After Roland Emmerich’s “Stargate” proved to be a solid success in 1994, a television series was created to continue intergalactic adventures. Rather than leaving the fans hanging with a single film, “Stargate SG-1” resumed with the history of the titular team while they were traveling through the universe via the Stargate portal, meeting new forms and extraterrestrial worlds along the way.
Unfortunately, when the series ended, there was nothing to continue the story of how “SG-1” had taken up where the film had stopped. “Stargate SG-1” was canceled by the science fiction channel (now Syfy) after 10 seasons in 2007, and although there was the spin-off “Stargate Atlantis”, and two other spin-offs that have arrived in the years that followed, the story “SG-1” was very finished.
Since then, we have heard a lot about what could have been, including a canceled “Stargate” film which would have gathered the events of all the shows. We have also heard of some of the regrets of showrunners on “SG-1”. The co-creator Brad Wright has several things he would change in the series, in particular by removing the symbiotes and attenuating the nudity that the original network of the show, Showtime, encouraged from the jump. But it turns out that Wright has even more regret about the series, including a weapon that the co-creator thought “downright silly”.
The problem with Zat pistols in Stargate SG-1
Brad Wright, the co-creator of “Stargate SG-1”, regrets the science fiction series, and it seems that he has particularly remorse about Zat Guns. Furthermore known as Zat’nik’tel, these Goa’uld energy weapons were used by Jaffa and Tok’RA. The snake type design of a Zat pistol looks like a Goa’uld symbiote and allows a unique operation, by which the activation of the weapon brings it up like a snake raising the head. A blow causes an incredible victim but does not kill them. The second blow kills most of the victims, although some may survive according to the species. A third blow can completely disintegrate the victim, and that’s what Wright found so blatant.
The co-creator previously revealed that he thought that the Zat guns were “just stupid”, but developed his disgust for the extraterrestrial firearm in a room in 2023 for the companion. “Sometimes we found ourselves to deplore the new rules we have established,” he admitted. “”[Co-creator Jonathan Glassner] realized that the number of bodies was alarming each time we fight our Goa’uld enemies and therefore proposed a new weapon called “Zat’nik’tel” or “Zat Gun” (a name that I have never warmed). The pistol itself did not seem to disturb all of this, but its abilities certainly did.
“It was essentially a phaser, except more phallic. A stunned blow; a second blow killed. Very well. Then one day on the set, in a sincere effort to lower the number of bad guys dead on the studio’s ground, he added a third decor. A third blow made the bad guy disappear. It was downright silly for me, and we finally stopped doing this.
“Sometimes your own rules bite you in the A **,” he concluded.
