"Coming to Your City" by blissfire, commentary by schneefink
Title: Coming to Your City
Vidder: blissfire
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Link to vid: Livejournal post
Summary: Video travel journal chronicling the Atlantis crew's trail of mayhem across the universe.
Commentary by: schneefink
The summary is very accurate, and the vid shows us exactly how much mayhem the Atlantis crew caused: a lot! I like this vid because it is cheerful, a lot of fun, and incidentally also shows how often our beloved team of heroes walks onto a planet and leaves a mess behind. Completely accidentally, of course.
I'm not a vidder myself, and neither am I an expert, so in this commentary I will mostly point out the things I like most and why. I don't know how much of this vid people who have never seen SGA will understand - you will miss some subtext, but maybe it still works if you don't know the slightly different context that is missing here. I'm not sure.
Sorry that the pictures are so small, I don't know how to make them larger.
We are coming to your city!
The vid opens with a black screen, and a ten seconds guitar solo in the background, which already sets the mood: cowboys! Or something similar. I was not at all surprised by what followed next:
We are coming
to your city!
Gonna play our guitars and sing you a country song
Coming uninvited (being greeted with weapons, even) is the perfect beginning for this vid.
Here we already see something that is used quite often, namely the contrast between the canon scene (they were bored in the episode) and the vid (a relaxed vacation, like the music and the lyrics are telling us about.) The scenes are always chosen in a way that makes it work for me instead of being disconcerting, maybe because the vid doesn't take itself all that seriously. And then you start thinking "I know that's not what they meant, but actually, from the other perspective…"
We are flying faster than a jet airliner
Gorgeous Jumper shot.
And if you want a little bang in your yin yang come along
This scene is from "Irresponsible" and the town is being attacked by the Genii. But in this vid blissfire makes it look like the team walked into the town square and raised their weapons first, while the villagers only defend themselves. Team Sheppard as the bad guys! Tongue-in-cheek, of course - the music is still cheerful, and this is our team of heroes, after all.
Planets in this vid where our heroes are shown to waltz in and completely upset their society:
- nameless planet from "Irresponsible" (0:27) (see above)
- planet of the kids from "Childhood's End" (1:02), in a nutshell: waltzing in, aftermath, and Rodney sending them away
- Genii planet (1:15): this time we see the Genii soldiers raise their weapons first, but Sheppard is cheating and always has a bigger gun. We see the Genii again at 2:38, where we get the other half of the story: waltzing in, blowing stuff up. Business as usual.
- Olesia (1:21-1:39): this short clip and the perfectly fitting lyrics narrate the entire episode, including stealing every bit of food lying around and Elizabeth and Lorne showing up to wave guns in the governor's face. Sure, people who know SGA know that the governor is evil (more or less), but here you just see the "do what we say" part.
- planet from "The Tower" (1:40): …so in this case it really wasn't their fault in canon, and the vid acknowledges this (or maybe it's coincidence, whatever) by not showing John with the knife after having killed the bad guy. Instead we see how decadent those natives are.
- I don't think the Wraith hive at 0:42 counts, but maybe… ^^
Eating!
Starting at ca. 0:32:
Grabbed a bowl of that skyline chili
A few eating scenes that, put together, create the impression of the team wandering around the galaxy and snatching food wherever they go. We'll see more eating scenes later that call back to this (at 0:50, 1:32) - and then (1:44) we see the Pegasus natives eating, dining like kings and not with a lot of table manners, and John making uncomfortable faces. They can still tell themselves that they're more civilized than those guys.
And after they've eaten, Ronon and Teyla start a bar fight. Not very grateful.
Vid scenes and canon context
Then we rolled on into Canton, scared the hell out of Marilyn Manson
I've seen the Wraith - Marilyn Manson comparison a few times in fic and was getting tired of it, but this is pure fun. Thanks to the lyrics, the cheerful music and the scenes before we're now (almost) far enough from canon to add murder to the list of the team's "crimes".
Ellia as Jessica White is another silly and fun comparison that only works because of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the vid.
1:50 has one of my favorite scenes: the determined march through the gate!
This scene is very often used in SGA vids to express determination, especially in the face of danger, near defeat, and suchlike. Here we have determination to wreak havoc upon the galaxy: blow up stuff and
steal ZPMs! Another scene that is a lot of fun because of several other vids I watched, where the ZPM sliding out of the wall symbolizes hope, reaching a goal, triumph, even answer to a prayer - and in contrast, here we have Rodney stealing it. Hah.
By now we've seen enough that at 2:15, the people bowing to them seems very weird and slightly creepy, even more so than in the show for me:
We cause trouble everywhere
A bit more bars and blowing up stuff, and then (2:58): Earth!
Hi guys!
Earth as just another planet where they run around, shoot people, and blow things up.
It's so accurate! I love it. And everyone's happy when they're gone. (Kind of.)
At the end, starting at 3:12, we get a different kind of "bang":
They're nothing if not versatile. And sometimes you need to relax from all that blowing stuff up.
We already come to the perfect ending for this vid: first, the threat:
We are coming
to your city
Asuras, the Replicator planet! The one society the Earthers manipulated most, and, in the end, destroyed. Clearly it is best for planets not to come into contact with the Earthers at all.
Huh, this is longer than I thought. I hope I managed to convey why watching this vid always puts a silly grin on my face - it's just so much fun :)
And in addition, it made me think about the Atlantis expedition's behavior in the Pegasus galaxy. Sure, most of the scenes in the vid are taken out of context, but there are so many of them that fit suspiciously well.
Vidder: blissfire
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Link to vid: Livejournal post
Summary: Video travel journal chronicling the Atlantis crew's trail of mayhem across the universe.
Commentary by: schneefink
The summary is very accurate, and the vid shows us exactly how much mayhem the Atlantis crew caused: a lot! I like this vid because it is cheerful, a lot of fun, and incidentally also shows how often our beloved team of heroes walks onto a planet and leaves a mess behind. Completely accidentally, of course.
I'm not a vidder myself, and neither am I an expert, so in this commentary I will mostly point out the things I like most and why. I don't know how much of this vid people who have never seen SGA will understand - you will miss some subtext, but maybe it still works if you don't know the slightly different context that is missing here. I'm not sure.
Sorry that the pictures are so small, I don't know how to make them larger.
We are coming to your city!
The vid opens with a black screen, and a ten seconds guitar solo in the background, which already sets the mood: cowboys! Or something similar. I was not at all surprised by what followed next:
We are coming
to your city!
Gonna play our guitars and sing you a country song
Coming uninvited (being greeted with weapons, even) is the perfect beginning for this vid.
Here we already see something that is used quite often, namely the contrast between the canon scene (they were bored in the episode) and the vid (a relaxed vacation, like the music and the lyrics are telling us about.) The scenes are always chosen in a way that makes it work for me instead of being disconcerting, maybe because the vid doesn't take itself all that seriously. And then you start thinking "I know that's not what they meant, but actually, from the other perspective…"
We are flying faster than a jet airliner
Gorgeous Jumper shot.
And if you want a little bang in your yin yang come along
This scene is from "Irresponsible" and the town is being attacked by the Genii. But in this vid blissfire makes it look like the team walked into the town square and raised their weapons first, while the villagers only defend themselves. Team Sheppard as the bad guys! Tongue-in-cheek, of course - the music is still cheerful, and this is our team of heroes, after all.
Planets in this vid where our heroes are shown to waltz in and completely upset their society:
- nameless planet from "Irresponsible" (0:27) (see above)
- planet of the kids from "Childhood's End" (1:02), in a nutshell: waltzing in, aftermath, and Rodney sending them away
- Genii planet (1:15): this time we see the Genii soldiers raise their weapons first, but Sheppard is cheating and always has a bigger gun. We see the Genii again at 2:38, where we get the other half of the story: waltzing in, blowing stuff up. Business as usual.
- Olesia (1:21-1:39): this short clip and the perfectly fitting lyrics narrate the entire episode, including stealing every bit of food lying around and Elizabeth and Lorne showing up to wave guns in the governor's face. Sure, people who know SGA know that the governor is evil (more or less), but here you just see the "do what we say" part.
- planet from "The Tower" (1:40): …so in this case it really wasn't their fault in canon, and the vid acknowledges this (or maybe it's coincidence, whatever) by not showing John with the knife after having killed the bad guy. Instead we see how decadent those natives are.
- I don't think the Wraith hive at 0:42 counts, but maybe… ^^
Eating!
Starting at ca. 0:32:
Grabbed a bowl of that skyline chili
A few eating scenes that, put together, create the impression of the team wandering around the galaxy and snatching food wherever they go. We'll see more eating scenes later that call back to this (at 0:50, 1:32) - and then (1:44) we see the Pegasus natives eating, dining like kings and not with a lot of table manners, and John making uncomfortable faces. They can still tell themselves that they're more civilized than those guys.
And after they've eaten, Ronon and Teyla start a bar fight. Not very grateful.
Vid scenes and canon context
Then we rolled on into Canton, scared the hell out of Marilyn Manson
I've seen the Wraith - Marilyn Manson comparison a few times in fic and was getting tired of it, but this is pure fun. Thanks to the lyrics, the cheerful music and the scenes before we're now (almost) far enough from canon to add murder to the list of the team's "crimes".
Ellia as Jessica White is another silly and fun comparison that only works because of the tongue-in-cheek nature of the vid.
1:50 has one of my favorite scenes: the determined march through the gate!
This scene is very often used in SGA vids to express determination, especially in the face of danger, near defeat, and suchlike. Here we have determination to wreak havoc upon the galaxy: blow up stuff and
steal ZPMs! Another scene that is a lot of fun because of several other vids I watched, where the ZPM sliding out of the wall symbolizes hope, reaching a goal, triumph, even answer to a prayer - and in contrast, here we have Rodney stealing it. Hah.
By now we've seen enough that at 2:15, the people bowing to them seems very weird and slightly creepy, even more so than in the show for me:
We cause trouble everywhere
A bit more bars and blowing up stuff, and then (2:58): Earth!
Hi guys!
Earth as just another planet where they run around, shoot people, and blow things up.
It's so accurate! I love it. And everyone's happy when they're gone. (Kind of.)
At the end, starting at 3:12, we get a different kind of "bang":
They're nothing if not versatile. And sometimes you need to relax from all that blowing stuff up.
We already come to the perfect ending for this vid: first, the threat:
We are coming
to your city
Asuras, the Replicator planet! The one society the Earthers manipulated most, and, in the end, destroyed. Clearly it is best for planets not to come into contact with the Earthers at all.
Huh, this is longer than I thought. I hope I managed to convey why watching this vid always puts a silly grin on my face - it's just so much fun :)
And in addition, it made me think about the Atlantis expedition's behavior in the Pegasus galaxy. Sure, most of the scenes in the vid are taken out of context, but there are so many of them that fit suspiciously well.