Stargate: Atlantis 07/16/2004 (Untagged Spoilers)

[Eosin the Red]

I liked the Wraiths and suspect we will learn more icky things about them as time goes on. The wraith guards looked especially cool. I don't think they died too easily - it seems that a few of them got up after being shot and the shoulder and hand wound did nothing to the creepy redhead.

The cast seemed good to me. I like that there is not a rip off of the original series cast but felt that in some ways you could claim a rip off of Babylon 5 - Crusade. Many of the characters seem similar to the ones in that show.

Updated effects were good for me - I think that you should always update the look with new shows rather than sticking with something that is antiquated by todays standards. The SG was good for its time but the new ones look "Kewler."

 

[Kesh]

Also, I'm not sold on the Wraiths at all. The Gould were much more intimidating IMO, simply because they really did abuse Humans in almost every way possible, even forcing them to be hosts. What do the Wraiths do but randomly attack and eat them? Not much incentive for good hatred.

Well, I think that's the point. Goa'uld use humans as slave labor and to perpetuate the species. They abuse and take advantage of them, but humans can still advance and thrive in certain ways (First Prime, for one thing). It's still slavery, but they have a society and the average person never even sees their System Lord masters in person, just the Jaffa and lesser Goa'uld sent to keep them in line. In that way, it's almost like a feudal system, with Jaffa or lesser Goa'uld as the nobles.

Wraith treat humans as food. We're cattle to them, allowed to live off the land (but apparently not develop beyond the hunter-gatherer stage), then culled and eaten. There's no relationship between wraith and human beyond that of predator and prey. We're not even slaves to them, we're meat.

That said, I rather enjoyed the show. Yeah, it had its problems, but overall I enjoyed it for a pilot. It's going to be interesting as their provisions run low, seeing how their naquada generations hold up while they explore the city and use the gate, adventures to find more power supplies (ZBMs), and generally tick off the wraith.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

What I don't like is the convenient "iris", and I wasn't a big fan of the new stargate look, or the effect when they travelled to Atlantis. The glowing "runes", really patterns of dots bugged me. I definitely missed the presence of Daniel, or any sort of social scientist.

Well, if people were using YOUR Stargates to come and attack your home base/nerve center, wouldn't you have something to lock the door? Also, these are probably somewhat better Stargates, being produced later than the ones in our galaxy.

What I did like was Weir. I liked the outpost design a lot. The stargate in space was very cool, as was the Puddle Jumper. I really liked the sort of multi-national feel that they gave it. Overall I place this a bit above where SG-1 started off, with similar potential in characterization.

I was very impressed by the Stargate in space. It makes for a very effective defense against uppity cows trying to follow your fighters back home.

I would wonder why people don't bury their stargates, except the Wraiths might get a bit more bent out of shape by that than the Go'auld, and slaughter the uppity cows to extinction.

Brad

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The Wraith seemed to die just like most other creature, shoot them enough, I can only assume energy weapons don't hurt them. There were creepy.

One wonders why the Ancients lost to the Wraith. They had big guns and other wonderful toys to use to blow the Wraith to smithereens, but apparently didn't do that enough to win. I'd guess that the Ancients weren't nearly as aggressive as the current crop of humans, or Go'auld; after all, surely it took a while for the Wraiths to overrun a thousand colony worlds and hammer Atlantis hard enough that the Ancients cut and ran. In that time frame, modern humans would've fought back much harder, I'd think.

Also, how're Ancients different from run-of-the-mill humans? Are the humans off in the Pegasus galaxy all of Ancient stock themselves? If so, that gives the Atlantis team a big boost in having people there who can use the Ancient tech without much trouble.

Hopefully the Atlantis team will find stuff that they can use in the city, like, say, stuff with which to make P90 ammo and Stingers. They obviously can't have carried THAT much with them.

Brad

 

[Chimera]

Hopefully the Atlantis team will find stuff that they can use in the city, like, say, stuff with which to make P90 ammo and Stingers. They obviously can't have carried THAT much with them.

That's my only real problem with the premise. They didn't take near enough;

A: Food
B: Ammunition
C: Daily Supplies (toothpaste, toiletpaper, fresh underwear, etc)
D: Tools and spare parts

I'd have been driving semi loads of this stuff through the gate. Heck, if you don't want to waste time showing that, at least show the Atlantis gate room filled to the brim with boxes and bins... "Ok people, find a place to put all this stuff!"

Otherwise, I kinda like the Wraith. Creepy cannibalistic bad guys can't be all bad.

I liked the Amanda Tapping line on the show about the new series. Something like "Powerful enough to have destroyed the Ancients, stupid enough so that humans can beat them week after week."

 

[Wycen]

I was eating sushi and drinking sake while Atlantis was on so I wonder if they listed all the countries now aware of the Stargate and aliens.

 

[ShadowX]

One wonders why the Ancients lost to the Wraith. They had big guns and other wonderful toys to use to blow the Wraith to smithereens, but apparently didn't do that enough to win. I'd guess that the Ancients weren't nearly as aggressive as the current crop of humans, or Go'auld; after all, surely it took a while for the Wraiths to overrun a thousand colony worlds and hammer Atlantis hard enough that the Ancients cut and ran. In that time frame, modern humans would've fought back much harder, I'd think.

Also, how're Ancients different from run-of-the-mill humans? Are the humans off in the Pegasus galaxy all of Ancient stock themselves? If so, that gives the Atlantis team a big boost in having people there who can use the Ancient tech without much trouble.

Hopefully the Atlantis team will find stuff that they can use in the city, like, say, stuff with which to make P90 ammo and Stingers. They obviously can't have carried THAT much with them.

Brad

The technology was only one of the many things I had a problem with. First, as I pointed out earlier, the inefficacy of the System Lords is very similar to the Wraiths. Second it look like the Ancients had better technology. What with non-detectable cloaking devices and homing missles on just a shuttle? The Puddle jumper was kicking the Wraith fighter's ass, so how did the Wraiths win when the Ancient's shuttle are even better.

I also agree with the language. They should choose a different Earth language, one that was around for awhile. If the Ancients started Earth, why would they speak English, a language that has not been around for a comparatively long time? Also someone brought up Star Trek's language translator. That was at least a plausible excuse, and, at least in TNG, any suitably obscure or eccentric language was not covered. Remember, one of my favorite episodes, Dharmak at Talagra?

I will stop there with picking apart Stargate, you could fill many pages doing so about the show. I realize that the problem is a mainstay in TV sci-fi, but it does not require much effort or thought to unveil Stargate's many inconsistencies and is probably my main problem with the show.

 

[Tiberius]

I also agree with the language. They should choose a different Earth language, one that was around for awhile. If the Ancients started Earth, why would they speak English, a language that has not been around for a comparatively long time? Also someone brought up Star Trek's language translator. That was at least a plausible excuse, and, at least in TNG, any suitably obscure or eccentric language was not covered. Remember, one of my favorite episodes, Dharmak at Talagra?

Well, the FAQ on MGM's Stargate SG-1 site answers that question nicely.

Why does every culture SG-1 encounters speak English?
Practical reasons that come with television production. The time contraints of an hour-long episode mean that it would become a major hinderance to the story each week if SG-1 had to spend the first 10 minutes of each episode learning to communicate with a new species.

It's nice that they come out and say "Yeah, this is a kludge to facilitate our stories."

 

[Ei]

Ok, here is my theory.

As we all know from SG-1, the ancients are dying off from the plaque, so they came to the new galaxy to spread the seed of humans around. So as far as we know, there could only be a dozen or so of ancients. So they dumped many proto humans into many new planets and let evolution do the rest(So those humans are about as advanced as the earth counterpart)

Then they discover the wraith, and since the Ancients thought that the galaxy has no other life, they probably didn't bring any big guns (so to speak), that combined with the fact they are overconfident and vastly outnumbered (millions against a dozen), they had to retreat to their homebase, which is Atlantis. The wraith can't take on Atlantis, so they settled with eating the proto humans instead. The ancients of course just slowly died off from the plaque.

There, plot holes solved. But seriously though, those wraith are really, really pathetic. Even their regenerative power is not all that great. A ghould in an Ums host can probably do a lot better, not to mention a lot more deadlier. The only thing that got going for them is the creepiness factor.

PS, to answer the question, ancients are lot more advanced than normal humans. For one, knowing their knowledge wouldn’t kill them. Unlike normal humans where the head would eventually explode.

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, I think that's the point. Goa'uld use humans as slave labor and to perpetuate the species. They abuse and take advantage of them, but humans can still advance and thrive in certain ways (First Prime, for one thing). It's still slavery, but they have a society and the average person never even sees their System Lord masters in person, just the Jaffa and lesser Goa'uld sent to keep them in line. In that way, it's almost like a feudal system, with Jaffa or lesser Goa'uld as the nobles.

)

Humans don't become first primes. Just the Jaffa. Humans are used as slave labor guarded by Jaffa. And as hosts and in the pilot the ones not picked to be hosts were ordered killed.