Religion on Stargate

Jun 22, 2010 19:28

I was going to ask this on GW, but it's quite OT for the thread

An odd question )

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Comments 11

anuna_81 June 22 2010, 07:41:49 UTC
I think it's something they never fully dared to address. They were probably scared to insult one group or another. Religion is a touchy subject and they probably decided to leave it all out. Maybe it's a good thing they did; we know how good they are at writing in general. It scares me to think what would an episode look like, if they claimed Jesus was an Ancient. *shudders*

Now, with the Ori they needed something new.... and picked religion. It didn0t turn out that bad, however it pisses me off that they imply that religion and believing is something bad.

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gateraid June 22 2010, 08:00:40 UTC
It scares me a little bit too. I don't think they could've pulled it off successfully, either creatively or in terms of ratings. That's not a criticism of their writing, just as you say, it's a touchy subject and nobody could do it justice.

It's odd though that none of the SG characters wondered aloud about the possibility though *shrugs*

With the Ori, the first few eps really annoyed me - it really did seem like they were having a dig at people. Perhaps they realised it, then toned it down later, and went with the spaceship angle. While I'm not religious, I do take excpetion to people poking fun at those who do believe. And faith isn't specific to religion anyway

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anuna_81 June 22 2010, 08:08:46 UTC
I firmly believe in respecting other's beliefs, at least when those beliefs don't impyl harm to other people (obviously, I wouldn't respect someone like Hitler.) I'm not very religious, but I know many people who are. That's their right. I try to acknowledge that as much as I can.

among sci fi series, i loved what Deep Space Nine did and how they handled the issue of religion, and religion VS faith. Did you watch it?

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gateraid June 22 2010, 08:25:18 UTC
DS9 is one of those series I've been meaning to watch. I'll probably wait until it's dirt cheap, then buy some dvd's. I've only seen patches of it. It seemed quite variable to me, although I hear great things about it. They did seem to get captured by the same spaceship bug that SG-1 did in the later years.

I believe in the power of faith, be it religious or otherwise, which is why the Ori stung a bit. If they were really having a dig, they should've just come right out and said it.

I can't claim to be a saint (on balance, the opposite is more apt) but I at least believe in the morality of religion, if not the letter of it.

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krisrussel June 22 2010, 09:00:39 UTC
It's always dangerous to address religion on tv, especially in a tv show that's supposed to be fun and lighthearted ( ... )

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gateraid June 22 2010, 10:13:48 UTC
Buddha as an ancient would make sense. I got that vague impression from SG-1 that they were doing an homage to Buddhism when they were doing the Harsesis arc (child of two snakes), although you could go either way with it. And given that Oma turned out to be an Ancient, perhaps that's as close as we'll get to a nod from TPTW.

I suppose you could argue thyat they also stayed away from the subject because, in general (I find), American tv seems to be quite preachy. I don't mean it in terms of preaching gospel, but it always has 'a message', and 'a lesson'. If you add religion to that, you get a double dose.

Don't go re-watching s9 for that. I burned s9 after my first watch. And by burn, I mean I stuck the dvds on the fire. No joke. If only I could erase it from my memory. I do have s10 still though.

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krisrussel June 22 2010, 10:30:19 UTC
Yes, Buddha could have easily been an ancient. Just look at the ancient John got stuck with in that time dilation field. They acted like Buddhists... in some perspectives, because even though Buddhist are peaceful people, they would defend themselves.

I agree on the preachy side of American tv. It's not bad that some shows or movies have a message in them, but sometimes american tv really can overdo it. And yes, if SG would have included religion too, it would have been too much.

Well, I plan on rewatching the entire show when the exams are over, so that would include s9 :^p
And I don't think I'm gonna burn it... it's part of the big "includes all" box, so that would be a shame... and a waste of money ;^)

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ugahill June 22 2010, 12:45:55 UTC
I'm not sure about SG-1, but I think Elizabeth kinda sums up how they viewed religion in "Tao of Rodney" when she's talking to him about finding peace with himself. She sort of implies that everyone has their own kind of religion or spirituality, which made me think 'okay--they're not addressing it, just like they're not addressing sexuality (or at least didn't until SGU.)' But there you can see that the implication is not that religion is right or wrong, but your own choice ( ... )

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gateraid June 23 2010, 08:51:57 UTC
It's interesting you bring up the TOR convo. At the time, I found it to be one of the best pieces of two-way dialogue they'd written, although as you say, it skirted around the issue of religion ( ... )

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the_scary_kitty June 22 2010, 14:23:57 UTC
Oh, they definitely skirted around the issue. Given how they botched so many other things (like romantic relationships) over the years, it's probably a good thing that they never tried to go any deeper than spinning archaic 'dead' religions/mythological pantheons as alien cultures misinterpreted as 'gods' and kinda-sorta hinting around the nature of the Ancients.

Anuna mentioned DS9 as a show that handled religious topics well; Babylon 5 is another. In the case of B5, the focus was really on the issue of a person's faith, which I think is probably a safer course than the 'X religion is better than Y religion' kind of thing we got with the Ori. At least, I found B5's methods far more thought-provoking, which JMS said was his intention.

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gateraid June 23 2010, 09:09:33 UTC
I agree with you, but the more I think about it, all of the Ancients ended up like "Gods". A benevolent entity, capable of feats of great power. Yet the only time that they were seriously portrayed that way was with Chaya.

I've yet to watch much of DS9, and not seen any of B5. All I'd expect if anyone did try to cover it, is that it made me think. BSG touched on it a little (the one true God thing).

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