Tapping discusses SG-1 movies

The first two in what the studio hopes to be a series of direct-to-DVD Stargate SG-1 movies represent a big change from the week-to-week television series, actress Amanda Tapping told ComicsOnline.com in a recent interview. Tapping plays Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter in the films.

Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum were filmed in Vancouver this past spring, and will be released in 2008.

Tapping said that the movies — which carried production budgets of $7 million each — feel like major motion pictures. “The shooting is completely different,” she said. “We are taking a lot longer to get the shots we want. The sets are bigger and the scopes are bigger. When you are sitting in an F-15, waiting to do these flying sequences and you have a whole battalion of Air Force pilots behind you, you realize this is just huge. When a nuclear submarine is coming up through the ice and your camera is on it, you realize ‘THIS IS HUGE.'”

Continuum also brought Tapping and her fellow cast and crew to a Navy ice station on a floating glacier in the Arctic for a once-in-a-lifetime chance at filming. “We lived in an ice camp, on a moving ice flow,” she said. “We had to literally chip water from the ice mines. The guys who run the ice camps taught us how to mine and we had different duties. You had to chip the ice, then put it on a little sled and bring it back to your room and use a stove to melt it, and that was your water.”

“The two movies are very different,” Tapping said. “‘Ark of Truth,’ which is huge, really finishes out the Ori storyline. It just really is massive in scope. Rob [Cooper] directed a huge movie.

“‘Continuum’ is a stand-alone which really is a romp. We bring back an old bad guy, Baal [Cliff Simon], who comes back and is badder than ever … and then we go back and time and everything goes crazy.”

Tapping will also co-star in the fourth season of Stargate Atlantis, having joined the cast this year. The season premieres September 28 on SCI FI Channel in the United States.

Be sure to read the full interview now at ComicsOnline.com, and keep watching the site for additional Stargate interviews from Comic-Con in the days ahead.