So, here’s another cult movie that this year celebrates its 30th year anniversary, a movie that in today’s context I would describe as what happens to history channels after normal broadcasting hours. Anyway, if you have been living a world deprived of any contact with science fiction, then you might not have heard of it, but at this point it is such of a classic that I find that hardly probable. Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich in 1994, starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, was the point of origin for a franchise that spawned numerous television series, books and games, also influencing many other creative works in the genre.
Quick premises of the movie: an intergalactic entity, searching for a way to cheat death, finds Earth and decides to use humans as vessels for eternal reincarnation – he becomes the sun God Ra, creates an interdimensional portal that can connect to various worlds and takes several hundred slaves from Egypt to serve in mining a mineral that he needs. Eventually the Egyptians rebel sealing the Stargate (roll credits) until it is later discovered by the military. The movie is hence about the first expedition through said portal where obviously they send a military squad filled with trigger-happy hotheads and just one linguist; after all, why send scientific experts of various fields and anthropologists when first encountering new life forms that are not from Earth, when you have guns? Cynicism aside and regardless of how absurd the premises might seem, it is still a pretty well written story.
Whatever you do, just don’t ask why the best aerodynamic shape for an intergalactic spaceship would be that of a pyramid. Just don’t do it. Also, if we are considering plot inconsistencies and think of time as non-relative in this particular instance since traversing the stargate should be instantaneous, don’t ask how an alien god kept the same type of enslaved society for about ten thousand years. I mean, even if he prohibited them to read or write, and even if they didn’t revolt or evolved, just how did they manage to maintain their numbers within the several hundreds and inhabited just one small ‘city’ on an entire planet?
A little side note, apparently Raymond Reddington not only was the most connected and a-story-for-any-occasion charming international criminal, but he also saved a civilization from an auto-proclaimed alien life form. Good for you Ray.
I would give this movie a 7 out of 10 ‘seventh symbols’.