Children of the Gods

"Children of the Gods"

"Children of the Gods (Part 1 & 2)" is the pilot episode of the military science fiction television series Stargate SG-1. It was written by producers Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright, the pilot was directed by Mario Azzopardi. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it R for a scene of nudity.

"Children of the Gods" is about the start and re-establishment of the Stargate program after what happened in Stargate (1994) film. The story follows three central characters from the film and two new. The episode starts off with Apophis attacking the Stargate Command (SGC) and the surviving soldiers from the attack believing him to be Ra from the film.

Plot

Part 1

One year previously, in the events of the movie Stargate, Colonel Jack O'Neill (Kurt Russell) led a team through the Stargate to the planet Abydos. After killing the System Lord Ra (Jaye Davidson) by rigging a nuclear bomb onto his ship as it left Abydos, O'Neill returned to Earth with two survivors of his team, leaving behind Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader), who remained with his new love Sha're (Vaitiare Bandera) and her brother Skaara (Alexis Cruz).

In the present, Apophis and his Jaffa enters through the Stargate, killing several people and kidnapping a female airman. Soon after this event, O'Neill (now played by Richard Dean Anderson) is re-called to Cheyenne Mountain by Major General George Hammond (Don S. Davis). He is interrogated, along with his former teammates Louis Ferretti (Brent Stait) and Charles Kawalsky (Jay Acovone), about their mission to Abydos. When they refuse to reveal anything other than what is in their reports, General Hammond chooses to send a nuclear bomb through the Stargate to Abydos, believing that the aliens could only have come from Abydos and hoping to destroy whoever came through.

With this threat hanging over his head, O'Neill reveals that he had lied about using the bomb to destroy Abydos. He admits that while the alien Ra was killed, the people of Abydos are still alive, with Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) living among them. After talking to his superiors, Hammond allows O'Neill to send a tissue box through the Stargate. The box is returned, proving that Jackson is alive and well, O'Neill is recalled to active duty, regains his rank of Colonel and is given permission to take a team through the Stargate to Abydos to investigate the alien invaders. A team is assembled which includes O'Neill, Kawalsky, Ferretti, and Samantha Carter, along with several others. When the team arrives, they find a group of Earth weaponry-armed Abydonians waiting for them.

Daniel leads O'Neill, Kawalsky, and Carter to a large cavernous room that has innumerable hieroglyphs on the walls. Jackson reveals that he believes that the hieroglyphs of the cartouche match the various symbols on the Stargate, leading him to believe that the walls are actually a map of the coordinates of a vast network of Stargates across the galaxy. While O'Neill and the others are gone, the Abydos Stargate is opened and the camp is attacked by the same invaders that attacked Earth earlier in the episode. The leader's eyes glow, leading many of the survivors to believe that he was Ra. The invaders take Sha're and Skaara with them. Determined to save his wife and brother-in-law, Daniel accompanies O'Neill and his team back to Earth. When the injured Ferretti is able to reveal the symbols that the invaders used to leave Abydos, General Hammond is given permission by the President to form nine teams who will use the Stargate to gather information about threats to Earth. O'Neill is given command of SG-1, with Carter as his second-in-command and Jackson accompanying him, due to his determination to find his kidnapped wife. Kawalsky is given command of SG-2.

Part 2

O'Neill with his SG-1 and 2 leaves for another planet. SG-1 forges ahead, they meet a group of monks who escort them to the nearby town of Chulak. During a meal they find out that Sha're has been infested by a Goa'uld, when Jackson runs to her they are taken prisoners.

In the prison the team discovers Skaara, Jackson explains that it was not Ra who attacked them, but Apophis, the Egyptian serpent god of night. Before Skaara and the team can escape, Apophis and the possessed Sha're enters with several guards. Several other Goa'uld's come forth and begin to pick people out of the crowd of prisoners who will become hosts to the children of the Gods. Skaara is among the few to be chosen and is dragged away, screaming frantically for O'Neill. Apophis orders that the rest of the prisoners be killed. The serpent guards prepare to execute his orders, O'Neill shouts desperately to Teal'c that he can save the people. Teal'c believes him and turns on his fellow guards, helping the prisoners escape.

O'Neill, Carter, Jackson, and Teal'c leads the prisoners away from Chulak back towards the Stargate, with guards pursuing them. While escaping the town, Teal'c shows O'Neill that he has a Goa'uld in his stomach, much to the shock of the others. Near the gate SG-1 is pinned down by a death glider. Kawalsky and SG-2 rescue them by bringing the ship down with an FIM-92 Stinger. At the gate they find Apophis leaving with his wife and the Goa'uld's. O'Neill calls out to Skaara causing him to hesitate and wait for O'Neill to come closer. However, a Goa'uld had already taken control of him. Skaara uses a hand device to throw O'Neill back and then leaves through the gate. Shortly after this a battalion of Jaffa's starts attacking the, Jackson dials the gate and leads the prisoners through the Stargate. Just before Kawalsky goes through the Stargate, he is infected with an infant Goa'uld.

After the battle, Jackson and O'Neill reaffirm their determination to find Sha're and Skaara and rescue them before reporting to their debriefing. O'Neill also asks General Hammond that Teal'c become a member of their team but the General only says it is not his decision. As everyone leaves the gate room, Kawalsky's eyes glow.

Release and reception

Variety reviewer Tony Scott criticized that "superficial characters wander through their roles without stirring a modicum of conviction". He mocked that the wooden acting, "pedestrian writing, pulp-mag plotting, shopworn characters, hackneyed dialogue [...] and Mario Azzopardi's broad direction will all undoubtedly delight billions and billions". He predicted that the series is "essentially for young people", and that "if no one else, the kiddies are probably watching" as long as the producers stop blatantly showcasing naked young women. Will Joyner from The New York Times considered Stargate SG-1 as a "challenging, if derivative, mix" that is "more than a Stargate [feature film] fan might expect but certainly less than one would hope for". His opinion about the main cast was mixed, and he found it disturbing that SG-1 used shock tactics to make up for its lower television budget. He would not recommend the show for children because of the horror-like "grotesque physical attributes in the new villains" and the "gratuitous use of sexual implication and nudity". The episode got a Nielsen Rating, 3.3 / 3.4, -4.

The episode's original airing on Showtime featured full frontal nudity during the scene showing the possession of Sha're (Vaitiare Bandera) by Amonet. This has never been repeated, and future airings in the United States have had the nudity cut out for syndication. The DVD version, however, retains this scene. This episode is the only one in the series to be rated by the MPAA (it is rated R), while in the UK the episode is rated 18 by the BBFC. It is rated M in Australia, recommended for (but not restricted to) viewers 15 and older. All other SG-1 episodes have generally been rated PG, or 15, at most.

Executive producer Brad Wright has revealed that the Stargate SG-1 pilot episode ("Children of the Gods") is being re-cut into a Stargate SG-1 direct-to-DVD movie with brand new visual effects and scenes not previously included in the television version. The beginning will be slightly altered, a new scene will be added, and the nudity scene will be taken out, although the final movie will be roughly 7 minutes shorter than the original episode. Joel Goldsmith will re-score the music. It will be released on DVD on July 21, 2009 in 16:9 widescreen format, and may also be aired on television. Wright stated:

"There is new material, but most of the new material is visual effects or scenes that have been cut. It is tighter. It is significantly tighter. ... The editing pattern is different, and therefore the performances are different. It's a different movie."

Differences from the film

Dean Devlin had originally planned to have two movie sequels pick up the story from his 1994 original Stargate. The first movie already tapped into Egyptian mythology; the second one would have moved into other mythologies; and the third would tie together all mythologies. Devlin then gave Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM) control over the franchise, and MGM decided to make a TV series based on the movie. Also, author Bill McCay wrote a series of five novels based on Roland Emmerich's notes, continuing the story the original creators had envisioned to Devlin's dismay. SG-1 showrunners Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner altered the canon by introducing many novel concepts with their mythology of the SG-1 and Atlantis series.

Most notably, many characters were portrayed by different actors in the series, and names were spelled differently. Daniel Jackson was played by James Spader in the movie and by Michael Shanks in the series. Kurt Russell's character Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil, a rather humorless Colonel, is played by Richard Dean Anderson as Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill (with two L's) in SG-1. French Stewart's character was named Louis Feretti, in SG-1, Brent Stait's character is named Louis Ferretti. The spelling of Daniel Jackson's wife changes from Sha'uri to Sha're, O'Neill's wife from Sarah to Sara. (Similarly, the name of O'Neil's son changes from Tyler in the film to Charlie.)

The Stargate Command (SGC) setting was transferred from the fictional military facility located in Creek Mountain, to the Cheyenne Mountain military complex. The planet Abydos from the film changed the distance from Earth from millions of light-years away (in an entirely different galaxy) to becoming the closest planet to Earth with a Stargate, residing in the same galaxy as Earth. Also in SG-1, Stargate travel is limited to the Stargate network in the Milky Way galaxy (unless a tremendous amount of power is used to lengthen the subspace wormhole of a Stargate to another galaxy's Stargate). Ra was the last of an unnamed race in the film, being of a humanoid species with large black eyes and a lack of facial features. In SG-1 however, Ra is one of many "Goa'uld System Lords," who are a race of parasitic snake-like creatures. There were also changes to the Stargate. The unique set of 39 Stargate symbols in the film were replaced with the concept of 38 symbols that are the same for each Stargate (Earth's symbols based on Earth's constellations), plus a single point of origin symbol that is unique to that individual gate. While the kawoosh effect in the movie was created by filming the actual swirl of water in a glass tube, and looked like a vortex on the back of the Gate on the TV series this effect was completely created in CG by the Canadian visual effects company Rain Maker. (At the beginning of Season 9, however, the original movie wormhole sequence was substituted by a new sequence similar to the one already used on Stargate Atlantis at the time, but being blue as it was in the movie and SG-1, whereas in Atlantis it's green.)

External links

• Children of the Gods at IMDb
• Children of the Gods at scifi.com
• Children of the Gods at mgm.com
• "Screenplay" (PDF). Distributed by MGM.