Category: SG-1

Includes the 10 seasons of SG-1 and the post-S10 movies.

SCI FI WIRE: Stargate Universe Moved to Fall Premiere

According to SCI FI WIRE in an article stating that Robert Carlyle will be joined by Justin Louis, David Blue, Brian J. Smith, and Jamil Walker Smith in the regular cast of Stargate Universe, fans of Stargate will now be waiting until the fall instead of July for twenty new Stargate stories.

This news follows Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi’s statement that if he were a betting man, the third Stargate SG-1 and the first Stargate Atlantis movies won’t be ready until 2010, rather than the hoped-for fall of 2009. The latest word is that the SG-1 movie, starring Richard Dean Anderson, will be filmed in the spring and the Atlantis movie will be shot in the summer. Depending on how these two movies will be released, a good ten months could possibly follow in post-production and marketing.

Stargate Universe will premiere with two hours of the three-part opener “Air”, which is written by series creators Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright. Filming the new show is expected to begin February 4, and more cast announcements are anticipated for the two female leads who will be portraying Tamara Johanson (aka Jon) and Chloe Walker.

It should be noted that the Sci Fi Channel has been known to change their schedule often, so it’s possible that things might again change. Please visit Solutions regularly for the latest news on the Stargate television and movie projects.

Brad Wright Reveals More About Third SG-1 Movie

Stargate SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright answered fan questions in Joseph Mallozzi’s weblog about all things Stargate, including giving us a bit more information about the third SG-1 movie.

Here are some key quotes:

  • “We’re making a movie. Carl Binder and I are co-writing the script. Martin [Wood] will direct. If you have a good title, let me know.”
  • “We’re making it in the spring.”
  • “MGM was talking about more SG-1 movies as soon as the first did well.”
  • “The success of the SG-1 movies made an Atlantis movie possible, and all parties decided that was the best way to move forward.”
  • “We need to get some deals in place first.” (why the third movie hasn’t been officially announced by MGM yet)
  • “The next movie will be much more Jack centric.”
  • “MGM owns Stargate, not me. I can’t change studios. The DVD’s came out of a desire to prove we could make movies. I think we surprised the studio with what we could do on a small budget, but not enough to let us make a big Stargate feature.”
  • “If I get RDA in a movie, I don’t cut the scenes. If you’re looking for a re-cut movie, watch Children of the Gods when it comes out.”
  • “I liked the Aschen story too. Insidious. No plans right now.”
  • “I would love to do that [theatrical SG-1 movie with $20-25 million budget]. The reasons we can’t right now are complicated.”
  • Concerning RDA’s limited screentime in Stargate Continuum: “That’s all I could get him for. He’ll be much more involved in the next one.”
  • “I thought Claudia was terrific in Continuum, but Vala won’t be returning in the third movie.”

To read the full Q&A in which Wright also discusses Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, visit Joseph Mallozzi’s Weblog: Brad Wright Answers Your Questions.

Visit SG-1 Movies Guide in the Stargate Wiki for updates.

Working the Beats for the Movies

Stargate Atlantis executive producer Joseph Mallozzi has just reported in his weblog, “The beat sheet for the SGA movie is in Paul [Mullie]’s hands and he has promised to work on it this weekend and put it out on Monday.” Mallozzi also reported earlier this month, “Carl [Binder] put out a preliminary beat sheet for the next SG-1 movie and will, no doubt, be expecting notes in the coming days.”

What exactly is a beat sheet? One of Mallozzi’s readers asked that very question back in February this year, so Mallozzi answered it in his “mail bag”: “A beat sheet is a general breakdown of an episode’s key moments. It can be something as simple as = Act 1: 1. The team arrives off-world and discovers the device, 2. Back on Atlantis, the device is triggered, 3. The Atlantis personnel start acting funny, 4. Everyone wakes up to discover they’ve changed gender. End of Act 1.”

What follows the beat sheet could be a revision or an outline: “The outline, on the other hand, is a fleshed-out, scene by scene breakdown of the episode.”

The process went something like this for an Atlantis episode: “Although the scripts are written individually, the formation of the story and its various beats are a team effort. Someone will pitch out a story, we’ll offer suggestions, then that person will go off and work on a beat sheet. We’ll all weigh in with our suggestions, then they may go off and flesh out the beat sheet into a proper working outline. From there, after another round of input, it’s off to script.”

Several years ago, Mallozzi published a “Production Diary” for Solutions that stepped through the production process. His current weblog is an even more detailed reference for the day-to-day procedures of producing a season of episodes (but also includes Mallozzi’s other non-Stargate subjects of interest).

Because the Atlantis movie was originally conceived as a two-part episode to follow the events from Season Five’s finale, “Enemy at the Gate”, it will probably adhere to similar production steps, but in Mallozzi’s words, “…the difference being that we’ll be able to tell our story on a much bigger, visual effects-laden, character-centered canvas.” The yet-to-be-titled movie is scheduled to be filmed in the late spring or early summer next year and then make its broadcast premiere on the Sci Fi Channel following the first ten episodes of Stargate Universe—possibly in the fall of 2009—before being distributed on DVD by MGM.

The third SG-1 movie has not yet been officially announced, however. If it follows the same production path as its two predecessors, it will be released directly to DVD. According to Mallozzi, “If all goes as planned, we should be filming both the SGA movie and the third SG-1 around the same time next year.”

Visit Solutions’ SG-1 Movies and Atlantis Movies pages for updates on the development of these two movies.

The following entries in Mallozzi’s blog were references for this article:

Sci Fi's Howe Comments on Franchise-Building

In Reading a Show’s Life: Many Factors Weigh into Deciding the Fate of a Popular Series, Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn of Multichannel News talked with Sci Fi president Dave Howe about building the Stargate franchise:

THE SPIN FACTOR

Creating a spinoff of a series can certainly help bolster a franchise’s longevity. For its part, Showtime has tapped Chaiken for an untitled L Word spinoff, in which the character of Alice Pieszecki (played by actress Leisha Hailey) moves on.

“I was especially interested because the way the challenge came to me was, ‘Let’s do a very different show,’ and that’s what makes me think it might actually work,” Chaiken said. “Often an audience, particularly fans of a show, will wind up being disappointed that the new show isn’t the old show. But when you’re doing something completely different, you can side-step some of those expectations.”

Another key is having a really strong creative vision, said Tomassi Lindman. “And having strong writers and strong producers, the people who are going to bring those great ideas and fresh storylines that keep a show going season after season,” she added.

Such a strong vision led Sci Fi to give the green light to executive producer Ronald Moore’s Caprica, the prequel to Battlestar Galactica; and to co-executive producers Brad [Wright] and Robert Cooper’s Stargate: Universe, the third series in the long-running Stargate franchise.

“This was a creative call to move Stargate Atlantis into [made-for-television] movies and then to launch Stargate: Universe,” said Sci Fi president Dave Howe. “Stargate SG-1 went 10 years; Stargate Atlantis is now in its fifth season; and the producers looked at the stories and how it played out and how many more iterations of that story felt right and we totally agreed with them.

“Stargate Atlantis had been great, but it was now time to think about the next chapter.”

The holy grail in terms of media and entertainment these days is franchise-building, according to Howe.

“We’re focused on it. Hollywood theatrical movies are focused on it, the level of investment that is required to develop and launch a series is, from a marketing perspective, huge,” he said. “The difficulty in terms of breaking out and attracting and sustaining that audience, if you can create something that is franchise-able, then the business model is much more powerful and much more long-term, and so much more consistent and viable, and that’s the business we’re all in.”

Sci Fi Channel currently shows reruns of Stargate SG-1, but didn’t have a say in the production of the previous SG-1 movies. This may change with the production of the third SG-1 movie, currently being penned by Brad Wright and Carl Binder. According to Thomas Vitale, senior VP of programming and original movies at Sci Fi, the network is “very interested in partnering with MGM to do additional SG-1 movies as well, and we’re talking about it.” If Sci Fi partners with MGM for the third movie, then the movie will most likely premiere on the channel before being distributed on DVD by MGM.

This is the type of arrangement that Sci Fi has with MGM to produce the first Atlantis movie, being written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie. The script is still in its early stages, and filming the movie is set to start in the late spring or early summer, according to Amanda Tapping. Both the SG-1 movie and the SGA movie will be filmed at or around the same time, allowing crossover possibilities for Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Judge. Sci Fi plans to air the movie after the first half of Stargate Universe has premiered. This would put the movie’s debut in the last quarter of 2009.

In the meantime, episodes in the final season of Stargate Atlantis continue to premiere on Fridays at 9 pm Eastern (with a repeat at 11 pm). The next episode to be shown is “The Prodigal” on November 7, as the Sci Fi Channel is planning a large Halloween celebration next Friday, October 31, with their Ghost Hunters.

Stargate Universe is currently casting, building their sets, and outlining episode scripts. Co-creators and co-showrunners Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper will be joined by creative consultants Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, who also plan to write a few scripts. Filming will start in February 2009 and the two-hour pilot will premiere on the Sci Fi Channel in the summer of 2009.

Stargate Worlds, the MMORPG, is also moving along, having just started closed beta on October 15, and is scheduled for release in early 2009.

Keep up with the Stargate franchise here at Solutions and in our Stargate Wiki, which is updated with production and spoiler information for the television and movie series.

MGM: Dr. Daniel Jackson Returns to Atlantis

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"

Brad Wright

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.

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).

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.”

First Contact

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 –

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.]