Stargate Continuum - Grading and Discussion

Discussion in 'Stargate' started by Borg451, Jul 3, 2008.

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What did you think?

  1. 1 - V. Poor shouldnt have made this movie.

    2.3%
  2. 2 - Pretty Poor

    4.1%
  3. 3 - Meh.. okay. definitely worth a download..

    22.2%
  4. 4 - V. Good.

    60.8%
  5. 5 - Best Stargate ever.

    10.5%
  1. cylkoth

    cylkoth Commodore Commodore

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    ^^ Thanks..it's been a long while since I've seen that ep. Sci Fi appears to avoid showing the early seasons in the evening slot. I don't recall running across any eps before s4. They're currently in season 8, and I simply can't remember what they were running back in May. :eek:
     
  2. James Bond

    James Bond Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I think that Baal was keeping the other system lords in check though, so he could have Earth for himself when the time was right.
     
  3. James Bond

    James Bond Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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  4. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    So I got my repeat viewing in, and I do have to say that I liked it more the second time. The first thing I had to do was completely throw out any form of logical time-travel effects that I think about because if I kept getting caught up in that, I would never enjoy it. Second, something occurred to me that also effected some of my initial AoT viewings too: I was expecting too much. For both of those movies, I was going in planning on "Lost City" caliber material, which meant that they could be as good or great as they wanted, but they would have to be down-right phenominal to make me happy. So I had to throw that standard out too. So, once I stopped over thinking the time travel and stop expecting so much, it really was a quality movie. Definately worth a 4. A couple things I got from round two- some observations and some problems.

    -I previously mentioned that the ending was weak and a cop out. Well, I was talking to one of my buddies the other day and he made a pretty decent case. Sometimes, the writers get the heros written into such an incredibly impossible corner that they have to settle for the simple solution because any incredible escape could very easily kill the suspension of disbelief. And it made sense. As much as I disliked the ending, how were they supposed to get out of that?

    -Some people have complained about a lot of the recent O'Neill behavior, and I definately noticed and agreed this movie. Real-O'Neill was never serious with the exception of when everybody started disappearing. It was literally one smart-assed comment after another. Don't get me wrong, I love O'Neill, and I love his humor, but that was over-kill.

    -As much as some people tried accusing the character of Mitchell of being a wanna-be O'Neill, he definately brings his own flavor to everything. There are some lines that I literally can't see anyone else saying- "Carter! That is a terrible plan!" "Daniel, why would you go and do a thing like that?" :guffaw:

    -I found it interesting that in both movies, they have to make moral decisions, pick what some might see as the "wrong" answer both times, and they never batted an eye. Sure, AoT had references to "We're not happy that we had to use the device", but they never hesitated to make these calls with sweeping ramifications.

    -A minor note on Mitchell going back. Since they had Browder playing one guy back there all ready, they should have had him played by one person in the beginning and then played by Browder at the end. Have our Mitchell replace someone. I can understand two Mitchell's, but we didn't need two Mitchells both protrayed by Ben Browder.

    -The writers and directors have put both of these movies together time-wise like they are being filmed for television. They need to stop that. If it's a matter of money limiting them to an hour and 20 or 30 minutes, then they can cut out the location filming. As much as I like those outdoors shots, a bigger story can help things feel epic just as much as big, expensive shots do. We've done two really great movies that were filmed for TV that had huge, beautiful shots, now lets have some great movies that get filmed for DVD that have huge stories. :techman:
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2008
  5. Gatekeeper

    Gatekeeper Commodore Commodore

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    Well, I purchased the Blu-ray version of "Stargate Continuum," watched it, and came away OK with what I got. Not overly impressed, but not underwhelmed, either.

    I thought the movie skimped in places — especially at the end, what with Mitchell arriving in 1929 and having 10 years to twiddle his thumbs, none of which was shown — but was pleased to see cameos by so many characters, such as the system lords. I also liked Ba'al, the battle around the time machine and, of course, seeing the alternate Earth get bombed from space. All were good scenes.

    As others have said, the movie was nothing original. Various Stargate episodes have dealt with time travel and parallel timelines (hell, SG-A just did one in its newest episode), to varying degrees of entertainment. So that's kind of a big strike against "Continuum." It would have been interesting to see how Ba'al's "velvet glove" treatment of the Tauri would have paid off for the Go'auld. It's a shame we'll never get to see it, unless we see the alternate reality of an alternate reality at some point.

    The Blu-ray version definitely was crisp, but I'm sure there were scenes and stock footage in the movie that weren't in 1080p.

    Gatekeeper
     
  6. James Bond

    James Bond Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ^ Apparently, most (if not all) of the actual arctic scenes were shot with regular cameras, not high def, which is a damn shame as far as I'm concerned. :(
     
  7. Bob The Skutter

    Bob The Skutter Complete Arse Cleft In Memoriam

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    But film is better than HD video...
     
  8. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    Shhhh. ;)

    The scenes were shot on 16mm in the arctic, which isn't as sharp as the 35mm they used to shoot Ark of Truth (And, I'm assuming, the rest of Continuum, besides the stock footage), but it's still sharper than HD video.
     
  9. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    ^What stock footage did they use? I must have missed that.
     
  10. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    ^^
    Off the top of my head, a few shots of the F-16s stuck out (but only a few of them looked like stock; most of them were either practical shots of the planes on the runway or in a hanger with a backdrop-- or CGI).
     
  11. cylkoth

    cylkoth Commodore Commodore

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    The commentary mentions the shot of the huge military plane seen after the trio are split up (after the hanger scene), was from "Watergate".
    I don't think anything else was reused . If something was, they did a good job of not making it appear to be stock footage.
     
  12. archeryguy1701

    archeryguy1701 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Right, I do remember the transport plane looking familiar, but I wasn't sure.
     
  13. RoJoHen

    RoJoHen Awesome Admiral

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    It was fun. I'm not really in a nitpicky mood, so I'll just say that I enjoyed it for what it was. Not amazing, but still a fun little ride. It actually felt like they took the first 8 seasons, picked random events from them, and combined them to form one movie, which I thought was funny.

    A few random things I didn't like: Major Davis was in the opening sequence but then disappeared. I would have liked him to have a larger role.

    What is Old Cam up to? Is he just living in hiding? Kinda reminded me of "Benders Big Score" when Fry goes back in time and lives out his life. I mean, Cam saved the day, but what did he do after he killed Ba'al? Did he travel around the world with his grandpa?

    I was actually hoping that he was going to turn out to be his own grandfather. It would have been great, especially with the foreshadowing from Carter earlier in the movie where she tells him that he is a living grandfather paradox.
     
  14. Brikar99

    Brikar99 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    "Oh, a lesson in causality from Mr-I'm-My-Own-Grampa! LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
     
  15. James Bond

    James Bond Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yep, that's what I meant. :)
     
  16. broberfett

    broberfett Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I was totally thinking of Futurama with the Grandfather thing. I was starting to think he would be his own grandpa and that was him as the Captain, but then I thought, no, that would be way too comical.
     
  17. Meredith

    Meredith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Ba'al's Time travel machine was frickin' great and clever too, he must have read some SG-1 mission reports to come up with that, he certainly had ties to the Trust and his implementation was clever as well.


    Big ass computer with wide spread satellites to monitor them for Solar flares and gate forwarding macros to take you where you need to go and what time to take you.


    Has to be one of the best clever uses of the stargate system I have ever frelling seen.
     
  18. Meredith

    Meredith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    There might be a way for alt-cameron to get to back to the future time and warn of the time travel machine's existence.
     
  19. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    You know, that's a good point. Even though Ba'al went back in the final timeline and failed to change history, the machine is still there. It's entirely possible that it's not as spiffy as the one the unhappened SG-1 found, since that was Ba'al's second build of the time machine, and he had eighty years and the resources of the entire galaxy to improve it. The one he first built in the proper timelines to go back in time was probably a bit more crude than the version we saw.
     
  20. drasche

    drasche Captain Captain

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    I wonder what happened to the Ori in Baal's timeline.