MegaCon 2018: Joe Flanigan Talks Stargate

STARGATE ATLANTIS -- Pictured: Joe Flanigan as Lt. Col. John Sheppard -- SCI FI Channel Photo: F. Scott Schafer

Joe Flanigan appeared at MegaCon in Orlando this weekend to meet fans, sign some autographs, and talk about how he tried to save Stargate.

During his panel at MegaCon, Flanigan shared his love of the Stargate franchise and how he tried to purchase the franchise from MGM when they were teetering on bankruptcy. But, at the time, MGM was in such disarray and they could not do it. However, they did offer Flanigan a lease to the franchise for the next ten years. Unfortunately, before the deal was finalized, MGM went bankrupt and emerged with Spyglass controlling MGM’s library. They declined Flanigan’s offer, to the chagrin of all the Stargate fans in attendance at MegaCon.

Flanigan shared his thoughts on the new Stargate Origins web series, calling it a “half-way measure” and not off to a “rip-roaring start.”

“I think they should take a look at [the franchise] and reboot it in a proper way.” I wholeheartedly agree; putting out a ten episode ‘series’ where each episode is only ten minutes long doesn’t give fans any meat to chew on, and what’s present isn’t that appetizing to begin with.

Flanigan expressed what every Stargate fan feels right now – the franchise is “lying dormant like a volcano that nobody knows has the potential to erupt.”

Not to leave all the fans depressed, he also shared this hilarious story about technobabble on Atlantis:

I was flying back and forth between Vancouver and LA…and on one of those flights, I was flying with Rick – Richard Dean Anderson. Rick is a man of few words sometimes and I said to him, “Hey, do you have any words of advice?”

RDA: “What do you mean?”

JF: “You know, like advice; I’m doing a spinoff of your show.”

RDA: “Oh…no.”

Thirty minutes later, he turns to me and goes, “DON’T DO THE TECHNOBABBLE! You know, those words, the complicated scientific nonsense. If you do it well, they’ll keep giving it to you.” And I was like, that’s salient advice! And so sure enough, I went methodically about destroying my all dialogue with technobabble. What happens? Well guess what? We’re going to give it to McKay…And it worked out perfectly!

Photo Credit: F. Scott Schafer/Syfy

Dave

Dave is a part-time writer living in the Lower East Side. He enjoys reading and watching all things Science Fiction. His favorites include: Pushing Ice, The Martian, Stargate, Coherence, and The Expanse.