Stargate: 10 Behind The Scenes Secrets You Never Knew About Children Of The Gods
Here are the things you never knew about Stargate SG-1's famous pilot episode.
Children Of The Gods introduced an entirely new audience to the Stargate program, Daniel Jackson, and a very different Jack O'Neill (that's with TWO Ls, remember that!). The original movie had been a success at the box office, but some of the characters were ill-defined. Its biggest strength was the fantastic world that it built in its short runtime.
Stargate SG-1 was given a green light for the first two seasons before the pilot even aired. That meant that these first episodes had a lot riding on them. If they failed to impress, there was going to be a disappointed fanbase - and a fairly annoyed production studio wondering if they'd made the right decision or not.
Thankfully, Children Of The Gods, despite some clunky dialogue here and there, was a smash. Stargate SG-1 would go on to run for ten seasons, with two spin-off series. There are technically four, if one counts Infinity and Origins, though oddly, not many people seem to do so.
But these episodes are where it all began, on television at least. It was remastered and recut much later, and we'll discuss why in this article. Here are the things you never knew you needed to know.
10. Dean Devlin And Roland Emmerich Were Not Fans Of The Idea
The original movie in 1994 was written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, and they very much wanted to create sequels for their own project. This got very awkward when MGM informed them that this was not a direction they were interested in pursuing.
For years, the pair of them harboured 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 own idea. Rather, he sees it as another story altogether, one that just happens to feature some characters and ideas that he and Emmerich created.
Back in 1996, when Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright were working on Children Of The Gods, they sought advice from the pair on how to work forward from the movie's 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.