darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
I don't know where that piece came from, but it WASN'T from the "mastage chase" scene. That was a very "actiony" piece of music and the Carter "wow" scene music is very melodic and reflective.
"Children of the Gods: Final Cut" Grading and Review Thread
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I don't know where that piece came from, but it WASN'T from the "mastage chase" scene. That was a very "actiony" piece of music and the Carter "wow" scene music is very melodic and reflective.
No, it was from the "Daniel's Mastadge" track, (that's why I said "a" mastadge scene). And, having checked that, I was reminded of how utterly grating the five seconds of the track they cut in was. I'm sure they could've made a more awkward transition (in fact, I know they can, having seen the rest of the original version, as well as season one...), but probably not without trying.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
^I stand corrected.
Watching the movie again, I think that there's not really much new Goldsmith score here. Mostly the Arnold stuff seems to have been replaced with Goldsmith cues from different points in the movie. For instance, the cue entitled "Return to Active Duty" on the CD, the part accompanying O'Neill's arrival at Cheyenne Mountain and descent in the elevator, is used at least three times overall in the Final Cut, including the end titles. And the music under the opening scene of the Final Cut is used in two other Stargate dialing sequences as well.
And I've noticed another glaring flaw in the original that this recut didn't fix. The Abydos "Cartouche" set (which is a total misuse of the word "cartouche," by the way) doesn't look at all like the way Daniel describes it in dialogue. He describes a map or chart of Stargate address symbols in groups of seven with lines connecting them, but what we actually see on the walls are just the standard gold hieroglyph-covered walls used in Goa'uld architecture throughout the series. They aren't Stargate symbols, they aren't in groups of seven, and they aren't connected by lines. It's annoying.
But boy, Amanda Tapping sure was cute at that age. She's still lovely today, but not as girlish.
And I've noticed another glaring flaw in the original that this recut didn't fix. The Abydos "Cartouche" set (which is a total misuse of the word "cartouche," by the way) doesn't look at all like the way Daniel describes it in dialogue. He describes a map or chart of Stargate address symbols in groups of seven with lines connecting them, but what we actually see on the walls are just the standard gold hieroglyph-covered walls used in Goa'uld architecture throughout the series. They aren't Stargate symbols, they aren't in groups of seven, and they aren't connected by lines. It's annoying.
But boy, Amanda Tapping sure was cute at that age. She's still lovely today, but not as girlish.
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Guh, I didn't know that this had come out. The completionist in me wants to get it, but I just can't work up the enthusiasm. Does the DVD have anything special on it or just the standard commentary, etc, etc?
^Just a comentary and a very short featurette about redoing the movie. Nothing too special.
Man, must resist the urge. 
Okay, seen this now. While I did like a couple of the extended scenes, I was taken aback by some of the cuts----like why cut the first mention of Jack's son dying (when he's talking with Kowalski), if they're going to leave in that bit at his house with Daniel?
The only change that I really liked from a story perspective was Teal'c introducing Apophis by name. In the original cut, it seemed like Daniel just pulled the name out of his mythological hat based on the serpent motif.
I don't know why they replaced the exterior shot of the Abydos pyramid. Sure it's a direct lift from the movie, but that actually makes sense in context.
The SG-2 "hero moment" is a bit diminished by showing them rushing into position. It's better when the missile just appears out of nowhere. And after the Abydos attack, it felt like they had 3 or 4 possible ways to introduce the notion of Ferretti seeing the symbols----and for this cut, decided to throw all of them in. Very repetitious. Less is more, guys. We get it.
Definitely missed Hammond's "five more minutes" bit. It was bad enough they cut that for the syndicated version, but to have it missing here too is just odd.
I think a couple of the scenes may have been reordered slightly, too. Not sure why they'd have done that.
The only change that I really liked from a story perspective was Teal'c introducing Apophis by name. In the original cut, it seemed like Daniel just pulled the name out of his mythological hat based on the serpent motif.
I don't know why they replaced the exterior shot of the Abydos pyramid. Sure it's a direct lift from the movie, but that actually makes sense in context.
The SG-2 "hero moment" is a bit diminished by showing them rushing into position. It's better when the missile just appears out of nowhere. And after the Abydos attack, it felt like they had 3 or 4 possible ways to introduce the notion of Ferretti seeing the symbols----and for this cut, decided to throw all of them in. Very repetitious. Less is more, guys. We get it.
Definitely missed Hammond's "five more minutes" bit. It was bad enough they cut that for the syndicated version, but to have it missing here too is just odd.
I think a couple of the scenes may have been reordered slightly, too. Not sure why they'd have done that.
I get the feeling they wanted to tone down the "movie" moments and have it be as "straight" as possible, considering some of the other things that they cut.
I have now seen this. Some things I noticed:
* Apophis doesn't seem to use any device to make the Stargate dial out when he attacks Earth here. So, we can hear the Jaffa manually dialling the Stargate instead.
* The scene where Carter meets O'Neill and co is much better. The atrocious "Look at me! I'm as tough as you are!" dialogue is all but gone.
* The dead female Jaffa on the autopsy table is a bit jarring since we never saw one in the attack.
* The entire Harem scene is gone. The scenes are rearranged so that the soldier from Earth is taken to Apophis before Sha're is taken.
* Apophis doesn't seem to use any device to make the Stargate dial out when he attacks Earth here. So, we can hear the Jaffa manually dialling the Stargate instead.
* The scene where Carter meets O'Neill and co is much better. The atrocious "Look at me! I'm as tough as you are!" dialogue is all but gone.
* The dead female Jaffa on the autopsy table is a bit jarring since we never saw one in the attack.
* The entire Harem scene is gone. The scenes are rearranged so that the soldier from Earth is taken to Apophis before Sha're is taken.
They explained that in the commentary. The original had Kawalsky saying "Gee, I didn't know you had a kid," but later episodes established that O'Neill and Kawalsky had been friends for a long time, so it didn't make sense that Kawalsky wouldn't have known. So it was a cut to keep the pilot consistent with later SG-1 continuity.
To improve the pacing, no doubt. The original cut was a TV pilot, required to fill a certain predetermined timeframe, and probably cut with act breaks in mind for eventual syndication on commercial TV. That would've put constraints on its structure, length, and pacing. Now that they recut it as a movie, they didn't have to worry about those constraints and could simply make the decisions that optimized its flow as a movie. Also, there's simply the fact that a different person edited this cut and would've therefore made different decisions about what arrangement of scenes worked best.
They were wearing heavy armor and big silly cobra-head helmets. How could you tell?
Besides, the decision of the original executives to cut that shot out because they didn't want female Jaffa makes no sense in light of the fact that a female Jaffa is seen in the nude/implantation scenes. So restoring that shot is reversing a strange and illogical executive decision.
I think it works well as setup and payoff. We're shown that both sexes of this species have pouches in their bellies, which is the Chekhovian gun on the wall, and then the gun is fired when we see a Jaffa female playing a crucial role in the story, as the carrier for the Amonet symbiote.
Besides, there are plenty of women out there who are as tall as men. As you should know; the character in your avatar is reportedly 5'11".
Besides, there are plenty of women out there who are as tall as men. As you should know; the character in your avatar is reportedly 5'11".
It's hardly an issue of me dismissing the existence of tall women - my sister is 5'11" too.
It's more an issue of the big deal they made out of female Jaffa warriors later down the line.
You mean the Jolene Blalock episodes? Those made it clear that the "men only" policies the "Jaffa Amazons" were fighting were specific to one particular Goa'uld, not a universal practice.
This reminds me of how the Trek: TNG novel Vendetta got a disclaimer slapped onto it because it depicted a female Borg drone (before the Borg Queen and Seven of Nine were introduced) and Roddenberry and his assistant were adamant that there were no female Borg -- even though at least one of the Borg extras in their debut episode was recognizably female.
Ugh, please don't call them that. DC destroyed that word.
We've seen thousands of Jaffa since, not usually wearing helmets, and I don't recall ever seeing female Jaffa fighting alongside a males.
^True, but just because it was rare doesn't mean it was impossible. As far as I know, we were never told that Apophis forbade Jaffa women from being warriors in his service. So I don't see any valid reason to assert that this could not have been the case.
The female Jaffa was included in the version of "Children in the Gods" as originally scripted and filmed, so it stands to reason that the filmmakers would've included a woman among the armored Jaffa in the sequence. The moment in the infirmary was cut for reasons that were arbitrary at the time, and now Brad Wright has decided that it should be reinstated into canon. It's not something being imposed by outside executive fiat, it's something that was removed by executive fiat and has now been restored by Wright himself. And I don't see what the big deal is.
What bugs me about the Jaffa-autopsy scene is: where are the symbiotes? Why didn't SG-1 seem to know that the pouches contained symbiotes until Teal'c showed them Junior?
(And if by "that word" you mean "Amazons," it's a term that's been around for thousands of years and used in many different contexts, so I'm certainly not going to ban it from my vocabulary just because you have problems with a single comic-book company's treatment of the concept.)
The female Jaffa was included in the version of "Children in the Gods" as originally scripted and filmed, so it stands to reason that the filmmakers would've included a woman among the armored Jaffa in the sequence. The moment in the infirmary was cut for reasons that were arbitrary at the time, and now Brad Wright has decided that it should be reinstated into canon. It's not something being imposed by outside executive fiat, it's something that was removed by executive fiat and has now been restored by Wright himself. And I don't see what the big deal is.
What bugs me about the Jaffa-autopsy scene is: where are the symbiotes? Why didn't SG-1 seem to know that the pouches contained symbiotes until Teal'c showed them Junior?
(And if by "that word" you mean "Amazons," it's a term that's been around for thousands of years and used in many different contexts, so I'm certainly not going to ban it from my vocabulary just because you have problems with a single comic-book company's treatment of the concept.)
It's not a "big deal". It's just not something I would have taken the time to put back in when the later presence of female Jaffa does a better job.
Yes, that's another reason why the scene at the start feels "off" somehow.
Calm down, I wasn't being serious.
