SGU Producer Joseph Mallozzi Would Like you to Stop Being Idiots
Sci-Fi TV News, Stargate: Universe TV Series — By Nix on November 2, 2009
Well, this, er, is not going to prove very fruitful. Apparently tired of all the “Stargate: Universe” bashers showing up at his blog and leaving, well, SGU bashing comments, SGU producer/writer Joseph Mallozzi has responded with a long statement on his blog.
Besides addressing the overall negativity of “Stargate” loyalists who haven’t seen the light, Mallozzi also addresses some of the more hostile reactions to the show. Unfortunately, I’m afraid he’s only going to keep the “conflict” going by addressing it, which is probably not the intent.
On the negativity towards his cast/crew:
Sadly, the negativity has also taken its toll on one-time regular Sherry, proud mother of actor Brian J. Smith, who, surprised and saddened by some of the hostility here, has elected to no longer read the blog. Also, after several months of connecting with fandom online, Brian is stepping away from his popular twitter account for much the same reason. Some of the very same fans who he was kind enough to open up a dialogue with in the run-up to the premiere started leaving him nasty comments as though he was responsible for the show’s creative direction. I imagine that if Robert Carlyle was on twitter, these same morons would be berating him for being mean to his fellow Destiny crew members.
About the sex in the show:
SGU is NOT SG-1 or Atlantis. It’s a different show in terms of tone and characters. If you’re expecting flawless people, square-jawed heroes, and stories that set up and deliver all the answers over the course of a forty-five minute episode, you WILL be disappointed. And DON’T expect that to change. If you don’t like the character interactions, romance, and open-ended story elements introduced to date, you’re in for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong haul because that’s our show.
Unlike the more kid-friendly SG-1 and Atlantis with its wholesale slaughters of enemy combatants, tortures, stabbings, and occasional live burnings, Universe will touch on the heinous topic of physically intimacy. These “sex scenes”, which amounted to approximately 1 whole minute of the 270 minutes aired to date, engendered a fair amount of controversy. And that’s fine. I don’t mind continuing to read and approve your comments on the subject so long as you don’t mind knowing that nothing will change in this respect and that if you were offended by that broom closet scene in Air I, I guarantee you’ll be clawing your eyes out of your skull given what we have in store later this season. Also, while I can understand why some may have had a problem with that broom-closet scene in the premiere given that it did come as a surprise to many, I can’t muster up much empathy or understanding for those complaining about the Scott-Chloe scene in Light. Again, if it’s a matter of not enjoying shows that focus on the occasional romance between characters, then that’s unfortunate – because that’s the type of show you’re watching. If, on the other hand, it’s an innate response to the very notion of intimacy no matter how modest the scene, then I’d suggest a deep-rooted personal issue that would be best dealt with somewhere other than this blog.
Anyone who complains about the Chloe-Scott scene are, let’s face it, infantile. The broom closet shagging in the pilot, on the other hand, was just grossly out of place, and Mallozzi would do well to admit it was a big mistake, pandering at its worst, and move on.
And finally, on “idiot commenters” on his blog:
Finally, some words of advice – words of advice not so much for those of you here but those leaving comments on other forums and websites (if you would be kind enough to pass the message along): STOP MAKING IDIOT COMMENTS. Note I didn’t say idiotic comments because that would imply that the lion’s share of the idiocy lies with the comment itself rather than the commentator. No, I mean: STOP MAKING IDIOT COMMENTS.
Let’s face it, Mallozzi has reasons to be angry, but I’m not sure if this is very helpful. He calls it a rant, and it most definitely is, but perhaps the better response might be to continue moderating all the comments on his blog (or pay one of his assistants to do it) and ignore the naysayers. But this rant does make him sound incredibly intractable (“If you don’t like the character interactions, romance, and open-ended story elements introduced to date, you’re in for a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong haul because that’s our show.”), which is just going to make the other side dig in even more.
Oh well, I’ll keep watching “Universe”, mostly because it’s still watchable, but the aliens better show up soon, and I’m not talking about floating cloud dusts, Joseph. If I want a show set on a spaceship with people arguing and no aliens, I’d watch the “Battlestar Galactica” episodes I have on DVR.
Joseph Mallozzi in better, happier times with Amanda Tapping.
17 Comments
As far as having the show start with a lot of survival episodes is perfectly OK and understandable because the ship is old and resources are low. Being a fan of Stargate since the original movie I have all the faith in the world that the show will take a different direction once survival is less of an issue.
Frankly when it comes to love scenes it was missing from the past 2 shows as good as they were.
We're talking about a bunch of humans who are light years away from Earth, stranded on a spaceship. Who are they supposed to fall in love with? Of course it's expected in a show like this and there would be a void without it. To those who complain about survival or love making scene need to grow up or watch a different show.
Keep up the good work people.
Having them try to survive the ship is fine for a couple of episodes, but I don't want to spend the entire first year (or half of it) going from a “the quest for water, fire, air”, etc. That whole salvaging arc is already starting to wear pretty thin.
SGU sso far has been crap mark my words it will be lucky to survive another season
i really can't help but agree with him, the amount of small minded bullshit that people insist on spewing at the creators of their shows is astonishing. You need only post a single video on youtube and look at your comments to understand how full of hate and vitriol the internet can be!
i say well done to him for having the backbone to tell some of the whining ne'er happy internet trolls out there how little their complaints and nastiness actually achieves.
however someone once said it to me and i loved the saying…. “At the end of the day, did you make TV or watch it?”
“The broom closet shagging in the pilot, on the other hand, was just grossly out of place, and Mallozzi would do well to admit it was a big mistake, pandering at its worst, and move on.”
Out of place? And why? I saw nothing wrong with that scene either…
And what purpose did it serve? To demonstrate that our hero is prone to tapping every ass in sight? What does that make his relationship with Chloe? Scott's past relationship with James is easily conveyed without having to see them bumping uglies against the wall in a broom closet. If you're unable to see that as odious pandering, I can't help ya, buddy.
An interview with Richard Dean Anderson in the SG-1 boxset has him explaining that the show doesn't dumb down anything. In fact, they are proud of being a smart show.
It's funny that this mallozi joker gets his panties in a twist when confronted with the fact that he's spit in the face of all the loyal stargate fans who don't like his new, shiny, dumb, SG-P-U.
Also he's spitting in RDA's face too, by contradicting an executive producer of SG-1
SGU (SG P-U) is not SG-1, but did they have to turn it into this teen drama nonsense??
I stopped watching after the pilot, but it still burns to this day.
!!! THE ALIENS HAVE SHOWED UP IN THE PILOT !!!
REF – “but the aliens better show up soon, and I’m not talking about floating cloud dusts, Joseph” ~ THE ALIENS (AND PERHAPS THE SERIES-VILLAINS) HAVE ALREDY SHOWED UP IN THE PILOT ITSELF. It seems not many have noticed – which is strange.
The enemy space-ships appeared out-of-the-blue, and destroyed the ‘Icarus’ (right name?), which is the reason the survivor group has arrived at Destiny by dialling a 9-point address. And if you notice carefully, the alien ships beating their ass on ‘Icarus’ (right name?) are the very G’ould warships from the original 1994 movie (with the pyramid in the center). If this is any indication, most likely SGU is a comeback of the boring G’oulds – with renewed vengeance!
The original SG concept fused into the story of Battlestar Galactica with art-direction borrowed from the Quake2 Game – SGU so far is total crap. The DESTINY looks so surprizingly non-ancient – it rather looks like a 80’s ugly budget-constrained Russian venture! As per the SG1 and SA footage, the ancients did things in ’style’. They had it all shiny, glossy and bright – much befitting a race so old and so superior. DESTINY no way looks like from the ancients.
Imagine the future of the series! SG1 and SA were far better options than this shit.
I’m a little put off by SGU Mallozzi’s comment that it will be a looooooooooooong time if we are waiting for things to change. Got some news Joe, go cash you SGA & SG1 checks because it really will not be loooooooooooooooong until SGU is cancelled. You egotistical bastard.
I’m in for a looooong haul huh? You know, I am giving the show a chance, but after reading this I may be more inclined to change the channel faster than before. Arrogant jack ass!
Problem is that the writers seem to be far to engrossed in filling the demanded quota for social manipulation in the programming coupled with really bad actors. Here they are “billions of light-years” from earth and they still have to have some exposure to the good ol’ US of A every other episode to dote on BS.
It’s supposed to be science fiction but even old shows like DS9, the other various ST series had more SciFi in half-an-hour than this nag has had in – now – 9 episodes.
For me, since the 3rd waste of an hour, SG-U is now the acronym for Soap-opera Gate. Unwatchable. Although I have tried desperately to get through a whole hour of the last 5 episodes, the closest I came was Ep 8 but I gave up when it developed that all of the bad actors that they really need to kill off, were doomed to sully the rest of the hour.
And I wrote 5 for a reason because as soon as I saw that Ep. 9 would have more of the “let’s jaunt back to earth because we can’t come up with anything relating to real science fiction” I just decided it wasn’t worth watching.
The worst Stargate spin off ever no story, no action, no chance absolute garbage, if this conceited ass yhinks I’m going to hang about watching this show which frankly is like watching paint dry, for a loooooooooooooooooooooong time, my answer is nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I’ve better things to doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo