Atlantis – Page 16 – Solutions Blog

Update on Picardo's Upcoming Projects, Appearances

Stargate star Robert Picardo has a very busy upcoming schedule, according to reports from all over the Internet. In a fan Q&A hosted by Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi in his weblog, Picardo listed some of these projects: “I will be doing two movies: a scifi creature flick called The Awakened and a horror movie with Joe Dante called The Hole. I also will be performing with The Dallas Symphony Orchestra in an evening of Star Trek movie music co-hosted by John de Lancie. And I’m still doing post production on the first horror movie that I star in, Sensored. Check out the website, www.sensoredthemovie.com. I also have upcoming appearances in Bournemouth, England; Bonn, Germany; and Sydney and Brisbane, Australia; as well as a number of domestic ones.”

The Hole is schedule to start shooting next Monday, October 20, in Vancouver, according to Metro News, which reports, “According to imdb.com, the movie is about a pair of brothers who stumble upon ‘a mysterious hole in their basement that leads to the darkest corridors of their fears and nightmares.’ The project will be directed by Joe Dante, whose resumé comprises a lengthy list of sci-fi and horror films, and though little has been revealed about casting, Robert Picardo (Star Trek Voyager) has said that he will be involved.”

Picardo’s official website has that The Music of ‘Star Trek’ event will be on November 1 in Denver, Colorado. Although the Dallas Symphony Orchestra has performed this special program in the past, it will be the Colorado Symphony Orchestra that will perform at this particular event. From their website: “Erich Kunzel guest conducts the CSO and leads you to a far away galaxy with the music of Star Trek in a program featuring two stars from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind concert.”

As far as domestic convention appearances are concerned, Picardo is scheduled to appear at the United Fan Con November 21-23 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with fellow Stargate actor Morena Baccarin. Then, he’ll join stars from Star Trek and Corin Nemec from Stargate SG-1 at the upcoming Vulkon Indy Thanksgiving event in Indianapolis, Indiana, being held November 28-30.

Picardo’s official website also lists appearances at the Acme Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles on November 15 at 8 PM and at the Sci Fi Cafe for their New Year’s Eve Black and White Ball with Ethan Phillips (Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager) in Las Vegas on December 31 starting at 6:30 PM.

Picardo’s convention schedule for 2009 includes the Fifteenth Annual SF Ball in Bournemouth, England, from February 6-8; the Stargate Creation Con in Vancouver from April 2-5 with Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Joe Flanigan, Connor Trinneer, Teryl Rothery, Paul McGillion, Dan Shea, and N. John Smith; and the FedCon XVIII 2009 convention with Christopher Judge, Adam Baldwin, and Connor Trinneer in Bonn, Germany, from May 1-9.

From what Joseph Mallozzi has hinted in his weblog, Picardo will most likely return with the regular cast for the filming of the Stargate Atlantis movie that is currently being written by Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. Amanda Tapping said in a recent interview that she believed that the movie will be filmed in the late spring or early summer of 2009. The Sci Fi Channel will be airing the movie late in 2009 before it is committed to DVD by MGM.

MGM: Dr. Daniel Jackson Returns to Atlantis

MGM’s Official Stargate website has put up a behind-the-scenes video with actor Michael Shanks as he returned to the Stargate sets to film the mid-season two-parter of Stargate Atlantis this past spring. The two episodes, “First Contact” and “The Lost Tribe”, were written by Martin Gero and directed by Andy Mikita (and Martin Gero, too, as he directed the second unit for several of the scenes between Shanks and David Hewlett).

Visit the website to watch the short video, in which Shanks said, “I certainly leave the door open to come back to Atlantis.” There is the possibility of Daniel’s return in the first Atlantis movie, according to writer Joseph Mallozzi in his weblog, when both the third SG-1 movie and the first Atlantis movie are being filmed at or around the same time next year.

Brad Wright on the "State of the Universe"

In a new MGM video interview, Stargate executive producer Brad Wright talks about what’s happening in the Stargate “universe” (read “franchise”) and how’s he’s excited about this time in the franchise’s life:

“You know, this is really an exciting time for Stargate. Maybe a few years ago, the cancellation of a series might have signified the end—period—and we would all have been packing up and going home, but when the studio [MGM] and the network [Sci Fi Channel] and Robert [Cooper] and I were talking about what we’re doing going forward, it became an opportunity to launch into movies. And that’s exciting for me as a writer/producer, but also as a fan because I loved making Continuum and thought it allowed us to take Stargate SG-1 to the next level.

“We can do that with Atlantis, too, and I think it will happen, and we’re already planning another Stargate SG-1 movie. So this—when you include Stargate Universe, which is a new series that we’re working on right now that is exciting to Robert and I—it puts Stargate—here we’re saying words like ‘cancelled’—but Stargate is really in a stronger place than it’s ever been before as a franchise.

“You’ve got Universe; you’ve got Atlantis movies; you’ve got SG-1 movies; you’ve got Stargate Worlds: That’s a lot of strong legs things called ‘Stargate’ to stand on, and that’s exciting for me as a writer/producer, and I really hope and believe the fans are gonna feel the same way.”

SG-1 Movies

Stargate: The Ark of Truth is being released on Blu-ray on January 13, 2009, according to TV Shows on DVD. The HD disc will have the same content as the DVD format, which made its premiere in North America on March 11, 2008.

Both The Ark of Truth and Continuum will be aired for the first time in the US on the Sci Fi Channel in the spring and late spring of 2009, respectively, as Sunday Movie Events.

As far as the third SG-1 movie is concerned, talk has been going on for quite some time, and the latest news had come from Christopher Judge that they’d begin shooting in January 2009, but with the green-lighting of Stargate Universe, it appears that filming has been moved, according to Amanda Tapping in a recent SCI FI WIRE interview: “Rumor has it late spring/early summer of next year, but I honestly couldn’t tell you beyond that. I know Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis will be shooting movies at that time.”

Brad Wright was scheduled to write the script for the third SG-1 movie, but with his time tied up with Stargate Universe, he’s apparently enlisted the help of Atlantis writer Carl Binder. Binder, according to Joseph Mallozzi in his weblog, is “working on the SG-1 movie script, presently hammering out an outline with Brad.” Binder has screenplay writing experience with Disney’s Pocahontas (1995).

Atlantis Movies

Mallozzi and production and writing partner Paul Mullie are spinning the story for the first Atlantis movie, which is scheduled to make its premiere on the Sci Fi Channel in the fall of 2009 before being released on DVD.

Mallozzi has stated in his weblog that fans should expect the main cast’s return, as well as appearances by several familiar guest stars (possibly Christopher Heyerdahl as Todd the Wraith, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Judge).

The movie doesn’t have a title yet, but Mallozzi said that it’s supposed to “pick up where we’d left off after the shocking events of our fifth season finale: Enemy at the Gate,” and that “we’ll be able to tell our story on a much bigger, visual effects-laden, character-centered canvas.”

Stargate Universe

Stargate Universe is scheduled to begin production in January 2009, according to Tapping, with the principal photography most likely beginning February 4, 2009. Casting is still underway and sets are being constructed for the Ancient ship Destiny that will be the new home of Earth’s team of young and inexperienced explorers.

Mallozzi stated that he and Mullie will be consulting (with series creators Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright) and writing “a few scripts” for the series, but that both of them will have considerably more free time unless they can sell their prospective pilot scripts (not related to Stargate).

Stargate Universe will premiere on the Sci Fi Channel during the summer of 2009.

Stargate Worlds

FireSky, the game’s publisher, has announced that closed beta begins October 15, 2008, according to Big Download. The MMORPG’s new release date will be sometime in 2009. To sign up for beta or just to learn more about the game, visit the game’s official website.

Stargate Atlantis

In the meantime, the final episodes of Stargate Atlantis are still making their debut on the Sci Fi Channel on Fridays at 9PM Eastern (NEW TIMESLOT).

Upcoming Fan Q&A

Mallozzi recently opened the comment section of his weblog to questions to be directed at Brad Wright (his offer was posted on October 6). By October 8, Mallozzi stated, “Okay, I have more than enough questions for Brad.” When Wright has finished answering them, Mallozzi will dedicate a future post to him as a guest blogger. Solutions will report on the Q&A when it gets published.

"The Lost Tribe": "Daniel Has a History with Them"

The Lost Tribe

“Then a batch of unexpected villains shows up. Let’s just say, Daniel has a history with them,” Michael Shanks told TV Guide recently about the mysterious armor-clad aliens who abducted his Dr. Daniel Jackson and David Hewlett’s Dr. Rodney McKay in the first part of the mid-season two-parter, “First Contact”. In tonight’s episode, “The Lost Tribe”, we’ll find out exactly what Shanks meant.

“Well, the spacesuits are a big deal and we find out in ‘The Lost Tribe’ who and what are inside them,” director Andy Mikita revealed in a newsaroma.com interview. “The suit itself is a pretty neat concept and design.”

Executive producer Joseph Mallozzi explained the design process in his weblog: “Well, we knew what we wanted. Something cool-looking. And we knew what we didn’t want: lycra, shiny plastic bits, and enormous cod-pieces (q.v. SG-1 super soldier). After much discussion between Marty [Gero, writer] and Production Designer James Robbins, the villains were given their look: sleek, nefarious, body armor chic.”

The single alien left behind in Atlantis self-destructed, so Sheppard and Zelenka weren’t able to discover the identity of this new threat, but in tonight’s episode, Daniel manages to strike up a dialogue with one of his captors and gets the alien to show him what is beneath the armor. Daniel is shocked by the revelation. Mallozzi explained how the idea to link Daniel and the new villain came about: “I had pitched out the idea that given the Wraith’s weakened position in the Pegasus Galaxy as a result of the heavy losses they had suffered over the past year, it would make sense for advanced civilizations that had been in hiding for hundreds of years might seize the opportunity presented by the shift in the galactic status quo to make themselves known. We went back and forth on who these aliens might be until Rob [Cooper] came up with a clever spin on a familiar notion.” [emphasis ours]

In “First Contact”, Daniel and Rodney come to the conclusion that they won’t be rescued soon and in tonight’s episode, they decide that they must turn off the Attero Device on their own. The “unforeseen side effects” have put the entire galaxy at risk—not just the Wraith against whom the Device was engineered as a weapon 10,000 years ago.

In the newsaroma.com interview, Mikita explained some of his directorial decisions about this episode before he actually filmed it and revealed that “Daniel and McKay have to put on these suits in order to go incognito and solve a particular puzzle.

“One of the issues that came up was how do you photograph people wearing these suits that, except for their voices, the audience won’t be able to see who’s inside them. That could be kind of boring just looking at one inanimate suit basically looking at another one. So we’re taking a page from the movie Iron Man and thinking about filming really tight close-ups of the actors from an inside-helmet point of view and maybe adding some reflections and layers without getting as complex as they did in Iron Man. So there are lots of little details to think about, but, again, the scripts are fantastic and will be a blast to shoot.” We’ll see tonight if Mikita’s vision was realized.

And Daniel and Rodney aren’t the only ones with some serious problems! What of Sheppard and Zelenka and Atlantis’s Stargate? What of the crew of the Daedalus that is now under the control of Todd the Wraith? And finally, who are these mysterious aliens that Daniel has a history with? Tune in tonight at 9pm (NEW TIME) on the Sci Fi Channel to find out how the lost tribe’s grip on Pegasus gets loosened (or not)!

Preview Videos – Beware of Spoilers! –

Solutions Coverage –

[Images from MGM.]

Reminder: SGA Returns at New Time on Friday

Here’s just a gentle reminder that Stargate Atlantis will return to the Sci Fi Channel this Friday, October 10, in its new timeslot: 9pm Eastern.

If you’re not able to watch live, please check to make sure your recording schedule has been updated to accommodate the new timeslot. All remaining 10 episodes of Season Five, starting with 5.11 “The Lost Tribe”, will be aired at this new time, with a repeat at 11pm Eastern.

Mallozzi Invites Fan Questions for Brad Wright

Stargate Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi is inviting fans to post their questions in the comment section of his weblog so that Brad Wright can answer them soon: “Speaking of finding the time – Brad was dropping none too subtle hints about his impending Q&A here on this blog. Essentially, he said that he’d waited so long for me to get around to it that, in the interim, he had to ask and answer his own questions. Well then, let’s not let him wait any longer. If you have questions for Brad Wright, the creator and executive producer of Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and the forthcoming Stargate: Universe, let’s see ‘em.”

To post your questions, visit Mallozzi’s weblog and scroll to the bottom of today’s entry to the comment section (Mallozzi screens all of the comments, so be patient if your comment doesn’t appear immediately).

DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS TO SOLUTIONS! Your questions must be posted at Mallozzi’s blog for Wright to see.

FX Stage to Become Home to SGU

The Vancouver Sun has a brief article on the tearing down of Stargate’s FX Stage sets to make way for the new television series Stargate Universe that will start filming in February next year. As the location of the popular Medieval Village Set, this stage has a lot of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis history tied up in it, and to see it being torn down to be replaced is bittersweet.

BRIDGE CONTRACT: Heavy machines are smashing the Stargate Atlantis TV series’ set in Bridge Studios’ 40,000-square-foot effects stage. That’s the largest of eight movie-shooting facilities in almost constant use on the six-hectare complex at Boundary-off-Second Avenue, Burnaby. The studio’s website claims it’s the largest in North America.

But Bridge Studios general manager Ron Hryniuk — say Her-nik — isn’t sorry to say goodbye to a show that produced some 100 episodes on six of his sound stages, as well as twice that number for the predecessor Stargate SG-1 series. That’s because the SCI FI Channel and MGM Television recently announced the launch of a new “science faction” series called Stargate Universe.

“Its great news. Fantastic,” Hryniuk said of a show that will premiere as a two-hour movie on SCI FI and become a weekly one-hour series next summer.

In a press release Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis co-creators Brad Wright and Robert Cooper said Stargate Universe “will break new ground in relationships between mostly young and desperate explorers, thrust together and far from home.”

[…]

To get a general overview of the Bridge Studios complex, visit their website’s virtual tour at the Bridge Studios – Facility webpage (Flash Player required).

In a series of short video clips, executive producers Joseph Mallozzi and Carl Binder took Mallozzi’s weblog visitors on an informal tour of the FX Stage. It’s a trip down memory lane now as Atlantis has concluded its filming of their final season on television.

Visit Google Video to watch the tour. Be aware that there is mention of some of the scenes in upcoming episodes of Atlantis. Mallozzi’s collection of videos that you’ll see indexed at Google Video also includes tours of Stages 2, 3, 5 and 6. Visit Mallozzi’s weblog for more details about these stages and other production information (the first part of the FX Stage tour appears on September 8).

ETA: Solutions has since learned that Stage 4 at Bridge Studios is to be the home of the Destiny, not the FX Stage. The use of the FX Stage has not been confirmed for Stargate Universe at this time (February 2009).

SGA S5 Spoilers: "Vegas" on Location

Joe Flanigan and crew have gone to Las Vegas, Nevada, to film the penultimate episode of Season Five of Stargate Atlantis, “Vegas”, written and directed by Robert C. Cooper. Carol Cling of the Vegas Voice blog on the Review Journal website posted a brief interview with Cooper about the shoot in SHOOTING STARS: ‘Stargate: Atlantis’ orbits Planet Hollywood. Cooper explained the plot of the episode that sees Detective John Sheppard and FBI Agent Richard Woolsey investigating Wraith killings on Earth.

Cooper confirms that “Vegas” is an alternate reality story, with “a slightly askew version of Earth.” Sheppard “ended up as a homicide detective in this reality,” Cooper told Cling.

The Wraith is played by Neil Jackson (SG-1 fans will remember him as Anubis’s “son”, Khalek). Amazingly, this Wraith has come to Earth and has blended into society, but he’s left several dead bodies exposed to the elements that Sheppard is investigating. The two finally meet in a casino playing high-stakes poker! Additional poker-playing guest stars include Sopranos veterans Steve Schirripa and Frank Vincent.

Cooper admits that the episode is shot in a style similar to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which is also set in Las Vegas. He said, “If you tuned in late, you might think you had turned on the wrong show.”

There will be an amazing stunt performed by stunt coordinator James Bamford’s team, as Cling reveals in the opening paragraphs of the article: “To some, Las Vegas already qualifies as an alternate universe, complete with alien life-forms. But Stargate: Atlantis puts that description into practice at Planet Hollywood, spending Monday and Tuesday in front of the casino, inside the casino — and on the roof, where a stunt player will perform a nine-story fall.”

Principal photography of the show’s finale, “Enemy at the Gate”, has already been completed in Vancouver. These scenes shot in Vegas will be the final scenes shot of the television series. Already, though, Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie are spinning the story for the first Atlantis telemovie that will be broadcast first on the Sci Fi Channel and then distributed on DVD in 2009.

Sci Fi Channel to Air SG-1 Movies

Multichannel News has announced that the Sci Fi Channel has bought the rights to air the two DTV SG-1 movies, Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum, next year. These rights were bought along with the new Stargate Universe television series and Atlantis telemovie.

According to the article, the Sci Fi Channel will have the following airing schedule:

Spring 2009: Stargate: The Ark of Truth (Sunday Movie Event)
Late Spring 2009: Stargate: Continuum (Sunday Movie Event)
Summer 2009: Premiere of Stargate Universe (first 10 episodes)
Fall 2009: Stargate Atlantis movie, to fill in the mid-season hiatus of Stargate Universe
January 2010: Return of the second half of Season One of Stargate Universe

Talk of a third SG-1 movie for the direct-to-video format has been around for quite some time, but Thomas Vitale, senior VP of programming and original movies at Sci Fi, said, “We’re very interested in partnering with MGM to do additional SG-1 movies as well, and we’re talking about it.” No official word has been released that the future SG-1 movies will be first aired on Sci Fi before being committed to DVD as the first Atlantis movie is currently set to do.

To read the complete article, visit Multichannel News: EXCLUSIVE: Sci Fi Buys ‘Stargate SG-1’ Flicks For Spring ’09 Schedule: Scores U.S. Rights to Premiere Made-For-DVD Movies.

"First Contact": Exploring Atlantis Dr. Jackson Style

Dr. Daniel Jackson with Dr. Rodney McKay on Atlantis

“The truth is that Martin [Gero] has wanted to do a heist episode ever since the first season of the show,” script coordinator Alex Levine tells fans in his scifi.com blog. “[For] this two-parter – first part entitled ‘First Contact’, second part entitled ‘The Lost Tribe’ – there were already some partly developed concepts in the mix. Firstly, since the Replicator story line has pretty much concluded, there was general consensus that a new villain was needed in the Pegasus galaxy. And Martin had a visual idea of a race of xenophobes or mysophobes (look it up!). Secondly, Alan had suggested doing some sort of story regarding Janus’ long forgotten lab on Atlantis. Thirdly, they had all planned to do a story bringing Daniel Jackson back to Atlantis. So all these story lines converge to bring you this mid-season two parter.”

Dr. Daniel Jackson discovered Atlantis, and when he pitched the idea of going there, he seemed pretty excited about the opportunity to explore the legendary Lost City of the Ancients himself. He recognized that Atlantis had the potential of being the mother lode of advanced knowledge, technology, and weapons that Stargate Command was originally commissioned to find to aid in the defense of Earth. After a few failed attempts, Daniel finally got to see Atlantis for the first time, but it was under grim circumstances that didn’t allow him time to study and explore like he was meant to do.

Finally, after the defeat of the Ori, Daniel has been given the opportunity to study the history of Atlantis and its people. He already knew Moros, the last High Councilor of Atlantis at the time of the Ancient-Wraith war 10,000 years ago (Daniel knew him as Merlin and he actually harbored the Ancient’s consciousness for a time) and Ganos Lal (she went by the name of Morgan Le Fay and helped Daniel and his team win the war against the Ori).

A third Lantian Ancient that Daniel knew about was Janus, the scientist who built a time machine in a puddle jumper that Daniel helped discover on a planet in the Milky Way. Janus had created an identical time machine 10,000 years ago during the Ancient-Wraith War, and he carried his research with him to Earth when the last of his people abandoned Atlantis (“Before I Sleep”). Janus had played a significant role in saving the city from flooding once the Atlantis Expedition set foot in it.

And now, “Daniel, as his hobby of studying the Ancients, has been doing some research and comes to Atlantis with the idea that he might actually be able to track down this secret lab that Janus had that has is yet to be discovered on Atlantis,” Michael Shanks told Gateworld in a recent interview. “And he needs some help doing that. So he enlists Rodney McKay to help him track this thing down.”

Remarkably, Janus’s lab has remained intact through all of the city’s many plights since the Expedition arrived. It holds some major secrets, including a very powerful weapon. “And by making this discovery,” executive producer Joseph Mallozzi told Cinema Blend, “they alert an alien race that also happens to be looking or have been in the midst of seeking out this device that they end up discovering. This alien race ends up coming to Atlantis and it’s not a, I guess, a friendly house call you would say. Again, I don’t want to give too much away about the race but they’re kind of an interesting player that we introduce in the midseason two-parter.”

Shanks told TV Guide, “Then a batch of unexpected villains shows up. Let’s just say, Daniel has a history with them.”

Mallozzi explained further about these aliens in his weblog, “I had pitched out the idea that given the wraith’s weakened position in the Pegasus Galaxy as a result of the heavy losses they had suffered over the past year, it would make sense for advanced civilizations that had been in hiding for hundreds of years might seize the opportunity presented by the shift in the galactic status quo to make themselves known. We went back and forth on who these aliens might be until Rob came up with a clever spin on a familiar notion. So we had our villains and we had their backstory. All we needed now was a motive. And it came compliments of Alan McCullough who pitched out an idea about the team discovering a secret lab on Atlantis that was once the workplace of the enigmatic Ancient Janus.

“With all of the major pieces in place, Marty G. took the week to spin it in his head, we all gathered and broke the two parter, then he wrote the script. That was easy part. Then, it came time to design the look of these new interstellar baddies. Well, we knew what we wanted. Something cool-looking. And we knew what we didn’t want: lycra, shiny plastic bits, and enormous cod-pieces (q.v. SG-1 super soldier). After much discussion between Mary G. and Production Designer James Robbins, the villains were given their look: sleek, nefarious, body armor chic. Check ‘em out in the posted pics. And in … First Contact, the first part of our spectacular mid-season two-parter.”

Mallozzi has also told fans in his weblog that there are three storylines in this two-parter, which means that the main characters are split up: McKay is with Daniel; Woolsey, Keller, and Ronon are with Col. Caldwell and his crew on the Daedalus as they meet with Todd and some of his Wraith concerning the testing of Dr. Keller’s treatment to allow this particular alliance of Wraith to survive without feeding on humans (introduced in “The Queen”); and Sheppard and Teyla are left in charge of the city. And, as usual, things go wonky and all three storylines dovetail into one big one, as Levine explained, “Martin also mentioned that normally the mid-season two-parter works within the existing season story arc and spins the action of that arc towards a new direction, effectively setting up the back half of the season. This is completely different, however. He likened it to a two episode stand alone movie.”

See how one discovery can have a ripple effect across the galaxy tonight at 10pm ET on the Sci Fi Channel.

Preview Videos – Beware of Spoilers! –

Recent High-Profile Interview –

TV Guide: Michael Shanks on His Return Trip to Atlantis

Solutions Coverage –

NOTE: Part Two, “The Lost Tribe”, will air at 9pm ET on October 10. The remainder of Season Five’s episodes will air in this new timeslot.

[Images from MGM Official Stargate website and Sci Fi’s Atlantis website.]