Official Defiance Discussion Thread | Episode One: "Pilot"

[xrrated]

it was much better than i anticipated. i was watching on HD channels and it looked so fake but when i switched it to SD it was much better IMO. When Nolan punched the muscle head thing in the *** and deactivated it was so funny. The battle at the end was pretty cool. i am looking forward to the next episode.

[Opertum]

Anyone else catch the line about the mayor having a good conference with Ara Shondu? About a monorail. Right maybe it was a hint that were gonna have to clear out a path through the badlands for the monorail.

I loved the doctor.

How we can get some of those coldfire weapons.

[Djimon Hounsou]

The mayor and her sister can get the D

[Rochbain]

I was quite happy with the pilot. I didn't notice any overly bad effects and the characters are likeable. The leads are strong, and most the supporting cast did a decent job (the doctor was awesome ) Lets hope people watch the show

[Toby5225]

Personally I liked the show and can forgive some of the "Special Effects" comments as no sci-fi has great effect first season due to budget and I can imagine this show already has a higher than usual budget for a freshman show. Also having finished the main story line I really didn't think of the end as a cliffhanger as the scenes from the upcoming season I know exactly what they are looking for and what they want to do with it.

[TheSavageSage]

It took a moment for it to hook me but by the end, it had me! The character interaction seemed forced initially but by the 2nd hour they started syncing. Loved the last 15 minutes! The Indogene Doctor was great, the Bioman was awesome, and the Castithan Datak was delightfully sinister!!! Can't wait until they start adding these other races into the game!

[alred]

As far as pilots go, it wasn't half bad. Very, very few series have pilot EPs that could be called spectacular.

Narrative-wise it planted seeds for, by my count, at least half a dozen major arcs to run through the whole season (above and beyond any "episode in a bottle" type scenarios that will inevitably crop up). I'd have liked to see a little more focus, but that just may be my dislike of unnecessarily overlapping stories.

The biggest gripe I have is Syfy's love of virtual sets. At the least make it just a little less obvious when an entire sequence (sans actor) is a pure CG construct.

Funny you mention that. I read an article by an "old school" FXs guy. He says that the over use of CGI/Green screen has cheapened the experience of enjoying a sci-fi movie/show.
You don't get the same quality with a CGI effect, that you would get with an actual physical model.
And after reading your comment, and recalling a few of the roller scenes in the pilot, I'd have to agree. The Roller scenes looked real bad [I'm talking about the one where they chased Tommy, in particular]. But it's understood, and has to be accepted, that costs have to be cut to make production feasible.

[Saboteur 6]

Funny you mention that. I read an article by an "old school" FXs guy. He says that the over use of CGI/Green screen has cheapened the experience of enjoying a sci-fi movie/show.
You don't get the same quality with a CGI effect, that you would get with an actual physical model.
And after reading your comment, and recalling a few of the roller scenes in the pilot, I'd have to agree. The Roller scenes looked real bad [I'm talking about the one where they chased Tommy, in particular]. But it's understood, and has to be accepted, that costs have to be cut to make production feasible.

That's one of the reasons I liked Farscape. While they certainly used green screen, the were a lot of physical effects/puppets.

[johnny_u]

I was a little disappointed in the pilot but I think that it was mostly because my expectations were so extremely high and my anticipation was out of control after being addicted to the game for the past 2 weeks. Now, the morning after, I can say that I'd probably enjoy watching the pilot a 2nd time more than I did last night because those emotions would be tempered.

If you measure realistic expectations of what a Pilot episode has to accomplish I think that it did a pretty good job. Pilots have to introduce the entire backdrop of the theme, introduce the main characters (as well as at lease give us a glimpse at their own back grounds), and somehow manage to add in an episodes worth of action and drama at the same time. I think they did that VERY well. From now on we'll be able to digest the story one bite at a time without having to digest all the foundation at the same time.

Most of the gripes on the show seem to be about the CG. To me there were really only 2 things that were so bad that they were distracting.
1) The chase scene with Nolan/Amanda vs Tommy. I know there's a budget to work with but there should be some point where the editors look at their work and say, "um, yeah. That looked like crap. Let's try again."

2) The Razorwolves (or whatever they were called) that attacked Nolan and Irisa in the forest. What was THAT?! Common. It looked like they "turned off" more than died. They kind of looked more like a fainting goat than an animal that just got shot in the face; their legs locked straight and they just kinda toppled over on their side like a domino. For it being so early in the pilot it made me pause and think "uh-oh, please don't be stupid".

I guess another small observation, even though it is probably nit-picking is that it seemed like they are going a little heavy on the lip prosthetics of the doctor's race. Other people have mentioned that she sounded a bit odd. I remember thinking the same thing while watching it but thought it was because she really couldn't move the top part of her mouth because of the face prosthetic. Not a big deal to me.

I know this is a lot of complaining but I really did like the show and am hopeful that the future episodes will be even better.

[Pace122004]

thoroughly enjoyed benzs' side boob drooping out at the end!