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]
