100 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.

Which US military branch saw two of its real chiefs of staff play themselves on Stargate SG-1?

The Air Force saw two successive chiefs appear as themselves, one in the episode Prodigy and the other in Lost City.

Which film does Stargate SG-1 name as Teal'c's favourite, one he has watched nine times?

Star Wars is Teal'c's pick as he settles into life on Earth, where he also develops a taste for doughnuts.

In the original Stargate film, at which Egyptian site does a professor's 1928 dig unearth the ring?

Giza is where the film opens, as the professor's dig turns up cover stones engraved with hieroglyphs and other markings.

Which figure of Arthurian legend does Stargate SG-1 reveal to be an Ancient and an ally of Earth?

Merlin left behind the plans for the Sangraal, a weapon SG-1 hunts through its final season, and Daniel Jackson builds it with his knowledge.

On which continent does Stargate SG-1 find an Ancient outpost whose weapon saves Earth?

Antarctica was also where the makers first meant to set Stargate Atlantis, under the ice, before they moved the city off Earth.

Which Star Trek: Voyager actor played the bureaucrat Richard Woolsey across two Stargate series?

Robert Picardo began as a guest investigator in SG-1's seventh season and ended up commanding the Atlantis expedition in its last year.

Which Hollywood studio owns the Stargate films and television series?

MGM preferred to play out the television series first, so the two film sequels the original writers had planned were never made.

Which pastime does Stargate SG-1's Jack O'Neill share with a baffled Teal'c at a lake?

Fishing trips with O'Neill puzzle Teal'c because the lake is known to hold no fish at all.

Which Emmy-winning actor joined Stargate SG-1 in season nine as General Hank Landry?

Beau Bridges was approached directly by the producers for the role, and he carried General Landry over into several Stargate Atlantis episodes.

What is the title of Stargate SG-1's pilot episode, set a year after the events of the film?

Children of the Gods was written to dodge Star Trek comparisons: it is set in the present day, with Earth's explorers outgunned by the races they meet.

In which Stargate SG-1 episode do O'Neill and Teal'c relive the same ten hours again and again?

Window of Opportunity lets the pair spend their endless do-overs golfing through the active ring, trying pottery and cycling around the base.

Which Stargate SG-1 enemy, first met in the season three finale, is a swarm of sentient machines?

The Replicators later take on human form, and SG-1 has to adapt an Ancient weapon to wipe them out everywhere at once.

In Stargate Atlantis, what does ZPM, the Ancient power source that runs the city, stand for?

A Zero Point Module supplied the huge energy needed for the unusually long wormhole that first carried the expedition to Atlantis.

In Stargate Atlantis, what nickname does John Sheppard give the city's small Ancient spaceships?

Puddle Jumper is the name Sheppard coins in the pilot, just before one is flown on a rescue mission to an enemy hideout.

Which star of the western Young Guns played Colonel David Telford in Stargate Universe?

Lou Diamond Phillips kept the role for the whole two-season run, and his Telford turns out to have been brainwashed by an enemy alliance.

Which Terminator 2 actor played Colonel Marshall Sumner in the Stargate Atlantis pilot?

Robert Patrick's Marine commander dies in the pilot, which leaves John Sheppard to take over the expedition's military side.

Which future Homeland star played the villain Adria in Stargate SG-1's final season?

Morena Baccarin was announced in April 2006 as the adult version of Adria, who leads the enemy armies through the show's last year.

In which science does Samantha Carter, the combat pilot of Stargate SG-1, hold a doctorate?

Astrophysics is Carter's doctorate, earned alongside a combat record of more than 100 hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War.

General George Hammond, the first base commander in Stargate SG-1, comes from which US state?

Texas is Hammond's home state, and after his death an Earth warship is renamed the George Hammond in his honour.

Which Stargate SG-1 doctor is killed while treating a wounded airman in the two-part episode Heroes?

Janet Fraiser's actress, Teryl Rothery, heard the news by phone months ahead, when a producer rang to say he planned to kill the character off.

Which thief and con artist, played by Claudia Black, joins the team late in Stargate SG-1?

Vala Mal Doran learned from the best: her father Jacek was a con artist who walked out on the family to pursue his scams.

Which fighter pilot, played by Ben Browder, becomes the new leader of Stargate SG-1 in season nine?

Cameron Mitchell earned the posting the hard way: he was shot down and badly injured while leading a fighter squadron against an invading fleet.

Which diplomat leads the Stargate Atlantis expedition after briefly running Stargate Command?

Elizabeth Weir was first played by Jessica Steen in SG-1, before Torri Higginson took over the role for the spin-off.

Which actor played John Sheppard, the pilot gifted with Ancient technology, in Stargate Atlantis?

Joe Flanigan later said he had tried to lease the show from its owners so that a sixth season could be made.

Which Stargate Atlantis character leads the Athosians, a people of farmers, hunters and traders?

Teyla Emmagan can sense the Wraith, a gift she shares with some of her people, and has seen much of her family culled by them.

Which Stargate Atlantis doctor dies in season three, then returns as a clone after fans objected?

Carson Beckett dies while trying to dispose safely of an explosive tumour he had just removed from a patient.

Which Jaffa master, played by Tony Amendola, trained Teal'c and later fights beside Stargate SG-1?

Bra'tac held Teal'c's later post under Apophis before his pupil did, and his doubts about the false gods rubbed off on the younger warrior.

Which Goa'uld, maker of the Kull Warriors, succeeds Apophis as the main villain of Stargate SG-1?

Anubis survives the destruction of his whole fleet in a disembodied form and quietly begins to rebuild his influence.

Which planet, the first reached by gate in the Stargate film, becomes Daniel Jackson's home?

Abydos is where Jackson stays behind to live in secret, until Jack O'Neill comes back for him a year later in the SG-1 pilot.

Which term from black-hole physics names the surface travellers step through at an open Stargate?

The event horizon is where a traveller is broken down into energy, to be put back together at the far end of the wormhole.

What do the initials DHD stand for, the pedestal beside most Stargates that Earth's own ring lacks?

A Dial-Home Device updates itself as the stars drift, and because Earth's was missing, the base had to make other arrangements.

In a seven-symbol Stargate address, six symbols fix the destination; what does the seventh identify?

The point of origin is a symbol unique to each ring, and it lets a straight-line course be plotted to the destination.

What does Stargate SG-1 name Earth's first interstellar spaceship, built in seasons six and seven?

Prometheus is hijacked by rogue agents while still unfinished, in a season six episode that carries the ship's name.

Which RoboCop villain actor played Senator Robert Kinsey across several seasons of Stargate SG-1?

Ronny Cox was asked to do a single episode, but found it such fun that he and the producers agreed to keep Kinsey coming back.

Which Star Trek actor played Colonel Frank Simmons in Stargate SG-1?

John de Lancie's Simmons shoots Jack O'Neill in the back and is later arrested on General Hammond's orders.

Which Star Trek: Enterprise regular played Michael, the Wraith turned human, in Stargate Atlantis?

Connor Trinneer still voiced the part in the one episode he missed, when a scheduling clash put another actor under the make-up.

Which Knots Landing star played US President Henry Hayes in the Stargate SG-1 two-parter Lost City?

William Devane had sat in the Oval Office before, winning acclaim as President John F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October.

Which actress played Jennifer Keller, the head doctor in the later seasons of Stargate Atlantis?

Jewel Staite began as a recurring guest and was promoted to the main cast for the fifth and last season.

Which composer scored Stargate SG-1 week by week and wrote the Stargate Atlantis theme?

Joel Goldsmith, son of the film composer Jerry Goldsmith, scored SG-1 episode by episode, though its main title music came from the composer of the original film.

In the Stargate film, which Egyptian-style device does Ra use to revive the dead Daniel Jackson?

A sarcophagus brings Jackson back after he is killed by a staff blast while shielding his colonel.

Where was Stargate: Continuum filmed on the ice, with a real US Navy submarine as a backdrop?

The Arctic shoot, at a Navy ice station north of Alaska, had such minimal facilities that only three actors and a four-man crew took part.

Which pacifist, fairy-like people of Stargate SG-1 dismiss humans as young, with much to learn?

The Nox once brought members of SG-1 back from the dead after a failed ambush, in the first-season episode named after them.

Which Stargate Atlantis people pose as simple farmers while hiding a military society underground?

The Genii were driven into their bunkers by Wraith attacks, and their first leader, Chief Cowen, was played by Colm Meaney.

Which figure of Greek myth names the off-world outpost attacked at the start of Stargate Universe?

Icarus Base sat on a planet whose mineral deposits could power a nine-chevron address, and the planet explodes as the survivors flee.

Which Ancient devices let the stranded crew of Stargate Universe visit Earth by swapping bodies with people there?

The communication stones are used early on by Chloe, who tells her mother on Earth that her father, a senator, has died.

Which race in Stargate SG-1's old four-member alliance is one the show reveals almost nothing about?

The Furlings turn up only as the story backdrop to an abandoned site in season six, so their nature stays a mystery.

Which primitive humanoids of Stargate SG-1 were the Goa'uld's original hosts on their home planet?

The Unas have a name meaning First Ones, and the actors who played them needed elaborate prosthetics and make-up.

Which drug lets the Jaffa of Stargate SG-1 survive without the Goa'uld symbiotes they carry?

Tretonin first sustains Teal'c and his mentor after they lose their symbiotes at a sabotaged rebel summit, then helps free their whole people.

Which outcast Ancient in Stargate SG-1 guides the dying Daniel Jackson to a higher plane?

Oma Desala broke her people's strict rule against meddling in mortal affairs, which is what made her an outcast among them.

Which wife of Daniel Jackson is kidnapped by raiding Jaffa in the pilot of Stargate SG-1?

Sha're was spelled Sha'uri in the original film, where a different actress, Mili Avital, played her.