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Directed by: Roland Emmerich Starring: Kurt Russell, James Spader Stargate is easily one of the best movies made in the action/adventure/scifi genre. I think the reason it's such a great movie is that it falls perfectly into a slot that not many other movies have: if you created a spectrum of "soft" to "hard" scifi, putting something like Independence Day at the softest end and something like 2001 at the hardest end, Stargate would fit nicely in the middle. The sci-fi in Stargate isn't just an excuse for action scenes (like ID), but it doesn't tackle and huge and heavy sci-fi issues either. The only other movie I can think of that lies in similar territory is The 5th Element. Anyways, it's basically got everything a sci-fi action fan could ask for. Wonderful action in cool locations, wicked aliens, and a very minimal amount of love story / sappy drama. It's a fun movie that is terribly under-rated. RATING: 5.0 PROS: One of the best straight-up sci-fi adventure movies ever made CONS: None ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111282/
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Aug 4, 2004 19:22
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I thought it was a pretty forgettable film, but it's leagues ahead of Emmerich's other movies.
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Aug 4, 2004 21:01
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Reviewer's Quote: "Never has one movie spent so much time building up to a climax that sucks so bad..." Directed by: Roland Emmerich (the rear end in a top hat who brought you the blockbuster hits Godzilla and Dragonball Z) Starring: Kurt Russell (oh God no), James Spader, and a bunch of other guys you'll thankfully never see again. Stargate is tastes like Richard Simmon's rear end after a six hour "sweatin' to the oldies marathon" with a pinch of his last homosexual encounter to boot. Before you complete rip out your hair in a violent rage let me explain: I absolutely love Sci-Fi. But first let me define what Sci-Fi is in my humble opinion. I am obsessed with the kind of science fiction that makes you stop and think about something from a perspective that you've never considered and it makes you explore yourself and your morals, ethics, etc in a new way. In books, think of: Frank Herbert (Dune), Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land, JOB: a comedy of justice), Issac Asimov (I, Robot , the Foundation series), Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game), Phillip Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep AKA Blade Runner), and even Douglas Adams (the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy series). For movies I think of: Total Recall, Blade Runner, Dune, Alien, Predator, the Matrix trilogy, Gattica, and even Planet of the Apes. These movies make you think. Not Star Trek. Not Spock, Bones, Kirk, Picard, and the army of 1000 ugly aliens with 15 hairy brows. Not garbage episode sitcoms that barely rise about your average Beverly Hills 90210 orgy of mind-numbing garbage. "Captain Riker is making a sight sexual reference to that stupid eyevisor guy from Reading Rainbow again, hee hee!" GET OUT OF HERE!! Stargate falls right in behind Star Trek, with a good bit of Michael Crichton. Make that a ton of Michael Crichton. It begins great with a some ancient evil artifact found in the 40's and they build this "Stargate" and send some marines through to figure out where it goes. You're thinking, "they finally did the "Contact" movie idea right with space marines and yes YES YES!!!" BUT NO NO NO! The main actor is Kurt Russell (oh God no) and the supporting actor is James Spader (nooooooooooooooooooooooo). The acting is horrible. Awful. Dead. These guys act like "dude, where's my f**king space teleporter, man". Then they go through the "StarGate" into ancient Egypt on the other side of the galaxy where Ra (the sun god) is a real god and wants to take OVER THE WORLD THROUGH THE STARGATE. EVERYONE THERE IS HUMAN AND SPEAKS PERFECT ENGLISH! It's like watching the "Scorpion King" except where's "the Rock"? Did I mention that Kurt Russell's character is called "Colonel Jack O'Neil"? OMG that is so "comic book" gay. They're right, I never would have guessed anything like that. Because it's so STUPID! I can't believe someone paid money for this script. And in a completely original plot twist they can't re-open the Stargate to go back. NO Really! And the bad guy wants to use the Stargate himself... NO really! And they meet a bunch of completely average human beings that speak english so they can teach them about FREEDOM (patriotic american music now) and they will fight back. NO Really! At this point I recommend turning the movie off or find a good pillow and get some sleep. Do not waste more of your precious life on this buttplug of a cinematic experience. If you do not listen to my warnings and keep watching... then you get two hours of Flash Gordon style special effects and a utterly forgettable, laughable plot. Beam me up Scotty, no original ideas here. Set speed to stupid. Rating: 0 out of a possible 5 stars Pros: I got an hour and a half of sleep before the "snow" at the end of the movie woke me up. Cons: The 15 minute beginning up until they jump in the "Stargate". Additional Information:everything you want to know about this crap from our friends at the Internet Movie Database Site! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111282/
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Aug 4, 2004 22:37
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Was that a truthmedia review, Overlord? I especially loved the juvenile insults. Oh ho, Jack O'Neil is gay LOL! Richard Simmons's rear end LOL! The incorrect facts did it too, like the fact that a critical plot point is that they don't speak English. I think it's a fun movie, with good acting and a neat concept. It's worth watching on TV, or buying on DVD if you're a big fan. It's usually priced at 9.99. I consider that to be exactly right. It's really about a 3.5 but I rated it a 4 due to personal tilt.
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Aug 5, 2004 10:53
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Yeah I had a good time writing that. Thanks for the input. For some reason I though they could speak english, I guess I must have gotten confused with some other Star Trek movie or whatnot. Personally, I would save myself the 9.99 and just pirate the first 15 minutes of this crap off of UPN some weekend. Check out my rant on the Star War Holiday Special. I even put together some images from the movie to really juice it up!
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Aug 5, 2004 16:47
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Stargate was a pretty big deal back in 1994. It had a lot of great elements that sparked something in the imaginations of little boys. My friend and I would incorporate elements of Stargate into our bizarre make-believe omiverse of sci-fi and fantasy. So the creative possibilities presented by the Stargate was a welcome addition to the Back to the Future sets, mutant powers, Skynet from The Terminator series, lightsabers, and Shredder (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) as the primary villain. All of this was brought to life with the power of LEGO. It would be generous to say the movie received some mixed reviews on release and indeed, the possibilities weren't expressed as well as they could have been. There were also some cliché characters and some questionable interactions at points. While all of that is true, it totally misses the point. The buildup throughout the movie was well done and there is a true sense of wonder throughout. The potential for the series to grow into a new mega-franchise was obvious to those sensitive to such things. I've seen very little of the SG-1 series, but I remember being disappointed that they retconned some elements. It was also disappointing to know that a true sequel to the original movie would never happen. That said, Stargate still holds up with some of the better films of the 90s. 4/5
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Sep 14, 2009 20:29
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Kind of an old thread, I guess, but the age of the movie means I've had time to crystallize my opinions about it.  Stargate is one of my very favorite movies and an underrated gem. I really love this movie almost too much. I'm honestly baffled by the lukewarm press it seems to have gotten. It has a bunch of very clever conceits (how many movies have you seen where the central hook is a vowel shift in an ancient language?), a plot that is surprisingly coherent, a real, thick sense of mystery, discovery, wonder, and alien-ness, and an off-beat bookish hero played with masterful precision and humanity by James Spader, all punched up by one of the richest and most rousing film scores ever composed. The storytelling is brisk and tight as a drum, just perfection. There's a love story in there too, briskly told but just SO sweet that it leaves a stamp far beyond its actual footprint in the film's runtime. Maybe the critics were looking at the film and seeing the Kurt Russell/cheesy military half too much, but to me those are really just background elements at most, and shouldn't even figure. This isn't their movie, it's Spader's and the Egyptians', and the wonderful old Viveca Lindfors's. If you like mysterious ancient civilizations, linguistics, romantic adventures in breathtaking faraway places, space aliens, and Star-Trek-type sci-fi, and yearn for an intellectual, quirky, and interesting hero who wears glasses—if you want a sci-fi action movie with both a heart and a brain—then I can't recommend Stargate enough. Oh, and if you're like me and have a soft spot for any movie that takes place in the desert, this movie, like Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Mummy, is your crack. Sadly, the TV series doesn't have any of the character or qualities that attracted me to the movie—especially the language thing, which was like the whole point of the movie—and also seems to have effectively prevented a true movie sequel from ever being made. So Stargate the movie remains a self-contained, offbeat gem. 5/5 Review pertains to the theatrical edition, not the director's cut. The director's cut just adds several minutes of badly-edited pure flab that damages the momentum, and even reuses footage that's already in the movie...!
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May 12, 2010 07:34
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Watched this movie with my mom while Robotrippin'. Fun as poo poo, with the linguistics to keep my addled brain focused. Don't really remember the ending so I'll give the first 1/2: 4/5
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Jul 12, 2010 06:22
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Stargate doesn't really deserve the cult stardom it gets. The story is basically that the military-industrial complex is bad, and the seemingly crude natives are actually great guys once you get to know them. And the natives are brown, while our hero is white. But the bad guys are mostly brown too, so it's not all bad. There's a lot of great bits in this movie that just beg for better attention. The method of interestellar travel is interesting, there's realistic use of linguistics, and the alien baddies seem incredibly cool. No spoilers, but the cool factor wears off in a most unfortunate way. What we're left with is basically a B-movie that attracts a big following because the plethora of ideas contained therein beg for expansion. Witness- several TV spinoffs. RATING: 1/5 Two points for dumb but fun action scenes, and the cool ideas that you can dream would be better used *Note: I'm one of those people that physically cannot fall asleep in a theater, but Stargate got me frustratingly close to nodding off.
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Jul 16, 2010 21:11
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