I am a hopeless romantic.
I believe that ideals will win out over pragmatism (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding).
I like to think that the better angels of our nature will always win out.
And I expect that long dormant franchises will burst back to life when I least expect it.
After all Star Trek did just that under the imaginative hand of J. J. Abrams so why not all the others I miss?
Well it appears that maybe, just maybe, and in this case nothing is certain unless MGM signs on the dotted line and officially announces they’re proceeding with it, Stargate may be about to join Star Trek in the land of the sci-fi franchise living.
Well that’s if Roland Emmerich, who directed the original Stargate film (1994) starring James Spader and Kurt Russell, and is currently spruiking his latest movie White House Down worldwide, has anything to do with it.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, romantic fan expectations will ever get you so far.
Far from being the continuation of Stargate SG1, the decade-long series that followed the movie, or even another instalment in the truncated Stargate Atlantis series, Emmerich is envisaging a totally re-imagining of the franchise, according to an interview he gave to digitalspy:
“We went to MGM, who has the rights, and proposed to them to do a sequel, but as a reboot… and reboot it as a movie and then do three parts. Pretty soon we’ll have to look for a writer and start.”
He is not even contemplating using the original film’s actors, citing the cruel march of time as his fairly reasonable justification:
“The actors look totally different… it would not work.”
Romantic though I may be, I am also pragmatic enough to bow to the realities of life, and accept that re-animating one of my favourite sci-fi franchises exactly as it once was isn’t likely to happen.
In which case, I will happily take it back anyway I can get it.
Well within reason.
I am a hopeless romantic after all, and there’s only so much pragmatism this boy can take.
UPDATE 24 September 2013 – Joseph Malozzi on why Stargate belongs on TV.