Peter’s picks with comics and flicks

2/17/14

This month’s pick: STARGATE

Released in the year: 1994

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Starring: Kurt Russell and James Spader

The plot:

The story is about James Spader portraying a nerdy Egyptian Cultural researcher who has been hired by the U.S. Air Force to decrypt the mysterious hieroglyphs on a ring like portal called a Stargate and Kurt Russell portraying a serious Air Force colonel who is ordered to lead a military team into the Stargate and destroy it if it poses as a threat.

       When Spader, Russell and the other military personnel enter the Stargate, they arrive on a desert planet where tribes of ancient humans work as slaves to alien possessed humans disguised as the Egyptian gods who forbid reading and writing due to a revolt back on Earth centuries ago. It is then that Spader and Russell help lead a revolution against the godlike human/aliens and win. At the end, spader’s character chooses to stay on the planet while Russell goes through the Stargate to back Earth.

          

The hero’s journey aspect:

From my standpoint, Stargate is the perfect example of the hero’s journey. Daniel Jackson (Spader’s character) is the main hero who was given the call adventure by Catherine Langford (portrayed by Viveca Lingfors) who is sort of the mentor for the first half of the movie. Jack O’Neil (Russell’s character) is sort of the failed hero on a personal matter because before being assigned to the Stargate, his kid accidentally shot himself.

The shadow is none other than Ra, the sun god.

Ra is the perfect definition of sci-fi movie evil (no offense to Darth Maul) because he plans to send a nuclear bomb through the Stargate to destroy the Earth. The Herald is basically the Stargate itself along with the hieroglyphics that tell us the story of how these characters. The three parts of the hero’s journey are all present with this movie. From the Departure to Initiation and then to the Return, it’s used perfectly.

 

Final thought:

In my opinion, I think Stargate is the coolest science fiction film of all time. It’s premise and plot is interesting and engaging, it’s characters are funny and likeable, and above all else, it’s probably one of the most realistic sci-fi movies of all time and that’s really saying something. It shows aspects from the classic 1968 book, “Chariots of the Gods” by Enrich von Danikken, in which aliens helped the humans with building the Egyptian pyramids and were worshiped as gods. While there has also been a movie made in 1970 based off this book, Stargate shows it well through groundbreaking special effects and interesting plot. Ronald Emmerich and Dean Devlin are the kings of 1990’s science fiction movies (or they were, at least until 1998, when they remade Godzilla). The whole movie is an amazing spectacle that basically not only unlocked a franchise… but a universe as well.