April 22, 2019: Thousands of hours of unseen behind the scenes footage from Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe!

So, yesterday I uploaded the following photo online –

With the caption: “Thousands of hours of unseen behind the scenes footage from Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe – Back when he was the Special Features Producer on Stargate, Ivon Bartok spent years capturing behind the scenes footage on all three shows. Unable to make arrangements to send the footage to MGM after SGU was cancelled, he was at a loss as to what to do with all those tapes and discs taking up space in his apartment. I offered to take them in and, for the past seven years, they’ve been sitting in storage. Well, I’ve finally made arrangements to have everything shipped to MGM where a dedicated team will peruse the digital contents in the first step of making this goldmine of never-before-seen footage available to the fans.”

I figured fandom would be thrilled – but, alas, fandom being fandom, there was a vocal minority who was downright angry because –

1 – I’m not backing up all these files before sending them to MGM.

2- I haven’t personally uploaded them directly online.

3 – They’re going to MGM who will review, catalogue and ultimately make them available.

Look, I get it.  I empathize with those worried about being able to access these materials, especially fans living overseas.  However…

1 – I don’t have the time, money, or equipment to back up these files.  And while, yes, it would be great to take fans up on their kind offers to do it for me, these files are the property of  MGM Television.  Which brings me to…

2 – These files are the property of MGM Television.  This isn’t simply a case of me uploading an image here and there.  This is thousands of hours of video and supporting materials.  I have a great relationship with a number of the executives there, many of whom are Stargate fans as well, and they are overjoyed at the prospect of revisiting all this material and, eventually, making it available to fandom at large.  I don’t own the right to the Stargate franchise.  They do.  So they will be the ones to  make the call on what is released and how.  I am simply returning something that is rightfully theirs.  And no, I’m not taking any payment for this.

3 –

Lovely.

To tide you over, here’s another page from the Stargate: Extinction script: