Stargate Universe - Robert Carlyle talks about background radiation and Destiny's mission

[TheBigMonsterKane01]

Robert Carlyle is one of the best actors alive and probably the best actor of all SG franchise.

[jay902]

People really like this guys acting? I am pretty sure stargates flop of a series is all carlyle could get. He never would have made it onto atlantis.

[AnonymousPanacea]

@jay902 He's the most high-profile actor any of the series have ever had, he's a movie star. He wouldn't have gone any where near cheapo Atlantis, he made that clear, it's the quality of SGU that attracted him. I still can't believe they managed to get someone of his calibre to take part in the franchise to be honest he's a class act.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111 I think you're forgetting BSG.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx I'm not forgetting BSG, it was a political and religious polemic that just happened to be set in space. The bulk of the plot lines could easily be swapped out for modern say terrorism or else cold war paranoia, and the finale's 'God dunnit' resolution is almost 'anti-scifi' in nature.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

What built the Stargate series up over the course of 10 years? The lighthearted action.

My analogy is to Coca-Cola. SG-1 and SGA are regular Coke.

SGU is Fish-Flavored Coke - and if we don't like the change, tough shit (a paraphrase of Brad Wright's statements), which would be fine if it weren't so insulting to those patient enough to watch all 20 episodes hoping for something more than a paled attempt at an "adult direction."

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx The show had been billed as a sci-fi character drama from the begining, at least by the writers. I'd agree that Syfy's promotion was awful though, no point endorsing a different type of show if you're just going to promote it as if it were more of the same. As for a pale attempt, that's simply your opinion. There are those that think the show is comfortably the best of the three.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

I agree that some people think the show is the best, but a VAST majority of them never watched the first two shows - which may not be their speed, but are the essence of the show. A total stomp on the fans who built the series up to this point. It's like turning Spider-Man into 90% love story and maybe showing a single action scene and mitigating the fact that he is supposed to be a crimefighter to focus on Parker-Watson dynamics and saying, "BUT SPIDER-MAN'S IN IT!"

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx I don't believe that that's the case. The biggest SGU fans I come across at least on Gateworld, are mostly long time fans of the franchise. I personally have been watching since the beginning of SG-1, though I happen to think SG-1 was the best overall, followed by SGU, then Atlantis.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

My biggest qualm with this series is the push to make the series, "grown up."

Putting random, explicit sex scenes in Stargate does not make it "grown up."

Using advanced technology to reach halfway across the universe to see if your wife has been cheating on you is not "grown up."

Pulling an iPhone out of your pocket every five minutes and flashing it at the camera to make the audience think 'hey, that's an iPhone! I know that! Awwwwesoome' is NOT "grown up."

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx I don't think the aim was 'grown up' so much as it was realism. Using the stones to see your loved ones is the type of thing a real adult would do, messing around with his iPhone is something a nerd like Eli would do. And there are no explicit sex scenes in the series, not a single one, they're extremely tame, as with all American TV outside subscription channels like HBO.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

The entire point of making characters "realistic" is an attempt at making them likeable enough to care how real they are. Honestly, the only unanimous character that people like is Eli and even then, he's a pushover and essentially insignificant, save for the fact that he's an Ascended Fanboy. About the sex, it was at least unnecessary, mostly drawing attention for the sake of having a sex scene.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx Just because you don't understand why it's there, that doesn't make it unnecessary. The Scott/James scene for example both sets up their relationship for future character arcs and also speaks volumes about Scott's character, showing that while he's trained and has to be somewhere, this is more important right now, all in one succinct 20 second scene. That's how you craft 3 dimensional characters.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

I understand the necessitation for characterization, but they have far more options to create characters with more depth rather than sex.

The calcite, venom, kinos - all of that is the 10% factorization that has been marginalized throughout the 30 episodes. Everything else is Parker-Watson.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx The calcite point is fair enough, but the venom and Kino's have been re-used pretty extensively. I think the communication stones are probably the most original and thought-provoking element in the series though, which have been explored in SGU where in SG-1 and SGA they were mere plot devices.

[Titanz91]

@01000001011100100111 I still love BSG, though, lol <3.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

Disdain it as you may, the profane description you gave is encompassed under that blanket of "sci-fi."

The show is just too much angst, not a lot of plot. Yes, they're building it up to the point where the crew develops some altruistic goal of discovering the Beginning of Time, but the characters are so vile that it's just a shitty soap opera that *just happens* to be in space.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx No, the description I gave is of the superficial elements of sci-fi that are plot devices at best and eye candy at worst. I'm not sure I see the connection between flawed and arguebly dislikeable characters and soap opera, there doesn't seem to be one. And soap opera in space? That's an oxymoron. Space, aliens and the other sci-fi tropes are all used to explore the human condition in SGU, as they are in all great science fiction.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

Let's return to the basis of science fiction: discovery. Sci-fi is about exploration, the unknown, technology, and unimaginable concepts coming to life.

If you like the human condition, that's fine, but that's drama - not sci-fi. Drama is the epitome of our Age of Showbusiness. Sci-fi is about intellect and conceptualism. Both are vastly different things.

I'm not saying make the show 45 minutes of explosions, but SGU is Stargate in name only.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx Science fiction is a tool used to explore the human condition. It's something repeated by all the greats of the genre, Asimov most notably. The fantastical technologies and civilizations aren't in sci-fi to be explored literally so much as they're there as way to explore us. How the characters react and interact with these technologies is what is at the genres core, not inventing a load of cool tech for us to watch.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@01000001011100100111

As an intellectual, I am largely turned off by the human interactionism, so that leaves me to crave "science-fiction" in its purest essence. I see the fiction, but where's the "science?" A sci-fi show should at least deliver me some science to pay attention to - something to conceptualize and ponder rather than try to feign concern for the bland cast of clichéd characters. This show is great as a drama, but the setting would be more suited to an island than space.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx Calcite for life support, aero-breaking around a gas giant, powering up in a star, time travelling kino's and alien venom? Is that not what you're talking about? And only in the first few episodes too.

[taurianfontenettefan]

Epic...thats exactly what I said. First about the show up to this point and then when they revealed this as Destiny's mission. Unfortunately there are some ppl who refuse to see how epic this show is and instead spend their time complaining about it.

[xmikeyxlikesitx]

@taurianfontenettefan Honestly, I gave SGU a chance, but I just didn't give a shit about any of the chatacters, the plotline, the dingy atmosphere, and the overall highschoolish angst that was rampant. The lack of anything "scifi" was pretty bad, too.

[01000001011100100111]

@xmikeyxlikesitx I can't think of a series more 'sci-fi' than SGU in the past decade, assuming that when you say sci-fi that's actually what you mean, and not spacebattles/aliens/pewpew/tec­hpr0n etc.

[ljietuvis]

Actually, the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation doesn't come from the Big Bang, itself, but from the universe ~400,000 years after the Big Bang. So it's not from the beginning of time.

[2010Daedalus]

cool ! ! 

[020204041994]

Indeed

[thebeatschool]

Implausible. Even though I like this show.

[demille455]

@thebeatschool

Yes, implausible...just like the Stargate itself. But it's a cool show.

[Dioxholster]

@thebeatschool hows it implausible? those nasa guys make a discovery every now and then that contradict past beliefs. so how can you say its impossible, when we still don't know much.

[No2647]

wwwwwwoooooooowwwww

[KolinahrStudent]

"That's pretty epic..." Indeed it is!