Children of the Gods

A Brief History of Stargate:

10,000 years ago, or even earlier, an alien was dying. He searched the Galaxy for a life form his technology could keep alive indefinitely. He finds a green planet called Earth, and lands in Egypt... Where a kid is fascinated by the Spaceship. The alien found out if he took over the kid, he could live practically forever.

But in order to do so, he needs a ready supply of a mineral called "Naquedah", the same stuff a device called a Chapp'Ai was made from. So, this alien parasite put a Stargate down in old Egypt town, and another on a planet called "Abydos" - Which had a very rich supply of said quartz-type rocks. These two Chapp'Ai served as the Naquedah Express, so the Alien, named Ra, now had a slave race to mine his mineral.

So began Earth's first Civilization, until there was an uprising, and Ra packed up and left. The rebelling Humans buried the Chapp'Ai and covered it. But by then, there was a full contingent of slaves on Ra's Naquedah Mining Planet.

10,000 years later, the elder Dr. Langford digs up this ring thing in Egypt, his daughter Katherine is with him, and she makes it her life's work to find out what this ring does.

Daniel Jackson is a linguist and Archaeologist who believes the pyramids are landing sites for Spaceships, and are much older than most of his peers think - His reputation is that of a laughingstock. Until Katherine Langford approaches him and asks him: "You want to prove your theories are correct?". And this starts the whole shebang.

We have met Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neil (With only one L in the movie) in the film, and they managed to blow Ra into tiny molecule-sized particles. Daniel meets his Dream-Girl Sha're (played here by Vaitiare Bandera, who really WAS Daniel's/Michael Shanks' dream girl), and at this point he is still living on Abydos. But the damage is done, Ra was killed, and the Chapp'Ai, aka the Stargate was reopened, and it was just a matter of time until someone used it... Which is exactly what happens here.

When I first saw Apophis and his Jaffa's Snake-Armor I laughed myself silly, but what do you do when you don't have the money to recreate a feature film effect? - And here is the difference between Ra and Apophis (Peter Williams)- Ra supplied his guards with the identities of other "gods", like Anubis and Horus. With Apophis, it's "All Snake", all of his Jaffa wear the same Motif on their armor. And his first Prime Teal'c has his emblem embedded in gold on his forehead.

I was actually very happy with the Original Cut of this - And I am so glad that the DVD set has the original Showtime cut. In 2008, the "Final Cut" of this series pilot was released along with two movies that basically wrap up the loose ends of SG-1: Ba'Al and the Ori, respectively, "Continuum" and "The Ark of Truth". "Children of the Gods" was re-cut and some of the original special effects were replaced or redone, also, the Final Cut removes all of the nude scenes of Vaitiare Bandera. Some other dialog is changed and alternate versions used, or, cut completely from Final Cut.

The "Wormhole Effect" - In the series, when it was picked up by Sci-Fi, the first thing they changed was the Wormhole Effect, Sci-Fi used the "Sliders" Slide effect for gate Travel shots - I always liked the original Film effects more, as used from Seasons 1-7.

The shot of the Pyramid on Abydos, the original cut uses a matte and a long shot taken from the Feature Film- The Final Cut uses a totally CGI rendering. I like the original much more.

At the end, when Apophis brings his new bride "Amaunet/Sha're" to the Stargate/Chapp'Ai - He comes in only one ship, which transforms into a "Death Glider" - This was very cool, in Final Cut, one Alkesh comes with two "Death Gliders" - Again, the original was better.

And finally, Final Cut removes all reference to and shots of Kowalski (Jay Avacone) getting infected with the Infant Goa'Uld that came out of the dead Jaffa.

The one thing from the Film I missed in the show was that after the "Burst" of the Gate Opening, there was a huge Vortex on the other side. In the show, only the front Burst was ever shown. But the whole Cheyenne Mountain Complex as it is called in the show was masterfully recreated from the original Film sets- Plus they added cool red lights on the Gate that light up during a dial in/dial out sequence. And as far as the nature of The Goa'Uld - Ra was an "Evil ET" figure in the film, changed in the show into the snake form, carried in Jaffa's pouches while in infant stage. I think the Snake form is better for a parasite that wraps around your Brainstem.

I do not have all of the particulars in front of me, but this 1997 film directly followed the original STARGATE movie filmed in 1994. The complete title is: Stargate SG-1 "Children of the Gods", and it starred Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, and Amanda Tapping. Kudos to the casting people who replaced the original cast with very excellent performers who managed to bear good resemblances to the original characters. This sequel is slightly better than the original, amazingly. But see the movie first so that you can follow the storyline. Solid 8.

Have seen the original Stargate with Kurt Russellone I didn't like that much i had to pick up the series because it was told that it was one of the best SF series ever released.

The first 10 minutes we go a bit back to the original Stargate from 1994. In fact, the whole original flick is told in a few minutes. Out the old cast in comes the new cast. But not only that, in comes more of SF then the 1994 version. Let me say that this isn't a remake, it continues what was left after 1994. Of course being a pilot it goes back to the planet Abydos because the military base were the stargate is hold is being visited by those old Egyptian Gods again and one soldier is captured. So Col. O'Neill (good old MacGyver Richard Dean Anderson) is back in business to visit Abydos with his soldiers.

I was afraid once on Abydos that it would be blah blah like in Stargate (1994)but the action came on early this time. The effects were also much better. But were the 1994 version failed script wise this does deliver. They are only a few minutes on Abydos before they are back on earth to go back on another mission. It's there that we are learning the characters. Of course things go a bit wrong and characters are lost into space. And new ones arrive. Before you know it this flick is over with one mission, save the lost ones. From there on Stargate moved into a 10 year series with his up and downs but this flick, clearly low budget but it works fine and is as I said over before you know it.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

I mistakenly let some of first season slide by since I wasn't a fan of the movie. Was I ever wrong. Cast is superb all the way down to the smaller leads, e.g. the base doctor (Rothery) and other base personnel, as well as some great storylines. Just the right amount of humor mixed in with believable current time Sci-fi. Try not to miss, Showtime foolishly only shows the episodes once weekly unlike mega-repeating HBO series.

I thought this was a very good pilot. I was impressed with the way all the main characters were slowly introduced and were developed in the 90 minutes. Of course, a pilot's main objective is to 'hook' the audience, and "Children of the Gods" does an excellent job at this. Multiple story lines are introduced which are engaging, and I look forward to how they'll be developed in future episodes. Jack O'Neill looks to be a very good protagonist. I love his sense of humour, and I thought it was refreshing to have a protagonist who didn't know much about all the complicated sci-fi stuff going on - in a way, he kind of represents us, the audience watching, because we don't have any idea about what's going on as well! There were some weaknesses I thought; with some scenes having a bit too much humour, and some scenes were a bit repetitive and drawn out. However, I was impressed overall, especially with the concept of making a TV show which is a direct continuation of a feature film. This was a very ambitious pilot, but one which did the job to hook me into watching more.