LJ Is for Happymaking: Day 5; additionally, you can has rant
We don't take holidays off around here; my school doesn't even observe Labor Day. So I dragged my ass to Nahuatl this morning... and then I decided I just didn't feel like working any more.
So I came home and had a glass of whiskey and watched SG-1 and had a nap. It was good times- probably the last good times I'll have before finals are out, but it's all going to be over in 4 weeks come hell or high water.
It also pleases me to rant at the internets; because I have been told such things are amusing, you can listen to me bitch about SG:U, BSG, and why I hate Star Trek so bad. It may be a little wonky, because of my cheap microphone which has no pop filter ARGH, but enjoy anyway.
I also include the text, which is not as funny, probably, but definitely more coherent.
So here's the thing about SGU.
Let me rephrase: here's the thing about Stargate. Of the various Stars (Wars, Trek, Galactica, etc), Stargate is my current favorite. Everybody else in fandom seems to have learned sci-fi and fantasy at their mothers' knees, but I wouldn't read anything written after 1950 until I was in high school. Yeah.
So I'm not really a hard sci-fi fan. I got into sci-fi through cyberpunk, which has a totally different sensibility than space drama. Cyberpunk is, almost exclusively, about Earth and humans. And except for Star Wars, which I was in love with long before I was old enough to have an opinion about anything, I'm only really interested if Earth is involved.
I hate Star Trek. I hate the idea of people just fucking around in a spaceship for no apparent reason. I'm not even sure what the mission of Starfleet is. Like, it always seemed to me like they were just wandering ass around space, too damn dumb to ask for directions- Hell, I don't know, they could have got lost on their way to go out for cigarettes as far as I can tell.
I only like spaceship shows where there's a clear goal, even when that goal is "Pay the rent" (Firefly, Cowboy Bebop) or "Stick it to the man" (Blake's 7, also Firefly) or "Try not to fail out" (Space Cases).
So the premise just really doesn't do anything for me. The thing that was always really cool about Stargate is gate travel. You don't need a spaceship! You can walk your fat ass to another planet! All you have to know is their phone number! And, yeah, Atlantis was trapped in another galaxy for a while, but they were okay about it. They signed up for it. They didn't just get screwed one Tuesday and end up lost in space. They went somewhere else with a goal, and either they were going to accomplish that goal or all die horribly. That's how they roll in Atlantis.
And, like, I've always felt like the members of the SGC have other shit going on. Yeah, like, at work, they go to other galaxies, but then they come home and they have herb gardens and they take the kids to soccer practice and shit. And that's what I like to see, because that's human. Anybody can fly in a spaceship. It takes something different to go to the Kroger or join the PTA.
So that's part of it.
On top of that, Stargate has always had a really good sense of humor. It's always been more like Sliders than Star Trek (Can we talk for a second about how much I love Sliders? The good seasons, I mean. Did you know you can watch S1 on Hulu now? There goes my work ethic).
SG-1 actually lightened up some from the movie, when they ditched Colonel Generic for Jack O'Neill. And, yeah, the first season is mostly a prolonged attempt to drive Daniel Jackson to drinking, but it's sweet, and it's funny.
And Atlantis deals with darker subject matter, and it has really creepy episodes- Michael is fucking scary. It's more serious than SG-1, but you can see how they're the same show. And although Atlantis is brushed with the darker-and-edgier, just like everything else these days, it still has a really firm sense of humor and a sort of flippant attitude that is so characteristically Stargate.
But I'm looking at the SGU trailers, and all I'm seeing is BSG.
Don't get me wrong- I've only watched the pilot miniseries, but I really like BSG so far. It's just that BSG is really, really, really, EMPHATICALLY NOT Stargate.
And I just can't seem to get it up for SG:U, because it just doesn't look like a Stargate show. Other than going "LOL that's from the Atlantis set" and the split second glimpse we get of the Gate itself (What the fuck kind of gate is that, anyway? It looks like a Pegasus gate), I wouldn't know this was Stargate unless you told me.
There are so many other things, too, like the fact that Robert Carlyle's character might as well have "S2 VILLAIN" written across his forehead, or all the myriad bullshit that the producers said about demographics and Joe Flanigan and cancelling SGA and whatever the fuck.
I feel the same way about it that I felt about a lot of SGA S5. I keep thinking, "That's great. I think I'll go watch Duet again."
Hell, I might as well go watch Lost for as much as SG:U is like Stargate.
We need to stop pretending: We all know everybody in fandom's going to watch the pilot, and we're going to do it really angrily, and people are going to start slashing that guy who's not McKay, like, before the first commercial break.
But I'm not really gonna like it.
So I came home and had a glass of whiskey and watched SG-1 and had a nap. It was good times- probably the last good times I'll have before finals are out, but it's all going to be over in 4 weeks come hell or high water.
It also pleases me to rant at the internets; because I have been told such things are amusing, you can listen to me bitch about SG:U, BSG, and why I hate Star Trek so bad. It may be a little wonky, because of my cheap microphone which has no pop filter ARGH, but enjoy anyway.
I also include the text, which is not as funny, probably, but definitely more coherent.
So here's the thing about SGU.
Let me rephrase: here's the thing about Stargate. Of the various Stars (Wars, Trek, Galactica, etc), Stargate is my current favorite. Everybody else in fandom seems to have learned sci-fi and fantasy at their mothers' knees, but I wouldn't read anything written after 1950 until I was in high school. Yeah.
So I'm not really a hard sci-fi fan. I got into sci-fi through cyberpunk, which has a totally different sensibility than space drama. Cyberpunk is, almost exclusively, about Earth and humans. And except for Star Wars, which I was in love with long before I was old enough to have an opinion about anything, I'm only really interested if Earth is involved.
I hate Star Trek. I hate the idea of people just fucking around in a spaceship for no apparent reason. I'm not even sure what the mission of Starfleet is. Like, it always seemed to me like they were just wandering ass around space, too damn dumb to ask for directions- Hell, I don't know, they could have got lost on their way to go out for cigarettes as far as I can tell.
I only like spaceship shows where there's a clear goal, even when that goal is "Pay the rent" (Firefly, Cowboy Bebop) or "Stick it to the man" (Blake's 7, also Firefly) or "Try not to fail out" (Space Cases).
So the premise just really doesn't do anything for me. The thing that was always really cool about Stargate is gate travel. You don't need a spaceship! You can walk your fat ass to another planet! All you have to know is their phone number! And, yeah, Atlantis was trapped in another galaxy for a while, but they were okay about it. They signed up for it. They didn't just get screwed one Tuesday and end up lost in space. They went somewhere else with a goal, and either they were going to accomplish that goal or all die horribly. That's how they roll in Atlantis.
And, like, I've always felt like the members of the SGC have other shit going on. Yeah, like, at work, they go to other galaxies, but then they come home and they have herb gardens and they take the kids to soccer practice and shit. And that's what I like to see, because that's human. Anybody can fly in a spaceship. It takes something different to go to the Kroger or join the PTA.
So that's part of it.
On top of that, Stargate has always had a really good sense of humor. It's always been more like Sliders than Star Trek (Can we talk for a second about how much I love Sliders? The good seasons, I mean. Did you know you can watch S1 on Hulu now? There goes my work ethic).
SG-1 actually lightened up some from the movie, when they ditched Colonel Generic for Jack O'Neill. And, yeah, the first season is mostly a prolonged attempt to drive Daniel Jackson to drinking, but it's sweet, and it's funny.
And Atlantis deals with darker subject matter, and it has really creepy episodes- Michael is fucking scary. It's more serious than SG-1, but you can see how they're the same show. And although Atlantis is brushed with the darker-and-edgier, just like everything else these days, it still has a really firm sense of humor and a sort of flippant attitude that is so characteristically Stargate.
But I'm looking at the SGU trailers, and all I'm seeing is BSG.
Don't get me wrong- I've only watched the pilot miniseries, but I really like BSG so far. It's just that BSG is really, really, really, EMPHATICALLY NOT Stargate.
And I just can't seem to get it up for SG:U, because it just doesn't look like a Stargate show. Other than going "LOL that's from the Atlantis set" and the split second glimpse we get of the Gate itself (What the fuck kind of gate is that, anyway? It looks like a Pegasus gate), I wouldn't know this was Stargate unless you told me.
There are so many other things, too, like the fact that Robert Carlyle's character might as well have "S2 VILLAIN" written across his forehead, or all the myriad bullshit that the producers said about demographics and Joe Flanigan and cancelling SGA and whatever the fuck.
I feel the same way about it that I felt about a lot of SGA S5. I keep thinking, "That's great. I think I'll go watch Duet again."
Hell, I might as well go watch Lost for as much as SG:U is like Stargate.
We need to stop pretending: We all know everybody in fandom's going to watch the pilot, and we're going to do it really angrily, and people are going to start slashing that guy who's not McKay, like, before the first commercial break.
But I'm not really gonna like it.