"Terra Nova" cancelled by Fox

[VF5SS]

I don't see any of those as being really about xeno exterminating dick waving. I mean, most of those franchises could barely afford having anything other than costumed actors be the bad guys. Old BSG had hijinks and stock footage and A-team stuff. SW has space WW2 just to intercut with personal character drama. ST only had the big DS9 stuff as major conflict. It's more like space politics and melodrama with some pew pews for weight.

Space fighting is expensive to produce no matter how you slice it so they keep the basic talking cuz it's easy to shoot.

You want space broadsides, go play Colony Wars. It's even got James Earl Jones.

[Havok]

Humans being bad asses = xeno exterminating dick waving? OK.
This is why you are a douche.
Hey maybe we can add giant robots, then you can cumm all over it?

[Batman]

Let me see. Trek-humans (prior to ENT) kicking alien butt if and when they had to (including quasiomnipotent butt on occasion)-check. B5-humans kicking butt (including each others and on occasion the local watered down version of quasiomnipotents)-check. Wars-humans for all practical purpose rule the galaxy (if not necessarily for very good reasons or under a very desirable regime)-check. Yes, I do think humanity not being the underdog that needs to play catch-up is quite nicely established in modern media SciFi.

[VF5SS]

Humans being bad asses = xeno exterminating dick waving? :lol: OK.
This is why you are a douche.
Hey maybe we can add giant robots, then you can cumm all over it?

Least I'm not an insufferable internet tryhard~

We want humanity as Bad Ass Space Mother Fuckers. Evil Aliens to wage war against. Good Aliens to make alliances with. Awesome spaceships and cool laser guns. Space travel in days not years. Space fighters and space broadsides!

sry i thought this was pretty evident you don't care about anything except style over substance. I can't help it if I think anything involving the phrase "bad ass" isn't a masturbatory fantasy.

[Havok]

Humans being bad asses = xeno exterminating dick waving? OK.
This is why you are a douche.
Hey maybe we can add giant robots, then you can cumm all over it?

Least I'm not an insufferable internet tryhard~

Wow... You sure about that sport?

We want humanity as Bad Ass Space Mother Fuckers. Evil Aliens to wage war against. Good Aliens to make alliances with. Awesome spaceships and cool laser guns. Space travel in days not years. Space fighters and space broadsides!

sry i thought this was pretty evident you don't care about anything except style over substance. I can't help it if I think anything involving the phrase "bad ass" isn't a masturbatory fantasy.

That's what you get for thinking when it doesn't involve Robotech.

[Stofsk]

Also Hav and veef - both of you are engaging in personal attacks at this stage. Knock that shit off.

[Lurks-no-More]

Just how scifi was Terra Nova anyway? I mean wasn't this just really a drama set someplace else? Would it have been fundamentally different if they'd place them on an island that you can't leave inhabited by dinosaurs, i.e stick them in Jurassic Park with a one way ticket? Instead of timeparallel..dimension..doohickey?

Yeah. It was IMO a waste of a good premise with poor writing and characters.

[Havok]

Also Hav and veef - both of you are engaging in personal attacks at this stage. Knock that shit off.

So, not my fault he makes assumptions and don't like me.

As I said, B5 is a good example of "humans struggling with the help of XYZ" and it was successful, because at the time, it was a refreshing change from Star Trek and Star Wars, but I feel people are tired of it as it has become the norm in TV sci-fi. Even the off kilter stuff like Heroes and Lost and V and now this Terra Nova, are groups of humans struggling against XYZ. (Yes yes, I understand the different themes of the shows, but the struggle is still the point.)

I don't think people want that anymore. I think even playing fields are what make sci-fi work. Even with stuff like the Dominion war in DS9, at first it's like "OMG they are gonna kill us!" but then in an episode or two, its "Thank gawd for our engineers now it's even." It's there, but it's not the lynchpin of the series. Star Wars is a little less like this and more what I don't like, but it's not the human struggle, it's the Rebellion's struggle. Again though, not the point of the story. (father/son redemption) The struggle is a backdrop, not the point.

This is why I am looking forward to the Star Wars live action show. It's not even going to address humanity or it's place in the universe. It's just gonna be (hopefully) cool stories in a cool sci-fi setting.

I would love to see something completely new. With tons of aliens, tons of alliances, different worlds, all sorts of different space ships, where if Earth is even mentioned, it's just a home world. Something where alliances are politically and socially bound, not racially bound.

[Sea Skimmer]

I see Terra Nova is so popular that half the thread is now arguments about Babylon Five or Star Trek. Considering SDN kind of falls into the target audience category, I'd say this is a pretty good vindication for Fox making the call to kill it.

[Connor MacLeod]

Anyhow, getting away from Mr Lighthearted and trying to get back somewhat on track...

This. Fuck shit like nBSG or whatever the hell this was (fucking dinosaurs? really?) or even SG-1 and Babylon 5. I'm tired of "Humanity overmatched, needs help from XYZ"

you have a point, but I would point out that SG-1 probably wasn't quite bad in the 'humanity overmatched' angle. Aside from the whole fact that once they got starships the series ended up 'humanity, fuck yeah!' - see the ending where they're basically given all Ori tech and made protectors of the galaxy or whatever - one of the common themes I can remember from the earlier seasons was humanity succeeds in beating the More Advanced Aliens with their 'primitive' technology - hell that's one of the themes from the movies. They did need help sometimes, but it wasn't always that way.

B5 had some of that at the beginning, I think, but Earth Alliance rapidly became an equal with the 'major' powers (depsite having their asses kicked by the Minbari) and then thorughout the series became more powerful (through their forced alliance wit hthe Minbari - humans WERE the pivotal race in the next war it seems) to the end of the series when we find out humans become First Ones. I even think JMS commented somewhere on how humanity was one of the first to ascend to magic energy being status or something.

This is why I think Star Trek and Star Wars worked so well and so long. And why Enterprise failed. People are bored with humanity finding it's way or having to struggle, gawd dammnit.
We want humanity as Bad Ass Space Mother Fuckers. Evil Aliens to wage war against. Good Aliens to make alliances with. Awesome spaceships and cool laser guns. Space travel in days not years. Space fighters and space broadsides!

I would add that you can have 'badass' in Sci fi without going the 'grimdark' route or 'milwank' route. Space Pirates, Space Smugglers (again Brian Daley's Solo novels come to mind - I dare you to tell me they wouldn't work GREAT as a TV series.) or even just Space Explorers could work in a TV format, and both Star Trek and STar Wars had plenty of both. It doesn't even rule out action or figthing or even human themes to have the 'badass' element in it either. And as you say it would be a fantastic change from the current trend of sci fi.

[Thanas]

Cowl's tangent split to new thread.

Continue.