Production
The pilot episodes, "Rising (part one and two)" was written by Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright, and directed by Martin Wood. The Pemberton Glacier in British Columbia doubles for Antarctica during the opening flying sequence. The Antarctic scenes in the start of the episode was filmed in Vancouver, Canada. The budget for the two parter episodes was estimated around $5 million US dollars. Rodney McKay was actually supposed to be African-Canadian under the name Dr. Benjamin Ingram, this didn't stop David Hewlett auditioning. The producers eventually came to a solution where Ingram would be replaced by McKay from the former Stargate SG-1 series. The character Teyla Emmagan was originally named "Mikala" in the early drafts of the Stargate Atlantis script. At the end of February, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) announced the inclusion of Robert Patrick's character Marshall Sumner. The official announcement said that he would only be featured in part one, but was later extended to part one and two. In January, 2004 the Stargate producers announced including Jack O'Neill (portrayed by Richard Dean Anderson) and Daniel Jackson (portrayed by Michael Shanks) in the two hour premiere pilot episode to make it easier for fans to relate to.
Stargate Atlantis was supposed to be set on present day Earth, after Stargate SG-1 was canceled. This didn't happen and Stargate Atlantis was released while Stargate SG-1 was still airing, so the story arc was set in a new galaxy under the name, Pegasus. The story was set in another galaxy so the two running series would not collide with each other and to stop plot interferences. For "Rising", the Pemberton Glacier in British Columbia doubles for Antarctica during the opening flying sequence.
Read more about this topic: Rising (Stargate Atlantis)
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“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)