The Stargate franchise did the fans a disservice by producing the latest installment, ‘SGU: Stargate Universe,’ the way they did.
The franchise first started with the movie ‘Stargate’ staring Kurt Russel and James Spader. A television show was then developed titled ‘Stargate SG-1’ . Both the movie and the television series focused on excursions to other planets through a devise known as a ‘Stargate,’ a large ring-shaped device that allows near instant travel to other stargates by means of a wormhole.
Military personnel, archeologists and linguists traveled through these gates, which can take them to planets all across the universe, in which the U.S. makes alliances and enemies out of alien civilizations.
The next installment was ‘Stargate: Atlantis,’ about a team that found the legendary city of Atlantis in a different galaxy. A cornucopia of military personal and select highly qualified civilians are transferred to the city of Atlantis. In ‘Stargate: Atlantis’ they have the same basic mission to travel to new worlds, making both alliances and enemies along the way.
Next there was ‘Stargate Universe,’ which featured a team of, once again, civilians, military personnel and government officials that, after a battle, ended up on the ship which seeds the universe with stargates, which they tell the viewer nothing about.
The main mission of the people aboard the ship is to survive and get home. This is a far cry from the previous show plots. The crew ends up going to various planets to try and find food and water to survive. They only have a limited amount of time on each planet before the ships goes into an automatic jump to the next planet that may help them survive.
The automatic jump was something that was preprogrammed into the computer and they can’t stop. The writers have too many storylines going on at once and they seem to emulate Battlestar Gallatica more than any Stargate show. In Battlestar Gallatica there are military , government and civilian personnel all on one ship trying to find earth. On Battlestar they also have love affairs, death and mistrust. The plot similarities between Stargate universe and Battlestar Gallactica are almost to the point where someone would confuse the two.
Why would the creators and writers, who created ‘Stargate SG-1’ and ‘Stargate: Atlantis,’ make such a dramatic change to a successful recipe?
Their latest installement is a bad show, there is no way around it. The fact that ‘Battlestar Gallactica’ ‘ and ‘Stargate Universe’ are very similar isn’t really the main issue. What is the main issue is that there are too many story lines introduced in the middle of a conflict.
The viewers don’t have a relationship formed with the characters because they don’t have the opportunity to get to know them. With’ every other ‘Stargate’ franchise the characters were introduced to the viewers before a conflict ensued.
Now if the writers introduced us to the characters and created a relationship between the viewers and the characters before we saw them flying through the Stargate onto the ship over fire it would’ve been better.’
The creators should have stuck to the formula, introducing the characters before all the conflicts. All in all do yourself a favor and don’t watch it.’
