Stargate SG1 DVDs, Books and Videos

«Stargate SG1»

I saw this when it came on originally and it still impresses me how advanced this series was. Since then there are others who tried to imitate it but failed miseably. this spurred me to buy the whole 10 seasons on DVD so I can spend my Fridays enjoying the show like I used to. Great entertainment and really thought provoking.

[Thursday, July 29, 2010]

«Interesting concept; probably for serious fans only»

I just watched this last night. So you know where I'm coming from as a reviewer, I watched Stargate off and on (didn't have Showtime) until it went to Sci-Fi and my cable company decided to add it. I had seen the movie and, while I thought it was just okay at the time (appreciate it more now), I was ecstatic over the scene where Daniel discovers how the local language works -- the first time I've ever seen honest-to-goodness linguistics work done onscreen. Once I had the chance to watch regularly I did, every week. When the DVDs came out I bought Season 4, was very happy with it, loved the special features on it (commentaries on every single episode, most of them quite good), eventually went back and purchased every season. I've watched through the whole thing more than once, I confess.

OK, onto the reworked Children of the Gods. There are two reasons I can think of to purchase this DVD. (1) You are a big enough Stargate fan that you know much of the dialogue by heart and will recognize when little bits of dialogue and/or scene are taken out or added, or perhaps even when a different take from the original dailies is used (okay, I didn't notice any of the latter until it was pointed out in the commentary). (2) You'd like to be able to watch the whole Stargate series with your kids...except for the, ahem, fully exposed Share in Children of the Gods.

So, yes, dialogue and scenes have been tweaked. Carter's lines about playing with GI Joe dolls and the location of her reproductive organs, so universally hated by all including actress Amanda Tapping (all except the guy who had the biggest vote apparently) -- they are gone. It's true that Jack's line about not caring that she's a woman seems out of the blue now...oh how I wish they could just reshoot that scene entirely somehow! Jack's lines telling his "best friend" about how his son died are wisely cut (they were included at the time because it was a pilot and new viewers might not know that background from the movie); nothing feels missing and the scene plays wonderfully. A couple of little bits here and there have been added; I would wrinkle my brow thinking, "I don't remember that," and sure enough in the commentary I would find out it was added. These are not newly filmed scenes (it was like 13 years ago!) but bits pulled from cut scenes. In several places different takes were used, which is pretty amazing -- an example is when Jack picks up the returned empty kleenex box. If you are a true hardcore fan you'll want to have two TVs set up side by side and watch for the differences (and then tell me about it)!. I only knew about this from listening to the commentary.

At least three actors looped some of their lines; Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks in at least one scene (when Daniel shows them the room with all the gate addresses), though I couldn't tell what had changed, other than the added bit with Amanda and a kind of crane shot over the wall. According to the commentary Chris Judge looped every single one of his lines. Wow! That's pretty cool. Pilots are often pretty painful to go back and watch; since the characters are still being figured out by both writers and actors, great to have Chris go in and bring his developed interpretation of Teal'c to the pilot.

Some of the visual effects were updated; frankly I didn't care about that. I didn't watch SG-1 for the special effects (though they were mostly pretty good). I actually kind of didn't like the replacement of the wormhole with the one used on Atlantis, it felt out of place to me, alien, if you'll pardon the pun.

I admit to being a Carter fan, so maybe I'm biased, but I always felt Carter was the most underserved character in the pilot (and early episodes in general), with Teal'c in a close second. This reworked version actually adds just a touch to her character, mostly with just a few added looks and glances that let us see a little bit more of her personality (and a little bit less instruction on the location of her various organs).

As for Reason Two, Share's modesty has thankfully been restored to her. That scene as shot never belonged on Stargate, and everyone involved knew it -- apparently they were under pressure from Showtime...surprise surprise.

OK, I just thought of a third reason you might want to get this: (3) You're at least vaguely interested in the process of filmmaking and find it a rather fascinating concept to go back to something done over a decade ago and tweak it in light of the next decade of filmmaking that followed it.

I liked it for all three reasons.

Why 4 stars and not 5? (1) No special features other than the commentary. (2) The commentary is mostly very fun and instructional (from the perspective of Reason Three above) and funny -- is that Richard Dean Anderson or Jack O'Neill on the commentary??? However, there's a bit of PG-13 language in it, language not found in the episode/movie itself. I'm always a bit annoyed when the commentary rating should be higher than the work they're commenting on. (3) It's a tweaked version of something you already own (probably), it's not like it's really *new*, you know?

[Tuesday, June 15, 2010]

«The original pilot was much better!»

One of the things that made the original pilot good was the feeling that it is a spin-off of the feature film. It had many good character moments in it, it had a stock footage shot from the film on Abydos of the pyramid, and music from the film too. But this version seem to want to get as far away from the film as possible even though it's suppose to follow on from it. Many of the charater moments are removed, the stock shot from the film is replaced by crapy-looking CGI effects, and much of the music is totally different.

This version also seems rushed. They cut out many good scenes as well as some of the action itself. They even sped up many of the scenes themselves, and now instead of excellent performaces we have our charaters saying lines really fast as if the actors are just trying to get the scene out of the way so they can go home as soon as they can. I know that's not what they did, but with the editing the way it is, it seems that way when watching it. And there's not much time to get to know our charaters either.

They also cut out the nudity scene. What's up with that! I liked that scene. Not only because it had a beautiful naked woman in it, but the scene was also saying how ruthless the Goa'uld are. Without that scene it makes them seem less ruthless. I thought the point was to make them very ruthless? That was the point of the show. The Goa'uld are the bad guys and bad guys are suppose to be ruthless. The ruthless the better. It's also a lot scarier when you actually see the nudity too. It hurt the pilot greatly when they cut that scene out. Now this new version may be the better version to show the kids. But this show is more for adults anyway so I don't see what the big problem is with having a little nudity in it.

They also cut out the cliffhanger ending. Which, I suppose, is better if you don't want the whole series. But if you do, then the original cliffhanger ending is better.

In all, I wasn't too impressed with this version. I much prefer the original.

Not recommended!

[Friday, May 14, 2010]

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