When thinking of the most successful science fiction franchises of all time, the ones that probably first come to mind are Star Trek and Star Wars.  One could also probably put the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in that category.  There are also the Terminator films, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, and we will add Doctor Who just to cover all out bases.  The last one appeals to the die-hard fans of the genre, though that description is getting increasingly vague.  Still, I use it in order to back into today’s film, Stargate (1994), which stuck around longer than you might believe.  It spawned at least four television shows and continues to draw interest in Hollywood.  As with the old cliché about taste, I cannot account for any of this based on the film.  This is not just me being a square Catholic and not approving of talking about other religions than Christianity.  The setting for this tale, broadly (and stretching that word as far as possible) speaking, is ancient Egypt.  That is a belief system and culture familiar to the Bible, and God was able to put it in its proper place in the humblest manner conceivable, at least regarding His chosen vessel.  There is probably a parallel to be drawn here between Scriptural events and this tale, but I will leave that for you.

What is being dug up at the beginning of the film is the Stargate left behind on Earth by the ancient Egyptians.  It is found in 1928 by a team of archaeologists led by Professor Paul Langford (Erik Holland).  He is just as baffled as the rest by this alien looking ring, roughly twenty feet in diameter, and covered in strange markings.  His young daughter, Catherine Langford (Kelly Vint Castro), is more interested in pilfering a gold watch-like object with a hieroglyph of an eye on it.  Forgive me, but she takes something that does not belong to her and does not return it.  What else is that called but theft? Anyway, we then fast forward to the present day and fringe Egyptologist Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is giving a lecture on how the pyramids were not built by the pharaohs, which promptly empties the disbelieving audience.  The one who stays is the now elderly Catherine (Viveca Lindfors), who is still wearing the medallion around her neck.  She has come to offer Dr. Jackson a job translating ancient Egyptian text.  He is initially put off by this stranger, but when she seems to know everything about his life, including the fact that he is now homeless and jobless, he accepts.  Also getting the call to return to active military duty is Colonel Jonathan J. “Jack” O’Neil (Kurt Russell).  When several officers come to his home to hand deliver these orders, they find a despondent colonel mourning the death of his son.  Nonetheless, he and Dr. Jackson get to a secret installation in the mountains of Colorado where the latter immediately sets to work deciphering the symbols that have eluded the team thus far assembled.  Dr. Jackson’s brilliance ruffles some of the other experts’ feathers, but Catherine and Colonel O’Neil allow him to continue working.  Two weeks later, after seeing the outline of the Orion constellation on a newspaper, Dr. Jackson is able to figure out the meaning of the rest of the symbols.  In presenting his findings to military personnel and scientists alike, he posits that they are coordinates for somewhere in space.  When one of the researchers lets slip the existence of the eponymous machine, Colonel O’Neil gives the go-ahead to let Dr. Jackson see it.  Apparently, things have progressed to the point where they are about ready to power it up.  All they needed was for Dr. Jackson to find the last glyph.  They waste no time opening a portal, first sending a probe that radios back information (instantaneously, despite being on the other side of the universe) that the unknown destination has Earth-like qualities, making it safe for actual people to go through on the next trip.  Colonel O’Neil leads a group of soldiers with Dr. Jackson tagging along, who has confirmed that he will be able to reopen the gate on the other side.  Unfortunately, this proves to be a rash assumption on Dr. Jackson’s part, who figured there would be a corresponding set of symbols there as on Earth.  When there is not, they are stuck.  The less than amused soldiers set up camp, and while they do so, Dr. Jackson discovers some of the local fauna to this desert environment.  This monstrous horse-looking thing is friendly, but drags the Egyptologist several yards when it is spooked, his foot being caught in the reins.  Still, it leads to them discovering a population of humans slaving away on a building project.  Upon seeing Catherine’s medallion, which she had given to Dr. Jackson for luck, they bow down in worship.  Dr. Jackson, Colonel O’Neil, and a few others settle in with these denizens, while a few others stay behind at the gate.  Not long thereafter, those guarding the exit are visited by a massive spaceship shaped like a pyramid.  One-by-one, the visitors are incapacitated.  Back in the slave city, Dr. Jackson befriends their leader, Kasuf (Erick Avari), who promptly offers his daughter, Sha’uri (Mili Avital), in marriage to Dr. Jackson.  While Dr. Jackson is flattered, he instead gets her to understand the true purpose of their visit.  In turn, she shows him a secret place with hieroglyphs he can translate, and is thus now able to speak their language.  Meanwhile, Ra (Jaye Davidson), an apparently immortal alien who enslaved these people back on Earth and brought them here, punishes his subjects for helping the outsiders.  In the process, Dr. Jackson and Colonel O’Neil are captured, with the former being mortally wounded in the process.  He is brought back to life by the same device that keeps Ra from dying, and the self-styled god tells Dr. Jackson that he must kill his compatriots or see his world destroyed.  This threat is made imminent by the presence of a nuclear bomb Colonel O’Neil brought with him, the plan being to destroy the gate so that nothing could get to Earth.  Instead, with the help of Sha’uri’s idealistic brother, Skaara (Alexis Cruz), the enslaved rise up against their captors.  Though the rebels retreat relatively unscathed, Colonel O’Neil remains determined to complete his kamikaze mission.  With some convincing from Dr. Jackson, he instead joins forces and the climactic battle erupts.  Explosions, gun fire, laser blasts, blah, blah, blah.  Ra is defeated when Dr. Jackson and Colonel O’Neil beam them bomb aboard Ra’s escaping ship.  With that, the soldiers go home and Dr. Jackson stays with Sha’uri.

Here is to honoring the Sacrament of Marriage at the end of Stargate, though I doubt they would see it the same as this Catholic.  Then again, Scripture has many stories when a man and a woman become hitched under somewhat similar circumstances.  Still, that is not what is important about this story.  There is a moment before the final struggle when Ra’s guards, who are given status as demi-gods among Kasuf’s people, are shown to be men just like the rest of them.  It may be a little silly to say, but when I saw this, I thought of a line from a Joan Osborne song that asks, “What if God was one of us?”  It is in a song titled “One of Us,” and it was written after this film premiered.  Was Osborne inspired by the movie?  I am not willing to expend the effort to find out.  All the same, the sentiment bears some consideration.  First, understand that Jesus answered this question.  By becoming fully human, He literally was one of us.  If people could come to that conclusion, I wonder what it would do for the state of belief in this world?  Secondly, He came to free us from our sins and bring us closer to His Father in Heaven.  This is where the film wildly diverges, of course.  The guards overseeing the workers are “one of us,” but they obfuscate this fact in order to keep people enslaved.  The freedom that Jesus offers is from us being slaves to sin.  With the unmasking of Ra’s cronies, the people now have the courage to do a more literal version of this same act, at least in terms of their physical bondage.  Our history is full of similar stories of men and woman setting themselves up as petty rulers, and it seems to be still happening today, sadly.  They are normal people in terms of being physiological human being, but they try to make themselves into something more.  In a sense, it is a form of sacrilege.  To be fair, this is not the lesson the movie is aiming for, but that is why I do what I do.

What I would not do is watch Stargate again.  Neither has this inspired me to watch any of the spinoff shows.  To build it back up for a moment, it is not bad in terms of its special effects for the mid-1990s.  At the same time, I hope you caught some of the contradiction I pointed out in the synopsis, which leads to me not recommending it.