Stargate Origins: Catherine

 Download, Stargate Origins: Catherine (2018) film

Curiosity is what brought me to this, and that's what they were banking on, because as a film it was pretty poor. It lacked scope and scale, seemed pretty cheap in a TV film kind of way, much of the acting was amateurish, characters unsympathetic and it was long, so long. So sad that this is what a once great franchise came to - it's not the first, not by a long shot ('Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Dr. Who,' in fact any long running sci-fi seems to fall at last), but at least others have at least made an effort when it came time to attempt a comeback. This seemed rather halfhearted as if it was merely bait with which to catch the unwary. If I'm recalling correctly it was originally released in parts like a miniseries online. Or was it something to do with an MGM 'Stargate' streaming channel as the one piece of new 'Stargate' to entice the fans to a one-stop shop? Not being that aware of the production origins I don't know quite how this came to be or why they thought it was a good idea. All I knew about it beforehand was that it featured Connor Trinneer a stalwart of both 'Enterprise' and 'Stargate Atlantis,' it was obviously about the origins of the Stargate, and Catherine Langford, a character whom I believe began in the film, was a friend of Daniel Jackson, and progressed to 'SG-1.' I was expecting Ernest to be involved, her man who went missing when he stepped through the Stargate and never returned (and whom SG-1 found as an old man all those years later), so I was slightly confused by Captain Beal.

What I actually got was an awkward, jumbled, occasionally stilted attempt at making an adventure through the 'gate before they were ever supposed to have had one, no mean feat. Even though I don't think these writers were anything to do with the wider 'Stargate' franchise (why would you not bring back those responsible for all the successful spinoff series'?), and in fact it felt more connected to the original film than anything else, I will give them credit that they did manage to make it all work in the end in continuity terms. If the last few minutes had been what the whole film consisted of then it could have been quite good, but instead much of it was a drag, waiting for something to happen, the pace leadenly feeding it out, beat by boring beat, unable to disguise its humble means while trying to suggest the scale of the original film. I'm not sufficiently well versed in the origins to be able to say for certain this or that should happen, though I was pretty sure they hadn't been able to operate the 'gate other than when Ernest went through, but they did make it a prequel story that fit: Aset, the consort of Ra (who's apparently gone off planet for a while), is keen on revolution against him and sees this SS Officer, Brucke, as a potential source of an army to use in an uprising, or that's the implication I got. When she's foiled she wipes the minds of Professor Paul Langford and his daughter, Catherine, plus Kasuf, sending them all back to where they should be with a subconscious directive to return with a team of people to overthrow Ra, cunningly setting up the film to occur all those years later (this is 1938, ten years after discovering the Stargate).

Ra turns up and punishes her disobedience. I didn't quite remember the stuff about the Harsesis, a baby, though I'm sure that was part of the story in 'SG-1'... There's also talk of Naquadah, the material that has properties of great power which would later power the 'gate, though it's not very clear and if you didn't know 'Stargate' I think that would've been lost on you as they don't explain how it would help Brucke. Otherwise there's a little classic alien technology - you get the power glove or whatever it was called that allowed Goa'uld (a name never spoken), to knock people about or wipe their minds, then there was the return of the staff weapon, most famously Teal'c's favourite bit of kit, now with a nasty curving blade on the other end, wielded by Aset's single bodyguard Serqet. You get Ring Transporters, you get a long shot of Ra's pyramid starship and you get Ra at the end, but it's a lot of poor scenes between unlikeable characters most of the time: Catherine is the worst offender, this obnoxious, violent, argumentative, unbalanced slip of a girl, nothing like the interesting character we'd known before (though I'll admit I don't remember how she'd been portrayed as her younger self). She's nothing like a 1930s woman, really no different from some modern superwoman that can ridiculously deal with anything. But she has to have her wet and weedy love interest, Captain Beal, to tag along and make her look a bit tougher, plus they had to have some 'hilarious' japes and banter, which was almost universally terrible. Finishing out the trio of main characters is the comedy Egyptian, Wasif.

Other characters include Trinneer's Professor who doesn't really get much to do other than be slapped down by evil Nazi Capitan Brucke, who typically foolishly sees the possibility of becoming more powerful than Hitler himself. At least Langford is able to use his wits to some degree when he translates what he wants to say between Brucke and Aset, since he's the only one that can speak ancient Egyptian. There are a few other characters here and there, but all are forgettable and it was quite impressive they could make not one character shine in an almost two hour film! Bizarrely, the film, which was pretty much a family friendly affair all the way through, with only some mild swearwords and the odd thumpy fight scene, suddenly goes into adult territory with male kissing, an extreme swearword uttered out of the blue by Kasuf and shown as a subtitle, and a bloody death for Brucke! I don't know where all that came from, but it certainly wasn't appropriate to the tone of the film, which had been (at least attempting), a light, comedic adventure. It wasn't funny (other than a line Wasif had when Catherine asks him why he never said he could understand the language, and he mistakes her meaning that he never told them he was Egyptian, and said it seemed obvious!), it was quite a trudge.

I was fortunate that it cost me absolutely nothing as I had a voucher to use on iTunes, and since the film was never released on DVD (I can understand why now!), this was my only way to access it. Maybe I should have just rented it because I can't imagine life ever being long enough for me to want to watch it again! They wanted to have an adventure before they were supposed to have been able to have an adventure, and they tied it all up pretty neatly, Captain Beal missing (killed by Serqet before he can get through the 'gate), the others with amnesia assumed to have come from tampering with the Stargate, Ra's revolution is tamped down and the seeds are laid for it to arise upon humans returning to Abydos (though again, it's never named). I couldn't avoid seeing the bad rating it had been awarded on iTunes, but I hoped it would be better than that perception of it. In fact it was exactly as bad as feared and if this is to be the last entry in this universe then it's a sad way for it to go out. Having recently finished reviewing all of 'Stargate' (other than the non-canon cartoon series, 'Infinity'), it's a bit of a comedown from the quality and inventiveness of 'Universe.' I hear there may be a reboot coming, whether that's true or not it's been talked about many times over the years, but if it's anything like this production they may as well forget it.

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