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Stargate: Special Edition

Stargate: Special Edition

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Jeff Shannon needs to shut up
Review: I'll admit, Stargate does have many flaws, but what good science fiction movie doesn't? Is it really necessary for him to be THAT negative?

Jeff, let's see YOU make a sci-fi movie, or any movie, for that matter. Roger Ebert has more positive reviews than you. You should evaluate, not blast. It's people like you that give critics everywhere a bad name.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fairly good movie, very bad DVD
Review: Not much to say about the movie that hasn't already been said. You either like it or you don't.

However, I'm horribly disapointed with this as a DVD. The film transfer is terrible; It has been over-enhanced and sharpened artificially. The over-processing has destroyed many scenes, causing horrendous aliasing on anything with contrast or fine detail. There are halos around people (look at any shot outside where someone is against a sky for instance). There's a lot of dirt in several dark scenes that was never cleaned up and it screams out like mad.

What a disapointment, especially for a "Special Edition".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great movie
Review: This is one of my all time favorite movies. If you are a fan of Star Wars or Lord Of the Ring or X-Files, this is just the movie for you. These movies might seem very different, but this movie has combined the futuristic special effects of Star Wars with the Fantasy of Lord Of the Rings and the suspense of x files. This is a must-see.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Stargate
Review: The director/producer team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who gave us Independance Day and Godzilla [ ] first produced this inventive and exciting Sci Fi flick. I'm not usually a fan of this genre, but this one is actually rather good compared with traditional science fiction. Starring Kurt Russell and James Spader, the film is basically a homage (French for "rip-off") of the old Sci Fi stories, but there are some interesting ideas and a series of terrific action set-pieces. The story consists of an Egyptologist who discovers the secret of an ancient relic called the Stargate. The explorer solves the puzzle and then he and a team of soldiers enter the Stargate and discover a city of people who are descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The people worship gods who are actually an alien culture, and then the trouble begins. Great stuff. Dissapointing DVD extras though, with only production notes. One hopes this will be re-released in a "Special Edition" soon.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty Good movie
Review: I Think this movie is pretty darn good! It satisfies the sci-fi part in you and th romantic part at the same time!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Perfect blend of Egyptology and Sci-Fi
Review: This is one of the best Sci-Fi films I have ever seen. The story revolves around an Egyptologist (played brilliantly by James Spader) who is recruited by the military to help unravel the secret of an ancient artifact (the Stargate). Once he solves the mystery, he and a team of soldiers (led by Kurt Russell), enter the Stargate (a portal to other worlds), and find a society of people who appear to be descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They worship gods (including Ra the Sun God), who in reality, are an alien race. Jaye Davidson (of THE CRYING GAME) gives a stellar performance as Ra. Once our heroes figure out Ra's scheme to destroy Earth, they set out to turn the tables on him. It all adds up to a fascinating film that is visually stunning, and leaves the viewer pondering the possibility that maybe the ancient gods were in fact aliens. A great 2 hrs. of entertainment.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantasy in Space
Review: This is a fabulous story about Egyptian History in the fold of a Sci-Fi genre. A down and out Egyptologist is given a chance to prove his worth by deciphering an ancient object secretly discovered in a archeological dig decades before. Through his ingenuity and some luck, he solves that mystery of the translation only to find that the object is really a portal to a planet lightyears away.

This is a story of romance, of action and of suspense that created the legacy and the craze of the Stargate SG-1 series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Bock, Bock, Bock...
Review: This film begins with much promise, establishing the existence of the "stargate", an ancient device discovered in Egypt, which could function as the portal to another world, if only the key to its use can be deciphered. Scientist and linguist Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is an eccentric expert in hieroglyphics enlisted into a secret US Government project. His task, to translate the wring on an ancient stone tablet, the directions how to access the stargate.

Spader is perfect as a sniffling, nearsighted, academic type who seems bewildered at times, by the real world. His natural brilliance provides the means to get the stargate working. The first humans to attempt to use the stargate, will be an armed military unit, led by Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell). They will perform a recon mission at wherever the stargate leads to. Jackson goes along to make sure they group can return from the other side. The team heads through the stargate, and pop out through a similar stargate in another world. They find themselves inside a huge stone pyramid in the middle of a desert. Jackson can't get the team back to Earth without additional information, so further exploration of the planet becomes necessary, and the party from Earth, eventually discovers a band of less advanced desert dwellers.

All this is fine, rather credible and interesting. The interaction and learning process between the two peoples is naturally awkward. Where things start to go off track is when the supernatural element is introduced. "Ra" the ancient Egyptian sun god, is turned into an alien, in order to facilitate a "battle for the planet". The charm and warmth begins to fade, and the story morphs into something we've seen before. An interesting and provocative concept just goes to waste, and James Spader's excellent performance is somewhat obscured by his dubious transition from bookworm to fighter. Stargate misses an opportunity to be something special.

A few other items to mull over. The story is set in a desert, but the heat must not be very intense, and never really seems to bother anyone, from the soldiers in dark uniforms, to the guys with the gigantic headgear who should be ready to faint. The Earth soldiers initially found the desert people at work, after Jackson was dragged by a desert beast. He should have been roasted like a hot dog by the hot sand. And how about those desert people, toiling in the heat, then travelling across the desert, apparently not even carrying any water. At one point, Jackson eats a candy bar, and later offers one as a gift, but in neither instance has the chocolate melted in the heat. The small team from Earth apparently brought enough weapons with them to arm the entire planet. That's good, because the "primitive" native kids handle firearms like combat veteran commandos. And why, like so many other movies, do the interior sets look so sterile and fake. Thousands of years later, and Ra and his band still dress like ancient Egyptians? Talk about a time warp. Who or what is flying the craft that attack the desert people? Robots, or does Ra do pilot training too?

David Arnold's music does a good job of making some of the mundane scenes seem exciting. If you don't expect too much, Stargate will suffice as an evening's entertainment. Something to watch, and then immediately dismiss. You won't however, be able to watch the regular edition DVD, without at least getting up once to flip the disc over to side B. That's right, the disc needs to be flipped over

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: HOW?!?
Review: After watching this film, I asked myself one question:

HOW did MGM and the new (and better!) writers get from THIS awful piece of science fiction junk to the excellent, award-winning tv series?!?

Well, for a start they got a new leading man in the form of Richard Dean Anderson. Due to his own unique sense of humour, the character of Jack O'Neill was re-written from guilt-ridden, suicidal soldier of the movie to a caring, handsome and funny man whom the audience can actually give a damn about.
Secondly, they re-cast the role of Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) and added Captain Sam Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Teal'c (Chris Judge) to make a complete team who actually seem like normal, believable characters and human beings rather than objects.
I find it amazing how this TERRIBLE piece of cinema 'entertainment' produced something so great! And as for Mr Devlin and Mr Emmerich's comments about the series being dreadful, I have two words: Sour Grapes!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: i dont get it
Review: has anyone noticed that there are two versions of the same film? there is the original and then this Special Edition.) did anyone also notice that the original costs more than this Special Edition yet both have the same extras--NO EXTRAS?!!

Does it strike anyone else as this being odd?


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