STARGATE: ULTIMATE EDITION DVD
Artisan Entertainment, $19.98 Once upon a time, Stargate would have been a B picture. The potboiler plot is straight out of an adventure serial, in which sneezy, bumbling James Spader deciphers some old hieroglyphs and accompanies lean, crew-cutted Marine Kurt Russell into the lair of a powerful and exotic despot. Once, near-genderless Jaye Davidson’s villain role would have gone to the fiendish Fu Manchu, as the enslaver of the peaceful deepest, darkest Africa. Today, our own globe holds no exoticism for us, and we must place our foes on “the other side of the known universe.” But it’s all the same — this is lightweight adventure dressed in the most expensive sets director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) could devise. The 1994 movie does manage to whisk the viewer along with a pleasurable energy, especially in the early, Indiana Joneslike “look at this amazing artifact” moments. Even the score has a gee-whiz sort of bombast to it, making much of the action seem strangely cheap among such visual grandeur. This director’s cut re-release of Stargate is fitted with two DVDS, including making-of features, audio commentaries from the director and producer, and a full interview with Seventies Fortean favorite Erich von Däniken, the author of Chariots of the Gods who’s been suggesting all along that the pyramids were built by aliens. The new edition is a fun if overblown ride, but I do have one quibble: This is the “ultimate” edition, so why no English subtitles? Apparently if you’re hearing-impaired and don’t speak Spanish, Stargate on DVD is not for you to enjoy.This article appears in February 28 • 2003.