Stargate Universe Character Discussion Thread

[Pandora's_Box]

Colonel Everett Young.
40’s handsome, capable, former SG team leader. Like the Jack O’Neill of ten years ago, but Young’s edges have tended to sharpen over time. He requested permission to serve the remainder of his commission on Earth upon marrying his wife, Hailey, two years ago, but for now he’s temporary commander of a secret off world base. The loss of two members of his team several years ago has taught him never to take anything for granted, and be prepared for anything. He stays on top of his team so they stay alive.

Tamara Johanson [Jon?].

20-25. SGC Field medic, Captain grade. Off world experience. Beautiful, tough, smart, capable. Paramedic level training. Able to triage serious injury. Modest background. Dreamed of being a doctor but couldn’t afford medical school and the Air Force was her best option. She ends up being the most medically inclined person on the ship but is overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and experience treating seriously wounded and ill patients. She also lacks the medicine and supplies and has to make do.

Chloe Carpenter.

20 ish. Stunning and sexy. Daughter of a U.S. Senator. Silver spoon upbringing and a little spoiled but not stupid either. Politically and socially savvy. Dreams of following in her father’s footsteps but for now she’s a bit of a party girl in her first year at an Ivy League school. Her father’s tragic death and the dire circumstances of being trapped on a spaceship seriously tests her character.

Eli Hitchcock. 20-25.

Total slacker. Utter genius. Mathematics, computers, anything he puts his mind to. Acerbic sense of humor. A social outcast. Comes from a broken home. Lacks confidence because his true intelligence has never really been recognized like Matt Damon’s character from Good Will Hunting with a little Jack Black thrown in.

Lt. Jared Nash [Scott?].

20-25. Junior SGC team member. Officer material but green and rough around the edges. Every teenage girl’s fantasy. Like a college quarterback thrown into his first pro game, he is thrust into the role of leader well before he’s ready for the responsibility and must learn to take command, earn respect through action, and manage the diverse personalities on the ship to keep everyone alive. Like Jason Bourne, he is skilled and well-trained but mentally unprepared for the urgency of the situation. This character might now be named "Scott". If so, he is a pilot who is the prime candidate to fly the Ancient Shuttle in their first mission to a planet from the Destiny. (See Mallozzi's Weblog, November 28, 2008)

Ron “Psycho” Stasiak. 20.

Marine. Big, strong, silent. You want him on your side. You don’t want him mad at you. Lacks control over his temper in non combat situations. His emotional expression ranges from sarcasm to anger. His past is a mystery but it’s clear something dark formed the hard shell around him. Yet, there must also be some moral center because otherwise he’d kill everyone around him. Think Eric Bana’s character “Hoot” in Blackhawk Down. Adam Baldwin at 20 could play him.

Post your thoughts and opinions on the characters here along with any new information.

[Dwparsnip]

I don't know....it all looks good on paper. For me it will all depend on who they cast for the roles, and what those actors/actresses bring to the characters.

[GateGipsy]

It is really hard to say anything based on those descriptions. They're casting asides, so they're just a very stereotypical rendering of how they currently see a character. And how likely is it we'll see all of them in the end anyway - Rush isn't on there. It also always looks really bad when they describe all the females as stunning or beautiful, but there's not a 'looks' requirement for the men.

Alll I can say is that I'm really glad that I came into the SGU fandom with the Robert Carlyle news, as if I had started with this list of characters I'd have utterly dispaired, left the fandom and never returned!

[jelgate]

Its to early to tell. All we really have at the moment is little character bios that may or may not change until pilot. I'll wait until we get some more concrete spoilers

[FallenAngelII]

White they're just brief casting spells pulled up to attract actors and then the writers will work from there, most of them still resemble past characters quite a bit. This isn't bad per se, I'm just saying that it doesn't sound like they were willing to risk it and go with a completely new set of characters and instead went with variants of old and tried ones. Yes, the final product will most probably look wildly different. Doesn't change the fact that what they first went with looks like a mix of SG-1 and SGA, mostly SGA.

And I don't understand this obsession with appearance. Col. Young sounds like another John Sheppard. 40-something handsome man. He'll probably get randomly Kirked a bit (why do I think this? Because he's the only male character whose attractiveness is mentioned in the casting call).

Then we have the women. Both are described with words like "beautiful" and "sexy". Say what? When creating character breakdowns that describe the core attributes of characters, they have to describe their looks?

Why obsess over it so much? Also, why specifically go for "beautiful" and "sexy" to begin with, anyway? What have they planned for these women? Why must they be "beautiful" and "sexy"? Why not just call out for casting and then run with it.

If who they decide to pick is beautiful and sexy, fine. But what if they aren't? Why shouldn't women who aren't beautiful and/or sexy be allowed on the show?

Makes me wander what the casting calls for SG-1 and Atlantis were like.

Samantha Carter - Genius, both a military woman and scientist. Will be the straight man to Jack O'Neill. Might get shipped with him. Oh, and she's totally blonde and hot.

Teyla Emagan - Leader of an alien tribe of people. Ethnic, must be good at martial arts and be able to handle weapons. Also, she's hot.

Elizabeth Weir - 30-something ace diplomat. Has brokered a dozen deals, civilian and thinks with her heart. Also, must have that earth's mortherly, but still sexy, feel!

[GateGipsy]

I can see where you're coming from FA, and if I only had those asides to go on I'd be in the depths of despair right now. But they've already batted out of the left field once with the casting of Robert Carlyle, and an entirely new character in the form of Rush. I suspect that these characters appear cliched because they are just that - they needed to start casting so they just came up with something that was as general as possible in order to fit a rought idea of what they thought the cast might be like, but one that wasn't going to stop them from making considerable changes when they wanted to.

[Pandora's_Box]

And I don't understand this obsession with appearance.

In showbiz?

It's pretty straight forward.

The majority of North Americans have a similar concept of what constitutes beautiful. As such, those that fit that particular physical mold and have even a nuance of acting talent become semi-successful to hugely-successful actors.

Therefore, the majority of characters (unless explicitly labeled to be "plain-looking") will be good-looking aka handsome or sexy or stunning or hot.

[FallenAngelII]

I can see where you're coming from FA, and if I only had those asides to go on I'd be in the depths of despair right now. But they've already batted out of the left field once with the casting of Robert Carlyle, and an entirely new character in the form of Rush. I suspect that these characters appear cliched because they are just that - they needed to start casting so they just came up with something that was as general as possible in order to fit a rought idea of what they thought the cast might be like, but one that wasn't going to stop them from making considerable changes when they wanted to.

I'm not depressed or anything. And as I said, I'm confident the finished product will look quite different. However, it's quite telling when their original core visions for the characters resemble a mashup of SG-1 and SGA leads. They just weren't prepared to, at least when starting out, go out on enough of a limb to create a whole new set of entirely different characters.

In showbiz?

It's pretty straight forward.

The majority of North Americans have a similar concept of what constitutes beautiful. As such, those that fit that particular physical mold and have even a nuance of acting talent become semi-successful to hugely-successful actors.

Therefore, the majority of characters (unless explicitly labeled to be "plain-looking") will be good-looking aka handsome or sexy or stunning or hot.

This is obvious stuff.

What I meant was why they had to specifically mention the female characters' appearance in such detail (Everett just got "handsome", the others got 2-3 or more words).

I mean, it's a given that the actors eventually chosen will probably be attractive. But why would they dwell so much on it in the casting call descriptions?

[Pandora's_Box]

I'm not depressed or anything. And as I said, I'm confident the finished product will look quite different. However, it's quite telling when their original core visions for the characters resemble a mashup of SG-1 and SGA leads. They just weren't prepared to, at least when starting out, go out on enough of a limb to create a whole new set of entirely different characters.

I'm interested to hear how different you think they can really go.

I mean, it pretty much stands to reason that if the survival of this crew is going to be written in any plausible sort of way, the characters all have to be pretty exceptional in their fields of expertise.

Therefore, certain character traits (ie, mental toughness, high intelligence, resourcefulness) are going to be quite necessary. And because both SG-1 and SGA featured characters in quite exceptional situations wherein the characters were required to be the best of the best, some of these character traits bear repeating.

It doesn't mean the characters themselves will be even remotely similar beyond these few aspects. There are still many ways in which they can be written to be very different from their SG-1 and SGA counterparts.

I mean, it's a given that the actors eventually chosen will probably be attractive. But why would they dwell so much on it in the casting call descriptions?

Your guess is as good as mine.

[GateGipsy]

maybe it is just the done thing - to put the whole attractiveness thing in a casting call, and they just do it without thinking?

FA - I could apply those characters to every other Sci Fi show or movie that has existed, or even just action shows like Relic Hunter or Bones. They're just standard cliches that could have been written without ever even seeing a single SG episode or the movie. Sadly. It is just a part of the industry.

[FallenAngelII]

I'm interested to hear how different you think they can really go.

I mean, it pretty much stands to reason that if the survival of this crew is going to be written in any plausible sort of way, the characters all have to be pretty exceptional in their fields of expertise.

I have no problems with them being experts, the thing is that their personality traits seem to be quite coincidental with SG-1 and SGA lead characters. They even have the Ford-character as a lieutenant!

"Junior SGC team member. Officer material but green and rough around the edges. Like Jason Bourne, he is skilled and well-trained but mentally unprepared for the urgency of the situation."

Eli Hitchcock is the Rodney-character with acerbic humor, lack of confidence (though in a different way), comes from a broken home, a social outcast. Sounds very familiar.

Ronon2: "Big, strong, silent. You want him on your side. You don’t want him mad at you. Lacks control over his temper in non combat situations. His emotional expression ranges from sarcasm to anger. His past is a mystery but it’s clear something dark formed the hard shell around him. Yet, there must also be some moral center because otherwise he’d kill everyone around him."

It doesn't mean the characters themselves will be even remotely similar beyond these few aspects. There are still many ways in which they can be written to be very different from their SG-1 and SGA counterparts.

As I said, they probably won't be. But when broken down to their core, when starting out, when first imaging this new cast of characters, they went with mostly old, tried and safe territory.

[Pandora's_Box]

I have no problems with them being experts, the thing is that their personality traits seem to be quite coincidental with SG-1 and SGA lead characters. They even have the Ford-character as a lieutenant!

"Junior SGC team member. Officer material but green and rough around the edges. Like Jason Bourne, he is skilled and well-trained but mentally unprepared for the urgency of the situation."

Hmmmm...

Maybe we view Ford very differently then because while I can agree that he was both "green" and well-trained, I never saw him as sough around the edges or mentally unprepared for the situation he found himself in - at least, not an less so than any other member of the expedition. If anything, he was too stable - boring almost - and I guess that's why TPTB decided they couldn't take him anywhere interesting.

He was very capable and mentally stable, he was...angst-less, for lack of a better word.

I don't see Ford in this character at all, to be honest.

Eli Hitchcock is the Rodney-character with acerbic humor, lack of confidence (though in a different way), comes from a broken home, a social outcast. Sounds very familiar.

I can see where the Rodney comparison lies, but this is a character-type that because popular outside of Stargate first. It's the most oft-used mathematical genius (or any genius really) stereotype. You could probably make the argument that Daniel was envisioned this way in the beginning as well.

Ronon2: "Big, strong, silent. You want him on your side. You don’t want him mad at you. Lacks control over his temper in non combat situations. His emotional expression ranges from sarcasm to anger. His past is a mystery but it’s clear something dark formed the hard shell around him. Yet, there must also be some moral center because otherwise he’d kill everyone around him."

Sigh....

And I was so hoping to finally be rid of Ronon.

Let's hope he's more reminiscent of Teal'c than of Ronon. Or that he's someone else entirely.

As I said, they probably won't be. But when broken down to their core, when starting out, when first imaging this new cast of characters, they went with mostly old, tried and safe territory.

And as I asked, how different would you have preferred them to be?

[FallenAngelII]

Let's hope he's more reminiscent of Teal'c than of Ronon. Or that he's someone else entirely.

He sounds much worse than Ronon. It's like Ronon, only more volatile.

And as I asked, how different would you have preferred them to be?

I just want well-written characters. They can be like their predecessors (as long as they aren't carbon clones) as long as they are well-written and don't suffer from their flaws.

[Crazedwraith]

I just want well-written characters. They can be like their predecessors (as long as they aren't carbon clones) as long as they are well-written and don't suffer from their flaws.

You know flaws are actually a good part of a character. Who wants to watch a bunch of perfect people wandering around being perfect, always making the right call?

I suppose this is were 'well written' comes in, we want flawed characters, but intentionally flawed characters where there flaws are acknowledged and a built part of the stories. Not unintentional flaws on the part of writer stupidity that are not addressed by the other members of the teams. Eg) Shep's over the top libido.

Edit: Isn't the big casting news about a character not included here? That's seems rather strange. Has they replaced the Colonel with a daniel like Doctor type? Or is he in additon to the above cast?

[glennborg]

I have to agree with those who have stated that the characters descriptions sound all too familiar. What else could they possibly have came up with that really would have been better though?

I just have one gripe about the names they have chosen and please anyone with the name please don't be offended: Chloe! Really? Could we have selected something, anything but Chloe? Just really tired of Chloe Chloe Chloe.