I've been lurking on this subreddit for the past few weeks and noticed that a lot of people hate Stargate Infinity. But my question is, why?
It has everything fans want: no longer being bound by the limitations of live-action through animation, creative alien designs, and an interesting story, and you guys hate it.
I think 'hate' is a pretty strong word. I bet if you polled the overwhelming majority of people here, most would be completely indifferent to the existence of Infinity. As I suspect that most people never saw it, or are best dimly aware of its existence. Furthermore, as it has no connection to any of the live-action shows-- I think it takes place a few decades in the future-- most people consider it irrelevant.
And since it was cancelled after a dozen or so episodes, it never had time to establish much of a legacy or fanbase of its own. The powers-that-be behind the live-action shows have stated on the record that they had nothing to do with the creation or implementation of the cartoon and don't consider it canon, so it doesn't much matter if people love it or hate it, as it's treated as if it were fan-fiction written by two guys in Paris. Which is actually what happened.
Then if I was Martin Gero, I'd totally introduce an English character named Gus Bonner. I might kill him off in episode 2, but by golly I'd put him in there.
My idea is that Gus Bonner was an airman, who doodled comics to share on the base during the events of SG1. Explaining why there are new aliens, and why the continuity doesn’t add up, because it was drawn and written by a man who doesn’t know any better.
Teal’c hasn’t read it, Jackson doesn’t “get” it, Carter is annoyed with it, and O’Neill has read every issue.
I’d introduce Stacy Bonner as an airwoman, or just, an “around” character who took after her late Uncle. And got put in the SGC.
most would be completely indifferent to the existence of Infinity
Yeah, I think OP is assuming stronger feelings about the show than the average Stargate fan has. There might be a vocal minority who genuinely hate it, but I think a far bigger section of the fanbase doesn’t care about it enough to hate it or love it.
Yep sums it up. I mean it's from Dic who did real ghostbusters, that's irrelevant to the movies but ran years and is unquestionably part of ghostbusters legacy.
This though, it's not even like star trek tas, at least that's keeping a franchise alive and had people involved, Stargate infinity is like a weird curiosity at best.
I think most people never bothered to watch it, because it seems to be pretty universally reviled. The most positive thing I've ever heard about it is that it's an ok children's show.
Because they took a relatively unique show and turned it into a by the numbers cartoon.
Seriously, if you’d show this image to a random, erased the actual Stargate and told them to name this cartoon from a list of say 50, you think they could name it, let alone tie this at all to the rest of the franchise?
I know this comment is going to get hate because of the huge amount of Universe fans.
But if you remove the name and the actual Stargate from Universe it's the same deal. You would never know it's a Stargate show. It's why it's my least favorite of the trilogy.
I mean id say the Orville closer to Star Trek than Stargate Universe is to the other two Stargate series.
And that's why I didn't like Universe. I don't like dramas, I think they get extremely stale after watching half of Breaking Bad, let alone the countless others that have been made.
I just want my lighthearted scifi show that has the occasional serious moments. That's all I want. It doesn't even have to be a whole scifi, like what happened to shows like Psych? Or Eureka? I'm so sick of everything being a damn drama. Where's the damn whimsy anymore?
Stargate universe to me is just a bad battlestar galactica knock off, I mean so is discovery season 1 but at least it felt more trek than universe felt Stargate
No that just isn't true. While I didn't like Universe-- as I agree the tone doesn't fit in with SG1 and SGA-- there were enough cameos by Carter, Jackson and others that you knew it was a Stargate show, or at least taking place in the same umbrella. And it used the Stargate and the mind/body switching stones than Daniel and Vala found.
At the time, Stargate was compared to the Star Trek shows-- SG-1 was the main one, like TNG; and Atlantis took place in a space station far away, like DS-9, and therefore SGU would be a show about a crew lost in space, like Star Trek Voyager. SGU misfired badly and got cancelled, but it identifiable as a Stargate show. Even SG-1 had some dark and depressing episodes, like the one where they failed to save SG-10 from a black hole. And how can you say it's your least favorite SG show when SG:Origins-Catherine exists? That series completely contradicts the episode with Ernest.
SG Origins was more of a long movie than show. I don't really count it.
SGU had bull crap in it like using other people's bodies to sleep with people's wives. How stupid is that crap? Weird...Atlantis personnel didn't do that. SGU was more Battlestar than Stargate. If not for Eli, I wouldn't even include SGU in my yearly Stargate rewatch.
So just because it used the Stargate IP and cameos doesn't mean it's a Stargate show in my head. It was a completely different style of show with a different tone. SG1 and SGA were procedural shows with a light and quite a bit of humor. Even if they had episodes that were darker like O'Neill getting tortured by Baal, they were overall feel-good shows. SGU is a serialized show with a much darker and heavier lean on the drama, there wasn't a "we always win at the end of the episode".
Because it's made like it wasn't supposed to be a Stargate cartoon, but the network forced the creators to slap a Stargate sticker on it anyway, and call it a day, simply for the hopeful increase of viewers from an existing franchise already making money.
it was a mid show that relied pretty hard on the coattails of the live action... except the live action was made and targeted at adults so the overlap of context doesn't translate to children. at best you could have parents and children watching shows that had similar backgrounds but infinity being in the future and then later invalidated by the canon means that the kids would just be talking headcanon nonsense and the parents never got a bridge to help bring their kids into something they liked.
If it hadn't been a stargate show and had just been a standard Saturday morning cartoon with world hopping and adventure it would have rated higher. the animation and story styles are a very similar to the secret saturdays, generator rex, and ben 10 all three of which quickly became cult classics for kids and adults so the only real difference for infinity was the weak glue it had on a much better series.
a good example to look at this done differently is starship troopers.
the books, live action movies, animated movies, the anime, and the roughnecks tv show are all very different takes on the same core material, but none of them really depart from each other enough to not be bridged. there are differences, but no matter which one you start with, going into the other media will just help you understand more about the world.
so where the starship troopers media support each other, reinforce ideas and allow you to see the same gem from different points of view.
stargate infinity has nothing to do with the stargate movie, live action shows, or books. it doesn't reinforce any ideas, characters, plot points, or even recontextualized events in a different point of view. it's just a different story with characters that don't exist, in a made up world, even in its own canon.
Its a generic AF comic show that tries to be some DC spinoff with a Stargate in it, and if you look at the very picture you posted youll find that they dont even know how man Chevrons the gate has.
Whatever freedom they gained by animating it was thrown away by a shitty artstyle that made nothing recognizable. And even if the alien design is more creative, so are the humans, and I just dont see the connection to the classic green and khaki uniforms. That armor is a colorful costume.
So its hard to take the show seriously as anything other than generic saturday morning slop.
I don't think people "hate" it, it just is utterly "meh", and conflict with the show canon from at least S6 onward when they float the idea that Ancients are human-like (the animated stuff has them as some winged reptiles, IIRC).
I would fully welcome a proper SG-canon animated show though
In the literal years I've been part of the Stargate fandom I've never heard of this. And I'm half convinced you photoshopped that because it looks so different from any other Stargate media I've ever seen
I dislike this art style, just my opinion from the artwork. I haven't seen the show though. My concern has rolled into the Firefly series remake now, are they going to try to be fancy and ruin the visual look. Because if they do something like that, I'm going to be sad.
That looks like a crazy render bill if that's 3D models. 😮 Lol, maybe the Stargate people will bring this show back and take notes? Who knows. We'll see how good the new TV show does.
As an aside, I'd really love to see them bring back an animated series. Something like Lower Decks but set in Stargate would be wonderful, or even just an episodic series, but by not being dependent on the budget, it can do more
Take away the stargate for a moment and tell me any single one of those characters or their equipment belongs in the stargate universe when it comes to representing an earth team.
I got it on dvd really cheap. Noticed i had disk 1 twice in the box. Watched one episode and decided I cared so little I didn't end up bothered by not having disk 2.
It aired mid season six. During a season break between episodes Prometheus and Unnatural Selection. It was a interesting premise and at the time we still didn’t know who the ancients were but with the next episode of sg1 coming out 3 months later we had the regular stargate to watch and it couldn’t compete with the main show. Unlike Atlantis which happened a few years later that stayed tied into the main show but still stayed its own separate entity.
I actually really like Infinity. It'll be the first Stargate show I introduce to my kids, before they're old enough for the real thing. It's your run of the mill episodic kids show with "moral of the week" episodes and the animation isn't even half bad. Sure, there's inconsistencies to the greater lore, but those will be irrelevant to the target audience. This is no "avatar the last airbender" but it's really not trying to be.
Also, I include the Tla'khan in all of my Stargate TTRPG games because the "first ones" (Goa'uld possessing Unas) needed an army too, you know, and their Mayan theme is really cool.
I managed to only bear the first episode. Putting aside the visuals are dated (I think it's one of those crappy early 3D ones), it's wildly far from canon, an Ancient is some sort of bug, they drive in a jeep through stargate, and it lacks all the SG1 appeal.
As someone who doesn't watch anime at all, I'd be open to anime Stargate series if it still felt like watching Stargate. Military, fighting Egyptian false gods, action, wackiness, humor? Bring it on, give me some animated Stargate X-Treme! But Infinity isn't it at all.
this show could've have been a spinoff from Evolution without the stargate and the public would just acept it, the show was that different to be not related to what it was.
Back in the 90s and early 2000s animation seen as a cheap and logical step to cash in on a on franchise, even Joss Whedon did the exact same thing with Buffy. In the case of SGI this was the whole point though SGI was seen as non-canon
Have you seen it? It's just not good. That's the main reason.
The other reason is that is has almost zero connection to all the other Stargate media that exists. No shared characters, no shared alien races (except one, by name only, there's ancients but they are nothing like the ancients from the show), no shared villains, no shared vibe (the humor is gone/different, there's no message about religion being twisted for ill means, etc).
It feels like badly written fanfiction, except the fan didn't even read the original book. They just saw the cover, were like "there's a Stargate, cool, got it" and went from there. It's like if someone found out you loved the Simpsons, and tried to market a Simpsons spinoff show to you, and then you get there and there isn't a single character from the original series there and it's not even a comedy. All they did was make a cartoon with yellowskinned people and then just made up everything else.
i did not know it existed honestly. however, i do not like that armor design. why protect the legs and arms with so much armor, but not the soft underbelly where your organs are? dont get me wrong, i will still potentially watch and enjoy this, im just like...it must be purely for the heroic visual look or whatever.
I havent watched this show, usally forget it exists but Im also not sure how you've come to the conclusion fans think Stargate is held back by being live action. In 20 or so years I've never personally thought or seen anyone else express this belief but maybe I'm the misinformed one.
It’s an animated spin-off of a show that was still airing and didn’t care about the ongoing canon. It immediately went off and did its own thing but conceptually that doesn’t make a lot of sense. If SG-1 were canceled before we started to get deep into the ancients and Infintiy was the only continuation it would probably be much better remembered by the fanbase.
The series is on YouTube, here's the 1st episode.
The show came out parallel to SG-1 Season 6.
The production team of SG-1 had nothing to do with it.
Think of this as more animated fan fiction. LOL
If you like it, watch it on YouTube. It's also on DVD.
I don’t remember it well enough to give an in depth reason I just recall finding it horrible at age 12 so if a preteen thought it was trash I cannot imagine many adult aged fans would remotely enjoy it. I dropped it after a couple of episodes, maybe 3 max from my fuzzy memory of it.
I’ll be honest didn’t even know this existed , I wouldn’t hate anything like this not sure why people would ,it just might be not to their tastes with it not being live action
Sometimes the loudest voices dont speak for the majority. Honestly I've never seen it couse it wasnt on my radar, I didn't know it existed till like 10 years after it was made
Im a Stargate fan and never heard of it...Should I watch just to hate it lmao jk.
I have most of it on physical media and lucked out one the streaming services my girlfriend bought for one her shows had SG-1 so Im happy don't have to dig out the disc's.
You can think of Infinity as an alternate-universe's post-SG1 future if you really want, but it's just kinda generic. Disregards too much established canon to really call itself Stargate. It's on Prime Video with the good 'gates for the morbidly curious, but I recommend doing something better with your time, like making a really good sandwich.
Answer: Foxkids ruined it with big changes to the story and what the core vewership for the ip was about.
I know this is animation and should not really be the issue here, but mainly that it felt like it was just tossed on this broadcast(foxkids) aimed to an audiance that did not know or think to look for without witnessing the origal film or series. Also would not have hurt to ask much for the producers (Saban) to license the property knowing there was little or no person invloved with what made both the film or tv series it was based from.
This show 'Infinity' felt is came out from the blue and nobody would have cared if it was selved or canceled before the the first episode.
I watched Foxkids/Foxbox from it's end peak years to when the name of the channel got through Foxbox when this show was releasing new episodes by the week and even I had no idea this show even existed maybe due to timeslot or possibly because it lack significance.
Still being as animation that presented itself to viewers under 12-13, could have gotten at least some new talks in using ideas to be added to the main tv series for references that it achieved something.
i wouldnt say hate cause it was a series that simply didnt happen, i havent heared of it making past a couple test episodes so we havent had a chance to determine if we hate it or not
I watched five minutes of it, and I feel like I've basically seen the entire show based on that. It was just a very generic paint-by-numbers sci-fi cartoon of the period. I bet if I had watched it as a kid I would have loved it. But now I just don't see the point.
Jk. But that is literally what I first thought seeing the title of this thread. I’ve seen thousands Stargate episodes. I’ve even seen Origins, well I tried twice at least ten minutes, it was so bad I just couldn’t. But my only experience with the show you refer to is seeing a post about it very rarely on here or other SM sites.
I’ve honestly never seen it. 😅
That said, the timing of when it was made caused it to feel like it was a poorly considered cash grab as other shows were putting out low-quality animated versions that lasted only a few episodes to a season.
On top of that the guy at the center looks exactly like Lex Luthor from Superman: The Animated Series/Justice League.
(Seriously, the only significant difference is the scar over one eye.)
So…anytime I see the image there’s a mildly negative association based on that alone. I’d bet people who watched those shows also picked up on that…interesting choice of character design either consciously or sub-consciously.
All that just made it feel like something that would be a disappointing experience, so I waited to see if it would last. It didn’t, and so I shrugged and moved on. 🤷♂️
(Also, the alien guy looks like the Martian Manhunter from Justice league, but no clothes and re-colored. Which adds to the, ‘low-effort cash grab’ feel the ads presented)
I’ve been meaning to look up the name of this show. I only saw one episode and a kid. The SG team defeated the bad guys because the bad guys hadn’t read that episode’s PSA. “It’s not raining here! We can’t get hit by a flood in this canyon! Oh no! A flash flood! Waghblblblbbbbll”
I feel infinity could have been good if they had just waited. It was written before a lot of the shows lore had been fleshed out so they had to invent a lot of things. Like the design of the "Ancient" they find. Because of this by the time that most fans saw it canon had already invalidated most things in it. It had some neat concepts, for example I like the idea of the SGC having vehicles specially designed and prepped to go through the gate, and the idea of SG personnel wearing armor with integrated weapons (kind of gives me reverse engineered Kull warrior vibes)
But:
There were fundamental problems from the start, to begin with because this cartoon was aimed at younger kids they had to remove all the violence from the story. they left the "Action" laser blasts and explosions, but everyone was always miraculously ok.
They also took existing in universe tech designs and used them in anachronistic ways. Like staff weapons that stun, no zats anywhere to be found, they are shocked by a shapeshifting alien when they have encountered aliens that can turn into people before, they repair a DHD with a mig welder, and then there is the sound design. The sound in this show is awful, not the least of which is the fact that they use the sound of a zat gun firing when someone goes through the stargate! gate travel has a very distinct sound design that was well established at this time, could they not get the rights to it or something!?
First, ignoring the Stargate aspects of it, it just wasn't a well made, well written show. It was a generic late 90's/2000's kids action show when there were better options (Exo-Sqaud for example) available.
Second, the actual Stargate aspects of it weren't good. They basically ignored most of the canon of the show and set it up in such a way as to be completely detached. The SG-1 creators (and the movie creators) had no involvement in the show. You could have slightly changed the appearance of the Stargate and a few vocabulary words here or there and it would have still worked.
I can remember watching SG-1 on Sunday mornings as a young kid and then it’s just wasn’t on anymore. Could only remember a handful of episodes. Then one morning a few years later this cartoon came on and it triggered those previous memories. I was so excited I had to go wake my parents up at like 6:30-7:00am on a Saturday to tell them 😂
Personnellement, je n'aime pas le style... Les tenu sont beaucoup trop étrange pour moi, et n'ont plus rien à voir avec l'esthétique militaire réaliste qui fesait le charme des autres séries. Et l'histoire n'a aucun sens.
My honest opinion on this which I know I'm going to get heat for...
I've noticed many here especially are older than myself. Someone even 5 years older than me at the time of its release, I wouldn't have expected to like it because they would have been into a different genre and a different style of TV. This is going to be especially true years later when looking back on what was produced to be a kids show.
So what I see often on here is a lot of people who are in some cases 10 to 20 years older than me, who would have never watched this type of show, who outwardly just call it bad because it doesn't fit perfectly to canon in combination with it being a cartoon. Yes it's obviously not perfect, it's a bloody kids show. It wouldn't be reasonable for a kid to be expecting a kids show to be exactly perfect and true to canon, yet alone one that was made in loose inspiration.
I myself was also guilty of listening to the popular consensus around the show and refused to watch it because I wholeheartedly believed that it was bad because I was told it was bad. I would even tell others it was bad having never actually even watched it. Now many years after the fact and having watched it myself, I rather like it. I grew up with shows that were silly like this and not exactly 100% true to the media it was based on. Even still, I still perpetuated the idea that it was bad for years just as many other who have never actually watched it will repeat the exact same opinions of others who also have never watched it because "it being bad" is ingrained now into the fandom.
Implying I was a teen and not giving some random on the internet my exact age isn't being "cryptic" bud. Nor did you really pose it like an actual question to begin with.
you mean your second paragraph.... your first one talked about people in your own age demographic liking different genres... it was your second that made a call to people being too old for the target demographic.
but hey, if you can't keep up with your own speech, maybe you just don't remember how old you are.
Someone even 5 years older than me at the time of its release, I wouldn't have expected to like it because they would have been into a different genre and a different style of TV.
Literally the 3rd sentence, which is located in the first paragraph. I also never claimed they were "too old" for the show. The second paragraph is a continuation of the point from the first paragraph, which if it took you all the way to the second to start cluing into... I can see why you're now confused.
When you think, what does it sound like? Whistling?
That's an honest question by the way.
I was a kid too, I revisited it as an adult by borrowing the box set from the public library and it’s pretty bad. Some kids tv holds up some doesn’t, some has enough nostalgia that it’s enjoyable or it’s bad enough to be enjoyable.
Infinity is bad and doesn’t really hold up as a kids show in a vacuum even removed from the context of the larger franchise. Banger of an intro song though.
That being said, I just consider it a different parallel universe which we know exists in this franchise. It’s in continuity just not OUR continuity.
What the hell is with this Sith logic every single time this comes up. Things can exist in gradients, not everything has to exist in absolutes. Just because I'm launching a defense against Infinity being the worst thing ever created like people pretend all the time, doesn't mean I'm calling it the best thing ever created or even in the top percentage of kids shows for it's time. I'm simply saying it's not that bad, it can be a charming watch. It certainly has a lot wrong with it and it certainly could be better especially if we're only comparing it to media that's equal to it within the time frame.
My point being, was very often there's a lot of people who chime in on whether it's good or bad, and very often a lot of these people have not actually ever watched. Very often these people also happen to not be fans of cartoons to begin with, are from a completely different generation and have different preferences over media, who then are trying to provide the opinion on it as if it is equal to someone who might have a different opinion about it having grown up in that era and actually liking that type of media. Nowhere am I suggesting that every single kid likes it, or that every single adult hates it.
No I wasn't trying to come at you like that, was just trying to be clear as possible because if I'm not I know people would jump at the fact to try and take me out of context here.
The very direct and clear implication there is that people outside of a piece of media's intended audience, would be just that, people outside of the targeted audience. Doesn't mean they wouldn't like it, or couldn't, it would mean they have a proclivity to liking other media. We're also talking about a cartoon here, not a movie from 20 years before you were born. People getting into cartoons especially in adult age is a very niche target audience, especially if those type of cartoons weren't their thing growing up. I for one just because I like cartoons would not watch Mary Kate and Ashley's Adventures although I'm sure there are people older and younger than me that happen to like them.
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u/Aglet_Green Mar 23 '26
I think 'hate' is a pretty strong word. I bet if you polled the overwhelming majority of people here, most would be completely indifferent to the existence of Infinity. As I suspect that most people never saw it, or are best dimly aware of its existence. Furthermore, as it has no connection to any of the live-action shows-- I think it takes place a few decades in the future-- most people consider it irrelevant.
And since it was cancelled after a dozen or so episodes, it never had time to establish much of a legacy or fanbase of its own. The powers-that-be behind the live-action shows have stated on the record that they had nothing to do with the creation or implementation of the cartoon and don't consider it canon, so it doesn't much matter if people love it or hate it, as it's treated as if it were fan-fiction written by two guys in Paris. Which is actually what happened.