed that to "fill" the 42 minutes? So often they claim to have eps that run too long and they cut out some of the best scenes (RE and Ascension come immediatley to mind). Let's hope they needed the slo-mo nonsense to make up for time they had to fill and that they didn't cut some great scenes of SG1 for that crap. The way I think about TPTB these days though my $$ is on that they cut some good substantive SG1 scenes to get that slo-mo cheese in - sorry I digress) - back to the end of Camelot - too much that had no substance and was just fancy CGI that don't require solid, exciting, intelligent writing and requires even less acting because there is no substance, IMO of course.

Yes, bink, a great reply to NC and SS. Budgets have been macgyvered to target the biggest bang for the buck. Character development and meaningful arcs have suffered. Sometimes less is more.

[Skydiver]

there's never been an offical definition of which is which, but i tend to call the ribbon device, just that ribbon device or ribbon weapon. it can also be referred to as the hand device but i think the healilng device is called just that. healing device or healing stone

[Tracy Jane]

I just caught Absolute Power on Sky whilst my bread was baking. It's one of those eps that I never watch on DVD, I always tend to lean towards Singularity, Solitudes, Broca Divide, Nightwalkers, Changeling or something more light hearted like Window of Opportunity.

Well, after watching it on Sky, all I can say is Why the heck don't I watch it more often??? It's a fantastic episode. I just loved it when Sam marched into Daniel's place and started getting all catty and annoyed. And the lovely bit where she's in prison saying "You have my opinion. That used to be worth something to you.", not to mention maternal Sam with the harsesis at the end.

*sigh*

Then I looked at the credits and it was Brad Wright. Those were the days, huh? It's like what we were saying a few weeks back about character centric episodes. Yes, it was Daniel's episode, but there was so much Sam, so much Jack in there... it didn't feel like his episode.

[ShimmeringStar]

Stargate doesn't do space-ships and space battles very well anyway, imo. The Earth ships are the ugliest lumps of bucket I've seen and the weaponry, manouvering and general look of space combat scenes is poor. They look inadequate even compared to 1990's Trek and Babylon 5, let alone contemporary Battlestar Galactica.

I re-watched Jolinar's Memories and The Devil You Know yesterday and I was struck by how good the design and look'n'feel of those episodes was compared to recent stuff - the moon's interior, the enemies' costumes, the make-up on Sokar was rich and evocative. Someone else used the word "sterile" to describewhat we get at the moment - I agree.

The only thing about Camelot which came up to standard in this department, imo, was

Spoiler:

the super-gate - especially from a "low" angle it was impressive.

And they didn't have to rely on spaceshipy gimmicks to get them out of trouble. That's the reason I've been so damned anti-ships this season. Sending in the Prometheus or the Odyssey to rescue the team was old after one episode-let alone as often as they've used that gimmick this year. In the past the team has had to rely on themselves, their own abilities to problem-solve, their innate cleverness, and yes, their astounding SG1-luck to get them out of scrapes.

And now we have beaming technology that bypasses all the drama and leaves the episodes, to me, feeling flat. Heck, beaming tech has become so commonplace in Season 9, that it's being used for comedy by Camelot.

I kind of hope

Spoiler:

ALL the Earth ships are destroyed by the premier of Season 10. Since we know from Crusade that another ship isn't due out of production till next year-that would give us most of a season shipless. I'd be so happy if that were the case.

*light bulb over head turns on again*

Yes! The Asgard beaming technology. When I saw that first ep where they used it, then I really knew things weren't going to be the same, both story- and quality-wise. It, along with the spaceships, makes the resolutions to the story arcs too easy. The Tau'ri's survivial was more at risk, survival more of a struggle, stories filled with more angst and tension, and made the need for cooperation with the team and other worlds of equal and slightly more advanced tech imperative when this wasn't available. And while I could live with the ships and the 302/303's coming out of them and even ring technology, it seemed way to easy to have the beaming technology. (Plus what is building these ships doing to the Tau'ri economy? If a stealth bomber is in the billions, what did it take to build the Prommie?)

*sighs* Give me Sam thinking up an unique approach to problem resolution any day.....

[jckfan55]

And they didn't have to rely on spaceshipy gimmicks to get them out of trouble. That's the reason I've been so damned anti-ships this season. Sending in the Prometheus or the Odyssey to rescue the team was old after one episode-let alone as often as they've used that gimmick this year. In the past the team has had to rely on themselves, their own abilities to problem-solve, their innate cleverness, and yes, their astounding SG1-luck to get them out of scrapes.

And now we have beaming technology that bypasses all the drama and leaves the episodes, to me, feeling flat. Heck, beaming tech has become so commonplace in Season 9, that it's being used for comedy by Camelot.

You're so right. As you, NC and others have said, we've seen plenty of ships in other shows & that's not what makes SG1, SG1. A space ship show is not what Wright & Glassner created. I know things can't stay the same as they were in season 1--Earth has learned a lot about alien/advanced technology--but it's not the SFX that are the main concern of long time fans. It's what you say so well above (bolded) Deejay.

[jckfan55]

Yeah, the healing device is probably the hand device.

On a side (and off topic) note, I was reading the thing about RDA on the Simpsons, now they have episode details and air date (nothing that we didn't know) and it says that the Simpsons is the favourite TV show of both RDA and "his SG1 namesake, Jack O'Neill."

How exactly is Jack O'Neill his namesake? Or have I completely forgotten how to speak English today? Have I been supping too much of that Samandan ale?

A better way for them to put it probably would be alter ego.

[ShimmeringStar]

You're so right. As you, NC and others have said, we've seen plenty of ships in other shows & that's not what makes SG1, SG1. A space ship show is not what Wright & Glassner created. I know things can't stay the same as they were in season 1--Earth has learned a lot about alien/advanced technology--but it's not the SFX that are the main concern of long time fans. It's what you say so well above (bolded) Deejay.

And also the stylized Egyptian motifs and mythology were what defined SG so well IMOHO.

*coughs* Perhaps Sam might have worked on a bit of the quantum mirror technology while at Area 51 and can flip us into a better-realized alternate reality soon???

[Tracy Jane]

A better way for them to put it probably would be alter ego.

That's what I thought. Namesake is completely different to alter ego. *sigh* I'll step off my soapbox. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher, I guess.

[jckfan55]

That's what I thought. Namesake is completely different to alter ego. *sigh* I'll step off my soapbox. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher, I guess.

Namesake would be a character named Richard Dean Anderson, correct?

[Tracy Jane]

Namesake would be a character named Richard Dean Anderson, correct?

Yes, that's right. An "SG1 Namesake" would mean a character named Richard Dean Anderson who the actor was named after.

[ReganX]

I just caught Absolute Power on Sky whilst my bread was baking. It's one of those eps that I never watch on DVD, I always tend to lean towards Singularity, Solitudes, Broca Divide, Nightwalkers, Changeling or something more light hearted like Window of Opportunity.

Well, after watching it on Sky, all I can say is Why the heck don't I watch it more often??? It's a fantastic episode. I just loved it when Sam marched into Daniel's place and started getting all catty and annoyed. And the lovely bit where she's in prison saying "You have my opinion. That used to be worth something to you.", not to mention maternal Sam with the harsesis at the end.

*sigh*

Then I looked at the credits and it was Brad Wright. Those were the days, huh? It's like what we were saying a few weeks back about character centric episodes. Yes, it was Daniel's episode, but there was so much Sam, so much Jack in there... it didn't feel like his episode.

I liked the way Daniel and/or Shifu though of Sam as the person who would be intelligent enough to see through what was happening and strong enough and brave enough to try to put a stop to it.

[stargate barbie]

Okay while GW was down I worked on a few new caps - so how about
Caption This:

Sam: "Cameron, put some pants on, nobody's impressed".

OR

SG-1 tried desperately to look innocent when sam hid the tv remote behind her back.

[tsaxlady]

I guess, by now, that episode has already been shot. I wonder if AT will be free to speak about any of the early filming (and 200th episode) when she appears next week at the Vancouver con. Everyone going, take good notes!

I will be taking notes and posting some information while at the con at my msn spaces account. I will have my laptop with me at the con. I'm not how much I will post at the con and how much I will wait until I get home before posting. I will be taking both digital and 35mm pictures at the con so I will post a few pictures while at the con but most will have to wait until I get home. Amanda is scheduled to be at the breakfast on Sunday and then be on stage that same day.

[Myrth]

Ohhh yes SS... one of those points I keep coming back to... the Egyptian mythology has been intrinsic to Stargate since the beginning and up until now.... you can take the gate out of Egypt, but please don't take Egypt out of the gate!!!!

And also the stylized Egyptian motifs and mythology were what defined SG so well IMOHO.

*coughs* Perhaps Sam might have worked on a bit of the quantum mirror technology while at Area 51 and can flip us into a better-realized alternate reality soon???