MGM Open To More Stargate Depending on Success of Stargate Origins and SGC

[Looney]

The only thing I want is Stargate Origins: Catherine on DVD (and BluRay) with a bunch of extras -- audio commentaries, the making off, behind the scenes interviews and whatever else.

Anything else, they can stick where the sun doesn't shine because all-access internationally beyond 6 countries is never going to happen. If they were ever "working" on that, it would have happened already. So **** them, and **** MGM!

Is Origins getting a BD/DVD release?

Elite Anubis Guard mentioned this above and it something I have always wondered. Why did they keep coming up with spin-off ideas that went in crazy directions instead of making the obvious choice of just following another SG Team? There are so many possibilities including, the one I would least like to see, the lost SG Team. You know the team that went through the gate to never be heard from again. As in many episodes all that needed to happen was they got caught up in something as soon as they reached the other side and were wrapped up in that for how ever long the show needed with no means of getting back to the SGC. It happened in many episodes. And there were episodes where they discussed lost SG Teams. Why not a whole series that followed SG-5 on adventures that were different from SG-1 with a different focus? I never understood why they always felt they need to go one up on everything they were dealing with when every time they stepped through that gate they could be facing unknown new adventures. But no we have to go to other galaxies and face new super villains because we think the current minor and major villains have grown stale. Now we need to go to another Universe where the villains can be the elements and each other. And I could go on, but the point was made. All they ever needed to do if they wanted to do something new was follow a different SG Team.

[AleksisMi]

...well... they could always broach the sg team that got ate by a black hole, or crushed by it, maybe some benevolent or curious race saved them, perhaps they can live within a blackhole as a safety zone with advanced shields, or maybe they can even create artificial blackholes around thier major capitals or ships

i know i know.... that is virtually impossible, im just spouting what you mentioned, lost sg teams and how they could have survived, furlings could have saved them too since they managed to use the gatework perhaps furlings or some ancients have sensors that monitor every gate activation across the network? could finally do a furlings themed show or hte nox or ancients

[Falcon Horus]

Is Origins getting a BD/DVD release?

Not as far as we know.

The team behind the Stargate Command website/app/twitter/facebook page once replied to a tweet that they weren't going to release it as a DVD/BR but were looking at other options. Those other options were, obviously, the digital downloads.

But as far as I am concerned, that's the only thing I want to hear at any of their stargate themed panels at SDCC -- the release of Stargate Origins: Catherine on DVD and BR with a boatload of extras to go with it. I have no qualms paying 20 euro for a DVD with all the bells and whistles on it. Not so much on one digital download with nothing else but the feature cut.

Heck, I just bought the double disc DVD of Ark of Truth and Continuum, both discs containing extras -- and it cost me less than a digital download.

[Platschu]

We don't know what they really want. Probably I said it before, I am still sad that we have never got more DVD movies. You know they have invested 5 (Ark of Truth) and 7 million dollars (Continuum), while they earned back 12 and 16 million dollars if I remember well. Maybe it is not a big money for the MGM, but so many independent studios would have been happy with such small incomes. How many business could say that they can earn back two times more what they have invested? Now we could have had already 20-30 DVD movies where they could have introduced the next new main characters who could be the the main characters in future spinoffs. But it has never happened. Honestly they could still make some offworld adventures, because they could tell a cool SG-1 story without the standing SGC set. Okay, the Atlantis would be a bit more problematic.. You know tell an Atlantis story without Atlantis, but offworld / Midway / spaceship related adventures could lead us back to the Pegasus galaxy.

Anyway I don't feel the need that MGM will ever expand this franchise to its full potential as it could be really the next scifi franchise which could be built up by small projects, then new tv spinoffs, then DVD movies and then a bigger budget cinematic movie. But they need to plan ahead for such thinking.

I believe they should open the "bible" of the SG shows and to create a few "eras" for future SG projects and fan fictions. That would be a guide for future SG projects and fan fictions. Like
- Genesis era : arrival of the Ancients and the first proto type gate system in MW
- Titan / Mythology era : forging to Great Four Alliance and then the extension of the first gate system in MW and around
- Chaos : the fall of the Ancients and time while they away in Pegasus
- Rome : the era when they have returned to Avalon
- Camelot : the era of the second Great Alliance leaded by Merlin against the Goa'uld
- Ra : Rise of the Goa'uld until the rebellion
- SG-1 : The current timeline until the fall of the Goa'uld
- Ori : the crusade against MW
- current and future settings

The audience is still waiting for more. And such little guidance could help us to imagine a story on a timeline. All settings would be slightly different, so new allies and enemies could dominate it, while most of them died, became extinct, hided, moved out, we could see their footmarks on planets. Imagine how many stories could be explained and how many nice stories could be discovered.

* * *

Other. What Origins stories would I tell?

Stargate : Origins - Aiyana

A little story what happened with the Ancient outpost in the south pole and how it was lost for humanity.
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Ayiana

Stargate : Origins - Omoroca
What happened with her and her race in the ancient Babylon. What if Belos was Baal? Then his exhost could lead us into a new adventure.

Stargate : Origins - Ra
How the Goa'uld raised up from the planet of Unas.

Stargate : Origins - Lya
A Nox centric adventure about the past of the Four Great Alliance

Stargate : Origins - Icarus
How dr. Rush found the 9 chevron address.

Stargate : Origins - Quetzalquatl
A story about a Chrystal skull / arm / treasure in the Pegaus galaxy.

Stargate : Origins - Iratus
A Pegasus galaxy story about the creation of the first Wraith from a lost Ancient expedition

Stargate : Origins - Vanir
An Asgard story about the Vanir-Asgard conflict.

Stargate : Origins - Midway
The return of the expedition to the Pegasus galaxy.

And so on....

[NickEast]

The reason that there were no more DVD movies is because barely anyone buys them anymore (not to say no-one, since I still prefer DVD/BD to streaming). Some time before Resistance was supposed to start filming, MGM practically went bankrupt and the (Direct-To-)DVD market collapsed. In the early 2000's it was a thing for low-budget productions to release straight to DVD (which means, no theatrical release). MGM did that with Stargate because it would likely be too expensive to do a full theatrical release, and with their track record, marketing would probably have been so bad that the box office could not earn back the cost of everything.

Now, Direct-To-DVD doesn't work anymore. Despite the obvious benefits of having your own physical storage to be able to watch the film/series any way you want and whenever you want, people prefer streaming. While there is still a market for physical releases, it's not enough as the only source of income.

What MGM needs to do is the modern equivalent of Direct-To-DVD: Direct-To-Streaming (I came up with that one , probably not the only one). They actually already did that with Stargate Command, but once again their marketing and production skills lack. They should've partnered up with Netflix and get thousands/millions of dollars more by releasing it worldwide. Look at all those other productions, even those that aren't Netflix Original such as Star Trek Discovery, The Expanse and more (don't know all of the partnered productions).

They can easily revive Resistance and Revolution (depending on the age and willingness of the actors, after all these years), but release it on streaming, like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and the like, instead of DVD.

[Falcon Horus]

I want my physical copy -- I hate digital. Far too easy to loose track of a digital download than I do of a DVD.

I'm not a fan of the freakin' cloud.

[Chaka-Z0]

I want my physical copy -- I hate digital. Far too easy to loose track of a digital download than I do of a DVD.

I'm not a fan of the freakin' cloud.

Nivao is right, this market is dead in the water. I am of the same mindset than you, I personally prefer a physical copy as well (I still buy CD's and records), but we are the minority nowadays. The people around me are often surprised to see my extensive music discs collection, most of the younger generations never owned a CD/DVD apart from console games.

I'm not blaming them or praising the *good ol' days*, its simply something they have never known. As such, businesses evolve and won't release a DVD (which costs quite a good sum of money to mass-produce) to please a minority of fans.

*Cough* : If you want a CD, nothing is stopping you to create it yourself, there are... other ... ''means'' to achieve your goals *Maniacal laugh*

[NickEast]

Nivao is right, this market is dead in the water. I am of the same mindset than you, I personally prefer a physical copy as well (I still buy CD's and records), but we are the minority nowadays. The people around me are often surprised to see my extensive music discs collection, most of the younger generations never owned a CD/DVD apart from console games.

I'm not blaming them or praising the *good ol' days*, its simply something they have never known. As such, businesses evolve and won't release a DVD (which costs quite a good sum of money to mass-produce) to please a minority of fans.

*Cough* : If you want a CD, nothing is stopping you to create it yourself, there are... other ... ''means'' to achieve your goals *Maniacal laugh*

Indeed. There may be a time when we have to manually create physical media. However, I don't mind DVDs and Blurays to go away. They're not that resilient anyway, and its quite easy to lose them. I went through my fair share of CDs. I still have the discs of Command & Conquer Generals Deluxe to remind me. I once got so mad that I shoved the CD drawer closed, causing the disc on it to shift upwards and get stuck in the top of the CD player. After about twenty minutes of pushing, shoving, pulling and tearing I managed to get it out, but it was scratched beyond recognition.

I recently bought a computer that I like to call a "tabtop", it's a 2-in-1 laptop slash tablet. So it obviously doesn't have a disc drive, yet I wanted to watch Stargate on it when I would be on the train or bus, or somewhere else where I couldn't carry my normal laptop. So I started "ripping" the DVDs. I then realized it might be better the just ISO them (as in creating a 1:1 copy of the disc on the hard drive) as a backup in case the discs get damaged as they are used quite often. So I now store the copies on an external hard drive with a shock-proof casing (later to be replaced by a 1-2 TB SSD once they are more affordable). An SSD is much more stable and much safer than physical discs or old HDDs.

So I don't really mind the death of physical releases, as long as I can actually download the movies/series/games/books etc. that I buy and own so that I can still store them in my own house on my own physical drives, and that I won't require an internet connection to watch it.

Streaming, either subscription or rent, for me is only for stuff I like seeing just once, or once in a while, that isn't enough to justify buying the full release.

[Chaka-Z0]

Indeed. There may be a time when we have to manually create physical media. However, I don't mind DVDs and Blurays to go away. They're not that resilient anyway, and its quite easy to lose them. I went through my fair share of CDs. I still have the discs of Command & Conquer Generals Deluxe to remind me. I once got so mad that I shoved the CD drawer closed, causing the disc on it to shift upwards and get stuck in the top of the CD player. After about twenty minutes of pushing, shoving, pulling and tearing I managed to get it out, but it was scratched beyond recognition.

I recently bought a computer that I like to call a "tabtop", it's a 2-in-1 laptop slash tablet. So it obviously doesn't have a disc drive, yet I wanted to watch Stargate on it when I would be on the train or bus, or somewhere else where I couldn't carry my normal laptop. So I started "ripping" the DVDs. I then realized it might be better the just ISO them (as in creating a 1:1 copy of the disc on the hard drive) as a backup in case the discs get damaged as they are used quite often. So I now store the copies on an external hard drive with a shock-proof casing (later to be replaced by a 1-2 TB SSD once they are more affordable). An SSD is much more stable and much safer than physical discs or old HDDs.

So I don't really mind the death of physical releases, as long as I can actually download the movies/series/games/books etc. that I buy and own so that I can still store them in my own house on my own physical drives, and that I won't require an internet connection to watch it.

Streaming, either subscription or rent, for me is only for stuff I like seeing just once, or once in a while, that isn't enough to justify buying the full release.

I used to rely solely on hard drives to store my music, I had over 30-40G of music stored. Then one day, my drive went A-wall and I lost everything. I was not as thorough as I should've been with my backups, resulting in a tragic loss of countless discographies. I might have shed a tear, all these obscure indie small-time metal bands albums were gone never to be found again To that day, I've sworn I would only buy physical medias and believe it or not, 15 years later, out of all my CD's only one isn't working anymore. If you take good care of your medias, I find this more reliable than the digital form.

Now that I think about it I should start ripping everything and keep a digital backup. I think I'll follow your advice, I actually bought the same 2-1 laptop you're talking about a few weeks ago! Sounds like a good idea!

[Looney]

Everyone is making great points. I am a physical media guy, but I recognize the format MIGHT be dying. I say "MIGHT" because it might have a come back if some of the worst fears about Net Neutrality become a reality. Here are some key points to address.

(And just to be clear I have over 300 hundred digital copies from Blu-Rays I've purchased and thousands of Blu-Rays and DVDs, so this is subject matter I often ponder.)

One Physical Media is easily damaged - This is definitely true for DVDs, but not as true for Blu-Rays. If you are careful and take care of Blu-Rays they are a bit harder to scratch.

Digital Storage is better - Maybe, but don't think for a minute you can't lose all of your digitally stored media in a heartbeat. External hard drives get dropped. External hard drives can get corrupted. Digital Storage may save you space and put everything in once place, but don't count on it lasting forever. Example: I have a friend who does a lot of Digital Media Storage and it seems like he is always taking the time to create backups, buy new external hard drives to back things up and so on. He is always having to think ahead to counter the possibilities of what might happen so he doesn't loose everything. Of course it is also true that you have to think of the care and protection of Physical Media as well, but it is much easier to lose everything Digital than everything Physical.

Now owning the streaming rights to view something also seems pretty good, but I think that still remains to be seen. Ownership the streaming rights doesn't really mean you own anything. It means you are given permission to stream the material and sometimes download it, but it doesn't guarantee that material will always be available to stream. Yeah, yeah they will tell you it will be, but as I pointed out it all still remains to be seen. There is no telling which way the wind will blow tomorrow and if you don't have a physical copy in your hand you don't really have anything. I definitely see the advantage of keeping everything digital; I have many digital copies from movies and TV shows. But I have physical copies of most things I hold near and dear - as well as hundreds of things I just like. Digital versions are fine for things you might want to watch again at some point, but it seems foolhardy to trust your most precious material to someone else's control. And as far as downloads of purchased digital copies I'm not so sure that is the best option. For instance, when I look at my Amazon Digital Library on my phone I get the download option. If I do the same thing on my laptop I do not. And being honest about my ignorance, even if I download it won't I still have to open Amazon to play it? I know some of my older iTunes downloaded digital copies will play without opening iTunes, but I don't think that is true with the newer digital copies. But I don't know. I haven't really tried because the more you download them the more space you need.

(Just as a disclaimer I will also point out that Physical Media does have the drawback of age. I haven't had this happen too often, but I have come across DVDs that just stop working. There isn't a mark on them, but they just won't play. I have theorized one reason I have run into this problem. I've noticed several won't play in a cheap DVD player I purchased five years ago, but they will play in my Blu-Ray player. I think what we are seeing in some cases is that player manufactures are trying to make them cheaper and cheaper so they use inferior materials. I think what might be happening is these cheap players won't play older discs that might have a little more mass than more recently manufactured discs. The older discs might have a bit more weight to them or something and the newer cheaper DVD players can't read them, but the Blu-Ray players can handle them. There are a few that just flat out stop working with no reason. Last year I went to watch my Babylon 5: The Lost Tales DVD and nothing. I bought that disc brand new when it was released and, maybe, played it twice since it was released in 2007. There wasn't a mark on it and yet I couldn't get it to play in multiple DVD players, multiple Blu-Ray players, multiple laptops, and an XBOX 360 - nothing worked. SO some times they do just stop working. I hope that doesn't happen with Blu-Rays. And yes I bought a replacement Babylon 5: The Lost Tales that plays just fine. Thanks for asking. )

And Chaka-Z0 just backed up my digital point. They can be gone in an instant.

[Chaka-Z0]

(Just as a disclaimer I will also point out that Physical Media does have the drawback of age. I haven't had this happen too often, but I have come across DVDs that just stop working. There isn't a mark on them, but they just won't play.

I've had that happen too, and I think your theory is right on point in regards to DVD players. My older DVDs were not working in a more ''modern'' dvd player, but when I used my good ol' sony player from the 90s, it worked just fine.

[NickEast]

That's why I intend to use SSDs and maybe a NAS. SSDs are far more reliable than normal HDDs because, as the name says, they are "solid state"; so no moving parts. It's like a normal USB drive, so dropping it doesn't really damage it (depending on how hard you drop it . Files also don't get corrupted so easily, if it's used only for storage. And they're amazingly fast, much faster than regular hard drives.

Then you get two of them and use RAID to automatically make a 1:1 copy. Then just use one for the normal day-to-day operation, and the other just kept behind lock and key where nothing happens to it (they don't really degrade over time, at least not nearly as much as regular drives).

[Falcon Horus]

*Cough* : If you want a CD, nothing is stopping you to create it yourself, there are... other ... ''means'' to achieve your goals *Maniacal laugh*

Yes, and then you can't find those empty discs you swore you still had and you can't burn those audiostories your old colleague handed to you on a thumbdrive and you wanted to listen to in the car, but then find out that -- lo and behold, iTunes does manage to play them so onto the iPod they go.

Also, I live for extras.... lots and lots and lots of extras which I find digital downloads simply don't have.

[Platschu]

You know I love physical format, but I like jumping to a particular scene in a movie, then it is easier to do it in a digital file. You know you have to wait for the menü, than scene selection etc. at the DVD, but it is so sloooow in comparsion to digital versions.

I am not supporting the "black market", but Stargate has never ever been released in Hungary. Then try to imagine that the fans had to make home made dual language versions, because we couldn't simply officially buy such a version which has got Hungarian subtitle or Hungarian audio. It is a shame that our little country was never considered as a market for MGM and then the fans made an even better version. So many tv shows had proper shiny DVD releases, but not the Stargate shows. Shame. Anyway I have got the official DVDs on my shelves, but hopefully you can understand my point of view who uses English only as a second language.

My only regret that I have bought the English version of SG DVDs as it hasn't got any other audio on it. I watched the first 5 seasons on the RTL II and please don't laughm but some episodes were saved even on VHS. So I should have ordered the SG from the amazon.de as even German subtitle and audio would have been a nice extra even if my Germans language skills slowly faded away, but the box set looked so weird with the "Stargate Kommando SG-1" name....

[DarkenLycht]

I want my physical copy -- I hate digital. Far too easy to loose track of a digital download than I do of a DVD.

I'm not a fan of the freakin' cloud.

Yes, yes and it's also good for people with bad internet

But as new SG things, whatever is coming still, if it does, tries to be more attractive to younger generations I hardly think we will get anything physical anymore at all