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September 09, 2005

If you build it...

Further to last week, I literally just overheard Joe Mallozzi talking to himself while reading Carl Binder’s script, Inferno.

Joe: “Taranis? I thought we used that for something else? It sounds familiar.”

Uh oh… Carl might snap – I fear for Joe’s physical safety.

Ok, ok - enough about sci-fi names and Carl’s legendary temper.

Now, this week’s SG-1 episode, Babylon, is the closest you’ll get to an arena episode on this show (or so I was told by TPTB)… Famous last words… now the season finale will probably be an arena episode. Shows you how much I know.

But in Babylon, you get an extra helping of hand-to-hand combat. This is the episode they were shooting when Ben Browder was interviewed at the start of the year and gave all those sound bites about loving the combat stunts. And it’s true – he does do all of the fight stunts himself. He even nailed that Hong Kong Twist in a training sequence in the episode.

No I don’t know what a Hong Kong Twist is. Somebody told me that, and it sounded impressive, so I wrote it down.

Also noteworthy:

· The actors who play the Sodan brothers Volnek and Jolan are actually brothers in real life: Jason and Jarvis George. Both did great work on the show, and both were asked to return for a later episode, although only one could schedule it.

· The set for the Sodan village was such a large build I actually asked the producers if we owned the land. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking it would make a nice summer retreat. Of course they re-used the set for several other episodes, so they definitely got their money’s worth. And it looks amazing in the show.

· Damian Kindler took a good-natured ribbing for naming the weapon-sticks “Krantu staffs” in Babylon. Apparently there’s a new model coming out next year – The Krantu 3000. Better balance. Nu-buck handle.

· On Atlantis, check out the prosthetic make-up on Joe Flanigan. He looks pretty cool. Somebody even joked he looks better, more dangerous in the make-up. Joe had to be in makeup three and a half hours a day. He said it was itchy.

· According to Martin Gero, all the bugs in the episode are CG, not practical like in 38 Minutes (an episode from last year). And the VFX did a great job, as the producers were very happy with the final product.

ATL

Posted by Alex Levine at September 9, 2005 12:21 AM