First Three Episodes Reaction Thread (SPOILERS)

[thekillman]

It's also pretty clear they're traveling to Abydos.

It doesn't seem like Abydos to me.

[Major_Griff]

It doesn't seem like Abydos to me.

People have said that the address in the Nazi's notebook matches the address for Abydos. My thought when watching was that it must have been another planet that was in range, but no, it's Abydos. Which creates even more continuity issues.

[dixon hill]

I was really, really disappointed and angry with This .armature 3x 10 minute hatchet job.

It totally ignores the well established SG universe, MGM have blown a real opportunity Hear.

"Stargate origins"?.
Well no, not really. If they had put any thought in to this, it should have been set in Egypt 5000 years ago ,they could have kicked it of with a reference to the SG1 episode Moebius when the team where trapped in the past looking for a ZPM. That is the real SG origin. The story of Ra and how he was kicked off earth. they had thousands of years of possible story lines from the Egypt rebellions that kicked Ra off earth and the burial of the gate to the ancients and king Arthur and Merlin. But instead we are given this ....drivel.

Poorly acted, worse sets (obviously a painting in the window of the ...temple? off world) forced Humour of a child (why did the German soldier put on her underwear what was the point of that ?)

One 1940s generator and a car battery to power the gate Oh really!! and a working stargate address ? No just NO ffs
If MGM wanted to kill the franchise, this is the way to do it. what is worse they charged $20 to see it i have every DVD of the whole universe and lots of memorabilia i will not sully my collection with this Rubbish. SG means to much to me to allow it to contaminate such a brilliant series of well acted, high production values, and intelligent storys ....
As i sat through what was a torturous 3 episodes ,this quote popped in to my head
"Never in the history of boredom has anyone been more bored than I am right now".
Jack O'Neill



OH!!! the Humanity

[h4mx0r]

The Nazi's were fairly obsessed with getting relics and such. But they are at war or about to start one, so it's not like they'd send 500 soldiers to the middle of nowhere to get a metal ring.


If they bury the gate, then it won't work again. Meaning they'd have no addresses. Langford seems to think it's a time machine, whereas the Occultist seems to think he's in heaven or some place. The idea that the symbols are an actual address seems unknown at this point.

Fair point, though still, the Chief Occultist only brings 3 guys? Not fifty? Maybe at least ten? You'd think that a guy with an important sounding title would get a little bit more.

Also true, they are still speculating what it is, and the gate could get buried. Like I said, we have 7 more episodes to find out how this supposedly does not disrupt the canon. At this current rate, if she keeps the address now, it seems reasonable they would have tried to factor this address in while trying to decipher the Abydos address in the 90s. (They would have thought "hey maybe there should be a 7th symbol. Hey maybe it's this pyramid with a circle on top? Can't hurt to try it.")

[thekillman]

One 1940s generator and a car battery to power the gate Oh really!! and a working stargate address ? No just NO ffs

Yes, it's been done before. The gate only needs the brief initial pulse of power to make a connection. It only needs a few microseconds of connection before the DHD on the other end can power it. It also has internal capacitors that store a lot of power, so even a lightning strike (while several gigawatts worth, it's only a few miliseconds long. In other words, a couple of million joules. Run a car engine for a few minutes and you have the same amount of energy)


I've been watching the movie (thanks, mgm!), and it's clear that Catherine knew the principle of the gate dialling. She even comments that they've gotten to the 6th symbol, implying she understood the dialling process and what to do. The part the military didn't understand, was it's exact purpose ( gateway to heaven vs stargate) and the nature of the symbols (constellations, ie spatial coordinates).

It seems the military believed they could even force a solution (it would only need 39 attempts to find the 7th symbol and dial by accident), since O'neill was brought in 2 years into the mission in case they succeeded.

[VampyreWraith]

I'm really not sure what to think of it at this point. The tone was ok. I don't mind that it's low budget, but the dialogue is pretty horrible, most of it feels really unnatural. Catherine seems like she's trying too hard to be a badass, its just irritating to watch (or rather the show it trying too hard to make her a badass, it just comes off as unnatural and silly). Since this is supposed to fit into canon somehow, and even though I really hope it does, I'm really not looking forward to seeing how they're going to try to shoehorn this into established continuity because as it is right now it doesn't seem to fit at all.

[thekillman]

Fair point, though still, the Chief Occultist only brings 3 guys? Not fifty? Maybe at least ten? You'd think that a guy with an important sounding title would get a little bit more.

Also true, they are still speculating what it is, and the gate could get buried. Like I said, we have 7 more episodes to find out how this supposedly does not disrupt the canon. At this current rate, if she keeps the address now, it seems reasonable they would have tried to factor this address in while trying to decipher the Abydos address in the 90s. (They would have thought "hey maybe there should be a 7th symbol. Hey maybe it's this pyramid with a circle on top? Can't hurt to try it.")

Considering a major war is about to start, i seriously doubt that the Nazi high command would give him anything, really. The implications are that this occultist guy isn't even believed in the first place, and he's basically tasked to steal an artifact from the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about. While he does have an important sounding title, it doesn't really mean anything.

I checked the Stargate Movie, and the adress is indeed abydos. Also note that the book shows the names of the constellations. This practically guarantees that the booklet will be lost. Considering she's running towards Abydos, i wouldn't be surprised at all if it gets lost. Catherine is too busy with the dialling since she doesn't seem to realize they are, in fact, constellations (she does say "the one that looks like a Y" and not "Taurus"). Though to be fair, the handwriting is hard to read.

Keep in mind that the symbols on the Gate were known, and that they related to the cartouche was known. The 7th symbol was unknown, because it was depicted rather differently and it was below the address in a way that didn't look like it belonged to it. Like i said, they could've brute forced it but it seems the military didn't want to move forward until they knew what they were dealing with. By linking them to constellations, and by proper translation, Daniel provided essential context.

Abydos Adress in the movie: https://youtu.be/TF3zUOvXUYQ?t=22m17s
Origins: (s01E03 7 minutes in)

In case you want to see the cartouche, it's at 18:17. "At" looks nothing like the proper "At", so it's not terribly surprising that they didn't instantly see the connection.

Since this is supposed to fit into canon somehow, and even though I really hope it does, I'm really not looking forward to seeing how they're going to try to shoehorn this into established continuity because as it is right now it doesn't seem to fit at all.

It's far more canonically fitting than many make it out to be. They didn't forget the icing effect, the gate effects, the constellations and their proper order, the manual dialling. Hell, they even included the little extra burst of electricity that makes the chevrons lock! The only thing standing in the way of canon so far, is that booklet.

[deathil93]

Oh dang, haven't been on these forums in years

Would like to share my honest opinion:

Continuity issues aside (a few crazy twists can fix anything in any plot) and the fact that this was done as a low-budget "feel the reaction" type of project - I'd say it was rather okay.

The devoted fan base (me included) was used to high-quality and (somewhat) big budget productions - but for MGM it was too much of a risk, since Stargate isn't on par with Star Trek and Star Wars in popularity. I totally get the business perspective and I think the production stretched their budget as much as they could. You can only do so much with a shoestring budget (mainly getting writers and actors with barely little experience - hence the final result).

All in all, when one judges a production like this, you need to take into account that this isn't really what Stargate is (per-say) - but it does embody the values and lightheartedness the TV series writers and producers had. It's a decent attempt at replicating what SG1 was in spirit.

All the positivity aside -
MGM could and should have done better. Bringing new fans and re-establishing the Stargate franchise is a big task - but this is far from the path. They should have done better market research and studied the audience better.

They should have taken an example from what CBS did with Star Trek Discovery. They went all in (to not lose their rights for the TV series) and made a very high quality, though abit controversial, show. It got good ratings, both in live views and in general reception - but only because they knew their direction.

MGM sadly doesn't understand the fact that Sci-fi shows, especially ones like Stargate that have a relatively large cult following, need to be invested in properly - both financially and production values wise.

Making an origins story is a great idea to reboot a franchise, but not in this way. What they SHOULD have done was give it the budget it deserves - with a decent runtime of around one hour per episode. A decently budgeted mini-series to re-ignite interest in the franchise would have done WAY better than this attempt.

[thekillman]

MGM could and should have done better. Bringing new fans and re-establishing the Stargate franchise is a big task - but this is far from the path. They should have done better market research and studied the audience better.

MGM went bankrupt not long ago, with a multi-billion dollar debt. I'm not surprised their finance department is tight on the budget. Considering how Stargate fizzled out, it's not surprising they want some proof of concept. Judging by Cristopher Judge's reaction, the will is there, but marketing/finance at MGM needs to be convinced.

MGM could and should have done better.

To be clear, i do agree on this account. But as with the Emmerich movie plans, it shows that Stargate is alive at MGM. But they can't shelve out ~50 million dollars on a TV show that got cancelled 7 years ago. ST comes hot off the heels of a multi-million dollar movie franchise that despite some controversy, made money.
You can't compare that.

[NickEast]

It doesn't seem like Abydos to me.

The "Mission Files" indicate it's Abydos, also because the Goa'uld they encounter is overseeing Abydos on behalf of Ra. And indeed the address is also Abydos.

[VampyreWraith]

Considering a major war is about to start, i seriously doubt that the Nazi high command would give him anything, really. The implications are that this occultist guy isn't even believed in the first place, and he's basically tasked to steal an artifact from the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about. While he does have an important sounding title, it doesn't really mean anything.

I checked the Stargate Movie, and the adress is indeed abydos. Also note that the book shows the names of the constellations. This practically guarantees that the booklet will be lost. Considering she's running towards Abydos, i wouldn't be surprised at all if it gets lost. Catherine is too busy with the dialling since she doesn't seem to realize they are, in fact, constellations (she does say "the one that looks like a Y" and not "Taurus"). Though to be fair, the handwriting is hard to read.

Keep in mind that the symbols on the Gate were known, and that they related to the cartouche was known. The 7th symbol was unknown, because it was depicted rather differently and it was below the address in a way that didn't look like it belonged to it. Like i said, they could've brute forced it but it seems the military didn't want to move forward until they knew what they were dealing with. By linking them to constellations, and by proper translation, Daniel provided essential context.

Abydos Adress in the movie: https://youtu.be/TF3zUOvXUYQ?t=22m17s
Origins: (s01E03 7 minutes in)

In case you want to see the cartouche, it's at 18:17. "At" looks nothing like the proper "At", so it's not terribly surprising that they didn't instantly see the connection.



It's far more canonically fitting than many make it out to be. They didn't forget the icing effect, the gate effects, the constellations and their proper order, the manual dialling. Hell, they even included the little extra burst of electricity that makes the chevrons lock! The only thing standing in the way of canon so far, is that booklet.

Yeah, that book should be getting lost in the upcoming episodes, the main problem I had was with Catherine knowing that there are 7 symbols and clearly describing the last symbol to put in. From what I remember she didn't know what the last symbol was and said that they had only ever gotten as far as 6 symbols, wouldn't she think to try that one before going to look for Daniel to help with figuring things out. I mean she could have forgotten, but it seems like something she'd remember especially since it was the last symbol. Even when I cant remember someone's whole phone number, I usually remember at least the last two numbers. Catherine also never came across as someone who went through the Stargate before Torment of Tantalus, I mean yeah, she could have just not mentioned it, but that's why it the whole thing feels shoehorned in.

To add, I know the most obvious way to fix what Catherine remembers or mentions later on is some kind of mind wipe, I just don't really like that idea or find it interesting.

[Major_Griff]

It's far more canonically fitting than many make it out to be. They didn't forget the icing effect, the gate effects, the constellations and their proper order, the manual dialling. Hell, they even included the little extra burst of electricity that makes the chevrons lock! The only thing standing in the way of canon so far, is that booklet.

They remembered that, but they forgot the 'rough ride'.

[Snakeyes]

They lost me when 1 the Nazis open the gate. 2. Catherine witnessed the gate being open. 3. Catherine went through the stargate with a unnamed boyfriend. Was he supposed to be Ernest Littlefield?

[Kelso]

Origins is actually pretty fun. It's low-budget and none of the actors are particularly good... but it's enjoyable to watch. No, it doesn't fit with the continuity, but I'm just looking at it as a "What if Catherine Langford had gone through the Stargate in 1939?"

If they put it out as a reasonably priced DTV movie I'll pick it up.

[thekillman]

Even when I cant remember someone's whole phone number, I usually remember at least the last two numbers.

I don't. I've seen the symbols for abydos yesterday, twice, and the only ones i can remember is that the first one is taurus and the 6th is Orion. I mean, and "At" obviously but that's been featured dozens of times across many years.