Stargate (film)
Stargate is a 1994 science fiction adventure film released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco Pictures. Written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the film is the first release in the Stargate franchise. Directed by Emmerich, the film stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital, and Viveca Lindfors. The plot centers on the premise of a "Stargate", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The film's central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization.
The film had a mixed initial critical reception, earning both praise and criticism for its atmosphere, story, characters, and graphic content. Nevertheless, Stargate became a commercial success worldwide.
Plot
In 1994, Egyptologist and linguist Daniel Jackson, Ph.D., is invited by Catherine Langford to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs on cover stones, also known as casing stones, that her father had unearthed in Giza, Egypt, in 1928. Jackson is taken to a U.S. Air Force installation and told by its commander, Special Operations Colonel Jack O'Neil, that the project is classified information. Jackson determines that the hieroglyphs refer to a "stargate" which uses constellations as spatial coordinates. On this revelation, Jackson is shown that the base has this Stargate, also discovered by Langford's father. They use Jackson's coordinates to align the Stargate's metal ring with markings along its outside, and once all seven are locked in, a wormhole opens, connecting the Stargate with a distant planet. Jackson joins O'Neil and his team, consisting of Reilly, Porro, Freeman, Brown, Ferretti, and Kawalsky, as they pass through the wormhole.On the arid desert planet, Abydos, they find themselves in a pyramid-like structure. Jackson locates the Stargate's controls, but lacks the coordinates to return home. Colonel O'Neil orders Reilly, Porro, Freeman, and Ferretti to stay behind to guard the Stargate. Nearby, O’Neil’s group discover a tribe of humans working to mine a strange mineral from the planet. Jackson is able to communicate with them as they speak a variation of Ancient Egyptian, and finds the tribe sees them as of their god Ra. The tribe's chieftain Kasuf presents Jackson with his daughter Sha'uri as a gift, and though Jackson initially refuses her, he later becomes romantically attached to her. O'Neil befriends Kasuf's teenaged son Skaara and his friends, in part because Skaara reminds him of his long-deceased son who had shot himself with O'Neil's service weapon. Through hidden markings and discussions with the tribe, Jackson learns that Ra is an alien being who had come to Earth during the Ancient Egyptian period, looking to possess human bodies to extend his own life. Ra enslaved these humans and brought some to this planet through the Stargate to mine the mineral that is used in the alien technology. The humans on Earth revolted, overthrew Ra's overseers, and buried the Stargate to prevent its use. Ra forbade the humans in the tribe from becoming literate, fearing another revolt. During this investigation, Jackson comes across a cartouche containing six of the seven symbols for the Stargate, but the seventh has been broken off.
That night, Ra's ship lands atop the pyramid structure, and Ferretti and Freeman are captured by Ra's soldiers, while Porro and Reilly are killed. When Jackson, O'Neil, Brown, and Kawalsky return, they end up in a firefight against Ra's soldiers. Captured by Ra's soldiers Jackson and O'Neil are brought before Ra and his guards where it is revealed they are mere humanoids as their armored head-pieces retract. A firefight breaks out and Jackson is killed and the others are captured. Ra places Jackson's body in a sarcophagus-like device that regenerates him. Ra then explains to Jackson that he has found a nuclear bomb O'Neil secretly brought with him, has used his alien technology to increase its explosive power a hundred-fold, and threatens to send it back through the Stargate. Ra orders the human tribe to watch as he prepares to force Jackson to execute the others to demonstrate his power, but Skaara and his friends create a diversion that allows Jackson, O'Neil, Kawalsky, and Ferretti to escape, with Freeman being killed. They flee to nearby caves to hide from Ra. Skaara and his friends celebrate, and Skaara draws out a sign of victory in a wall, which Jackson recognizes as the final symbol.
O'Neil and his remaining men aid Skaara in overthrowing the remaining overseers, and then launch an attack on Ra, who himself sends out fighter ships against the humans while he orders his ship to depart. The humans outside are forced to surrender to the fighter ships' pilots when they run out of ammunition, but the rest of the tribe, having the true nature of their false gods revealed by Jackson, rebel against the pilots and overthrow them. Sha'uri is killed, but Jackson takes her body and sneaks aboard Ra's ship using a teleportation system, leaving O'Neil to fight Ra's guard captain, Anubis. Jackson places Sha'uri in the regeneration device, and she recovers, but Ra discovers them and attempts to kill Jackson. O'Neil activates the teleportation system, killing Anubis and allowing Jackson and Sha'uri to escape the ship. O'Neil and Jackson use the teleporter to transport the bomb to Ra's ship; the ensuing blast destroys the ship in space along with Ra. With the humans freed, the remaining team returns to Earth, and Jackson chooses to stay behind with Sha'uri and the others.
Director's cut
The director's cut had several scenes which were cut from the theatrical release. The first such scene took place immediately after the excavation of the Stargate in 1928 and showed petrified Horus guards near the cover stones; the producers had tried to introduce the idea that beings had attempted to come through the Stargate after its burial, but they cut the scene for time concerns.Cast
Production
Development
The film in its original cut plays out in chronological order, but when Devlin and Emmerich edited the film in the director's cut to tighten the narrative, they decided to change the first scene of the film into a flashback to show who the human host of Ra was before the aliens took him. Only Davidson's upper torso was filmed because he had refused to take out his nipple rings. The first scene was a combination of model shots and a set in Yuma, Arizona where Rambo III had been filmed. The scene of the excavation of the Stargate was also filmed in three days in Arizona. A golden look was achieved by filming near the time of sunset. To keep within the limit of the budget, the producers put stick figures with cloth in the distant desert to appear as humans. The original Stargate was painted black, but it looked like a giant tire so it was repainted silver at the last moment.Daniel Jackson's lecture on his theories was filmed in a hotel in Los Angeles. The scene was originally much longer and delved more into the theories that aliens had built the Egyptian pyramids, but it was trimmed for time concerns for the release. The scenes with O'Neil at his house were the first ones filmed with Kurt Russell; his hair was cut short afterwards. Russell requested his hair color to be brightened a little for the film. The fictional facility housing the Stargate was the largest set for the film, the former Spruce Goose Dome located in Long Beach, California. Egyptologist Stuart Tyson Smith joined production to make all Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and spoken language as accurate as possible.
Filming
The mask of the pharaoh in the opening credits was made out of fiber glass and modeled in the workshop. The sequence used a motion-control camera to give better depth of field. The score of Stargate was composer David Arnold's first work on an American feature film. When Devlin and Emmerich first flew to London to meet with Arnold, they had not yet heard the score; hearing it, they felt "he had elevated the film to a whole other level". Arnold later interviewed the actors during principal photography, using the information to improve his score.Visual effects
Jeff Kleiser and Kleiser-Walczak Construction Co.'s visual effects team of 40 people created the look of the Stargate. They used self-written image-creation and compositing software, as well as commercial digital packages to create the Stargate, the morphing helmets worn by Ra and the Horus guards, and the cityscape of Nagada. Footprints in the sand were often digitally removed. The creation of the wormhole, which was fully digital, was one of the biggest challenges in the making of the film. The ripples had to be digitally composited to appear accurate and realistic. Scanning lasers were lined up parallel to the gate to illustrate the amount of body that passed the surface of the Stargate plane. Afterwards, the parts of the body that had or had not yet gone through the gate were obliterated with a digital matte - a process that removes unwanted components from an individual frame or sequence of frames. The use of computers generating a big 3D storyboard allowed Emmerich to try out different shooting angles before settling on one angle.Music
Soundtrack
The film's score was composed by David Arnold, played by the Sinfonia of London and conducted by Nicholas Dodd. It was the second motion picture that Arnold had composed and his first major one. At the time of production, Arnold had recently started to work in a local video store in London. Once hired, he spent several months in a hotel room working on the soundtrack, spending more time rewriting the music and improving it, during delays due to film companies trying to get the rights to distribution. According to Arnold, "when I first read the script for Stargate, I knew what approach to take, which was to be as big and bold as possible," saying: "Every time there was an amazing sight, the characters would stand back and say, 'Oh my God!' But James would just smile and walk towards it. That was the basis for the Stargate score, moving forward with a sense of majesty instead of being frightened by what's around the corner."Release
Stargate was released on October 28, 1994 in the United States and released internationally in December of the same year. In 1995 the film was released on VHS and as a Dolby Digital-encoded laserdisc spanning two discs. The first DVD release was on June 18, 1997. The DVD format was re-released in October 1999 under the title Stargate Special Edition, and again in 2003 on VHS and a 2-disc DVD set with remastered theatrical and extended editions. The film was released on Blu-ray format on August 29, 2006.Box office
The film received a warmer reception from the public, grossing $71,567,262 at the United States box office and $125 million internationally for a worldwide total of $196,567,262. At the time, the film set a record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film released in the month of October.In its first run, Stargate made more money than film industry insiders predicted, considering the lukewarm reviews. Some regard it as Emmerich's breakthrough film. Stargate grossed over $16,651,000 in the United States during its opening week in October 1994. It was the 35th-highest-grossing film opening in the U.S. in October. From November 4–6, the film grossed around $12,368,700, declining 25%. The film would continue this decline until the end of November, when the film garnered $4,777,198, or an 8.2% rise. The week before that the film garnered around $4,413,420, a 45.6% decline. In its last week playing theatrically, the film garnered around $1,170,500 in the U.S.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 52%, based on 46 reviews, and an average rating of 5.29/10. The site's consensus states: "Stargate has splashy visuals and James Spader to recommend it, but corny characterization and a clunky script makes this a portal to ho-hum." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 42 out of 100, based on reviews from 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". At MRQE, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from most critics, the film holds a score of 64 based on 95 reviews. Out of Emmerich's works, Stargate is his fourth-highest-rated film, behind The Patriot, Independence Day, and White House Down.Most of the negativity focused on the overuse of special effects, thinness of plot, and excessive use of clichés. Roger Ebert went so far as to say, "The movie Ed Wood, about the worst director of all time, was made to prepare us for Stargate". Ebert awarded the film one out of four stars and, even over ten years later, Stargate remained on his list of most hated films. Mike DiBella from Allmovie said, "There simply isn't enough spectacle in Stargate to make up for its many flaws." The film peaked at number one on the Billboard chart Top Video Rentals on April 29, 1995.
The positive reviews stated that it was an "instant camp classic" and praised the film for its special effects and entertainment value, with Chris Hicks of the Deseret News calling it "Star Wars meets Ben Hur". Scott McKenzie from DVDactive said, "It's a shame because the world created around the Stargate is compelling and detailed. It's almost enough to make me want to watch the TV series, but not quite." In January 1995, Emmerich and Devlin were sued by an Egyptology student who claimed that he had written the story and given them the idea. The suit was later settled out of court.
Lawsuit
In 1996, Omar Zuhdi, a Shawnee high school teacher, filed a lawsuit against the makers and originators of the original movie, claiming that they stole the plot and story of his 1984 film script Egyptscape, as the basis of the film Stargate.Accolades
In 1995, Stargate was considered for various film awards worldwide. It won six of the ten awards it was nominated for.| Award | Category | Recipients | Result |
| Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film | Stargate | |
| Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Saturn Award for Best Costume | Joseph A. Porro | |
| Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films | Saturn Award for Best Special Effects | Jeffrey A. Okun and Patrick Tatopoulos | |
| BMI Film & Television Awards | BMI Film Music Award | David Arnold | |
| Fantasporto | International Fantasy Film Award for Best Film | Roland Emmerich | |
| Germany's Golden Screen Awards | Golden Screen | Stargate | |
| Hugo Awards | Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation | Stargate | |
| Sci-Fi Universe Magazine: Universe Reader's Choice Awards | Best Science Fiction Film | Stargate | |
| Sci-Fi Universe Magazine: Universe Reader's Choice Awards | Best Special Effects in a Genre Motion Picture | Jeffrey A. Okun | |
| Sci-Fi Universe Magazine: Universe Reader's Choice Awards | Best Supporting Actress in a Genre Motion Picture | Mili Avital |
Future
Devlin and Emmerich always envisioned Stargate as the first part of a trilogy of films, but Parts 2 and 3 were never developed. At Comic-Con 2006, twelve years after the original film was released, Devlin stated that he was in early discussions with rights-holders MGM about finally bringing the final two parts to the screen.Cancelled film sequels
According to Devlin, the second film is intended to be set around twelve years after the original, with Jackson making a discovery that leads him back to Earth and to the uncovering of a new Stargate. The second entry would supposedly use a different mythology from the Egyptian one which formed the background to the original film, with the third installment tying these together to reveal that "all mythologies are actually tied together with a common thread that we haven't recognized before." Devlin stated that he hoped to enlist original stars Kurt Russell and James Spader for the sequels. The actors have reportedly expressed an interest in participating in the project.The film trilogy would not directly tie into the series Stargate SG-1. According to Devlin, the relationship between the movie and the series is "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." Plans for sequels to the original film are unrelated to the development of straight-to-DVD films made as sequels to Stargate SG-1.
Novel series
Using some of Emmerich's notes, Bill McCay wrote a series of five novels, continuing the story the original creators had envisioned, which involved the Earth-humans, the locals and the successors of Ra. According to Devlin, he and Emmerich had always planned to do three films with the potential for more, but MGM preferred to play out the television series first.Television spin-offs
The CD-ROM programme Secrets of Stargate, released after the film, showed how the special effects were made, and included behind-the-scenes of the film and the showing of interviews with the cast and the production members. Dean Devlin eventually gave Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer the rights over the film, and author Bill McCay wrote a series of five novels based on Emmerich's notes, continuing the story the original creators had envisioned.In 1996, MGM hired Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner to create a spin-off television series. Stargate SG-1 premiered on the American subscription channel Showtime on July 27, 1997 and ended its ten-season run in 2007. Stargate SG-1 itself spawned the non-canon animated television series Stargate Infinity, and the live-action television series Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe.
Differences from film to television franchise
SG-1 creators and executive producers Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner altered the canon by introducing several new concepts during production of the SG-1 and Atlantis series. In the television series characters were portrayed by different actors, and names were spelled differently. Daniel Jackson was played by James Spader in the film and by Michael Shanks in the series. Kurt Russell's character Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil, a rather humorless Colonel, is played by Richard Dean Anderson as Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill in SG-1. French Stewart's character was Lieutenant Louis Ferretti but in SG-1, played by Brent Stait, he is a Major. The spelling of Daniel Jackson's wife changes from Sha'uri to Sha're, O'Neill's wife from Sarah to Sara.The Stargate Command setting was transferred from the fictional military facility located in Creek Mountain, to the Cheyenne Mountain military complex. The unnamed planet from the film was named Abydos in the series and the distance from Earth changed from millions of light-years away to becoming the closest planet to Earth with a Stargate, residing in the same galaxy as Earth. Also in SG-1, Stargate travel is limited to the Stargate network in the Milky Way galaxy. Ra was the last of an unnamed race in the film, being of a humanoid species with large black eyes and a lack of facial features. In SG-1, Ra is one of many "Goa'uld System Lords", a race of parasitic eel-like creatures. There were also changes to the Stargate. The unique set of 39 Stargate symbols in the film were replaced with the concept of 38 symbols that are the same for each Stargate, plus a single point of origin symbol that is unique to that individual gate. While the kawoosh effect in the movie was created by filming the actual swirl of water in a glass tube, and looked like a vortex on the back of the Gate, on the TV series this effect was completely created in computer graphics by the Canadian visual effects company Rainmaker. At the beginning of season 9, the original movie wormhole sequence was substituted by a new sequence similar to the one already used on Stargate Atlantis, but blue as it was in the movie and SG-1. In Atlantis, it is green and, in Universe, it is white.