50 Fun Facts About Stargate

Who directed the original 1994 Stargate film?

Roland Emmerich. He and co-writer Dean Devlin planned a trilogy, but MGM made the TV series without them, saying it wanted people who had done television.

Which real-life Air National Guard veteran played Colonel Jack O'Neil in the 1994 Stargate film?

Kurt Russell. The film's producer recalls that he turned the part down several times before signing; it then emerged that he had been sent an early draft, and he found the shooting script not so bad.

Which actor, fresh from an Oscar nomination for The Crying Game, played the alien Ra in Stargate?

Jaye Davidson. Reluctant to keep acting, he asked for $1 million and was surprised when the producers agreed; Stargate turned out to be his last major film.

Who played the archaeologist Dr. Daniel Jackson in the 1994 Stargate film?

James Spader. He said the script intrigued him because he found it "awful", and he signed on after a meeting with the director convinced him the shoot would be an adventure.

Which Bond composer wrote the music for the 1994 Stargate film?

David Arnold. The director heard his score for the small British film The Young Americans, was blown away and wrote asking him to do Stargate, his first American feature.

Stargate's interiors were shot in a Long Beach dome that once housed which aircraft?

Spruce Goose. Howard Hughes' giant plane left in 1992 and the film's backers booked the empty dome for a year; the $55 million picture went on to gross about $197 million.

Roger Ebert wrote that which 1994 film "was made to prepare us for Stargate"?

Ed Wood. Tim Burton's film is about the man Ebert called the worst director of all time, so the joke puts Stargate in his company; Ebert gave it one star.

In the 1994 Stargate film, Daniel Jackson works out that the symbols on the gate stand for what?

Constellations. Six of them fix a destination in space and a seventh symbol marks the point of origin, which is why the team is stranded until he finds that last symbol for the trip home.

Which two writers, then colleagues on The Outer Limits, created Stargate SG-1?

Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner. By their own account each pitched MGM a series without telling the other, and the studio said yes on condition they run it together.

Who took over the role of Jack O'Neill, now spelled with two L's, in Stargate SG-1?

Richard Dean Anderson. He asked for a funnier colonel, and the show joked about the spelling: his O'Neill says the one with a single L "has no sense of humor at all".

On which US channel did Stargate SG-1 premiere on July 27, 1997?

Showtime. The two-hour pilot gave the channel its best-ever ratings for a series premiere, yet after five seasons it let the show go because it no longer drew new subscribers, and Sci Fi took it on.

Stargate SG-1 was filmed in and around which city?

Vancouver. Local landmarks kept turning into alien worlds: the hilltop campus of nearby Simon Fraser University played the capital city of the advanced Tollan.

Stargate Command sits beneath which real peak near Colorado Springs?

Cheyenne Mountain. So many visitors asked about the gate that the real complex put a high-security door marked "Stargate Command" on a storage room holding brooms and detergent.

In Stargate SG-1, the Stargates are built from which rare fictional mineral?

Naquadah. The film showed Ra's slaves mining the mineral behind all his technology but never gave it a name; the name arrived with the series.

Late in its run, Stargate SG-1 overtook which show as North America's longest-running sci-fi series?

The X-Files. SG-1 finished on 214 episodes and held the record until 2011, when Smallville aired its 215th hour in the last weeks of its own ten-year run.

Teal'c defected from serving Apophis while holding which Jaffa rank?

First Prime. The gold emblem on his forehead marks the rank, which he threw away in the pilot by turning on his fellow guards to free the captured SG-1 team.

Which planet, orbiting a binary star, is Teal'c's homeworld?

Chulak. He was not born there: after the Goa'uld Cronus executed his father, the boy and his mother moved to the planet, where he joined a rival's army hoping for revenge.

Which SG-1 star later became the voice of Kratos in God of War (2018)?

Christopher Judge. The 2018 game wanted one performer for both voice and motion capture, so its makers replaced the original Kratos with an actor nearer the character's size.

Which SG-1 regular also provided the voice of the alien commander Thor?

Michael Shanks. He kept voicing Thor through season six, the year he had quit the regular cast because he felt his own character was being underused.

When Daniel Jackson's actor left after season five, Corin Nemec joined SG-1 as which alien scientist?

Jonas Quinn. Casting agents spotted Nemec rehearsing for another film in the courtyard of MGM's Santa Monica offices and rang his manager that afternoon, though he had never watched the show.

In the original SG-1 pilot, Carter says it took fifteen years to do what to a dialling system for the gate?

MacGyver. The verb is a wink at the show's own leading man, who had spent seven years as the gadget-rigging hero of that name before he took command of SG-1.

Before playing General Hammond, Don S. Davis was Major Garland Briggs on which cult series?

Twin Peaks. Davis had been a real Army captain before he acted, and after he died in 2008 the Atlantis finale named a starship the George Hammond after his general.

Both Ben Browder and Claudia Black joined SG-1 from which earlier sci-fi series?

Farscape. The two had played star-crossed lovers there, so SG-1 kept their new characters apart as a couple, though the episode "200" let the whole cast send the old show up.

The Ori, villains of Stargate SG-1's final two seasons, are best described as what?

Ascended beings fed by worship. Belief passes real energy to them, which is why they invented a religion, Origin, promising followers an ascension they never mean to grant.

In Stargate SG-1, O'Neill's running references to which cartoon reflect his actor's own love of the show?

The Simpsons. The affection ran both ways: Homer's voice, Dan Castellaneta, guest-starred on SG-1 as a barber who sees O'Neill's missions, and the SG-1 star later played himself in Springfield.

In Stargate SG-1, what is the metal shield that closes over Earth's Stargate to block unwanted travellers called?

The iris. It sits so close to the event horizon that anything coming through has no room to re-form, so an uninvited arrival ends as a thud against the metal.

In Stargate SG-1, which resistance movement of rebel symbiotes shares its hosts' bodies only with their consent?

The Tok'ra. Their name means "against Ra": they are the same species as the Goa'uld but refuse the name, because each of them lives in partnership with a willing host.

In SG-1's 100th episode, "Wormhole X-Treme!", which amnesiac alien sells a TV show based on the team's missions?

Martin Lloyd. Willie Garson's stranded alien keeps losing his memory, and the Air Force lets his show stay on air as plausible deniability in case the real program ever leaks.

In SG-1's "Wormhole X-Treme!", Michael DeLuise modelled the hammy Colonel Danning on which actor?

William Shatner. DeLuise was sent a tape of the SG-1 star to copy but decided he could not imitate him, so he played the colonel like the young Captain Kirk instead.

The marionette sequence in SG-1's 200th episode was built by the puppet makers behind which film?

Team America. The Chiodo brothers built both casts of marionettes, and some of the SG-1 puppets' wires showed up so poorly on camera that they had to be drawn back in digitally.

In SG-1's "200", a three-episode series gets a movie thanks to strong DVD sales, a jab at which show?

Firefly. Fox cancelled the space western after airing only eleven episodes, yet its DVDs sold so well that it was given a cinema film, Serenity.

In SG-1's finale "Unending", which dying race hands Earth all of its knowledge and technology?

The Asgard. Millennia of genetic tinkering have left them dying, so they give away their legacy and destroy themselves; SG-1 then spends fifty years inside a time-dilation field escaping the attack that follows.

Under normal conditions, a Stargate wormhole can be held open for slightly more than how long?

38 minutes. The limit drives whole plots: in the Atlantis episode named after it, a ship is stuck halfway through a gate and will be cut in two when the wormhole shuts.

In Stargate SG-1, what does dialling an eighth chevron specify?

A different galaxy. The extra symbol works like an area code, and the first such call needed more power than the whole base could give until O'Neill built a booster from spare parts.

Which actress played Samantha Carter across three Stargate series?

Amanda Tapping. After ten seasons of SG-1 she moved Carter to Atlantis to lead the expedition for a year, then left to make her own series, Sanctuary.

Which household appliance did the Ancient Orlin use to build a mini Stargate in Carter's basement?

A toaster. He ordered the rest online on her credit card: 100 pounds of titanium, 200 feet of fibre-optic cable and seven industrial capacitors, for a gate that would work only once.

In Stargate, what is a "kawoosh"?

An opening gate's burst. The vortex destroys whatever stands in its path, and Carter herself uses the nickname on screen in season nine.

Stargate Atlantis is set in which galaxy?

Pegasus. The city was first meant to sit under the Antarctic ice and take over from SG-1; when both shows were to run side by side, the writers moved it to another galaxy.

The Wraith, the life-draining villains of Stargate Atlantis, evolved from which creature?

The Iratus bug. It fed on early humans and took on their traits, and the expedition then woke its descendants from hibernation too soon, with too few humans to feed them all.

Which Stargate Atlantis scientist replaced a character the pilot script called Dr. Ingram?

Rodney McKay. David Hewlett auditioned for Ingram, and a producer suggested swapping the new character for the prickly scientist Hewlett had already played on SG-1.

Which actor played the warrior Ronon Dex on Stargate Atlantis?

Jason Momoa. His dreadlocks became so much a part of Ronon that when he cut them off after season four, they were sewn back on in a painful nine-hour job and later swapped for a wig.

In the Stargate Atlantis series finale, the flying city lands in the Pacific near which landmark?

Golden Gate Bridge. The city crosses between galaxies on an untested wormhole drive to defend Earth, then comes down off San Francisco and hides under a cloak.

What is the name of the Ancient ship on which the crew of Stargate Universe is stranded?

Destiny. It recharges by diving into the outer layer of a star, which the crew first took for a fatal collision course and met by drawing lots for seats on the one shuttle.

Which Scottish actor played the scheming scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush in Stargate Universe?

Robert Carlyle. He was sceptical about joining a space series and asked the producers "why do you want me to do this?", then signed on because he found Rush so interesting to play.

In Stargate Universe, Eli Wallace is recruited to the Stargate program after solving a puzzle hidden inside what?

A video game. The game was a recruiting tool: its supposedly unsolvable puzzle was a real Ancient proof, and cracking it brought the Air Force to his front door.

Which actress played Camile Wray, the Stargate franchise's first openly gay character, in Stargate Universe?

Ming-Na Wen. Her official Camile Wray has a long-time partner, Sharon, waiting back on Earth, and at one point leads the civilians in a coup against the ship's military command.

Which Stargate series do the franchise's makers treat as outside its official story?

Stargate Infinity. The 2002 children's cartoon, set thirty years in the future, was made without any of the SG-1 writers or producers, so its events have never counted.

Who wrote and directed the direct-to-DVD film Stargate: The Ark of Truth?

Robert C. Cooper. He had planned the story as a run of episodes bridging seasons ten and eleven; when SG-1 was cancelled, he turned it into a film to finish the Ori war.

In Stargate: Continuum, which Goa'uld travels back to 1939 to stop the Stargate reaching the United States?

Ba'al. He massacres the crew of the ship carrying the gate there from Egypt, so it drifts into the Arctic and Earth never starts a Stargate program.

The 2018 web prequel Stargate Origins follows which character from the 1994 film as a young woman?

Catherine Langford. The girl who watches her father unearth the gate at Giza in the film's opening is shown a decade later, going through it to rescue him from a Nazi cultist.