boringnickname
Rear Admiral
Wing Command lacked what most Sci Fi (in TV) had at the time when WC was most popular:
The "Alien Degradation Syndrome" (ADS).
It means the aliens get dumber and inferior compared with humans each episode. Best example is Star Trek TNG, where humans outsmart everyone else. The latest series "Enterprise" is a pretty extreme case, because everyone is shown to be far more advanced than humanity at first and they manage to outsmart them ALL within a few decades or something. The Xindi seemed to have better tech than humanity in the "TNG" shows but it's implied that they get subdued by the Federation later.. Another stupid thing is that the more "alien" the aliens look, the more evil they are. Best example: Cardassians vs Bajorans. Or the Xindi primates compared to the insectoids/reptiles. Pretty funny for a show that claims to be so "enlightened".
Stargate is another big offender. In the original movie RA's species are humanoids who have the technology/ability to possess the body of other beings through some sort of "soul transfer".
In the shows, they became mere worms. Quite degrading. it goes further: they didn't even have build the stargates themselves, have stolen all their technology, are cookheads, they are getting dumber by the minute and so on. And the super mega beings of the whole galaxy, the ones who built the stargates and all important nifty tech are the "ancients", beings who just look exactly like humans!
L.O.L.Z!
"Earth: Final Conflict" was another of of those shows. In the first season the aliens, the "Taelons" were far more advanced than humanity, but in later shows they get dumber and dumber, their whole heritage gets "degraded" (it's revealed that their ancestors were evil space vampires) while humanity is shown in a pure light. It goes even as far where they say that humans have "better genes" or something.. And even though the aliens are at first millions of years more advanced than humanity, the people of Earth catch up WITHIN A YEAR and outsmart them completely in the second season.
Sick of these story lines. What's the point? It's extremely juvenile.
Seriously, can you tell what the point of these shows is? Inventing some alien races and constantly showing how fucking superior humanity is to some fictious aliens.. wow, how exciting.
Wing Commander was different and for that it holds my respect. OK, the Kilrathi were evil, but they were.. "righteous evil". Humans didn't outsmart them constantly, the cats weren't shown as stupid, they didn't have these "degradations" that I have outlined above (ok, except one: The Kilrathi have apparently stolen space tech). And the way humanity won the war was not noble: a last ditch effort involving blowing up the whole planet. Very few sci fi franchises would have taken that route.
I loved the treatment of the Kilrathi. They were a formidable enemy, "evil" but with a certain sense of honour and it came mostly without the whole "everyone is inferior to humans" subtext.
I would have changed the motivation of Hobbes' betrayal though. Hobbes turning sides because he didn't want to see Kilrah blown to smithereens by a doomsday weapon would have been better.
The "Alien Degradation Syndrome" (ADS).
It means the aliens get dumber and inferior compared with humans each episode. Best example is Star Trek TNG, where humans outsmart everyone else. The latest series "Enterprise" is a pretty extreme case, because everyone is shown to be far more advanced than humanity at first and they manage to outsmart them ALL within a few decades or something. The Xindi seemed to have better tech than humanity in the "TNG" shows but it's implied that they get subdued by the Federation later.. Another stupid thing is that the more "alien" the aliens look, the more evil they are. Best example: Cardassians vs Bajorans. Or the Xindi primates compared to the insectoids/reptiles. Pretty funny for a show that claims to be so "enlightened".
Stargate is another big offender. In the original movie RA's species are humanoids who have the technology/ability to possess the body of other beings through some sort of "soul transfer".
In the shows, they became mere worms. Quite degrading. it goes further: they didn't even have build the stargates themselves, have stolen all their technology, are cookheads, they are getting dumber by the minute and so on. And the super mega beings of the whole galaxy, the ones who built the stargates and all important nifty tech are the "ancients", beings who just look exactly like humans!
L.O.L.Z!
"Earth: Final Conflict" was another of of those shows. In the first season the aliens, the "Taelons" were far more advanced than humanity, but in later shows they get dumber and dumber, their whole heritage gets "degraded" (it's revealed that their ancestors were evil space vampires) while humanity is shown in a pure light. It goes even as far where they say that humans have "better genes" or something.. And even though the aliens are at first millions of years more advanced than humanity, the people of Earth catch up WITHIN A YEAR and outsmart them completely in the second season.
Sick of these story lines. What's the point? It's extremely juvenile.
Seriously, can you tell what the point of these shows is? Inventing some alien races and constantly showing how fucking superior humanity is to some fictious aliens.. wow, how exciting.
Wing Commander was different and for that it holds my respect. OK, the Kilrathi were evil, but they were.. "righteous evil". Humans didn't outsmart them constantly, the cats weren't shown as stupid, they didn't have these "degradations" that I have outlined above (ok, except one: The Kilrathi have apparently stolen space tech). And the way humanity won the war was not noble: a last ditch effort involving blowing up the whole planet. Very few sci fi franchises would have taken that route.
I loved the treatment of the Kilrathi. They were a formidable enemy, "evil" but with a certain sense of honour and it came mostly without the whole "everyone is inferior to humans" subtext.
I would have changed the motivation of Hobbes' betrayal though. Hobbes turning sides because he didn't want to see Kilrah blown to smithereens by a doomsday weapon would have been better.