The canceled Stargate movie that would have brought all the shows together

When Roland Emmerich made the sci-fi adventure Stargate in 1994, he probably never imagined the sprawling media saga that would follow. In fact, after the film achieved modest success at the box office, there was talk of production The entire “Stargate” trilogy.. Instead, Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner took on the task of continuing the story Emmerich started. The duo oversaw “Stargate SG-1,” a 1997 TV show that follows the same team from the film, as they follow their exploits across the universe as they explore strange alien worlds using the Stargate. Kurt Russell may have refused to reprise his lead role as Colonel Jack O’Neill To continue the series on the small screen, Wright and Glassner enlisted “MacGuyver” star Rickard Dean Anderson to help propel their series to success. In fact, the series was such a hit that it ran for 10 seasons before The Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) canceled “SG-1” In 2007.

But that wasn’t the end of the “Stargate” story. During its time on the air, “SG-1” spawned some spin-offs, most notably the live-action series “Stargate Atlantis”, which debuted in 2004. The animated series “Stargate Infinity” also began airing during its run. “SG-1” years, although some fans do not consider this canon. Even after the cancellation of “SG-1,” the series continued to return with two direct-to-TV movies and more live-action series in the form of 2009’s “Stargate Universe” and 2018’s “Stargate Origins.”

However, after the cancellation of “Stargate Universe” in 2010, the entire saga was left in limbo as the series ended in such a mess that it seemed doomed to remain unresolved. While comic books have since attempted to continue the story, they have not involved the series’ creators. But if Wright had gotten his way, we would have at least seen “Universe,” “Atlantis” and “SG-1” end more accurately with a film that was delayed before it even had a chance to start.

Today, the “Stargate” empire includes Roland Emmerich’s films, numerous television series and direct-to-media films, and a large number of comic books, video games, and books. In light of this huge amount of media, Watch the “Stargate” franchise in order It’s become a confusing prospect to say the least, especially when there are unresolved stories. But SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright, who co-created “Atlantis” and the “Universe,” at least had plans to finish his contribution to the “Stargate” ode somewhat cleanly.

While “Stargate SG-1” and “Stargate: Atlantis” focused on teams that used the eponymous portal device to traverse the universe, “Stargate Universe”, oddly enough, was a completely different series. It followed a research crew stranded aboard the spacecraft Destiny as they tried to find a way back billions of light-years back to Earth. Led by scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), the crew is sent on a research initiative to investigate ways to allow long-distance travel using the Stargate. But after a planet exploded, the group members used a wormhole to escape, landing on an abandoned ship Destiny. Season 2 sees crew member Eli Wallace (David Blow) propose a void jump, which would see the group use the pods to enter a three-year state of stasis to complete the journey. Despite going ahead with the plan, one of the pods proved defective, leaving the group to decide who should stay out and attempt to repair the pod just two weeks before they had to turn off life support. Eli claims that he has the best chance of repairing the pod and thus staying out of stasis before the second season ends watching the stars from the ship’s observation deck.

Unfortunately, the show was unceremoniously canceled before it could reveal whether Eli had repaired the pod in time to survive, leaving fans wondering. What Season 3 of Stargate Universe could have been like. Well, if Wright had gotten the green light for his ambitious film project, we would have found out.

Even before the Stargate Universe season 2 finale aired on May 9, 2011, the series had been cancelled, with SyFy announcing on December 16, 2010 that it had not picked up the series for a third season. Although the unconventional “Stargate Universe” comic series produced by Mark L. Haynes and J.C. Vaughn attempted to continue the story after the second season of “Universe,” we never got an official continuation.

But Brad Wright at least tried to come up with a last-minute solution when he learned that the “Universe” would end prematurely — a solution that would have united all three live-action “Stargate” shows (at the time, “Origins” had not yet been combined . talking to gateway to the world in 2023, Wright revealed that he pitched production company MGM Television to the idea, which would have seen characters from “SG-1” and “Atlantis” return to rescue the Destiny crew from the “Universe,” giving the franchise as it existed at the time. A fitting farewell. The co-creator explained that he “just started writing” and pleaded with MGM to let him use existing sets from “Stargate” for the project before dismantling them. Wright noted his approach:

“If I can get the script in hand fast enough, I bet I can get the cast.”SGU’ And bringing in enough cast members from the other show so that I could at least give us a two-hour movie to wrap up, or a 90-minute movie to wrap up.SGU’ And finish the story we were trying to tell.”

Sadly, the fate of Wright’s section of the “Stargate” universe has been sealed.

As Brad Wright recalls in his interview with GateWorld, his initial idea was fairly simple. However, there was the seed of a story involving abuse Dr. David Hewlett Meredith Rodney MacKay – “SG–1” character who was a last-minute replacement in “Stargate Atlantis” Who appeared in 100 episodes of the series:

“I showed him the rough idea I had for it – and it was difficult. I mean, I was writing as fast as I could. And I wasn’t drawing it on the whiteboard. I just had this structure in my head and the concept of the characters from the other series that I was going to bring in. And I started pitching them.” , and it started with McKay and it started (with) admitting that Destiny was in trouble.

Unfortunately, Wright wasn’t even able to put together a proper first draft of the script before MGM pulled the plug. “Two weeks after the operation, I found out it wasn’t going to happen,” Wright said. “There comes a time when the desire to finish something doesn’t match up with the finances to do it. And that was really where I was headed when I found out they weren’t interested.”

like SyFy As he noted, the DVD market was in decline at the time Wright was promoting his film, which likely played a role in MGM’s decision not to move forward with the project. Considering that SyFy had already canceled “Universe” after only two seasons anyway, I can’t imagine that the prospect of a movie based on the series was initially very enticing — at least not for MGM or the network. However, for fans, the fact that Wright’s vision was never realized will remain as tragic a moment in the vast “Stargate” saga as Eli’s decision to stay behind for the sake of his fellow crew members.