The people who write the storyline for Stargate are dumb

Discussion in 'SciFi & Fantasy' started by w1z4rd, Sep 4, 2008.

  1. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    Well mostly...

    Let me give you an example.. I am busy watching the first episode of season five of Stargate Atlantis.

    The situation:

    Men trapped down on the planet they need to be rescued. There is a Wraith ship in orbit trying to also get at the men.

    There is a friendly that is prisoner on the wraith ship (So they cant destroy it)


    The Dedalus arrives (and its like 50 times more potent than the wraith ship). Wraith ship checks this shit out , goes "no ways", and tries to buzz out. Dedulus hits the wraith ship once to disable its hyper drives.

    Wraith ship cant run away so shoots all the time at the Dedalus. These basically bounce of our super strong shields with little effect.

    Now they need to urgently beam up the people from the planet.. but apparently now the shields have to be dropped to beam. So they drop their shields, rescue the people, but take massive amounts of damage from the wraith ship.

    Clearly the retarded monkey who is "captain" of that ship doesnt have the intelligence to shoot out the weapons of the wraith ship before doing this.

    So he puts his ship, and its entire crew at risk... by not thinking of that.

    Surely thats super retarded? Its not a good story line, its not good commanding, its not good anything.

    </end rant about gay screen writers in Canada>
     
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  3. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    There is something wrong with the entire storyline of atlantis, I stopt watching when they shot the little girl
     
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  5. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    This is the spinoff from the show where everyone in the galaxy was plucked from ancient civilizations, yet somewhere along the way all learned English? In fact, everyone in the Pegasis Galaxy speaks English too. IT'S A MIRACLE!

    Besides, maybe these wraith ships have multiple batteries of weapons precisely to make it harder to shoot them out. I know it worked on Star Trek, but mostly because ship designers in that universe were the sorts of retards about whom you are complaining (you should never have a ship that can be disarmed with a single salvo, unless you just can't avoid it). Perhaps the only way to take out the ships weapons would be to cause damage to multiple parts and various breaches of the hull, perhaps endangering the friendly unit aboard ship.
     
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  7. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

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    Has there ever been a TV show (or film for that matter) where the reality of science (or even the reality of real life or even common sense) didn't get ridden over rough-shod so that the story could progress?
    In all cases the story line takes precedence over the facts.
     
  8. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    Better yet, an emergency warp core ejection system that never works in an emergency. Not once.

    Anyway, Stargate is one of those shows that requires more than your average amount of willfull suspension of disbelief. The writing is weak, but there's not exactly a lot of sci-fi to choose from these days. I miss shows like B5, the earlier Earth Final Conflict and Firefly.
     
  9. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I never understood the Firefly proponents. I mean the reavers were all psychotic...but able to somehow to fly spaceships and never get themselves killed by opening an airlock or blowing up the ship in a psychotic rage? Also you had all theses planets with habitable surfaces, where they in the same system? Sometimes I got the impression that they were, but I assume not since they'd not all be habitable in that case.

    Also, I get it, the Captain is the classic stock character picaro, virtually a copy of Han Solo down to his clothes but with a slightly different backstory. Inara is his Leia (so, of course they have to bicker and deny their feelings). And everything is remiscent of the American West because...it's more cool that way? I mean why would people with spaceships build railroads. Laying rails is expensive and pointless if you have spaceships that can economically fly between planets. They make it trivial to fly around the planet.

    It had good dialogue and some good episodes. The characters might have eventually become stronger if they'd had more seasons, but they seemed two dimensional to me at the end of the series. Crazy Girl, Wholesome Guy, the classic stock-character Ingenue, the Smart Alec, the Warrior Woman, the Voice of Reason with a Mysterious Past, the Treacherous Asshole, Han Solo and Princess Leia.
     
  10. MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

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    "Better yet, an emergency warp core ejection system that never works in an emergency. Not once."

    lol....or what used to frustrate me to no end....an "Auto destruct sequence that would accidently go off everytime Riker stroked his beard. You would think that after 15th time they almost blew up the whole ship and crew..they'd dsconnect the damn thing.

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  11. superstring01 Moderator

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    Atlantis sucks. I hate the unrealistic thought that English is spoken everywhere. At least have a universal translator or something.

    Ridiculous.

    ~String
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    They might be dumb but they make a good living.
     
  13. Xelios We're setting you adrift idiot Registered Senior Member

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    Yeah they were, terraformed and all in the same system. Course some terraformed more successfully than others, and all the 'fringe planets' were like the ghettos of the system, neglected by the Alliance and left to fend for themselves. Hence the lower technology maglev trains and such. Point is not everyone can afford spaceships, and those that can aren't going to make a living shlepping things back and forth from point a to point b on some wasteland fringe planet.
    Well if you boil the characters in any TV show down to their most basic qualities then they're all carbon copies of something done before. It's just all been done. The only differences these days are in delivery and substance, and I think Firefly did an amazing job in both these respects. The dialogue alone,

    Inara: "So, explain to me again why Zoe wasn't in the dress?"
    Mal: "Tactics, woman! Needed her in the back. 'Sides, them soft cotton dresses feel kind of nice. There's a whole airflow."
    Inara: "And you would know that because...?"
    Mal: "You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle. Like woman, I'm a mystery."
    Inara: "Best keep it that way. I withdraw the question."

    Zoe: "Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?
    Book: "Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps."

    Wash: "Actually, it's for her. The distress call's for Inara."
    Inara: "I'll take it in my shuttle."
    Mal: "This distress wouldn't happen to be taking place in someone's pants, would it?"

    Gold.
     
  14. superstring01 Moderator

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    Not as much as you might think. Even writers on top rated TV shows don't make more than two or three times the PCI. Rarely more than $150k per year. Considering how low "Stargate's" budget is, I can't imagine it's much. Compare the fact that "Stargate Continuum" was given a massive budget of $7 million (the regular run episodes usually get produced for under $1.5 million), whereas "Heroes" and "ER" each have a production budget of over $8 million per episode.

    ~String
     
  15. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    3,634
    I agree the dialogue was good. It was The West Wing in Space, if a bit less topical.

    On characters, most characters on good TV were richer than that. Granted they were hampered by having only a dozen or so episodes and too many characters to do a good job on all of them, but they still seemed a little formulaic and the Han Solo copying was more than a little blatant.

    To each his own, but I just don't see the genius that others did. I was good as Sci-Fi shows go, especially in those years, and I'd certainly take it over Atlantis if I had to choose, but if the choice were saving Firefly, Atlantis or Doctor Who...sorry Serenity.
     
  16. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    12,461
    What about the last episode of Stargate SG1? They're in a battle with a bunch of alien ships, they're kicking ass but in the process they substain a lot of damage. Finally, just before the killer blast destroys their ship, they freeze time. So, once time is frozen do they make repairs to the ship so that they can take the hit (as they've taken many other hits) and then finish off the bad guys? No. They stay in stasis for like 69 years! WTF? If you're in a fight and can freeze time, you can't lose! Every time you take a hit, freeze time, make repairs, and go back on the offensive. Imagine you were boxing Mike Tyson and could freeze time. Just run in, whale on him for all your worth until you're exhausted, freeze time, rest, then start time again and resume whaling on him. If he starts to throw a punch you can't dodge, freeze time, rest, duck, then resume whaling on him. You couldn't loose!
    Not everywhere. I remember plenty of episodes where Daniel Jackson had to translate the language of some dead alien civilization. But whenever they discovered a living civilization, they spoke English.

    Clearly, speaking English provides some sort of protection from the Goa'uld, so it's probably just an example of parallel evolution.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2008
  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    It's also a miracle that every single planet looks like Canada.
     
  18. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    Speaking english is something that is done to cut down production costs.
    I think it adds to the storyline that the ancients seeded all known life in the galaxy except the wraith and the Goa uld.. At least the original stargate had one OTHER language than english.
     
  19. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    That episode sucked balls.
    Seriously.. If the asguard core can pratically create anything, why not just repair everything and kill the enemy ship ?
     
  20. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    On an added note, at least other shows like BSG had a decent excuse other than a UT, or seeded life, (Even if one species seeded life, whats to say they wouldn't evolve differently), Cylons were created from humans, and therefore will speak the same language as humans.
     
  21. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    Yes...Only if the story was written by people like Clarke or Asimov...otherwise the rest are basically Comics....that are not quite thought through...

    Babylon 5 was pretty good due to Harlan Elison's consultancy....
     
  22. EmptyForceOfChi Banned Banned

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  23. trgedz2 Registered Member

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    I came across this thread, hste to bump it but something is really bugging me. A user named "String" says that he doesn't like the fact that ancient is barely spoken. Remember, the ancient language is over ten thousand years old, those who knew it are dead or ascended. Second off, according to stargate lore, all the people in milkyway/Pegasus galaxy are supposedly from earth, which they spoke english at the time the ancients first left to the pegasus galaxy cause of a plauge, also time isn't frozen, there is minimal damage, but the shields are depleted. One hit from an ori ship could decintigrate the oddessy, time is slown down in the ship, but not outside. The sheild can not recharge
     

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