Hyperbole Theatre presents: DVD Review: Stargate Infinity - The Complete Series

Stargate Infinity: The bastard child of the Stargate franchise. A Saturday morning children's cartoon. Naturally, I was thoroughly ecstatic to get my copy so I could review it.

I'll start where anyone who buys a DVD invariably must: the packaging. On the outside, you'll find a completely original cardboard slip cover protecting two also completely original slim cases, each with two discs.

Allow me to derail here a moment, if you will. While the art on cardboard cover is fine (the show's name, Stargate showing planets in the middle - anyone who actually knows anything about Stargate, please ignore how much that's bastardised the show, there's worse to come), when it comes to the art on the cases themselves... words can't really describe it. There are pictures of some of the main characters which look like a blind five year old, who had never heard of the show and had only a dull set of crayons, a can of poster paint and a funnel, after being given a thirty second description of what the characters actually look like.
By a monkey.
An earlier version of this review said "yes, it's really that bad", but then bad's lawyer called me and threatened to charge me with libel. Anyone willing to invent with a word accurate enough to describe this and happy to be whored out for my use here, please apply in the comments.

The rest of the packaging? The discs are fine. I assume. I have to blindfold myself whenever I get to the case, so I don't exactly get a great look.

Video quality: I didn't realise anybody still made CEDs, but that's what this show appears to have been stored on in the six years between when it was made and when it was released on DVD. That, or it was intentionally designed to look like film preserved from the 1930s. Probably both.
Audio: I'd actually prepared towels in case my ears started bleeding. Surprisingly, that didn't happen. That being said, it's going to win every award there is for sound design, what with its gloriously immersive 2.0 stereo soundtrack (with barely any separation!); sound effects borrowed from SG-1, shot, buried in three feet of dirt, rained on (twice), dug up, left on the floor, torn up by stray cats while on the floor, eaten by dog while still on floor, then crapped out by dog and used in completely the wrong situation (Zat sounds on a Stargate opening? You better believe it!) and voices occasionally so muffled that I've understood more when watching Russian scuba divers.

Now, unfortunately for you, my dear reader, I must get to actually discussing the show itself. Part of its problems are due simply to what it is (and that Fox wanted it classed as an educational show, so they could produce more of the mindless blather they're known for). The characters? I've seen more lifelike characters on cereal boxes, and the voice acting seems to be a contest to be so wooden that the trees that box was made from jealous.

And that's not when they're directly blasphemous to everything Stargate, such as an "Ancient" being a flying, dragon-type... thing. Or the "half-alien" who looks to be about one third human, one third crocodile, and one third toaster (I'd hate to be his supposedly 100% human mother). Or the blatant disregard for wormhole physics. Or the complete lack of any and all recognisable characters or races (except for that misnomered Ancient mentioned above). Now, being set roughly 30 years after SG-1, the lack of recognisable characters might be forgiven (although they're never even mentioned), but the only race that's in both proper Stargate and this... humans. Not that that's hard. The main villains look like a cross between apes and alligators, and there are so many hyphens and character and race names that this show actually caused a world punctuation shortage in early 2003.

One point I feel must be mentioned: this show has a theme song. As in, with actual words. It's just as terrible as you think it is (assuming you think it's so terrible that Al Qaeda is trying to destroy the western world just to be sure that they got whoever wrote this monstrosity).

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. It is, after all, a children's cartoon. Now, even when I was a calf, I think I still could have noticed that at the end of every single episode, Gus Bonner saves the day, and one of the team learns an important lesson about how they were acting wrong at the start. And predictable? I've been less sure that the sun will rise than I was that the team would escape when they were all captured by Da'Kyll (I'll try to refrain from mentioning his name too much, lest the internet run out of apostrophes).

To be fair, this can be enjoyed. But only if you start watching it with expectations so low, you'd be happy if the TV punched you in the face. And then exploded. Better than flushing your $20 down the toilet, but you'd probably get more enjoyment out of buying some donuts and throwing them at old people.

Further Musings: Stargate Universe: Air (Parts 1-3)

Further musings is the place for stuff that either doesn't fit in the original article, I think of afterwards, or I just feel like doing separately. And generally lack any semblance of structure.

• There's been no main villain introduced yet - and every TV show (especially sci-fi) needs a good villain (and obviously I don't mean the antonym of evil good).
• Some of the characters (I'm looking at you Greer) do either nothing or very little to make you care about them.
• It's too much like Firefly. Only Firefly works well at being Firefly. Now give us more Firefly.
  
• It's way too cliché... O'Neill would have a field day.
• The cool nerd guy (Eli) isn't on screen enough. He's no Rodney McKay, but it's possible to actually like him.
• I'm not sure if it's right to call SGU a spinoff of SG1... there's nothing familiar from either SG1 or Atlantis - I'm not saying you NEED something you've seen before in a spinoff, but it helps. And I don't mean five minutes of screen time in the first couple of episodes.
• Some parts of the premise just seem like an excuse to force the show along.
• Rush just spreads the positive though correct stereotype of the extremely selfish scientist. That's McKay's job.

TV Review: Stargate Universe: Air (Parts 1-3)

I'm a bit worried here. SG1 and Atlantis have always been more traditional TV shows. Opening credits a full minute long, credits actually in the opening credits, episodes that don't follow a continuous arc (which sucks because then it's hard to watch them out of order), not shot from a documentary style viewpoint (which Firefly popularised... why did it get cancelled anyway? It's hard to find a sci-fi show these days which isn't at least a little influenced by it). SGU is, by the looks of it, none of these. It's still early days, so I'm hopeful about what it'll become, but don't expect a traditional Stargate experience here.

That's not to say it's not good. Stargate generally has a good attention to detail, this is no exception. Unfortunately, I'm also not seeing of the trademark Stargate humour here, either. Again, this could change, but it doesn't leave me particularly hoepful.

This is probably the point where some people would tell you the plot - to me, that's not particularly important. If you like the plot of Stargate, you're probably going to like this (I'm not a fan of the emphasis on flashbacks for the first part though). If you like sci-fi these days, there's a good chance you'll like how the story goes. It's slightly predictable and slightly cliché, but that doesn't make it bad.

Sound is good. I'm not too picky on sound in anything. As long as I can hear everything, and explosions sound like they could scare the crap out of the neighbours if you turned them up loud enough, I'm happy. How things look, I tend to be a bit pickier with the visuals. Everything's got a decent amount of detail and the special effects are great (I've never seen the kawoosh look that awesome). The Destiny looks great, too.

In short, since this is the point where I'm not really sure what to say: It's different. I want to like it, and while it's good, it's not quite Stargate. It's just that it's not really anything else, either. I'll keep watching (or just buy it on DVD when it comes out, importing if necessary).

Review: Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods: Final Cut

For those not familiar with Stargate, Children of the Gods was the 2 hour (with ads, so it ends up being closer to an hour and a half) pilot that premiered around 12 years ago. And, to be honest, it hasn't aged well, especially when compared to newer episodes of the series.

Okay, first let me discuss finances. I paid $50 for the first season. This DVD of just the first episode is $30. Is it worth it? Hell yes!

If you like CotG as it is... congratulations, you're in the minority. While it's a decent episode (most Stargate episodes are), it's pretty poor compared to some other episodes. Some of the dialogue in it is just painful to listen to, the pacing slows to a crawl at some points, the special effects are bad, inconsistent, and badly inconsistent, the video quality is pathetic in some spots, some of the shots give you a great view of everything but the action, the music feels like awkward mashup of the Stargate movie theme and new stuff, some people's voices sound nothing like they should, it's completely unsuitable for kids (hey, Stargate is supposed to be a family friendly show), and there are plot holes big enough to fly a 747 through. In short, calling it a train wreck is overly generous. Despite all that, it's a good episode (by TV standards. By Stargate standards, it's not great). But it stands up to the test of time far worse than most of the early episodes.

If you don't want me to spoil anything for you, just scroll down to the second bold text after this. If you've already seen it or you don't care, read on.
Okay, now let's look at what they've done to make it better. First, visuals. The old opening title sequence is gone and there's a new one, not similar to anything you've seen from Stargate before. It's not badly done, but it does nothing to seem like it belongs to Stargate - just change the text and it could serve for anything even remotely related to sci fi. A decent number of the special effects shots have been redone, things like gate puddles and wormhole effects have been redone to look like they do later in the series (although some of the puddles don't seem to have been redone, and they stick out pretty badly). There's also more serious changes like redoing the glider chase on Chulak, as well as a couple of fairly distinctive scenes (like leaving the pyramid on Abydos). Some of the shots in the original were actually pretty poor quality, and some had noticeable defects, these have been fixed.

Sound: Most of the music has been redone so that it doesn't awkwardly include the movie's theme... sounds good but isn't particularly notable (unlike the original, in which it was notably bad). Some of the dialogue has been recorded, so characters now sound much more like... themselves.

Okay, now I really have to warn you. SPOILERS AHEAD. If you don't want to read them, scroll down to the next bold text (not far).
Now for how it's been cut. I'm not going to lie to you (about this): it's about 5 minutes shorter than it used to be. Among the cuts are possibly parts you may like (such as Carter's famous line when meeting "the boys" for the first time), but many of those are "so bad it's good" parts, so not a great loss. Also gone is the infamous nude scene. Stargate is supposed to be a family show... in that kids may not like it but there's no harm in showing it to them. There are still scenes with unclad ladies, but everything's tastefully obscured. Also gone is the bit just before the end with Kawalski alluding to the next episode... now it can stand by itself. This maybe gives the episode a bit of a happier ending than it should have (since Sha're and Skaara have both been made hosts) but is better in the long run. Overall it feels like the whole episode goes together a lot better... and it feels like it belongs to the series a lot more. The original cut, excluding the familiar characters, settings, themes and basic premise, could almost seem like it belongs to another series.

Good news! No more spoilers. Bad news! There's not much review left. Good news! There's not much review left.
Special features: sadly not much. There's a new commentary on it, full of Brad Wright pointing out changes you may or may not notice and Richard Dean Anderson being funny. No, really, if you have the DVD, listen the commentary now. If you don't have the DVD, buy it and listen to the commentary. There's also a short piece on how this came about and a few of the changes they made - it's good for watching once but that's about it. And... that's it, no more special features. I would have preferred some more in-depth stuff about redoing it, maybe some interviews with some of the cast... oh well.

Overall: if you're a Stargate fan, buy this. If you're not a Stargate fan, buy this (it makes for a great introduction to the series, better than the original cut).