Where was Stargate SG-1? Each major location explained

This message contains spoilers For “Stargate SG-1”.

Jonathan Glassner and “Stargate SG-1” by Brad Wright are loved for a reason. In addition to breathing a new life in the fun and imperfect film by Roland Emmerich “Stargate”, the 10 seasons series has evolved it into a prestigious science fiction franchise with complex traditions. As “SG-1” is a spatial adventure, it was natural that the series quite often jumps for locations, because the holder crew should go to distant planets as part of their mission to protect the earth. From a logistical point of view, the series had to be filmed in places which offered an aesthetic variety; Unfortunately, a limited budget noted that the shot has been reduced to two key locations, namely Colorado and Vancouver.

To better understand the decision to shoot in these places, we need a refreshment on the premise of the show. Most of the interior scenes take place inside the Stargate Command, the military base which provides support for the team mission, including SG-1. While the interiors of this base remain uniform throughout the series, it is logical that they were filmed in the Bridge studios in Vancouver. After all, interior sets are much easier to modify and control, because they do not have the same risk of unpredictability as external locations (in this case, the forests of British Columbia were a challenge to navigate). In addition, as the SG -1 crew mainly visited extraterrestrial planets in the series, the same external locations had to be dressed to simulate distinct worlds – a creative company that has given mixed results over the series.

We must also keep in mind that “SG-1” has been filmed before volume invention, which, to simplify it, is an enveloping screen technology that provides digital decorations synchronized with the camera to offer the illusion of distance and depth. As each “SG-1” world construction block had to be built with a mixture of practical solutions and limited CGI, it has gradually become difficult to keep things visually fresh. Let us deepen the places of Colorado and Vancouver used in the series, and why the shooting turned out to be a challenge in general for “Stargate SG-1”.

All the exterior plans of the Stargate Command have been filmed at the Mountain de Cheyenne air station in Colorado, because the fictitious structure is supposed to evoke a feeling of military secret. The remaining outdoor scenes were mainly shot in Vancouver, and all from Kallana (a planet in the Milky Way) to Apophis Crashes was filmed in this area. For example, the ancient dunes of Sand Richmond have served as precious locations for scenes in the desert, including the representation of the Tok’RA base in season 2 and even 3000 BC Giza (yes “,” SG-1 “dabbles in the time you are waiting for you) in season 8 of the series.

These vast exteriors of the empty desert could be renovated according to the evolving tradition, and everything that seemed too similar could be camouflaged using arches centered on the character which distance our attention from paying too much attention to the environments. The real hospitals and the Vancouver apartments were also widely used to progress the plot, as well as public structures such as the Bloedel Conservatory (presented strongly in the episode, “The Gamekeeper”) or the Vancouver Art Gallery (whose exterior photos were used to portray the national building of the Department of Intelligence).

If you have been able to draw visual similarities between two different locations in the series, it is probably because the same place has been reworked to serve as a backdrop several times. A good example would be the Inn accent in Barnaby, which has been renovated several times for different scenes, including the Cachette du motel in “Affinity”, Vala hotel room in “Memento Mori” and the Hotel of Senator Kinsey (where it is shot in “Smoke & Mirrors”.))))

The other notable locations of Vancouver include Jericho Beach, Sunset Beach Park, the West Tower palisades and the Mountain View cemetery, which arise like reused decorations during the seasons (and are quite easy to spot if you know these real places).

The use of 3D sets to simulate real world places will always be fundamentally different from the shooting on site. “SG-1” kissed the advantages of the latter with great enthusiasm, but the maintenance of this creative sequence has become difficult during 10 seasons. The fact that the series generally presented a new location with each episode certainly did not help things, because the scope of the intergalactic construction of the world required new landscapes, structures and expectations surrounding the unknown corners of the galaxy.

Lynn Smith and N. John Smith, who supervised questions related to the location during the production of “Stargate SG-1”, said Gateworld on the several-part problems that arose during the shooting on site. This understood to find a way to film night scenes during the day, and to make sure that the explosions controlled during the shooting did not hinder the locations of residential shots. Lynn Smith explained the nuances of the latter in detail:

“A large part of our show was shots and explosions. It was the difficult part, because you had to get [the city’s] blessing. If we go to the dunes, I am the one speaking at the airport tower for flight trips. And believe it or not, yes, sometimes they worked in our favor […] or they would tell us if [we would] Meet a problem that day. “”

At one point, “SG-1” was filmed at the same time as “Stargate Atlantis”, allowing the location team to make the best use of sound stages and shared interior sets, which would be effectively modified to serve the respective emissions. But that also meant constant round trips with two distinct writing teams and welcoming all the last minute changes (which will not be taken place in any loaded production) while working 24 hours a day. N. John Smith, who was also executive producer of “SG-1”, spoke of the risk of professional exhaustion in the absence of regular hours:

“The secret to make a series like this is to keep the hours regular. We would push calls [to a certain hour of the day]But we have done a lot of exterior and interiors. We have built sets because what kills a crew comes out in summer […] So you define your night scene at 9 am and work overnight. And you do this for a few months in progress, and suddenly, your crew is exhausted, and the work is not done properly, and it shows. “”

Despite these challenges, which led to a drop in gender parameters over time, “Stargate SG-1” managed to impress the public with its exciting scenarios. All flagrant faults can be overlooked, because few longtime science fiction shows have been able to accomplish so many things with so little.