Stargate SG-1's Co-Creator Wishes He Never Made One 'Silly' Decision

After Roland Emmerich's "Stargate" proved a solid hit back in 1994, a TV series was created to continue the intergalactic adventures. Rather than leave fans hanging with a single movie, "Stargate SG-1" picked up with the story of the titular crew as they traveled the universe via the Stargate portal, encountering new alien lifeforms and worlds along the way.

Unfortunately, when the series wrapped up, there was nothing to continue the story in the way that "SG-1" had picked up where the film left off. "Stargate SG-1" was canceled by the Sci-Fi channel (now SyFy) after 10 seasons back in 2007, and while there was the spin-off show "Stargate Atlantis," and two further spin-offs that arrived in the years that followed, the "SG-1" story was very much finished.

Ever since, we've heard much about what could have been, including a canceled "Stargate" movie that would have brought the events of all the shows together. We've also heard about some of the showrunners' regrets about "SG-1." Co-creator Brad Wright has several things he would change about the series, including doing away with the symbiotes and toning down the nudity that the show's original network, Showtime, encouraged from the jump. But it turns out Wright has even more regrets about the series, including a weapon which the co-creator thought was "downright silly."

Brad Wright, the "Stargate SG-1" co-creator, has regrets over the sci-fi series, and it seems he's particularly remorseful about Zat guns. Otherwise known as Zat'nik'tel, these Goa'uld energy weapons were used by both the Jaffa and Tok'ra. The serpent-like design of a Zat gun looks like a Goa'uld symbiote and allows for a unique operation, whereby activating the weapon causes it to raise up like a snake raising its head. One shot causes a victim incredible pain but doesn't kill them. The second shot kills most victims, though some may survive depending on the species. A third shot can disintegrate the victim altogether, and it's this that Wright found so egregious.

The co-creator previously revealed that he thought Zat guns were "just dumb," but elaborated on his distaste for the alien firearm in a 2023 piece for The Companion. "Sometimes, we found ourselves lamenting the new rules we made up," he admitted. "[Co-creator Jonathan Glassner] realized that the body count was alarmingly high every time we fought our Goa'uld enemies and so he came up with a new weapon called a 'Zat'nik'tel' or 'Zat gun' (a name I never warmed to)." The gun itself didn't seem to bother Wright all that much, but its abilities certainly did. He continued:

"It was basically a phaser, except more phallic. One shot stunned; a second shot killed. Fine. Then one day on set, in an earnest effort to lower the body count of bad guys dead on the studio floor, he added a third setting. A third shot made the bad guy disappear. This was downright silly to me, and we eventually stopped doing that, but it's in the episode.

"Sometimes, your own rules bite you in the a**," he concluded.