Why do I hear people talk about Star Trek and Star Wars but not Stargate?
MGM screwed the pooch when it came to Stargate - The studio failed to properly advertise, it didn’t press for Emmys while it was on, it didn’t try to cast major actors to boost the profile of the various series, and it did little to assist the final series in the franchise, Stargate: Universe in succeeding. Basically MGM’s treatment of the Stargate franchise is primer on “How Not To” care for a valuable intellectual property.share
For reasons that are unclear, the Stargate movies were not feature film releases - Despite having a franchise which could have supported feature films, the decision was apparently made to have the feature films which wrapped up the main series storylines.
MGM hasn’t done much for the series since it cancellation - Despite having hundreds of hours of filmed narrative, MGM has done next to nothing with the series. You certainly don’t see it stars traveling around the country supporting the franchise despite the fact that none of them have anything comparable going at the moment.
Stargate merchandising was subpar - I can go to almost any major retailer and pick up Star Trek and Star Wars merchandise. On the other hand, it’s difficult to find Stargate merchandise of any quality even on Amazon. Basically MGM had a valuable property that it could have merchandised the hell out of and it dropped the ball.
The Stargate ancillary narratives are either terrible or simply nonexistent - Not only are there two differing narrative universes for Stargate (on follows the events of the film which is not the same as the various series) the overall quality is bad. If you want to obtain additional information about the Star Wars/Star Trek universes there are a plethora of written works, many of respectable quality, which you could peruse. Basically Stargate’s extended universe is terrible and that’s cost it a number of potential new fans.