Stargate

• 1. Introduction

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  Stargate is a military science fiction franchise that began when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco released a film of that name on the 28th of October 1994. Today the franchise belongs to Amazon MGM Studios. As of January 2020, its main story line had run for more than 15 years. That stretch covers 18 television seasons with 364 episodes, plus 22 comic book issues. Yet no single list of works counts as official canon, and the people who made the original film lost control of what came after. How does one ring-shaped machine hold together so many different stories? Why did the film's own creators step away? And why do writers, actors and fans keep coming back to a franchise that television has ended more than once?

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• 2. The Ring and the Rules

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  A ring-shaped device called the Stargate sits at the center of every story in the franchise. An ancient intergalactic race built it. It opens wormholes, specifically an Einstein-Rosen bridge, that let travellers cross vast distances almost instantly. Any two Stargates on the network can be dialed to connect.

  Most of the shows are set in the year they were made. They lean on real-world or realistic technology, placed inside a science fiction frame. Each follows a lead expeditionary team through one-off adventures and story arcs that last a season. Two things change from show to show: the main setting and the villains.

  Many developers worked separately on the franchise over the years, so the productions do not fully agree with one another. No set of works forms an official canon, and the largest following belongs to the three live-action series. Some works ignore or reset the main continuity altogether. They keep one essential element, which is a Stargate device.

  The first journey through that device, in the 1994 film, ended on a planet called Abydos.

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• 3. Abydos

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  Colonel Jack O'Neil, played by Kurt Russell, leads the first expedition through the Stargate in the 1994 film. Roland Emmerich directed it and co-wrote it with producer Dean Devlin. The story opens with the re-discovery of the device on Earth. Alongside O'Neil goes Daniel Jackson, an Egyptologist played by James Spader.

  They arrive on Abydos, where humans speak ancient Egyptian. A space-faring alien rules them while posing as the sun god Ra. The expedition frees the society from the alien's control and kills it in the process. The survivors return to Earth. Daniel stays behind, because he had woven himself into the life of the locals.

  The film took in $16.7 million on its opening weekend. It earned about $71.6 million in the United States and $125 million elsewhere, for roughly $196.6 million overall. Critics were divided. Roger Ebert was among those who panned it, but positive reviews balanced the scales, and it holds a score of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes.

  Emmerich and Devlin had meant it as the first of a trilogy. Instead they went on to produce Independence Day. The production company StudioCanal owns the rights to the original film. The continuation that MGM chose to make came to television, and neither of the film's creators had a hand in it.

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• 4. Cheyenne Mountain

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  One extra letter marks the break between film and television: Jack O'Neil became Jack O'Neill. In 1997, Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright co-developed Stargate SG-1, a series meant to continue the film's story. The producers cast new actors but kept several film roles, including Daniel Jackson and O'Neill. The setting moved from a fictional military facility at Creek Mountain to Stargate Command, based in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

  The series debuted on Showtime on the 27th of July 1997 and moved to the Sci-Fi Channel after its fifth season. For eight seasons, Stargate Command fought the Goa'uld, the race to which the film's Ra had belonged, and their leaders, the System Lords. The team also worked to free the humans the Goa'uld had enslaved, along with the Jaffa, their armies of mutated humans. The final two seasons turned to a new threat, the Ori, who were inspired by Arthurian legend.

  Richard Dean Anderson played O'Neill and Michael Shanks played Jackson. Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge and Don S. Davis played new characters: Samantha Carter, Teal'c and George Hammond. The cast changed over time. Shanks left at the end of season 5, and Corin Nemec arrived as Jonas Quinn. Shanks came back at the start of season 7. Davis left at the end of that season, and Anderson's character filled the gap in the story.

  Anderson himself departed in season 9, the year Beau Bridges and Ben Browder joined. Claudia Black made a debut episode in season 8 and appeared in eight episodes of season 9. Her popular reception earned her a regular place in season 10.

  MGM spent an average of $1,400,000 on each episode and counted the show among its most important franchises. SG-1 won the Saturn Award for Best Syndicated Television Series on numerous occasions. It also drew acclaim for visual effects that grew more realistic as the budget rose.

  On the 21st of August 2006, the Sci Fi Channel announced it would not renew the show for an eleventh season, after a run of poor Nielsen ratings. Many fans were enraged, and some built websites to show their commitment. Executive producer Robert C. Cooper told the fansite GateWorld that he was working to continue the series. The show left the air in 2007, and direct-to-DVD movies were made to tie up loose ends.

  Stargate: The Ark of Truth, written and directed by Cooper, concluded the Ori arc. It reached Region 1 DVD on the 11th of March 2008. Stargate: Continuum, a time-travel adventure written by Wright and directed by Martin Wood, had a production budget of $7 million. Its original start date was set for the 22nd of May at Vancouver's Bridge Studios. It arrived on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on the 29th of July 2008.

  The pilot episode came back as a third disc. Stargate: Children of the Gods was written by Glassner and Wright and directed by Mario Azzopardi. On the 21st of July 2009, MGM Home Entertainment released a re-cut version with new visual effects and added scenes. A nudity scene was removed to make it suitable for children. The final movie ran roughly seven minutes shorter than the original episode.

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• 5. Pegasus and Destiny

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  A planned feature film was meant to hand SG-1 over to a new series after its sixth season. When SG-1 was renewed for a seventh season, the film was pushed back to transition that year instead. When an eighth season followed, the idea became a two-part finale episode called "Lost City". The setting of Stargate Atlantis moved to the Pegasus galaxy. That let the two shows run side by side in one fictional universe, and later they became interconnected. Most of the same people, in the same studios, made both.

  The Atlantis expedition was an international combination of military forces and civilian scientists. They traveled to Pegasus to search for the Lost City of Atlantis, built by the ancient race that had built the Stargates. Their main enemy was the Wraith, aliens who must feed on humans periodically to survive. The Wraith had terrorised the galaxy's humans for thousands of years. The expedition also worked to keep them from reaching the Milky Way.

  Atlantis debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel on the 16th of July 2004. Joe Flanigan and Torri Higginson led the cast, with Rainbow Sun Francks, David Hewlett and Rachel Luttrell. Hewlett and Higginson's characters had appeared in SG-1 before, though Higginson inherited her role from the actress Jessica Steen. Paul McGillion and Jason Momoa joined in the second season, with Momoa replacing Francks.

  At the end of the third season, Higginson and McGillion lost their regular roles but stayed on in recurring ones. Season 4 brought in Amanda Tapping, reprising Samantha Carter, and Jewel Staite in a recurring part. Tapping left for season 5 to concentrate on Sanctuary. Robert Picardo, who had played Richard Woolsey in both earlier shows, replaced her. In late summer 2008, SciFi announced it would not renew Atlantis, and the final episode aired on the 9th of January 2009.

  Stargate Universe, the third live-action series, premiered on the 2nd of October 2009. It had been pitched to the Sci Fi Channel in the fall of 2007, just before the writers' strike put the project on hold. Brad Wright said that "The pitch was received very well." The channel ordered the show after announcing the cancellation of Atlantis.

  The story strands an expedition several billion light years from Earth, aboard an ancient ship called Destiny. The ship had been traveling through the universe uncrewed for millions of years. The crew struggle to survive with no apparent way home. The show aimed for a darker tone than its predecessors and dug into the characters' relationships.

  On the 16th of December 2010, Syfy announced it would not pick up a third season. The last episode aired on the 9th of May 2011. Wright then announced there were no plans to continue the same story in further productions.

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• 6. Beyond the Screen

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  In September 2002, a cartoon set 30 years in the future joined the FOX BOX Saturday morning line-up from 4Kids Entertainment. Stargate Infinity was an American-French animated series created by Eric Lewald and Michael Maliani. It followed Gus Bonner, who was framed for a crime he did not commit. The hostile Tlak'kahn attacked Stargate Command to find a chrysalis, and Bonner escaped through the Stargate with it and his team. They moved from planet to planet in search of evidence to clear their names.

  The story never reached an ending. Low viewership and a low budget, which the media noted constantly, led to cancellation in 2003. Shout! Factory released the whole series on DVD on the 13th of May 2008. The writers and producers of the main series were not involved, and neither MGM, the production teams nor most fans treat it as official. Brad Wright said of it: "I don't have a problem with it. I'm just not involved."

  At a San Diego Comic-Con panel in July 2017, celebrating the franchise's 20th anniversary, a web series called Stargate Origins was announced. It follows Catherine Langford and is a prequel to both the television continuity and the original film. Shooting began in August 2017, and the series premiered on the Stargate Command website on the 15th of February 2018. Ellie Gall plays the young Catherine and Connor Trinneer plays her father, Professor Paul Langford. Aylam Orian plays Dr. Wilhelm Brücke, a high-ranking Nazi officer.

  Print stretched the story further. A series by Bill McCay, published from 1995 to 1999, offered unofficial sequels to the film. From 1999 to 2001, ROC published four SG-1 novels by Ashley McConnell. In 2004, Fandemonium Press began a rival licensed series, which could not be sold in the United States until 2006 because of a conflict with ROC's license. Avatar Press began publishing SG-1 and Atlantis comics in 2003. In 2016, American Mythology acquired the rights to new Atlantis comics, and in 2017 added Universe stories that resolved the show's cliffhanger. In February 2008, Big Finish Productions announced audiobooks, beginning with Gift of the Gods read by Michael Shanks.

  Games came and went with the licences. Acclaim Entertainment published two games based on the film in 1995. Stargate Worlds, an online role-playing game, and Stargate SG-1: The Alliance were both cancelled. Stargate: Resistance, an online shooter, was released on the 10th of February 2010. Stargate: Timekeepers, a strategy game, reached the PC on the 23rd of January 2024. Alderac Entertainment's role-playing game lost its license when Sony bought MGM. A 2021 Dungeons & Dragons 5e version from Wyvern Gaming was interrupted by another change in MGM's ownership.

  For a few people, the franchise became a ride. Three simulator-style attractions called Stargate SG-3000 operate at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, Six Flags Great America and Six Flags Marine World.

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• 7. Viewers and Money

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  Around ten million people a week worldwide watched SG-1 and Atlantis, on average. Brad Wright said the shows were popular in Great Britain, Germany, France and Australia. Viewership in his homeland of Canada, he said, was steadily declining. By 2006, about thirty million Stargate DVDs had been sold worldwide.

  Atlantis proved as successful as SG-1 in Nielsen ratings and viewership. The franchise also won a Constellation Award for Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction Film or Television. In 2010, Stargate was estimated to have injected $1 billion into the economy of British Columbia.

  The DVD movies held their own. Stargate: The Ark of Truth earned MGM and Fox $1.59 million in rentals in its first week in the United States. It added $1.38 million in its second week and $1.19 million in its third, for a running total of $4.16 million. The disc also earned $9 million in sales. Stargate: Continuum grossed over $8 million in the United States and drew mostly positive reviews.

  A third SG-1 movie was planned to follow Continuum. It would have centered on Jack O'Neill, but it was put on hold, along with any other future Stargate movies.

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• 8. Unfinished Business

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  In 2006, Dean Devlin said he had a production deal with MGM to develop the long-delayed sequels to the 1994 film. Two movies would have picked up from the original, without the mythology of SG-1 and Atlantis, and with Kurt Russell and James Spader. The first film had already tapped Egyptian mythology. The second would have moved into other mythologies, and the third would have tied them all together. Devlin said he regretted giving MGM control of the franchise.

  On the 4th of July 2011, Devlin said he had not given up on those sequels. He had written them as a trilogy but never managed to make parts two and three. In an interview with Collider he said: "We had really planned out, as a trilogy of films, to allow this mythology to grow bigger and bigger." By November 2016, he told Empire that plans for a reboot or a new series had stalled.

  In September 2018, MGM approached Brad Wright about continuing the franchise. The following year, Amanda Tapping and Richard Dean Anderson confirmed they had spoken to Wright and were interested in returning. In July 2020, Joseph Mallozzi commented that "we've never been closer to a fourth Stargate series." On the 21st of November 2020, Wright confirmed he was developing a continuation, not a reboot. The coronavirus pandemic shutdown was slowing parts of the work.

  In podcasts in March and May 2021, Wright said his script featured Daniel Jackson, Cameron Mitchell, Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill. He hoped Michael Shanks, Ben Browder and Tapping would return, and he wanted Tapping to direct. In March 2022, Amazon completed its purchase of MGM, including Stargate. In November 2022, Wright announced that his revival was likely dead.

  The franchise did not stay dead. In November 2025, Amazon MGM Studios announced an untitled series led by showrunner Martin Gero, who had written for all three earlier live-action shows. Wright and Mallozzi return in contributing producer roles, and Devlin and Emmerich are executive producers. Few plot details are known, but it will not be a reboot, and it aims to be accessible to new viewers.

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