TV INTERVIEW: ROBERT C. COOPER
'Stargate' Franchise Executive Producer Leaving the Series' Universe
Stargate is the movie-to-TV franchise that could, and did, spawn three TV series guided by Executive Producer Robert C. Cooper. Now, after some 17 years at the helm, he’s stepping down from his longtime “baby,” and recently, at Comic-Con 2010, talked about eventually leaving the latest series incarnation, Stargate Universe SG-U.
Since the announcement of his impending departure was made in late June, Cooper has become more of a consultant to the SyFy program, a canon guru, one might say, rather than being involved with the show-runner process. But it hasn’t quite change his perspective yet.
“I haven’t been stepped back long enough to evaluate that,” he said. “I suspect it’s going to be interesting. I’ve always wondered what the outside perspective of our show would be like. I don’t have that now and I can’t judge it because I’m so close to it. It will be a lot of fun, actually, to watch the show from a distance a little bit.”
Cooper backed off prime duties for a time on the successful second series, Stargate: Atlantis, during the fourth season, then returned.
“In some ways, it reinvigorated and refreshed me,” he said. “I was able to look at what we were doing with a more critical eye as opposed to when you’re really close to something.”
Season Two of Universe will see a transition, Cooper said, with less focus on the star lost (now there was another show with that title and theme, Star Lost, decades ago) crew trying to get back to Earth or, frankly, whine about it.
“We kind of establish a common goal, a mission, so that we’re not all focused on going home but rather going forward,” said Cooper. “We may not ever get home, but being here is really, really cool. So let’s stop all this bickering and start trying to work together.”
Stargate Universe was first thought of by some sci-fi TV fans as a variation on Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate style, though it quickly became clear it’s a different animal from that Trek show, as well as the military-rooted Stargate SG-1 and at-times stranger world view from Atlantis.
“The reason we made them a bunch of people who were unprepared to be there and were not the right ones to be there is that we wanted this show to be about characters that remained real people when faced with challenges,” said Cooper. “One of the problems of SGA and SG1 was that some of the characters became superheroes that really took away some of the dramatic challenges needed in a story.
“McKay could run into any situation and know what button to press and we were done,” Cooper said, referring to ever fix-it Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) on SG-A. “When writing drama, we wanted the characters to create challenge.”
You’ll find Stargate Universe SG-U Season 1.0 and Season 1.5 on Amazon.
In addition to the TV series, Stargate has also branched out into the successful online game, Stargate Worlds.
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