Rating Space Adventure shows/movies in retrospect...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 05:21
VIEWED: 4092
PAGE 2 of 2
I guess there are various stories worth telling in Space Opera, and Firefly is one of them. Farscape comes close to that, with it's own spin, and Lexx is an entertaining spoof of the subgenre
The Military Saga, I haven't seen enough of to judge. Many shows have this element of this, but I'm not sure where it's being done right. I suppose this splits into the real threat, and the imagined.
The diplomatic saga I thought B5 did very well, and DS9 not so much. It was an enjoyable show, but terrible diplomacy.
The exploration of the unknown, original Trek did well. I think there's more to be done here, but future trek didn't do it. SG1 was decent, I didn't care for the spinoffs.
I guess the first thing a Space Opera can do is decide which it is.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:A war broke out. That's kinda the definition of "terrible diplomacy."
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
DS9 not so much. It was an enjoyable show, but terrible diplomacy.
I'd argue that Farscape was the best at doing practical, on-set effects. Indeed, Farscape was perhaps the last TV series to really push practical effects, before everyone simply switched over to "how much CGI can we throw onscreen."
(Firefly doesn't count; while it did use a lot of practical effects, it never really did anything unusual that didn't involve CG spaceships.)
I'd also credit Andromeda for having the most unfulfilled potential. I still hold the pilot eps ("Under the Night"/"An Affirming Flame") as two of the best hours of genre TV ever made. Then the network intervened, the Executive Producers started pulling in opposite directions, and the creator got fired from his own gorram show.
The Robotech novels (specifically the Sentinels saga) are really the first "expanded universe;" even before Star Wars really got going, these novels took a stitched-together frankenseries and created a unified, coherent generational narrative, often created out of whole cloth where the TV series simply stopped.
There's a lot of unappreciated space opera in anime too:
Heroic Age has my favourite treatment of the "God-race" trope (mainly because it involves actually exploring said God-race instead of just being in awe of them).
Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars remains my favourite courtly romance in space, what with all the subtle social cues and oblique flirting going on.
Vandread. . . really isn't more than an exploration of (somewhat parochial) gender politics, but I guess it's got that going for it, at least.
Macross Frontier has the best music, obviously, between Yoko Kanno, Megumi Nakajima, and May'n.
StrAIn has the best use of time-dilation, even if the space battles themselves aren't remotely realistic, at least they demonstrate the effects of FTL travel (by the time you get back from your first tour, your newborn baby sister's grandchildren will be retiring).
It isn't really space-based, since all the action is planet-bound, but Oban Star Racers needs a mention for having the most innovative alien designs I've seen in animation. It's weird, you'd think a medium with no real limits on how actors look would be more willing to experiment with nonhumanoid aliens, but usually all we see is humans-with-weird-hair or humans-with-elf-ears. Then Oban comes along with the giant telepathic tree-crabs, and the squid-people, and the shapeshifting ghost-thing, and the tripod-robot, and whatever-the-hell-0-is.
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Firefly/Serenity is the best for writing & characterization.
Not gonna argue with that.
Quote:
Star Trek (TOS) is the best for SF stories & sheer creativity.
Trek TOS is certainly up there with the greats, and changed the face of TV SF.
However, on the "sheer creativity" side I'm gonna have to wave the Union Jack for Doctor Who which always has been, and still is, insanely creative. (Time traveling phone boxes? Mobile fascist trashcans with sink plungers? Living plastic? Giant Maggots? Satan (maybe) trapped in a Black Hole?) The last season hasn't been the best, but we've had voting booths that wipe your memory so you don't remember voting for an atrocity and multiple timey-wimey brainfracks including a great take on how you'd do "a Christmas Carol" if you had a time machine (the story as a whole was a bit cheesy but the "Christmas yet to come" twist was brilliant).
Plus, it pre- and post-dates everything else (no, Stargate was not the longest running SF show).
I'm waiting for a Trek/Who crossover in which the Cybermen meet those upstart plagiarist Borg and delete their sorry arses (with a weapon made out of tinfoil, bubble wrap and an empty soda bottle).
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The original BSG is the best for excellent visuals & design.
My problem is, here in Blighty, it was a theatrical movie rather than a TV show (the TV series never got a decent national timeslot) so I always remember it as a lightly sub-Star Wars knockoff. As a TV show, it was pretty spectacular.
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Star Wars is the best for its Big Bad & emotional resonance.
Like 'Trek, Star Wars is one of the Bosses and the only allowable criticism relates to the newer incarnations...
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I never saw Space: Above & beyond.
Its worth a look: if you like either incarnation of BSG then you'll probably like S A&B.
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Babylon 5 is the best for continuing story arcs.
Babylon 5 is the only show to do a continuing story arc properly by (a) planning the story in advance, (b) having contingency plans ("trapdoors") so the story can survive plot changes and (c) making sure that every episode still has a beginning/middle/end of its own, as well as continuing the bigger story.
It should also be on the list of groundbreaking visuals - although they did date rapidly (I blame the decision to make the DVDs widescreen, which involved zooming & cropping all the CGI and composite shots).
It also ended the lazy habit that Trek had developed of depicting aliens as Caucasians with different patterns of nose putty stuck on their foreheads, in favor of full-face prosthetics and contact lenses (and when the budget can't stretch to that, just drop a hint that they may look humanoid but are packing 6 prehensile penises under their robes).
Having a full, original score for each episode was progress, too...
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Farscape is the best for muppets.
I'd rate it a lot more highly than that - especially as it got pretty dark at times. An important entry in the "Anti-Star-Trek dystopia" genre (Blakes 7, Firefly etc.)
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Stargate(s) are the best for pulp SF.
Best for consistency - I can't remember seeing an unwatchable episode (which makes it pretty unique) but it never blew my socks off.
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My final tally:
Firefly/Serenity ties with Star Trek TOS as the best Space Adventure series ever.
Hard to argue with - but I'd have to put Doctor Who up on the pedestal with them.
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Quote:Yes, I did leave that one out as well. That's what YOU peeps are for!
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I'd also credit Andromeda for having the most unfulfilled potential. I still hold the pilot eps ("Under the Night"/"An Affirming Flame") as two of the best hours of genre TV ever made. Then the network intervened, the Executive Producers started pulling in opposite directions, and the creator got fired from his own gorram show.
The laughing Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
(I take it we're talking about the British one from the 80's - I'm not sure if they remade it for the States?) I haven't seen it since then. The film left me a bit cold.
Anybody who knows where their towel is will tell you that the one, true interpretation of the Hitchhiker's Guide is the original radio series (which pre-dated the books, although a few years ago they produced radio versions of the later books).
The visual effects were much better.
The TV version was rescued from suckitude by the brilliant (hand) animated "computer graphics" sequences when the guide was speaking.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Frem, now I have another thing to buy!!! Damn you!
I still don't have Last Exile yet!
I'm immersed in model work...
*laughs*
Well worth it though, while it has a few weaker episodes, it also has stuff like this -
Colonel McQueen going after a Chig who's stomped whole squadrons, ALONE, against orders, and at the time barely able to stand up...
And what happens after THAT is one of the most awesome scenes in fiction, right up there with Nausicaas bullrush of the gunpod in Valley of the Wind.
Speaking of Last Exile though, I actually recently wound up getting my hands on Valkyria Chronicles - a PS3 game that combines some of the best elements of graphics and story I've seen in a while - which indeed reminds me of Last Exile, in that the story is uplifting rather than depressing and the characters unique and interesting.
Oh, and did I mention that the initial premise is loosely based on the Winter War of 1939 and your side is the equivalent of the Finnish Militia ?
(i.e. All MANNER of imperial butt starts gettin kicked, and you get to do the kicking!)
That alone would make it a top-ten pick, but it also manages to combine the very best elements of strategy, turn based and first person gameplay into a single, seamless whole.
Here's a sample.
Also, in regards to Space: Above and Beyond, no Sci-Fi model collection is really complete without an SA-43 Hammerhead....
http://spaceaboveandbeyond.tv/merch-models.html
And I am pretty sure you can do much better than the stock kits as for quality and detail.
-Frem
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Thanks Frem. Nice clip.
The laughing Chrisisall
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Well, here's a couple more for ya, Chris...
This episode has been my Christmas tradition since the DVD came out (along with the dueSOUTH episode "Gift of the Wheelman")...
(Note how Wang's battle cry has certainly improved!)
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My favorite is Firefly of course. I like Star Trek TNG, my dad and I watch reruns a lot on the BBC, I don't enjoy it as much as I did in college, that's when I started watching it on reruns on G4, but I still enjoy it, my favorite charactors have shifted quite a bit though. DS9 was okay, hit and miss, didn't really like Boyager much, will watch it once in a blue moon. Stargate SG1 is allright, again it depends on the episode for me, I love that Groundhog's Day one. Babelon 5 was on when I was a young girl and I remember my dad liking it a lot, but I wasn't interested in scifi much yet, if there were reruns I'd probably give it a go. I didn't really enjoy BSG, I tried since my dad liked it, but eventually he got bored with it, didn't finish the series.
As for movies, I really like the first Planet of the Apes, as weird as it is. I guess that may not count since space travel isn't central to the plot really. I liked Galaxy Quest, it makes me laugh, it was funnier when I watched it recently than it was when it first came out, silly stuff.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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