Is the "Even Worse Enemy" game hurting Stargate?

[Darth Buddha]

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.

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. 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. 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

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

another form of ascended being just like Anubis? 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. Consider "The Dominion" from Deep Space Nine. Were "The Founders" WORSE THAN the Borg? No. They were different and they were interesting. Not "worse". Was the Alien in Alien3 WORSE THAN the Alien in the original film? No. It was different and interesting.

This whole "Worse Than" craze really is no way to drive a series. Interesting is a lot more important than "worse than".

[Lord Zedd]

Hey Darth Budda I have read your post and well it is an interesting perpective you have. I never thought about it that way As for the

Spoiler:

Orii

being more eviler than the Goa'uld if that is hurting Stargate, that could be. We don't know what is going to happen. I am myself very sceptic but I think what is hurting stargate is that now the Goa'uld aren't considered a thread for us, fans. In the beginning the Goa'uld were so cool because they were evil. Now I am a fan of Anubis but he was indeed more evil than the other Goa'uld and well I guess I am attracted to evil What is also damaging Stargate is that the cast has changed and I sort of get the impression that the mystical effect of the stargate itself is gone. We had episodes like The fifth race or a matter of time or solitudes or 48 hours or redemption because of the stargate itself. Episodes where the stargate is involved. It seems to me that TPTB have forgotten that the stargate is also a ''member" of the show. If they were to create an episode around the stargate that would be interesting Here is a suggestion for the powers that be. Solve the mystery around the 9th chevron. Than all fans go when Walter says: chevron 8 is encoded Chevron 9 locked kawoosh

Well this is my 2 cents

[kirmit]

Wots the point in having an easier enemy if we can kick a worse enemies butt??? besides

Spoiler:

The Orii

are fully ascended and there are loads of them, also they wont be the ones doin most of the work the

Spoiler:

Priors will who will basically have technology on par with the ancients

. God I hate having to use spoilers

[Flyboy]

Things get old very quickly.

Come on, we know we're going to beat the crap out of the enemy in the end, so they HAVE to be interesting. In the cases when we DONT know we're going to win, ie Goa'uld season 1/2 then its ok, thats exciting. But when they DRAG OUT for EIGHT SEASONS at least, it gets bloody stupid. Then its just replaced by another enemy. It would have been so much better if the Goa'uld story line had ended a lot further back, say season 3. God, I'm just wanting there to be a season with NO main enemy jsut so we can get back the unpredictability of season 1.

I liked hte replicators, I like the Goa'uld and i like Anubis, but it's been too prolonged.

[Seastallion]

The problem is, that is just isn't easy to create really 'original' space bad guys. I mean lets face it... very little has not been done. Consider all the evil space villians we've seen in the last 30 years, and you've got quite a large selection of baddies to choose from. In this instance, though, they have to be bad enough to threaten an entire planet at least. So that potentially cuts short your possibility of baddies. I'm sure there are still some ideas out there that haven't been used, but good luck in coming up with them. They're unused for a good reason. No one has come up with them yet. Cliche? maybe. However, they might be able to suprise us... so I'm willing to give it a chance until I've seen otherwise. These new baddies have only barely been introduced at this point. We know virtually nothing about the Wraith or the Ori... who technically we haven't seen yet, as season 9 hasn't started. I think there is time to throw in a few interesting twist still.

[Janus]

I think what we need is baddies with grey areas.
Not one unified race, but a maze of cloak and dagger.
Groups that really evil, groups that semi-evil, groups that contanstly changed their minds, etc, etc
We need a baddie that is in flux, unpredictable.

[Egeria]

I think what we need is baddies with grey areas.
Not one unified race, but a maze of cloak and dagger.
Groups that really evil, groups that semi-evil, groups that contanstly changed their minds, etc, etc
We need a baddie that is in flux, unpredictable.

Pretty good description of the human race there Maybe that's the problem. In trying to create 'aliens' that are 'different', the fact that the qualities that make a good 'baddie/enemy' are quite human often isn't considered.

[Flyboy]

Well... maybe SG-1 DOES need a new direction...

[ToasterOnFire]

Interesting thread idea!

One problem when creating an enemy (and heroes for that matter) is falling into a simplistic moral path of development. Think of a lot of children's movies (Disney stands out here). The good guys always perform good deeds, while the bad guys are always mean and cruel. It's morality in black and white, there is no gray. Now that's great in simplistic terms, but the real world is quite different and that's what makes it more interesting. Subsequently, TV shows that follow a more "gray" morality line where good guys sometimes do bad things and v.v. tend to be more satisfying to view.

Additionally, simplistic villians are often never examined in detail. What is their past? How did they become villains? What is their purpose/what drives them? Do all the people in the villain group/race feel the same way or are there some dissenters? Do they abide by some sort of honor system, typically seen only in the hero side? Lots of questions that could and should be answered to give more depth to the enemy.
Someone on another thread once noted that a new enemy should be fully fleshed out even before they are introduced to the show and even if most of the details are never made canon. Doing so, even if it takes a great deal of time and creativity, would almost certainly make a more three dimensional enemy and a more satisfied fanbase.

I am a bit worried about how the wraith have been underdeveloped in Atlantis so far. They seem to have an uncontrollable desire to feed on humans, but little else. There are quite a bit of rumors and spoilers for next season regarding them however, so maybe we'll get a bit more depth then.

[Darth Buddha]

I think what we need is baddies with grey areas.
Not one unified race, but a maze of cloak and dagger.
Groups that really evil, groups that semi-evil, groups that contanstly changed their minds, etc, etc
We need a baddie that is in flux, unpredictable.

Exactly!

Examples.. the Cardassians and the Klingons. They aren't all evil, they aren't all good, but they DO have motives that sometimes put them into conflict with the "heroes" of the show.

One problem when creating an enemy (and heroes for that matter) is falling into a simplistic moral path of development. Think of a lot of children's movies (Disney stands out here). The good guys always perform good deeds, while the bad guys are always mean and cruel. It's morality in black and white, there is no gray. Now that's great in simplistic terms, but the real world is quite different and that's what makes it more interesting. Subsequently, TV shows that follow a more "gray" morality line where good guys sometimes do bad things and v.v. tend to be more satisfying to view.

You are so right. I'd take a more interesting but less "all powerful" enemy any day.

[Skydiver]

to me, the problem with worse than, worse than, worse than is that the good guys keep beating them, are going to keep beating them and it leaves the viewer with the idea that the good guys really aren't all that good and the villians just get wussier and wussier

and so many of them are rather cliche. anubis? dude, he made me laugh. he was so silly and predictible. Personally i found baal and yu far more intriguing. both of them were a meshing of good and evil and both had their redeeming bits...and, other than thier costumes, neither of them were over the top

they were believable

these new and worse villians??? eh, we'll see. i've been there, bought the t-shirt and been unimpressed time and time again

[mazzmatazz]

Exactly!

Examples.. the Cardassians and the Klingons. They aren't all evil, they aren't all good, but they DO have motives that sometimes put them into conflict with the "heroes" of the show.

Totally agree with you there!

You are so right. I'd take a more interesting but less "all powerful" enemy any day.

I think that's why the Dominion thing was so interesting. The Vorta weren't supremely powerful, they needed the Jem'Hadar and the founders to pose a threat. It was a lot more complex than just one big bad race to fight, who seemed all powerful but just happened to have an achilles heel that humanity found.

[crazylinguist]

Hmm. Good question.
Yeah, I do think Stargate needs to come up with an interesting enemy. The Goa'uld held my interest for a while. I wasn't too keen on Anubis. The most interesting I ever found him was in Threads. Hopefully the new baddies will have something to distinguish them and make them more than just your typical "evil bad guys bent on destroying the earth"

I do think Atlantis is going to excel in this area, or at least I hope it will. I found the Genii to be quite interesting and multi-faceted. Hopefully we will learn more about the Wraith to make them more than just evil space vampires this season. Even a re-occuring Wraith would make me happy at the moment.

[Darth Buddha]

I think that's why the Dominion thing was so interesting. The Vorta weren't supremely powerful, they needed the Jem'Hadar and the founders to pose a threat. It was a lot more complex than just one big bad race to fight, who seemed all powerful but just happened to have an achilles heel that humanity found.

Excellent example.. but in DS9, when they DID find the enemies Achilles heel (the disease which afflicted The Founders), it merely steeled them to fight to the most absolute and bitter end! Talk about taking the usual scifi formula and turning it on its head!

I do think Atlantis is going to excel in this area, or at least I hope it will. I found the Genii to be quite interesting and multi-faceted. Hopefully we will learn more about the Wraith to make them more than just evil space vampires this season. Even a re-occuring Wraith would make me happy at the moment.

The Genii are the one shining point in Atlantis Season One... though you'll note the a lot of fan-types on this board want to wipe them out already (shouldn't they be concentrating on the Wraith?).

But your second point is key. A recurring Wraith character is essential to make them more than the two-dimensional baddies they are now... that is if the writers have any ideas beyond the two (or one-and-a-half) dimensions they've shown us thus far.

[sharky277]

I think what we need is baddies with grey areas.
Not one unified race, but a maze of cloak and dagger.
Groups that really evil, groups that semi-evil, groups that contanstly changed their minds, etc, etc
We need a baddie that is in flux, unpredictable.

:cough: NID :cough: