Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Farscape being to Star Trek

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Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :

Though this thread should be placed in the Sci-Fi thread, I felt that this show was being placed in this thread. So, that explains my rationale for placing this topic here.

I like Farscape for its approach to telling stories and attempting to develop characters. This is a very enjoyable show for me.

On the other hand, I don't like seeing the show being used as a reason for disliking Star Trek. Farscape is not an extension of Star Trek. Rather, the show is an alternative approach to Sci-Fi.

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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

*takes notes* Farscape is not Star Trek... Got It!

Now, seeing as I've never watched Farscape I'll just sit in the corner of this discussion, blowing air in a moonshine jar. *toot* *toot*

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Thanks!

No matter what we think of it (I don't like Farscape), I think we shouldn't begin comparing apples and pears. Even if I find some points I like better about Farscape, what is the point of suggesting to change Star Trek accordingly? Do we want a "Grand Unified Scifi Show" that is perfect for everyone?

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"There is an intelligent lifeform out on the other side of that television too."
(Gene Roddenberry)
Ex Astris Scientia

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Farcape has continuity, so it is nothing like Star Trek...

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"I don't poke my head into business world too much. All I care about is making the show. And naked stuff."

- Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Aliens with an Australian accent? I dunno. Never had the guts to watch a full episode.

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Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Star Trek has fans, so it must be nothing like Farscape...

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"And as it is, it is cheaper than drinking."
-DT on arguing with Omega, April 30

Posted by Teelie (Member # 280) on :

Farscape has fans, they just don't dress up like characters/aliens and invent whole languages after what they hear of a made up on the show, or nitpick the smallest inconsistancies (large ones I can understand, the missing fruit tray in a single scene I cannot) so it's certainly not Trek.

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�

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Ants in pants! Ants in pants!

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OH NO< THE OLD MAN WALKS HIS GREEN DOG THAT SHOTS PINBALLS!~!!!
--
Jeff K
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and nothing at all will happen.

Posted by crobato on :

"*takes notes* Farscape is not Star Trek... Got It!"

Yup. Farscape is well written, to start with.

[This message has been edited by crobato (edited May 23, 2001).]

Posted by crobato on :

"Star Trek has fans, so it must be nothing like Farscape..."

Yup. Farscape appeals to the general mainstream SF audiences who can read anything from Asimov to Zahn and does not need a cult who knows little about SF beyond the Trek boundary.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

"invent whole languages after what they hear of a made up on the show"

Is that a reference to the Klingon language? That was invented by one of the people working on the show.

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"Even the colors are pompous!"
-a friend of mine, looking at a Lexus brochure

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Ok, ha ha, I think we all get it now.

Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :

Farscape doesn't rock by boat. And I did give it a chance.

Neither does Andromeda, I mean how many million member worlds did the Commonwealth have, and how many galaxies did it span? Roddenberry peaked with Trek, and in my book did okay with Earth: Final Conflict.

Andromeda and Farscape can go on the pile currently occupied with the likes of Space above and Beyond. I'm not completely biased to only Trek. I like other sci-fi shows too. I have great admiration for:

X-Files
Stargate SG1
Babylon 5 (when it was running)
First Wave

..and tons more. I even quite like that Roswell High. But I don't like Buffy - I mean the actual show, not SMG :-)))

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"Synthetic scotch, synthetic Commanders...."
-Scotty

http://www.trekmania.net

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Who doesn't like Sub-Machine Guns?!

But HEY!! Space: Above and Beyond? That show was cancelled because the guys doing it couldn't decide what direction to take, what to emphasize on, except the horror of war, that element was ever-present.

But the idea was great! I, for one, hadn't seen a futuristic sci-fi series that showed us the grunt's perspective in a long time. And how they moved between the infantry soldier mode to fighter pilot mode was great!
The actors were better than almost everything from Babylon 5, some exceptions of course, and the film-quality, the close camera angles and close up of faces made me feel really "in there". That's where the other series were kind of detached.
Many scenes lacked music as well, except for the speech and the quiet rumbling of the ship engines... That felt nice, you could focus on the dialogue.

The ships were great, the animations and "Lightwave"-created VFX were better than anything Babylon 5 ever did with its Lightwave, especially in the S:AaB pilot.

Did you even see the episode "The angriest angel"?

The only thing I didn't like was how they in the second season started putting "plot explanations" during the opening credits, the same as the next-to-last season of Babylon 5. Shut up during the cred's, man!!!

As for the debate on weapon traces, I think S:AaB pulled it off nicely. They DID have lasers aboard the Saratoga, and when its nose mounted 1,2 Gigawatt laser pulse cannon joined all the other batteries and fired, that one and only time during a planetary bombardment, I was very happy.

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"Babies haven't any hair;
old men's heads are just as bare;
between the cradle and the grave
lies a haircut and a shave."

Samuel Hoffenstein

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

I got bored from the tooting, allright?

Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :

Granted - much of what you say Nimrod I agree on actually. But the reason S:AaB didn't make it with me -and I didn't explain this, was because it fell away rapidly towards the end by not living up to a lot of the potential the show had - and of which I was sure would be acted on. I can't name specifics because it was a few years ago now and the show and story arc are no longer fresh in memory. But I do recall at the time there were some very cool things in this show. The Lightwave work was great, and I appreciate this as I use Lightwave to render my own starship designs (see my site link below :-))

I appreciate seeing the grunt perspective as well. Ever see 'Starship Troopers'? Of course you must have. This is such a fun movie. There's nothing better in that particular genre. Unless you quote 'Aliens', but that's a much darker, more serious affair.

In many ways, the S:AaB space navy mirrors what I used to believe a pre-Federation Earth Force could be like. I think 'Enterprise' may blow many of our aspirations anyway on that. But that's another thread.

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"Synthetic scotch, synthetic Commanders...."
-Scotty

http://www.trekmania.net

Posted by crobato on :

I would put Space Above and Beyond in the same category as Babylon 5:The Crusade---a very good show with generally good ratings but was overbudget to begin with. SAB rocks---it remains one of the best SF shows I have ever seen, a tad better than B5 and superior even to DS9. SAB was destined for cancellation due to its cost, which almost happened to Dark Angel by the way. SAB never enjoyed a protective umbrella network like Sci-Fi channel or UPN. Crusade suffered a similar fate---good show, good ratings but TNT as any thing that has the Turner name, is a tightwad and couldn't afford it.

The top five quality SF shows now, and it's a tossup:
X-Files, Farscape, the Outer Limits, Stargate SG1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These shows are consistently rated by critics, magazines, showbiz experts, and opinion polls being the best SF shows or in the case of the Buffy, the best show of the season period. Of the five, I may put X-Files, Buffy and Farscape a little ahead.

Rounding it near the top 10, will be First Wave, Angel, Andromeda, Roswell, and Earth FC.

[This message has been edited by crobato (edited May 25, 2001).]

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Crusade? Huh. These dimensional leaps are really starting to confuse me. How many continents are there on this planet?

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Shit like "Buffy" & "Angel" & the rest of that vampire shit never struck me as sci-fi. It's fantasy to me, for my personal definitions. I never got it anyway.

Anything that deals with the supernatural is fantasy for me. "X-Files" skirts the lines which was nice when I watched it.

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Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

I tend to toss "Highlander" into the fantasy department as well.

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

How about "Sulphur"?

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OB1 tries to make Anakin a Jedi, gets a Sith.
Palpatine tries to make Anakin a Sith, gets a toaster.
OB1 tries to make Luke a Jedi, gets attacked by the toaster, then gets a cyborg whiner.
Palpatine tries to make Luke a Sith, gets a piece of burnt toast, then gets attacked by the toaster.

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I was also going to ask why people kept mentioning "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I only ever saw the movie, but, from what I know of the show, I didn't think there was anything sci-fi about it...

As for "The X-Files"... It isn't so much sci-fi, really, but it's close... I might call it "para-sci-fi"...

Posted by crobato (Member # 542) on :

Generally, industry analysts would lump SF, fantasy and horror TV shows into something called "genre" TV show.

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I think it's because of the incompetence of journalists that "Scifi", "Mystery", "Horror" and "Fantasy" are always thrown together - although the only thing they have in common is that they are showing a world different from the one we know.

If at all, I would compare Star Trek only to other science fiction.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I don't know about mystery, but horror and fantasy have always been under the umbrella of science fiction. That's why fantasy novels can (though rarely do) win the Hugo.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

But that doesn't make it any less wrong...

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

In your opinion.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

In these times where industry pundits are terrified of labelling anything as sci-fi ("it's space opera" "it's fantasy!" "It's the present-day, but with spooky stuff"), it's refreshing to see everyone's got their nerd hairs raised. And Buffy is good. And Angel is good AND funny.

I would like to make one related comment:

"Aliens with an Australian accent? I dunno. Never had the guts to watch a full episode."

I know how you feel. Do you know how hard it is to get through TV shows where all the aliens have an American accent? It's a nightmare.

I'd have a go at you more, but you watch The Fast Show.

Dexter's Lab is undoubtably science fiction. Cause I said so. But does that make The Powerpuff Girls sci-fi or fantasy? Eh? EH?!

Posted by crobato (Member # 542) on :

I would say that Powerpuff and Dexter's Lab are parodies, and so is Futurama. Parody does not exclude a show from being SF in the general term.

Frankly I love shows with accents---British accents, Australian accents. Babylon 5 actually used the various European like accents in the show as a device to "accent" its weirdness and diversity---and played that feeling of diversity much better than DS9.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Well, there's Londo and the occasional Centauri, but other than that? Delenn had an accent but only because Mira F. did. It was hardly a shared Minbari trait.

Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :

Which shows how much YOU watched. There were quite a few non-Yank accents around, and when - for instance - they needed a British accent, they usually got a Brit, not an Italian-American with a bad dialogue coach (thank you so much, Frasier).

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Oh, forgive me, I forgot that B5 had the bloody greatest bloody British actor ever. Bloody.

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

I don't remember Benny Hill being on B5....?

Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :

I take it you mean that long haired guy who was a Ranger. As a Brit, and I speak for my people, we were utterly mortified at this guy and his non-existent acting ability. I forget his name, I must have unknowingly installed some kind of mental block to prevent me from ever recalling....

But to defend British acting talent, I only have to quote the likes of Alec Guiness, Anthony Hopkins, and of course our lord Patrick Stewert. And no, I won't mention Hugh grant in the same breath....

Posted by Hunter (Member # 611) on :

Jason Carter played the Ranger Marcus Cole. I didnt think that he was that bas an actor, certainly he is nothing compared to the git who played Bryon. Thats bad acting not to mention a complete waste of air time that could have been better spent on preety much anything.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Well, I don't know if I would give Marcus any awards, though I wouldn't give him whatever they give actors who are insane. Paddlings, I guess. I was commenting more on a certain word that seemed to creep into every sentence as a proof of his nationality. Cor blimy.

Posted by Nimrod (Member # 205) on :

And he was utterly pathetic as the demon instigator in "Charmed", where he pitted the sisters against eachother with his powers of irritation and frustration.
Not a convincing crook, neu.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

JMS did seem to have the strange idea that accents are genetic. Since Marcus wasn't born in England, and, IIRC, had never actually been to England.

He did know about King Arthur though. Because that is ingrained in our very chromosomes. Yes. Bloody bastards.

Posted by Jeff The Card (Member # 411) on :

What DID you guys do with Excalibur, anyway?

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Excalibur is hanging on a wall in my father's den. The Holy Grail is in the safe.