Media Meditation 5

I am a pretty big Stargate fan. I own the entirety of SG-1 on DVD, and have been following the new show, Universe. I have noticed a big change in the way the show works and is shot. In the original show, the camera work was very stable.
There were generally slow pans that would keep up with the action, and let you see everything that was going on. You were an observer, not really a part of the action. The new show, Stargate Universe, is filmed in what I call, Battlestar style.

Notice the differences here. Where SG-1 has stable, midrange shots, SGU's style is jumpy, with cuts rather than panning shots to follow the action. This makes sense I guess, as as far as I can tell, the show is supposed to be seen through the eyes of "Kinos", floating camera bots that one of the characters found on the ship. I however, dislike it. It really feels to me like they are just aping Battlestar Galactica. They are already doing it in the hopeless atmosphere, but I hardly think they need to copy the camera style too. I guess it works, it does do a good job of engaging the reptilian brain, but sometimes I think that isn't really the right way of going about it. I like this style somewhat in action scenes, but it doesn't seem appropriate when it is in every mundane conversation. Infact, it rather lessens the impact where it would otherwise be a big change.

It's a cool effect, but I think that when you are scripting the camera work, you have to not only look at the big picture but how bits work on their own. Its great to have a unified camera theme, but does that theme necessarily work for the entire script? I have found that I have trouble remembering names of characters and sometimes plot details with this type of camera work. I wonder if it is because my reptilian brain is becoming active at the expense of my neo-cortex. Thus I am able to see and react to all the cool stuff that is going on screen but all the details of the plot go in one ear and out the other.