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Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods – Movie Review

Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods – Movie Review

This film is a re-cut, shut and mastered version of the original Stargate SG-1 series pilot. The 90 minute feature length pilot has been lovingly restored and enhanced to bring consistency with later episodes of the show. Voices have been re-dubbed and  GGI has been replaced, enhanced and added too. Music has been re-scored and the film has been cut to widescreen. Does this mean it has been Lucas-ised?

Actually, no…

Brad Wright, co-creator of the franchise, wanted to go back and make the pilot tighter and bring it up to the glorious sound and look it deserved. The story is the same; there isn’t any “Han shot first” type of changes and the re-mastered version is beautiful to be behold. Before we move on, I better give you the overview of the story.

Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods picks up from a bit over a year after the events depicted in Roland Emmerich’s original Sci-Fi Classic Stargate. The gate has been housed at the bottom of Cheyanne Mountain and abandoned. Some military personal use the room as there poker room but this was a poor choice of locale when the gate activates and some egyptian-looking people come though and blow them to pieces and conveniently kidnap the only female solider.

The military seek out Colonel Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), now retired, to come and explain how this could happen since he supposely blew up the only other gate in the mission that was over a year ago.

Jack is caught in his lie but stops General Hammond from sending a nuclear bomb thought the gate, which would have killed countless innocents on the other side. Jack is recalled to active duty and leads a team though the gate to find out who came through the gate and how they can stop the threat.

The most notable thing about the pilot was its scale at the time. The producers tried really hard to keep the look and feel of the original movie and the writers had to flesh out more of the alien backstory. A sticking point was the re-casting of Jack from Kurt Russell to Richard Dean Anderson who was famous for his best known role as MacGyver. I have to say, the now 10+ years on, I love Richard more as Jack than McGyver.

So does the Children of the Gods hold up as a stand alone film? Yes! It is surprisingly strong and not looking like a dull-colour TV episode really helps.

Would I warrant buying this if you already have season 1 boxset which contains the original version? Before I was given this review copy I would have said no. My cynical side told me this was a grab for more cash while waiting for Stargate: Universe to start. Now I can say yes, this is worthy of some coin. The biggest issue now is that if you watch this film, skip the original version and proceed to episode 2 of season 1 there is going to be the biggest audio/visual jarring you could experience since trying to watch your favorite tv shows in YouTube.

I give this a cool and a must for any Stargate fan. This is also a great way to bring people into the franchise that like the original Roland Emmerich film.

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Trailer

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Thanks to 20th Century Fox and Mark Communications for supplying the review copy.

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About The Author

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Self-proclaimed media addict, Bruce is the technical power house of Joffre Street Productions which includes being a founder of the world (in)famous podcast (Cool) Shite on the Tube. When Bruce isn't working on this website, he is working on other peoples websites and new media solutions. Movies, comics and 50 foot robot wrangling is where Bruce is at.

Article Information

  • Posted: Friday, August 14th, 2009
  • Author: Bruce Moyle
  • Filed Under: Film,Review,TV
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

3 Responses to “Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods – Movie Review”
  1. avatar Connor says:

    It seemed to be just as i remembered it…
    with the same dodgy cg water effect ripples as they went through the gate,
    i was hoping for more, maybe i ask for too much

    August 15, 2009 at 9:59 pm
    • avatar Bruce Moyle says:

      Are you talking about the trailer here or the actual dvd?

      The ripple effect is now consistent to the rest of the series. They haven’t upgraded it so it looks completely different to the rest of the show including the newer Atlantis or Universe stuff. It make sense to keep it consistent though out the show. If you look at the original the gate ripple effects are fairly different through out the film. The special features on the DVD actually show you this.

      I recommend listening to the audio commentary. There are heaps of changes I wouldn’t have picked up.

      August 15, 2009 at 10:10 pm
  2. avatar Connor says:

    I rented the DVD unfortunately, and it it is now safely back in the hands of the store. so i can’t watch the special features, :( I think with the massive improvements in cg since the first movie, they could have done something better than the not quite set jelly effect they used, i am all for consistency, but this was released as a movie, but for all the nice little bits, like the touched up ships, and the travelling sequence which was pretty sweet, are these few things worth the rental fee? i know i am just being picky, but a few epic space shots just showing the planets, and or ships around chulak or something…

    August 17, 2009 at 12:20 am

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