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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 2846
Released: February 17, 2003 |
| Our Price: $4.33 |
| Used Price: $1.90 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
When Professor Daniel Jackson (James Spader) innocently accepts the offer of a mysterious woman to decode an ancient Egyptian artifact known only as "Stargate," he unwittingly takes the first step on an epic adventure that will span galaxies and decide the fate of an entire planet. Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell), a true soldier with nerves of steel and a tragic past, is brought back to active duty to commandeer the first trip through the "Stargate." On a desert planet on the far side of the universe, Jackson and O'Neil must battle the powerful alien Sun God, Ra (Jaye Davidson). At stake: the freeing of an ancient civilization from slavery and any chance of ever getting home!
Description of Stargate (Ultimate Edition):
Before they unleashed the idiotic mayhem of Independence Day and Godzilla, the idea-stealing team of director Roland Emmerich and producer-screenwriter Dean Devlin concocted this hokey hit about the discovery of an ancient portal capable of zipping travelers to "the other side of the known universe." James Spader plays the Egyptologist who successfully translates the Stargate's hieroglyphic code, and then joins a hawkish military unit (led by Kurt Russell) on a reconnaissance mission to see what's on the other side. They arrive on a desert world with cultural (and apparently supernatural) ties to Earth's ancient Egypt, where the sun god Ra (played by Jaye Davidson from The Crying Game) rules a population of slaves with armored minions and startlingly advanced technology. After being warmly welcomed into the slave camp, the earthlings encourage and support a rebellion, and while Russell threatens to blow up the Stargate to prevent its use by enemy forces, the movie collapses into a senseless series of action scenes and grandiose explosions. It's all pretty ridiculous, but Stargate found a large and appreciative audience, spawned a cable-TV series, and continues to attract science fiction fans who are more than willing to forgive its considerable faults. --Jeff Shannon
Stargate (Ultimate Edition) Reviews:
Amazon Description Wrong 
2009-12-25 - I don't know where Amazon got their description of this movie from, but it's completely wrong:
Product Description
A POLICE DETECTIVE IS IN CHARGE OF THE INVESTIGATION OF A BRUTALMURDER, IN WHICH A BEAUTIFUL AND SEDUCTIVE WOMAN COULD BE INVOLVED.
That has nothing to do with Stargate. Also, their reviewer seems not be a science fiction fan, using phrases like 'hokey hit', 'senseless series of action scenes', and 'pretty ridiculous'. He obvious doesn't know what he's talking about, since it spawned the single longest running science fiction show in history. It's an interesting premise with a new collection of technology from the warp drive and blasters we're all used to. Well worth a viewing.
Ultimate Stargate
2009-12-16 - I had seen this when it first came out and then forgot about it.
I picked it up so my kids could see where the Stargate series
of TV shows originated. It was great.
A Sci-fi Gem--even without the special features!
2009-12-06 - Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is a kooky and oddball but incredibly brilliant Egyptologist whose theories about the pyramid of Giza has laughed him out of town as much as his own esoteric field of study. When a mysterious, older woman with ties to a top-secret project funded by US Government and run by the Air Force offers him a job, Dr. Jackson is about to get the second chance of a lifetime.
And thus begins the journey that could change everything. With the stalwart and coldly reserved Col. Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) as the leader, the team ventures through the Stargate, a transport gateway that spits the team from Earth to a planet in uncharted territory on the other side of the known galaxy. The world they are moored on is one not too dissimilar to the one on Earth, circa ancient times with a heavy influence of Egyptian culture and society, but with a slave population that serves and fears the God Ra. As O'Neil, Jackson and the rest of the team are welcomed by these desert slave peoples, and as they become enmeshed both psychologically and emotionally invested in the politics and dangers of this new world, these transplanted Earthlings realize that in order to get back home, they might just have to help these people overthrow a God! But Ra, an alien that takes on the form of a God in order to control the human population he has transplanted, both to mine the ore for his technology as well as a pool of hosts for the parasite that sustains him, targets the team when it becomes obvious to him that these far-flung visitors are the real threat to his own survival.
Russell, as an off-balanced former Colonial O'Neill who is haunted by the accidental death of his son and has accepted a job with no return ticket, by the end, O'Neill finally discovers that there is something to live for while Spader, the exact opposite, perfectly offsets O'Neill's often times tough exterior with humanism. Their character evolution throughout the movie is surprisingly well done and believable, especially what they learn about each other as much as the desert people and vice versa. The conception of this world, from its incorporation, re-imagining and careful attention to detail of Egyptian lore, to the costuming, secondary cast, sets and seamless special effects, makes Stargate an exceptional sci-fi gem. It sucks you in and doesn't let you go. Some have cited this film as chaotically senseless at the end (by people who just don't get it). Or campy and cheesy, but that's what's great--it doesn't take itself so seriously and gets weighed down in trying to be uber serious, which in turn, gives it a level of seriousness that's believable and rousing. You like these characters, their cause and the world that's been presented to you. The lightness, the wit and banter and sense of irony laced in parts was also well placed.
No other movie has spawned THREE TV series (SG-1, Atlantic, Universe--SyFy Channel), in which SG-1 brings back several characters from the film as well as bridging and continuing the themes extremely well throughout its long run. No other franchise, other than Star Trek, X-Files and Battlestar Galactica, compares. Stargate the movie, Stargate the franchise both came at a time when current sci-fi franchises were loosing steam and filled the much needed void of a true sci-fi show with great characters and plot while pushing the borders of imagination and creativity. This is a movie that started it all! This is a movie, and I'm talkin' about the original 1994 cut with no special anything which I would usually gripe about but can't here since the movie alone has always wowed me, is one that I've watched so often I've had to replace it; but you know, I never get tired of watching it or its other editions, and so glad it lives on--in all its forms!
Great movie, even better service 
2009-12-06 - This is a great movie, even if you just watch it to see James Spader in pre-Boston Legal days. The copy we received was defective and started skipping about halfway through the movie. I went on line, reported it as defective, and printed out the free return label. The replacement arrived the next day, before I had a chance to ship original. That's good service!
I would have given this movie 5 stars except is seems to be incompatible with today's 6:9 wide screen TVs. No matter what display setting we chose, the image was compressed slightly from top to bottom, making people look short, and round things, like the Stargate, oval.
Good film, but - I got a defective CD - Artisan Ultimate Edition
2009-11-27 - The original Stargate. Superb work by an early James Spader (the independent thinking attorney in Boston Legal). Unfortunately, the second layer of my Artisan Ultimate Edition DVD is defective - all audio/video is erratic and pixelated after the layer switch at 1:22:18, all the way to the end. Please note that Amazon has compensated me for this defective DVD. I would recommend to any si-fi enthusiast. Good acting, direction and cinematography, excellent big production quality (the special effects still hold up well), and the story line is entertaining.
