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I've seen various specials, but this is the only one I really, really liked... Only up to a point. But thanks, guys, for crystallizing some latent feelings for me!
Spoilers ahead, for both the show and elements of S9-10.
Hope I get the chance to sit down to The Quest, part II sometime today! There was a spoiler or two in the special, I think. At least, there were a few seconds of footage I didn't recognize. We'll see.
Spoilers ahead, for both the show and elements of S9-10.
Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge hosted this, and they were great choices for the role. MS was looking - er. Extra pretty? I really prefer the Daniel Jackson persona to the Michael Shanks actor, but he looked wonderful here.
The discussions on mythology and the way they chose to define it - Where did we come from, and where are we going? - seemed intelligent and interesting. They did a nice job of interposing clips to highlight the points they were making, including the evolution of Stargate's own mythologies and the creation of new ones...
And that's where things disappointed me, because I realized why I dislike the Ori storyline so much: it's not based on mythology. There's no classic resonance there, because the writers basically made them up on their own. And when they chose to define the contrast between the Ancients and the Ori as scientific humanists vs. religious fundamentalists, that really irritated me. I've never seen the Ancients/Ori divide as science vs. religion; I've seen it as non-interference vs. interference for their own benefit. Their choosing to cloak their intentions through religious fundamentalism doesn't make their motives religious or fundamentalist, any more than it does the Goa'uld's motives, who essentially did the same exact thing on their own level with the Jaffa and the people they enslaved. So to me, that definition comes across as the writers not understanding their own story themes - or, at worst, reducing the last two seasons to the writers' thinly veiled statement about today's world politics.
The Replicators, in contrast, were also a new construct (excuse the pun), and worked very well - until Fifth et al were introduced, anyway. [I know a lot of people think that it served the Replicators well to be given human faces. I'm not one of them. Although I suppose Reckoning made it worth it.] But they also represented a classic mythological theme: man's creation getting out of hand, the triumph of man over soulless machine, and so forth. The Ori? Not so much.
So I enjoyed the first thirty minutes of the special a lot, and spent the last ten minutes making faces. That's not all that bad, I suppose.
Two other things that I disliked: They gave us a nice, quick rundown of SG-1, starting from classic team and ending with Mitchell and Vala. However - and this is the woman who has only seen four S6 episodes to date writing this - where is Jonas?! He was part of the show for nearly as many episodes as Vala - one in S5, all of S6, and three in S7 - and yet he isn't even mentioned. Whether or not you care for Jonas Quinn, he was definitely a member of SG-1 and deserves to be credited as such. I thought that they might need to avoid showing him onscreen, so they wouldn't have to pay him, or something; but they included a clip of Full Circle, including some dialogue, so it can't be that. The writers did the same thing in Counterstrike, with a casual reference to Langara falling to the Ori - but not a word about Jonas Quinn. So much for "we don't leave our people behind." (Unless you read![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
6beforelunch's fix of that.)
And my perennial grumble: They ended with the wormhole effect, which is lovely and appropriate. Unfortunately, it was the one from Atlantis. I don't know why it bothers me as much as it does, but... ::shrugs:: I want my old mind-melting wormhole effect back!
The discussions on mythology and the way they chose to define it - Where did we come from, and where are we going? - seemed intelligent and interesting. They did a nice job of interposing clips to highlight the points they were making, including the evolution of Stargate's own mythologies and the creation of new ones...
And that's where things disappointed me, because I realized why I dislike the Ori storyline so much: it's not based on mythology. There's no classic resonance there, because the writers basically made them up on their own. And when they chose to define the contrast between the Ancients and the Ori as scientific humanists vs. religious fundamentalists, that really irritated me. I've never seen the Ancients/Ori divide as science vs. religion; I've seen it as non-interference vs. interference for their own benefit. Their choosing to cloak their intentions through religious fundamentalism doesn't make their motives religious or fundamentalist, any more than it does the Goa'uld's motives, who essentially did the same exact thing on their own level with the Jaffa and the people they enslaved. So to me, that definition comes across as the writers not understanding their own story themes - or, at worst, reducing the last two seasons to the writers' thinly veiled statement about today's world politics.
The Replicators, in contrast, were also a new construct (excuse the pun), and worked very well - until Fifth et al were introduced, anyway. [I know a lot of people think that it served the Replicators well to be given human faces. I'm not one of them. Although I suppose Reckoning made it worth it.] But they also represented a classic mythological theme: man's creation getting out of hand, the triumph of man over soulless machine, and so forth. The Ori? Not so much.
So I enjoyed the first thirty minutes of the special a lot, and spent the last ten minutes making faces. That's not all that bad, I suppose.
Two other things that I disliked: They gave us a nice, quick rundown of SG-1, starting from classic team and ending with Mitchell and Vala. However - and this is the woman who has only seen four S6 episodes to date writing this - where is Jonas?! He was part of the show for nearly as many episodes as Vala - one in S5, all of S6, and three in S7 - and yet he isn't even mentioned. Whether or not you care for Jonas Quinn, he was definitely a member of SG-1 and deserves to be credited as such. I thought that they might need to avoid showing him onscreen, so they wouldn't have to pay him, or something; but they included a clip of Full Circle, including some dialogue, so it can't be that. The writers did the same thing in Counterstrike, with a casual reference to Langara falling to the Ori - but not a word about Jonas Quinn. So much for "we don't leave our people behind." (Unless you read
6beforelunch's fix of that.)And my perennial grumble: They ended with the wormhole effect, which is lovely and appropriate. Unfortunately, it was the one from Atlantis. I don't know why it bothers me as much as it does, but... ::shrugs:: I want my old mind-melting wormhole effect back!
Hope I get the chance to sit down to The Quest, part II sometime today! There was a spoiler or two in the special, I think. At least, there were a few seconds of footage I didn't recognize. We'll see.
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*cries at all the typos* I just get so excited.