Customer Reviews

Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Series Collection

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Before I begin I would like to point out that this review and star rating is for this set and its packaging ONLY. The show itself is great and would get a 7 out of 5 stars from me, but before your mouth starts watering over the "Collector's Edition", hear me out.

Pros: The outside package and photos used are nice and add something you wouldn't get by buying the seasons individually. The episodes "Vegas" and "Enemy at the Gate" come in both the extended versions and broadcast versions. There is a bonus disc that has two featurettes that come only with this Complete Series set.

Cons: Where do I begin? I was appalled to find some of the discs were scratched and has smudges on them (most notably the season one discs and the bonus disc). One disc had errors, even though there were no apparent scratches on it. The 26 disc are divided up into seasons, and those individual seasons are housed in thick glossy paper with slits in it for the discs. The discs are supposed to be held in by rubber knobs... it was very hard to get the discs onto these knobs, and when you pulled a disc off of one, sometimes little pieces of the knob would come off with it and the knob would often smudge the disc. The Season One folder would ALWAYS catch on a tab just inside the packaging when you pull out the "drawer" to get a disc (a way around this is to lay down the season one folder on it's side; the rest can stay upright).

Although this isn't really a pro or con, I was a little disappointed that they reused the discs put into the individual season sets. The discs still mention the volume numbers, which don't apply in the complete set; this is confusing to some. I thought they (the people who designed this) would take more pride in their product than they apparently did.

So, to summarize, Stargate Atlantis is a great show that everyone should see and consider investing into all five seasons... but you'll need to be a very patient and sympathetic person to be satisfied with this set.

P.S. - This isn't an isolated incident... I put in an order for an exchange and the new set had almost identical problems. (It should be noted that, as of yet, Amazon has been good to work with.)

So I like the series, and I'm enjoying it right now. The problem I have was with the packaging. If you bought the complete SG-1 series, it came in two large foldout cases of something to the effect of glossy cardboard. Roughly 3 of the disks were damaged and some episodes wouldn't play. You can see a lot of message boards talking of similar problems.
The Atlantis set takes the poor planning a step further. It is broken up by season, but uses the same glossy paper, and now a hard gel-ish holder for the middle of the disc which is both unnecessary and annoying. I don't know if any of the discs are damaged yet, but if I leave them in the current case, they likely will become as such soon.

Save yourself A LOT of headache and buy a CD/DVD case at the same time.

I had already seen most of the TV series, it's great, no complains on it. I'm a huge SG fan and have the full 10 season SG-1 set as well, in addition to the DVD release movies.

The disks are in bad shape, I noticed scratches on some but they played fine. Got to 3rd disk, and it had defects so bad it was unwatchable. I'm in the process of sending it back now, hope my replacement is in better shape but I don't have my hopes up.

Packaging looks nice, but as others mentioned it's not handy for using the disks, the gel center holders make it hard to get the disks in and out.

I'll edit in any further issues I come across, hopefully the replacement will be better. Quality control utterly failed somewhere in the manufacturing process of these disks. I heard similar complains about my SG-1 disk set, but the one I got was fine, maybe eventually I will get a second run of sets with better quality standards eventually.

EDIT: Got replacement set, these don't appear to be as bad as the others, but still some scratches. 1st Season seems to be the worst, however I have not found a disk that does not play well yet.

First off, let me say I love Stargate (all versions) and am not rating the quality of the program. I am rating the quality of this dvd set. And it is HORRIBLE. MANY of my discs did not play properly. At first I thought that it was simply my computer's software, so I tried other programs. Then I tried other computers. I even put the discs into different stand alone DVD players. The same problems happened everywhere. From the start, when the DVDs were burned at their factory, they must have made mistakes because when I looked at the bottom of the DVDs, there were no scratches or irregularities. The dvds would stop playing in certain spots, and the menus would not function properly.

As far as packaging, it was TERRIBLE. When you buy complete series sets, you expect a level of quick, cheap packaging, and you have to know that they are not going to encase every DVD in its own jewel case or wrapping; that's fine as far as I'm concerned. But with these Atlantis sets, I'm shocked at how foolishly they were packed. The main issue is that in every cardboard DVD slit (where you slide the disc into to hold it) they placed a rubber like knob for extra sturdiness. The attempt, I'm assuming, is to fit perfectly into the hole at the center of the DVD so that the disc is safe. The EXACT OPPOSITE occurs. When they place the DVDs into the rubber holes, they scratched MANY of the DVDs. When you attempt to remove the disc from the rubber holder, YOU scratch the DVD on accident. If you're lucky enough not to scratch the DVD (a technique I had to figure out after three seasons), you almost always are faced with rubber residue from the rubber knobs that gets stuck on the DVD. If you don't wipe it off, the dvd plays even more erratically. So when wiping, BE CAREFUL. Use a soft cloth, because if you don't, you'll scratch the disc. I ended up ripping off the rubber holder in every box to avoid having these problems in case I ever want to watch the discs again. If you decide to do this, make sure to put some smooth scotch tape over the area where you rip, because when you rip off the rubber knob, the tear of the cardboard will also scratch your disc when you return it to the slit. By putting the piece of scotch tape over the rip, you'll make it nice and smooth for the dvd to rest.

I thought purchasing directly from amazon.com as the seller would be a safe bet, but it was NOT. To summarize:

-Discs are burned improperly - even if you find no scratches on the bottom of the discs, they do not play correctly, regardless of how many players (both computers and stand alone dvd players) you use

-Most discs come scratched

-The packaging is EXTREMELY POOR and ruins the discs further

I recommend everyone to read ALL reviews on this product. You'll find that even the positive reviews talk about the same issues I mentioned. When I first read them, I thought "this will never happen to me." But it DID! (I read that someone else wrote the exact same thing, but still, I thought 'this will never happen to me.'). In any case, I recommend buying the separate DVD sets season by season from some place like Best Buy. They are considerably more expensive, but honestly, it's your only real choice. If you buy these DVDs, you'll never even get to watch them. I read another's review, and he said that he sent his dvd set back to amazon countless times, only to find the same problems with EVERY set he received. After returning 5 times, he finally mixed and matched enough to get a working set. That's just plain ridiculous. I'm very disappointed with this and will probably never buy directly from amazon again. Good luck with your purchase, and I really do recommend buying this series, just not this set. It's a very entertaining show.

If you're like me, you've read a lot of reviews of this box set and thought "It won't happen to me". Please, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS BOX SET!

Please understand, my rating is for the product, not the show, as SGA is one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time! This box set, however, is awful, at best!

1) The packaging - I'm not sure what drunken 2nd grader thought it would be a good idea to put the seasons in a large box that would not hold them in place in any way. They are free to slide from one side of the box to the other... Not good when you're trying to protect DVDs. Then there's the individual season packaging. This gives a new definition to "WTF!?" since they are not held in place by the little pieces of plastic which has been used since the beginning of CDs... No, those are replaced with some weird piece of plastic which ensures that once the disc has been taken out of the package, it will NEVER go back in place!

2) The DVDs - I'm taking an educated guess that the plant that made the DVDs is either: a) A place where they play a lot of football using the discs as the ball; b) Every piece of equipment they have in the plant is lined with steel wool. Why? Because more of the discs that I received were scratched than the discs I received which were not scratched. Sorry, but this is a little maddening when you're in the middle of a great episode only to have it skip!

I thought about sending it back and getting a replacement, but I realized something: The people writing these reviews were right, therefore I could play a sick game of Send & Receive with Amazon for months... So I just decided to go to Best Buy and get the seasons individually.

Do yourself a favor: Follow suit...

I ordered this set and checked the discs after reading the other reviews. Not a single disc in the first 2 seasons was in good condition. Like others have said this product is poorly packaged and there is no way to get the discs out with running the risk of scratching them even more. Returned it and got another set with the exact same problem. Ended up returning the set again and just buying all the seasons separately. The packaging on the individual seasons is much better.

One of the big arcs of the "Stargate SG-1" series was finding the Lost City of the Ancients, also known as Atlantis.

It also turned into fertile fodder for a spinoff series (come on, you KNEW they had to make one eventually). And though it had a slightly shaky start -- much like its parent series -- the following seasons saw "Stargate: Atlantis" blossom out into a solid sci-fi series with a legendary series, new alien parasites, and new nasty machines from long ago.

At the Antarctic base, Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) has finally figured out the location of Atlantis -- in the Pegasus galaxy. General Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) lets an exploratory unit to go to Atlantis -- even though they don't have the power to return back to the Milky Way, and will be stranded there.

So Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson) leads an international group of scientists and military personnel to another galaxy, and arrive in the sunken Ancient city of Atlantis. After some initial problems, the ancient city is secured and has risen above the water -- but unfortunately the military unit, including Major John Sheppard (Joe Flanigan), have run afoul of the parasitic, life-sucking alien Wraith, who destroyed the Pegasus Ancients long ago.

And the Pegasus galaxy has plenty of its own dangers -- nanoviruses, spies, life-sucking bugs, cannibal Wraith, enzyme addicts, whales, an egomaniac baker, weird Ancient devices, Wraiths transformed into humans (and vice versa), "alternate reality drives," Ancient artifacts, crooked businessmen, fear machines, a race of hybrid bug monsters, crystalline nightmare aliens, and a race of ruthless soldiers pretending to be Amish-like farmers.

The Atlantis base regains contact with Earth, but this may not be enough to save them from the Wraith's attempts to gain control of Atlantis -- and the only Stargate with Earth's coordinates. To make matters worse, they encounter a planet of what seems to be Ancients, only to find that they are in fact a mechanical experiment gone horribly wrong. And they really, really hate humans -- and an attack of theirs leads to Weir being horribly injured.

At the same time, Atlantis receives two new commander -- first Colonel Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), formerly of SG-1, and then the once-fussy Woolsey (Robert Picardo). Not that it's any easier than SG-1 was, as the crew faces a startling pregnancy that attracts unwanted attentions, predictions of doom, and Wraith incursions that are striking a little too close to home -- on the way to Earth.

"Stargate: Atlantis" has an easier introduction than most series, even spinoffs. The whole idea was introduced over a few seasons of "Stargate SG-1," some of the characters (Weir, Woolsey and McKay) were also recurring characters, and Tapping was a regular. Teal'c and Daniel even drop in. And while the first season is a bit bland ("The romancing of the alien priestess? It's very 1967 of you," Rodney snipes) the storyline hits its stride in the second season.

And it has plenty of sci-fi staples -- ugly nasty aliens, tightly wound scientists, little tubular ships, explosions, moral quandaries and a bit of classic-style horror (just look at Michael's "experiments"). But it doesn't lose its laid-back style (Rodney having trouble with a mustached woman who resents being called "sir"), or its human side, such as the handling of certain characters who are lost (some of whom are not really gone for good).

And the dialogue is pretty great, with lots of one-liners and snappy exchanges, with the occasional pop culture reference ("It's the ultimate answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything!"). Most are from Rodney ("Just once, I would like to be taken prisoner by the sexy alien!"), and Sheppard ("But then I'd be The Man, and who would I have to rage against?"). But there's humor from everyone ("He put his hand in my forehead! How can you resist that?" "Well, I like to close my eyes and think of England"), including the Wraith ("I hope they prove as delicious as the farmers who grew them").

One thing Atlantis does have is a high cast turnover, compared to the relatively unchanging cast of the previous series -- Higginson does a pretty good job as the scientist-command but is given too little to do.After season three, she she was replaced by Tapping, who brings a bit of seasoned science-military fusion to the mix, then fusspot Woolsey who manages to actually be a good if befuddled commander ("Monkey? Did you say flying?").

Flanigan has a nice O'Neillian snap to his performance ("I HATE clowns!"), David Hewlett is hilarious as the antisocial, ever-exasperated scientist, and Paul McGillion is adorable as a Scottish doctor. And while Rachel Luttrell and Jason Momoa are never quite as endearingly alien as SG-1's Teal'c (who makes a guest appearance), they are quite solid as a psychic martial-artist and a rough-edged warrior.

"Stargate Atlantis" loses a few too many cast members, but the storylines and aliens add a fresh dimension to the Stargate universe. Definitely worth the while.

as others have said and i just did the math on right now, buy the first four season pack then buy the 5th season, it will cost you $119, with free amazon shipping...and save all the money that this complete series will give you...plus if its anything like the complete sg1 series or the complete battlestar galactic it will be in card board cut outs instead of plastic holders ...

If I had read these reviews before buying this set, I would have bought each season separately. The packaging is terrible. Each disk is held in place buy a paper circular knob that is almost impossible to use and each disk is wrapped in some thin, plastic wrapper. That, in itself, wouldn't bother me so much but that's not all that's wrong with this set. The disks are all number differently as if they were thrown together from a bunch of different versions of the set. Season one disks have some weird numbering like season 1 volume 3 disk 1 and that carries on until your get to season 3 or 4 when it becomes season 3 disk 1. That's not too bad either, but that's not all. The worst part is that these disks lock up. I play mine in my xbox 360 and about 10 times for each show during the first 4 seasons it will lock up and say attempting to read media. I went as far as to try the disks on my dvd player and they wouldn't play at all. After reading other reviews, it turns out I'm not the only one! I don't know what MGM was thinking when they put this set together but whomever was in charge should have been fired. Save yourself the aggravation and buy the seasons separately.

I bought the Full season set for Stargate SG1 awhile back, and I thought whoever handled quality control for that set was dumb. There were scratches, read errors, etc on the discs. I returned it to amazon and got a better set and read error checked all 54 some discs in the set just like I did with atlantis.

Now it seems MGM fired dumb and hired dumber for the Quality control for Stargate Atlantis. Knowing the horrors I faced with the SG1 set, I made sure and checked every disc as soon as possible.
How do I check discs - I play about a minute or so throughout the disc using media player homecinema just to get past the copy protection enough so I get an accurate read error check. I then do a file copy from disc to my hard drive to see if any read errors occur, and then I use nero's discspeed utility to run a scandisc for read errors. If I get errors I will locate which chapters and section it's at and play them back on standalone dvd player. It's time consuming, but I hate having flawed sets.

On my first set, all of season 1, 3, 5 and the bonus disc had read errors and scratches. Seasons 2 and 4 had no read errors and they played back fine. I filed for a replacement, they shipped a replacement, and I swapped discs to get a set that was as flawless as I can get it.. After swapping around, all of season 3, 4 discs on season 5 and the bonus disc had read errors on both sets and they skip and screw up on my standalone.

This is horrible - the quality control at MGM is far worse now than it was for SG1. on my original SG1 set - there were scratches, but the only read errors was on bonus disc1 and 3 discs on season 4. Our of 54 dvds, 50 had no read errors and played back fine. 10 of the discs in that set had scratches, but no read errors on them. I got a return on amazon, swapped out 14 discs and was good. 14/54 is about 26% bad discs.

For stargate atlantis - 16 discs out of 26 discs bad. That's a 62% failure rate. That's actually higher than the xbox 360's red ring fail rate at around 54%.
After swapping around and returns, I have 10 bad discs out of 26, that's 38% fail. I have to do one more return to get 0% fail. I hope amazon is ok with me doing a third return.. I really don't want to get the credit card company involved...