STARGATE
- DER INOFFIZIELLE FÜHRER DURCH NEUE "ALTE"
WELTEN
Authors: Claudia Kern & Christian Lukas
ISBN 3-453-15404-5
(Heyne Verlag
, Munich 1998)
Price: DM 14,90
INTRODUCTION
In
the beginning
there was Roland Emmerich’s STARGATE movie. It was a
worldwide success and
the only question was, when would we see a sequel? But this sequel
didn’t
hit movie theatres, it happened on the small screen. Roland Emmerich
would have preferred a movie, but as MGM held the rights, they could
basically do
what they wanted – and they decided a tv series would better
suit them.
This idea turned into the Showtime series STARGATE SG-1, a show that
actually boasts two titles in Germany – on RTL2 television
it’s simply called STARGATE, on video it’s known as
STARGATE KOMMANDO SG-1.
ABOUT
THE BOOK
I
first discovered STARGATE during my work as a movie critic. The tape
was sent to me, but I
didn’t expect too much, as I hadn’t really liked
the movie in the first place.
Moreover the part of Jack O’Neill, played by Kurt Russell in
the movie had
in the tv show gone to Richard Dean Anderson (photo), whom I only
remembered from MACGUYVER, a show I couldn’t care less about.
But sometimes miracles do happen:
I really liked the pilot and thought Richard Dean Anderson dealt
excellently
with his part (and later I became a real RDA-fan...).
So I created the
concept of an episode guide that not only focused on the production of
the show, but also on the “real” background,
starting from the so-called “space
gods” straight to the Egyptian pantheon (after all, the bad
aliens in the
show are all known as Egyptian deities – but who is who in
this pantheon?). Apart from the traditional biographical information on
the main characters and all actors, the main focus of the book is of
course the episode guide. When the publisher agreed
to this concept only a few weeks remained until the deadline. So I
asked my dear friend Claudia Kern, who at this time was the
editor-in-chief of Germany’s biggest sci fi magazine SPACE
VIEW, if she wanted to write the
book with me. She agreed – and off we went!
THE SHOW, I NEVER
REALLY GOT INTO
So far I’ve been lucky. All the
shows I’ve written about, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and
MILLENNIUM were shows I had liked from the beginning. With STARGATE
SG-1, things were different.
The pilot is, no doubt about it, brilliant
and there are some really
good episodes in the first season. But there are also some real
stinkers,
episodes that are written and acted so terribly, they bore you to a
slow
and horrible death. One thing annoys me especially: No matter where the
SG-1
team appears, even on worlds on the rim of this galaxy, all the people
whose
ancestors were taken off Earth 3000 years ago, speak perfect English.
Ok,
I’m not a big fan of Roland Emmerich’s movies, but
you got to admire him
for his attention to detail. Part of that is that the people on this
strange
world speak a strange language. Why didn’t the authors of the
STARGATE SG-1
pilot simply let the SG-1 team stumble upon a multi language
translator?
A
MISTAKE
A
rather embarrassing mistake happened to us. On page 208 we claim that
Sean Connery and Richard Harris starred in the movie THE MAN WHO WOULD
BE KING. Ouch! It was of course
Michael Caine and not Richard Harris. As Claudia and I are both big
Michael
Caine fans, we still don’t have a clue how this could have
happened to us.
One
thing people
keep accusing us of is that we can’t count. Why? Talking
about the episode
03 EMANCIPATION which deals with the Mongols, we wrote that Mongolia
held its 2000 year celebration in 1991. Then we added that the first
hun state was formed in the year 209 BC. That however doesn’t
mean that we can’t count,
but we probably should have explained the inconsistency of the dates.
The
truth is that Mongolia doesn’t refer to this earlier lose
alliance between
different small states, but sees its foundation in the first actual
Mongolian
state that happened some 200 years later.
LEGAL
PROBLEMS
If
you’ve never
seen this book in a store in Germany, Austria or Switzerland,
that’s hardly a surprise. The book doesn’t exist
anymore. Due to legal problems it had to
be removed from the stores. Most books that deal with tv shows are
unofficial. That is in itself no problem, as long as you
don’t breach existing licensing rights. When I sit down to
write a book about the show XY I deal with it journalistically
and the German freedom of information act guarantees my right to
express
my opinion, whether it be in a written or spoken form. If however
pictures
are used that have a copyright on it, you’ll get problems.
And now guess
what happened with this book… Stupid move.
So
the book was
taken from the stores and destroyed. Even in the WHSmith
“books 0.99” section, you’ll
won’t find this title.
It’s
become a rare book and due to these problems won’t make its
way on the English (or any other market) market either.
THE
NEW SHOW
In
February 2010 "Stargate: Universe" started on RTL 2 in
Germany. And I really liked it. But I was one of a few fans I
think. The new show has already been cancelled... By the way: In 2011
RDA was a guest at the Fedcon in Duesseldorf. Watch the following
trailer - if you like...
