Hiramas said:
But even in that case, I would be perfectly fine with a ret-con of this fact in favor of adapting the show to our time.
My view is that a show should learn to survive without adapting to the times, or just die. I can tell you right now that the whole possibility of the Doctor becoming a woman thing is a giant tick box. A show that has been so successful on the same formula as long as Doctor Who has, doesn't just over the course of a few years with little hints and points, radically change like they planning to.
This change will be without purpose. I've watched enough shows, shows that went down the drain, to know that when a show lays on stupid hints at things, like Doctor Who has over the past few years, the change will happen.
I can't stand it when shows do the whole, we have change so our stories fit with the everyday life and views of our viewers and the current state of entertainment, and have messages that go along with current events. The reason Doctor Who's formula is wrongly being changed is because over the past decade, there has been a movement for rolls to change and fit with what random small groups want. The Doctor Who thing is going along with the, "We have to change our main character to a woman 'because that is progressive'", but then when there is backlash from core fans, because it doesn't fit with the show and canon, they get called sexist, even though it has nothing to do with that.
I'm a tired of shows being changed by "movements" and social matters. Why can't a show be a show and do as it always has. It is a fictional world that has set rules and established structure. People need to let stories and shows stay the way they are/have been. Why the hell is it so hard for people that want something extremely different to just go off and make their own thing? Why the hell do they have change the established works to fit their views and wants.
As person that does a large amount of writing of my own original stories with my own universes and worlds, it is the one thing I dread when it comes to publishing and having my works out there and possibly become successful. There are too many people that love to latch onto successful peoples works and then change it to their own bastardized vision because they believe their way is the only way, because it fits with "the times" and "the trends"; they can't seem to let a story/franchise be just what it is.
I hate ret-coning when it is done the bad way. The only time ret-coning should be done is if something new, that is stupid, is added to an established show/franchise, that screws with canon.
Example: I would say that Abrams-Trek needs to be ret-conned. People love to say, "But it is an alternate universe!", but what they fail to remember is that Spock and Nero who are involved in the events, come form the main universe, and their actions which Abrams and his writers came up with, changed things in the main universe(Romulus's sun going supernova, and the start of good relations between the Romulans and Federation, that occurred at the end of Nemesis, broke down. This is seen in the MMO Star Trek Online. By the way, Abrams movies messed with Star Trek Online. It was in development before Abrams movies, and they were going to have a proper main universe future affected by things that happened in main universe series and movies, but Abrams began work on his movie got enough weight/say, that he forced them to change it to fit in the effects of what would happen in the main universe, because of the things that happened in his story.
Hiramas said:
off topic, I agree with you on Abrams-Trek, though I am a little more optimistic about Star Wars since he actually seems to like that. And he seems to has the rule: Do the opposite the prequels did, wich can only end better.
Concerning SGU, I actually did not hate hit. It wasn't the best but it was ok and it would be interesting to see where it would have gone. Though at this point I really believe SG has to rest a few years longer. A new, more TNG/DS9 oriented Star Trek show (Dominion War aftermath/cleanup, SOOO many stories there!) would be terrific, though!
Have you seen the new storm-trooper helmets. They are chrome, very shiny chrome. You might as well call them JJ's lens flare troopers.
SGU failed because it did the thing a loved established franchise should never do, change the story telling style and formula, along with filming style.
SGU was not filmed in the same style SG-1 and SGA. It was filmed in the style of Battlestar Galactica, with that gritty speckled look(like someone forgot to dust off the camera lens), along with all the horribly unnecessary close-ups of peoples faces as they talked.
On the story telling style and formula change: The big part that made SG-1 and SGA great and interesting, was the gate travel to other worlds, seeing other cultures and aliens and the different planets. It was the main focus of the shows. If Stargate didn't have that, it wouldn't have had anything interesting to work with.
SGU failed because the creators made the show about people, it was heavily focused on characters stories were around 85% or more of each episode was about the characters and there problems with their situation and each other. There were no good strange planet stories, yeah there were a couple interesting planets they ended up at, but the stories were so focused on the characters, the planets never saw enough spotlight. There were two alien races that were extremely lightly touched on. I can't begin to tell you much about them, because I have zero information to go on, other than the first one was hostile, and the second one was cautious and not really hostile. And finally, for a show about traveling to and studying an old Ancient ship, very little studying of said ship got done.
In the end, the ratings tanked, because core fans of the franchise and mid-rim fans beyond that stopped watching because it wasn't Stargate. SyFy then canceled it and gave the bullshit explanation that the show didn't do well because they aired it on a bad night, ignoring the droves of fans that were yelling at them, telling them the exact reason they didn't watch, and it certainly wasn't because of the night it aired.