"Star Trek" was a TV series that turned into a series of movies.
On the other hand, "Stargate" was a movie that's been turned into a TV series - "Stargate SG-1."And, unlike "Star Trek," which took seven films to drop the original cast, "Stargate" has done away with most of them already. (Not that that's a big surprise - you didn't really think that Kurt Russell and James Spader were going to do a TV show, did you?)
The actors are gone, but many of the characters remain the same. Richard Dean Anderson ("MacGyver") steps into the role of Col. Jack O'Neill that Russell has vacated, and newcomer Michael Shanks has replaced Spader as Dr. Daniel Jackson.
And the premise remains the same, more or less, when "Stargate SG1" premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on Showtime.
"The first two hours of the show (are) quite a direct sequel to the movie," said executive producer Jonathan Glassner. "It picks up where the movie left off."
The 1994 film, of course, centered on the Stargate itself. The ancient instrument - dug up among Egyptian ruins - proves to be a portal to the far-distant planet Abydos, which is fraught with danger and ruled by an evil alien who had taken over a young male human's body.
There was the obligatory Hollywood happy ending, with the alien getting his, O'Neill feeling better about the death of his son and Jackson finding true love on the other side of the galaxy.
As the made-for-TV movie "Children of the Gods" opens, however, snake-helmeted aliens burst through the Stargate on Earth, kill some guards and kidnap a female soldier. O'Neill is called out of retirement to lead a team back to Abydos to recover Jackson and discover what's going on.
So what are the main differences between "Stargate" and "Stargate SG1?"
"The budget!" Anderson exclaimed.
Well, there's that. But the effects in "SG1" are pretty good for TV.
"One of the main things, obviously, is we had to realize that the gate could go to more than one place," said executive producer Brad Wright. "And, certainly, since we're shooting in Vancouver, it couldn't go to a desert planet."
(There is, however, some footage of Abydos culled from the theatrical movie.)
And the character of O'Neill has been spruced up a bit. He's no longer the morose figure he was in the movie.
"At the end of the movie he's healed and he feels better," Glassner said. "And we have a guy with a great sense of humor and comic timing playing the role - we'd be fools not to take advantage of it."
The premiere of "Stargate SG1" is, in many ways, more of a remake of the theatrical movie than a sequel. The plots are extremely similar, with humans battling aliens who've taken possession of humanoid bodies.
"SG1" is the code name for the team that O'Neill puts together. It includes strong-willed physicist Capt. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and a tough-guy alien they pick up along the way (Christopher Judge).
And, not surprisingly, they're going to be using the Stargate to travel to lots of different worlds. (A total of 44 episodes have already been ordered - 22 this season, 22 next.)
"Some of the planets we go to, they're hostile. And some, they're friendly. And some, they're both," said Glassner. "And we have to rescue the ones that are friendly."
It's a show that's not as good as the movie, but it does have possibilities. As long as sci-fi fans don't raise their hopes too high, they may be pleasantly surprised.
But remember - it is on Showtime. This is not family fare.
Read on . . .
BAD NUDES: "Stargate SG1" is certainly as violent as its theatrical predecessor, and - parents, take note - the TV version is even more explicit sexually.
As in a scene in the premiere that features full frontal female nudity.
"We thought it was very integral to the story in the two-hour, and we had no problem putting it in," Wright said.
Well, that's basically a bunch of baloney. In the scene in question, the female character is being inspected by aliens - then an icky creature crawls through an incision in her torso and takes possession of her body. It's the sort of scene we've seen in countless sci-fi shows before - and having the actress disrobe is nothing but pure exploitation.
You know, the sort of thing we've come to expect from Showtime.
The producers, attempting to justify themselves, proudly announce that none of the 11 hourlong episodes they've produced to this point feature nudity - completely oblivious to the fact that they're undermining their own argument for the nude scene in their premiere.
And the admission that they shot a non-nude version of the same scene for broadcast television destroyed the argument that it was absolutely necessary for the cable version.
Richard Dean Anderson went even further out on a limb.
"One of the things that attracted me to the project is the fact that it is on a cable outlet," Anderson said. "With all due respect, the creative parameters in cable are greater."
With all due respect, anybody can tell an actress to take off her clothes. There's no creativity involved in that whatsoever.
NOT A FAN: Richard Dean Anderson is starring in a new science fiction series, but it's not like this was his big dream or anything.
"I was never a sci-fi fan. . . . I was never attracted to the genre," Anderson said. "After being involved with the production end of it, I'm fascinated by the possibilities - and know full well that we're only going to be limited by our imaginations."
One thing he's not prepared for is sci-fi conventions. Anderson said he had conversations about just that with his former "Legend" co-star, John de Lancie (who plays Q on various "Star Trek" series).
"He told me some wonderful stories about those conventions. I don't mean to be so derisive about it, but some horror stories and some just absolutely comical stories."
But it holds no attraction for Anderson
"I'm not of that mind, to be honest with you. . . . Going off to a convention to sell a kewpie doll of myself? I'm not quite sure what my merchandising share on the back-end is."
QUOTABLE: Amanda Tapping is excited to be playing a woman who's strong and, as she put it, "one of the guys."
"She's an equal, which may be the science fiction part of the show," Tapping said.
MOSTLY DEAD: Tapping does have some experience in TV science fiction, but her appearance on "The X-Files" wasn't exactly the highlight of her career.
"I was mostly dead," she said.
Her character seduced assistant director Skinner, and when he woke up in the morning she was dead. And the episode was about whether he had killed her or not.
"Boy, I'm really proud of this!" she said with no small degree of embarrassment.
"I had two scenes David (Duchovny) and Gillian (Anderson) where I was dead in a morgue drawer and on an autopsy table.
She also guest starred on an episode of the vampire series "Forever Knight" a couple of years back.
"I was a doctor experimenting with near-death. A flatliner," Tapping said. "It's a thing with me."
She does survive at least the first 13 hours of "Stargate SG1."