Topic: Stargate Atlantis - Spoilers

[Gambler]

I think they named it wrong.  It should be called Stargate: Voyager.  I mean we've got many of the same problems.  Group of humans, trapped in another galaxy.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with the problem of consumables.  How many MALPS did they bring?  What about rounds of Ammo?  If they keep firing like they did on the first planet, they'll be out of explosives in a short time.  They also cannot lose too many team members.  No way to get re-inforcements.

It was quite a change in personality for Dr. Weir.  In SG1 she was a Diplomat / Bureaucrat not much into exploration etc.  Tonite she was more scientist and into the exploration.

I like the Atlantis set, but I thought it quite out of protocol how when they went through the gate they just went wandering around willy nilly.  There should have been a more defined search method.  I mean as large as that place is, they went running around just doing things everywhere.

The Puddlejumper is cool.  It CLOAKS!  But wouldn't it have made more sense to make an intermediate jump to some other planet instead of straight back to Atlantis?  Cut out the pesky problems of stray energy blasts and the Wraiths finding out where they are based.  Also it's going to be tough with Shepard being the only one who can fly it.

Shepard did the right thing shooting Summer.  I know he'll have to deal with it for quite some time.  But he was dead anyway, and if he had told more about Earth before he died it oculd have been catastrophic.

In a way I almost like the evil that is the Go'auld over the Wraiths.  Sure the wraiths have all that evil vampiry crap going on for them, but what makes the Go'Auld more menacing for me is the fact that they are more human looking.

[TheJudge]

I just got done watching the episode and have to say that of series premieres, it rocked pretty hard.  I enjoyed it from beginning to end, with lots of action. 

I don't like the wraith as enemies...but we've just started seeing them so maybe they'll flesh out over time (pun intended).  I love the australian or whatever he's supposed to be, Doctor that set off off the drone by accident. 

The characters are pretty good, and there's a lot of room for growth.  It was a very interesting two hours, and I didn't go online during the show, which is a good sign that I was interested.

I also made a voyager connection, but it was more like 'this is how Voyager should have started'.  They aren't on a mission to get home...they're on a mission to reestablish contact while building a viable base and studying the technology for use back home.  Expect to see a lot of supply issues eventually, that'll make for some good stories, and if they get regular supply missions back home, while shipping out technology, it's all good.  The show won't have to end by gettinig home...they can reestablish contact at any time without ending the show. 

I think it has good potential, and is a lot better than the last two trek spin-offs.  Hell, I liked it far better than TNG when it came out, much less DS9 or Voyager.

[Don Karnage]

can someone record stargate atalntis for me?, i don't know when i will be able to have the sifi channel (its come with a terminal and other station and the price will be 2x what i pay for the tv cable right now), so untill then i would like to see how it is.

[Sirgod]

I would Don, But my VCR is on the Fritz right now. If I can get a new one this week, I'll be happy to for you bro.

Stephen

[Sethan]

Some problems I had with it:

1) Nobody in the team they sent through was experienced in first contact.  Of all the SG teams, you'd think they could have found a volunteer who could have gotten them through fist contact on the first planet in a sightly less awkward fashion.  They didn't know, going to Atlantis, if there was going to be anyone there, so a First Contact specialist would have been a good thing.

2) Poor planning - Shepard didn't gate to an alternate location before going to Atlantis, because he didn't know any.

3) The Wraiths.  A species that took out the Ancients - and we're stopping their ships with bazookas and belt-fed machine guns.

4) Staggering Overconfidence - The Wraiths took out the Ancients, but the one guy we have who can use (but not understand) the technology of the Ancients should be able to fight a war with them and win.

5) Lack of a coherent plan re: support of Atlantis.  The gate to Atlantis from Earth should have been opened a second time, some time after they arrived - and this should have been part of a plan that everyone was aware of.  Doing this would allow the Atlantis crew to request any items from Earth that were needed but not foreseen in the original equipment taken.

[S'Raek]

Sethan, that is one of the things that gets me about most shows.  If someone would actually sit down and say OK if we were really going to do this what would we need?  What makes sense?  What would allow us to finish what we start?  And then they could write that into the script.  It would make things much more believable and would up their credibility with the audience, which isn't as stupid as they seem to think. 

But that's just me.

[Death_Merchant]

Evil Alien Nazi Vampires?

[Nemesis]

Evil Alien Nazi Vampires?

NOOOOOO!               NOT an ENTERPRISE crossover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Burn B&B!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't have cable so I likely won't see Atlantis until it comes out on DVD.  But it sounds like a flawed beginning.  Hopefully it will overcome that.

[Sirgod]

5) Lack of a coherent plan re: support of Atlantis.  The gate to Atlantis from Earth should have been opened a second time, some time after they arrived - and this should have been part of a plan that everyone was aware of.  Doing this would allow the Atlantis crew to request any items from Earth that were needed but not foreseen in the original equipment taken.

It was my understanding that they only had enough Power from the zero Point thingie to open It once. I could be mistaken though.

Stephen

[Sethan]

5) Lack of a coherent plan re: support of Atlantis.  The gate to Atlantis from Earth should have been opened a second time, some time after they arrived - and this should have been part of a plan that everyone was aware of.  Doing this would allow the Atlantis crew to request any items from Earth that were needed but not foreseen in the original equipment taken.

It was my understanding that they only had enough Power from the zero Point thingie to open It once. I could be mistaken though.

They weren't sure how much power it would take or whether they would be able to do it more than once.  Now they know (one way or the other).  The plan should have been made, regardless.

For all Earth knows, there is a factory for making Zero Point Modules in Atlantis that the expedition could get running again... if only they had a 3/16" socket wrench...

[TheJudge]

Sethan, I'll ask you this:   Was Atlantis, for a series opener, better, worse, or average in comparison to ST: TNG, ST:DS9, ST:Voyager, or even SG-1 itself? 

For me, it was better than all of them.

Was it perfect?  No, but then again if it was perfect I'm sure a lot of people complaining now would be complaining about the colors of the uniform or just how deep were they because you could see sunlight while they were still submerged, or that they should have surfaced the city themselves from the beginning. 

I'll give you a damn good reason why the ancients couldn't fight off the Wraiths, even if the technology was similar...the ancients were wooses who didn't know how to fight a real enemy.  They got so used to whomping all over everything else in the galaxy that when faced with an enemy their equal, they got their butts kicked. 

As for shoulder-fired SAM and SAW damaging the enemy's high-tech ships...well I seem to remember that you know some physics, Sethan.  If you do not expect an enemy to fire weapons that due damage by kinetic energy/penetration instead of energy delivery, you won't armor yourselves correctly.  A heat-seaking missile will track a fusion reactor, or whatever, just as easily as it will track a jet engine.  A four-pound explosive warhead hitting a ship not armored against it will do damn impressive damage. 

Notice the female wraith's reaction to the earth's population being in the BILLIONS.  They haven't had a feeding ground like that in millenia...since they first conquered all the human worlds in the Pegasus galaxy, and the Ancients.  That Ancient city looks like it can hold tens of thousands...but not millions...and it was the home of the Ancients.  So, let's say an Ancient population of 1 million, just to be very nice.  Let's say another four or five low-tech humans seeded on a thousand worlds (remember, we didn't hit the one billion mark until the 20th century here on earth).  The wraiths definitely ountnumbered the Ancients at the time of their conflict, and probably were pretty close to human numbers throughout that galaxy.  So, they had numbers, and hunger, on their side when they beat the ancients.  The technology was at least equal to the Ancients, which fit what we saw on the screen.  The puddlejumper had drone weapons, and two or three each took out a Wraith ship.  Good flying, human skills, not Ancient technology kept the ship in one piece. 

I can't wait for more...

[Gambler]

In the Stargate universe to date there have been multiple instances of low-tech beating out high tech.  A hand thrown knife being able to penetrate a Go'auld personal shield, a P90 being able to blow up a replicator.

For Shepard being the number 2 military person on the expedition, he didn't seem to work as a soldier with Summer very well.  To the point of being insubordinate, not giving orders to any other soldiers until after Summer was taken etc.

It seems strange that they didn't send anyone but soldiers out on the first mission through the gate.  They should have sent scientists, archeologists etc. 

I do like the idea of the orbiting Stargate and the ability for a ship to dial out.

It certainly seems fortuitious that the Atlantis gate also has an Iris on it.

As an aside, we have a gate we keep on our bedroom door to keep the kitten out ever since he punctured the waterbed.  At least once a day he bounces off the gate trying to get in.  The proper response is that someone bounced off the iris.

[Sethan]

Sethan, I'll ask you this:   Was Atlantis, for a series opener, better, worse, or average in comparison to ST: TNG, ST:DS9, ST:Voyager, or even SG-1 itself?

Better than TNG, by a long shot.  I still have bad memories of "Encounter at Farpoint" <shudder>  Voyager and DS9 weren't bad as I recall.  For SG1, I don't remember the first episode - I remember the movie, which was very good.

I'll give you a damn good reason why the ancients couldn't fight off the Wraiths, even if the technology was similar...the ancients were wooses who didn't know how to fight a real enemy.  They got so used to whomping all over everything else in the galaxy that when faced with an enemy their equal, they got their butts kicked.

Unless they got their butts kicked in a few months / years, the smart thing to do would have been to get some of those 'primitive humans' to augment their numbers.  It shouldn't be that hard to raise a bunch of primitives from birth or early childhood and give them everything they would need to be a warrior with modern weapons.  They had all the worlds they had seeded in the Milky Way galaxy to choose from, in addition to the ones in the Pegasus galaxy.

As for shoulder-fired SAM and SAW damaging the enemy's high-tech ships...well I seem to remember that you know some physics, Sethan.  If you do not expect an enemy to fire weapons that due damage by kinetic energy/penetration instead of energy delivery, you won't armor yourselves correctly.  A heat-seaking missile will track a fusion reactor, or whatever, just as easily as it will track a jet engine.  A four-pound explosive warhead hitting a ship not armored against it will do damn impressive damage.

Yep - and it is conceivable that the warhead might have been augmented with naquita.  The machine gun is a different story.

[NJAntman]

Seems like a possibly rocking series.... except for that annoying plot convenience of everyone across the universe speaking English. Can't anybody create a series where basic communication is a challenge for at least one episode?

[Sirgod]

Seems like a possibly rocking series.... except for that annoying plot convenience of everyone across the universe speaking English. Can't anybody create a series where basic communication is a challenge for at least one episode?

Say What?

Stephen 

[jualdeaux]

Seems like a possibly rocking series.... except for that annoying plot convenience of everyone across the universe speaking English. Can't anybody create a series where basic communication is a challenge for at least one episode?

This was talked about on one of the bonus features on one of the Stargate season boxed sets. I don't remember which one though. The original movie had this problem. The only person who could speak the language at all was Daniel Jackson and that was because it was ancient Egyptian that he could already read and had somewhat of an idea about. In episodic TV the time if would take for them to learn the language would take a least half the show and that would make a really boring show.

Oh, watch the season 5 episode Wormhole X-treme! It isn't the best episode but they had a lot of fun with their 100th episode and poked fun of all those little logic holes.

[TheJudge]

Yeah, first season they did try to use the language barrier a lot, and it still shows up occasionaly, however they make a lot less of it now than before.  I think it is largely because like was said earlier, when they spend half of each and every show overcoming the language barrier...it gets darn old darn fast.

[GDA-S'Cipio]

They weren't sure how much power it would take or whether they would be able to do it more than once.  Now they know (one way or the other).  The plan should have been made, regardless.

For all Earth knows, there is a factory for making Zero Point Modules in Atlantis that the expedition could get running again... if only they had a 3/16" socket wrench...

I was under the impression that they *knew* they would not be able to open it again unless they found a new power supply on the far side.  That's why they took so much gear with them.  On any other expedition, SG command just sends out four or five guys with small arms and a scientist.  This time they sent out the kitchen sink.  Weir even made a point of reminding everyone that this was most-likely a one-way trip, and giving them a last chance to back out.

The one thing that did bug me about the show is that the apparent action-hero star is the only one who can work most of the equipment; and it looks like he has to risk his life every week in front-line fights with the enemy.  They need to make his genetics much less important to the series, or else find a "key" that lets any average joe use ancient tech.  (Or maybe the Scotsman can become a crack pilot with practrice.)

All in all, a very strong opening for a new series.  My tape ran out with 7 mintues to go, and now I'm frothing at the mouth to see the final scenes, so I guess you could say they have me hooked for now.

-S'Cipio

[Sethan]

The Stargate is a one-way-at-a-time device.  In order to travel from a place, the gate has to be opened from that place.  Even if Earth could open the gate to Atlantis again, the people at Atlantis could not have used that open wormhole to travel back to Earth.  They took so much equipment with them because they did not know if they would be able to open the gate a second time, or to open a gate back to Earth. 

[Gambler]

They cheated.  Coming up with the Gene Splicing, mutation thing so that anybody can use ancient technology on the second episode?  Just too pat and easy.  That should have waited until episode four or five at least.

I thought it was funny how quickly everyone was to shoot, hit, push Rodney off a ledge.  I hated that character on SG1 and I totally hate him here.