Oh my, here we are again, disagreeing. It's been awhile. I've enjoyed the respite. I hope you did too
mon petite Yoshi.
Okay, first off I don't disagree with you completely as I think you are right about Brad Wright being creative with SG-1 and SGA. That said, you go off the rails when you try to paint him as some
artiste. He didn't show a "spark" of creativity in defiance of economic factors when it came to SGU. He made the decision to go with SGU because to his mind it was what was hot and in vogue, i.e. it was what was
selling at that time.
SGU was
completely comprised of stolen plot ideas, copied characters and blatantly ripped-off cinematic styles. Please don't expect me to list all the shows that SGU ripped off in terms of story as I don't think there's enough bandwith at this site to list them all. And please don't expect me to rattle off the countless characters that were blatantly stolen from other shows and movies because that would take just as much bandwith. Every character on SGU had come before and yet Brad Wright, your precious
artiste, didn't do anything new with those characters. My God, watch the first season of
Lost in Space from the 60's and you'll see the original version of "Dr. Rush" in the character of "Dr. Smith".
There was no "spark" of artistic creativity in using these already tried styles and stories and characters, there was simply cynicism on Wright's part. He cynically thought that he could take the economic success of SG-1/SGA and couple it with a style of show that had been successful for others and then sit back and collect the accolades. "Spark" - no, devious cynicism - yes.
In short your argument tries to paint BW as a risk taker and yet when you look at SGU it's obvious he was taking no risks at all. He was cynically using formulas that others had used successfully and he lazily expected those methods to pay off for him economically. Let me repeat that -- Brad Wright fully expected SGU to pay off economically because he was using stolen concepts and characters that had proven successful for others in the industry. If one doesn't believe there is a chance of failure then one isn't taking a risk. BW firmly believed that he could sally forth to success riding on the past success of SG-1 and SGA, coupled with using the successful methods others had used before him. For him it was a guaranteed success. Again, there was no risk involved and most certainly no "spark".
Brad Wright - risk taking artiste, no. Brad Wright - once creative but now exhausted, cynical hack, yes.
S.A.
(Ah, that was fun. I miss the good old days.
)
