Stargate: The Last Pulp Sci-Fi Movie
A Love Letter to the Film
Looking for psychological military science fiction? Read about the adventure of veteran Brendan Murphy as he tries to keep peace between Earth and a mysterious alien race known as the Sabia. Read the Fallen series today! Please remember to leave a review once you are done. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent creators.
Note: Thank you to Bob who left two five star reviews, one for Risen and one for Dormition. I posted them here. Click to read them, but know they have some spoilers in them.
They Don’t Make Films Like Stargate Anymore
SPOILERS ALERT FOR THE MOVIE STARGATE!
Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark brought a wave of 1980s and 1990s movies that relived the glory days of pulp and serialized adventures. These pulp space operas and more fantasy/realistic Earthbound adventures remained separate from one another with one major exception: the wonderful 1994 movie Stargate.
The Heroes’ Journeys: A Dweeb and the Broken Man
There are two heroes of the movie: Dr. Daniel Jackson and Colonel Jack O’Neil. Dr. Jackson’s story begins with an academic conference in a classic architecture building. It’s modern day but it could be the 1930s. He is a loser who his fellow academics mock, homeless because he can’t pay rent, and with no social life. As O’Neil puts it later on, he is a dweeb.
O’Neil meanwhile is a broken character, even more so than Brendan in my book Fallen. It is heavily implied his son shot himself with one of O’Neil’s guns. His dark gravitas makes him the de facto head of the Stargate program, even though others outrank him. He is on a hidden suicide mission when he goes through the Stargate.
Traveling through the Stargate, which is presented in a magical manner with music, lighting, fog effects, and camera angles, the two heroes and a group of Air Force personnel find themselves on an alien planet with an Ancient Egypt motif. At first, things go wrong, and the military men become angry at Jackson, who is clueless to their angst. However, soon they meet local humans on the planet. Jackson learns their language and the elders offer him a woman, who turns out to be considered his wife. Meanwhile, O’Neil opens up to a curious boy on the planet.
Soon they have to battle an evil alien who is enslaving the locals. Between O’Neil’s military skills, Jackson’s brains and heart, and the locals' desire to free themselves, the alien is defeated. At the end, Jackson realizes he loves his “wife,” and she him, and decides to stay while O’Neil has a renewed appreciation for life. O’Neil even calls the other hero “Dr. Jackson,” signifying he has earned O'Neil's respect.
Exotic Locales
Like any good pulp adventure story, the place setting matters. Stargate combines Ancient Egypt with an alien world. It brings together the feel of The Mummy with Star Trek.
To increase the feel of Ancient Egyptian, a consultant ensured accurate hieroglyphics and taught the actors the Ancient Egyptian Coptic language. Meanwhile, the film is much closer to Star Trek with a sense of discovery and fish-out-of-water vice Star Wars where each location is merely just another world that one walks upon vice a New World that is to be explored.
Enjoyable Action Sequences
The first standout action sequence is the initial encounter with the alien guards dressed up as Egyptian gods. Shot in a claustrophobic, darkened room, it seamlessly shifts back and forth from the Air Force men to the first person view of the guards. It is horror movie-like. Instead of big action gun battles like Predator, the small arm tactics and fight is realistic.
But my favorite is the climax fight, which has one of the best one liners ever.
The Music
In the movie commentary track, director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin described being nervous when they were getting ready to listen to David Arnold's score. However, when they both listened to it, they knew they had a great soundtrack. Arnold sought to create something that "[every time there was an amazing sight, the characters would stand back and say, 'Oh my God!' But James would just smile and walk towards it. That was the basis for the Stargate score, moving forward with a sense of majesty instead of being frightened by what's around the corner."
And does it! The soundtrack itself transports the listener to someplace both alien and Ancient Egyptian. Listen to the suite if you haven’t already.
The End
The movie ends with one first person view ride through the Stargate followed by the message “The End.” As Dean Devlin said in the audio commentary, they added that because “That’s what this type of movie is.” They understood it was a fun pulp ride, and they nailed it.
The Mummy series started a few years later, and then National Treasure continued the pulp ride film for a little longer. However, no pulp science fiction films came after Stargate. A series of two sequels were planned but never made. Though all was not lost, a series of books came out based on the notes of the canceled movie sequels. Then general plot (no spoilers) involves a CIA-aligned company trying to exploit the planet and its minerals, Jack and Dr. Jackson trying to protect the natives, and the arrival of a human servant of Ra, Hathor, trying to establish her own interstellar empire.
Wait a Minute, What About SG-1?
Anyone familiar with late 1990s and early 2000s science fiction will say, “What about Stargate SG-1 television universe?” As Dean Devlin makes clear in the movie's commentary track, the team behind the Stargate movie had nothing to do with the television show. He also remarked how the television show ruined certain things he had planned for the sequels.
The feel of the show changed over time, from a dark series starting with the pilot to campy to everything in between. The switch from Showtime to the SciFi Channel was only the first of many shifts. Watch an episode from season one and then one from season ten. It’s like watching two different shows as it goes from a dark and sexy (it was Showtime) that killed off characters to a quirky tongue-and-cheek show that had to keep inventing new enemies as the series dragged on. Also, an alternative universe-like feel exists with Colonel O’Neil now being Colonel O’Neill (spelled with two “L’s” as a clue that something was off).
Many fans like both, and that’s fine, but pulp fans haven’t had something like the pulp feel of the movie since 1994.
My No AI Generated Text Pledge to You
In the indie author world, AI generated material is becoming more and more an issue. Amazon is being overwhelmed with slop AI generated books.
I want all my readers to know I have never and will never use AI generated text for my stories or newsletters. They are my stories for good and ill.
I do use AI generated images to create images for my free very short and short stories, but artwork for my for profit stories is done by real artists (and myself, though I nowhere as good as the artists I have worked with). Many thanks to Sofi Sorokina (character art for Fallen), Melissa Z. (character art for Risen and Assumption), Laurie Nave (An Odd Pilgrimage), Jason Abbott (Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency), and Kris Koves (cover art for Fallen and Risen) for working with me!
I also will be stepping up efforts to prevent AI books from being shared in the Other Independent Book Promotions section. I recently received a request for a newsletter swap, but I was able to determine the book was AI generated text before this newsletter came out. I can’t promise to be perfect in stopping them, but I am going to be taking a hard look at things.
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Until Next Time
Next time we are putting things in high gear. Next week(!) I will publish part one of a two-parter, which the first post reviews the 1800s classic Thomas Edison’s Conquest of Mars. Then, two weeks later, we’ll finally have the promised short story that follows up my review of Thomas Edison’s Conquest of Mars.
As always, please leave a comment with any questions, reviews, thoughts, whatever about Fallen, Risen, Dormition, An Odd Pilgrimage, The Savannah Paranormal Detective Agency or whatever else I have discussed. I promise to reply!
It was such a a fun, simple movie. And SG-1 managed to fill the post-Star Trek vacuum well. I know several people like you who got to love sci-fi because of it.
I'm one of those who enjoys both the '94 Stargate film and the Stargate SG1 TV series (Well, the first 8 seasons anyway....) SG1 was my "gateway" (excruciating pun intended) to military SF and really to SF in general. I was an only an occasional SF reader before SG1. After I started watching the show, I was became an SF enthusiast and started actively seeking it out.