Two Stargate Direct-To-DVD Movies Due
Michael Shanks, who played Daniel Jackson in the television adaptation of Stargate, talked to SciFi Wire about the upcoming direct-to-DVD movies Stargate: Continuum and Stargate: The Ark of Truth...which gives me an excuse to talk a little about Stargate.
For all the hoopla that surrounded the unexpected theatrical release of Stargate in 1994, I was never overly impressed. Don't get me wrong...I liked it, I just wasn't blown away. I liked the story well enough, and the Kurt Russell and James Spader characters were fun, but I thought the special effects were, well, unremarkable. Perhaps I was used to seeing multi-million dollar blockbusters and the low-key effects in Stargate (which was mostly props and set pieces) were off-putting.
Then the show was adapted for television. And it was good! Really good! After you get past the re-casting of MacGuyver as Col. O'Neil, it was actually one of the best sci-fi TV shows on at the time. Just goes to show what I know. I came in a couple of seasons late, but nothing a little DVD catch-up couldn't fix. And now it's gone. For some reason, Stargate: Atlantis didn't grab me like SG1 did.
Speaking of movie-to-TV adaptations, I am hard-pressed to name many other sci-fi movies that have been adapted to TV. I can think of Logan's Run and (if you call it sci-fi) Tremors, but that's about it. Can you name any sci-fi movie-to-TV adaptations? And, no, the cartoon version of Ghostbusters does not count.
Shanks Talks Stargate Movies [SciFI Wire]
Off the top of my head, The Sarah Jane Chronicles of recent and the long-rumoured-recently-announced Star Wars series are both good examples, but both very recent, against a background of newly popular TV SF. Beyond those two - or more than two years ago - I can't think of any other good examples.
Perhaps the understanding with the money types has always been that we were in it for the effects and explosions, so would be better served by scaling up, rather than enjoying the characters/universe and preferring the scaling down and spreading out of a series. Who knows?
Thanks, Matt. Silly of me not to include Star Wars and SJC...
Angus MacGyver went through a box of paper clips when he saw his name misspelled: "MacGuyver."
Shame on you, John!
Morjana
Whoops.
-Planet of the Apes, but it didn't last long.
-War of the Worlds, though it was a couple of decades late.
-Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which appeared in theaters well before it showed up on TV.
-Starman.
-Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you want to count that as SF.
Upcoming, we have the Sarah Connor Chronicles, continuing the Terminator franchise. This is what y'all meant by Sarah Jane Chronicles, right? Because The Sarah Jane Adventures is a Doctor Who spin-off. There have been Doctor Who movies, of course, so I suppose you could count that one too, but it's definitely stretching things.
Man, it's like y'all weren't even trying.
I'd definitely agree about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of the others mentioned. I would also say, 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids', The Invisible Man, and Topper.
Thought of another one - Highlander
One other one would be Nightmare on Elm Street, thought it was short lived in it's carnation of 'Freddie's Nightmares' and yet another short lived one, would be 'Time Cop'.
Sorry, got on a roll here, what about 'Indiana Jones'?
Wow! All of these are great examples. And all are ones I should have remembered. I used to watch Buck Rogers and Planet of the Apes all the time. The others, not so much.