In universes like Stargate, like Star Trek, like Star Wars, there is a lot that is canonical. There are a lot of things that really shouldn't be changed, and a lot of things that people need to remember in order to make the story fit with the rest of the universe.
Unfortunately, like Star Trek Discovery and the Star Wars sequel trilogy, the show kind of takes everything that is canonical and completely ignores it...which is a trope for a lot of Science Fiction these days...and one that instantly alienates the fans that invested a lot of time, money, and love into the universe.
But what is worse than that is the production values are absolute crap...and this is Stargate we're talking about, this is, like Star Trek, a universe that never exactly attempted to make very convincing alien sets.
No matter what planet they went to on the series it always looked a lot like British Columbia.
The production value of this is even worse. It looks seriously bad.
And the dialogue makes little sense, even for seasoned Stargate fans...it's just bad and out of place.
And the acting isn't much better.
So, what you have is an extremely cheap, extremely low budget, horribly written and horribly acted attempt at making a Stargate addition that, well, that ignores a lot of what is canonical in Stargate, so even the diehard fans won't like it.
Stargate Origins: Catherine
2018
Adventure / History / Sci-Fi
Stargate Origins: Catherine
2018
Adventure / History / Sci-Fi
Plot summary
In 1939, Professor Paul Langford and his daughter Catherine are still grappling with the mysteries of the ancient relic they discovered in the Egyptian desert more than ten years ago. With war looming in Europe and funding running out, these brilliant minds are approaching their lowest ebb. Little do they know, answers are about to present themselves in a dangerous form, when the Nazi Occultist Dr. Wilhelm Brücke approaches their facility with a sinister motive. Enlisting the help of two young soldiers, Catherine must use all of her wit and nous as she and her new allies embark on an adventure into the unknown to rescue her father, and save the Earth from an unimaginable darkness.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
An Honest Review
It was a web series
And although I wish the quality would have been a little bit better, that's what this was. It simply wasn't supposed to be any big production. It was meant to be watched on laptops and tablets, and on those platforms, it was probably adequate.
Conor Trinneer does a great job here as professor Langton, the other actors I was not familiar with, the guy playing Brucke (Aylam Orian) was a villain with relish. Even the Goa'uld had enough of him.
People forget that they dropped Catherine's exotic accent that she had in the film for her appearances in Stargate SG-1, except for the episode "1969", when Daniel Jackson has a tete-a-tete with the middle-aged version of the character.
Due to the appearance of a young Kusuf, I have to assume that this planet is Abydos. The Gou'ald, Aset, has never been heard of. And we hear the word "harsesis", we all know what that means.
This production is more like a stage play than it is an episode of the original franchises, viewed as such I can ignore the poor production and focus on the story. I didn't see anything radically changed from the canon of the franchise, and just because we never heard about something, it doesn't mean that it never happened. We assume that in the series, Catherine never made it through the Stargate, only her boyfriend Ernest Littlefield, that we met during "the torment of Tantalus", played by Paul McGillion. He is not here, but apparently the earth side of this story takes place in Egypt rather than in a secret lab In the United States- so we wouldn't expect to see him until later in the Stargate Origins series, if they get that far. I haven't watched any of that yet, this popped up on my Amazon prime and I became interested in it.
And as I am being entertained by this, despite the lack of production, I will have to say it is not as poor as what people are saying. I am just giving it a higher rating for balance sake. Because this was not a television show or a movie, and was not supposed to be. It was what it was, because people wanted to hear more stories in the Stargate universe, which this is.
Cheap Trick
Let's rewrite half of what we know about Catherine and her work with the Stargate and then use the incredibly cheap trick of a memory wipe to reconcile it.
But that wasn't nearly the only reason this movie is bad. The acting is mostly bad. The story line is cliche. The dialogue is juvenile.
The characters are equally bad. I hated Catherine. Among other things, yes let's spit in the face of the Nazi when he's holding a gun, your hands are tied and he's already threatening murder and mayhem. Don't get me started on the head Nazi. Beal - meh, but not terrible. Wasif - was he a comedic sidekick? Aset - I never figured out why she didn't kill them all from the start and they could have made her a little less Goth which was no favor to her appearance. Could Ra speak any slower?
Apparently the budget wasn't big enough to have the number of Jaffa that should have been around - the temple was practically empty.
There's just too many problems to name. However, I usually reserve 1 star for movies that have something offensive. This movie was just bad and a real disappointment for what could have been given the franchise and the opportunities. Instead we get a story that basically never happened because of the memory wipe.