Not only was Stargate's rough cut three hours long, but there were plans for two sequels, forming a trilogy, as early as 1995.

I just got my hands on an June 1995 issue of Sci-Fi Universe magazine after finding out that it had an article related to Stargate in it that talked about the movie - specifically, that the original rough cut was three hours long and it had to be trimmed down. There's a little bit about this on the movie's IMDb page, but I wanted to read the whole article.

Originally, there was an 'action cut' that was initially made - as the name suggests, it emphasised battles and was relatively short on character moments compared to the final cut. It was under two hours long, but several comments from the test audience said it was "too slow," according to writer/producer Dean Devlin. After adding more character scenes (making the movie longer), the movie was actually more involving to the audience, because at the next test screening, no-one said it was too long.

During editing, Ra's (Jaye Davidson's character) backstory was actually changed: originally, he was an immortal human messenger or servant who actually had masters of his own, the idea being that he was given immortality by aliens and in return, he would oversee the mines on their behalf and ensure quartz was regularly sent through the Stargate. However, this aspect was changed since at the end of the movie we still wouldn't have seen Ra's alien masters, and with the intended direction of the sequels, they wouldn't have been seen, so the backstory was changed.

Several cuts were made:

• There was a conflict between the civilian scientific team and the military elements overseeing it. The military ended up in control.

• There was meant to be a "huge battle" waged in front of the city of Nagada on the alien planet. The article doesn't say what the context for this was. I'm wondering if the scene where Ra sent two gliders to shoot up Nagada was meant to be longer; the novelisation describes the aftermath of Ra's men going through the city on a killing spree.

• A fight between Daniel (James Spader's character) and Ra in the pyramid ship, presumably while Sha'uri (Mili Avital) was in the sarcophagus.

• An argument between Daniel and O'Neil (Kurt Russell) about who should be in charge/take the lead. Devlin really wanted to have that scene, but it was too long. Supposedly it wasn't until after the final cut that Devlin thought of a way to incorporate it into the movie.

While some previously deleted scenes made it into the extended cut, none of this footage has shown up on any of the DVD or BD releases of the movie, so it's likely lost. If only DVD was a thing back in 1994...

Finally, the article talks about the intended future of the franchise - even back then, the intent was to do a cinematic trilogy. An animated series was planned, as well as novels published by Signet. Devlin estimated at the time that filming would start in 1996, after what would become Independence Day was finished (the article states that the script for the then-unnamed movie had recently been finished). Prior to this, the earliest reference I could find to Devlin talking about a sequel to Stargate was 2002. This also puts to rest the claim that Independence Day, or elements of it, started out as a sequel to Stargate.

Thought this was fascinating and wanted to share.

Submitted November 04, 2016 at 02:57PM by Vanquisher1000 http://ift.tt/2fKibu4