I got around to re-watching Continuum last night, without the distraction of my mother (who has seen maybe three episodes of SG-1 many years ago) pausing at regular intervals to ask what was going on. ( spoilers )
She doesn't shatter spectacularly. Every blow cracks her just a little bit more, and then she patches the cracks and makes herself stronger.
Oh, YES. I think this is so true. Wow. I also love the questions you bring up regarding Cam and Daniel--Daniel, I think has been shattered, and glued together, but just a little differently than he used to be. And Cam...you know, I really like how you never know if Cam is going to pull through or not. I think 'Unending' gave us a broken version (that's my interpretation, anyway), and then here, you see him kinda pull himself together to get the job done in the end.
Daniel, I think, has been shattered and glued back together quite a few times by now, which is much the reason that I understand and sympathize with him in the later seasons, even if I don't particularly like him much of the time. One of the things I've always been fascinated by with Daniel is how he sees his own continuity: who is the essential Daniel, particularly if it's not in his case related to corporeal Daniel? (And I suspect gabolange is right here: Daniel is a Platonist, and perhaps mostly because he'd have to be in order to wrap his head around himself. Hmm.)
As for Cam, I think the key difference between this and "Unending" is that here he has a job. He has something to do, somewhere to be, and it's going to make a difference. Cam can wait for something with a fair degree of patience, but he can't just wait, idly and endlessly. In some ways it's the Cam after 1939 that I'm more interested in than in what he did in those ten years before his big moment. Because what happens after his mission is accomplished? It appears from the
( ... )
I am going to have to re-watch the later seasons (heck, the whole series), with Daniel in mind. I suspect that I have a somewhat backwards view of all the characters--I started out knowing what they would become and so I've always incorporated that into my mental picture of who they are.
I think Daniel really understands the difference between him and the Alternate Timeline Daniel TM--he's always seemed to grasp the "This is not our reality" card pretty tightly, even if he attempted to help when it came up.
I would hope that Cam found something interesting to do while he was waiting the ten years to save his grandfather. Otherwise I suspect you're right. I actually considered that when writing my earlier comment--and I had this thought, for just a moment, that Cam was the type of person to consider suicide after his mission was complete, although I don't *think* he would have decided that way, at least not in the end.
Sometimes I wonder if Daniel protests a bit too much in his vehemence about "this is not our reality." He has to hold onto the things he believes to be reality a bit harder than other people do because his reality has been shattered so many times. He's died, been resurrected, lost his body, lost his memories. Other people can look in a mirror to know themselves; with Daniel it's harder. Perhaps he clings so hard to the idea of what he believes to be true because belief is what he has. I don't know--but now I'm thinking quite a lot about this, and I suspect it will turn into a fic sooner or later!
I wondered the same thing about Cam and suicide. On one hand, he seems like the last person ever to consider such a thing, but on the other, imagine him living in a world where his entire goal is not to do anything, lest he mess up the timeline. How does Cam find peace in that? There's also a fic there, but not one that I'm feeling inclined to write at the moment.
I still need to write up my thoughts, but I want to watch the film again. I seem to be on the same page as you. I thought it was a much more successful film then AoT. In part because it focused much more on the characters, but also because they didn't feel the necessity to wrap up any storyline. And I was never a fan of the Ori.
And second, at least they did pay lip service to the relativity of timelines and the arrogance of thinking one timeline is "best"--even if they did put this into the mouth of Landry, who was annoying.
You know, Landry made an excellent point, but the entire time I was thinking, "Shut up, you pompous ass." :p
The thing I always wonder about Landry is whether the writers and Beau Bridges are trying to make him such a pompous ass, or whether it's accidental. I can't ever quite tell...
See, now that you've gone and gotten me thinking, I'm having moderate conniptions about the alternate timeline Daniel, the one who hung up on our Daniel. This is a man who doesn't know Jack O'Neill, who has never had any of his research validated, who hasn't been ascended, and all of a sudden, I want to know more about him. What is his philosophy about the world and himself?
Thinkythinkythinky.
Also: And she's an extraordinary person in any timeline.
Yes. I adored that the alternate timeline Sam Carter was still a person to go after her dreams and go down with the ship and it made me--I didn't want to get to know that character particularly, but it made me happy that this character was both well-realized and recognizable. And it made my heart break even more for Sam, because they were putting her in a role where she couldn't be that person.
That is a very good question! And I'm not sure I have an immediate kind of answer. Daniel at the beginning of the movie, lecturing to an empty room, and then add another ten years of that sort of thing. Ostracized from academia, living mostly in Egypt on who knows what income, yet still persevering, still managing to get this book published, still defensive and skeptical enough to hang up the phone when our Daniel calls him. Hmm...
I didn't want to get to know that character particularly
Because she's not that different from our Sam, is she? It's not such a very different path she seems to have taken, and even if that Sam never conquered alien technology or blew up a sun, she still found and met any challenge that was thrown at her, I imagine. There's a common core of Samness there that makes that Sam both more familiar and less interesting than fragmented Daniel, who is such the product of his experiences of the past decade that the guy sitting in Egypt hanging up on what he thinks is a prank call truly seems like a different
I really loved the AU!Jack we got here. He was pitch-perfect, in all the ways that the real!Jack annoyed me. "My" Jack doesn't play dumb the way canon!Jack has the last four years, and the Jack who found them on the ice was competent and snarky and distrustful, and just as he should be. I liked him alot.
I liked it all alot, but I was most happy that I got to see the Jack I wanted to see before the end.
What little we got of AU Jack I really liked! I wouldn't at all have minded more of him, though I'm not sure where he would have fit in. But we got enough to have the potential hinted at, and yes, much more Jack as he should be.
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Oh, YES. I think this is so true. Wow. I also love the questions you bring up regarding Cam and Daniel--Daniel, I think has been shattered, and glued together, but just a little differently than he used to be. And Cam...you know, I really like how you never know if Cam is going to pull through or not. I think 'Unending' gave us a broken version (that's my interpretation, anyway), and then here, you see him kinda pull himself together to get the job done in the end.
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As for Cam, I think the key difference between this and "Unending" is that here he has a job. He has something to do, somewhere to be, and it's going to make a difference. Cam can wait for something with a fair degree of patience, but he can't just wait, idly and endlessly. In some ways it's the Cam after 1939 that I'm more interested in than in what he did in those ten years before his big moment. Because what happens after his mission is accomplished? It appears from the ( ... )
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I think Daniel really understands the difference between him and the Alternate Timeline Daniel TM--he's always seemed to grasp the "This is not our reality" card pretty tightly, even if he attempted to help when it came up.
I would hope that Cam found something interesting to do while he was waiting the ten years to save his grandfather. Otherwise I suspect you're right. I actually considered that when writing my earlier comment--and I had this thought, for just a moment, that Cam was the type of person to consider suicide after his mission was complete, although I don't *think* he would have decided that way, at least not in the end.
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I wondered the same thing about Cam and suicide. On one hand, he seems like the last person ever to consider such a thing, but on the other, imagine him living in a world where his entire goal is not to do anything, lest he mess up the timeline. How does Cam find peace in that? There's also a fic there, but not one that I'm feeling inclined to write at the moment.
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And second, at least they did pay lip service to the relativity of timelines and the arrogance of thinking one timeline is "best"--even if they did put this into the mouth of Landry, who was annoying.
You know, Landry made an excellent point, but the entire time I was thinking, "Shut up, you pompous ass." :p
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Thinkythinkythinky.
Also: And she's an extraordinary person in any timeline.
Yes. I adored that the alternate timeline Sam Carter was still a person to go after her dreams and go down with the ship and it made me--I didn't want to get to know that character particularly, but it made me happy that this character was both well-realized and recognizable. And it made my heart break even more for Sam, because they were putting her in a role where she couldn't be that person.
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I didn't want to get to know that character particularly
Because she's not that different from our Sam, is she? It's not such a very different path she seems to have taken, and even if that Sam never conquered alien technology or blew up a sun, she still found and met any challenge that was thrown at her, I imagine. There's a common core of Samness there that makes that Sam both more familiar and less interesting than fragmented Daniel, who is such the product of his experiences of the past decade that the guy sitting in Egypt hanging up on what he thinks is a prank call truly seems like a different
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Just so you know. :)
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I liked it all alot, but I was most happy that I got to see the Jack I wanted to see before the end.
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