Stargate: Continuum (2008)

Directed By: Martin Wood

Written By: Brad Wright and Jonathon Glassner

That is why we’ve come all this way. Why we had to endure all that singing. Get rid of the last bad guy, then there’s…cake. -General Jack O’Neill

Synopsis

After Teal’c and Vala vanish during Baal’s execution ceremony, SG-1 gates back to Earth to discover that the timeline has been altered and the Stargate program no longer exists.

Review

Stargate Continuum was another success from my point of view in the Stargate DVD movie collection verse.  That being said, I’m going to get my major criticism immediately out of the way.  The Ark Of Truth did an excellent job closing up SG-1’s tenth season cliffhangers, but also evolving it on a much larger scale than a regular two part episode, but as BIG as Martin Wood promised Continuum to be, it simply wasn’t.  It had all the feeling and best elements of a season three or four finale episode but it never translated into feature film epic.  This is not an out and out complaint, but it was a little bit dejecting because it was built up so much by the director, producers, and Stargate community.  That icky little criticism aside Continuum made for an nostalgic return to days of early SG-1.

Some of the most perplexing SG-1 episodes and years involved the paradox of time travel and the most fun villain ever on the show: Ba’al.  Continuum took our favorite big bad and made him alter time, by returning to the past to make sure the Stargate program never began.  I believe it was Season 8 where that future also happened and Oneill, Teal’C, Daniel Jackson, and Carter had been stuck back when “Ra” had enslaved humanity.  A different version of SG-1 returned to help adjust what went wrong over those years.  This similar concept but told in another way is what Continuum offered.  No matter how many times Stargate touches on the complexities and possible universes from the time travel department, the possibilities leave an endless array of conceivable altered futures and pasts.  Even when the ending is often predictable, it’s this comfort that makes the far fetched existences and plots that much more fun.

Who can complain if SG-1 is involved?  No matter what they do together it’s the chemistry that the original four began that carried the show into the most successful science fiction series ever on television.  Even with the replacement of O’Neill with Ben Browder and the addition of the quirky Vala the essence of the show remained and it was and still is why it’s success is continually complimented.

Cast

• Richard Dean Anderson as General Jack O’Neill
• Amanda Tapping as Colonel Samantha Carter
• Ben Browder as Colonel Cameron Mitchell
• Christopher Judge as Teal’C
• Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson
• Beau Bridges as General Hank Landry
• Don S. Davis as General George Hammond
• Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran/Qetesh
• William Devane as President Henry Hayes
• Cliff Simon as Ba’al
• Dan Shea as Sgt. Siler

The appearance by Richard Dean Anderson and the mutual disdain his character O’Neill and Ba’al, played by the brilliant Cliff Simon, have for one another had the exact same tension and charisma as it did in the many seasons before it.  With a familiar storyline and the character of O’Neill actually being tangible rather than just periodically mentioned was a wonderful addition to the story, giving it the same fun bravado RDA carried for so many seasons.  Don S. Davis also returned to give the story the old feel of SG-1, but was also bittersweet knowing it was his last performance as General Hammond as he passed away recently.  Hammond of Texas will forever be missed.  Vala and Teal’C disappearing and playing very different roles as their futures were altered made it fun to watch them a little bit different.  The remaining triangle of Carter, Mitchell, and Daniel Jackson became the heart and thrust of the story and our main character’s did not let us down to for a second.  It’s truly a wonderful cast. 

Ratings and Suggestions

This one just as much so as Ark Of Truth is more geared towards committed fans of the show rather than making the attempt to recruit new viewers.  That being said you wouldn’t have to had watched the entire series to “get” Continuum, but to appreciate it for what it was, you would.  It was a little bit of a let down for me in some ways, but also a comforting piece of SG-1 nostalgia in another respect as it followed the same great elements of some of the original seasons.  It again let’s me hope that this isn’t the end of SG-1 movies entirely, but one never knows.  Either way Continuum was a fun addition to one of my favorite science fiction universes.  Three out of Four Stars.

10,000 B.C.

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence.

109 Minutes

Directed By: Roland Emmerich

Written by: Roland Emmerich and Harold Kloser

[speaking to the spear-tooth] You must remember me. I gave you life. -D’Leh

Synopsis

Prehistoric man’s love is taken to be a slave for crazy Pharaoh in far off land.  Prehistoric man searches for woman and fights great battles and prehistoric foes.  There is lots of CGI and little dialogue.  There is almost a battle at the end.

Review

I tried to write a synopsis but the smart part of my brain couldn’t say much more than a sentence or two because that was all I could muster without criticizing any aspect of it.  What I expect from a Roland Emmerich film is very little.  I wager there will be superficial character’s with a paper thin plot and mediocre dialogue that will offer an occasional laugh if delivered by a good enough actor.  Most importantly there is excellent CGI and action sequences to distract from the simplistic story being told before you.  Emmerich is one of the few directors who can pull this off and generally come up with a reasonable movie that’s harmless enough to not mind that it’s kind of dumb.

10,00 b.c. did not offer that kind of pay-off.  It failed miserably at every attempt to make anything that resembled a successful movie, action story, epic adventure, or even *holds breath* good CGI.  It was BORING.  An hour and a half of nonsense.  I literally fell asleep twice and this was after a cup of coffee.  The character’s are tedious and without any charismatic salvation.  The lead actors best quality he can offer is nice abs and a handsome face.  The journey is witless and without any anticipation to where the finale takes place.  Once the great pyramid was unveiled it was such a let down nothing after it hardly mattered.  The villains were not frightening and nor was the end result at all consequential to the tale being told. 

The most disappointing aspect was the CGI.  I had HUGE expectations here, and while some of the shots were pretty amazing, in general I felt like what I watched was separate from the actors in the story.  Movies like Lord Of The Rings and the Weta team mastered the ability to take a fantasy or unknown world and make it feel real, like it was a possible existence in some universe.  While this movie was a historic proven existence at one time, the shots, the land and the collaboration of it all came together as a movie set rather than a real world.

Ratings And Suggestions

I pretty much liked nothing about 10,000 b.c. and am thankful I didn’t spend $10 at the movie theatre like I had initially planned because the trailers made it seem so epic and fun.  It was epic already, it was a better parody of epic movies than “Epic Movie” actually was.  I actually feel dumber for having watched it.  I give it a half star out of four based on the cool Woolly Mammoths and the fact that Witless Protection still was a worse movie than this.  But that’s it.