With a pilot episode, you don't really know what to expect since it is the beginning of a series. But in the case of this film, the pilot episode for the long-running "Stargate SG-1", the results are spectacular. Indeed, Children Of The Gods is actually better than the original 1994 film.
The actors are better. Richard Dean Anderson makes a better Colonel O'Neill then Kurt Russel. Michael Shanks does very well taking the place of James Spader in the role of Daniel Jackson and in the end we do accept him as Daniel. Amanda Tapping gives a good performance as Captain Samantha Carter, especially in her first scene which is classic. Christopher Judge does well in the role of the Jaffa Teal'c despite the fact we don't see quite enough of him. Don S. Davis also does well in the role of General Hammond and sets up the character perfectly. Beyond the main cast, Peter Williams does well in the role of Apophis, Alexis Cruz makes a welcome return as Skaara, and both Jay Acovone and Brent Stait do good jobs of taking over characters from the original film. The rest of the supporting cast is good.
The show's production values are high. The sets look expensive and are better then the sets from the original film. The costumes are good, especially the ones for the Goa'ulds and Jaffa. The scenes with the military look realistic thanks to help from the Air Force and I couldn't help but believe that this was how they (the Air Force) would really do something like this.
On the downside, the special effects are lacking at times. The Death Glider sequence in particular seemed to be hurt by some bad special effects and combining of footage from the original film that made the sequence look kind of cheap. The score was also a bit of a let down. Mosty of it was taken directly from the score from Stargate and I was disappointed by the lack of original music in Children Of The Gods.
But overall, this is a great pilot episode. It lays not only the ground work for the show, but gets the show off to a running start. If this had been a feature film, we'd be seeing a Stargate movie franchise but we have a wonderful TV show and, in the case of this film, a wonderful sequel to the original movie.
The actors are better. Richard Dean Anderson makes a better Colonel O'Neill then Kurt Russel. Michael Shanks does very well taking the place of James Spader in the role of Daniel Jackson and in the end we do accept him as Daniel. Amanda Tapping gives a good performance as Captain Samantha Carter, especially in her first scene which is classic. Christopher Judge does well in the role of the Jaffa Teal'c despite the fact we don't see quite enough of him. Don S. Davis also does well in the role of General Hammond and sets up the character perfectly. Beyond the main cast, Peter Williams does well in the role of Apophis, Alexis Cruz makes a welcome return as Skaara, and both Jay Acovone and Brent Stait do good jobs of taking over characters from the original film. The rest of the supporting cast is good.
The show's production values are high. The sets look expensive and are better then the sets from the original film. The costumes are good, especially the ones for the Goa'ulds and Jaffa. The scenes with the military look realistic thanks to help from the Air Force and I couldn't help but believe that this was how they (the Air Force) would really do something like this.
On the downside, the special effects are lacking at times. The Death Glider sequence in particular seemed to be hurt by some bad special effects and combining of footage from the original film that made the sequence look kind of cheap. The score was also a bit of a let down. Mosty of it was taken directly from the score from Stargate and I was disappointed by the lack of original music in Children Of The Gods.
But overall, this is a great pilot episode. It lays not only the ground work for the show, but gets the show off to a running start. If this had been a feature film, we'd be seeing a Stargate movie franchise but we have a wonderful TV show and, in the case of this film, a wonderful sequel to the original movie.