My Favourite Movies: Stargate
Controversial archaeologist Daniel Jackson (played by James Spader) is down on his luck after being ridiculed for his ideas. So it comes as some surprise that his talents and his ideas are needed by the US military. Taken to a secret underground base he is shown an ancient artefact the like of which the world has not seen for thousands of years. Within days he corrects the existing team’s mistakes and uncovers the key to open the Stargate – a device that gives almost instantaneous access to another world. To determine if there is any threat to Earth security a team of crack soldiers led by Colonel Jack O’Neil (played by Kurt Russell) is sent through with Jackson as insurance that they can make their way home. But when no ‘dial home’ instructions can be found it dawns on the team that they might be stranded on the other side of the galaxy with no way home. Hope is raised when they make contact with an apparently primitive people who at first site appear to be ancient Egyptians. But with the arrival of a gigantic spaceship in the shape of a hollow pyramid it becomes clear that the threat to Earth is very real indeed and that if they can’t stop the alien in human form who commands a formidable arsenal of exotic weapons a bomb will be sent back to Earth that could plunge the planet into a nuclear winter.
Whilst not a particularly great film this movie did have the saving grace of giving rise to two of my favourite TV shows – Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Spader was OK as Jackson, the archaeologist who suspected that the Egyptians where always more than they seemed (a very old idea this one) but to be honest I much preferred Michael Shanks in the TV version. Kurt Russell as Jack O’Neil was a little too understated and I thought that his suicidal motivation was a bit overplayed. I do like the actor very much though and still think that he’s very much underrated. Of course the joke in the TV series is that its Jack O’Neill makes the fact that his name has two l’s very clear for the beginning to distinguish him from his predecessor. I did fall about when he did that. Again, though I do rate Russell I thought the Richard Dean Anderson’s O’Neill was much better – although to be fair he had multiple series for character development rather than a little over two hours (in the Directors Cut version)!
More than anything the idea of Stargate struck a chord with me. The idea that a device could exist that could transport you, vehicles and anything else over truly vast distances and back again is pretty awesome. I can’t remember at the time if I wanted them to make this into a series (the ending is pretty definitive in many ways) but I certainly looked forward to the TV version when I heard about it. As a meta-idea it certainly has legs. Of course to begin with it was ‘planet of the week’ but once it found its legs with new enemies and a proper story arch – to say nothing of an excellent cast – it turned out to be something very special indeed. If you’ve seen the series and missed the movie I’d recommend seeing it to see where the ideas came from. If you’ve seen neither then I recommend starting her with the Spader/Russell version of the Stargate team and then watch the series to see who some things changed and much was built, and improved, upon. Yes, it was very much a B movie but the first two series that followed it where definitely A class.
4 comments:
Yep, I liked all of the Stargate stuff, watching and owning this movie and watching all 3 Stargate series all the way through. Like you say, they weren't always perfect in execution, but the point is that the concept is intriguing and they are generally entertaining.
Richard Dean Anderson certainly understood that he had to interject at least some humor into the role or it wouldn't be a complete character. But having the luxury of working out that character subtlety is the benefit of having done almost 180 episodes.
dbackdad said: Richard Dean Anderson certainly understood that he had to interject at least some humor into the role or it wouldn't be a complete character.
Jack O'Neill was a great character. Played for laughs a little too much at the end I thought but basically fantastic. I actually liked him least out of the four main characters to begin with but he became probably my favourite by the end of the series.
Did you ever watch Farscape? I have not but knew Ben Browder and Claudia Black both came from that show before being on the later years of Stargate. I did like those actors.
I watched the first few episodes of Farscape but never really 'took' to it. I thought it was really too.... twee and puppety. Also I never really liked Ben Browder (a main reason why I never bought the final series of Stargate on DVD) though I did like Claudia Black in reasonably small doses.
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