Stargate: 10 Behind The Scenes Secrets About Children Of The Gods

stargate is one of the longest running sci-fi franchises of them all so let's go back to where it all began no we're not talking about the 1994 film that was written and directed by dean devlin and roland emerick we're talking about the pilot episode of stargate sg1 i'm sean ferrick for what culture and here are 10 behind the scenes secrets you never knew about children of the gods number 10 dean devlin and roland emmerich were not fans of the idea the original movie in 1994 was written by dean devlin and roland emrick and while they very much wanted to create sequels to their own project this got very awkward when mgm informed them that this was not a direction that the studio was interested in pursuing for years the pair of them harbored ill will toward the series for this very reason while devlin spoke on the issue he said that he appreciates it for what it is though he doesn't see it as a continuation of his idea rather he sees it as another story altogether one that just happens to feature some characters and ideas that he and emma created back in 1996 when glassner and wright were working on children of the gods they stole advice from the pair on how to work forward from the movie story devlin and emmerich flat out refused to meet with them though they did state that it wasn't personal it was simply their way of protesting the studio's decision number nine studio wanted a different type of actress for samantha carter the initial pitch for the character who would become samantha carter was quite different from what the audience ended up seeing first of all although she was always a serving member of the military she was to have been a very disdainful person about the service her true passion was in theoretical astrophysics which did manage to remain part of the character to a point she was written as pushy and abrasive toward o'neill and jackson the studio was also hesitant to hire amanda tapping according to jonathan glasner they were far more interested in hiring an actress based on her physical attributes he said that they had their eyes on another actress altogether one who was closer to the typical beauty that would be seen in hollywood films tapping wowed glasner and wright when she came in to read for the part and put her own spin on carter straight away she saw the potential for humor in the part adding this to her audition while some of her lines in children of the gods are truly dreadful she's immediately established as one of the major players locked in by tapping's performance number eight jonathan glassner and brad white didn't know that the other was interested in stargate before the pilot while wright and glassner had worked together previously on the outer limits neither actually knew that the other was interested in a stargate series glassner for his part was actually looking to move away from vancouver and return to los angeles mgm wanted him so badly that they were open to offering him whatever he wished glassner told mgm he would only remain in vancouver if he could have stargate they quickly said yes with a slight caveat he was paired with right though the two quickly built a pitch that the studio loved they both have the same idea of a stargate program that ran similarly to nasa one with ongoing missions through the gate much of their script for children of the gods was concerned with bringing back o'neill and jackson and introducing the idea that the stargate was not simply an a to b device but that it could send travelers all over the galaxy they also wanted to introduce a female lead and an alien character as well while wright would go on to co-create stargate atlantis and stargate universe this would be glasner's only series in the stargate franchise as a co-creator number seven that nude scene this is a scene that caused controversy at every step of the way from its conception to execution to reception it's safe to say now that almost no one wanted to include it least of all by tiara bandera who played xiaori on whom this scene focused she had originally auditioned for the part in the 1994 movie narrowly missing out here she's officially cast she agreed to a topless scene though this was subsequently rewritten into a full frontal nude scene at the studio's insistence this understandably caused bandera a lot of upset as it was not what she had agreed to they agreed to shorten the scene assuring her that it would be handled in good taste this assuaged her though brad wright had never truly felt comfortable with it while the possession scene is still present in the final cut all of the nude scenes were trimmed from the later release as they were deemed wholly unnecessary to the plot of the episode number six it took 11 years to explain how apophis got away from stargate command this is one question that was finally answered with the updated children of the gods final cut this had been a pet project of brad rights for years though he primarily had been interested in restoring joel goldsmith unused score for the episodes in 2008 mgm became more interested in revisiting the pilot and looking at the dailies themselves which meant that wright was able to re-edit the episode this included trimming some scenes including the full frontal shots of vaitiary bandera the possession of major kowalski and then adding some others this addressed a continuity error that the series itself created in the episode the dial home device is introduced on abaddos this is what allowed users to control the stargate and activate it however this was conspicuously missing from stargate command when apophis arrived and crucially when he departed in the final course the audience has shown jaffa soldiers manually activating the gate this simple change goes a long way to bringing this episode into line with the now established continuity of the show number five don s davis hated the version of general hammond in the pilot general hammond was written to take over as the head of stargate command and he was initially conceived as an intimidating powerful black man in effect he was rewritten fictionalized version of colin powell at least that's how jonathan glasner and brad wright envisaged him with this template hamid would be a four-star general a diplomat and a politician when richard dean anderson and michael greenberg joined the project as producers they suggested don s davis for the role while he clearly didn't fit the mould that glasner wright had laid out he still won the role however davis himself was not a fan of how the character was written in the pilot he's supposed to be a foil for o'neill appearing to be a much more by-the-book humorless and stereotypically rigid in his role as quickly as he could davis who himself was a vietnam veteran sought to change how hamad was presented when comparing the character in children of the gods to his later appearances particularly his off-world adventure in into the fire they're almost completely different davis took a thinly written part and made him into one of the better representations of military personnel in sci-fi number four the production team ran out of money so we only got half of a kaush if one watches children of the gods before the original film one is going to notice a drastic difference between the two gates this is not simply the design of the final lock for the seventh chevron which is open in the film while being identical to all of the others on the gate in the series the actual stargate vortex itself is missing an additional element in the series in the film once the gate address is locked and the wormhole opens the koosh that is seen extends out by several feet before retracting into the event horizon and continuing out the back forming a whirling funnel in the series the sequence is almost the same though the funnel is now missing from the wormhole the reason behind this is frustratingly simple they ran out of money the design of the gate opening was created by firing an air cannon into a pool of water though recreating the funnel proved to be too costly at the time therefore there is now only one appearance of this element in the franchise that being the original film number three no one liked the score the score that was cut and inserted into children of the gods was effectively a copy and paste job of david arnold's fabulous score from the movie there was however a slight problem this was a studio mandate as they lacked the confidence in composer joel goldsmith to carry the pilot alex wilkinson was hired to edit arnold's score together with goldsmiths a feat for which he was nominated for a golden real award despite wilkinson's nomination goldsmith and arnold both hated the result the combined mix was released on cd in 1997 though both composers took their names off it they both felt that it was a terrible terrible mix of the two the music was one of brad wright's main reasons for revisiting children of the gods in 2008. he initially sought mainly to fix what he saw as the studio's damage to the musical makeup of the episode by that time though stargate had proven to be so popular that mgm was more than willing to allow not only this but a complete overhaul of the episode itself number two everyone hated chulac and the feeling was mutual the first day of filming was spent in british columbia so the production could capture the external shots of chulac tilke's homeworld it was a grueling day one that made the filmmakers wonder if the show was going to be cursed for the duration filming on location in any production is always a bit of a gamble as the team will have less control over the environment this proved especially troublesome for children of the gods as the weather decided it simply didn't want the team to get their work done the wind and rain battered the set all day leading to the film itself being scratched making it largely unusable in addition to this the noise of the weather made much of the dialogue inaudible at the end of the day production had seemingly lost an entire shoot's worth of material number one richard dean anderson had no interest in playing jack o'neill richard dean anderson was actually brought on as a producer initially though he was always eyed for taking the lead role of jack o'neill from the movie there was an issue with this anderson had no interest in playing the same part that kurt russell had originated in the movie o'neil is a grief-stricken man who's recently suffered from the loss of a son after his son shoots himself he was recalled to active duty to take point on the stargate program even before the military officially knew what the device did throughout the film o'neil gradually warms largely thanks to scara played by alexis cruz anderson was concerned that having to play such a dour character would end up being simply put absolutely no fun at all however he was told that the show had already been ordered for 44 episodes and that he would have plenty of opportunities to adapt the character as he saw fit this would allow him to introduce the humor to the role something that had been lacking from the film in the first episode it's clear early on that this o'neill now with two l's in the name was both a warmer character while remaining just as competent as time went on with all respect to kurt russell richard dean anderson became jack o'neill without question that's everything for our list today guys if you reckon i missed anything please drop it into the comments below please don't forget to like share and subscribe and remember that you can catch us over on twitter at whatculture you can catch myself at sean ferrick as well whatever you do look after yourselves look after your friends and family and remember jaffa gree thanks guys

Channel: WhatCulture

Views: 55,557

Keywords:

Id: bLsgirH8s7s

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021