Flicks

Stargate (1994)


Eric Renderking Fisk | July 2014 Bookmark and Share


StargateBeyond a reasonable doubt this movie should be an essential “Flick To Hold You Over” since it has just about everything; ancient ruins, lost civilizations, a mystery from a lost period in time, ancient alien artifacts. The score is fresh and somewhat too familiar only because it’s been used to death for other people’s trailers for other films in the past 20 years.

The only thing missing is a couple of fedoras. What we should have a cult classic. Almost.

James Spader is “Dr. Daniel Jackson” a young archeologist who is able to piece together artifacts from a distant period in time to translate an ancient language and piece together a forgotten piece of history. In the alien hieroglyphics he’s able to translate, we’re told of how the local inhabitants of Egypt were enslaved by Aliens who were the original inspiration for the mythology of the region. Eventually Dr. Jackson is recruited by a super-secret organization that has a device it doesn’t know how to use hidden in an underground facility.

Using some luck and intuition he’s able to figure out that the missing symbol they’ve been looking for has been right in front of them the entire time… and they’re able to activate it and journey to the devices origins. Along for the ride is Kurt Russell as Cornel Jack O’Neil – the military officer who is tasked to detonate an atomic device if the inhabitants on the other side of the Stargate  are hostile and pose a threat to The Unites States and the rest of the world.

Once they go though the wormhole that’s created by the Stargate, we’re taken on a wild adventure while being shown how Dr. Jackson was right - everything we thought we knew via Egyptology doctrine and religious beliefs from millennia ago is based on truth as only the primitive inhabitants of earth could understand; the Egyptian gods were actually alien. It’s those aliens who enslaved some of our ancestors to build the pyramids, temples and monuments for their own malicious purposes. And elsewhere in the universe... they're still at it with the decentants of those people the alients took with them!Spader

Once our gang figures out what kind of trouble they're in and setting the Stargate on the other side is harder then originally thought cause there's a clue missing.... they set out on a mission to rescue the descendants of some of those same ancestors who were taken to mine this unique ore that’s akin to unobtainium from Avatar for an alien “god” who goes by the name “Ra.” Jaye Davidson plays Ra with such ridiculous perfection – not male or female but something just so totally, genuine alien… at one moment I was a little too creeped out and the next I was sympathetic… Ra is one of those villains you hate to love one minute and love to hate the second.

Yea, he’s enslaved a whole bunch of people, abducts children to serve as his personal servants, threatens to destroy earth with our own nuclear weapon and some enhancements… but all he wants is to just continue to live in the lap of luxury he’s become accustomed to! You can’t hate a creepy dying alien occupyping a human’s body for centuries for trying? Can you?

Let's kick some assIf there’s any downside to this movie – and it’s just a movie that’s a fun pop corn flick to enjoy some night – it’s that it just keeps reminding us of how awesome other movies were. There were some moments in the movie when James Spader is in a cave reading some old hieroglyphics and I kept thinking… “Oh man! If only this was Harrison Ford!” There were just too many moments when I felt that this was a spec script written by Dean Devin and Roland Emmerich for a possible sequel to “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” who really wanted to combine elements of other franchises, too. I kept catching myself saying "If this was only in the hands of Lucas and Speilgerg...” I’m sure I’m not the only one. "Stargate" feels more like a beautiful homage to other films we already love but doen't have enough to stand on it's own, period.

t also reminded me a bit of what "Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull" tried to do - create a link between "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" to "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind." You tell me which one did a better job.

Script writers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devin seem to have a lot of fun with the soruce material from books like "Chariots Of The God" to the point I think he deserved an acknoegement in the screen credits.

Beyond all else, this is the best movie Roland Emmerich has ever made, period. It might be sacrilege to say this, but it’s better than “Independence Day,” “2012,” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” There are countless other movies he did (some I don’t dare mention because I don’t want to lose my lunch or make any of you sick, either) and none of them close to this one. This is where his career peaked and it was all downhill from here.

The most exciting part of this movie came after the end credits: my sons, my wife and I watched it for the first time in ages; my boys Coppertop and Tumble became really excited about Egyptian hieroglyphics and were begging me to take them to the local museum that has some Egyptian artifacts on permanent display. We’ll be heading down this Friday!

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