First day of the convention, up “early” for a shower and breakfast. Got to the convention hotel around 11. but kept walking between several places to get those sponsor tickets I won from GameForge (the makers of Star Trek Infinite Space).
Having used 1 hour to finally get my badge (and being sent back and forth between about 10 of the Fedcon crew), I went to the Infinite Space booth, and got to test a development build of the game. I liked the game, the graphics is very nice, the controls were OK but some features were obviously missing. The mission you played in that particular development build was a bit disappointing story wise, and seemed a bit rushed (but what can you expect from a developer build?), but it showed off a bit of the mission system, and it seems pretty good. All in all, I think it may turn out very good, and I’m looking forward to follow the game progress to alpha/beta testing.
I kept walking around the convetion area, looking at booths, etc.. And then this Indiana Jones hat literally begged me to buy it (and by literally I mean figuretively), and by begged I mean “it was there” and by buy I mean “to exchange a common currency for goods or services”.
I met a few people from Fedcon 2 years ago, which was nice, and some people from the German star trek forum said hi (or guten tag) Also I ran into Zach from Hailing Frequency and Trek Radio at the infinite space booth, which was fun.
I waited over an hour to get my photo taken with RDA (and if you don’t know who RDA is, you should really be ashamed of yourself).
Garret Wang did a really good job of being MC, and was alot of fun at his own panel and the Opening Ceremony.
At 21:00 it was time for the Wil Wheaton Panel, and at the time of writing I’m 90% sure it was the highlight of the entire Fedcon Trip. Wil Wheaton is just amazing (not just because he’s a fellow geek, gamer, skeptic, sci-fi fan, etc..) He’s always funny, intelligent and entertaining. A few quotes: “I’m a skeptic” (for posterity), and in regard to the recent Sony fuck up: “Sony put’s DRM on EVERYTHING, but store your personal information in a text file.. Genius!” Also he talked alot about his roles on TNG and the Big Bang theory (Eureka was never mentioned, but he did mention The Guild in passing a few times )
After that I was pretty tired, so I opted out of whatever happens at the maritim after closing, and took a cab back to my hotel.
I think I’m in a German TV commercial for Fedcon 2011, a Sci-fi convention I’m going to in a month (It’s going to be awesome)
Someone recognized me in the video and was kind enough to send me an email (Thanks to Dietrich, which I met at fedcon 2009, he makes all sorts of really cool replicas) I was almost tempted to steal his Grays sports almanac, but I’m no Biff Tannen so instead I got myself 2 magnets for my kitchen (“Main Fridge”, and “Deep Freeze 9″)
To summarize quickly: SGU has NONE of the characteristics of SG1 or Atlantis which I love immensely. None of the Star gate humor, none of the great friendships and cooperation between characters, and science fiction driven stories with lots of adventure, with the exception of Eli, I pretty much disliked everyone of the SGU characters, and if I wanted to watch constant fighting I would watch one of the countless other “reality” shows.
I don’t mind change, but what was the point of calling the show Stargate when it was just a drama series in space which tried (and failed) at copying elements from Battlestar Galatica, Reality television and Lost. If it had been called “Alien ship drama”, I would not have minded it at all, I just would not have watched it, along with lots of other people, which leads me to the proposition that the only reason to append the Star Gate name to SGU was to trick people into watching a totally unrelated show.
I’m also still bitter for the fact that Stargate Atlantis was canceled, and THIS was what we got instead.. This seems to be a common phenomena of SG1/SGA fans, even to the point where Brad Wright actually blames SG-1/SGA fans for hurting SGU. I somehow doubt the blogs and forums where people have been critical of SGU was the cause of the huge and constant drop in viewers. Personally I count at least 20 science fiction shows that I LOVE.. And I only hate a single one (guess which). There are just no redeeming elements of SGU (except the mere fact that it takes place on a space ship).
The sadness comes out of sympathy, while I personally don’t like seeing the Stargate name dragged through the mud, there are (believe it or not) a lot of people that actually love SGU, however I don’t think any of the sci-fi geeks I know were particularly sad to see it go.
I do feel for all you guys who really liked it, cause like most/all sci-fi fans I know all to well how much it sucks when a show you like gets canceled. And there are after all far worse crap on TV than SGU, Sy-fy keeps airing Ghost Hunters, and Oprah even got her own channel.
In conclusion, I feel a little bad about my Schadenfreude, after all why should I care about what other people watch? I don’t really,. I”m just disappointed in that SGU for me and many others did not live up to the previous shows (or any sci-fi show for that matter), and that it reduces the average quality of the Stargate franchise.
Seeing, that my last post about 24: Sci-fi actors in 24 season 6 was so popular, I decided to make another one for season 7 which I just started (only see 7 episodes so far).
Robert Carlyle (Redemption)
24: Carl Benton
Star Gate Universe: Dr. Nicholas Rush
Tony Todd 24: General Benjamin Juma
Star Gate SG-1: Lord Haikon
Andromeda: Captain Fehdman Metis
Star Trek Voyager: Unnamed Hirogen hunter
Star Trek DS9: Jake Sisko as adult in The Visitor
Star Trek TNG/DS9: Kurn
John Billingsley
24: Michael Latham
Star Trek Enterprise: Dr. Phlox
Kurtwood Smith 24: Senator Blaine Mayer
Star Trek Voyager: Annorax in Year of Hell
Jeffrey Nordling
24: Larry Moss
Star Trek DS9: Thana Los in Past Prologue
Mark Kiely
24: Edward Vossler
Star Trek Voyager: Lasca in Non Sequitur
Annie Wersching
24: Renee Walker (seriously hot FBI agent)
Star Trek Enterprise: Liana in Oasis
Colm Feore
24: Henry Tailor
Battlestar Galactica: President Adar (First episode only)
Bob Gunton
24: Ethan Kanin
Star Trek TNG: Capt. Benjamin Maxwell (in The Wounded)
Ryan Cutrona 24: Admiral John Smith
Babylon 5: Sgt. Major Plug in GROPOS
John Rosenfeld
24: Kevin Aldridge
Star Trek Enterprise: Mark Latrelle in Silent Enemy
It’s also worth noting that co-executive producers and writers of 24 Redemption and season 7 is none other than Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, noted writers/producers from Star Trek TNG / Voyager / Enterprise.
A while back I made a post about the new Stargate Universe show, a show which I like most other Stargate fans expected to be a Science Fiction show.
At first I was skeptical, but hang in there because many shows start slow. But now I’ve just seen episode 10, and I must say, this show DOES SUCK.. It’s like they tried to copy Battlestar Galactica + Lost + Grey’s Anatomy. SGU is not a science fiction show, it’s basically Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives in a dark studio with the occasional boring trip trough a stargate to a lifeless world where they do nothing at all.
I was hoping the show would get better, but it’s just getting worse by every episode (except for episode 8 which reminded me a little bit about science fiction).
I will be very surprised if this huge pile of crap gets renewed for a second season.
I have no problems with people making drama shows, what I do have a problem with is that they change a sci-fi show into a bad drama show in a desperate hope to get stargate fans to watch it. Anyway I think I’ve watched my last episode of this crap, I gave it a fair chance but I’d rather watch SG-1 or Atlantis again.
A couple of days ago a pilot for a proposed tv series called ‘Virtuality’ was aired. The guy behind it is no other than Ronald D. More best known for his work on Star Trek and being the genius behind the new Battlestar Galactica series.
The show is about mankinds first voyage outside the solar system to search for life on a distant planet (a 10 year trip). The ship called the phaeton is equipped with a complex virtual reality system, which should prevent the crew from going insane by being stuck 10 years in a metal tube
The pilot was very good, and I would LOVE to watch more, unfortunately Fox has not ordered any more episodes, but perhaps if enough people get interested, that will change.
Michael Shanks
24: Mark Bishop
Stargate SG-1: Daniel Jackson
Alexander Siddig
24: Hamri Al-Assad
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Dr Julian Bashir
Also, I thought a FBI agent was played by Star Trek Voyager’s Robert Duncan McNeill, however the FBI agent was played by Scott William Winters, which just happened to look and sound very similar
Don’t tell me this could not be the same guy (12 years apart)
We recently got some loot from play.com, mostly stacy’s crap, but also a miniseries “The Triangle” about a group of people hired to explore the Bermuda triangle, it was a bit long (around 4 hours), but it was a quite enjoyable sci-fi/thriller movie. The ending was also rather good
Yay! look what I found in the store a couple of days ago
If your a science fiction fan, and haven’t seen it yet, you can download this fan film at starwreck.com.
Note, the movie has Finnish audio, but has really cool effects and great humor the story is a mix of Star Trek and Babylon 5 (quite literally). If you don’t see this movie, you WILL get eye cancer.
Also I ran into Zach from Hailing Frequency and Trek Radio at the infinite space booth, which was fun.
