is the stargate movie any good

Discussion in 'Stargate' started by tmosler, Jun 27, 2013.

  1. tmosler

    tmosler Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Hi i just have quick question. After some time i have decided to watch star gate sg1. but i want to watch the movie befoure watching the show.. So heres my question i am confused because critics seemed to have hated the movie but people i have talked to have said it is good so i was wondering if stargate is a terrible movie like many critcs have said or a good movie?
     
  2. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    I like the movie quite a bit. The series is a direct sequel, although it recasts the main actors and makes a few changes to make the concept viable in the long-term.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I found the movie unimpressive. It didn't make much use of the potential of its concept, and I found it very slow-paced, a long movie in which not a whole lot happens. I feel that once SG-1 hit its stride (which took at least a couple of seasons), it often managed to pack more ideas and story into the first 20 minutes of an episode than the movie was able to do in a full 2 hours.

    Still, given that the series is a direct continuation (allowing for a few tweaks that put it in a slightly alternate reality), I suppose it would be appropriate to watch the movie at least once before moving onto the much richer TV franchise.
     
  4. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    The movie was awesome.

    Critics don't like anything that isn't set in paris and full of sex and whining. Ignore them.

    Those tweaks old Chris mentioned actually wiped some of the best concepts of the movie, most notably the enemy alien (changed from a humanoid glowing gray to an eel...sigh) and the operation of the Stargate. (I don't know why they thought it necessary to add LED lights to the chevrons for the series. The gate looked much cooler as a big, enigmatic stone thingie.) The scope also got reduced (Abydos went from being on the other side of the known universe to another part of this galaxy.)

    The original movie is one of my favorite films, and is the main reason i tolerate Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. It works just fine as a stand alone film, which is why I consider the series more of a reboot than a continuation. It is not too long, and given that it's a sci-fi exploration film it doesn't need huge amounts of action.

    And any film with this classic Kurt Russell scene must be watched:

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slhbfe01uVQ[/yt]
     
  5. MacLeod

    MacLeod Admiral Admiral

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    It's an ok movie. It's not bad but it's not great. Just your average popcorn flick.
     
  6. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I'll agree partway with the Stargate operation, because I miss the chevrons opening but I like that they glow too. I totally disagree with the original Ra, because I liked how the show subverted the gray alien trope by making them good guys. If they'd kept the old Ra, we'd just see gray aliens being evil like they are in most media.
     
  7. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    Gray aliens are a trope whether they're good or bad. Might as well keep the original Ra instead of making him just another slug from the Outer Limits reboot series, which is what happened.
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    The original idea of the possessing alien was ridiculous. How can a human-sized being exist within another human-sized body? It's an anatomical absurdity, unless it skins the human host and just wears the skin around itself. The Goa'uld as fairly small parasites made more medical sense, as well as providing a good explanation for what evolutionary advantage these creatures would gain from the ability to take over larger, more dexterous hosts.
     
  9. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    Any sufficiently advanced technology would seem like magic to the less advanced. A human sized parasite possessing a human sized host is no less ridiculous than a TARDIS being bigger on the inside, and how many frigging years has Doctor Who been on the air?

    The goa'uld as fairly small parasites is just more of the same for the producers who moved from Outer Limits to SG-1. There's nothing brilliant or innovative about them.

    And an eel being smart enough to completely take over the operation of a human mind and body makes no biological sense.
     
  10. AJ86

    AJ86 Captain Captain

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    Last edited: Jun 28, 2013
  11. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I love the film, and I felt that having seen SG-1 even enhances the experience quite a bit. The original Stargate film is just so much greater in scale. The atmosphere, the sets, the cinematography, the music, it's all top notch, of course much better than anything from the show because of the budget. But then there's also the knowledge of the epic adventures that happen after the film in the TV show.

    It's amazing how well the show ties into that film. Every element that is memorable from the show can be found in this film. And even Kurt Russell's Jack O'Neil has some moments where Richard Dean Anderson's O'Neill shines through. It's just that he's terribly depressed in the film.

    I would have loved to see a sequel to the film that ignored the TV show and brought back Kurt Russell and James Spader.
     
  12. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's okay. Hardly memorable, but it has its moments. It works best after you have familiarity with the TV shows and you re-watch it, seeing how it all began.

    Which will never happen. It's because of the TV shows that Stargate has any kind of real popularity and if weren't for SG-1 at the very least, it's possible the movie would fade into obscurity.

    Granted, that's not really much of a factor now given the franchise is essentially done. But should anything new be done with Stargate, TV or movie, the wisest move would be to reboot things than do a sequel to a movie nearly two decades old but ignoring everything that's developed from it in those two decades.
     
  13. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    If the Bill McCay novels are anything to go by (since they were supposedly based of Dean Devlin's notes on the Stargate sequels), it may be better that we didn't, because there were some pretty nonsensical things that put the shows to shame (like humanity reverse engineering alien tech at XCOM speed levels).

    That said, there are some ideas from those books that I wouldn't mind seeing used in a Stargate reboot, like Earth setting up a base on Abydos and mining naquadah there, along with enemy politics.
     
  14. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Meh, it's not like the show completely ignored the idea, since we did see off-world bases and even naquadah mining operations.
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's a saying that's often abused. There is, in fact, a fundamental difference between technology and magic, in that the former is constrained by the fundamental laws of physics. Not to mention that we're talking about biology here, not technology.

    Anyway, yes, certainly, some fiction is more fanciful than others, but that's my point -- that while the Stargate movie was essentially a work of fantasy (as is Doctor Who, of course), the Stargate TV franchise often managed to be one of the more scientifically literate SF shows around. Some of its ideas were quite fanciful, but on the whole it generally tried to take the silly ideas from the movie and rework them into something more scientifically plausible. Sometimes it managed to do excellent hard SF, notably in the episode "Tangent." Given how rare it is for any SF on television or film to be remotely scientifically literate, that's a noteworthy accomplishment and helps make the TV franchise stand out from the pack in a way the movie totally failed to do.

    And just in general, the TV franchise's worldbuilding and conceptual development was far, far richer than what the movie managed. I mean, come on, Devlin and Emmerich came up with this idea with limitless potential, a wormhole allowing instant travel to anywhere in the galaxy, and the best they could come up with was a hackneyed ancient-astronaut story and a replica of ancient Egypt? What a profound failure of imagination. The movie is a tremendous letdown. What impresses me so much about the TV franchise is how they managed to take such a shallow foundation and build such a rich and imaginative universe upon it. I daresay it's the only SFTV universe that can compare with Star Trek for sheer scope, richness, and coherence. In some ways it's even more coherent than ST managed to be, since it remained mostly under the same creators' control throughout its tenure. (Although unlike ST, its short-lived animated incarnation is unambiguously non-canonical.) Doctor Who's universe certainly has scope and richness, but coherence has never been one of its features.
     
  16. Agent Richard07

    Agent Richard07 Admiral Admiral

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    Maybe the alien did something akin to "quantum leaping" into the human body. I'm sure with enough thought and imagination we could come up with something that works.
     
  17. JarodRussell

    JarodRussell Vice Admiral Admiral

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    In the TV show we get the alien-astronaut story and replicas of Egypt and some Middle Age villages.

    And then you're being completely unfair, comparing a TV show with 10 seasons to a film with 2 hours like that.
     
  18. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd say the movie was okay, but I wouldn't call it great and I'd hesitate to call it good. By Devlin-Emmerich (hope I got that right) standards it's a remarkably restrained film (possibly the most restrained they ever did?).

    It's hard for me to recall seeing the film without having any knowledge of SG-1. There's some impressive scenes, but there's also a lot of stuff that can be a bit slow-going, especially if you're not familiar with SG-1 (i.e. why does any of this matter?).

    If you're planning to watch the series anyway, I might recommend looking at the movie as the pilot episode. Which is, I suppose, a bit ironic as SG-1 itself has a pilot episode (two versions, in fact). With all the whackiness and occasional facepalming that that may imply.
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    The later, revised DVD version of "Children of the Gods" is better overall, although the original pilot edit (which was made for Showtime) has a full-frontal female nude scene. Whether its removal counts as an improvement depends on one's personal tastes and preferences.
     
  20. 137th Gebirg

    137th Gebirg Admiral Premium Member

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    I always wondered if the original movie Ra was actually a Gu'a'uld-possessed Reol (like Kaiael). They sure looked a lot alike.

    Ra:
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Kaiael:
    [​IMG]

    Maybe?

    Oh, and I loved the movie. Was a great start to the franchise.