Stargate Universe Review
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
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And now the final chapter in the Stargate franchise. Stargate Universe had so much potential, it's a shame it couldn't fulfill it.
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COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER
Clips and Music from Stargate Universe (2009) Copyrighted material used under Fair Use for the purpose of criticism and review. All copyrighted content belongs to its respective owners, but under Section 107 I have a right to it in this video.
I really was saddened that we didn't get a proper conclusion to SGU. The show had a dodgy first season at times, yes, but no more so than SG-1 or Atlantis, and SGU was so damn ambitious. Season 2 in general was really fantastic for me.
I would argue that SGU had the most dodgy first season of the three Stargate shows. First impressions matter and at the very least the characters of SG-1 and Atlantis were likeable and could be empathized with from the start. Universe on the other hand had conflict between the military and civilian characters that got tedious very quickly.
@@jarjared3522
You're not wrong.
The impression it gave of ripping off BSG also caused complaints.
By season 2 I was hooked and I was very sad when the show was cancelled.
@@jarjared3522 yeah definitely. i mean the standalone SG-1 season 1 episodes (other than some obvious exceptions) tended to be weaker, but i honestly loved all of atlantis season 1. tbh, half the reason i dislike season 1 of SGU is the camera work, like i cannot see anything. and the constant backstabbing (people do not attempt to murder each other on a regular basis)
Lolol at the rush comment. He’s basically a combination of Gregory House and Gais Baltar. Hit the nail on the head! Lol!
I loved all the SG series: SG1, SG:A and SG:U. All different (though SG1 and SG:A had similar style), and each unique.
The only thing that really pissed me off was the MASSIVE cliffhanger at the end, with no hope of ever knowing what happened to Destiny's crew. I so hoped the story would continue :(
Actually the scripts for the first 3 episodes of next season are published. I read them years ago and they ware pretty good.
I really really loved SGU. It still boils my piss to this day that they cancelled it.
Should have made more SGA, instead of this! Seriously, this does not fit the fandom! You can't just make a grim-dark (which was all the rage back then, frankly it was a bad fad after New-BSG released (which I frankly don't like, aside from some episodes...don't even like the characters except for Admiral Adama! Hate Roslin, hate Tigh, hate whiny Apollo, bitch Starbuck, hate Dr. Traitor (Balthar!) etc.) show when nothing before (except a few episodes here and there, like the one that had Sam stranded fighting a Kull-Warrior alone!) was like that! You wouldn't film 'Alien' and try to sell a funny Disney cartoon as 'Alien 2'!
ps: Yeah, if I want a depression I put on some sad music, but ruining my science fiction with grimdark BS (seriously: It is not a horror-movie! You can do some episodes like that, but that should IMHO be it!)...I frankly hated the Atmosphere on this show (and the characters...don't get me started on their "O'Neill" (Everett Young) he es everything Jack never wanted to be! He's a slimy, abusive scumbag that fucks people under his command (Jack and Sam are attracted to each other and fight it - what does Young do? Yeah, we'll bang - ok?), he assaults fellow officers (and uses a body not his own to do so! Hell, he also has sex using another body if I am remembering right, so this is IMHO close to RAPE and 2 counts of assault - on the body he inhabits and on Telford!) and threatens the civilians (he should be dishonorably discharged and confined to quarters IMHO!))
I fully agree. @@dreamingflurry2729
Picard is dark and gritty
I love how The Expanse, a sci-fi series created recently, was actually praised for its similarities with Battlestar Galactica... in fact every sci-fi tv series i see now, is going for that darker shade of realism, and its working.
SGU was simply way before it's time.
I found the first 2 episodes slow sure, by Air part 3 things start to pick up, besides that this show is steeped in stargate mythology, we are literally learning about the ancients ancestors, the human form race that literally built the gates and seeded our galaxy (in canon obviously), it's like everyone expects the story to be told in the first episode.
Just sit back and enjoy the ride, trust me it's worth it.
same
SGU struck me as a serialized show, made by people who didn't know how to do a serialized show. There was way too much filler in the first season. It wasn't slow and deliberate; it was plodding and meandering. The characters were completely unlikable and childish, and while there's a great underlying mystery and plot to the series, the character drama felt like it was written by a thirteen-year-old.
@@jaffarebellion292 Tbf to the writers... the concept itself wasn't really all that great for a tv series... like i really liked where they were going with the background signal etc... but when it comes down to it... a half dead space ship on a mission to practically fly the breadth of the universe. There's no end goal there no progression, on a scale that actually matters to us anyway.
In movie form, maybe this would have worked better, with with all the mythology about messages from the beginning of time being discovered along side a more punchy main plot point...
But again... how you make something punchy out of a million year plus mission, with a series already based firmly in a well versed scfi universe that at least follows some logic... i don't know. Cause the overall plot will never be solved, it can't.
@@Averie69
How do you enjoy a ride when you know you'll get slammed into a brick wall at the end?
I really liked this show but Idk if I'd want to rewatch.
@@alanpennie8013 I've watched this series at least 3 times through, if not more.
Yeah I agree, without a proper ending it is pretty much a slap in the face at the end ahaha
Still ended better then Atlantis.
I actually forgot how much I enjoyed this series until you reminded me of some of the episodes in this review. It did feel like they were trying too hard to be like Battlestar Galactica just because that was the popular sci-fi at the time. I don't know how much that was intentional. It felt pretty disjointed from the previous series. Definitely had potential though. The first decade of the 21st century seems to be where sci-fi TV goes to die.
It was totally intentional and not good.
I really liked SGU, as well. Now I'm going to have to watch it again. That is, as soon as I feel like I can handle not being able to find out what happened after season 2. :/ In a weird way, it was kind of poetic how the show ended. They just...went to sleep hoping to wake up on the other side. Well, everyone except for 1 guy, that is... In a way, I sort of feel like Eli at the end of that episode... Just standing there alone...and looking at the stars...
Yeah that was unfortunate. I had the same experience recently with Dark Matter which was cancelled after a season 3 cliffhanger... :(
Serialized TV can get cancelled quite easily.
@@CybershamanX
Eli was definitely an audience - avatar character.
I'm still heartbroken that it got cancelled so soon. It had a very rocky first season, but by season 2 I was really invested in the story and the characters. If anything deserved a comeback, it's SGU.
Personally, I loved it. The most apt analogy I could make is to compare SG-1 and Atlantis to a bowl of ice cream. A few wild and intense bursts of oreo cookie sprinkled about, but overall it's a fairly light and sweet dessert.
Whereas Universe was a primary course, a rich & savory stew with multiple dimensions of flavor. However, it's far heavier, weighted. In a way, it was the antithesis of SG-1 and Atlantis.
I liked all of them, but for very different reasons. The problem was, most of the fanbase established in the previous series were looking for another dose of sugar, and as you mentioned, the course they were served was.. jarringly unexpected. Even by most objective standards it was prepared with finesse and skill..
SGU was a lot like liqorice or salmiak candy. I do agree with the 'main course' argument, where food is not swett, but rich, with diverse flavours.
My biggest problem with SGU was the "rape" stones. And I call them that for a reason. They literally took over the bodies of other people then used those bodies to have sex. I just can't put in to words how creepy and wrong that whole thing seemed. Then there was the sudden revelation that several of the characters were gay. But it never factored into the stories. It seemed like the show was being written by a committee who just voted one day that gay characters were needed. And that's how a lot of the show felt to me. It was if they had 15 writers and they each took turns writing an episode. So, you'd get one episode featuring a particular minor character and then you'd never see them again except in background shots of other character's episodes.
SGU was quite the departure, it took time to adapt, but when I got really into it, it just, ended, leaving me hanging, it's kind of like, ever since it ended, I've been left drifting in space, alone. Sometimes I remember it all and I get hit by nostalgia like a hammer and I need to take a breather. We had a lot of cool sci fi whit back then, Far Scape, Star Trek, Battle Star, Eureka, now we got... zombies and politics. Space makes me dream, politics gives me fucking nightmares.
Excellent review, although I want to mention that Rush was also plagued by insecurities over his own inadequacy when Eli came in as a Mozart to his Salieri. Rush was smug in his genius, but he seemed almost average compared to Eli. Colonel Young was a great, complex character -- more so than people give him credit. He was obviously once a great leader and people are compelled to follow him, but he is so empathic that the responsibility for lives lost weigh down too greatly on him. He now makes decisions in the hopes of no lives being lost, which unfortunately end up in many more lives being lost than if he had made the right choices to begin with. For example, when the Lucian Alliance boarded the ship, Telford/Rush came through the gate with them, so he refused to vent the gate room, killing both of them (he didn't realize at the time that the journey broke the connection), leading instead to the deaths of four of his people and near-death of Chloe. He had turned down the lead for this mission to Telford and was hoping to get back home to his wife to fix his marriage, but this was taken from him when Rush dialed the ninth chevron instead. You can see the burdens weighing down on him until he breaks and does something impulsive, particularly during Life, Justice, Aftermath, Trial and Error, and The Greater Good.
Extrapolation is the key here, because these characters are written with great depth, but you have to go further to find it. For example, Eli's dad ran out on him and his mom when his mom became HIV+ working in the ER. Whenever Eli is faced with a tough situation, like Chloe's death or Camille discussing Ginn's death, his reaction was to walk away from the situation. These are among the many details that most people miss.
Character development on a whole 'nother level. I think one of the key points here is, a lot of interpersonal problems we observe on destiny, are actually things so many growing adults struggle with everyday. With the added layer of consistent fear of death xD
People don't wanna think about their own insecurities, they might realise they actually have to change.
Young a great leader? I'd like some of whatever you've been taking, please!
I see him as the exact opposite, he's the guy that should never get promoted past lieutenant, because he has no charisma, no plan, a (bad) disregard for the rules ("Lets fuck subordinates, that is cool - right? Oh and so is beating up other officers and having my guys threaten and pistol whipping civilians that should be in charge, but I prefer being in charge!") etc...Jack on SG-1 at least only disregarded the rules for moral reasons (like showing the Orbanian girl what fun is and that it trumps scientific advantage at the cost of human lives!)
@@dreamingflurry2729 Maybe once things fully open up again, you could get that eye exam that you so desperately need. I said he was at one time. That is completely obvious in the devotion of all military personnel under him. "Colonel Young is our commanding officer." "I let him down."
Right. No leader has ever had sexual relations with people under or over them, or with their wives. I suggest you look into this thing called "history". This has been the basis for a major share of stories since the oldest stories have been recorded -- certainly earlier. I recommend you check out a story about this king named Arthur. He has a champion knight serving him named Lancelot.
Also, I apparently need to repeat to you what I said in my original post, since you obviously didn't read it. To sum up, I basically said he was once a great leader who is now (as in, during the first season and a half of SGU) making very bad command decisions because he is plagued by guilt. Also, since you obviously haven't really watched the show, he said to Scott (in Justice):
"Lieutenant, nobody signed up for this, and I can't just assume they're gonna follow my orders, and I can't rule this ship by force.
(Scott gives him a look.) I mean, I won't."
He's refusing to take charge, not forcing his way in. The lack of discipline is due to his lack of leadership. That is the entire point of the overarching story. He hits rock bottom in Trial and Error and starts putting himself back together by The Greater Good. By Twin Destinies, he's begun reasserting himself as a leader. In Epilogue, he's leading their colony not as their military commander or dictator, but as their lawfully elected leader. He has them living comfortably in a village of homes within a decade or so and lays the foundation for a highly advanced human society. That sure sounds like George Washington-level leadership to me.
Jack O'Neill is about as realistic a character as Jack Slater. He doesn''t exist in real life. In reality, he would have been court-martialed at least a dozen times over for disobeying direct orders. I was a commissioned officer in the US military for 6 years. I served on a base that had more civilian than military workers. The depiction of military and civilians working together in SGU was uncanny. Instead of the story being what they were told life was like, it seemed as though they had sent someone in undercover to find out what it was _really_ like. The Lt. sitting next to me dated and married an Lt in the same org, different office. The Col. I worked for dated and married a civilian working under him. This was all permissible as long as it was properly reported, which it was. Then there were the rumors of who was with whom that weren't as permissible.
@@gregthebaritone wrote:
> That sure sounds like George Washington-level leadership to me.
There was a statue, after all :D
@@mardus_ee It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of a son of a bitch or another. --Malcolm Reynolds
This was one of my favorite since fiction shows hated to see this one go.
SG1 and Atlantis were good. Didn't like this tho.
Watched it for the first time recently. It tried too hard to jump on the BSG grimdark theme, and otherwise I found it too transitory to keep my interest. Might have gotten better if they found ways to really start repairing Destiny and finishing it's mission. I like some of the characters, but most just aren't particularly interesting.
It was alright, but just didn't grab me like SG1 and Atlantis
All the best shows get cancelled. Compare Firefly! This show was deep, brilliantly executed, frightening, tense and had set of stories that could, and should have gone on for years!
The first season was a little dry, the second season was fantastic, up there with season 4/7 of sg1 and season 3/4 of Atlantis. SGU reminded me of the hard sci-fi novels of the 60s and 70s and I loved that.
The communication stones episodes and the Lucian Alliance nonsense drove me crazy. They are on the other side of the f'n universe with so many things that the writers could possibly do but, lets bind them to earth with bs body swap stories and a bomb threat to the S.G.C. I guess SG-1 and the other teams stopped existing when off screen and Atlantis being parked on earth means nothing.
I found the stones confusing.
Fuckin loved this show. It took a bit of getting into because the tone is so different from other StarGate shows. But was definitely worth it.
To me SGU was generally ok for season 1 and i quickly found that unless it picked up it would fail. Season 2 really did bring it all home and the further it progressed the more immersed i became. Simply stunning was the episode where they met their own civilization and that episode to me will go down as one of the best. they should have green lit it for a third season and then closed it or made a direct to DVD movie where they made it home. MGM you suck for cancelling this gem!
I loved it just as much as SG-1 if not MORE at some point, the acting was ... INSANE, in some episodes and the aliens felt... alien
no magic to save the crew, no tps no asgards to rescue them... it was great
Here's the thing all that drama and intrigue isn't grounded in anything interesting, the stakes aren't ever genuinely high enough to make the drama interesting it was drama for drama sake. If the general public knew about what happened to the destiny group then things would be more interesting.
This show's cancellation was THE single reason I cut cable and will never return. I will never forgive that shitty channel for cancelling SGU. Season 1 was slow, yes. I think it'll be seen as before it's time, because the story was so grand in scale, it was designed to be a Netflix-style binge watch and is so much better when seen as a whole rather than week to week. Season 2 was absolutely phenomenal. The reveal of Destiny's mission, the crew gaining more control of the ship, the weighty nature of the episodes, everything was just better. The dynamic between Rush, Young, and the IOA rep (I forget her name) went from an eye-rolling 'just work together already!' to a deeply layered and complex relationship akin to that of Babylon 5.
I love this show. SG-U is probably the most underrated Sci-Fi series of recent times.
I will always be a top fan of SGU, i love the looks of the show and Destiny itself. Destiny became one of my top favorite scifi ships, ever and i love how it adds to the history of the ancients. The design of everything was great, the actors were great, and it still had that stargate humor. It will always be up there with the other stargates
Underrated show. Which unfortunately as you said it fell into the trap of not delivering what longstanding fans of the show would have expected but coming to late into the life of the series to attract a new audience. I can see why people who wanted more Stargate didn't like it 'cos it wasn't really 'more stargate' but its a shame that it was cut short. Too much character drama for sci-fi geeks and too much science for people into character drama.
As a longtime fan of both SG-1 and SGA, I felt obligated to support Stargate Universe, so I sat through every damn episode even though I pretty much hated it. Honestly, it was a relief when it finally got axed.
I found it incredibly difficult to get personally invested when none of the characters were even remotely likable. Whatever amount of gravitas and grittiness the writers were aiming for was IMO instantly short-circuited whenever they used those mind-swapping stones.
Isn't it just terrible that we're all billions of light years away from Earth? Oh, I can go back and visit whenever I feel like it? Cool.
Am I the only one that found the whole idea of using some stranger's body (and vice versa) creepy as hell?
So the show had no redeeming qualities for you?
But these stones were from late SG-1, you know....
If they'd made use of the stones supervised and movement restricted to the SGC grounds except for specific occasions, such as Rush going undercover in the Lucian Alliance, it would solve a lot of issues. Being able to essentially rape someone while using their body was entirely intolerable, and when Eli finally pointed it out, I remember shouting "THANK you!" at the screen at the top of my lungs. Freaked the hell out of my roommates.
I tried watching this show when it came out. Kinda felt like it was trying too hard to be the Battlestar Galactica Reboot. Also, I didn't have HDTV at the time so it felt too dark to see anything at times. A bit sad it didn't get a chance to end and it was canceled.
I learned to love SGU. Someone you didn’t mention but was among my favorites was Brian J. Smith as Mathew Scott. Almost from the beginning I felt like we were waiting on…something…with that character. Some facet of his personality or past that he was keeping locked away. Of course, now I’ll never know.
The last two minutes of the series finale - that gorgeous piano music slowly building as characters wish each other well and go into their sleep chamber, then the violin joins in as we watch Eli and Destiny vanish into the darkness of the intergalactic void. And all of it happening on an ancient alien starship incomprehensibly far from Earth - and not coming home, but going even further away - it was moving and hauntingly beautiful.
The reason I did not like SGU was the fact that I could not really cheer for the good guys because I had a hard time guessing who they were each episode. There was so much back stabbing and politics it made me feel like I was watching congress in session and not something to escape reality for an hour. Even the top ranking officer had no real defining moral compass that I could see. And if I wanted to watch a show that was all about who was boinking who, I would watch jersey shores. I knew in the original series who was good and who was the bad guys. At the end of each episode I knew that O'neal would rather die than backstab his team.
Keller 13 "These are the wrong people" was repeated by Col. Young. It was interesting to watch this crew, who was thrown together in an emergency, sort themselves out and figure out a way to survive together, despite themselves. SG1 and the Atlantis Expedition, were hand picked, from the best of the best, with billions of dollars to back them. This was a new show, for a new generation. TPTB couldnt have made another show like SG1 or SGA because TV had moved on.
Clearly TV hadn't moved on because SGU lost ratings and got cancelled pretty quickly.
ZiceLove TV moved to reality crap, and fuking wresteling, what a fucking move, honestly go eat more soy
SGU. I loved it .. words don't do it justice. I have watched the entire thing back-to-back at least 4 times now... and #5 is on the horizon.
At least that doesn't take long to do
I remember getting serious headaches from the camerawork on SGU. It was just outright bad and I don't understand why directors want to keep using that style.
And a real sensation of disgust with all the teeny drama put into it.
Rush was the saving grace of SGU.
It was truely a real shame, that they cancelled it after the second season, just right when it started to pace up a little bit, but secretly I'm happy that it happened, because I doubt that they could've given us a real satisfying ending, since the journey of the Destiny had millions of years ahead of itself and it probably would've been about keeping bad guys from taking over the ship and surviving the odds the entire time, so it would be very repetitive.
My only real problem with the show was how dark it was in terms of lighting. There were times when I could not see what was happening. Really annoying and wasn’t necessary to show how bad their situation was.
I think some of the darkness must have had plenty to do with the use of greater color gamut in Full HD. Early flatscreens did not have that support, while I think SGU was filmed with that new color gamut in mind. One can see the difference with modern displays that also have HDR support, and with older flat-screen televisions that have a limited ('standard') gamut support. By the time SGU was being in production (ca 2009), flatscreen technology in displays was actually there, but was very new, while most people had older flatscreens and CRTs with what was then the standard color gamut, which was more limited.
@@mardus_ee when SGU first aired I still had CRT television. I did try rewatching it after I had an LCD tv. It was when all three shows were on one of the streaming services. I was still annoyed with how dark it was and stopped watching it. It wasn’t the best LCD, it was the cheapest one in Walmart. Based on what I could see I did like the show. So If I ever get one of those high end LEDs I’ll try watching it again.
I still had an old CRT television when the show first aired. When I rewatched it later, it was with a cheap flatscreen from Walmart and a lot of scenes were still too dark. So I stopped watching after second episode. If I ever get a high end TV, I’ll rewatch again.
@@mardus_ee on the off chance you are curious. I finally got a new TV after mine died. Spent some money this time and got a decent one. Hopefully it lasts longer that the cheap ones I usually buy. Watched the episode where they are on a jungle planet where everyone is getting sick, then attacked by nocturnal chest stabbing insects. I could actually see what was happening. After rewatching the entire season. While not as good as SG1 or Atlantis. I no longer hate it because I couldn’t see anything. I think the show had potential to get better if they focused less on the soap opera stuff.
Battlestar Galactica lost in space edition. O, wait.
What I don't get, is they've been given a decent budget, some amazingly designed sets, some intricate and intriguing lore. You're interested in finding out more about the Destiny, more about the Universe.
Instead they waste it on boring, asenine plot lines about who's cheating on who, or who's fucking who, or who's in love with who. I want Stargate, not fuckin' Eastenders in Space. That shit's boring.
I genuinely want to find out more about the ship and its mission, I really couldn't give a toss about love triangles or pregnancies - that's not why I love Stargate.
Yeah I really respected SG-1 for avoiding the main character love interest drama and keeping their relationship professional. It's something you very rarely see nowadays because modern writers are always trying to force a love story in everything.
SGU was one of the best sci-fi shows of all time.
It’s a shame that SGU got cancelled. I would have like to see where they were planning on going with the universe-is-an-artificial-construct idea.
Well they turned a SCI-FI adventure (SG-1, Atlantis) to a SCI-FI drama with very little SCI-FI at first. If people want to see teen drama they watch the WB.
They had some good performances for sure but.... it always felt like it was trying to be something else. Part Voyager, part BSG, with a dash of Stargate to keep it in the franchise. Everything was so dark, literally, that I could barely see what was going on on when on the ship. Similar audio issues. I gave up before the first season started.
SGU is my favorite of the series. There was so much to mine in the lore with this one. A pattern in the cosmic background radiation? So much you could do with that. Alas.
It was really hard start watching this soap-opera of a Stargate show at least the first season, the second season was golden and I loved every minute of it, was very sadden with its cancellation. Will look up the comics tho.
Hmm when you quoted one of Dr. Rush' last words of season 2, which he said to Eli -- about Eli having potential but not given the chance to fulfill it I wanted to share my point of view! Eli responded to Rush something to the effect of "Yes/But I am. " Since up until now Eli had been Rush's shadow, but is now ready to really show what he was made of [Spoilers] in staying behind to repair the last pod. I like to think that beyond Stargate origins, that the series will revive again, and when it does, we can finally finish the journey the show has taken us on, just like Destiny :D
And I will never see the aliens who created eden. I really enjoyed the eden plot. Also they almost put mckay in it. I miss Stargate very mutch these days. Just watching all stargate series over and over again. SGA and rodney mckay was my favourite show/character.
The point, where Stargate surpassed Star Trek. My favourite was actually season 1, it was hard sci-fi, at its best. Don't think any space battle bullshit could overcome the grandeur of diving into a star, or making an aerobraking maneuver. Visiting a planet actually looked like a really dangerous endeavour, not because baddies of the week doing baddie things in a forest, it had microbes, hostile environments, everything you would expect in a new world, something we didn't get too much in season 2. Characters were well fleshed out and three dimensional. The conflicts in the crew were all logical and unavoidable in a real world scenario, I personally liked, that the show didn't fully embrace a military dictatorship for the first time. The only thing which was really dark is how easily Eli sided with the military branch, spied on the civilian population, and took orders from Young without question. I would tell it is a flaw, but view it as a stroke of a genius critique of the post 911 societies of the west. Its too shame that real scifi always needs to give in for some lightsaber fantasy bullshit.
SGU was more of a miss than a hit for me. I stuck with it until the end but it was a real knuckle draggier for me.
I think this show would've been great if it had been independent of the Stargate franchise. It didn't really fit, so why not make it its own thing?
Robert carlyle carried the show for me, great actor through and through.
Loved SGU
I'll differ from you here a little. I enjoyed all the characters and thought the actors did a fine job, but the Rush/Young feud killed this thing. I think the Rush continually came off as a rash self-centered ego-maniac when he didn't need to be. I loved the ship and the premise. What this series lacked was a little more "Stargate". It didn't need to be what many thought Voyager should have been. They needed to stay truer to the source material, ditch the damn stones and really be stranded. I enjoyed this and I think it should have continued (especially since the hatchet appeared to have been buried wrt Rush & Young). It ended in a manner that it could easily be revived. Here's keeping my fingers crossed.
Great review. I adore Stargate Universe. I really should read more of those comics. I checked out the first one when it released.
Did you ever pull it off? What I've learned of them just made me shake my head.
There were really a bunch of Ancients on board all along in stasis? Despite the ship having spent millions of years flying aimlessly through space and totally running out of juice shortly after this lot arrived? Any living thing onboard from launch should have been dust after that long. Weir was basically dead from 30 after 10000 years in a pod on Atlantis. Likely far more advanced than the ones on Destony.
And these are the same folks who built the ship, and thus made the control code that would have allowed them to stop it when it unexpectedly flew off into space with them aboard. But who also couldn't think to use the onboard stargate to gate off back to Earth or any other nearby planet with a gate in the Milky Way.
So many black hole sized plot contrivances needed for that to make any sense at all.
I wonder if Star Trek Discovery is going end up being the SGU of the Trek franchise. (Calling it... with, to be clear, no desire to be right): A major style/tone departure for a franchise that doesn't get off the ground, and is ultimately let go, and ends up with a loyal and passionate group of defenders.
At least in this case people won't falsely accuse it of getting its predecessor cancelled, plus I would love to watch it, but I'm not going to pay for a new channel just to watch one show.
Yeah STD seems to be very close to SGU. Unlikeable characters and gritty tone. It even has that sort of dark lighting feel to it as well. The only real advantage STD has is that, unlike SGU, it feels like the galaxy is at stake in STD, where in SGU, it didn't seem like anything the characters did actually mattered.
SG:U respected and built up on source material. STD spit on it with acid saliva.
@wordgrrl71 LOL at some point you should probably realize that Star Trek has been lecturing people on how to think for like 50+ years, it's not the franchise's fault that you just now start to realize that. And I'm still confused what is so SJW about Discovery? Is it because the lead character is a black woman? Or is it because they happen to have a gay couple?
@@piotrd.4850 Much agreed. _Discovery_ is like "too much drama", while SGU was close to being realistic.
I truly found this show unenjoyable.
The style was great, the setting had more potential for the good kind of drama than the other two series had.
Instead I got unlikeable or uninteresting characters and the bad kind of drama.
Is it bad for me to say my favorite scene in the entire show was when they died on a recording?
>Instead I got unlikeable or uninteresting characters and the bad kind of drama.
Its your problems. ITs all OK with characters and drama in SGU.
SGU was Viscerally Human
I didn't really care about the darker survival tone. Hell, a horror-themed stargate would've been cool. The reason I dropped it wasn't because I hated it. I just kinda forgot about it. It was only when I heard the last episode of SGU was on that I suddenly remember it existed. It wasn't bad by any means but it lacked any sort of impact. I liked Rush, Chloe, and Eli. Chloe's character caught my attention because she was the character that shouldn't be there. Everyone in stargate thus far had a purpose. Chloe was just a pretty face. She knew she was just a pretty face. And she knew that she was dead weight. I kinda wished she learned how to be useful instead of having alien knowledge just downloaded into her brain. It would've been great character growth. Rush is the infamous when people are backed up against the they do crazy things. I wanted to hate him for his actions but couldn't since I kinda understood them. And Eli was what happened when you tossed the average Joe into a survival situation, essentially a POV character. The rest of the characters were rather forgettable. They fell into categories but that's it.
While it had some good, it was just kinda there. Rush was the only character I even remotely sympathized with when fights broke out. When the fights broke out, it rarely felt like people who were scared but had the best of intentions and more like a bunch of arrogant asses who viewed anyone who disagreed with them as children with goldfish span attention. They come off pompouses who view themselves as the enter of the universe. Characters beating the crap out of each other for leadership isn't a good drama if I don't sympathize with their individuals motivations and/or support or understand their plans.
While season two did a great job of fixing issues in season 1, the damage was done. People already left so no one would know things were getting better.
It was never given a chance. It was an amazing show.
Rush was definitely the best character on the show. And the only one who considered Destiny's mission should take priority over pointlessly trying in vain to get a damaged ship to dial back millions of light years like they were just a little bit too far outside of the Milky Way for the gate to connect like normal.
The ship itself was beautiful. And full of mystery and wonders to explore. But the soap opera nature of the plots tended to feel completely alien to Stargate, if you'll allow the pun.
Young is by far the most incompetent military leader in the entire series. And given his flaws, it makes you wonder how he ever ended up running what at that point has to be the SGC's biggest off-world mission outside Atlantis. Given that locating the Icarus planet was more important than recalling the ZPM-powered Odyssey to do battle with the ZPM-powered Hive in Enemy At The Gate.
The rest, as you point out, were fairly hit or miss. Usually miss. They barely even felt like they were there most of the time. Which is weird on a ship containing only a small handful of people compared to the sheer size of both Atlantis and the SGC. I remember more fond and familiar faces from Cheyenne Mountain than Destiny. The few truly memorable additions to the cast tended to find themselves killed off rather quickly and unceremoniously.
And the Stones were an exercise in the selfishness of human kind. Even if the people using them on Earth signed a consent form, there is no way any of their partners did. Not one of those sexual encounters was ever truly consensual on both ends. So much ick to wade through. The tonal shift really made it hard for returning fans to love when we had lost our favourites to gain it (not that Atlantis was cancelled for SGU, but the showrunners did not want to do two shows simultaneously again either). We lost the magic of Stargate.
As a standalone show with the same general plot and make up, it would have worked fairly well. But as the last large scale Stargate we ever got, it was a sorely disappointing sigh to end on.
I was disapointed that they didn't gave this show a chance.
I'm usually a heretic for this but SGU is by far my favourite of the 3 shows
You're not alone. Mine too.
The main reason SGU did not appeal was the endless sophomoric if not infantile soap-opera-like fighting between the characters, especially in the first year, but still in the second year. Yes, I know they are "not soldiers", but that is no excuse. Many characters in SG1 and especially SGA were also not military, but they weren't infantile jerks who completely ignore the dangerous situation they're in, and complain like a bunch of high school girls fighting over fads and styles. Also, do remember that *everyone* at the SGU base was supposed to be "world-class" in their own field, which means they should be a bit more adult than the average high school doofus.
The fact is, SGU was trying to emulate so-called darker, grittier, edgier series rather than simply do a better and better job of what they did best for so many years. They did that in SGA, which was superb, but then threw it all in the toilet to abandon their strengths for some pie in the sky notion that they could ripoff the feeling of another popular sci-fi series.
In my opinion, SG1 and SGA are the two best sci-fi TV series ever. They should have stuck with those series for many more years, or developed another series much like SG1 and SGA after SGA ran its own course of 10 ~ 12 seasons.
PS: If I wanted to watch lame, stupid, childish dimwits argue with each other and act like total morons... I'd just go watch normal jerks (which I don't).
PS: The whole bit where the characters acted like infantile jerks make me keep wishing some disaster would occur and kill every last one of them!
I felt the producers thought they'd been doing the same format in SG1 and Atlantis for over decade and as you correctly state, darker and gritter was the good idea to them I think it was too but I think the approach was all wrong, a graphic sex scene? I don't think they fitted well with the franchise especially the audience that SG1 and SGU attracted
I don't think they needed to have that shaky camera effect. I loved Battle Glactica but since then we've got awful copies of it in the terms of excessive zooming and shaking camera it's annoying.
The pace of the first season clearly put viewers off, I don't think they encounter any alien races of weeks.
The personal drama between the characters did become tiresome in some episodes, It became a soap opera in space during some parts of the season.
I agree with your opinion that both SG1 and SGA were some of the best sci fi shows produce in the last 20 years, But SGU trying to switch the format eventually why I think it failed regardless if some SGU fan's think otherwise, The core of SG1 and SGA wasn't to take itself to seriously but SGU did.
I think a good example of a series that got darker and grittier in an effective way was DS9 (StarTrek DeepSpaceNine). At first the difference between DS9 and TOS & TNG caused a bit of concern... will this be too different? But in the end, I believe DS9 was the very best StarTrek series, which was quite an amazing accomplishment. And it didn't need to disrespect what came before to be different and great.
I agree, out of all the Trek series, I think Deep Space Nine was the best written and it shows it was the best example of what the writers could achieve without being tied down to Gene Roddenberry's rules, The writers knew they couldn't create conflict with the star fleet crew so they decided to set it on a space station manned by a mixed crew and people of many worlds could live on it, Which created endless opportunity for stories they couldn't create for TNG at the time.
DS9 could create story arc's that could last the length of show and it was able to produce better story telling and also go in further details on the Klingon's, Frengi and the Cardassians that TNG ever did. It got better every season.
I think the problem with SGU lies with the approach of having stories that were self contained to the conflict on-board the ship, It didn't wanna be adventurous in that aspect it focused on personal issue and conflict. While they opportunity to create better stories that was already established in the franchise or they could create something new.
+KD84Afc
" It didn't wanna be adventurous in that aspect it focused on personal issue and conflict."
Wow, that last part really does hit the head on it. Yeah, one of the things that made all the fans of SG1, was not just the lighthearted tone and witty banter, and the somewhat realistic but fun technobabble in a sci-fi world. It was an ADVENTURE, almost every episode, something new, always exploring. Or even if reacting or having drama at home, it was still made into an adventure.
That actually, now since you mention it, was cut down by like 95% in SGU. Despite the very idea of them being on a spacecraft visiting these different places, the spirit of adventure wasn't there. It was all, 'we need to get here for this reason, that reason, and this reason or else THE END', which war hardly ever the case in SG1/A. And much of the SGU episodes didn't even get into that at all anyway, which is even more sad about it.
I never thought of it that way until you said that, but wow, that is actually very accurate. And it is a poignant damnation of the series for the long-time fans.
omg, again this stupid hater that dont understand what SGU is.
SG:U was deeply right. It still has been solidly rooted in original franchise canon material, but pushing universum in new direction. Great design, visuals, cast, musics ... best combination of respect for original and new ideas. And the way Destiny - a ship - was character on its own, slowly being developed as well... brilliant.
io9.gizmodo has an old article that makes a couple of very valid points, titled "10 Actual Mistakes that Syfy Has Made Over the Years"
The fan base didn’t like this show because it didn’t feel like Stargate. If this was just a stand alone show with its own IP I’m sure it would’ve done fine, but with Stargate in its name I felt it was kinda off putting.
Okay so im gunna start off by saying I am a HUGE sg fan! And while I agree that at first I did not like SGU. It didnt give me the same "Stargate feel" that SG1 and SGA gave, However I grew to really enjoy it. Expecially when I heard that the Owners wanted to Reboot and start completely over on the SG series as a whole= No fucking way! Thank God they didnt. Anyways the Storyline that SGU revealed to us was SO important. The whole idea of Destiny, and seeing how it was flying out in space during all the SG1 and SGA episodes is fascinating. Aswell I agree the tipical sg humor was in fact still there and along with the Flashbacks ,Nostalgia and references to SG1 and SGA was enough. I think we can all say that we all wish that SG1 and SGA had kept going on, but it didnt. So SGU offered 1 GREAT THING l, that we could keep living on with SG1 and SGA through SGU. SGA is my ALL TIME FAVIORATE and for years all i wanted was 1 more season. But my love for SGA and SG1 lived on through SGU and for that im thankfull! Also it gave us a lot about the History of the Ancients and more! I personally think SGU should come back for 1 more season along with SGA and SG1 releasing episodes at the same time and have pre-existing storylines that work together (similar to the few episodes of SG1 when the team visited Atlantis) for example: The Arrow, The Flash, and Super Girl all co-exsit. I believe this will make every and all SG fans see their Faviorate shows once more and maybe even cause the love for SGU that most people didnt have- god knows why bc it was a good show. Maybe just Maybe enought people will watch it to cause its true revival.
I'm not a big Stargate guy so when Universe launched I thought it'd be a good jumping on point. I couldn't help but feel it was Stargate Galactica with this new style. Like SyFy wanted the press BSG was getting but didn't wanna spend BSG money but they would spend Stargate money.
This show could have been great if they focused more on cool alien tech and cut the personal stories in half
I can't believe I didn't know about Back to Destiny! Can't watch the rest of the video, even though there's no spoiler alert I'm not risking it.
Thank you.
i really LOVED SGU and it still pains me that i dont get a proper ending. they should just do like 1 movie please. or 2 episodes.
i personally have never watched any of the other stargate series, tried but it felt cartoony. and also never watched battle star whatever. i dont really watch the space shooty shooty spaceship battle series
but SGU is truly more than that which is why i loved it
I totally agree, the story behind SGU was really something else, really great and exciting story.
SGU was the best science fiction tv show every made. I hope that someone finds the wisdom to bring it back. Thankfully the cliffhanger lends itself to a long period of time...
I'm a bit curious why you call out Voyager for the rubber face makeup, when they have Species 8472 :P
Yes I see a lot of that shaky camera work you mention on a lot of things, and it does very quickly become very tiresome. In fact the U.K. show ''Endeavor'' I would say is ruined by the constant inclusion of out of focus foreground object's in frame. They just keep doing it over and over again.
Stargate: Universe did grow on me, but it was too radical a change on every level. It simply didn't fit in with the Stargate already established in 15 seasons of television. This is most apparent in episodes featuring characters from SG-1 and Atlantis as those characters don't mesh with Universe's grim and dour tone.
The only reason it comes in last for me is because it got cancelled. There is something to be said about long running 20 episode season shows.
I absolutely loved the artstyle!!! The ships and they portrayed space... so epic...
SGU was a bad idea by the producers to copy the style of the Battlestar Galactica reboot and it failed horribly because that's not what StarGate fans want. It also had very well acted but mostly unlikable characters. Production and writing doomed this show from the get go.
Todd Curtis, maybe it's not what YOU wanted, but television storytelling had evolved and the producers were just evolving with it. Give it another viewing, all the way through, and you will see that the Destiny crew quite literally became an extended family.
No, it legitimately didn't work. Going with a darker tone can be fine, but some of the characters have to be relatable. On top of that, doing a paint by numbers remake of BSG with Stargate elements doesn't really work on its own either. My biggest issue with the original two series was their poor writing, and inability to actually do anything with the plot threads they would establish. They would set something up, forget about it, then wrap it up in a one or two parter a season or two down the road. It was extremely frustrating, and I didn't feel any real character development. SGU on the other hand, went too far down the rabbit hole, and focused on uninteresting storylines with characters that I wouldn't trust to cook dinner, let alone survive in space.
If this was just due to natural evolvement of what television storytelling is...
Why did it get canceled? Curious that, eh?
ZiceLove
ZiceLove
igive it a nother go, still garbage, golden shit it is still shit.
ZiceLove It's not what anyone wanted, hence why it was CANCELLED.
I would go so far as to say this is my favourite sci-fi show ever, displacing Babylon 5. It was intelligent and gritty with excellent acting and effects. I accept that it had a different tone to the previous two series's and understand some of the criticism but for me it was almost perfect. Its cancellation was a real shame.
Andy Simmons so many blue-pill morons around...why can't I kill you people yet?
Lol wat
I really enjoyed this show, with SG1 we knew who was in our galaxy. Same with SGA. SGU gave us a unique look into every other race that’s out in the universe
Would love a proper video from you on this show.. sooo underated
In the beginning I almost hated SGU: annoying characters, too much some sort of relationship drama, which I really don´t like. Plastic feeling in the beginning, and I wanted to rip my head off, when they visited desert planet hot as hell, scorching sun and the military guys wore ALL-BLACK uniforms basically in Sahara on a hot day. But eventually I got over it, and the show started showing potential. Then it ended.
Ok, so this video and comments section are the ONLY place I've ever heard much good said about this show said. Rush was good, but not close to Gaius in terms of character style. Eli wasn't bad either. Had some good use, the commanding officer was okay at best and Chloe (?) was almost always usely. She'd either get in trouble or be a complete bore. The only time she was interesting was when she had that weird problem with for several episodes and she was extra useful. The lack of any kind of an even infrequent enemy was a bit boring. Sci-fi depends on real enemies. They don't always have to be present in the genre, trapped in a deserted planet is a great concept, but this is Stargate. Not having real enemies that often show up is a bridge too far. It'd be like DS9 without Mark Alaimo's Gul Dukat (I love how Keira says that). He's not technically essential, he's just essential for making it great.
Carlisle as Rush was great. I put off watching Universe and when I eventually did watch it I enjoyed it and was disappointed when the series was left on pretty much a cliff hanger and left with no true finale.
Carlisle went on to become Mr. Gold/Rumplstilskin in that ABC series of fairy tales come to life.
I loved SG1 and SGA, but didn't care for SGU. My number one issue was the inclusion of the communication stones, which constantly took both the characters and us as viewers back to Earth at a moment's notice. This killed the feeling of isolation and tension that should have been the driving force for the story on Destiny
I loved universe. Was fucking pissed when it was cancelled
Please please do a full retro of this series. Loved it!
While I liked SGU well enough when it was airing, it always had two stigmas for me, 1: When it was announced it was said that it didn't mean Atlantis was getting canceled and this was replacing it (spoilers, it did) and 2: It felt like the actual show that was parodied in the "Younger, edgier" skit on the episode "200" of SG-1.
Species 87something ... Voyager!
Stargate: Galactica
Stargate Universe is one of my favorite si-fi series! In my opinion, it is better than SG1 and Atlantis. Indeed, the character development is great, special effects are as good as in a Star Wars movie, especially the Aliens, space battles and the Destiny. There is also the Ancient Universe that make humans so little and simple in these series! ^^ A shame it wasn't ended even with a spin-off! Perharps a concluding movie will be made? ^^
I was and am still so mad at Sci-fi...err...syfy for canceling this show, that I stoped watching that channel for many years, until Dark Matter, which is just ok. This show was fantastic, and deserved at least a 3rd season to wrap up. The scum executives at soft canceled this, then put wrestling on. A clear sign that they didn't belong at that channel.
I thought this was trying to capitalise on BSG's darker style and I was so angry with how they took it, you could see the show they wanted to be but for some reason they just fell short, then as it was getting good it got cancelled and left us with the cliffhanger.... I hope if the reboot thing that seems to be going on with the franchise brings them back to this and they're allowed to do it right.
Hey, was that Rodney McKay at the 3:13 in this video? Nah, can't be... can it? Sure looks a lot like Rodney! :-o
The first season was still weak with the odd good show tossed in but the last 4 episodes of season 2 are very good and over all last season generally good as well. It's worth a rewatch. It's not as bad as you remember it to be. Although all the bickering did get old.
It's highly poetic how he chose suicide. Eli was still ignored, undeservingly.
Just like McKay, he did most of the/a lot of the work and got precious little credit for that.
Even though people say the first season was rough, that's not saying anything, go rewatch sg1 and atlantis, the first season of all of them were just as rough, but it got better as it went on, we saw the same starting to happen in season 2 of sgu, but they threw it away anyway
I loved Stargate. SG1 especially. Atlantis was fine.
But I hated SGU. I was invested in the original characters, loved the Humor. SGU was like battlestar Galactica. It wasn't SG for me. If it wasn't SG, but something else, I probably would have liked it. I like the Expanse a lot. The style is similar. But SGU wasn't SG for me. It was something else, which didn't belong in that universe.
SGU was a nice try but they failed from the start....
Personally I loved this series, and absolutely hated that it was cancelled. I mostly blame those who loved SG & SG:A(I do as well) for the ridiculous notion that the show was too dour or dark and the fact that it focused on interpersonal conflict and survival as a negative. . I wish we had gotten the 5 season arc they had planned.
What killed it for me was certain characters(cast) in the show that I just out right HATED, I wanted them to die so so badly, And then there were characters that were great but just killed off because they were the supporting cast.
This was my favorite Stargate TV show. So sad two seasons. Always tough situations with lots.of moral ambiguity... and it borrowed so much from the new Battlestar in tone, camera work, and characters. Just great. So sad it couldnt have 3 more seasons. SyFy channel.sucks!
Show had great promise but completely missed the mark of the SG theme. Absolutely zero strong characters in it.
In SG1 you had O'Neal who was strong in army stuff, Jackson who was strong in history stuff, Teal'C who was strong in the Alien stuff, Amanda strong in science stuff and the General who was a strong leader.
In SGU every one was a failure, even the mission it self failed from the get go and they decided to make a show out of it.
The only thing I hated about this series was the camerawork. I couldn't see half of the things going on because of bad angles or shaking.
metraman0102 i liked it
It's gorgeous in HD, which you probably didnt have at the time. Give it another chance
SGU Is my favourite of the three, because it was so different. To me, this is what Voyager should've been.
Fun to watch finish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't understand why they thought it would hit home with the fanbase. I watched SG-1 like 20 times. And I loved the idea of a new Stargate series. But what I got was emotional crap mixed with sex scenes which I hated, and a carmera man on crack. I don't need a big villain but this just isn't the Stargate series I expected and wanted. Which is sad.... Though granted the second season was a lot better than the first one. But all this drama... oh my gawd. And the characters.... Like c'mon always those kids and teens in shows... Why? I don't get it. Everyone who grew up loving SG-1 is way past their 20's... I actually find it good that it wasn't continued. It's like with valves announcement of Artifact. I want Half Life 3! I waited more than a decade now. I get it some people liked it but just because there is a stargate in the series doesn't mean it is what made Stargate great.
Blah blah blah, seriously, I couldn't care less that you weren't the target audience. Your reaction only validates my opinion that SGU was the greatest science fiction show ever created. Maybe you will like the next one, it looks campy and retarded - it's right up your alley.
Well you cannot possibly keep creating the same thing over and over again in hope of retaining your existing fanbase. The concept was awesome, it fitted perfectly into the lore. It was a step away from the original formula, that's for sure but I don't think it inherently means being worse. The standards for series have changed since SG-1 and SG:A was made, naturally they had to adapt to it. There were some valid criticism regarding the camerawork or some of the cast choice to be made, but nothing as serious to make it deserve the cancellation,
Leonie-Sophie Bauer Because Hollywood caters to women. It's turning every guy's fav TV series into Grey's Anatomy
Very simply, BSG was coming to an end. They needed to replace it, and decided to turn Stargate into the next BSG. But they failed... miserably. While I have heard that the second season was better, and I will attempt to watch it again. I found the first season so difficult to watch that I just stopped after a while. The characters were irritating, poorly written, and generally unlikable, with only one or two exceptions. It felt like a gimmick: "Oh you loved BSG? Let's take Stargate and do almost the exact same thing! With but walkie talkies back to earth!"
Example if you read hes other comments you know he is not, to mutch soy in hes brain.