Stargate is a 1994 science fiction action-adventure film directed by Roland Emmerich, written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. The film is the first entry in the eponymous media franchise and stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz, Mili Avital, and Viveca Lindfors. The plot centers on the "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.
Stargate was released on October 28, 1994, 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 In 1928 at Giza, Egypt, archaeologist Professor Paul Langford, accompanied by his daughter Catherine, unearths cover stones engraved with Egyptian hieroglyphs and other markings. Beneath he discovers a large metallic ring of unknown purpose. On a table of artifacts pulled from the excavation, Catherine finds and pockets a gold amulet with symbols carved in it.
In 1994, the now-elderly Catherine invites Egyptologist and linguist Daniel Jackson, Ph.D. to translate the hieroglyphs. The stones, located underground at a military installation in Colorado, are now part of a classified U.S. Air Force project overseen by Special Operations Colonel Jack O'Neil. Jackson sees the existing research and translations of the hieroglyphs and corrects them. The stones describe a "stargate" which uses six star constellations as spatial coordinates and the symbol for Earth as the point of origin. Jackson is brought to see 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. A mechanical probe is sent through the stargate and manages to send back a few images showing different symbols on the ring on the other side of the portal before it closes. Catherine gives Jackson her amulet before he leaves with O'Neil and his team (Reilly, Porro, Freeman, Brown, Ferretti, and Kawalsky) to pass through the wormhole.
They emerge inside a temple at the base of a pyramid on an arid desert planet. Jackson searches for the symbols required for the return journey through the Stargate, but the pyramid complex lacks any visible markings. O'Neil orders Kawalsky to set up camp. Jackson sees a mastadge, 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 because he is wearing Catherine's amulet. 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 arrives, causing a large sandstorm, and lands atop the pyramid structure. His soldiers capture Ferretti and Freeman while killing Porro and Reilly.
Jackson finds and translates hidden murals and hieroglyphs with help from Sha'uri and discussions with the tribe. He 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 needed to configure the Stargate for the return to Earth, 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. They reveal their true human-like forms by retracting their head pieces: Ra's funerary mask styled headdress and the soldier's Anubis-shaped 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. Perceiving their arrival with the bomb as an act of war, Ra declares his intentions 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—essentially creating a civilization-ending event. Ra then orders the human tribe to watch as he prepares to force Jackson to execute the others to reinforce his place and power as their god, 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 symbol, the point of origin, needed for the return to Earth.
O'Neil and his remaining men aid Skaara in overthrowing the remaining overseers, wearing Horus-head armor, 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 with telekinetic powers. O'Neil activates the teleportation system, killing Anubis and allowing Jackson and Sha'uri to escape the ship. The rest of the humans arrive en masse, and overrun the remaining guards, defeating them. When O'Neil realizes the bomb cannot be disarmed, he and Jackson teleport the bomb to Ra's ship, destroying the ship and killing Ra as he tries to escape. 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.
Cast Kurt Russell as Colonel Jonathan J. "Jack" O'Neil, a career U.S. Air Force Special Operations officer, who suffers a period of suicidal depression after his son accidentally shoots and kills himself with O'Neil's own pistol. When his commission is reactivated, he willingly enters the Stargate, fully aware that he will likely not survive to return to Earth. In real life, Kurt Russell served in the California Air National Guard and belonged to the 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, then based in Van Nuys. Russell turned down the role multiple times, until it was realized he was sent an early version of the script, so he was sent the completed shooting script and accepted it. James Spader as Dr. Daniel Jackson, an archaeologist and linguist whose theory that the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty did not build the Great Pyramid of Giza is not very widely accepted. Actor James Spader was intrigued by the script because he found it "awful", but, after meeting director Roland Emmerich, got excited about it for he "realized that making this picture was going to be such an adventure that out of that would come an adventure on screen." Jaye Davidson as Ra, a powerful alien in human form. After voyaging across the universe, searching for a new host that could sustain his dying body, Ra took the form of a curious adolescent boy and enslaved the people of his planet (Earth). Using a Stargate, he transported people from Earth to another planet until the humans on Earth rebelled and buried their Stargate. Reluctant to continue acting after his debut in The Crying Game, Davidson took the role after his request for $1 million in pay was accepted. Stargate was the final major film for Davidson, who subsequently retired from acting. Kairon John plays the masked Ra and Dax Biagas plays the young Ra. Viveca Lindfors as Dr. Catherine Langford, the civilian leader of the Stargate project who was present when the Stargate was uncovered in Giza in 1928, where her father gave her the amulet depicting the Eye of Ra. Stargate was Lindfors' penultimate film. Kelly Vint Castro portrays the young Catherine. Alexis Cruz as Skaara, the son of Kasuf and brother of Sha'uri. Skaara and his friends aid O'Neil and his men to fight Ra. Mili Avital as Sha'uri, the daughter of Kasuf. Kasuf offers Sha'uri to Daniel Jackson in marriage as a gift. Leon Rippy as Major General W. O. West, the commanding officer of the facility housing the Stargate device John Diehl as Lt. Colonel Charles Kawalsky, O'Neil's second-in-command Carlos Lauchu as Anubis, the captain of Ra's personal guard Djimon Hounsou as Horus, a personal guard of Ra Erick Avari as Kasuf, the local leader of the people living in a city near the Stargate, and the father of Sha'uri and Skaara French Stewart as Lt. Louis Ferretti, a member of O'Neil's team Christopher John Fields as Lt. Freeman, a member of O'Neil's team Derek Webster as Senior Airman Brown, a member of O'Neil's team Jack Moore as Senior Airman Reilly, a member of O'Neil's team Steve Giannelli as Lt. Porro, a member of O'Neil's team Rae Allen as Dr. Barbara Shore, a researcher studying the Stargate Richard Kind as Dr. Gary Meyers, a researcher studying the Stargate
Production Hieroglyphic script on the coverstone and its chalkboard translation (including original translation and later modification by Daniel Jackson)r:n:p-rnp-t:Z2-I8:V20-r:q-b-H-w-W15-N1:N25-p-w-r:a-C1-m-i-t:n-N8
m-x-m-t-S20-Aa18-n:f-q:r-s-T19-A24-Q6:A55-f:n-D&t-tA:r-G21-H-H-ra:N23
s-sbA-b-O32-n:Z2-s-b-A-sbA:ra-Z2:fliteral translation of the text: years million in sky this Ra as Aten (=sun disk)sealed buried enduringly and repeatedlydoor his to starsJackson's final translation: million years into the sky is Ra Sun Godsealed and buried for all timehis Stargate
Development The film in its original cut and in the director's cut plays out in chronological order. When Devlin and Emmerich edited the film in the director's cut to tighten the narrative, they decided to add a scene at the very beginning of the film to show who the human host of Ra was before the aliens took him. Only Davidson's upper torso was filmed. The first scene was a combination of model shots and a set in Yuma, Arizona where Rambo III had been filmed. The scene of the excavation of the Stargate was also filmed in three days in Arizona. A golden look was achieved by filming near sunset. To keep within the budget, the producers put stick figures with cloth in the distant desert to appear as humans. The original Stargate was painted black, but it looked like a giant tire so it was repainted silver at the last moment.