It’s amazing what can end up coming from a simple movie. Back in 1994 a science fiction epic called Stargate hit the big screen. Written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, and directed by Roland Emmerich, this movie ended up becoming a huge franchise.
Novels based on the original movie, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, an animated series called Stargate Infinity, books based on both television series, a D20 modern Role Playing Game, an impending Massive Multiplayer online game, comics, a rumoured third TV series and of course two direct to DVD movies.
This review is about the second direct to DVD movie, called Continuum.
As per usual, this review contains no spoilers other than what you might have seen in trailers or what you gleaned from the back cover. I don’t like spoiling things for people.
The movie takes places shortly after the end of the series, and deals with the capture and the end of the last System Lord.
What appears to be a simple ceremony, one that would end with the extraction of the Symbiote, ends with what appears to be the re-writing of history.
Yes, it’s a time travel movie, and it has all the elements any fan of science fiction would expect. Once again, I will not give away any spoilers about these elements or the rest of the plot itself.
Anyhow, in a way, the movie was a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting something a little more – well, epic in scale.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, and even though I prefer Stargate Atlantis, it was good seeing the return of Richard Dean Anderson and all the rest of the regular cast.
Even Teal’c’s former master.
Sorry, I digress.
Anyhow, the point of the matter is that this movie seemed to be nothing more than a two part episode that had been left over from the series… a two part episode that they had wanted to film, but for some reason it got pushed to the back burner and was never included in one of the last seasons.
Still, it had a good budget that allowed for the return of all your favourite characters (see above), and excellent special effects.
The funny thing is, even though it was direct to video, and had probably a slightly larger budget than normal for an episode, this movie was leaps and bounds better than a lot of direct to DVD movies that have come out in the recent past, ones that had budgets that probably far surpassed that of the one for this movie.
And Continuum was better, worth far more of your hard earned dollars than these others that I have hinted at, but will not name at this time.
This simple fact boggles my mind.
For those of you who happen to miss SG1, it’s a nice visit from characters you’ve grown to love over the years and have missed since the end of the final season. It’s almost a homecoming if you will for fans of the original series.
Frankly put though, The Ark of Truth was a better movie, but then again, it was produced to wrap up several story arcs.
This was more of stand alone, almost a ‘thank you, here’s one more adventure through the gate for all the loyal and loving fans’.
Personally, I really hope that we’ll see more Stargate movies in the future. It’ll be wonderful to see ‘old friends’ once again.
Now, as to the bonus features included on the DVD – you have the ever present commentary with Brad Wright and Martin Wood, as well as three featurettes. The first is the Layman’s Guide to Time Travel; the second Stargate goes to the Arctic and finally the Making of Stargate Continuum.
For rabid and casual fans alike.
3.5 out of 5