Production
Stargate: Continuum was written by Brad Wright and directed by Martin Wood. Some scenes for this film were already shot at the end of March 2007, but the original start date was set for May 22, 2007 at Vancouver's Bridge Studios. The production budget was US$7 million (equivalent to about $11M in 2025). Due to the postponement of this film until the 5th season of Stargate Atlantis was airing, there is a continuity error with Carter and Mitchell's rank. In the ending credits they are listed as lieutenant colonels. However, when they fly the F-15s they are each wearing the rank of colonel. This is due to the fact that during filming producers realized that the film would probably be released after Carter had been promoted on Atlantis. In the season 5 premiere of that show, Sam, already a colonel, leaves Atlantis to attend the extraction, thus setting this film about a year after Stargate: The Ark of Truth.
The original draft for the film started with a view of the Tok'ra city, but Brad Wright eventually decided that the film should start in Stargate Command (SGC) to show what SG-1 represented. When writing lines for the character Jack O'Neill, Wright tried to write lines that felt "natural" and not "forced," saying it was of major importance. Many recurring characters from the series Stargate SG-1 were included to make old fans feel more "welcome" to the new film. The unnamed Captain of the Achilles' dead body was originally supposed to be revealed when SG-1 travelled back to Earth; Wright commented on the case, calling it "gross". Richard Dean Anderson was not supposed to appear at the start of the film, where he was killed. According to Wright, he was only set to appear in the alternate timeline in Antarctica because that's what Wright "asked him to do."
Due to a scheduling conflict, actor Michael Shanks was unavailable to shoot the scenes in the Arctic. However, Jackson was on the boat with Cameron Mitchell and Samantha Carter in the preceding scenes. In order to make his disappearance plausible, Wright decided that Jackson would develop frostbite after stepping in water and be unable to continue with the others. When commenting on the dialogue scenes, Wright commented that scenes like that would be "cut off" because of the time constraints in the Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis episodes, and further commented that they could keep these scenes since the film is "longer" than the episodes.
The film includes scenes filmed at the U.S. Navy's Applied Physics Laboratory Ice Station in the Arctic, 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. These scenes feature Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Ben Browder. They were filmed from March 23 to 29, 2007. The film also features USS Alexandria (SSN-757). The Arctic filming included scenes shot on the ice, scenes shot with the Alexandria as a backdrop, scenes shot on board the Alexandria, and shots of the Alexandria surfacing and submerging.
Because of the minimal facilities, the Arctic scenes were filmed with only the three actors and a four-man crew. Director Martin Wood worked as an extra in one scene (as "Major Wood"), as did another member of the film crew. The captain of the Alexandria, Cmdr. Mike Bernacchi, and members of her crew played themselves. Barry L. Campbell, head of operations at the San Diego–based U.S. Navy Arctic Submarine Laboratory, who had arranged the opportunity to film in Arctic, also appeared as a seaman. Writer Brad Wright also had a cameo appearance, as an F-15 pilot.
The film is dedicated to the memory of Paul McCann and Anthony Huntrod, who lost their lives during an accident under the ice cap on the submarine HMS Tireless (S88) at the time of filming. The film took 19 days to shoot, plus five days of shooting in the Arctic (they were there for seven days). Continuum was placed in the Guinness World Records in the category for farthest north film shoot. This film also contained the final scenes filmed by actor Don S. Davis who died on June 28, 2008, about one month before the film's release. He was later honored in Stargate Universe by having the ship named for his character George Hammond commanded by Samantha Carter.
