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News, spoilers and updates in the Stargate world
MGM’s Official Stargate website has a new promotion to build up to the release of Robert C. Cooper’s Stargate: The Ark of Truth. Fans can ask questions directed at Cooper, and the site will provide his answers to the “10 best submissions” on March 11 to coincide with the DVD’s North American release.
Ask your question in the form provided at the site soon!
“I am pleased to announce that Carson Beckett will be returning to Atlantis for a two-part story in the back half of season four. When he returns for the two-parter, it will be Carson Beckett in the flesh,” Stargate Atlantis executive producer and co-showrunner Joseph Mallozzi told fans involved in the Save Carson Beckett campaign.
How does a character return from death if he was blown to bits in an explosion, placed in a coffin, given a funeral, and buried by his grieving family? “Well, I don’t want to give too much away but I can say it won’t be an AU [alternate universe] version of Carson – or a time-hopping Dr. Beckett either,” Mallozzi offered.
“Let’s just say that Beckett becomes a product of his own genius, to some extent. And we see not only old friends but old enemies. It’s a pretty neat two-parter, and it’s going to be pretty intense. The ending of the two-parter is wonderful, too. I think the fans are going to love where it goes, shall I say,” David Hewlett told SCI FI WEEKLY.
Beckett’s actor Paul McGillion also didn’t help much in figuring out how the good doctor returns when he was recently interviewed by TrekMovie.com: “I can’t tell you much about them except to say that I do come back. It is a great reveal and its clever with the way they have done it. It does have something to do with previous episodes of Atlantis and there is a connection there. “Kindred Part 2″ is a heavy episode for Carson and I think the fans are going to love it, especially the ‘Save Carson Beckett’ fans who spent so much time to get the character back. He is a character that wears his heart on his sleeve and I think a lot of fans can relate to the guy and it is a nice tip of the hat to the fans.”
How accepting will the team be of the Carson Beckett they found held as captive by Michael for an apparently long time? And just how long of a time was it? According to Mallozzi, hints as to Carson’s being held by Michael were included late in Season Three: “The groundwork had been subtly laid way back in Season 3’s Vengeance in which, after some discussion with Carl and Martin, it was decided to go back and layer in a clue pointing to Michael’s involvement in the seeming resurrection. Isn’t it funny how Michael’s made so much progress with the retrovirus? It’s like he’s taken our research and made it his own,” Mallozzi told fans in his run-down of “The Kindred Part 1″ in his personal blog. Mallozzi wrote the first part of the two-parter, but Alan McCullough had the honor of writing tonight’s second part, which also includes more on Michael’s research and involves Teyla and her people. What plans does Michael have for Teyla’s unborn child? How did Carson help Michael create a new retrovirus and Hoffan drug? Incredibly, Carson’s past is very much tied into Teyla’s future.
Is Carson a friend or a foe after being with Michael for over a year, and does his oath as a doctor to do no harm still apply? Tune in tonight at 10pm Eastern on the SCI FI Channel to find out, but be aware, Mallozzi has warned, “There won’t be a dry eye in the house when this one airs.”
After viewing the episode, please visit our on-site forum to rate and discuss the episode.
Spoiler preview videos:
“It’s funny, because originally I was not going to do an opening credit sequence,” Robert C. Cooper told MGM’s Official Stargate website’s Sharon Gosling. “I was going to do an end title sequence, and basically just start off with the title and then go right into the film. But I didn’t really know how to start the movie.”
Cooper said, “I felt it was important in Ark of Truth to really create sequences that we wouldn’t normally see in an episode of the series.” One such sequence was Teal’c’s isolated trek across a mountain-top. In scouting for the location for these scenes, the director and his small crew recorded the scenery as seen from a helicopter and still within visual range of Vancouver. “We were actually based out of Squamish, which is a small town with an airport just north of Vancouver. Then there’s a little 10 minute helicopter ride up to the area where we shot.” The production had to paint out signs of civilization in the final film because they were so close to it. “That was fine, we knew we were going to have to do that — but that’s how close we were to the city.”
The shoot was riddled with difficulties, but the crew finally got the shots that Cooper had envisioned … plus, a bonus: while editing the film, Cooper finally realized how he was going to open his movie. “We wanted to create a little bit of a build up to the ledge where the Ancients had built this almost Masada-like village. When I looked at the footage from the helicopter, I thought, ‘Well, listen to what you’ve said to Joel [Goldsmith, who wrote the score],’ which was ‘Let’s make some opportunities for music.’
“The movies that I used to love as a kid had these big sweeping introductions that gave you a chance to settle into the experience of ‘Okay, now I’m watching a movie’ and that’s what Joel’s music does, right off the top. It’s obviously a throw back to the old David Arnold score from the feature. That gives you that sort of nostalgic Stargate feeling. Then it dips into the Ori theme and brings you forward to the more modern Stargate story. I think it really serves as an opportunity to get into the movie as opposed to starting right away with our team. So I actually changed my mind as we were editing the movie, to put that sequence at the beginning and put the scene and the titles up front.”
After experiencing the finished movie that combines the impressive helicopter shots with Goldsmith’s sweeping music, Cooper said, “It’s one of those things that’s very exciting and it’s certainly something that you look back on and are happy that you did.”
NOTES:
Actor Christopher Judge was interviewed in the March/April issue of the Official Stargate Magazine and described Robert C. Cooper’s Stargate: The Ark of Truth as “Stargate SG-1 on steroids!”
“When I first read the script,” Judge told the magazine, “I was talking to Coop [Robert Cooper] and I said, ‘Are you on drugs? There’s no way that we can shoot this in 16 days!’ It was quite an ambitious undertaking. Two weeks ago I had the chance to do the behind-the-scenes commentary, with Coop and Producer Peter Woeste, and when you see up on the screen what Coop’s vision was — it’s quite phenomenal, and I must say, he pulled it off!”
Judge raved about Teal’c’s role in the movie, the first of two direct-to-DVD movies to be released following the cancellation of the record-breaking Stargate SG-1, and emphasized, “I had to do a lot of stuff that I have never done before, and probably will never do again!”
One of the new things that Judge did in the movie was to traverse a mountain. “It’s not CGI’ed, I’m actually on the peak of a mountain, running across a snowy mountain-top — it really was a real mountain! That’s quite an experience. I’m not saying that I’m in a rush to do it again, but it was a new experience and I think that sums up the entire movie.”
Solutions reporter Michelle attended The Ark of Truth panel at the San Diego Comic Con held in July last year and reported more about the filming of Judge’s mountain-top scenes: “In filming The Ark of Truth, they had to take him up to the side of a mountain, on a very thin ridge. They filmed him with a helicopter that got very close to him at times. There were wind gusts and the helicopter downwash blew him around at times. They asked Chris to walk closer to the edge but he declined. At one point the rudder of the helicopter almost hit him. Chris said in his mind, he was thinking of the guys who’d been to the Arctic. And so he thought, ‘If I don’t stay up here, I’ll never hear the end of it.’”
The resulting helicopter shots of Teal’c’s time on the mountain are included in the movie, illustrating the near-epic quality of filming the movie versus filming the TV show. Portions of these scenes can be seen in the video clip “Movie v. TV Show” recently posted by MGM’s Official Stargate website in their Video Gallery.
MGM’s official Stargate website has added another video clip to their Video Gallery to build up to the release of Robert C. Cooper’s Stargate: The Ark of Truth on DVD on March 11 (North American premiere). This time, the producers Cooper and Brad Wright and the cast talk about how making an SG-1 movie was different from making the TV show. The consensus seems to be that the movie is just “bigger!”
The video clip also has some scenes from the movie, so beware of a few spoilers.
Currently, the DVD is scheduled to be released March 11 in North America, April 9 in Australia, April 14 in the UK, and April 23 in France. There is a “late April” release scheduled for New Zealand, according to New Zealand’s Gameplanet Store.
Cooper had stated in an interview in the Official Stargate Magazine that even though the movie was written differently from the TV show in the number of acts and breaks, it could still be shown on international television before the DVD is released. In addition to the screenings being held in Australia before the DVD’s release in that country, the movie will be televised by Sky One in the UK on March 26 at 8pm, several days before the DVD’s release on April 14.
[Thanks to littleheaven70 and Naonak for their tips.]
Stargate: The Ark of Truth is the first of the direct-to-DVD movies produced by MGM following the cancellation of the ten-year-old record-breaking series, Stargate SG-1. The movie was written, directed, and produced by Robert C. Cooper so that the fans could see the last chapter of the Ori story arc that was started in Season Nine. “I think that Stargate: The Ark of Truth will hopefully be very satisfying to the fans, and we tried to make it as accessible as possible to people who aren’t as familiar with the franchise,” Cooper recently said in an interview in the March/April issue of the Official Stargate Magazine.
In making it accessible to those who have never seen the show, Cooper added a 10-minute “previously on” compilation of Seasons Nine and Ten to set up the storypoints and character moments that are necessary to get full enjoyment out of the movie. After adding this and other extra features to the DVD release, MGM and Fox have recently begun their promotions of the movie that is to arrive first in North America on March 11. Following this world premiere, DVDs are expected to be released April 9 in Australia, April 14 in the UK, and April 23 in France.
The pre-order sales performance of The Ark of Truth DVD have been very impressive based on the movie’s placement in the Top 25 DVD Bestsellers on Amazon and as #1 in TV Sci-Fi and Fantasy category several weeks before the movie’s release. For Amazon in the UK, the sales rankings have been just as impressive, with its recent placement in the Top 5.
It should be noted that selling the DVD on Amazon is not the only online sales venue that the studio is taking. Amazon Unbox will have the movie available for download in the United States on April 10 for $14.99 (but this version probably doesn’t include the audio commentary and extra features made available only on the DVD, which is currently priced at $16.99).
If you’re going to be in Australia at the end of March or in early April, you might want to consider attending a screening of the movie, sponsored by Supanova:
Great news for Stargate and Supanova fans alike! In conjunction with Twentieth Century Fox, Supanova is screening “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” pre its April 9th DVD release exclusively during both the Melbourne (March 28) and Brisbane (April 4) Preview Nights!
This is a huge coup and further expands the Stargate presence at Supanova with Sonny Whitelaw, author of five Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis novels, and Jennifer Fallon, international best-selling fantasy author, and co-author of Stargate SG-1: Roswell.
Sonny & Jenny will be jointly running intensive World Building Masterclass writers and game designers’ workshops at 4-8pm March 30 (Melbourne) and 4-8pm April 6 (Brisbane). Sydney and Perth workshops later in the year.
Tickets are available through Ticketek. For more information see www.supanova.com.au and www.worldbuildingworkshops.com.
As for the rest of the international community for which a release date has not yet been announced, Cooper said, “It will definitely be out but it might be on television, internationally, prior to the DVD coming out.”
Ronon is captured by a Wraith in an attempt to turn him into a worshipper, but it is the Satedan Tyre who may have the most significant influence on Ronon’s destiny.
A captured Ronon is fed on over and over again by a Wraith in order to break him into becoming a worshipper. Ronon is strong, but the Wraith proves stronger as Ronon cuts his hair and pledges his life to battle against the Wraith’s enemy, Atlantis, and to show no mercy. In the meantime, the Satedan Tyre (from “Reunion”) has information on where Ronon is being held, and claiming to have turned from the Wraith himself, offers to help Sheppard’s team find him. But, is Tyre really a changed man or is this another trap?
Spoilers are subject to change as this episode is in production.
“The last few episodes of season four should come with a 3-hanky alert,” stated Stargate Atlantis executive producer and co-showrunner Joseph Mallozzi in his personal blog. Kicking off a succession of intense arc-driven episodes is tonight’s “The Kindred Part 1″, written by Mallozzi and directed by Peter Woeste.
“All I can say without giving too much away is that we’re planting some interesting seeds that will emerge, and it gives this season’s plots a twist in a very clever way,” Joe Flanigan told Starburst while they visited him during the filming of “The Seer” in which Davos delivers some difficult news to Teyla who is searching for her people, the Athosians, who vanished without a trace in “Missing”: “I can tell you only this: they are still alive, but they are shrouded in darkness. I know you will continue to search for them no matter what I say, but I must warn you — you may not like what you find.”
As Teyla gets closer to her son’s delivery, she has a vision of her lover Kanaan who communicates that he’s still alive. Encouraged by this mysterious message, she persuades Sheppard to take her on the mission to find and rescue her people. How accurate will Davos’s warnings turn out to be?
“The Kindred” also presents another mystery to be solved by the team: a new sickness is spreading across the galaxy and thousands of lives are threatened by it. Concurrent to this sickness is the apparent poisoning of Wraith. Could the two incidents be related? Sheppard’s former ally Wraith “Todd” may hold the answers as he once again reaches out to Sheppard for help.
And finally, the return of one of the Expedition’s own is an unexpected find as Sheppard’s team seeks the truth behind the disappearance of the Athosians and the deaths of many, but certainly, this can’t possibly be their very own Dr. Carson Beckett alive and apparently in the hands of the enemy for a very long time, can it?!
Just as some mysteries are solved, more are defined. Could all of them have something in common? Tune in tonight at 10pm Eastern to lift the darkness and after viewing, please visit our on-site forum to rate and discuss the episode.
Spoiler preview videos:
How many fans said “awww” or “finally!” when Dr. Daniel Jackson first laid eyes on Atlantis from the bridge of the Odyssey in Stargate SG-1’s Season Ten episode, “The Pegasus Project”? He had been searching for the Lost City of the Ancients ever since he learned of it from that tablet on Abydos from Season Six’s “Full Circle”, and he was the man who discovered that Lost City in Stargate Atlantis’s premiere “Rising”, but because of the need for him to stay and help in the fight against the Goa’uld and the Replicators, Daniel was kept from leaving with Dr. Elizabeth Weir’s Atlantis Expedition. “I need him here,” Brigadier General Jack O’Neill told Weir. Daniel stood by Jack’s side and watched as the Expedition left without him.
Then, there was that incredibly irritating and nasty encounter with a space pirate/thief/con-artist named Vala Mal Doran who hijacked the Prometheus when it was en route to the Pegasus Galaxy to find out what had happened to the Expedition with whom they had lost contact. Unfortunately, Vala’s little “visit” meant that the crew had to return to Earth because of hull damage that prevented the starship from sustaining a hyperspace window.
And finally, Dr. Jackson missed his ride on the Daedalus when Vala reentered the picture with a tablet in hand that she felt only he could interpret. Their pursuit of the treasure, which Daniel thought meant contact with living Ancients who might share in their knowledge and technology, ended up in a war with the powerful Ascended Beings known as the Ori.
Basically, Daniel just couldn’t get a break, but, ironically, during his time searching for the technology that was said to be able to eliminate the evil Ascended Beings, Daniel finally got to go to Atlantis. His setting his eyes on the city for the first time was bittersweet, for he wasn’t there to explore one of the most astonishing pieces of history, but to “save the galaxy.” Dr. Jackson had to put aside his personal desires to explore and ended up in a small room with Vala and Morgan Le Fay for company. “I think I got my tribute paid in ‘The Pegasus Project’ when Daniel actually got to Atlantis and ended up in a broom closet talking to a hologram, but hey, things happen…..I haven’t been spoken to about anything to do with Atlantis, so I guess Daniel will have to wait,” Michael Shanks told Slice of SciFi back in December 2006.
Recently, in the March/April issue of the Official Stargate Magazine, Shanks explained why it would be difficult for Daniel to make an appearance on the spin-off: “Joe [Mallozzi] mentioned to me that they want the character — I’ve always thought that Daniel had a story to tell when it came to Atlantis. I do understand, though, they’ve already got Amanda [Tapping] over there, and some new characters as well. They’ve got a full complement of cast to service, if you will, and stories of their own to tell. I think people, and even the producers, would like to see a little bit more of the character over there, but in reverence to Daniel, I don’t want to go in there and be just an expository character. I think that would be a kind of disservice, but I also know that’s kind of the nature of the guest star too, so it’s a tough situation. As much as I respect totally what they have to do there, I do have the integrity of this character to protect as well. I don’t wanna go over there and betray the trust I have in myself to support him. That’s not an ultimatum of any kind; it’s artistic mesh and we have to make it work!”
Making it work is a major part of the challenge of writing for one of Stargate’s most iconic characters. Atlantis co-creator Robert C. Cooper recently described Daniel as having “always been the sociological soul of the series and its conscience.” This is the integrity of the character that Shanks has fought hard to preserve, even if it meant not renewing his contract with the show at the end of Season Five when the producers and he were unable to agree on the character’s role on the team and his place as an actor in the show. His return to Stargate SG-1 in Season Seven was the result of his fans making the actor aware how truly loved and admired he was both as an individual and in his portrayal of the character and of the production’s and his reaching of an agreement that, according to Atlantis executive producer and co-showrunner Joseph Mallozzi, “had everything to do with Michael’s talent, longtime viewers’ familiarity with his character, and the fact that the show was looking at [a] drastically reduced role for Richard Dean Anderson.”
“He’s a fun character to play because he does occasionally get to use his smarts to overcome obstacles where aggressive force wouldn’t necessarily do it, and that’s a wonderful thing to play,” Shanks said in his Official Stargate Magazine interview, and it might be that he’ll get to portray this side of Daniel in Stargate Atlantis’s mid-season two-parter being penned by Martin Gero. Dr. Daniel Jackson holds three Ph.D.s and perhaps he’s been called to Atlantis to use all of his skills as a linguist, historian, archaeologist, and explorer in the story.
Mallozzi posted about the mid-season two-parter in which Daniel will make his appearance in his personal blog, “So far, we’ve got a terrific, BIG two-parter planned. I suspect that the page count in the Daniel/McKay scenes (featuring the two fastest-talking actors in show business) will have the scheduling gurus doing back-flips.”
Dr. Daniel Jackson and Dr. Rodney McKay have worked together twice before. The first time was when they were conducting research at the Antarctic Outpost where McKay studied the Zero Point Module (ZPM) and Jackson discovered the destination of the city-ship Atlantis. The second time was when Daniel visited Atlantis for the first time, but the two men didn’t share much time together other than at the mission briefing table.
The mid-season two-parter doesn’t have a title yet, but Mallozzi tagged it with “Welcome back to Atlantis, Dr. Jackson.” He also has added the words “so far” when stating that Daniel will appear in two episodes in the upcoming season. His only hint about the plot of the two-parter so far has been “Remember that new enemy I mentioned?”
What will await Dr. Jackson when he steps foot in Atlantis once more? Will he be unwittingly involved in waking a sleeping dragon in the Pegasus Galaxy like he was with calling the attention of the Ori to humanity in the Milky Way? One thing that can be said for certain, however, is that whatever happens concerning this new enemy, Dr. Daniel Jackson will not stop in the effort to overcome them. He was once asked, “Do you ever give up?” and his reply was simple: “Not until I’m dead….And, sometimes, not even then.”
Nominated for a Saturn Award once again (every year since 1998), Stargate SG-1 will compete against Dexter (Showtime), Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi Channel), The Closer (TNT), Kyle XY (ABC Family), and Saving Grace (TNT) in the “Best Syndicated/Cable Series” category in the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films’ 34th Annual Saturn Awards, to be presented Tuesday, June 24, at Universal City, California.
SG-1 won Saturns in 2000, 2004, and 2005.
Visit the Saturn Awards website for a complete list of nominees and other important information about the awards.
