Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Jarnin Jun 30th 2004, 8:26 AM

"Preview to Atlantis"
from Stargate SG-1 - Volume 37
transcribed by Jarnin

[SCENE]

Int. SGC Gateroom.

Dr. Weir: Everyone of you volunteered for this mission. You represent over a dozen countries. You are the worlds best and brightest, and in light of the adventure we are about to embark on, you're also the bravest. I hope we all return one day having discovered a whole new realm for humanity to explore, but as all of you know, we may never be able to return home. I'd like to offer you all one last chance to withdrawl your participation...


Begin the dialing sequence.


[Robert Cooper - Executive Producer]

Ok Atlantis. It started with, obviously the movie Stargate. There was a ring, it took you to other places. There's the show, Stargate SG-1. There was a ring, took you to other places. And now there's Atlantis, and uh, there's a ring, and it takes you to other places.

At the end of season seven of Stargate SG-1, the heros of that show find an alien outpost in Antarctica under the ice and it reveals the location of the long-sought-after Lost City of the Ancients. The ancients are the race of aliens that we believe built the stargates, and deposited them all over the galaxy.


[Brad Wright - Exectutive Producer]

Since season one, we introduced the concept that the original stargate on Earth was in Antarctica. That was the episode Solitudes. So in a way I've been planting the seeds for this spinoff series since then.

The original premise for Stargate: Atlantis was that the city we find was indeed under the ice of Antarctica. When Scifi approched us with MGM and said that they wanted to do both series simultaniously, Robert and I had to go and lock ourselves away and come up with a variation on that concept which was, yes we find an outpost in Antarctica, but that just leads to where the real lost city is, which is in fact in the Pegasus galaxy. So the whole city just up and flew away and went somewhere else.


[Robert Cooper]

The ancient city, which is actually a sort of more a ship-city than a city or a ship, it's kind of a city that flies and it takes off and goes to another whole galaxy, and once they're there, they basically do what they do. That is, build stargates, put them on a whole bunch of other planets and then kind of like a big galaxy-wide science experiment, start life, human life, on all the planets capable of supporting human life.


[Brad Wright]

And this changed the series concept significantly because originally it was going to be set in our galaxy, but the beauty of setting it in another galaxy, is that we're resetting the whole adventure back to zero. We're starting in Pegasus much like SG-1 started in our galaxy.


[SCENE]

Colonel Sumner: What have we missed?

Dr. Ingrim: Not much.

Hologram of an ancient: Here, as before, we built a system of stargates so that fledgling civilizations could travel between the stars, exchange knowledge, and friendship.


[Brad Wright]

But, it wasn't a perfect place. It wasn't Eden afterall. Eventually they found out that there was a sleeping enemy there called the Wraith.


[Robert Cooper]

And these were sort of super bad guys who were equally as powerful, and even more so than the ancients, and as it turns out these Wraith kind of like to suck the life energy out of things. And they grew to kind of like the taste of the life energy of humans, and they started to feed on the humans that were in that galaxy.


[James Robbins - Art Director]

initially, the words that came down the pipe were gothic and dark and that the wraith were a breed of vampires, not in the standard sense of the word vampire because they didn't suck blood, they were essence stealers. And then we had to physically flesh these guys out, and quite honestly it was very wide open from a creative standpoint, and at that point the Wraith had wings. We were looking at them more as animalistic rather than human form, but after initial drawings started going out, it became very evident that their view of the Wraith was that they were dark, they were evil, and yet they had an underlying beauty to them.

We went through a multitude of stages after that where the look changed subtly from drawing to drawing to drawing, the wardrobe concepts went back and forth, and ultimately it was gloriously hideous on the day.


[Brad Wright]

The ancients were undermanned and completely overwhelmed by this terrible enemy and the survivors of that siege that went on for maybe a hundred years, decided that the only thing they could do was to sink the city under the water on this alien planet in the Pegasus galaxy. That's the story Plato heard. He heard the story that ten thousand years ago this ancient city that was great and powerful sank into the ocean during a great war. So it did happen, it just didn't happen on Earth.


[Robert Cooper]

And now we go there, kind of seeking new power sources for our own ancient technology that we've discovered that we're using in the defense of Earth to fight the Goa'uld, and to also possibly meet some of those ancients and see what's going on in this other galaxy. We end up getting trapped there, and have to deal with the scary Wraith.

That's just the short version.


[Brad Wright]

The old saying "if I ever had a chance to do this again", we're getting that chance. Everything that we hopefully learned in those seven years, now going into eight years, of SG-1 we're applying to Atlantis. Things like the Puddlejumper. Now we can actually have a vehicle, because we didn't build it because it was of ancient construction, that can fly through the stargate and take us wherever we need to on the alien planet. It's something that we just simply couldn't have purpose built anywhere in the early years of SG-1, and of course by the time we were thinking of Atlantis, I wanted to save it for that.


[SCENE]

Int. Puddlejumper

Lt. Ford: Gateship One ready to go sir.

Major Sheppard: Gateship One? No, no, no, no, that's all wrong.

Lt. Ford: What do you mean? It's a ship, it goes through the gate. Gateship One.

Major Sheppard: A little puddlejumper like this?


[Robert Cooper]

It's the first series I've had a hand in creating, and you know I started as a story editor on Stargate SG-1 on the first season, I was at the readthrough at that pilot, and I've sort of moved my way up to being executive producer. This opportunity to sort of spin off from what has been an incredibly successful run on SG-1 is an opportunity that nobody could have passed up.


[Martin Wood - Director]

When Brad and Robert first came to me and talked to me about doing the end of season seven, the Lost City two parter, I was thrilled because this was a great way to set up whatevers coming on next, which is possibly a movie, which is possibly a new series. I had no idea it was going to be what Atlantis has actually turned into, and Atlantis is absolutly an amazing way of continuing the Stargate saga.

I think when you're trying to create a spinoff, you have two choices: one is you can take a character or two from the established series, and throw them into a new situation, and it's all becomes about the characters carrying on their own story.
Or you can take the idea, the mythology that you have in established series like Stargate SG-1, and then you spin that mythology off in a different way.
This is why what Brad and Robert did really well, this is why when you do a spinoff with the same creators you do the best thing you could possibly do, which is, you hold the integrity of the series, of SG-1, and you put it into a brand new package. The danger of course is that your fans are going to be disappointed when they see that, because they're looking for SG-1 and they're not going to find it in a new series, unless that continuity of mythology is there, and you find interaction of characters that will take them on to the next level. So that they still get the idea of Stargate SG-1, they still get the mythology of Stargate SG-1, that they're very familiar with, and you get it in a new package, and the new package is absolutely astounding.


[Robert Cooper]

We had been planning and pitching and talking about doing Atlantis for some time now, it just took a long time to get the deal finally done, and when it finally did get done in late November, the Scifi channel basically asked us if we could deliver the show so it could air in July, July 04' this year. That was a very very short window to get a series up and running, specially while we're doing season eight of SG-1. Even though we had pitched the show, Atlantis, we had not started writing a script, we didn't have a deal. Writers, you know, we don't write without deals. So Brad and I thought it over and talked about it at great length, but because of the really short window, and the fact that such a massive set needed to be built, and so many aspects of the production needed to get going, we actually started development before the script had even began. I mean, Brad and I were looking at plans for the set before we had even typed: Fade-In.
I remember I had actually sat down to start typing in early December on the scenes I was supposed to be working on, and Brad called me and said "I just went into the stage and the floor is in on the set. Type faster!", and you know, we literally, the script was evolving as the set was going up. Granted, we finished faster than they did, but they had, I think, alot more to build. We had roughly seven weeks of prep after everyone had the script in their hand, which is, you know, a very very frightening thing when you're actually starting up a series, especially a science fiction series that depends so much on props and sets and visual effects. The Visual effects are already going. We have four people working on computers doing what we call pre-vis, and actually doing the visual effects shots before we shoot the actual footage, which seems a little bit backwards, but is the only way we're ever going to get everything complete and together in order to air the show on July 16th like we had promised we would.


[SCENE]

Int. Antarctica Base

Jack O'neill: Warm welcome.

Daniel Jackson: Wasn't me. How'd you manage to uh...

Jack O'niell: Keep my ass from getting blown outta the sky? The exceptional flying of Major John Sheppard. He likes it here.

Daniel Jackson: Exceptional? You like it here?


[Brad Wright]

Sheppard is a pilot, like Jack O'niell is. He has the same "we don't leave people behind" core belief that Jack O'niell has. And he uses humor to disarm a situation just like Jack O'niell does, or Richard Dean Anderson does. But it comes from, and I think Rick would back me up on this, a less cynical place. Rick is naturally a cynical person, and that's why he's so funny.

In Joe Flanigan we found that magic quality that I think you have to have in the person who is the center of your show. He is very personally charming, very personally witty, but he's also a smart actor. I mean all those things are on the suface, He's also adding a layer of complexity to his scenes, that finding those thing that you didn't nessecarily even know were in there, because he's added them. And that's what stars do.


[Torri Higginson - Dr. Weir]

I'm playing the part of Dr. Elizibeth Weir, and she is, like myself, new to all of this. She sort of comes from a much more political background, and she fought against the military, so from what I understand about Stargate that's also an interesting turn, because I believe Stargate is very military based. I don't think she even was aware of interplanetary relationships until a few months before all this happened. The first time you meet her in, I think in season seven in Stargate, that's her first introduction to the idea of aliens, so she has a crash course and all of a sudden finds herself in charge of a whole new stargate.


[Brad Wright]

I wanted, from the get-go, I wanted to have the leader of the Atlantis team to be a woman because I didn't want a general to be at the heart of this. I wanted a civilian leader. You cannot militarize Antarctica. So, I thought, why not extend that to the expedition to find Atlantis. It is an international team, that is essentially not, and cannot be led by any one military commander from any given nation, so that's why Dr. Weir is the perfect candidate. She's a negotiator, and we wanted somebody who was a negotiator at the heart of the leadership of Atlantis because that is that role.
And then Torri came and did this part, and she was spectacular. She just nailed the character. What Torri gives is a strength to Weir that is a natural strength, because she just comes across as a strong person without being supported with overly heavy-handed dialog. She's just strong.


[Torri Higginson]

I did sci-fi when I first left theater school years ago, and I didn't get it, and I don't think I had the joy of it, because I didn't understand how to play with it. And so that's what I'm so excited about now, is that I've been working as an actor for the last ten years since that experience, and I've learned alot about this medium, television medium, which is very different from the theater medium, and I've learned how to have more fun with it, and that's very exciting, the amount of play that's going to be involved in this.


[Rachel Luttrell - Teyla]

Yeah, I'm going to be playing the character of Teyla, and she has become the leader of her people in a sense. Her father was the leader, and he was killed a number of years ago, and her mother was taken away by the Wraith, and they've forced my civilization into a kind of mediocracy in a way. We used to be this great, powerful, beautiful civilization and now we're kind of living in tents and, um, our settlements are very temporary, because we have to pick up and leave at a moments notice.

My character is very intelligent, she's very strong, she has wonderful, kind of a physical ability, she can run faster than any of the other people on the team, and she's a great fighter, she's a very good warrior.


[Robert Cooper]

Here's a tough task, I mean, here we're trying to find a particular feeling. The character Teyla is supposed to be a leader among her people, so we need someone with strength, and passion, and the ability to lead people, but also a soulfulness, and um, a little bit of sadness, because of what her people have been through. I honestly think she was, all around, the best actress we saw, and it was a nice bonus for us that she's also a Canadian.


[Rachel Luttrell]

I'm thrilled. I've never really had a chance to do sci-fi, and yeah, I'm kind of a sci-fi girl, I mean love reading fantasy, I eat that stuff up, so I am very excited about it. I know my dad will be a big fan regardless of wether I'm on the show or not, now he's a huge sci-fi guy. he's probably the one that instilled it in me, but yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.


[Rainbow Sun Francks - Lt. Ford]


I'm Rainbow Sun Francks, and I play Ford on the ol' Stargate Atlantis. I'm just overwhelmed. I'm actually getting my first look at the sets now, for the first time. We've only been here a couple hours.

It was an interesting time at home in Toronto. Outta no where, I guess a three of four days ago, I got a call like "You got a chance to do this! You got a chance to do this!". "Alright Agent, just calm down. Give me these four pages and tell me what I gotta do.". I went and put myself on tape and I guess I got a blessing, something that rarely to never happens in this industry, I got cast for this role solely on tape. Now I'm here, playing Ford, and I hope they give me two guns. I'm coming for you! I'm coming for you!


[Robert Cooper]

I think that it may be slightly unique that Brad and I tend to have a phylosphy that we want to put he best actor in the role. If we have to alter our idea of what that character is in order to do that, we will. We felt that we maybe hadn't found the exact right guy yet for Ford, and the deadline was getting real close, and so I watched the tape of the first kid who I had asked for, and then there was this other audition on there afterwards and I looked at it and I thought this guy is great. I went and showed it to Brad and he agreed immediately and everybody loves him, and he gets the part. Literally Thursday night he flys up, gets the part, he's at the read-through on Friday, and we shoot on Monday.


[Rainbow Sun Francks]

You know, you might take him the wrong way, you might look at him and think he's a young boy and he doesn't really know what he's doing, but I know he gets the job done, so that's the most important thing. The coolest thing for me being on this that I look forward to is like going through the gate, it's like teleporting. I'm a big Sci-fi head so for me to be on a series like this is gonna be alot of fun. This is overwhelming.


[Brad Wright]

David Hewlett played the Doctor McKay character in Stargate Sg-1 in seasons five and six, and he was the scientist, core-guy we were looking for.


[SCENE]

Int. ancient outpost

Dr. McKay: We need the Zed Pee Mmn to power the gate.

Jack O'neill: What?

Daniel Jackson: Z.P.M. He's um, he's Canadian.

Jack O'neill: I'm sorry.

Dr. McKay: Oh, er, zero point module, General, the ancient power source you recovered from Proklarsh Taonas, that's now powering the outposts defenses. I have sense determined that it generates it's enormous power from vacuum energy, derived from a selfcontained region of subspacetime.

Jack O'niell: That was a waste of a perfectly good explaination. The answer is no.


[Brad Wright]

So our core team now, is Joe Flanigan as Sheppard, Torri Higginson as Dr. Weir, Rainbow Francks as Lt. Ford, and surprise, surprise, set today, on the second day of shooting, David Hewlett as Dr. McKay. It's very exciting, we're finally cast.


[Credits Role]


[Martin Wood - Director]

Now that we're in the home of the ancients, what does it look like? This is what it looks like, this is what we came up with.

So here we are, this is the main room for Stargate: Atlantis. It's what we call the Gatrium. This is the new gate, new and improved mind you. Instead of actually rotating the gate, it's a series of lights programmed in by our model shop. It took them, I don't know, twenty years to make this thing. You can actually wiggle the Stargate. It's a problem for us right now, we have to figure out. We have to spray it with some kind of anti-wiggling stuff I guess.

This one right here says "Welcome to Atlantis, please no smoking" but it's all in ancient so it doesn't really matter what it says, because nobody on Earth actually speaks ancient any longer.

This is the control room. Here you've got the controls, unfortunately they're plastic.

You know what, we couldn't get away from the blinkie-light units that we love so well, we built a bunch more of these things to make blinkie-light units that we could take with us.

Here's a conference room. Notice these things are all pointing at one another. So you hit this thing right here, this shoot the person across there. That's sort of my concept, I haven't told anybody else...


[The End]

edited to include source and transcription info

Posted by: xayeidemon Jun 30th 2004, 11:37 AM

So...where'd you get this? It's always good form to list/cite sources when copying and pasting/transcribing something that's not yours.

Posted by: Aquila Jun 30th 2004, 3:34 PM

Posted by: P3g^5u5 Jun 30th 2004, 5:38 PM

Looks like it's from one of the Season 7 DVD's for Region one... the latest one with the inside look at Atlantis... If so, woohoo. I hope it's included in Region 1's DVD Box Set due in October.

Jarnin, did you transcribe that yourself? And, thanks for posting it.

Posted by: Jarnin Jun 30th 2004, 6:02 PM

Posted by: xayeidemon Jun 30th 2004, 6:09 PM

Thanks for letting someone else list your source.

Posted by: Raxor Jul 1st 2004, 12:23 PM

heh just finished watching that
great work there

Posted by: Mac.Fan Sep 27th 2004, 10:13 AM

I have seen both part 1 & 2. they are good, now we all know now that there is a new enemies out there besides the goa'uld. I hope that they well be able to get in contact with the SGC and let them know about the new threat out there. Jack sure had a intresting wecome to the site. I think it was the first time he has been there since he was frozen after anubis ships was distroyed.