The Original Movie

It wouldn’t be fair to write about the two spin-offs without mentioning the movie. So, that’s where we’ll start. My DVD is the “Ultimate Edition” with an “Extended Cut.” Which, presumably, means it is longer and much more ultimate than the version shown in theaters. 

There are a plenty of continuity issues between the original movie and the shows, but I’m willing to forgive these sins. The movie holds up very well by itself, and it gets the ball rolling for the main story arcs in Season One of Stargate SG-1. We manage to decipher an ancient artifact, go to Abydos, and blow up a space pimp named Ra. It’s a good way to start.

While the movie is packed with action and adventure, the true focus is centered on a memorable and haunting haircut. Specifically, Kurt Russell’s rather extreme take on the flattop. It has been rumored that engineers used test screenings of this film to calibrate laser levels. The movie simply would not have been the same without that rigid form triumphantly crowning our box-headed hero as he shouted, “Give my regards to King Tut, Asshole.” How that haircut did not win an Oscar is beyond me.

With the exception of a few people from Abydos, just about all of the characters were recast when the television show started. Some of these changes were for the better, some of them for the worse. Clearly, the best casting decision the producers of SG-1 made was to distance themselves from all things French Stewart. In the movie, he plays the least believable member of the Air Force in the history of motion pictures. There’s something about his smug face that just begs to be punched. I wish they could have found a way to kill him off in a horrific, painful death scene.

I was kind of disappointed the producers changed Sha’uris on us. The original Sha’uri was much hotter than the Sha’uri in SG-1. I probably would have stayed on Abydos and endured having to eat sand with every meal if it meant more makeout time with the original Sha’uri. I would have been looking for the first gate back home if I accidentally married the new Sha’uri.

One of the great hidden gems in the movie takes the form of a gruesome sweater. There are very few things in life that can draw a smile from my lips as reliably as a hideous sweater. The fact that this particular sweater was worn by Richard Kind, an actor who later shows up in Season Three of Stargate Atlantis as a creepy rapist, seems to hint at a grand master plan. Is it possible this ugly sweater was an act of foreshadowing twelve years in the making? Was it a dire warning to be wary of men in Cosby sweaters? I like to think so.

My Rating: 8/10