The Ultima Codex’s Year, According to WordPress
No, this isn’t one of the yearly round-ups concerning Ultima and fan projects, Shroud of the Avatar, and/or Ultima Forever…I’m still working on those, and will be posting them at some point in January.
Instead, this is WordPress’ own summary of the Ultima Codex’s year. The full report can be viewed online, but the image above details what I think are the key highlights of 2014: visits from 168 different countries around the world, and the five people who have contributed the most to discussions on the site. Who those top five commentators are, if you’ve taken part in those discussions, shouldn’t come as a surprise: Sanctimonia and Sergorn were on the same list last year, and in 2012 as well.
Anyway…thank you, everyone, for continuing to frequent and take part in discussions at the Ultima Codex. It has been a rough year, all things considered; I’ve been struggling to keep up with the site as a result of the new job (an outcome I predicted…I think in one Hangout of the Avatar or another); I lost a great deal of my free time thanks to no longer being able to commute to work by bus. But I draw a measure of strength and perseverance in knowing that you all derive some value from my efforts here, and I am glad to be able to continue to serve you…even in a somewhat diminished capacity.
Here’s to 2015!
That’s crazy. Didn’t realize I posted so much. Do I get a prize? 🙂
Since I have nothing else to say, here’s a PSA: watch Battlestar Galactica (2003 – 2009). Start with the two-part miniseries, then move on to season one. BSG eats Star Trek for breakfast, shits it out the next day, dries it and burns it for fuel to power its jump drive. So say we all, motherfrakkers! Gods damn it, what are you waiting for? Best sci-fi series ever.
I’ll second your endorsement of Battlestar Galactica; it’s a phenomenal series, well-written and packed with dark drama about the human condition. And the ending of the series is just…out of left field, so to speak. Very unlike what one would typically expect from modern hard sci-fi, and wonderful as a result.
In turn, it would only be fair for me to give a shout-out to Space: Above and Beyond, a single-season sci-fi series produced in 1995/1996. It focused on a squadron of Marines pressed into a war against an alien menace bent on Earth’s destruction, and…or at least, that’s how it started. By the time the heartwrenching final episode aired, though, just about everything had been turned on its ear, and it’s a damn tragedy that the series was never renewed.
I loved ‘Space: Above and Beyond’. To me it was the closest we’ll ever get to a Wing Commander TV Series.
I’m glad you liked the ending. Based on my research a lot of people thought it wasn’t great, and even declared the series began degrading half through the third season. I disagree with those assessments, although I do feel inadequate explanation was given to a couple open threads (not named as to avoid spoilers).
I showed my dad “Scar” as an introduction to how awesome it was, though he hasn’t started watching it yet. His bizarre tastes are a thorn sometimes (he watches Duck Dynasty, for example…what the frak???).
I just got a 55″ 1080p LED television and hooked it and my surround receiver up to my HTPC with XBMC and am looking for worthy series to watch. What BSG made me realize after 700+ Star Trek episodes is that the state of longform sci-fi is a pretty sorry one. BSG beats Star Trek, Star Wars, Prometheus, or anything else I’ve seen. I’ll check out Space: Above and Beyond, but I fear now that I’ve been spoiled nothing else will live up to BSG.
Any ideas about what shows are genuinely good? The only thing I’m watching now is Game of Thrones, Vikings and The Walking Dead. Most shows, even really popular ones, are pretty ghastly or have a mediocre cast and/or writing.
Oh, don’t ask me for my opinions about TV shows. Outside of Agents of Shield, I try my darndest to avoid watching them these days.
Mmmm. Not a big superhero-type fan. Something like Akira or Ghost in the Shell is fine, but shooting lasers out of one’s eyes and all that is just too much for me. So television pretty much sucks, then. Damn.
Maybe I should start watching the first few seasons of The X-Files, Amazing Stories, The Twilight Zone, Tales From the Crypt and 80’s anime. Surely the collective efforts of televised human artistry have something worthwhile to impart.
Just remembered something else. Horatio Hornblower is pretty damned good. Check thee it out if thou hast not before witnessed it.
That was an old A&E series, right?
Yes, this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornblower_(TV_series)
Damn fine show for simple human drama. Well-executed effects for the time (a couple ships appear CG). It takes on season-long story arcs such as bullying, loss, leadership and command, retribution, punishment and romance. Well-acted with some surprisingly memorable roles and performances from guest actors. It’s ironic and dark, but frequently lighthearted and carefree as well. Its on my short list of best shows along with Deadwood and Rome.
Firefly, if you haven’t already. I submit to you that it is better than Battlestar (its also a quick watch).
I enjoyed Serenity, but I find most of Firefly proper to be rather…Whedonesque. And I don’t mean that in a good way.
I’m watching Firefly now…am at around episode five. So far it’s pretty damn good. I like how they play with language and leave it to the audience to figure it out as opposed to being obvious. BSG did that with the military jargon. After a while you start to learn the terms simply from the context they’re repeatedly used in. Good acting as well; I like Jayne (sp?), the big crazy guy. Not sure why the series was cancelled. I guess people prefer Honey Boo Boo and similarly sorry shit to good sci-fi.
I also have Space: Above and Beyond queued up, so I’ll give that a shot when I’m done with Firefly/Serenity. Maybe I’ll give Babylon 5 a shot after that. Looks Star Trek-ish at first glance.
Firefly suffered poor scheduling and marketing… lots of preemptions by baseball games. And the episodes were shown out of order.
Though I don’t know how well it would have done otherwise. Sci-fi shows were getting killed left and right during the early 2000s on broadcast networks.
Babylon 5 does look Star Trek-ish at first glance. Then the end of Season 2 comes and you are like ‘wow’, or at least I was in 1996 🙂
Honestly I don’t think anything could have changed Firefly’s reception and lack of success. Sure it had broadcast issues… but most importantly it just was on the wrong channel. Firefly was a tough sell from the start beyond a niche SciFi fan market.
And I mean just look at Serenity : it WAS marketed, it had a decent shot… and it failed at the box office everywhere as well.
Browncoats like the put their head in the send and pretend the studios just put out Firefly and Serenity to death, but I think all it shows it that the mass market just didn’t like the show and the film (unlike say the Babylon 5 spin off which had far more BtS issues and ended being killed even with good numbers).
As for Babylon 5 it HAS a Star Trek kind of universe – but the main difference it that is focus on a strong story and character arc rather than the usual stand alone approach Star Trek had.
Finished Firefly and Serenity. Overall it was good and certainly worth watching, but I can see how it failed to have wide appeal. It didn’t take itself too seriously despite some dark bits, and while the characters were interesting you never really loved or hated them. Jayne was the most amusing by far. River…I wanted someone to shoot her for most of the series. They tried to redeem her by making her this complete badass, but I was already far too annoyed by her for it to make a difference.
Something almost all shows do that have an “anti-hero” as a chief protagonist is to make you root for them even though they’re supposed to be bad. Jaime Lannister, for example. They did this in Firefly with the captain (that I can’t remember his name is a sign of…something…Mel?). The problem is you need to keep reminding people that the person is actually an asshole, despite any redeeming qualities that occasionally surface to make you like them. In Firefly they quickly demonstrated that the captain and crew of Serenity in fact weren’t bad at all, despite being thieves and criminals. It would have been more powerful if they’d better walked the line between the characters being “good” and “bad”, much as they effectively do in Vikings. One moment you love them, the next you hate them for being cruel bastards. Firefly lacked that roller coaster and suffered for being too black and white as a result. Conversely, BSG mastered the art.
Going to start Space: Above and Beyond soon, but Hannibal has my attention at the moment. Still on season one, but wow, what a crazy show. Good to see television can still do something completely different and get away with it with decent ratings. It feels like whoever created Hannibal had never seen television before…it feels detached from the formula.
Firefly is decent – I’d argue it wouldn’t have such a reputation if the series hadn’t been cancelled in its infancy though. If anything the show was rather poorly received by SciFi fans while it was being aired and it had a lot to work on before turning into a trully good show. I do think it would have genuiely become one if it had the time to mature though.
The film was decent, but it like… completly forgot it was supposed to be a space western.
That’s probably why I liked it. “Space western” is a deceptively difficult piece of subject matter; it’s hard for filmmakers to do well.
Heh I agree it’s hard to pull off, though I think Firefly did it well enough even if to a ridiculous extent at times.
That’s interesting, as Gene Roddenberry originally described Star Trek as being a western in space. After having watched it, I think that’s a bit of a stretch. People settled the west not for the sake of exploration, but for riches, independence and freedom. Star Trek, perhaps with the exception of DS9 and most of Enterprise, has always been about exploration for its own sake; pure science, establishing relations with other species and satisfying curiosity.
I’d say Star Wars is probably more like a western than anything else I’ve seen (excluding the most recent trilogy, which is more like being flayed alive with butter knives).
I’ll check out Firefly and Serenity. Also I heard on Slashdot recently HBO was going to make a show based on the Foundation series of novels by Isaac Asimov. I haven’t read the books, but apparently they’re pretty good.
The first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) is assuredly a space western. The next two as well, though somewhat less so.
Although I suppose the scenes where the Falcon is flying through craters on the surface of that one asteroid does kind of echo some of the scenes shot in and around Monument Valley, one of those mainstay backdrops in more western films than I can count.
I see Star Wars more as space fantasy than space western even if there was definitly western vibes with Tatooine and Han Solo.
Quite a few animes have actually pulled off the space western vibe very well (Captain Harlock, Space Adventure Cobra, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun just to name a few), and much moreso than anything I’ve seen in live action, but I know it’s not the sort of thing that appeals to everyone. 😛
Can’t say Star Trek ever hit me at having a space western kind of vibe though.
“Star Trek, perhaps with the exception of DS9 and most of Enterprise, has always been about exploration for its own sake”
Heh I’d have said “most of TNG” personally – I’ve always felt the traditionnal speech at the beginning of TNG episode was completly out of place with what the series was offering. Enterprise was the series that most focus on exploring the unknown since the original.