Stargate (film)

Stargate is a science fiction/action film released in 1994, directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, with a soundtrack by David Arnold.

Tagline: It will take you a million light years from home. But will it bring you back?

It is the beginning of the Stargate franchise. It was originally intended as the first of a trilogy of films, but creators Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were distracted by Independence Day. Instead, it inspired the television series Stargate SG-1, which is concluding a ten-year run in 2007, as well as its spin-off, Stargate Atlantis, and a poorly-received animated series Stargate Infinity (not considered canon). Two straight-to-DVD Stargate SG-1 movies are being filmed as of 2007. See Stargate for more about this science fictional universe.

Cast

• Col. Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil: Kurt Russell
• Dr. Daniel Jackson: James Spader
• Ra: Jaye Davidson
• Skaara: Alexis Cruz
• Sha'uri: Mili Avital
• Kasuf: Erick Avari
• Lt. Kawalsky: John Diehl
• Lt. Feretti: French Stewart
• Gary Meyers: Richard Kind
• Barbara Shore: Rae Allen
• Catherine Langford: Viveca Lindfors
• Major General West: Leon Rippy

Storyline

In 8000 B.C., in a predynastic Egyptian village, an alien vessel descends and abducts one enraptured boy.

Cut to 1928, Giza Plateau, Egypt, during an archaeological expedition. Beneath colossal coverstones, an enormous stone ring is found and excavated to the astonishment and wonder of its discoverers. The daughter of the expedition's commissioner takes an amuletic necklace from a work table at the site, a contextual artifact, inscribed with the wadjet of Ra. This and she will be important later.

In the present day, an old woman, wearing the Ra necklace, walks into a symposium hosted by the brilliant but quirky Egyptologist Daniel Jackson. He is giving a presentation of his theory that the pyramids weren't built in the 4th Dynasty. After some derision, his audience walks out. Afterward, in the rain outside, the old woman induces him to join her in a car. She makes him an offer: the chance to translate Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that may prove his theories at last. Daniel's reluctance is overcome by curiosity. Before leaving, the woman gives him travel plans to an Air Force installation.

Elsewhere, two Air Force officers come to the house of retired Air Force colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil, calling him back for active duty. Several years ago, O'Neil's young son accidentally shot himself with his father's gun. The grief-stricken O'Neil promptly retired from the service and fell into a deep depression. The officers find him slouched over the pistol in his son's bedroom, where they inform him that he has been "re-activated".

At a U.S. military installation deep inside Creek Mountain, Colorado, Jackson is brought before the coverstones found in Giza. There, he meets the old woman, who introduces herself as Catherine Langford. Daniel correctly translates the hieroglyphs on the coverstones, which read, "A million years into the sky is Ra, Sun God. Sealed and buried for all time, his Stargate." When he asks why the U.S. is interested in "5,000 year old tablets," the re-activated Colonel "Jack" O'Neil enters, stating, "my report says 10,000 [years old]", the first indication that established history is about to be overturned. O'Neil then declares all information regarding the project classified, and Daniel must proceed with his translations without further revelations regarding the nature or origin of the stones.

Two weeks later, after exhausting all avenues, Daniel makes an accidental breakthrough when he recognizes star constellations printed on a newspaper as identical to the glyphs etched into the stone. A meeting is convened. Daniel bumblingly disseminates his findings. He postulates that the constellations on the coverstones define a coordinate location in three-dimensional space, with a seventh glyph denoting "a point of origin".

An immediate objection is raised. There is no seventh symbol on what is enigmatically called "the device". "What device?," Daniel asks. A command is given and blast louvers lift, revealing the subject of the project: the enormous ring found at Giza. Dazzled, Daniel manages: ". . . What is that?" And Langford replies, "It's your Stargate." Daniel swiftly identifies the "seventh symbol" that evaded previous researchers and the base goes into immediate activity. The Stargate has an inner ring with a band of constellations etched into it which rotate with the assistance of internal motors; triangular "locks", called chevrons, ratchet into position as the constellation coordinates are entered in sequence. A perceptible rumble builds in intensity as the coordinate sequence approaches completion. With the sixth chevron entered, the base rattles with tremendous violence, and Langford calls to Jackson over the din, "This is as far as we have ever been able to get." Then Jackson's seventh chevron is entered and the center of the ring seems to explode with light; a great plume surges into the chamber and collapses into itself, settling down to a strange, ethereal watery membrane seeming to glow from within. The Gate is open.

A probe is sent through, and is tracked to "the other side of the known universe," where it reaches its destination -- a location tracked to somewhere in "the Kalium Galaxy" (others interpret this as Caelum). The probe sends back a brief stream of images before the gate's glowing membrane abruptly disintegrates: closed.

Upon reviewing the probe's data, it is decided that the destination world is very comparable to Earth. Different symbols are observed on its stargate. Failure to interpret these would preclude any recon team from returning. When the prospect of sending a team through is almost discarded on this account, Daniel convinces them to go, claiming that he will be able to decipher the other stargate.

After preparations, including the conferring of Langford's 1928 Ra necklace to Daniel, the stargate is activated again, and the team (which includes Colonel O'Neil and Daniel Jackson) is sent though. On the other side, they find themselves deep inside a structure, which is revealed to be a pyramid -- an "exact replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza" -- when they exit it to reach the outside. The pyramid is in the midst of a desert, barren and sere, devoid of any immediate signs of civilization. When O'Neil orders Daniel to "dial" the stargate so that they can reach Earth and report these apparent negative (though suspiciously premature) results, Daniel reveals that returning home is impossible without the co-ordinates for Earth, which aren't likely to be nearby because -- this being an apparent copy of the Great Pyramid -- there are probably no writings to be found. Accepting this with military coldness, O'Neil orders the team to set up a base camp, and returns the pyramid, where he begins to assemble something in secret.

Outside, Daniel is eating when he notices tracks. He follows them to an alien beast, a Mastadge, grazing at a small desert brush. When the other team members arrive, Daniel announces, "It's domesticated!" The beast panics. Daniel gets caught in its reins and is dragged off. The team members follow; when the mastadge finally stops, they find a small human civilization, mining. At their approach, the miners immediately bow before them, assuming them to be gods. O'Neil tries to offer friendship to a boy named Skaara, but in fear, the boy runs off to get Kasuf, leader of the tribe. The team is brought back to an enceinte-city and are given a warm welcome. When the tribe unveils a large golden wadjet of Ra, Daniel realises that the people must think they are messengers from Ra. O'Neil sardonically tugs at Langford's Ra necklace around Jackson's neck, says, "I wonder what gave them that idea." Suddenly, horns are sounded, and the people close the city gates. O'Neil and the other team members try to leave, but change their minds when Skaara shows them an approaching sandstorm. Back at the pyramid base camp, engulfed completely in the buffeting storm, the other members of the team head into the stone pyramid for shelter.

At the city, Daniel attempts to communicate with the locals by writing, but discovers that this practice is forbidden. A young woman is presented to him as a gift; he attempts to communicate with her, and learns that her name is Sha'uri. When Daniel tries to show her where they came from by writing pictures in the sand, she shows him one of the symbols found on the stargate. He asks her to show him where she saw this symbol, and she leads him to it. Eventually Daniel learns that the main language of the people is a dialect of ancient Egyptian, which as the team's Egyptologist, he understands fluently.

Back at the pyramid, the sandstorm is at its worst. A strange vibration begins, and a huge pyramidal craft begins to land directly on top of the pyramid. The team members still inside the pyramid are attacked by an unknown entity, later revealed to be a creature with the head of a jackal (the Egyptian god Anubis).

In the city, O'Neil is looking for Daniel, who is off with Sha'uri. With the help of the local boys, O'Neil finds them in a secret cave covered in hieroglyphs, a lost "hall of records," where he discovers that Daniel has figured out how to verbally communicate with the locals -- . While in the cave, Daniel is able to learn much about the stargate, and how humans came to be on this planet. Apparently, the Egyptian god Ra was an alien, the last of a dying race, who traveled the galaxies looking for a way to extend his own life. Upon reaching Earth, he encountered a primitive race - humans - a race which, with his power and technology, he could maintain indefinitely. He also discovered that within a human body, he had a chance for eternal life. He found a young boy, possessed his body, and appointed himself ruler of Earth. Using the stargate, Ra transported thousands of people here, mostly from Egypt along the Nile Delta, to mine the mineral upon which all his technology depends. On Earth, however, humans rebelled and buried the stargate after learning that Ra was not a god. Fearing the same would happen on this planet, Ra outlawed reading and writing so that the population there would not learn the truth. After Daniel finishes recounting this to the rest of the team, they discover that the cave contains a center stone like the one that contained the coordinate chevrons on Earth, but its bottom half has eroded away, obscuring the last necessary symbol. Concluding that they can't get back to Earth without the last symbol, O'Neil orders the team to return to the pyramid.

The next day, the team leaves the city, secretly followed by Skaara and his friends. Upon reaching the pyramid, O'Neil, Daniel, and the rest of their team see the pyramidal craft resting on top of the stone pyramid. Going back inside (still under observation by Skarra and his friends) they are attacked by a creature with the head of a hawk (the Egyptian god Horus). After the other team members are disabled, O'Neil and Daniel retreat further back into the pyramid to where the stargate is. O'Neil looks for the object he was working on earlier, but it's gone. Suddenly, a wedged hatch in the ceiling opens, and nine rings descend. In a flash of light, the Anubis creature appears inside the rings, and is joined shortly by two Horus creatures that followed O'Neil and Daniel down to the stargate.

Using the same rings, the Anubis creature takes the two humans up into the pyramid craft, and produces them into a throne room. There, they meet a figure in an elaborate Osirid pharaoh mask: the sun god, Ra. Ra has the object O'Neil was looking for, which Daniel then discovers is a hydrogen bomb. After stating that O'Neil has come to destroy him, Ra motions to his guards, and each press a stub at the base of their necks. The metallic animal heads retract away, and the beings are revealed to be mere humanoids. Ra's retraction of armour shows also a morph back to his self. When O'Neil attempts to disarm Ra's guards and kill Ra, he is subdued, but in the resulting firefight, Daniel is shot and killed. Ra summons his children workers to surround him, a shield. Fearful of hurting children O'Neil doesn't fire. He is subdued. O'Neil is thrown into a dungeon, where he finds the other members of his team.

Deep inside Ra's chambers, Daniel wakes up in the same majestic stone sarcophagus that Ra uses to regenerate and sustain his own captured body. Daniel finds himself completely healed and alive; a child finds him and guides him to where Ra is preparing himself. Ra speaks with Daniel; he tells him that Earth should not have re-opened the stargate. As an act of revenge for Earth's rebellion, Ra explains that he intends to destroy Earth by sending the bomb back through the stargate with a shipment of his mineral, which will increase the bomb's destructive power by a factor of one hundred. But first, he explains, Daniel must kill his team members, to show the inhabitants of this planet that Ra is their one god who they should not disobey. If Daniel refuses, Ra threatens to kill Daniel and all who have seen him.

Back in the city, Sha'uri tells her fellow people what Daniel read to her from the hieroglyphs in the secret cave; she begins to tell them the truth about Ra, and that they should no longer live as slaves. At first, many don't believe her.

The next day, the people of the city gather before Ra's pyramid craft to witness the execution. Skarra signals Daniel, and covertly displays the fact that he and the rest of the locals have guns taken from the team's arsenal. Knowing he has support, Daniel turns and shoots toward Ra, while the locals fire into the air to create a commotion. In the ensuing confusion, O'Neil, Daniel, and the rest of the Earth team flee Ra's pyramid and, with a group of locals, take shelter in a cave.

In the cave, Daniel confronts O'Neil about the nuclear bomb. O'Neil explains that his orders were simple; if the team found any threats, destroy the stargate. Daniel wonders why O'Neil was so willing to throw his life away, but O'Neil explains that no parent should have to outlive their own child. Daniel then tells O'Neil of Ra's plan to send the bomb to destroy Earth, and O'Neil declares that he's going to stop that bomb from going through.

Later, Daniel notices Ska'ara drawing a picture of their victory against Ra. The planet's three moons are depicted rising over the pyramid. Daniel recognizes this as resembling a glyph on this planet's stargate and realizes that this must be the seventh chevron: their ticket home. He reports this to O'Neil and the trip back to the pyramid begins.

Meanwhile, as Daniel prepares some food at the campfire, he is shocked when the other young men laugh at him and say (in subtitles), "husbands don't do this work." He turns to Sha'uri, the young woman given him, and asks, "Married?" Embarrassed, she quietly tells him that she did not let slip the secret that he "didn't want" her. Understanding, Daniel proceeds to demonstrate to Sha'uri that he wants her very much indeed, as a smiling brother Ska'ara drops a screen closed behind them.

The next morning, Ra's guards are searching for the escapees by sorting out the locals coming in and out of the city. One guard finds Daniel, only to be shot dead by Jack with a staff weapon. As the people pray for the fallen 'deity', Daniel declares "These are your gods!" and opens up the guard's mask to reveal the face behind it. Those who doubted Sha'uri's word initially are now shocked to learn the truth.

Later that day, O'Neil and his team approach the mineral shipment caravan that the locals are bringing Ra. They join the mineral caravan, disguised as locals, as a way to infiltrate Ra's pyramid and intercept the bomb.

As the caravan approaches the pyramid, Ra orders that the bomb be sent down to the stargate, so that it can then be sent through with the mineral when it arrives. Upon reaching the pyramid, O'Neil, Daniel, Sha'uri, and other locals rush the pyramid, battling the guards. O'Neil, Daniel, and Sha'uri make it down to the stargate, but not before Sha'uri is shot and killed. O'Neil still intends to set off the bomb on this planet, and sets the timer for seven minutes, giving Daniel that much time to dial the stargate and get home. However, the transporter ring hatch in the ceiling activates, and Daniel grabs Sha'uri's body to stand under it. He is transported to Ra's ship, but in his place is the Anubis guard, who fights O'Neil.

In Ra's craft, Daniel uses the rejuvenating sarcophagus to revive Sha'uri. When Daniel returns to the rings with the live Sha'uri, Ra attempts to stop them. However, below in the pyramid, O'Neil manages to defeat Anubis by activating the transporter rings on top of Anubis' head. Daniel is transported down, and Ra is left on the ship with the head of Anubis.

Outside, Kasuf has summoned the entire population of the city, and overpowered Ra's guards. Seeing the rebellion on Earth happen all over again, Ra decides to retreat, and prepares his ship for takeoff.

Inside the pyramid, O'Neil discovers that the already ticking bomb cannot be turned off, either by design or due to manipulation by Ra. However, both O'Neil and Daniel realize that they can transport the bomb to Ra's ship, which has by now left the atmosphere. They do so. Ra watches in resigned horror as the bomb's cherry red counter ticks inexorably to zero. His mammoth ship explodes in a tremendous blast, destroying Ra in the process. Now the people are free, and the Earth team is able to return home.

Daniel decides to remain, with his wife, Sha'uri, having pledged to help the locals build a new society, while O'Neil returns to Earth with the rest of the team, a changed man re-charged with a purpose and a reason to live. Daniel gives Jack Catherine Langford's necklace and instructs him to tell her it did bring him luck. We follow O'Neil into the stargate's mesmerizing wormhole until it delivers to the phrase: THE END.

Sequels

Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich always envisoned Stargate as the first part of a trilogy of films, but parts two and three were never developed. At Comic-Con 2006, 12 years after the original film was released, writer/producer Dean Devlin confirmed that he was in early discussions with rightsholders MGM about finally bringing the final two parts to the screen.^[1]

According to Devlin, the second film is intended to be set around 12 years after the original, with Daniel Jackson making a discovery that leads him back to Earth and to the uncovering of a new Stargate. The second movie will suposedly use a different mythology from the Egyptian one, (which formed the background to the original movie), with the third movie bringing them together to reveal that "all mythologies are actually tied together with a common thread that we haven't recognized before."^[2] Devlin stated that he hoped to enlist original stars Kurt Russell (Col. Jack O'Neil) and James Spader (Dr. Daniel Jackson) for the sequels. The actors have reportedly expressed an interest in participating in the project.

The movie trilogy will not directly tie in to the Stargate SG-1 TV series. Of the relationship between the movies and the TV series, Devlin said "We would just continue the mythology of the movie and finish that out. I think the series could still live on at the end of the third sequel. So we're going to try to not tread on their stories."^[2]. Plans for sequels to the original film are unrelated to the development of two straight-to-DVD movies being made as sequels to the Stargate SG-1 TV series.

Reception

Stargate received mostly poor reviews gaining a 43% rating on review collection website Rottentomatoes.com. Most of the negative reviews focused on the overuse of special effects, thinness of plot and excessive use of cliches with Roger Ebert going so far as to say, "the movie Ed Wood, about the worst director of all time, was made to prepare us for Stargate." However the positive reviews stated that it was an "instant camp classic", and praised the film for its special effects and entertainment value,^[3] with Chris Hicks of Deseret News calling it "Star Wars meets Ben Hur".^[4]

The film seemed to get a much warmer reception from the public, grossing $71.5 million at the US box office and $196 million worldwide.^[5]

Quotes

• Daniel: (As the audience abruptly and indignantly file out of his lecture) Is there a lunch or something...?

• Jack: (Asking the people of Abydos if they've seen Daniel anywhere) I don't suppose the word "dweeb" means anything to you guys.

• Daniel: [to Jack] I don't want to die. Your men don't want to die. These people don't want to die. It's a shame you're in such a hurry to.

• Jack: (Pushing the alien guard's head under the rings and pressing the activation button) Give my regards to King Tut, asshole!

• Jack: I'll be seeing you around... Doctor Jackson.

Coverstone hieroglyphs

These are the hieroglyphs that were on the inner track of the coverstone found on top of the Stargate. Daniel Jackson deprecated the original translation, saying it was wrong because it relied on the work of E. A. Wallis Budge.

time a million years into the sky is Ra sun god

sealed + buried coffin forever to eternity for all time

door to heaven stargate

Novel sequels

Using some of Roland Emmerich's notes, Bill McCay wrote a series of five novels, continuing the story the original creators had envisioned, which involved the Earth-humans, locals, and the successors of Ra. See Stargate literature.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by David Arnold and played by the Sinfonia of London[1] and conducted by Nicholas Dodd. It was the second motion picture Arnold had composed and the first major motion picture. At the time of Stargate's production, David Arnold had recently started to work in a local video store in London. Once Arnold got the job, he spent several months in a hotel room working on the soundtrack, spending more time rewriting the music and improving it as delays were being created due to film companies trying to get the rights to release the film. [2]

The Soundtrack listings are:

1. Stargate Overture
2. Giza
3. Unstable
4. The Coverstones
5. Orion
6. The Stargate Opens
7. You're On The Team
8. Entering The Stargate
9. The Other Side
10. Mastadge Drag
11. The Mining Pit
12. King Of The Slaves
13. Caravan To Nagada
14. Daniel and Shauri
15. Symbol Discovery
16. Sarcophagus Opens
17. Daniel's Mastadge
18. Leaving Nagada
19. Ra - The Sun God
20. The Destruction of Nagada
21. Myth, Faith, Belief
22. Procession
23. Slave Rebellion
24. The Seventh Symbol
25. Quartz Shipment
26. Battle At The Pyramid
27. We Don't Want To Die
28. The Surrender
29. Kasuf Returns
30. Going Home

Running Time: 65 minutes.

Stargate: Deluxe Edition Soundtrack

In October 2006 a Deluxe edition was released, which included seven new tracks which added an additional 8 minutes of audio bringing the running time up to 73 minutes.

The new tracks added are:

1. Wild Abduction - Track 02
2. Bomb Assembly - Track 11
3. Eye of Ra - Track 16
4. Execution - Track 28
5. Against the Gods - Track 30
6. Transporter Horror - Track 34
7. Closing Titles (Intro) - Track 37

Trivia

• Alexis Cruz (Skaara) and Erick Avari (Kasuf) are the only actors to appear in both this film and the subsequent spin-off series Stargate SG-1 while Richard Kind (Dr. Gary Meyers) is the only actor to appear in both this film and Stargate Atlantis. (Though he does not play the same character.)
• Colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil/Jack O'Neill and Dr. Daniel Jackson are the only characters (albeit played by different actors) to appear in the original Stargate film, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
• The Horus guard that Jackson unmasks was portrayed by Beninese actor Djimon Hounsou in the early stages of his acting career. Hounsou would later go on to play major roles in numerous big-budget Hollywood films.
• The opening title sequence is similar to the 1989 Batman film; both feature an orchestral opening with the camera slowly panning over an object key to the film, ending in a pull-back shot of the object—in Batman's case, the bat emblem, in Stargate's case, the mask of Ra.
• The Ultimate Edition Extended Cut DVD release of Stargate includes a large amount of formerly cut footage, including a scene revealing that the fossilized remains of an Anubis Guard and a Horus Guard were found beneath the buried Stargate.^{[citation needed]} Colonel O'Neil contemplates the implications of the fearsome fossil shortly before the mission to Abydos leaves.^{[citation needed]}
• The concept of Ra is rather similar to Sutekh the Destroyer from the Doctor Who serial Pyramids of Mars. Both are evil aliens, the last of a dead race, who came to Earth and posed as an Egyptian god.
• In Emmerich and Devlin's script for Stargate 2, the character of Lieutenant Charles Kawalsky was to play a major role, although his character was killed off within three episodes of SG-1.^{[citation needed]}
• Kawalsky in the film, although referred to as Lt. Kawalsky, wears the rank of an Air Force lieutenant colonel.
• This was the first film to ever have an official website.
• The original cut was over three hours long and featured a much darker tone than the released film. The cut footage expanded much on the released story, depicting in greater detail the origins of Ra, extended battle scenes and battle scenes that were cut altogether (such as a battle in front of the city of Nagada). It is discussed in a two-page review in the June 1995 issue of the magazine SCI-FI Universe.^{[citation needed]}
• It is not possible to utilize constellations to determine a specific position in space; constellations are composed of stars that are spaced several light-years apart and spread across three different spatial dimensions.

Differences between Stargate and SG-1

Main article: Differences between Stargate and Stargate SG-1

Although the original Stargate film possessed a rich backstory and universe (created and developed through official production notes, scripts, and a subsequent novel and graphic novel series), it was largely ignored and disregarded when MGM, which owned the rights, took Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's product and handed the reins to a new team of creators (Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner) for the television series Stargate SG-1. This new team introduced many new concepts and changed many aspects of the film's backstory.

References

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