Thus it begins...
Feb. 10th, 2007 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenSo I finally got around to watching the pilot for Stargate SG-1. I was pleasantly surprised. After having been obsessed with the movie for a long time, I always worried the TV series would be a letdown, much like, say, Disney sequels. [I asked ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jd3000 about this once, and he reassured me the TV series was great; and it'd been on my watch list even before that -- I'm just bad at actually sitting down and watching things that are longer than 20 minutes a pop.] I think it mostly lives up to what I liked about the movie. There was some weirdness, of course, but what can you do. I really like how they kept some of the main musical themes from the movie. I think that eased my transition, however subtly.
The thing that's bothering me at the moment, which is probably minor in the grand scheme of things but is most obviously continuity-breaking, is how the "gods" have become these slimy serpent things that invade your body. Maybe I'm only getting this from the movie novelization I read, but my impression was always that Ra was some kind of non-corporeal entity that had traveled through space without a vessel. At the end of the movie, when the bomb is about to go off, he was trying to leave his host and escape through the ether. Now, this doesn't really work if he's actually an eel-like parasite that seems pathetically helpless without a host.
Again, maybe all of this is derived from the novelization -- one of those popular novelizations written for kids, complete with several full-color pages of screenshots in the middle. After all, the Egyptian boy encountered a bright light, which could easily have been a spaceship. But I guess I never really envisioned Ra's species as always parasitic -- just that he personally was parasitic out of necessity (I guess if you follow that line of reasoning, it doesn't really work either). Perhaps I just liked the thought of them being supernatural, ghostly kinds of beings. The eel things are so unglamorous. Especially if they want to keep the glowing eyes. The glowing eyes was all about Ra being a sort of aura that pervaded the human boy, not some thing slithering around inside.
Well, I guess complaining isn't going to get me anywhere on this point. It's just that I suspect it's going to come up a lot, so even if it's not a big deal in terms of continuity, it'll probably have many opportunities to bug me. Meh. It's just like how the Nazgul that went clunk! ruined my romantic vision of the wraiths that glided through Bree.
Oh, and another nitpick: Daniel can't pronounce "Sha'uri" consistently, much less the way he did in the movie. D:
Anyhow, there's no way I'm going to get through the series anywhere near as quickly as a certain someone has been, but you may expect that I will be posting occasional musings, much like I do with anime. And eventually I can start going through your posts,kalquessa -- I hope they're all properly tagged. ;)
jd3000 about this once, and he reassured me the TV series was great; and it'd been on my watch list even before that -- I'm just bad at actually sitting down and watching things that are longer than 20 minutes a pop.] I think it mostly lives up to what I liked about the movie. There was some weirdness, of course, but what can you do. I really like how they kept some of the main musical themes from the movie. I think that eased my transition, however subtly.The thing that's bothering me at the moment, which is probably minor in the grand scheme of things but is most obviously continuity-breaking, is how the "gods" have become these slimy serpent things that invade your body. Maybe I'm only getting this from the movie novelization I read, but my impression was always that Ra was some kind of non-corporeal entity that had traveled through space without a vessel. At the end of the movie, when the bomb is about to go off, he was trying to leave his host and escape through the ether. Now, this doesn't really work if he's actually an eel-like parasite that seems pathetically helpless without a host.
Again, maybe all of this is derived from the novelization -- one of those popular novelizations written for kids, complete with several full-color pages of screenshots in the middle. After all, the Egyptian boy encountered a bright light, which could easily have been a spaceship. But I guess I never really envisioned Ra's species as always parasitic -- just that he personally was parasitic out of necessity (I guess if you follow that line of reasoning, it doesn't really work either). Perhaps I just liked the thought of them being supernatural, ghostly kinds of beings. The eel things are so unglamorous. Especially if they want to keep the glowing eyes. The glowing eyes was all about Ra being a sort of aura that pervaded the human boy, not some thing slithering around inside.
Well, I guess complaining isn't going to get me anywhere on this point. It's just that I suspect it's going to come up a lot, so even if it's not a big deal in terms of continuity, it'll probably have many opportunities to bug me. Meh. It's just like how the Nazgul that went clunk! ruined my romantic vision of the wraiths that glided through Bree.
Oh, and another nitpick: Daniel can't pronounce "Sha'uri" consistently, much less the way he did in the movie. D:
Anyhow, there's no way I'm going to get through the series anywhere near as quickly as a certain someone has been, but you may expect that I will be posting occasional musings, much like I do with anime. And eventually I can start going through your posts,
kalquessa -- I hope they're all properly tagged. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-11 05:27 pm (UTC)I've never read the novelization, but the movie pretty much made it clear he was a physical alien that was inhabiting the boy's body. Albeit an alien of the physical stature we're used to, resembling a Grey. But, yeah, Ra and his cronies' nature is another big leap between movie and show. I think it's there to provide plot potential; These great scary aliens are nothing but helpless little snakes. And who wants a snake to tunnel into their head? :-D And ghosties make it much harder to think up ways to defend against them. :-)
Oh, and another nitpick: Daniel can't pronounce "Sha'uri" consistently, much less the way he did in the movie.
That's because it's now officially "Sha're". I know, everyone hates that, except for me. Never really bothered me.
-JD
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 04:39 am (UTC)Yeah, it definitely helps the plot along. I guess when I read about the series the description was very generic and I came away with the impression that the teams were going around fighting other species that were enslaving people the way Ra had. The entire idea that these snake things are all over the place ruling their own little empires kind of goes against them being a "dying species". What exactly were they fleeing, now?
That's because it's now officially "Sha're". I know, everyone hates that, except for me. Never really bothered me.
I don't think it would bother me if he was consistent. Since I don't know how they're spelling the names anyway, that part's less important. (Now, if this were anime, and I was watching it subtitled, then spelling would bug me a lot.) Especially since the ways I imagine "Sha'uri" and "Sha're" should be pronounced are essentially identical.
But I guess the moral of the story is: I don't gripe about, nitpick, or mock series unless I really like them, so it's all good. D: