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		              STARGATE
		      A review by Professor Neon
			  October 26, 1994

Starring: Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Viveca Lindfors
	  
Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Produced by: Joel B. Michaels, Oliver Eberle, Dean Devlin

Written by: Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich

Executive Producer: Mario Kassar

Le Studio Canal+ (U.S.) 1994 (Distributed by MGM/UA for USA & Canada)

MPAA Rated: PG-13

Professor Neon's rating (0-10, 5=average, 10=best): 6

Running time: 119 minutes

Opens: October 28, 1994
       
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The closing credits for this film claim the production company's trademark
on the word "Stargate".  This may prove to be one of the more difficult
trademarks to enforce.  The term "stargate" has been used for company names,
computer products, computer sites, satellite projects, and numerous other
purposes for many years.  And of course, most of this usage can be traced
back to Arthur C. Clarke's original "2001: A Space Odyssey" novel.  The
large black monolith out at Saturn (in the "2001" movie they used Jupiter;
it was too tough to do good Saturn effects back in the 1960's) that sent
"Dave" on his wild subspace trip across the universe, was described as "the
stargate" in the novel.  

Similarly, the "StarGate" (this is apparently the preferred capitalization
for the device itself, as opposed to the title of the movie) in this new film
acts as a shortcut to a very distant location.  Unlike in "2001", where the
stargate was triggered accidentally, the present-day characters in "Stargate"
go to great lengths to figure out how to activate the device--which we learn
was originally discovered in an Egyptian archeological site early in this
century.

Any stargate is basically a plot device to get people from place to place
quickly, so that lots of time is presumably left for real "adventures" and
excitement.  Of course, once you get to where you're going, there had better
be something interesting going on, or else the entire exercise sinks into
futility.

"Stargate" suffers to a considerable degree from exactly this problem.  The
StarGate device takes the dweeby ("I'll never get laid") young academic Dr.
Daniel Jackson (portrayed by James Spader), who cracks the final code needed
to activate the portal, and a military team (headed by Kurt Russell as Colonel
Jonathan "Jack" O'Neil) millions of light years in a few seconds to the
planet "Abydos", via the obligatory "rushing forward" special effects
sequence.  Upon their arrival, Daniel discovers that he had overestimated
his ability to activate the StarGate on the other end for the return trip,
so they're all stuck.

The party finds itself in a vast desert environment where it locates a
community of slaves mining ore for "Ra", who turns out to be a nearly
immortal being flying around in a spaceship shaped like a large pyramid. 
He lands occasionally here and there to check up on his slaves' activities,
docking his ship over land-based pyramids.  If you remember the film
"Krull" (1983), you may notice some similarities in overall concept.

The StarGate portal to Earth had apparently been open many thousands of
years earlier, so the ancient Egyptian cultures and the culture of Abydos
had common roots.  Populations had come through the portal in the past to
serve Ra.  This explains why Abydos sports pyramids and all manner of other
Egyptian symbols and paraphernalia, albeit with high-tech elements grafted on.
The concept had numerous possibilities.  Unfortunately, none of them were
ever really fulfilled in the film.

A point in favor of "Stargate": it's refreshing to see a visit to a distant
planet where the inhabitants don't speak perfect colloquial English!  In this
case, they're supposedly speaking an ancient Egyptian dialect, which we
ultimately follow through Daniel's verbal translations and occasional
subtitles.

Given the rather silly story the actors find themselves in, the performances
were acceptable, if uninspired.  Kurt Russell plays his usual "tough but
with a hidden heart of gold" character.  Jaye Davidson ("The Crying Game")
brings in an androgynous performance as Ra.  Spader's Daniel is suitably
dweeby, and does manage (just barely) to avoid pushing intolerably far into
stereotypes.

The key to the simplistic plot, right down to its unlikely and "romantic"
ending, is to keep in mind that the film is clearly geared to target
adolescent and slightly post-adolescent males.  It's that sort of
"adventure", rather than serious science fiction.  Get the nerdy guy to a
distant place with lots of competently executed special effects, provide
plenty of battle scenes and a local love interest, then make the guy the
hero that saves the slaves, the girl, and his own group.  That's the basic
formula.  If the audience sometimes laughs in the wrong places (as it does
with this film) that's just the way it goes.

And perhaps, looking at "Stargate" specifically from the standpoint of that
target audience, it does all right.  Any individual film can't be expected
to appeal to all segments of the movie-going population.  As an adolescent
adventure story, "Stargate" is probably accomplishing its purpose fairly
well.  It doesn't have the grand scope and much broader appeal of a 
"Star Wars", but then again it's hopefully not trying to.  "Stargate" will
probably be able to find its audience, relatively narrow though it might be.

[ Professor Neon ]
 neon@vortex.com

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Professor Neon's rating for "Stargate"
(0-10, 5=average, 10=best): 6

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