Film Friday: Stargate (1994)

Every time I see Stargate, I wonder why I don’t like this film more than I do. I love the idea. The actors are perfectly cast too. I even love the television series that followed. Yet, after a good start, the film very quickly leaves me cold. Ultimately, I think the problem is this just isn’t a smart film.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

Stargate begins with the introduction of Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spade). He’s an Egyptologist and linguistics professor with a strange theory about the Egyptians not building the Great Pyramids. He doesn’t know who did build them, but he’s sure it wasn’t the Egyptians. Jackson is asked by the Air Force to join a secret project. The Air Force has in its possession a device, found in Egypt, which they are trying to understand. Jackson solves the riddle the Air Force team couldn’t and they learn the device is a stargate, which lets you transport almost instantly to the location of any other gate in the galaxy.

A reconnaissance team is sent through the gate, led by Col. Jack O’Neil (Kurt Russell). They end up inside a pyramid on a planet that looks a lot like Ancient Egypt. To return, they need to find a cartouche containing symbols that tell them how to operate the gate from that side. As they search, they meet a group of humans who are slaves to Ra, the Egyptian god. Ra, it turns out, is an alien creature who occupies human bodies to live forever. The reconnaissance team has brought a nuclear bomb with them with instructions to blow up the gate if they find life. Ra takes the bomb and plans to blow up the Earth with it, but the team saves the day.

The Problem

Stargate is one of those films that starts strong and leaves you impressed with the overall idea of the stargate. But actually watching the film turns out to be a pretty darn dull experience. This is because the film just isn’t a very smart film.

Consider the plot. The plot starts strong with the introduction of a mystery. You have an unknown device that must be decrypted. You have the mystery of who built the pyramids. You have a secret military project hidden in a missile silo. This is all very exciting and offers much potential. Unfortunately, it only lasts about five minutes. Jackson solves the mystery and they open the stargate. Everything you have seen up to this point is now finished and a new movie begins, a movie based on what is on the other side of the gate. Still, that sounds like it has a lot of potential, right? Sure, except at this point, the film runs out of ideas. On the other side of the gate, the reconnaissance team finds a desert and a hostile alien, and the rest of the film is little more than an action film where a small band of soldiers must defeat the god-like Ra. There is no mystery, no intrigue and no more ideas to make you think.

Moreover, at this point, all the writing becomes exposition. . . blatant exposition. For example, rather than showing the audience why Earth can’t turn on the gate from their end to let the recon team return, the writers have a soldier ask the question “Why can’t Earth just turn it on” and another soldier responds, “Haven’t you heard? It doesn’t work that way.” Exposition stinks. It’s poor writing. It saps a film of the scenes that make the film memorable.

In this case, it would have added a lot to the film to have Earth turn on the gate and have a team member try to walk though, only to have the guy disintegrate. That would have given the audience a visceral, memorable moment. Instead, it becomes a forgettable line of dialog. Making this failure even worse, it’s not like the film was packed with so much that there wasn’t more time for another impactful scene. To the contrary, about 90% of the film was quite dull, with the recon team befriending the natives, falling for the native girl, or just walking around in the sand.

Unfortunately, the entire film after they open the stargate is like this. Who are these humans on this new planet? Their leader tells us. Who is Ra? Ra tells us. How do we know Ra is an alien? He tells us. He has a device that lets him resurrect the dead. How do we know that? We’re told. Nothing in the second half of the film is shown to the audience, it’s all just told to us through exposition.

Now compare that to the first part of the film. How do we know Jackson’s theories aren’t accepted by the scientific community? He’s giving a lecture and people start walking out. They mock him. How do we know he’s a genius? He arrives at the project and within seconds fixes a mistranslation the team has been working with for months. A few minutes later, he solves the mystery of the stargate and he finds the missing symbol the rest of them didn’t see. In truth, these are fake achievements and the more you think about them, the dumber they become – for example, the translation isn’t really relevant since they have the gate and it’s not like anyone with a brain would need “gateway to Heaven” to be re-translated into “stargate” to get the meaning – but the point is that you are shown actions which show you what you need to know, you aren’t just told.

Here’s another example. Col. O’Neil is messed up because his son accidentally shot himself with O’Neil’s gun. How do we know this? When O’Neil is introduced to us, we see him sitting on his bed holding his gun, looking at a picture of his son, as his wife tells the MPs that he won’t talk to anyone. Yes, the MPs tell the audience what happened to O’Neil’s son, but not until after we figured it out. Again, the difference is huge. By seeing this, we understand viscerally what is going on in O’Neil’s mind. If we were only told, then it wouldn’t really sink in.

So why don’t we get to see Ra steal his latest body? Why don’t we get a real mystery of who the people on this new planet are? Because the filmmakers either weren’t very bright or they got lazy. Fixing this issue alone would have made this movie an order of magnitude better by giving us three or four more truly memorable scenes. Right now, there aren’t any after the opening of the gate.

Another problem with this film, is that everything in it is cliché. That’s more evidence of lazy writing. For example, why would Gen. West give the reconnaissance team a nuclear bomb? Well, because he’s a soldier and the Hollywood trope has it that soldiers want to blow up what they don’t understand. But this nonsense. No one would blow up a find like the stargate. Moreover, why even send the reconnaissance team? Why not just send the bomb? The whole concept is clichéd and stupid. The film is packed with moments like this: the stupid science team awaiting the genius, the soldier who will throw aside his orders to save a kid, the native girl who falls for the hero, the villain with no purpose other than being villainous.

Stargate could have been a top five science film in my opinion if the writers had given any thought to turning all the exposition into scenes to let the audience discover what is going on. Stretch out the mystery of who built the Great Pyramids. Introduce us to the alien Ra by showing him switch bodies and seeing the horror of both humans as it leaves the old body and takes over the new. And find non-cliché motives for Gen. West, Jack O’Neil, and Ra. But the writer’s didn’t do this, and what could have been a great film ended up a pretty darn dull film to watch.

Thoughts?