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Defiance


SpaceChampion

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not impressed, but I might give it another shot.

Why did the main character have to be similar to Sheriff Carter of Eureka, I have no idea.

Also I was expecting more from the special effects, seeing as how they kept talking them up in the previews and the guy who worked on the special effects for BSG is involved.

Not to mention that it's not helping when a character is overdoing his driving by constantly moving his hands on the wheel like he was steering a ship, yet the vehicle keeps going straight.

And the whole Romeo & Juliet thing is also nothing that I care about. Yes, in shows like these a common theme is what draws different races together, but I would like to see more of their differences first and then see them drawn together.

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This is almost me. I did like the movie (it was fun). But, I found the first series (SG-1?) unwatchable. I couldn't get into Atlantis. Just too many goofy, campy people bungling around. Always the guy there for the comic relief. Always the doctor or the engineer having to make wisecracks. Just too formula-Trek imho, and not good Trek, but kind of "bleh" Trek. Trek has already covered some of this ground in terms of presentation and you just get tired of it.

Then, I thought, "Okay, what the hell?" I keep seeing SG: Universe in my YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS deal on Netflix. So, I tried it, telling myself, "This is going to suck. It just is."

And it didn't suck. They had the ship roles, like genius that's funny (Eli) but he's not a bumbling moron in all other things. No doctor, but a nurse (EMT?), TJ, who has to bust ass to figure things out. Darker feel. More urgent. More real and tangible. It never felt like Stargate to me, except for the gates and such.

And Robert Carlyle was utterly phenom in this. http://youtu.be/ucH6...H6qhWpUJY (may include minor spoilers, but you'll probably forget by the time you watch the series).

The episode "Epilogue" was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in science fiction television.

I consider you my friend for your words about SGU. I have never been more upset about the cancelling of a show. SGU was great.

Now regarding SG-1 and Atlantis, I love those shows, too, despite their goofiness, but I watched them when I was younger. I hated when people criticized SGU by saying that it was not the Stargate they grew up with. Well I grew up with SG-1, and Atlantis (which was actually in my college days) but I did grow up, so SGU is perfect for me now.

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I consider you my friend for your words about SGU. I have never been more upset about the cancelling of a show. SGU was great.

Now regarding SG-1 and Atlantis, I love those shows, too, despite their goofiness, but I watched them when I was younger. I hated when people criticized SGU by saying that it was not the Stargate they grew up with. Well I grew up with SG-1, and Atlantis (which was actually in my college days) but I did grow up, so SGU is perfect for me now.

I was already eye-deep in season 2 when I realized there would be no season 3 and I was upset as well. I need closure! I need more! Just a book to read, something, a graphic novel to wrap things up. The series had so much incredible potential. The cast was flawless (even Chloe who annoyed me at first).

I think if I had watched SG-1 and Atlantis when they first aired, I might feel differently about them. I think after seeing SG: Universe I just don't know if I can ever go back.

Every time I see an SGU character, I am happy. I saw TJ on Supernatural, for example.

And, SGU introduced me to Mumford and Sons with "After the Storm." Just so awesome. :) Another fan is always welcome in my online life!

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I was already eye-deep in season 2 when I realized there would be no season 3 and I was upset as well. I need closure! I need more! Just a book to read, something, a graphic novel to wrap things up. The series had so much incredible potential. The cast was flawless (even Chloe who annoyed me at first).

I think if I had watched SG-1 and Atlantis when they first aired, I might feel differently about them. I think after seeing SG: Universe I just don't know if I can ever go back.

Every time I see an SGU character, I am happy. I saw TJ on Supernatural, for example.

And, SGU introduced me to Mumford and Sons with "After the Storm." Just so awesome. :) Another fan is always welcome in my online life!

LOL, same here regarding Mumford and Sons.

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I liked it. I like the races, i like the look. There are some budget problems, but to be honest the first year or two of Star Trek TNG suffered from the same problems. This show has a great deal of potential.

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I thought it was watchable. The visual effects are quite cheap, but it's understandable they don't have a lot of budget. The lack of exposition was bad enough to prompt me to have a look at the wiki page to understand what's what, and it's not exactly reassuring. I hope they will provide more decent exposition in the next episodes. I'm not hooked up yet but I will see where it goes, the mystery that profiles the story arc being decent and intriguing enough, although it might turn out to be a bait and switch for the audience. I also didn't like how Nolan becomes the town sheriff like that, because it was extremely mechanical in its execution.

Speaking as someone who loves SG-1 and Atlantis, SG:U was very disappointing. It showed a lot of promises, it had great decors and visuals, the story arc was good, there were nice ideas, etc, but they spoiled all of that with crap characters and crap soap-opera drama that was utterly uninteresting and dragged the show into the ground. And while there were interesting ideas, for technologies and the like, they also showed time and again that they didn't think much about how they worked and their implications, nor about how to show them work and the implications of that as well. Things I might have brushed over in a slightly goofy show, but that don't sit as well with a "mature", "edgier" one.

SG:U was different from the preceding shows in the franchise, in how it looked, felt and was paced, but that was the least of its problems, although they were transparent and annoying in their attempt to be "grittier and edgier" and more "mature" (seriously, there is a SG-1 anniversary episode where they show how the show would be if it were to target different demographics, and SGU fits surpisingly well with the "targeting the tween audience" motif showed in that episode). But it would have been okay had the creators kept out of relationship drama they clearly couldn't handle and stayed into adventure, exploration and sense of wonder that were always their strong suit. I kept watching but there was a lot of crap in there I had to mentally edit out. Robert Carlyle stands out from this but unfortunately it wasn't hard to do given the low quality of the characters and the generally forgettable acting.

News of cancellation upset me because it meant the end of the franchise for a while, or even forever, but given its flaws I wasn't very upset about the fact there wouldn't be any more SG Universe episodes.

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What you call "soap opera," many of us call human drama here. People have feelings, emotions, and build relationships - even in space. I had no issue with that. It's what made the show for me, actually.

Shows neutered from the drama of life (and yes, these things can happen under extraordinary circumstances, probably moreso than the show portrayed), always fall flat for me and enter the realm of clinical, too-squeaky clean, sterile life. Life isn't that neat and tidy. It's messy. Emotions and all.

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I thought it was good. I think the one bit of really bad CGI was at the end, with the floating hexagons making up the user interface

What about when they were in the "roller" chasing after Ben(?). The through the windshield cgi was freaking horrendous. Laugh out loud bad.

not impressed, but I might give it another shot.

Why did the main character have to be similar to Sheriff Carter of Eureka, I have no idea.

Also I was expecting more from the special effects, seeing as how they kept talking them up in the previews and the guy who worked on the special effects for BSG is involved.

Not to mention that it's not helping when a character is overdoing his driving by constantly moving his hands on the wheel like he was steering a ship, yet the vehicle keeps going straight.

And the whole Romeo & Juliet thing is also nothing that I care about. Yes, in shows like these a common theme is what draws different races together, but I would like to see more of their differences first and then see them drawn together.

:agree:

It's on a really short leash for me at this point.

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I'm always amazed. People gave TNG a pass because of what it was. This show needs the audience in order to find the funding, but because it doesn't have the budget, people are willing to jump ship. Then there will be complaints of the only thing on TV being Revolution, which does get alot of money but which is complete and utter shit.

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Low budget?

Still, $105 million is the rough budget for the project, which includes a staggering $40 million for the TV series alone (for perspective, HBO, the gold standard for expensive TV, shelled out $60 million on Game of Thrones' first season). The balance pays for the $50 million it cost to make the video game, developed with software company Trion Worlds, which shares the financial burden (NBCU owns half of the game with Trion), and the show's huge marketing budget—upwards of $15 million.
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I realised there is another sci-fi show still in existence. Falling Skies. It took a season for that to start hitting its stride and I'm hoping it meets its potential in season 3.

After seeing the whole episode I feel like the premise and mixture of races is good enough to see through some of its flaws. This one could take a while to find its feet so until they do something unforgiveably bad, I'm on board.

The worst aspect of the show for me were the CGI battles. I think they lifted them straight from the game and because of that I was completely sucked out of the scene. Maybe if I grab my xbox pad and tap buttons as if it's an in-game cut-scene I'll be able to enjoy it more?

The world building is very interesting though and I'm guessing there's a big plan in the show as well as dealing with the drama of a town. In many senses it could be Babylon 5/DS9-sh with the whole melting point location that seems to be very important on a large scale too. That can only be a good thing.

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Having finally seen it I enjoyed it a great deal. My only real gripe was the Romeo and Juliet subplot. Space-emo and his girl bugged the hell out of me, I'd rather it just focused on the feud between their dads, since that fondly reminded me of Deadwood. Having teen problems get in the way of two shady businessmen is a wasted opportunity The CGI was bad and some of the aliens looked a bit dumb, but special effects don't make or break a show for me. The story was pretty good for genre television and the actors all did a good job with what they had. It's not the sci-fi answer to Deadwood or the Wire, but its a lot better than most of the other science fiction currently airing. Of course it could get worse, it could get better, but the first episode was strong enough to retain my interest long enough to find out.

Not perfect, but better than average. People are getting too caught up on the special effects. I don't get that argument. Sci-fi shows have for the majority of their existence had bad special effects. Star Trek and Stargate were running on fumes when it came to that kind of stuff. How is bad effects a deal breaker for people who love those shows? Nostalgia talking. If you can enjoy those shows unironically, it should be easy to see past the flawed cg in Defiance.

Probably because of the music, that last scene reminded me of Fallout a great deal. Another big plus.

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I think the problem with the CG is that we know TV can do a lot better these days. Trek, etc were all pretty decent for the time. I didn't mind the cheap bits just the computer game lifted parts. I thought the make-up and sets were all fine. The CGI touch up of the scenery was pretty good with the exotic plants,

I'd love a show that could be the sci-fi equivalent of the Wire or Deadwood.

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I don't think the writing or the characters were strong, the visual problems were just an observation, if the show was great otherwise,they would not be an issue. The acting was mostly fine with what little they had to work with, but the children of those two rich guys were not so good.

I also don't think the world building was handled all that well. They tried to throw a bit too much into a two hour premier rather than letting things breath a little and develop.

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I'm always amazed. People gave TNG a pass because of what it was. This show needs the audience in order to find the funding, but because it doesn't have the budget, people are willing to jump ship. Then there will be complaints of the only thing on TV being Revolution, which does get alot of money but which is complete and utter shit.

Yeah, I don't get why people bitch about the special effects. It's just not my bag, baby. But, people like what they like in a show.

Having finally seen it I enjoyed it a great deal. My only real gripe was the Romeo and Juliet subplot. Space-emo and his girl bugged the hell out of me, I'd rather it just focused on the feud between their dads . . .

Yeah, I'm so "over" teenagers in sci-fi right now, but at least we don't see them being complete assholes all the time, which I'm happy about. (cough: Revolution, Falling Skies, etc...). That said, "space Emo" is pretty funny.

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I hated this surprisingly little. A lot of it was balls, of course, including the entire last battle (I'll throw a temper tantrum, leave my dad, then go get the biker gang who previously held me at gunpoint and come back for the grand rescue - not to mention the McGuffin solution) - but I feel that the characters will be able to carry a lot of weight, secondary characters included.

I also hope that there's a really good reason for why the ex-mayor decided to quit her job before starting the mother of all schemes to kill off the town. Wouldn't she be in a *much* better position to do this *as* mayor?

Still, I'm on for a couple more episodes.

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I hated this surprisingly little. A lot of it was balls, of course, including the entire last battle (I'll throw a temper tantrum, leave my dad, then go get the biker gang who previously held me at gunpoint and come back for the grand rescue - not to mention the McGuffin solution) - but I feel that the characters will be able to carry a lot of weight, secondary characters included.

I also hope that there's a really good reason for why the ex-mayor decided to quit her job before starting the mother of all schemes to kill off the town. Wouldn't she be in a *much* better position to do this *as* mayor?

Still, I'm on for a couple more episodes.

Maybe the ex mayor has been offerred some cure for her lung problem (whatever that is)? Maybe her health is worse than it appears and that's why she had to stand down because you're right in that it would be easier to be nefarious while mayor.

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