Before I even begin, let me start by saying that I didn't get into the Stargate franchise until the sixth season started the Sci-Fi Channel's half of SG-1. Watching Farscape on Fridays pulled me in, and when the Monday night four-hour syndication blocks kicked up is when I caught up. That said, I never quite got a chance to catch the majority of the first year.
Well, I bought the first season from Wal-Mart two nights back for $19, and let me just say... well, the topic title says it all, but yeah.
It's just amazing, noting the differences between the earliest moments and many of the others thereafter. I've seen from the fourth season on more often than anything, so it's what I'm most familiar with, and just watching the characters, their actors, the roles, the lingo, the early-series stiffness and everything with this first season is... odd.
Sam's youthful relative naivety about things, and the way they wrote her as... what's the word, I don't know, spicier or something? And Daniel seems more serious, actually, in the first season than he is for the next couple of years after that, sort of. Just a bit more rigid, I suppose, though he really does shape up to become quite the badass permanently in time. Jack's hair is... fully brown. Well, except with Brief Candle, but I digress. Speaking of Brief Candle, Hammond was a hell of a lot more willingly surrendering to seemingly impossible odds in the days before SG-1 has proven a hundred times and counting that there's no such thing, eh?
But beyond all that, there's just a very succinctly different feel going on, here. When I buy the second season, and so forth, I'll be able to compare more thoroughly. I mean, I've seen almost every episode from season two onward, but it's been a long time; a few years, now. But it just seems right now that Stargate SG-1 had a very unique presentation early on. At least in its first couple of years, but perhaps even just the very first.
For example, the peoples they're running into are very... extravagent in their uniqueness in more stunningly diverse ways than we see later on. God forbid we compare the Mongols and Argosians of 1997 with the everyone-at-every-town-in-every-world-sounds-and-looks-like-they-were-ripped-out-of-World-of-Warcraft deals of 2007 Stargate Atlantis. In some ways, this is blatantly better, but in others, I don't feel it. Things feel forced and overplayed in SG-1's first year to me right now, honestly. Maybe it's the stylistic approach of a different era; I'm only 20 years old, and so when these episodes I'm watching right now debuted, I was 10, 11 years old. It wasn't 'my time' compared to the here and now, but the acting, the feelings of the various indiginous peoples, some of it just seems... very corny, very... outdated.
I do appreciate the diversity for what it is, though, and feel compelled to pose the question: why does there seem to be less of it later on, anyway? Now granted, later on they're also stumbling upon peoples that aren't complete stone-agers, too, for that matter, but the stone-agers of later seasons and the sister series are bland in design, if presented more concisely. Different production teams have different viewpoints and series evolve, yes, but I feel like the evolution here is more noteworthy than usual with things.
Also, wow, they laid the soundtrack on thick in season one, didn't they? I couldn't catch a decent glimpse of Cheyenne Mountain last night without the trademark from-the-movie Goa'uld chant blasting into my eardrums at full harrowing glory. I mean, it's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it sort of detracts at the same time, by pulling you toward it too much, you know? I feel like they're trying to make me think I'm watching a movie 'every week' with this first season in that matter, and I know full well I'm not, so it feels very out-of-place. They were clinging to the original film's score pretty deeply, and I wish they'd turn the volume down on it a bit. I wonder whereabouts they work on that, start of season two? I mean, a lot of the time 'til the very end the music gets loud, and that's all well and good, but every single note in these earliest episodes practically fully overshadows anyone's dialogue.
These aren't literal complaints, just observations. I feel like I stepped through a TARDIS more than I did a Stargate by comparison to what I'm accustomed to. This started it all, but I can really, really feel the difference between beginning and everything else thereafter.
Also, Apophis, dude, what the hell @ your helmet.
Well, I bought the first season from Wal-Mart two nights back for $19, and let me just say... well, the topic title says it all, but yeah.
It's just amazing, noting the differences between the earliest moments and many of the others thereafter. I've seen from the fourth season on more often than anything, so it's what I'm most familiar with, and just watching the characters, their actors, the roles, the lingo, the early-series stiffness and everything with this first season is... odd.
Sam's youthful relative naivety about things, and the way they wrote her as... what's the word, I don't know, spicier or something? And Daniel seems more serious, actually, in the first season than he is for the next couple of years after that, sort of. Just a bit more rigid, I suppose, though he really does shape up to become quite the badass permanently in time. Jack's hair is... fully brown. Well, except with Brief Candle, but I digress. Speaking of Brief Candle, Hammond was a hell of a lot more willingly surrendering to seemingly impossible odds in the days before SG-1 has proven a hundred times and counting that there's no such thing, eh?
But beyond all that, there's just a very succinctly different feel going on, here. When I buy the second season, and so forth, I'll be able to compare more thoroughly. I mean, I've seen almost every episode from season two onward, but it's been a long time; a few years, now. But it just seems right now that Stargate SG-1 had a very unique presentation early on. At least in its first couple of years, but perhaps even just the very first.
For example, the peoples they're running into are very... extravagent in their uniqueness in more stunningly diverse ways than we see later on. God forbid we compare the Mongols and Argosians of 1997 with the everyone-at-every-town-in-every-world-sounds-and-looks-like-they-were-ripped-out-of-World-of-Warcraft deals of 2007 Stargate Atlantis. In some ways, this is blatantly better, but in others, I don't feel it. Things feel forced and overplayed in SG-1's first year to me right now, honestly. Maybe it's the stylistic approach of a different era; I'm only 20 years old, and so when these episodes I'm watching right now debuted, I was 10, 11 years old. It wasn't 'my time' compared to the here and now, but the acting, the feelings of the various indiginous peoples, some of it just seems... very corny, very... outdated.
I do appreciate the diversity for what it is, though, and feel compelled to pose the question: why does there seem to be less of it later on, anyway? Now granted, later on they're also stumbling upon peoples that aren't complete stone-agers, too, for that matter, but the stone-agers of later seasons and the sister series are bland in design, if presented more concisely. Different production teams have different viewpoints and series evolve, yes, but I feel like the evolution here is more noteworthy than usual with things.
Also, wow, they laid the soundtrack on thick in season one, didn't they? I couldn't catch a decent glimpse of Cheyenne Mountain last night without the trademark from-the-movie Goa'uld chant blasting into my eardrums at full harrowing glory. I mean, it's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it sort of detracts at the same time, by pulling you toward it too much, you know? I feel like they're trying to make me think I'm watching a movie 'every week' with this first season in that matter, and I know full well I'm not, so it feels very out-of-place. They were clinging to the original film's score pretty deeply, and I wish they'd turn the volume down on it a bit. I wonder whereabouts they work on that, start of season two? I mean, a lot of the time 'til the very end the music gets loud, and that's all well and good, but every single note in these earliest episodes practically fully overshadows anyone's dialogue.
These aren't literal complaints, just observations. I feel like I stepped through a TARDIS more than I did a Stargate by comparison to what I'm accustomed to. This started it all, but I can really, really feel the difference between beginning and everything else thereafter.
Also, Apophis, dude, what the hell @ your helmet.