Stargate (film)
Stargate is a 1994 science fiction action-adventure film[7] directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich. The film is the first entry in the Stargate media franchise and stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital, and Viveca Lindfors. The plot centers on the titular "Stargate", an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a wormhole, enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe. The central plot explores the theory of extraterrestrial beings having an influence upon human civilization.
This article is about the original 1994 film that started the media franchise. For other franchise films, see Stargate (disambiguation).Stargate
- Dean Devlin
- Roland Emmerich
- Joel B. Michaels
- Oliver Eberle
- Dean Devlin
- Michael J. Duthie
- Derek Brechin
- MGM/UA Distribution Co.
(United States) - AMLF
(France)
- October 28, 1994 (United States)[1]
121 minutes[2]
English[2]
$55 million[5]
Stargate was released on October 28, 1994[1] by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States, while it was released by AMLF in France. The film received mixed reviews, with its atmosphere, story, characters, and graphic content both praised and criticized. The film grossed $196.6 million worldwide against a production budget of $55 million.
Plot[edit]
In 1928 at Giza, Egypt, archaeologist Professor Paul Langford, accompanied by his daughter Catherine, unearths cover stones (also called pyramidion or capstone) engraved with Egyptian hieroglyphs and other markings. Beneath he discovers a large metallic ring of unknown purpose.
In 1994, the now elderly Catherine invites Egyptologist and linguist Daniel Jackson, Ph.D. to translate the hieroglyphs. The stones are now part of a U.S. Air Force classified project overseen by Special Operations Colonel Jack O'Neil. Jackson determines that the hieroglyphs refer to a "stargate" which uses star constellations as spatial coordinates. He is then shown the Stargate, the ring device from Giza. They use his coordinates to align the Stargate's rotating inner track with V-shaped markings (or "chevrons") along its outside. When all seven chevrons are locked in, a wormhole opens, connecting the Stargate with a distant planet. Jackson joins O'Neil and his team (Reilly, Porro, Freeman, Brown, Ferretti, and Kawalsky) as they pass through the wormhole.
They emerge inside a pyramid on the arid desert planet of Abydos. Jackson attempts to locate the symbols required for the return journey through the Stargate but fails. O'Neil orders Kawalsky to set up camp. Jackson sees a mastage, a large animal with a harness, which drags him off when he approaches it to investigate. O'Neil, Kawalsky and Brown follow and they discover a tribe of humans working to mine a strange mineral, which Brown identifies as the same material the Stargate is made of. O'Neil radios the others to secure basecamp. Following them back to their city, Jackson realizes that the people speak a variant of Ancient Egyptian and is able to communicate with them. He learns that the tribe sees him and his comrades as emissaries of their god Ra due to an amulet given to him by Catherine. The tribe's chieftain Kasuf presents Jackson with his daughter Sha'uri as a gift, and although Jackson initially refuses her, he later becomes romantically attached to her. O'Neil befriends Kasuf's teenaged son Skaara and his friends. That night, Ra's ship lands atop the pyramid structure, and his soldiers capture Ferretti and Freeman while killing Porro and Reilly.
Through hidden markings and discussions with the tribe, Jackson learns that Ra is an alien being who came to Earth during the Ancient Egyptian period to possess human bodies to extend his own life. Ra enslaved these humans and used the Stargate to bring some of them to Abydos to mine the mineral that is used in the alien technology. Humans on Earth revolted, overthrew Ra's overseers, and buried the Stargate to prevent its use. During this investigation, Jackson comes across a cartouche containing six of the seven symbols for the Stargate, but the seventh has been broken off and has worn away.
When Jackson, O'Neil, Brown, and Kawalsky return to the pyramid, there is a firefight against Ra's soldiers. Brown is killed and Kawalsky is injured. Jackson and O'Neil are captured and brought before Ra and his guards, who are revealed to be humanoids when they retract their armored head-pieces. A firefight ensues and Jackson is killed; O'Neil is incapacitated and is incarcerated with the others. Ra places Jackson's body in a sarcophagus-like device that regenerates him. Ra then shows Jackson a nuclear bomb which O'Neil had secretly brought with him. He says he intends to send it back through the Stargate to Earth, along with a shipment of the mineral, which will increase its explosive power a hundred-fold. Ra then 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, while Freeman is killed. They flee to nearby caves to hide from Ra. Skaara and his friends celebrate, and Skaara draws a sign of victory on a wall, which Jackson recognizes as the final Stargate symbol.
O'Neil and his remaining men aid Skaara in overthrowing the remaining overseers and then launch an attack on Ra, who sends out fighter ships to strafe the humans while he orders his ship to depart. The humans outside run out of ammunition and are forced to surrender to the fighter ships' pilots, but the rest of the tribe, seeing that their false gods are really humanoid, rebel against the guards 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 teleport the bomb to Ra's ship, destroying the ship and killing Ra. With the humans freed, the remaining team—O'Neil, Kawalsky, and Ferretti—return to Earth while Jackson chooses to stay behind with Sha'uri and the others.
Release[edit]
Home media[edit]
In 1995, the film was released on VHS and as a Dolby Digital-encoded laserdisc spanning two discs (three sides).[18] 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.[19] The film was released on Blu-ray format on August 29, 2006.[20][21]
Director's cut[edit]
The director's cut had several scenes which were cut from the theatrical release. This version begins with a short scene showing the abduction of the human that is possessed by Ra. The second added scene took place immediately after the excavation of the Stargate in 1928 and showed a petrified Anubis guard underneath a broken cover stone. With this scene, the producers had tried to introduce the idea that beings had attempted to come through the Stargate after its burial but the scene was ultimately cut for time concerns.[8]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film received a warm 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.[6][5] At the time, the film set a record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film released in the month of October.[23] It would hold this record for four years until 1998 when Antz took it.[24]
In its first run, Stargate made more money than film industry insiders predicted, considering the lukewarm reviews.[25][26] Some regard it as Emmerich's breakthrough film.[27] 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.[28] From November 4–6, the film grossed around $12,368,700, declining 25%.[29] It topped the box office for two weeks until it was dethroned by Interview with the Vampire.[30] 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.[31]
Other media[edit]
Cancelled film sequels[edit]
Devlin and Emmerich always envisioned Stargate as the first part of a trilogy of films, but Parts 2 and 3 were never developed.[46][47] 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.[48]
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."[49] 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 reportedly expressed an interest in participating in the project.[50]
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."[49] Plans for sequels to the original film are unrelated to the development of straight-to-DVD films made as sequels to Stargate SG-1. 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.[51]
Novel series[edit]
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.