nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
I use Amazon Prime infrequently, sometimes purchasing it for a month or two and canceling the membership for a short time...Currently I have an active membership, I recently found out through the video in the preceding post that Amazon Prime streaming service has all of the Stargate episodes available to watch...They said the quality of Prime's Stargate series streaming was vastly superior of that of Netflix and Hulu who are also streaming the Stargate series...So I checked that claim and it does look great on Prime Video...However I don't like the Prime app layout that's on my smart television, some of their large thumbnails enlarge themselves even more when highlighted thereby pushing out of view the next options in that list...Its like they're throwing it up right in your face, its a bit distasteful...
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wwkirk
Divine
Ancient post. lol I did watch that series, but I'm not sure where.
I think I ditched Prime when I learned that I would still have to pay separately for some content.
nivek
As Above So Below
Yeah, I did a search for the words 'Amazon Prime' and that post was the most recent of the three search results...
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nivek
As Above So Below
wwkirk
Divine
If you like movie/TV firearms, The Internet Movie Firearms Database is where you want to go. Here is their page for SG-1 Season 1.
nivek
As Above So Below
How far are you into the series now?...I thought I might watch SGU from the beginning sometime soon...Saw a clip of that series in YouTube the other day and it encouraged me to rewatch...
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wwkirk
Divine
3rd or 4th episode, depending on how you count. 'Emancipation'
nivek
As Above So Below
Its kind of surprising and odd that there are very very few if any fan-based Stargate video episodes and/or movies like other francises have, such as Star Wars and Star Trek who have countless fan-based episode or movie content...
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wwkirk
Divine
Well, both of the ones you mentioned are mega-mega compared to most other franchises.
nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
nivek
As Above So Below
The Biggest Problem Stargate SG-1 Faced, According To Its VFX Supervisor
Though it was never a mega hit that commanded the kind of wide-ranging cultural influence of many other shows of its generation, "Stargate SG-1" maintained a cult following throughout its run and remains impressive simply by virtue of what it represented. That is to say, the way in which creators Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner took Roland Emmerich's original 1994 "Stargate" movie and spun a full 10 seasons of intergalactic exploration action was a feat in and of itself.Emmerich's film was enough of a box office success to prompt talk of an entire "Stargate" trilogy, but the story of the SG-1 crew would ultimately unfold on the small screen, with Wright and Glassner shepherding the project using a whole new cast of actors that were playing the same characters from the movie. Ultimately, the Syfy channel cancelled SG-1" in 2007, but by that point the show had run for a full decade — an impressive accomplishment not only because of the way in which Wright and Glassner had successfully turned a big budget sci-fi epic into a cult hit TV show, but also because they'd managed to tell a galaxy-spanning story that required its characters to visit a diverse array worlds for a full 10 years while shooting from the same Canadian location.
The titular SG-1 team's whole objective was to use the Stargate portal to investigate alien worlds, which is solid enough as a sci-fi premise. In practical terms, however, this made producing the series somewhat of a challenge, given its base of production.
"Stargate SG-1" begins roughly a year after Roland Emmerich's "Stargate" wraps up. In the show, the U.S. government has tasked a U.S. Air Force squad, named SG-1, to explore alien worlds using the eponymous portal and guard against attacks by otherworldly forces. As the show goes on, the squad visits more and more intergalactic worlds and gets to know their inhabitants, with the show's writers using our own history as a basis for many of the environments and races encountered in the series. For instance, in the season 1 installment "Emancipation" (which, according to IMDb, happens to be the worst episode of "Stargate SG-1"), the SG-1 gang visit the planet Simarka, home to a nomadic race descended from Mongols called the Shavadai.
But as the show went on, finding new ways of depicting these diverse planets and people became increasingly difficult. In essence, the series' producers were tasked with constantly making their Vancouver, British Columbia shooting location look like somewhere completely different. VFX Supervisor John Gajdecki once spoke to Companion (via GateWorld) about the initial problems he faced when the show began production in 1997. He recalled being given access to certain props from Emmerich's film, which certainly helped. However, the real issue came with trying to find suitable locations for the various storylines. As he noted:
"Episode 1, episode 2, we're always outside. It's always in the rain because that was the weather at the time. So we really started struggling to create locations that were not just in the forest."
While beautiful in its own way, Vancouver didn't necessarily offer much diversity beyond heavily forested areas -- something that obviously posed a major challenge for a team tasked with making a sci-fi show that fundamentally revolved around exploring new and diverse planets.
In his Companion interview, John Gajdecki provided specific examples of the difficulties he and his team faced shooting in Vancouver, pointing to season 1, episode 7, "Cold Lazarus," which was filmed in yellow sulfur pits. As the VFX supervisor recalled:
"There was one episode where they were on this planet and everything was yellow. It was sulfur — it was this bizarre yellow planet. And we were filming in these huge sulfur pits that they have down by the docks. It was such a sunny day that everybody was sweating, and the sulfur ... you'd walk through it and it would kick up and get on your face, and your beads of sweat would just drop it into your eyes. And they had lots of people there to take care of us!"
Though the show's crew ultimately found ways to depict the various worlds of "Stargate SG-1," as the series expanded these sorts of problems never truly went away. By the end of its run, "SG-1" had spawned other spin-offs, making for a modest media empire that makes watching the "Stargate" franchise in order somewhat of a challenge today. This also made the location issues that much more excruciating, with Brad Wright commenting on the whole thing during a 2022 Reddit AMA:
"Yes, it grew increasingly difficult and frustrating to go out into the woods of British Columbia and pretend it was another planet. Especially since Vancouver kept growing into the open spaces we were using."
Still, the sci-fi settings of "Stargate" arguably declined as the series went on and further series were created, with Wright and co. having to do the best they could with their budget and Canadian setting. The fact that they managed it for 10 seasons on "SG-1" — not to mention the spin-offs — is, however, still an undeniable feat.
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nivek
As Above So Below
Why Stargate SG-1 Didn't Include A Third Aschen Episode
After Roland Emmerich said, "No, thanks" to a TV continuation of his modest box office hit "Stargate," Showtime set about doing it anyway. The network brought in Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner to create what became "Stargate SG-1," and as it turned out, this was just the beginning of what quietly became one of the most sprawling sci-fi empires of the early 2000s."SG-1" eventually moved to the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) but the network cancelled the show after its tenth season. By that point, however, it had already spawned the spin-off series "Stargate Atlantis," which debuted in 2004, alongside a couple of direct-to-TV films. More spin-offs would come, too, with "Stargate Universe" debuting in 2009 and "Stargate Origins" arriving in 2018.
In all, then, the "Stargate" universe is impressively expansive. But just because the franchise kept growing doesn't mean things panned out exactly how Wright and Glassner had hoped. For one thing, after "Stargate Universe" was taken off the air, Wright planned for what became a canceled "Stargate" movie that would have brought every show together. Perhaps more importantly, it would have provided a conclusion to the cliffhanger ending of "Universe," wherein crew member Eli Wallace' (David Blue) fate remained unconfirmed.
But this movie could also have provided us with some closure on another storyline that, while not as consequential as wrapping up Wallace's story, remains somewhat of a cliffhanger in and of itself.
The fourth season of "Stargate SG-1" featured an episode entitled "2010," in which we see an alternate timeline wherein Earth has formed an alliance with an advanced race of humanoids known as the Aschen. The seemingly benevolent race soon reveal a more sinister purpose however, as they have been quietly sterilizing humans in order to one day take over the planet. Thankfully, the SG-1 crew manage to get a message back in time to their past selves, thereby averting the doomed future depicted in the episode.
But that wasn't the end of the Aschen. In season 5, the race returned for an episode entitled "2001." This time SG-1 encounter the Aschen on the planet Volia and once again form an alliance. But as the episode goes on, the crew discover that their new allies may well hail from the very planet they were warned against visiting in "2010." Thankfully, the crew have given the Aschen a list of Stargate addresses that lead to increasingly perilous locations, beginning with a black hole. After SG-1 manages to escape back to Earth they seal the portal shut, leaving viewers to wonder what became of the Aschen and whether they did, indeed, use that list of lethal Stargate addresses.
According to Brad Wright, there were plans to continue the Aschen story — especially since their fate was left hanging in the balance. Though they failed to conquer Earth during their two appearances, the likelihood that they were completely wiped out after SG-1's escape in "2001" seemed slim. So, what were the Aschen doing for the last five seasons of the show? Unfortunately, "SG-1" wasn't exactly the kind of show where things always went to plan. At one point, Teal'c actor Christopher Judge pitched a spin-off that would have changed the franchise, and "SG-1" constantly dealt with what proved to be a huge problem of finding new locations to shoot various alien worlds, often leading to last-minute decisions being made. The Aschen also fell victim to the show's constantly changing nature, too, and the question of what happened to the race after "2001" went unanswered, despite Wright's plans to address it.
Plans for various "Stargate" films continued throughout the 10-year run of "SG-1." Indeed, one classic "SG-1" episode was even supposed to be a theatrical movie. However, plans changed constantly, and that was certainly the case with the Aschen.
In a 2023 interview with GateWorld, Brad Wright was asked about the Aschen and the rumors that their storyline was originally planned to span three episodes. The show creator seemed to confirm such rumors, saying that the Aschen story "could have" unfolded in a trilogy, adding: "I could have probably come up with another Aschen story. Because they would have been angry with what we did to them after '2001.'" Lamentably, that story was never wrapped up, with Wright explaining that his idea for a third entry in the trilogy was too close to another storyline that ended up in one of the direct-to-DVD "Stargate" movies. He said:
"The story that sort of came to mind in terms of the Aschen coming directly without a Stargate to Earth ended up being a component of one of the direct-to-video movies ... indirectly. I mean, I can't even say it's the same. But it just felt like it stepped on it. So I think that that was the reason. And I may even be wrong about that."
According to Wright, then, one of the "Stargate" movies basically used his idea for the Aschen coming to Earth following their defeat in "2001," presumably to wage war on humanity the old fashioned way, rather than using their slow sterilization technique. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have come up with another idea. Once "SG-1" was cancelled, there was still the prospect of other direct-to-video films. Alas, that prospect slowly dwindled as time went on, with Wright explaining that, "It was purely the collapse of the DVD market that triggered the sidelining of those projects." Had DVDs remained popular, we not only would have had Wright's film that united all the "Stargate" shows, we might well have seen the finale of the Aschen narrative. As it stands, however, it's one of the "SG-1" storylines that was left hanging.
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