Stargate SG-1's 25th anniversary is fast approaching - July 27 - and we've speculated that with MGM now owned by Amazon, if they are planning to revive the series, that would be an attractive date for the announcement.

Yesterday YouTube in it's algorithmic wisdom presented us with a video claiming to have inside news on that front.

To be crystal clear, we have no idea if this chap is reliable or as Vala might put it, completely wonko.

He claims that there have been recent meetings about a new series and his source speculates that Amazon might be considering moving ahead with a series without SG-1, Atlantis and Universe co-creator, executive producer and writer Brad Wright.

Because Amazon don't love his script and want something grander.

The plan being 10-12 episodes with a budget of $6-9 million per.

Those meetings may have been to determine the both the legality of forging ahead without him and potential PR fallout.

As we said, this might be completely wonko.

What do we know?

Brad's pitch is a new series but retains continuity with earlier ones.

My goal was to create something that was new that also honored the existing universe, that lived in the canon of SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe, and therefore included some of those characters. Bring in a new guard? Absolutely. But not at the expense of the pre-existing characters, who I think would still be very much on their game and still firing on all cylinders.

And the Stargate will no longer be a secret.

I think the trick to anything would be that it's high time the world found out about the Stargate program, for better or for worse. Keeping all of that technology from the world at a time when we could really use it, at a time when climate change is a genuine threat, at a time when there was a pandemic that we sure could have used a fix for, for example. The world needs to find out. The secret needs to get out especially since we have come so far and will have come so far after another 11 or 12 years.

This pitch had been written for MGM prior to acquisition by Amazon.

Pre COVID.

Brad's Little Script

Is the claim of Brad's script not being grand enough credible?

On that front we can only point to very recent advances in special effects technology, eg. Industrial Light & Magic's curved mega-screens.

Disney's The Mandalorian would not have been budgetarily possible without them and they were only revealed to the public in 2019, which would have been when Brad was finishing his Stargate script.

What he might have imagined possible on a $6-9 million budget before these screens would have been considerably less impressive than what we know now.

Though that's also plenty of time during which he could have revised his script and vision accordingly.

Fan Fallout

Would fans accept a new Stargate series without Brad?

It might be a tough sell.

Attempts to reboot the other two thirds of the classic Star trio - Trek and Wars - haven't gone well under new leadership.

Meanwhile The Orville is brilliant and its leadership includes notable Star Trek veterans.

As we've mentioned previously, many years ago he dishonestly blamed fans for Stargate Universe's failure:

I don’t think if we for any reason go away, it is an issue necessarily of the quality of the product that we’ve been making. I think getting moved on the schedule has hurt us. And the fact that some of the fans that liked SG-1 and Atlantis were so angry that they have deliberately hurt us, which is unfortunate.

But throughout Stargate's long absence he has been actively engaged with the fanbase and also series stars, eg. the AI written table reads.

Regardless of the veracity of this YouTuber's claims, we're hoping to have good news to share on the 27th.

[ Main Image: Stargate SG-1 - Don S. Davis. Credit: MGM via IMDb.com. ]

References

Breznican, Anthony (March 17, 2022). Star Wars: The Rebellion Will Be Televised. Vanity Fair.

Farris, Jeff (February 21, 2020). Forging new paths for filmmakers on "The Mandalorian". Unreal Engine.

SCI-TREK (July 2, 2022). Stargate new series update: planning started again? YouTube.