# Stargate SG1 as a mirror of our changing society



## Scifi fan (Oct 8, 2009)

The Canadian Space Channel is rerunning Episode 1 of Stargate SG1 again, and I'm seeing the first episodes. Maybe these initial ones are just the growing pains that every series - including ST: TNG - has to go through, and/or maybe I already know how the story arcs are going to go, but these first episodes are just hokey and the plot lines are obvious. 

I've also been wondering if there is another reason. 

If you look at the Star Trek: TOS, you can see how dated the sets are. The women are wearing mini-skirts, and the crew uses old non-flat screen terminals as well as 3.5 inch floppy disks. 

This is just one of the many corny series from the 1960's and 1970's, and you can understand why they would be like that, because society has changed greatly since then. 

Stargate, however, is just over 10 years old. I will give another example - in the movie, "Wall Street", the villain, Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, was using a large, clunky cell phone, and that was supposed to be a power tool. Today, everyone has a cell phone. I'll give yet another example - the movie, "You've Got Mail" involved the use of AOL email system, but AOL is now gone, and the movie seems quaint. And that was made around the time of Stargate's first season. 

So I am wondering, has society changed that much in 10 years?


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## Urien (Oct 8, 2009)

I think you have two issues here:

Science Fiction shows like Star Trek:TOS are often overrun by the advance of actual technology. Hence computer and visual tech we have today is better than the hundreds of the year in the future version.

In old films of their time, such as Wall Street or You've Got Mail the technology of the time, which might have been gee whizz has been superceded.

I think both old sci-fi and old conventional shows illustrate the prevalent social and political hot buttons of their time.


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## Dave (Oct 8, 2009)

I'm sure people can find examples of society changing rather than technology - I think that is the question?

In the 1960's and 1970's people were pre-occupied with the possibility of mutually assured destruction by atomic bombs, hence you have vast numbers of science fiction stories set around coming out of the shelter to the new world. I'd say something like up to half of PKDs short stories deal with the shelters. That threat has only marginally gone away, but somehow we have learned to live with it, and nuclear bunkers have been de-commissioned. I can only think of a comedy film that has dealt with this subject in recent years - Blast from the Past (1999) - and that is a kind of spoof.

The addition of a ships Counsellor to the Star Trek -TNG crew was a very 1980's thing to do. They never needed one 100 years earlier in the original series of Star Trek - And for some reason they never needed a Counsellor on DS9, despite the fact that everyone aboard was dysfunctional in some way, with some or other skeletons in their cupboards - someone who thought he was the last of his race, someone who lost his wife to a Borg attack and hated Starfleet, a member of an occupation force and someone who had been a terrorist against him, someone who had been illegally genetically enhanced, a Ferengi who didn't believe money was everything, a Klingon brought up as a human.... I could go on.

I can't think of examples in Stargate, except that Sam's addition to the team, as a woman, would probably not even be an unusual choice today.


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## Scifi fan (Oct 8, 2009)

> I'm sure people can find examples of society changing rather than technology - I think that is the question?



That is the question. 

Just look at the first few episodes of Stargate, and they seem pretty hokey, with Sam the blond being forced to dress in a skimpy woman's clothing, and another one where they were teleported by the Asgard to a cave, where only the normal humans could get out. 

So I'm asking, have we gotten more sophisticated in the last 10 years?


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## Moonbat (Oct 8, 2009)

If you mean we as in society (including technology) then it is a yes
If you mean we as in humans then no in 10 years we haven't become anymore sophisticated, although my hair looks better now 
If you mean we as in Science fiction writers, then probably not, although every sci-fi series is representative of the decade it is written and produced in, very few can accurately portray the decade they are set in (even if they are set in the present)
Stargate is an great example, it isn't the 10 years of advances in technology that have changed the series from SG through Atlantis to the now launched Universe, but it is the story-lines and relative sucess/cost of the series.
maybe I'm drifting off point, but if you look at the start of SG1 they are still hidden away in a mountain, and hardly anyone knows about them, but after bringing in story arcs that include space going vessels and political divides the SG universe is now farther from the real world than it was. Although it is somehow (and for some reason) kept secret from most of the planet.

It is interesting because the original Star Trek broke bounderies with a black female cast member and multi-cultural cast. But when you look at the remake the Russain character seems like a sterotyped joke character, with the audience laughing at his inability to pronounce V's.


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## Urien (Oct 8, 2009)

What I want to know in Star Trek is what terrible thing is due to happen to China and India? Where are the Chinese and Indian crew members? They should in theory make up about a third of Star Fleet humans... 

That I suspect is a facet of today's cultural blindness, a reflection of American cultural and economic dominance.


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## PTeppic (Oct 8, 2009)

In a way we've almost gone the other way, with every ensemble cast visibly pinning distribution of ethnicity badges on the members. For me, that grates more than many of the plot holes, however blatant.

Curiously, by chance I was reading an online interview with Jonathan Glassner at lunchtime, about the creation of SG-1. He is quoted as saying he and Brad Wright had to over-rule the studio's request that the Samantha Carter character be more T&A. In the end they got their way, which in a studio set-up seems unusual, but later she went on to hold the series when RDA "left". By comparison, the same site claims to have a draft character sheet for Stargate Universe, i.e. ten years on. Four of the first five character descriptions listed (i.e. regulars, presumably) include "handsome", "beautiful", "stunning and sexy" and "every teenage girl's fantasy". They might have characters from all corners of the genetic pool, but they're all good looking examples! Pah!


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## Sparrow (Oct 8, 2009)

uh, guys, it's only entertainment.  And rather base pointless entertainment most of the time.  As PTeppic mentions, aside from gender and ethnic biases, and plot lines that are meant to highlight greater awareness of certain sticky social issues, there doesn't appear to be many ugly women with small breasts in the future. 

But it hasn't been all bad.
If you've ever watched _2001, A Space Odyssey_ then you know, if only very rarely, science fiction can get it right.  It can transcend time and place and even have messages that most of the audience will not appreciate.

This is a great article on the cultural impact _2001_ had on the average person...

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Social/2001/SH8.htm


_2001_ wasn't a space opera with swashbuckling retards, it portrayed space as it is, cold and unforgiving, quiet and foreboding.  Space wasn't something to be conquered by technology and human daring.  Ever wonder why HAL is made to have the most human emotions?

The problem isn't that the movie and television industry are pumping out crappy science fiction, the problem is there's no market for thoughtful entertainment.  And that would be our fault.


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## Urien (Oct 8, 2009)

Sparrow,

Ironic that you open with "it's only entertainment" and then proceed with a near polemic culminating in: "The problem isn't that the movie and television industry are pumping out crappy science fiction, the problem is there's no market for thoughtful entertainment. And that would be our fault." 

Hey, it's only entertainment.

...for this performance I have beamed down to the planet wearing my Red Shirt.


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## Sparrow (Oct 8, 2009)

Stargate SG1_is_only entertainment.
And crappy entertainment at that.  It's what the herd animals want, it's what the herd animals get.

_2001, A Space Odyssey_ is entertainment on a far higher level.
As I clearly stated, sans irony.
That most people would rather go watch a slash'em up alien movie or cheap soap opera based television shows spun off of Stargate, StarTrek, StarWars, etc... is why we don't have thoughtful and inspiring sf.

Don't blame the drug pusher, blame the addict.


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## PTeppic (Oct 9, 2009)

I disagree that, en masse, SG-1 was "crappy entertainment". Yes, there were some bad episodes, one or two truly cringe-worthy ones from th every beginning. But they've generally been at the better end than the worse end. The technobabble has been consistent (and mostly well thought out), the storylines well thought out, arcing (now THAT's something we didn't really do 10-15 years ago) fully and covered a large range of topics. Yes, some cliches, but with 200+ episodes you'd expect a few, especially in sci-fi.

Surely it's the nature of the beast: you can't have "thoughtful and inspiring" every (or even most) week(s) if you need to churn out 20-24 episodes every year. There just isn't time.


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## PTeppic (Oct 9, 2009)

On a lighter note, I thought many of the "science" gimmicks from Star Trek TOS from 40 years ago are becoming true. Book sized tablet we can write on as notebooks - now in use with "real ones" in Stargate Atlantis. Hand-held mobile communicators - in use in every pocket! Computers, though I can't recall a specific example for comparison from TOS. Even teleport, currently working over several metres...

Will be others, can't think just now.


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## Dave (Oct 9, 2009)

I'll echo P'Teppic's comments regarding Stargate SG-1. The fact that it began with only current technology and science and no space travel made it much more realistic than other TV Sci-Fi. Okay, later they reverse engineered spaceships and zat guns etc etc, but they did the science of that in a realistic way. What was unbelievable was that it could be kept secret and would not change the world at all. There were lots of things wrong, and if you look at the archives here there are pages of well thought out criticism. It did at least have a plausible explanation fro humans being found on every planet that no one else has, the Fir trees on every planet is less easy to explain.

Also the design of the original Star Trek series deliberately went for a design that would not age. So, no analogue dials, no computer tape reels, no punched cards. Someone mentioned floppy discs, but they aren't floppy discs, they are before floppy discs were invented. I think that decision was one that allowed it many years extra time, just compare it with 'Lost in Space', or even with 'The Time Tunnel' that was actually set in the sixties!



Sparrow said:


> Don't blame the drug pusher, blame the addict.


An apt analogy Sparrow. Don't both share some blame? But the pusher makes his money out of the addict, while the addict cannot help themselves. When I pulled out of cable TV I went cold turkey, but I'm fully recovered now. Just give me a DVD though...

Outside of books, I don't think you will ever get a large enough audience for the kind of SF you are asking for and there will few films made for that audience. There will be little TV too, and even less chance of any US TV of that kind, because of the way the commissioning system works there; but that is where all the money for TV is. 

To return to the original question, the portrayal of women, ethnic groups and the disabled has certainly changed on all kinds of TV in the last few decades. And as has been mentioned Star Trek was at the forefront of that. The jokes about Chekov's accent are really only in the film 'The Voyage Home' which was an all and all out comedy and played low and loose with many other things for comedic effect.

Most of the Stargate worlds are populated with Egyptians and not White Anglo Saxons Protestants. The Firefly Universe was meant to be populated with an American/Chinese mixture but that didn't work too well as far as I was concerned, because from the little history provided, I'd expect more of a blend than ghettos. I'd say that the ethnicity of future worlds will be dependent on that of the people who colonise them. I doubt that would have anything at all to do with current socio-political groupings or economic power today. Anyway, however accurate a TV show featuring a spaceship crew of the future, all Chinese, might actually be, can you seriously see that show being commissioned by US TV stations?


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## Sparrow (Oct 9, 2009)

I should have better articulated my complaint with much of today's mainstream sf.

I am tired of StarTrek and StarWars.  To still be rehashing a forty year old tv series, and a thirty year old movie, is exactly what science fiction should not be about.  Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, Twilight Zone... enough already.

The best reimagining (deconstruction) of a classic I've seen in the last little while was _Tin Man_ on the SyFy Channel.  While it didn't always work for me, it did keep me interested and at least it was a valiant effort.




> Dave ~An apt analogy Sparrow. Don't both share some blame?





In the context of a Free Market system (which we all love right now), yes, both probably deserve each other.


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## Scifi fan (Nov 15, 2009)

> I am tired of StarTrek and StarWars. To still be rehashing a forty year old tv series, and a thirty year old movie, is exactly what science fiction should not be about. Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, Twilight Zone... enough already.



I am getting tired, but I'm not there yet. I've always said there was a possibility for a new franchise.


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## Connavar (Nov 15, 2009)

Only thing that changed with SG1 is that they got better stories over the years.   The first season when i saw on tv i couldnt be how lame,predictable stories they were.  Their Stargate world story wise grew alot.

Seeing Universe you remember how great SG1 was S2-S8.

Stargate is the only adventure sf i have liked along with Firefly,Farscape.  The others are too straight ala Star Trek for me.


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## rojse (Nov 15, 2009)

Seeing the recommendations here, I might have to have a look at the Stargate television series.


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