Not your average robot love story.

**Warning!**
Very slight spoilers for the movie Wall-E below!
****

My husband and I went to see Wall-E this past Friday, and let me just start by saying I am already planning to go see it again this coming Friday (assuming the theater is open, and I can't imagine it wouldn't be). This movie is truly spectacular. Some reviewers have already claimed this to be the best effort from Pixar yet, and I am kind of inclined to agree.

One of my favorite things about Pixar is that they have found a way to truly make a film for the whole family. What I mean by that is that they can give you a story with a basic enough plot for little kids to grasp what is going on without actually making a basic story that will leave teenagers bored and adults cringing at the simplicity. Little kids can follow the story, sure, but there are enough story and visual elements included that all parties are satisfied.

On one level you have a lonely a robot trying to clean up Earth by himself. Suddenly another robot arrives and Wall-E instantly seeks out her companionship and follows her when she is taken from him, which leads him to make new friends and help humanity find its way home.

But beyond that you've got the story of how humanity screwed up the planet and left it for the robots to clean while they went off on an interstellar vacation. The only problem is they had done so much damage that the people in charge decided to just let future generations grow more and more complacent until they don't even think about trying to go back. So you've also got a future generation trying to overcome the mistakes of its ancestors.

Plus, there's even a mild element of good robots versus "evil" robots to add to the excitement.

Overall, we've got a sweet, funny, and intriguing story in which curiosity doesn't kill the cat but instead drives it to find a better way of doing things.

There are some wonderful nods to Hello Dolly and 2001: A Space Odyssey for movie buffs. Even spork aficionados get their own moment of joy.

The short before the film is also definitely worth catching, so when you go see it, be sure to get there on time!

I have to say, Pixar just continually never ceases to amaze me with the level of quality films and shorts they produce. Even under the Disney umbrella, they have taken "cartoons" out of the little league and consistently produced films that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. I truly believe this movie is one that will be around and enjoyed by all for years to come.

**Other Notes**

In a completely different vein, I am going to see Wanted this Thursday. I have heard several reviews stating it is truly incredible on the level of the first Matrix movie. While I tend to take those reviews with a grain of salt, Scott Kurtz over at PVP posted his own glowing review of it this weekend, so I am hoping it will not turn out to be a disappointment. Fingers are crossed.

If anyone has been watching Doctor Who, I got to catch up on the two latest episodes (the two parter Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead). All I can say is wow. They were written by Steven Moffat, so of course they were an intense and incredible ride. They may even surpass season three's Blink, which is probably my favorite episode of scripted television ever. I am not looking forward to the shortened aspect of season five, but I am more than ever excited to see how this show goes with Moffat at the helm.

For anyone who has been keeping track of my DVD pile, I know that it keeps growing and it doesn't seem like I've been making much progress on it as of late. Now that I am back in the full swing of crochet projects and we've got the summer television lull (with the exception of Friday nights, which are about to explode, and Eureka, the Closer, and Burn Notice coming soon), I should start to make a dent in that pile. I only have 2.5 discs left in Babylon 5 season four, and I am aiming to finish the season today or at least come pretty darn close. Of course, next week is when all of my summer DVD releases start arriving, so the pile will probably just stay about the same size I guess. Oh well. I can never truly say that I have nothing to do!

Well folks, that's all I've got. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Happy Independence Day!

Until next time,
C

I am a leaf on the wind...

Oh man. Happy Birthday Joss Whedon.

So, on or around Joss' birthday each year, browncoats around the world get together to raise money for his favorite charity Equality Now by holding screenings of Serenity in local movie theaters. This year there were 50 plus events planned. Luckily my city holds one of them. We got to go last year and were fortunate enough to get to go yesterday to this year's event.

Not only do we get to help raise money for a very worthy cause, but we also get to gather with many like-minded individuals and enjoy a masterpiece of cinema exactly as it was intended to be enjoyed--up on the big screen.

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this movie. It is just an amazing thrill ride. Hell, when I went to take my lunch today, someone in the break room had found it on one of the movie channels (we work at the cable company, so yeah, we get the movie channels in our break room--too bad we have to watch them on a dinky little television that can barely compete with the volume of the ice machine...). It had just started, so I got to get a bit more of my daily Joss with my lunch. Nice. Anyway--as fun as this film is to watch at any time, nothing can compare to watching it in a theater full of browncoats. It is an experience I think everyone who loves the Joss should try to have at some point. Everyone is laughing at all of the right moments, we can cheer with immunity when things go well for our big damn heroes, and we can all still gasp in pain at that moment--you know that moment...until Jayne goes and says something else to make us just start laughing again.

So, as you can tell, I definitely had a ball at the event. In addition to the movie, each location also usually tries to get a guest from the Whedon 'verse and there's a charity auction for EN with all kinds of Joss-related goodies. The auction is fun to watch. My husband and I are starting to think we might come packing some serious cash next year so we can get in on the action the next time around. Who knows. If you are a fan of all things Joss, or if you just like Firefly/Serenity, I really encourage you to check the event out next year. It's called Can't Stop the Serenity, and here's the site link.

Our special guest this year was Tim Minear, who has worked on Joss' shows Angel and Firefly, as well as is working with Joss on the forthcoming Dollhouse. He also worked on some show called The X Files as well as both short-lived but much acclaimed series Wonderfalls (which I have yet to experience) and Drive. I have to say, he was pretty darn entertaining.

One question asked of him really got me to thinking though. The question was this: Is Shepherd Book an Operative or a Cylon?

Obviously, someone was trying to find out the truth about Book's past while also having a little bit of fun. Minear stated definitively that Book is not a Cylon , but wouldn't answer about the other part--though he did comment that his restraint in answering was due to the fact that there are plans to reveal Book's backstory in an upcoming comic book. Cool beans.

Though Minear denied that Book is the last Cylon it did cross my mind that if there were two compatible 'verses in the world, it just might be the Firefly and BSG 'verses. Is it not possible that the people who ended up on Kobol left Earth and went one way and the people who ended up becoming the Alliance's minions simply went another? Space, after all, is big. Really big. It's certainly got my fanfic writing juices flowing. The more I think about it, the more I want to write this crossover. Heck, it's not even going to take the finagling with the timeline that I initially had thought might be required--which was to move the events of Firefly from 500 years in our future to 5000. Instead, if we go with the assumption that the people of Kobol left Earth in its very distant past, and get to Earth around the time of the events of Serenity....hmm....

Okay, I promise I won't subject you to that line of thought (unless you're interested in it, in which case, I will direct you to the place of my posting once/if I get this thing actually started). This blog isn't about fanfic, I swear.

One last reflection on the Firefly 'verse. If we choose to look at Joss Whedon's body of work from the Stephen King angle, we can make a reasonable assumption that all of his works are somehow connected to each other by some thread. So, I give you this--what if River's a Slayer? Maybe the Alliance meddling with her brain, in addition to the creation of the Reavers, activated the first Slayer in centuries? It could explain why she shows progress overcoming her mental distress and why she is truly the Alliance's greatest success in that particular venture. Just a thought. :o)

Anyhoo, I hope you all have a super week. Watch some Firefly, or some Buffy, or some Angel. Do something to salute Joss. He's a good guy.

'Til next time folks, hope it's all shiny,
C

Theories abound.

I must start by apologizing for the delay in posting. I was halfway through writing this thing last Sunday when the fuse box at my house exploded. I've been without power until this morning. The hotel we were staying at, in addition to some other personal matters that came up, really wasn't too conducive to blogging.

I know that it's a bit late, but here are my thoughts on the season four episode of Battlestar Galactica, Revelations. At the very least the late post means everyone who wants to should have had the chance to see it by now. If not, you can check it out online at SciFi Channel's website or at Hulu.

**Warning!**
This post contains major spoilers for the Battlestar Galactica Season 4 mid-season finale episode!

**Okay, you've been warned.**

Man, what an episode. There have been plenty of critics stating that this season of BSG has so far been slow-paced and that nothing really interesting has happened. I can only speculate that they have been watching some completely different series--perhaps the old school BSG?

Anyhoo, so, the Colonials and the renegade Cylons have found Earth. Or have they? No seriously though, they have. I really want to smack all of those people who are trying to say that there's no way this is Earth. Especially since they're basing this hypothesis solely on the fact that in the orbital shot of the planet we can't identify the familiar continents as we could in the season three finale. So what? It's Earth. I know Ron Moore likes to mess with our heads, but I just can't see any valid reason to assume this is anything but. I have two major reasons for accepting this without question:

• The constellations match those that they found in the Tomb of Athena back in season two. We know that the original twelve colonies are based on the twelve zodiac signs of Earth, and those are the twelve constellations that the fleet has been searching for even since Kobol.
• Starbuck. We’ve seen what kind of hysterics this chick is capable of. She would be throwing a royal hissy fit if they stopped outside a planet that clearly wasn't the one she had spent some time orbiting in her little Viper. I just have a hard time believing that she would fail to notice if they ended up at some completely different planet. I mean, come on.

So while these probably aren't iron-clad reasons for knowing that our heroes have found Earth, I am, given these facts, perfectly willing to accept that they have until or unless Ron Moore gives us reason to believe otherwise.

So much happened in this episode that it is difficult for me not to just focus on the last five minutes or so. But I will try to hit some of the highlights before I get to that part.

First off, there's D'Anna. With Natalie's death she's now the self-appointed leader of the Cylon rebels. She's just as ruthless as she ever was, except when it comes to Gaius. After promising Roslyn that she would reveal the final five once Roslyn had taken her to the fleet, she changes up the plan upon arrival, stating that she is going to hold all of the humans on the Base Star hostage until the four of the five who are actually in the fleet (more on that in a minute) are allowed to leave the fleet and come to the Base Star.

Obviously this is a flawed plan. For one thing you've got the fact that the leaders of the fleet are now convinced that the final five are the key to finding Earth, and you know the humans don't want to give up their ticket to their new home. Then there's the fact that three of the four don't want to go to the Base Star anyway.

Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders may not be sure of their new roles within the fleet once their true nature is revealed, but they sure as hell don't want to give up on what humanity is left to them. Tory, of course, having embraced her robot-ness long ago jumps at the chance to head on over to the Base Star and join "her people." Man, I really want bad things to happen to her. It boggles my mind that early on in season three I learned of an online BSG role playing game that was getting together and I was considering throwing in my hat to play Tory. I can't even imagine how that would have ended up going. I think her character's story arc is great, but I don't actually like her any more. Whereas, while earlier on in the season I was kind of questioning what they were doing with Tyrol, I am completely digging the place he's come to at this point. He's reached an almost Zen level of looking at things.

So, of course the fleet finds out the identities of the four revealed at the end of season three. I had been wondering if Tigh would actually be able to keep his secret from the Admiral for much longer. I am not even remotely surprised that he gave up Anders and Tyrol. His sense of duty has long since been firmly established, and he's been fighting with it all season. Once the cat was out of the bag about him, there was no reason for him not to reveal the remaining two. I also like how Anders and Tyrol were completely accepting of the fact that Tigh gave them up without a thought. They knew from the moment they found out that they couldn't keep this secret forever, and you can tell there was almost a palpable sense of relief that they didn't have to hide any more, even if that meant that their days, or more like hours, were now severely numbered.

Reactions to the revelation were fascinating for me to watch. Roslin was clearly floored to learn the truth about Tory, and her hopeful pleas to get her former aid to reason with D'Anna were very touching. Too bad Tory has turned into a raging power-hungry b*%@#. In sharp contrast to that was Baltar's highly amusing "I knew it!" wherein he quickly amended he hadn't actually known anything but had to have subconsciously suspected something. I mean, why else would he be shagging someone who didn't buy into all of his cult mumbo-jumbo? Starbuck's reaction to her husband's true nature was pleasantly surprising. We remember back in the first episode of season four when Anders stated he'd love her even if she did turn out to be a Cylon and her reaction that he was a better person than her because if she found out the same about him she'd pull out her gun and shoot him between the eyes on the spot. Instead of this self-predicted reaction, the look on her face was just floored shock. Her shock was quickly followed up by realizing that her husband was being sent to the airlock and honoring his final request to just trust him about her Viper, working to determine how it was the clue to Earth and in the end saving the lives of all three of the newly revealed Cylons aboard Galactica. I don’t think she’s by any means come to accept the fact that Anders is a Cylon, but I now have hope that she might. Then there was Admiral Adama. Poor Bill. He just finally admitted to himself how much he loved Laura, and just finally got her to admit that she loved him and BAM! He finds out his best friend and war buddy of the last thirty years is a Cylon. The man was shattered. As my husband said, he will never be the same again. His breakdown (and Lee's attempts at consoling him) was extremely well done and touching.

Another big development in this episode was D'Anna's comment that only four of the final five were in the fleet. This tidbit has sparked all kinds of debate already in the short time since the episode aired. Speculation ranges from the final Cylon being on Earth, to the final Cylon actually being Earth, to the final Cylon being someone who has died (i.e. Admiral Cane, Billy, or Kendra Shaw, etc.). D'Anna clearly knows who the final Cylon is, because we know she saw all five and he hasn't denied that she knows the faces of all five. So here are my theories as to what she meant by only four of the five are in the fleet:

• The final Cylon isn't yet activated and therefore doesn't know he/she is a Cylon, so D'Anna isn't counting that one until activation occurs.
• The final Cylon was on the Base Star already and therefore not part of the fleet. Obviously D'Anna wouldn't be telling anyone that since she was using her knowledge of the final five as leverage to stay alive and get what she wants. Also, she wouldn't need to bargain for the last Cylon to come to the Base Star since he/she was already there.
• The final Cylon is a survivor back on Caprica who didn't escape with the fleet but has since been captured, along with other humans, by the Cylons for some nefarious purpose. Or, alternately, the final Cylon was a human that didn't escape with the fleet from New Caprica and is somewhere with the other Cylons. It would explain her "I didn't know, I'm so sorry" moment from season three when she saw the faces of the final five. I know there's no real basis of fact for this last thought, but it seems at least remotely possible that the Cylons kept some of the humans around for study or experimenting, or just as prisoners. Not all of them wanted to make amends when the Sixes and Eights started pushing for peace.

I just have a really hard time believing that it could be someone who we have seen previously who has died and is therefore no longer part of the fleet. There has been too much emphasis on the fact that Cylon resurrection is no longer a possibility with the destruction of the Hub. I realize the counter argument to this is that the final Cylon would have resurrected back when they died, and therefore the destruction of the Hub wouldn't have affected them at all. But wouldn't the Cylons have noticed if someone who was clearly not one of the established seven models just woke up in one of their resurrection facilities? Would they not be completely freaking out about that? And is that even possible? It's not like the resurrection ships have bodies for the final five lying around just in case. Because then they would know who the final five were. I guess there could be a secret resurrection facility for the final five that isn't connected to the Hub, but that doesn't seem terribly feasible, since we know that a Cylon does have to be within a certain range of the facility in order to download, and it's doubtful this one is following the fleet along. Could be though I guess. Although you have to admit it hasn't even been established if the final five are/were capable of resurrection at all. So there's that to consider as well.

I am of the mind that the last Cylon most likely hasn't been activated and was on the Base Star. D’Anna would have had the chance to encounter that Cylon, therefore knowing that he/she wasn’t active yet as well as that he/she wasn’t in the fleet at the time. The other posters I’ve seen who seem to agree with me are leaning towards Helo as the missing one of the final five. Of course, that’s the easy answer to the riddle she has provided, so I am probably way off base here. That’s the beauty of the show. Two episodes ago, Natalie’s death had a lot of us thinking maybe Doc Cottle was the last one, but according to D’Anna’s claim, that leaves him out. I can’t wait to find out who it actually is. Looks like I’ll have to though.

On a brief aside, D’Anna gave me one of my favorite moments of the episode, and with all of the dark things happening; it was one of the more comedic as well. As she stepped off of the Raptor onto Galactica, many of the fleet had gathered to see her arrival. This of course included the four Cylons in hiding. I loved her little look around, catching the eye of each of them, and then announcing that she was “in contact” with the four. Beautiful. I am sure there are those out there who are taking this to mean she has some sort of psychic or electric connection with the final five, and this would explain her knowledge that there were only four in the fleet, but I don’t buy that. I’m of the opinion that the only time a Cylon is really truly connected to the other Cylons is during the downloading process, while they are still just raw data outside of a body. D’Anna certainly has come closer to retaining memories of those times, but I don’t yet believe she’s figured out a way to harness it while in a body.

All of this leads up to the fleet finding out the identities of the four Cylons revealed at the end of season three. We then get the inevitable betrayal/standoff between the humans and Cylons which is resolved by an agreement to go to Earth together. Then the fleet and the Base Star jump to Earth.

Wow. The moments of celebration we get to see throughout the fleet almost made me heartsick. I’ve learned by now that any time that many people get that happy about something on this show, the rug is about to be yanked right out from underneath them. Yank. We get pretty much the entire “main” cast taking a trip down to the planet to finally get to see their new home. The planet is, for lack of a better description, a desiccated husk. A detector aimed at a fistful of soil picked up by Admiral Adama—and don’t you think this man has had enough blows yet?—indicates that the planet is radioactive. Oh joy. The place looks like everyone’s worst fears of how World War III will leave the planet. We get a beautiful and devastating shot of the cast as they all look around and realize that their quest has ended and Earth is nothing like they hoped or even expected. There’s some interesting set decoration in this shot as well. They have landed near the ruins of a temple that resemble a building shown in the scriptures (one that Lee is seen looking at early on in the episode). In the ruins is something that very much appears to be a Christian cross. Hmm.

As you can guess, there’s all manner of speculation regarding when on Earth the fleet has landed. A lot of this hinges on what the original cycle of colonization actually might be. Did the people start at Earth and then go to Kobol and from there colonize the twelve planets? Did they start on Kobol, meaning Earth was actually discovered by the thirteenth tribe? The only people who know the answers to those questions certainly aren’t talking.

There have been some intriguing proposals put forth that all of this is happening in our distant past and that the current inhabitants of Earth are the descendents of the human fleet and Cylons. This could be an interpretation of the hybrid’s prophesy that Starbuck will bring the human race to its end. If the humans and Cylons come together to create a new race—us—then the human race as the colonists know it really will come to an end. This also makes sense in the general mythology—Ancient Greece’s pantheon could be a holdover from the gods of Kobol that were brought to Earth by the colonists.

I still tend to fall in with the belief that this is all happening in our distant future. I feel that humans left Earth to explore the universe, found Kobol and colonized it, for some reason founding their religion and culture on Ancient Greece (with space travel). Then when they decided to leave Kobol, the thirteenth tribe wasn’t just going off in some random direction but actually returning home, while the rest of humanity on that planet decided to go forth and explore some more. I think it explains a little better why the original names for the colonies were those of our constellations, as well as how the other twelve colonies knew that the thirteenth went to a planet called Earth. The scriptures are full of clues on how to find the way to Earth. I don’t know that they could contain that information if the people hadn’t already known the way there at some point. Some arguments state it can’t be future Earth because we don’t have any temples like the one the fleet lands by—but it’s not like a new religion couldn’t rise up (or an old one gain new ground, for that matter) and cause new or different temples to be built.

Either way, this is all just truly idle speculation. We won’t know until Ron shows us. I wish we didn’t have to wait until 2009, but hopefully they won’t keep us waiting too far past January. It looks like we won’t be lacking for new material in the meantime, either. I’ve been hearing talk of more webisodes to be aired on SciFi during the break. We’re also definitely getting at least one more telemovie, possibly at the end of this year. I’m sure all of these won’t give us any new or groundbreaking revelations, but they could provide some clues. I’m even actually hoping they’ll do what they did for season two and release the DVDs in two parts, one before the hiatus ends. Though I guess I can always just check out SciFi or Hulu to watch this season’s episodes again.

So there are my many thoughts on the BSG mid-season finale. I hope you’ve enjoyed them, and if not, well, feel free to share your own opinions.

So say we all.

C

Spreading the love...

I love getting to share a show I like with someone else. It's so much fun to hear that they enjoy it as much as I do, or to actually get to watch with them and see them experience it for the first time.

This weekend, we got to introduce my mother-in-law to the awesomeness of The Office. She had seen bits and pieces of it of course, but had never had the chance to sit down and watch an entire episode. So when we went in for a visit this weekend, we took in the first three seasons on DVD to loan to her.

She's just retired from a very admirable teaching career and now she actually has some free time to use on things like watching television shows. The hubby and I had an engagement yesterday evening, but before we left we watched the first few episodes with her and when we returned we found she had already finished the (admittedly short) first season.

Good stuff. She really seemed to dig it and I'm exited to hear her reactions as the next two seasons unfold.

So if you've got a loved one in your life (or just an acquaintance that you can trust with your stuff), find a show you know they'd like but have never gotten a chance to view, and pass it along. Adding new fans is always a good step towards keeping those great shows around for a little longer, and if the show isn't still on the air, well, that doesn't mean that new people can't enjoy it as well.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Check you later,
C

Stargate Disappointment

So, I bought the Stargate cartoon that came out, Stargate Infinity. I have to say, I am pretty disappointed. I knew going into it that this was a show that was a) intended for kids, and b) supposed to be completely separate from the parent show. Even so, the creators fell far short of meeting my expectations of the kind of quality I have come to expect from this franchise. I was only able to watch the first disc of the four, which I think was about six episodes. A part of me hopes that maybe it got better, but I kind of don't think there's any way that it did.

So today I'm going to use this space to share my primary beefs:

• Lack of any kind of introduction. Here's the thing. As far as I can figure, this show was intended for a completely new audience, not supposed to be familiar with the Stargate mythology/canon. But the first episode just jumps into the story (which honestly wasn't that good). There's no explanation of what the Stargate is, what the purpose of Stargate Command happens to be, how Stargate teams are chosen or made up, etc. The closest thing we get is when someone refers to naquadah, they state that it is the same material that makes up the Stargate. That's cool, except they continue to state that every time they talk about naquadah. Okay, we get the point already. Also, this is supposed to be set in the future, when the SGC is no longer a secret. Okay, there's no actual mention of any of that, no context of when this is actually set or what the program does now. It feels to me like the creators expected the audience to be familiar with the general Stargate story, but if that's the case, then they are really stupid, because they really should have given some exposition in the opening episode about how things have changed in the program. What we have here is something designed to immediately lose anyone who doesn't already have a general idea of what's going on as well as to piss off anyone who does. Also, there's a human character that is psychic. When did that start being normal? That, at the very least, deserved some attention or explanation and got none.
  
• Total disregard for the existing canon. I'm sorry, but if it is going to carry the Stargate name, it needs to follow the Stargate rules. Okay, yes, as far as I can tell, no one who was involved in the original show had anything to do with this, but it's like the cartoon show-runners just got handed a basic summary of the Stargate universe and started making shit up. Not cool man. My biggest issue is the character of Draga. She's this big orange alien looking thing that they have decided is an Ancient. WTF?????? Okay, I realize, looking at the dates on this, that this ran about the same time as season 6 of SG-1, and that is the season we find out that the Ascended beings are actually what is left of the Ancients, and that the Ancients are therefore humanoid. So at the outset of the cartoon the general Stargate viewer didn't know that the Ancients weren't orange aliens, but come on, someone somewhere had to already know this and this information should have been passed along, darn it. Watching it now, when we know exactly what the Ancients were and where their home planet was, etc. it just gets my blood bubbling. That one may have been an honest mistake, but there were also other issues. For example, in the first couple of episodes the team had gone through the Earth gate then gone through another gate. Then they sat around worrying that the bad guys would show up at any moment. How? It has been clearly established that the Stargate doesn't have redial. At best you can pull the last fifty addresses dialed and try to figure out which one someone used by trial and error, but that takes some time. Sure, since it's set in the future, maybe someone has figured out that particular obstacle, but we find out several episodes later that no, there's still no way to figure out the last address dialed on a gate. So why were they acting like there was in the start? Ergh.
• General stupidity on the part of the characters. Again, I realize this is geared towards kids. But still. Kids aren't necessarily idiots. They've got grown people in a government organization, who have been given all kinds of responsibility making stupid mistakes just to get a lesson across at the end of the episode. I'm sorry, but someone who made it into the SGC, even in a time where it's not classified and top-secret, has to be the best of the best, whether they be a scientist or a soldier. There are other ways to get lessons across to the audience. Give the character a specific, believable, flaw and use that. That's how they do it on SG-1 and Atlantis. I am not sure why they couldn't have done it that way on Infinity as well. Maybe it's just lack of the right writers.
• Crappy animation. Seriously. This hearkens back to the stuff that was out when I was a kid. We're talking Kid Video level animation. I'm sorry, but cartoons have come too far for that to be acceptable these days. And maybe that was a stylistic choice (again, maybe they were doing a very poor job of trying to aim this also at the adult Stargate audience), but it just didn't work. In addition to the style, the, I guess costuming is the word, was atrocious. People in a military organization were running around with mullets and punk rock hairdos. Everyone had weird facial tattoos that I didn't get, and everyone was dressed like something out of the Laser Tag cartoon. It drives me nuts when people set things in the future and decide they need to do extreme makeovers on how people dress and do their hair. It's one thing to give aliens a radically different appearance, but if this truly was only set a generation into the future as the back of the box says, then there's no way people are dressing like that. Grr.
  

Okay, so yeah, this was pretty much just a rant, but I had to get it out there.

I feel like I am in general a pretty indiscriminate and forgiving television fan, especially when it comes to something I've been proven to like in the past. With any adaptation, there are bound to be changes or disappointments, but for the most part, and with few exceptions (*cough* Eragon *cough*) I am usually able to accept the new form of something for what it is. This one though, it just wasn't possible. Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are witty, fun, action filled shows that even when they border on ridiculous still make sense. Very rarely do they give us a setting or costume choice that completely distracts from the story. They even, after 12 years, have managed to stay pretty consistent with canon. The potential for a Stargate cartoon to be just phenomenal is there, and I think, had it been kept within the creative family of the rest of the franchise, it would have been. As it is, I don't think that Infinity deserves to bear the name of Stargate.

Anyhoo, that's my two cents for this week. I'll try to write something happier next time.

Till then, take care.

C