SGU: Stargate Universe: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]

The first crime is that the second season of SGU has STILL not been released on blu-ray, now over 2 years since the series ended. I just finished watching this season one blu-ray set, and it is OUTSTANDING. I'd watched the original run on SyFy HD on satellite, and had thought it looked pretty good. But seeing it in blu-ray was unreal. It just looked amazing. Biggest difference I've ever seen between a show on blu-ray versus watching it in HD on sat/cable. I believe it's because the overall look of the series was so dark; they've boarded an ancient ship, and the show designers were going for a "Jules Verne" kind of look to all the sets. So given how dark some of the sets were, the details just didn't come out on a regular HD channel. But watching it in blu-ray, where you're seeing exactly what the show producers intended in pristine digital form, all of those details just come alive. (The true test of HD picture quality, by the way, is how well the TV handles black levels. So the better the HDTV, the better a disc like these will work.)And it's not just the set shots either. The special effects in the show just look amazing. I'd always thought the new Battlestar Galactica set the standard for modern HD special effects, but honestly the ones here in SGU look better. The shots where the "Destiny" whips through the atmosphere of a gas giant, or dives towards the surface of a star to reenergize itself, or the shots of it leaving a galaxy, are just incredible. Seeing it on blu-ray, I could tell they must have used real Hubble telescope shots for some of these effects. The detail is just amazing. What really drove this home for me, is that I still had some of these episodes on my DirecTV DVR recorded off the SyFy HD channel. So I was able to immediately compare the two. The blu-ray just blew the DirecTV picture away. Those shots of Destiny leaving the galaxy were phenomenal on blu-ray, just ho-hum on SyFy HD through DirecTV.And this blu-ray presentation really makes you appreciate what a beautiful ship design the Destiny is. Probably one of the best looking ships in any scifi TV series ever. The blu-ray has some great extras, and even the disc's main menu sequence just looks awesome, as it slowing works through the ship, ending up in the "observation room".The SECOND crime is that this series was cancelled after two seasons. I watched it all through from the beginning during the original SyFy run, and was one of those who was pretty unhappy with the first season. I thought there was too much conflict between these characters, making it feel more contrived than realistic. But watching the first season straight through in a week (a little binge watching...), left me with a totally different impression. My change in opinion started with the 3-part pilot; the blu-ray has an expanded version, which helps fill in some of the backstories setting up the conflict. And watching it straight through makes the first season more like a flowing novel, because it really is just one long story. This time, the conflict felt much more justified, given the backgrounds of these characters and the situation they've been thrust into. Which meant the storyline was just much more engaging.So my opinion of the first season went from a "B-" to a solid "A" on this second viewing. BUT, it was in the second season where SGU really earned its scifi cred. That's when they started doing great, hardcore scifi that is so lacking in television and movies these days. Having now seen the first season on this blu-ray, and about to start watching the second archived on my DVR, I'm now even more disappointed that whoever is in charge (SyFy, MGM?) still refuses to release the season 2 blu-ray.Clearly one reason SGU got cancelled was that it was so expensive to make. Well, that money is all on the screen, both in terms of set design, visuals, script quality, directing, and acting. Robert Carlyle's performance as Dr. Rush alone elevates this series above 95% of the acting in television. If no network can put this kind of money into a scifi series and make it work, well, you'd better at least get the season 1 blu-ray, because we might never see any scifi of this quality on television again.Unfortunately one reason the ratings were low, was that the traditional Stargate fans wouldn't get on board with such a dark series. Especially after SG-1 and Atlantis, which were admittedly good scifi, but were pretty light fare. And yes, from a story perspective, SGU can get pretty grim. Maybe they focused just a bit too much on sacrifice and loss in the first season. But that's what the story dictated. Once the actual mission of the Destiny is revealed in season 2 (I won't give it away here), you'll see that this was a completely original and gripping idea, and the story they could've told over another few seasons could've made it the best scifi ever on television. If the fans of the original Stargate could've just given it a chance, and not just wanted a repeat of the same things they'd seen before, SGU might've survived. But as it is, SGU will stand as one of the scifi series with massive potential, whose cancellation was truly criminal.

If you like sci-fi this is a good series that will get you thinking.

“Stargate Universe – Season 1” collects the first twenty episodes of the latest entry in the “Stargate” franchise that originally aired on Syfy between 2 October 2009 and 11 June 2010. The story picks up after the events of Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich’s 1994 “Stargate” film as well as the television series “Stargate SG-1” and “Stargate Atlantis” (like the preceding television series, this one does not reference the “Stargate Infinity” animated series that is considered non-canonical). Each series has gone further than the last, with “SG-1” going beyond the planet in the original film, “Atlantis” going to a new galaxy, and now “Stargate Universe” uncovers more secrets about the gate, including a 9-chevron address that dials in to the autonomous Ancient ship Destiny which is traveling in far-flung galaxies establishing new stargate networks. Unlike previous series, this one has a greater sense of jeopardy as the ship’s age and the extreme distance from Earth put the human crew in danger. Further, members of the Lucian Alliance (human mercenaries from the Milky Way Galaxy that filled the power vacuum left behind by the Goa’uld) want to access the ship and use it as a weapon. The story alternates between events on the Destiny and back on Earth.“Stargate Universe” introduces new characters Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), Colonel Everett Young (Louis Ferreira), Lt. Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith), Chloe Armstrong (Elyse Levesque), Eli Wallace (David Blue), Lt. Tamara Johansen (Alaina Huffman), Master Sgt. Ronald Greer (Jamil Walker Smith), Camile Wray (Ming-Na Wen), Adam Brody (Peter Kelamis), Dr. Dale Volker (Patrick Gilmore), Dr. Lisa Park (Jennifer Spence), and Colonel David Telford (Lou Diamond Phillips). Returning characters include Richard Dean Anderson as Lieutenant General Jack O’Neill, Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson, Amanda Tapping as Colonel Samantha Carter, Bill Dow as Dr. Bill Lee, Gary Jones as Chief Mst Sgt. Walkter Harriman, and David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay. The show demonstrates some of the influence of Syfy’s “Battlestar Galactica” as it takes a darker tone than either previous “Stargate” series used while also featuring more handicam-style filming to create a sense of intensity.

Muy bien la edición en BD pero la información sobre el producto es errónea. En el apartado DETALLES DEL PRODUCTO pone que está subtitulado en español, inglés y francés y con idiomas inglés, francés y español. No es cierto pues sólo lleva subtítulos en francés e inglés (no lleva subtítulos en español) y el idioma español al que se refiere es el horripilante ESPAÑOL LATINO. Menos mal que comprendo el francés y la he visionado en audio inglés con subtítulos en francés. Vuelvo a rogar, no es la primera vez que lo hago, que se aseguren de poner la información exacta y no nos lleven a confusión.

J'ai bien reçu ce colis contrairement à ce qui est indiqué sur le site.

Best scifi series since StarTrek.Characters are fascinating, engrossing, intense, and believable.Trumps other SG series. No goofy characters, no cheap FX, all top notch. Any SFX are peripheral, not focal,more background scenery than "OOOH boy the flying Zathurian Space Exploder of Doom! We must now all focus on this special effect."Thus, the setting is almost documentary in its feeling, in other words, sufficiently realistic that, like people in any exotic or unusual locale or situation, including the characters in SGU, you just take it for granted after a while, and focus on the plot and character interactions, like real life.Get this series and you will never regret it.The only thing I regret is that it was aborted after two seasons,like other *coughFireflycough* good scifi series.Suggestion: don't binge watch it. You don't camel-guzzle a rare vintage. You savor it.PS get Firefly, too.

El pedido llego antes del tiempo indicado, excelenta calidad de los materiales, audio en español latinoamericano y subtitulos. Excelente serie de la saga Stargate.

tipico film di fantascienza che, malgrado segua la notoria e abusata idea dello stargate, ci regala comunque una trama varia e gradevole di avventure non necessariamente legate a questo dispositivo per viaggi interstellari.Segnalo la buona cura della dizione da parte degli attori, nell'originale in inglese.Cosa da non dare per scontata e quindi decisamente apprezzabile, specialmente quando si intende produrre anche per il mercato internazionale.