questions & answers: Pt 2

joseph mallozzi, writer/producer for stargate, has a blog. he sometimes has guest bloggers. he gathers questions from his readers & they answer.
i submitted some questions of my own.

these were for writer/director/executive producer of ark of truth robert c. cooper



Archersangel writes: “1. how much of an effort was made to work in o’neill or hammond? or did you decide to save them for continuum?
It was never really a question of effort. AoT was always meant to be a conclusion to the Ori storyline. I felt there was already a lot of stuff to jam into two hours and I wanted to give the regulars from seasons 9 and 10 the screen time I thought they were due. I know this has upset certain fans but those fans obviously had issues from the beginning of season nine. To me, Mitchell, Landry, Vala, Carter, Daniel and Teal’c were the current incarnation of SG-1 and the last chapter of their story as a team should be about them. If you put O’Neill in, the story would need to revolve around him in some way. However, this decision was made in light of the fact that we knew there were going to be two movies and that many fans would love the chance to see O’Neill and Hammond again. We decided rather than split RDA’s time in cameos, it was better spent on a bigger role in Continuum. Especially, because the story called for it. I realize you are being very careful in the way you’ve asked this question but others have been less subtle. I owe my career on Stargate to a few people and one of them is RDA. Without his support I never would have become showrunner in season seven. I wrote O’Neill for eight years and then RDA chose to leave the show for personal reasons. Personally, I did whatever I could to bring his character back into the mix at the beginning of season nine and none of us could have imagined doing the 200^th episode without him. I also wrote The Shroud in season ten in which I think the O’Neill character was well used. It was a pivotal role that called for O’Neill and recaptured his relationship with Daniel.
Furthermore, I know fans don’t like to hear the business side of things but I would have liked to have RDA in Unending. Unfortunately, we were over budget as it was and when it comes down to it, what justifies the salary overage from a studio perspective is a potential ratings bump that might help get us picked-up. We were already canceled at that point.

2. was the story any different in the movie than it would’ve been for an 11th season?
It was certainly shorter. We did not have season eleven mapped out. Remember we were canceled in August ‘06 before we had even finished shooting season 10. I did have a notion I wanted to set up in the last episode if season 11 had been ordered. That notion was the search for an artifact that might be a peaceful solution to the conflict with the Ori warriors. That became the framework for AoT.

3. regarding teal’c vs. tomin as to who did more to feel guilty about, i.e. who caused more pain, suffering and death, some say teal’c did worse things than tomin. what’s your opinion?
I don’t know if guilt of that depth can really be measured on any stick or scale. I think Teal’c and Tomin both did equally terrible things. However, Teal’c did them for a much longer period of time. Still, you’re essentially talking about the distinction between killing one person or two. You can’t undo either.

4. were the replicators always going to be included? if there would’ve been an 11th season, would they have made an appearance? in the same way?”
Yes and yes.


more q & a in the july 27 post