Former Stargate SG-1 co-star Christopher Judge pitched a spin-off project that would continue the story of the Free Jaffa, and now new details about it have surfaced.
Judge spoke about the project on the newest episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast “Inside of You” (via Cinema Blend). Today GateWorld can add some additional context through our own reporting: this was much more than a pitch for a second season of Stargate Origins. The project was in development before, during, and after that 2018 Web series, and could have extended the SG-1 universe as a straight-up sequel.
“While I was doing God of War my partner and I were pitching a spin-off that made it through three different regimes [at MGM],” Judge revealed. “This spin-off was about what happened to Teal’c and his race, because at the end of the show they’ve gained their freedom. And they now have inherited all this technology from those that they served. So what do you do?”
THE JAFFA EVOLVE
The defeat of the Goa’uld System Lords in the show’s eighth season led to the birth of the Free Jaffa Nation, a dream of Teal’c and Bra’tac that was finally realized … though with it came no shortage of new battles to fight, including in the political arena. SG-1‘s final two seasons saw the Jaffa struggle toward democracy, battle a new kind of religious oppression from the Ori, and ultimately face an all-out attack on their sacred world of Dakara.
But Stargate’s mythology left plenty of stories to tell about Teal’c and the Jaffa people after they had cast off the shackles of oppression. Who would the Jaffa become now that they had their own ships and technology, and were masters of their own destiny? Judge’s pitch is provocative, focusing on the emergence of a stable, free Jaffa people as a force to be reckoned with.
Christopher Judge / “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum”
“Two of the episodes I wrote [‘Birthright’ and ‘Sacrifices’] were about the Amazonian mythology — so it would be Stargate’s take on the Amazonian mythology,” Judge said. “So I pitched Stargate’s take on Black Panther. So we, as this insulated people, now have our freedom, we’ve inherited this technology, and now we became this culturally and technologically advanced society. So what burden comes with that? Do you help other people, or do you keep it to yourself?”
Jaffa society could evolve in ways that parallel the Marvel universe’s hidden nation of Wakanda. Black Panther represented a people whose access to the rare element vibranium helped them to rapidly advance their technology in secret (subverting the western world’s historical exploitation of African peoples through colonialism and the slave trade). As the world discovers Wakanda’s existence in the comics and films, its people must decide whether to help the outside world or continue in their isolationist ways.
The Jaffa, on the other hand, were slaves to the Goa’uld for millennia. In the aftermath of the System Lords’ downfall the Jaffa not only embraced their personal and political freedom, but also now came into the possession of their captors’ advanced technologies — ships and fighter-craft, weapons, sarcophagi, subspace communications devices, and doubtless much more that the television show never explored. Even healing devices, which in theory require Goa’uld biology to operate, might be reverse engineered by a new generation of Jaffa scientists.
Teal’c and Ishta (Jolene Blalock) meet with Jaffa resistance leaders. From “Sacrifices,” written by Christopher Judge.
TIMING THE PITCH
An ongoing series centered on the Free Jaffa would have been a fascinating new direction to take the franchise, which to that point had focused primarily on humans from Earth and their experiences of the wider galaxy. So when did all this happen — and why didn’t Judge’s “Stargate: Wakanda” project ultimately turn into a series?
Judge began pitching the show ahead of 2018’s release of God of War, his first project with developer Santa Monica Studio. The timing is notable, as Stargate Origins would be produced in 2017 and released in the winter of 2018 (just ahead of God of War‘s launch), as a modestly budgeted Web series. Instead of the Jaffa story MGM shifted opted to begin filming Origins, intended to be a collection of stand-alone prequel stories set in the Stargate universe, with the first based on the character of Catherine Langford from the original feature film.
Origins would find a cold reception among long-time fans, in part because of its lack of connection to the long-running television universe. By the summer of 2018 MGM was weighing a second installment of the Web series, with a larger budget but still small in scale. (At around $1 million Origins was, after all, made to be a short-form series streaming on its own subscription platform.)
But Judge’s story stayed in the mix. In convention appearances starting in late 2018 he was stating publicly that he wanted to do a Jaffa origins story (at the time under the title “Return of the Jaffa”). Here’s our coverage of the idea from 2018:
Now we know that these talks continued, with the pitch from Judge and his creative partner Mike Disa morphing to fit the Stargate Origins mold — but also expand it. This resulted in a script, which would begin the “Wakanda” story while evidently also telling the story of a younger Bra’tac. He told fans at San Diego Comic-Con in 2018, “A lot of the questions that I get are, ‘So what happened to the Jaffa? Now that they’re free, what are they doing now?’ I have an answer! … I would love to tell the Bra’tac origins story. How did the Free Jaffa movement start, and how was Bra’tac involved in it? How did Bra’tac become Bra’tac? I really thought that would be interesting.”
As a second installment of the Web series, a Jaffa Origins project would have been a stand-alone story — less ambitious than a full-fledged TV spin-off, but also with the potential to continue on. It could break out from Origins‘ short format, and perhaps even set up an ongoing spin-off much larger in scale.
END OF THE ROAD?
By early 2019 Stargate SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright was also working with MGM on a separate Stargate project of his own. This would eventually evolve into a pilot script for a fourth live-action television series, which was to pick up with Earth and the existing characters years after we last saw them. Wright and the studio were ready to begin pitching this to TV and streaming outlets in 2020 … when the COVID pandemic shut down production around the world and forced them to shelve the project.
GateWorld has learned that at this time the Free Jaffa spin-off, however, was still a live possibility inside the studio, even as Wright continued to develop his own in parallel. At one point, the studio was considering Judge’s idea for another round of Origins (perhaps with Wright willing to join as a creative consultant), while Wright could continue from there with the next full-fledged series to bring the franchise into a new era.
Dakara, the new Free Jaffa homeworld. From “Ex Deus Machina”
As 2019 rolled on, however, studio executives were clearly having misgivings about committing to another round of Stargate Origins — or continuing the Stargate Command subscription service at all. Meanwhile Christopher Judge was beginning work on the God of War sequel, and in October MGM announced that Stargate Command would close at the end of the year.
But Judge suggested that his conversations with the studio continued in some form up until MGM was acquired by Amazon, a deal first announced in May of 2021. “Three regimes loved it,” he told Rosenbaum. “And then we were bought by Amazon.” That, it seems, was the end of the road for the Free Jaffa project.
Wright’s script also wasn’t going to survive Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, which was finally completed in early 2022. By that fall Wright said that he wasn’t involved in any discussions around Stargate’s future, and that it looked like his script would not be produced.
Today, two years later, fans are still waiting for the newly formed Amazon MGM Studios to announce any new Stargate projects.
Teal’c addresses the Jaffa High Council. From “The Fourth Horseman”
RETURN OF THE JAFFA
Christopher Judge went on to find massive success in the video game world with his starring role as Kratos in the award-winning God of War, beginning with 2018’s reboot of that franchise and continuing on to 2022’s God of War Ragnarök. (Ironically, Amazon and Sony are now developing a live-action adaptation of God of War for Prime Video.)
So would Judge return to Stargate one day — or has that mothership sailed?
The actor said that he is willing to return to the franchise, and certainly if it included his vision for continuing the Jaffa storyline. “I would definitely be interested in doing something like [the Free Jaffa story],” he said. “And even [a different] Stargate — yeah, if the deal was right, if the scheduling was right, I would consider it.”
Don’t miss Judge’s full, very personal and revealing conversation with Michael Rosenbaum on “Inside of You.” Judge also talks about his difficult relationship with his father, how he went from football to acting, landing the role of Teal’c, writing for Stargate SG-1, and more. The conversation about Stargate begins just past the 48-minute mark: