What does "Sci-Fi Channel Original" mean?

[Nightwish]

What does the phrase "Sci-Fi Channel Original" actually mean? This has always confused me, because Sci-Fi doesn't make the movies, and in most cases they aren't the first cable network to show them (for instance, "Dog Soldiers" on tonight was introduced at the beginning of the film as a Sci-Fi Original, though it's been playing on Showtime for months now!). So does this phrase actually mean anything?

[unlurking]

Sci-Fi actually does make a lot of the movies they show, think cheesy crap like Frankenfish. I don't know about Dog Soldiers, as I've never seen it and don't have Showtime. They also use the catch phrase for all their series, including ones they bought the rights to and continued new episodes of like SG-1.

As far as the movies go though, they actually have made a TON of them, none of which I can remember ever being any good.

[Moooo]

As far as the movies go though, they actually have made a TON of them, none of which I can remember ever being any good.

DUDE!!! "The Man With the Screaming Brain!"

Moooo

[Braincase]

All I want to know is when Playboy is doing their "Babes of the Sci-Fi Channel" pictorial. That would be the best kind of original pic.

Start with the J-Lo lookalike on Stargate: Atlantis, then Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica... and some nice shots of Amanda Tapping_(SG:SG1)in a teddy wouldn't be so bad, either...

[KcMizzou]

As far as the movies go though, they actually have made a TON of them, none of which I can remember ever being any good.Yup.

Nightwish is right about Dog Soldiers though. Originally it had nothing to do with Scifi. I'm not sure why they'd call it a Scifi original.

[Hammock Parties]

Wow. How did I miss this Dog Soldiers film? 78% at rottentomatoes. I am downloading now!

[Adept Havelock]

In my experience it means "Sci-Fi B film with very weak production values and bad acting".

A few have been notable exceptions...Children of Dune, and it's predecessor Dune-The High School Play.

[Nightwish]

Ah, it becomes a bit clearer now. I had to do some digging, and finally found something at wikipedia, though the page itself had been deleted, it was cached through Google, so I was still able to see what it contained prior to the deletion. Anyway, Sci-Fi Channel doesn't make any of the movies they show as "Sci-Fi Originals." Those movies are all independently produced. However, Sci-Fi does commission some of them, and subsidizes others, bascally just paying for the right to put their name on it. Though they have no creative input on many of the films, they are one of the total number of investors in the films, and the right to call it a "Sci-Fi Original Movie" is one of the terms they require.

[Nzoner]

As far as the movies go though, they actually have made a TON of them, none of which I can remember ever being any good.

I just rented one called Five Days Till Midnight that was supposedly a Sci-Fi mini-series starring Timothy Hutton and Randy Quaid.Started watching it Friday evening and it pulled me in to the point where I watched the whole 4+ hours.

[Demonpenz]

everytime i turn to that channels there are aliens and space ships shit on there.

[chief2000]

The monsters look like they were created and rendered on my shitty celeron pc.