Coopenator

Gamer. Fan. Football. Would-be superhero. Friend to animals.

[#SaveStargate @SaveStargateHQ]

Over the course of the two-day convention (Shore Leave 46), hundreds of sci-fi fans stopped by the campaign table, took stickers and flyers, and spoke about how much a new Stargate series means to them.

Con-goers applauded the campaign during the Stargate Atlantis panel, and more than 100 fans signed the campaign banner within a few hours Sunday morning. The petition to Save Stargate with Martin Gero added more than 200 new signatures after the weekend event.

David Hewlett (Doctor Rodney McKay) and Rachel Luttrell (Teyla Emmagan) stopped by the fan table for a few photos and signed the campaign banner too!

#SaveStargate

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@ronsterd89 Depends. Are they contributing to the bills, groceries, tasks, etc. around the house?
If yes, maybe give them a break.
If not, absolutely they need to be paying rent.

[#SaveStargate @SaveStargateHQ]

🚨 #SaveStargate is going international!

🌍 For one weekend—July 18–19—we’re inviting fans across the globe to organize or join local Stargate gatherings.

🛸 Watch party
📸 Group photo
🎭 Cosplay meetup
☕ Fan meetup
🎥 Short video message

We’ll feature submissions from around the world in an international community showcase.

📍Want to participate, help organize your local event?
👉 https://t.co/hnZIEYGVsj

See you on the map, and let’s get our show back!

[Owen @Owennfa]

BOOMER: "I fed my family of four on $30 a week back in 1970."

ME: "That's $230 adjusted for inflation."

BOOMER: "Exactly. You should be able to do the same."

ME: "Groceries for my family of four are $400 a week now."

BOOMER: "You're just buying expensive stuff."

ME: "I'm buying the same basic food. Milk, bread, chicken, vegetables."

BOOMER: "Well wages must be higher too."

ME: "My job pays $50,000. Yours paid $35,000 in 1970. Adjusted that's $270,000."

BOOMER: "That can't be right."

ME: "It is. Your salary grew with inflation. Food prices grew faster."

BOOMER: "You're just complaining."

ME: "You're just not looking at the math."

You didn't have better budgeting skills. You had wages that kept up with the cost of living.

Mine don't.

[Pyo 5️⃣ @mrpyo1]

So apparently Sony & Playstation are shocked and are having panic over the pushback 😂

Seems they are waiting for Microsoft to take over the news with the insane layoffs and studio closures.

MAKE SURE WE DON'T FORGET NO MATTER WHAT!!!

[Mitchell Rosenbloom @m_rosenbloom28]

Are you listening @AmazonMGMStudio? We want @martingero’s Stargate show!!!

#SaveStargate #Stargate #ScienceFiction #SciFiAdventure #SciFiTV #SciFi #RichardDeanAnderson #AmandaTapping #JackOneill #SamanthaCarter

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@rachel_luttrell @JoeFlanigan @torri_higginson @RoseCityCC Come to the east coast!!

[Jeremy @jeremyct]

Just got off the phone with my college roommate.

His daughter was diagnosed with leukemia in January.

He has insurance. Good insurance. The kind you feel safe having.

7 months later:
Savings: wiped out. 401k: cashed early. Penalties and all. House: refinanced to cover the gaps insurance decided weren’t their problem.

He told me he’s not the same person anymore.

Said watching your child fight for her life while simultaneously fighting an insurance company over coverage codes does something to you that doesn’t go away.

They did everything right.
Two incomes. No debt. Responsible their whole lives.

One diagnosis undid all of it in 7 months.

And somewhere a health insurance CEO is getting a $30 million bonus this quarter.

I don’t know how people defend this system with a straight face.

I really don’t.

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@emmitonair Troy Polamalu. James Harrison. Ed Reed. Ray Lewis.

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@BaronDestructo ".... John comforts a grieving Teyla now aware – via the revelations of time travel – that they are destined to be together."
Meh. Always thought Ronan and Teyla made a better pairing personally.
Sheppard and Teyla felt too obvious and forced.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all.” – Donald Trump

“Affordability is a hoax.” – Donald Trump

“Nobody gives a shit about housing.” – Donald Trump

“I love the inflation.” – Donald Trump

When people tell you who they are, believe them. Vote every Republican off the ballot. Every. Single. One.

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

Trump just killed a bipartisan affordable housing bill that passed the Senate 85–5 /the House 358–32 while people are drowning in rent, mortgages, inflation, & high gas and energy bills.
But sure, tell us all how this billionaire “populist” dickhead is fighting for working people.
MAGA got conned.

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@geoffkeighley Legend of Dragoon. Wasn't really a franchise, but it could be!

[Jack O'Neill @Jack2LOneill]

Amazon hasn't even bothered to issue a statement which is highly insulting.

Stargate fans aren't going anywhere until they at least give us the courtesy of disparaging us to our face.

And then we'll keep pressuring them anyways because #SaveStargate

[Uzi @UziCryptoo]

Millennials watched their parents lose everything in 2008. Then got handed $100K in student debt. Then got called entitled for wanting a living wage. Then survived a pandemic in our prime years. Then got priced out of every neighborhood we grew up in. And y’all really wonder why we’re not okay? We’ve been in survival mode for 20 years straight and nobody even noticed.

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@muheediva01 Yes

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@BaronDestructo STILL my favorite Stargate series. Respect for SG-1 for making the path, but Atlantis was always more my vibe (I was an Earth 2 kid, so this show fit a weird hole that had been missing in my TV viewing).

[Joseph Mallozzi 🏴‍☠️ @BaronDestructo]

Stargate Trivia: Casting Stargate: Atlantis

While SG-1 was my first love (We were together for seven years!), my time on Atlantis proved equally memorable. The show was possessed of a similar tone in its mix of high adventure and humor, yet proved distinct in its exploration of Ancient mythology and an unfamiliar galaxy as seen through the eyes of a new set of heroes. Atlantis offered a sense of wonder and camaraderie born of isolation and constant danger.
Whereas team SG-1 could always go home at the conclusion of their adventures, the members of the Atlantis expedition (at least for those first few seasons) could only draw comfort from the city of Atlantis itself – and, of course, each other. It was unique and compelling yet, at the same time, comfortingly familiar.
Nowhere is this more evident than in its opening theme, composed by the late Joel Goldsmith, which is, at turns fresh, haunting, stirring and, throughout, discernibly Stargate.

Stargate: Atlantis wasn’t originally planned as a companion to Stargate: SG-1. It was intended to replace the long-running series. The only problem was, with eight seasons under its belt, SG-1 wasn’t quite done yet. And fans (and the network) weren’t done with it either. And so, instead of passing the torch and segueing to a new Stargate series, we ended up producing both. In retrospect, it was quite an achievement: 40 hours of television in a year! Today's productions can barely manage a quarter that output, but Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis delivered two fantastic 40 episode seasons before SG-1 took its final bow. It wasn’t easy, but it was certainly made easier by all of the enormously talented individuals who made it happen, from the office staff and crew to the cast and my fellow writer/producers.

Still, it was not without its challenges. Take casting, for instance. It may surprise you to know that, when it comes to producing a show, not everybody cares about costumes or set design or whether the script’s fifth act denouement is emotionally satisfying - but everybody, and I do mean EVERYBODY, has an opinion on casting. Studio and network execs, producers, hell, even your significant other peering over your shoulder as you screen the auditions on your laptop, will want to weigh in. Of course, the more voices in the mix the more likely there are to be disagreements. So it is with every production and Atlantis was no different. Various individuals envisioned these characters in various ways and, as a result, consensus was only achieved after many auditions, calls-backs, heated discussions, and not-so-gentle reminders that our start date was fast-approaching and we really needed someone to say the lines on camera.

The part of Carson Beckett was one of the first we cast. The other producers were in Rob’s office, screening the first batch of local auditions when Brad called me in and told me to check out the guy onscreen. I hadn’t imagined Beckett with a Scottish accent but, after watching Paul McGillion (@PaulyMcGillion) in the role, I couldn’t imagine him without one. He’d brought something unexpected to the part, something we all responded to.

Elizabeth Weir was not an easy character to pull off. She had to be smart, confident and strong yet needed to exude a certain warmth and empathy we were looking for in the civilian leader of the expedition. When it came time to (re)casting the role, several established names were considered (One had her own hit genre show back in the day while another went on to break out on a hit show soon after), but it was Torri Higginson (@torri_higginson) who managed to strike just the right balance and vault her name to the top of the list.

The role of Teyla Emmagan was a tough one to cast. Like Weir, she needed to be a strong, empathetic leader. But she also required something even more important – quite literally, an other-worldly quality that made her unique. Some equally talented actresses auditioned for the role but, as good as they were, they were never quite able to achieve that gravitas Rachel Luttrell (@rachel_luttrell) pulled off with such grace and seeming ease.

Former VJ Rainbow Sun Francks (@RainbowFrancks) won the role of Lieutenant Ford on the strength of a great audition, preceded by an equally great audition with a funny hat. I recall Brad Wright on the phone with our casting agent, advising him to ensure there would be no hat worn in the callback for fear the network would fixate on it. There wasn't, they didn't, and Rainbow delivered.

The role of John Sheppard was the second to last one cast. It came right down to the wire and there were several candidates in play. The character was originally conceived as a good ole southern boy, so it only made sense that Ben Browder’s name was bandied about early. However, he was too busy shooting Peacekeeper Wars to warrant consideration. A number of other actors were considered (one went on to play the lead in a hugely popular show the following year while another made his mark as a handsome heart throb on another hugely popular medical series) but it was Joe Flanigan (@JoeFlanigan) who won the part based on his ability to pull off the devil-may-care attitude Brad and Robert were looking for.

We come to the final role cast, a character who, in many ways, embodied everything Atlantis was about: exploration, discovery, fun, humor, and seat-of-your-pants-Holy-Sh&%-how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-adventure. And he almost didn’t make the trip to Pegasus. Originally, the casting call went out for a completely different character, an earnest young doctor who would lend the team much-needed medical support on their off-world ventures. Unfortunately, no one could agree on an actor to fill that role.

If the casting of Sheppard went down to the wire, then the casting of this final part went a step past it. Finally, days away from production, Robert Cooper had an idea: Forget the doctor character. Why not use an established character from SG-1? How about Rodney McKay played by David Hewlett (@dhewlett)? The writers were on board, but some executives weren't weren’t sold on the idea. They found him annoying! I mean, hell yeah, but he’d be sooo much fun to write for! Rob got on the phone and went to bat for Rodney, pointing out that the character had come a long way since first being introduced way back in SG-1’s 48 Hours. He’d evolved, going from annoying jerk to endearingly irritating. To this day, I’m convinced that they weren’t totally convinced but, with production poised to commence, they relented, I suppose figuring they could just replace the character somewhere down the line. No one, even those who loved the idea of having the endearingly irritating Rodney McKay on board could have predicted how hugely popular the character would become.

How do you think we did?

[Nina Infinity @Nina7Infinity]

The "broader audience" you're looking for spoke loudly today @AmazonMGMStudio

Hope you're seeing Stargate trending!

Give the OG creators @martingero @BaronDestructo @bradtravelers at least ONE season! #savestargate

[Coopenator @Coopenator80]

@robertpatrickT2 Thank YOU for taking part in all this! Really cool to see all these actors throw so much support behind #SaveStargate