Stargate: The Original Movie

[Drax]

No, they wouldn't. They'd just say it's not the same continuity.

And they would be correct.

[STC]

I watched it again recently and something I had never thought about suddenly struck me.

They had spent years trying to figure out what the symbols were, and what the Gate actually was. They get Daniel Jackson to identify the symbols etc and voila, they have a Stargate!

The scene immediately after Jackson's announcement, when Richard Kind's character says 'Monitor's up!" and suddenly they're tracking an object through an active wormhole?? That's the scene I'm talking about.

Having all that NASA type paraphernalia there suddenly seemed out of place and left me saying to myself, did I miss something??

For all they know, the Gate could have been a Henry Moore sculpture!

[Egle01]

I watched it again recently and something I had never thought about suddenly struck me.

They had spent years trying to figure out what the symbols were, and what the Gate actually was. They get Daniel Jackson to identify the symbols etc and voila, they have a Stargate!

The scene immediately after Jackson's announcement, when Richard Kind's character says 'Monitor's up!" and suddenly they're tracking an object through an active wormhole?? That's the scene I'm talking about.

Having all that NASA type paraphernalia there suddenly seemed out of place and left me saying to myself, did I miss something??

For all they know, the Gate could have been a Henry Moore sculpture!

Yes, that's what struck me as well. There's no mentioning how did they manage to make the gate work (using computers).

[jenks]

Carter did it.

[Jeff O'Connor]

Zelenka did it.

[Egle01]

Carter did it.

I know. But it was first mentioned in the series.

[Dr. Michael Benjamin]

I think its important to remember this dicussion is about the film not SG-1. Perhaps to try and explain away plot holes in the storyline of the movie some of you are projecting SG-1 technology onto the film. I don't think this can be done since the film obviously came first. There is no explanation in the film of exactly how the stargate coordinates are entered. The film demonstrates the coordinates apparently entered through electronic means (as illustrated further in SG-1) but provides no indication beyond that. Furthermore no information is provided about the method used to enter Earth coordinates at the end of the film (though many assume there is a DHD). To my knowledge no DHD was ever shown on screen or even mentioned in the film. This is something I have often wondered--how exactly did they "dial" the gate in the film? To me it seems the DHD was a concoction conjured up by writers to provide a basic primer on the stargate for the casual viewer of the TV series. I suppose it could be argued that the DHD was a logical asumption to answer the very simple question of how you actually use the stargate. However, I would be very apprehensive to delve deeper into this DHD business as it has its basis in the TV series not the movie.
Also, to address the original question posed, I do believe Daniel was neccessary to the story. Everyone who has posted thus far is only looking at the initial contribution Daniel made to the expedition. The film provided a very unique and logical problem with intergalactic exploration. How do you communicate with a people who have been living independent of any known modern ethnic group on earth? While Daniel initially believed the language to be somehow related to Berber he had to work at it. The inhabitants of the planet they traveled to (in the film the planet was not referred to as Abydos) spoke a literally unheard-of language. This language barrier would have to be overcome in order to have the story move forward. Daniel was absolutely neccessary to the story in order to explain to the people their true heritage and ultimately give them the sense of empowerment needed to rebel against Ra. Please note that while this argument does explain the neccessity of Daniel to the story line it does not explain his neccessity to the plot. If the original mission objective was to locate any threat to earth and blow up the stargate then there was no need to have an expedition at all--merely send the bomb through using a probe and end it all right there. However I don't think if it were done that way it would have made for much of a film! But to get back to my original point, SG-1 removed the very intruiging element of extraterrestrial linguistics and condensed nearly all of the galaxy down to English speaking Midieval peasants (strange how most of these peoples don't use contractions). Also, I always thought that the introduction of Carter in the series was an attempt to marginalize Daniel's character especially after it was said that she was working on the project two years before Daniel was successful. It came across to me as the writers saying in essence that Daniel got lucky and Carter was the more important of the two. Anyway, I love the film and SG-1 (not a fan of Atlantis) and I watch the movie often. Incidentally this is my first post here so I look forward to talking with all of you in the future. Thanks

[Arga]

I think in the movie, to dial the return coordinates, they must have brought along a portable power source & computer with the same software they used to make the Earth Gate work, or manually dialed it. (like when SG1 escaped the prison planet).
They didn't mention how they did it, but I can't see any other explanation. (the DHD hadn't been discovered yet).

By the way, the novelisation book of the film, by Bill McCay (that came out before SG1 series), calls the planet "Abydos"!
I don't know if it was on the original notes of Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin or if Bill McCay invented it himself...

[J_schinderlin56]

The part I love about this movie is when Daniel was explaining his theories about the building of the pyramids and one of the professors there says "Then who built the pyramids? Men from Atlantis?" It always makes me Laugh. If they only knew. I bet it makes Daniel laugh too every time he sets foot on the lost city of the Ancients and thinks of that moment.

Those guys are really going to have egg on their faces if the Stargate Program goes public.

[Rhydderch Hael]

If you want the Mother of All Nitpicks, consider this: Daniel Jackson's grand theory that the Stargate glyphs represented constellations (and that the destination could be located between six of them) doesn't hold water when your robot probe reports back that it's in another galaxy.

Let's see you try to fit an entire galaxy between two constellations seen from Earth's sky, much less six of them.

[Arga]

If you want the Mother of All Nitpicks, consider this: Daniel Jackson's grand theory that the Stargate glyphs represented constellations (and that the destination could be located between six of them) doesn't hold water when your robot probe reports back that it's in another galaxy.

Let's see you try to fit an entire galaxy between two constellations seen from Earth's sky, much less six of them.

yes I don't like that part where the location indicator moves on this glass wall map, showing us that the probe arrived in another galaxy. All I can convince myself to believe is that this indicator wasn't calibrated properly.

And I have serious doubts about the scientific accuracy of such a technology that would tell instantly where something is located in the universe. (even if the signal was transmitted through the open wormhole, how can it know where it is in the universe?)

[Mitchell82]

yes I don't like that part where the location indicator moves on this glass wall map, showing us that the probe arrived in another galaxy. All I can convince myself to believe is that this indicator wasn't calibrated properly.

And I have serious doubts about the scientific accuracy of such a technology that would tell instantly where something is located in the universe. (even if the signal was transmitted through the open wormhole, how can it know where it is in the universe?)

Yeah that scene really makes no sense. They even say that Abydos is in another galaxy at the edge of our universe. Alot of things changed from the movie to the show.

[SylvreWolfe]

The movie, the Stargate was for exploration. No known threat was there. O'Neil *not two L's* was ordered to go through, gather information and come back. If there was a threat then he was suppose to blow up the gate. That was not carried through into the series, the series said he was suppose to destroy the gate, period.
Danny was necessary to the expedition because of his linguistic skills. They did not know how to translate the symbols on the other gate, so they needed Danny to do it for them. Of course, if they ran into people on the planet, which they did, he could also act as the interpreter.
What Danny didn't tell them was that he was iffy with the language and would have to work at it to translate it. He kind of fudged how much he knew in order to go on the mission.


One of my major nitpicks with the movie, the one that stands out even though I haven't watched it in awhile, was Kawalski.
He was wearing LTC rank, but O'Neil kept referring to him as LT. And I am not sure how IMDB lists his rank.

I really hate how the series kind of forgot or ignored a lot of what was in the movie. There is a lot of inconsistency and lack of continuity in the characters and stories.

[Akai]

The reason there was no DHD shown was because the concept was not even thought up until SG-1. It never showed them dialing the Abydos gate at all in the movie. Also, it was stated that Abydos (which wasn't even named in the movie) was in another galaxy on "the other side of the known universe". A LOT of details were changed for SG-1, quite a few things from the movie were retconned, to the point where I can safely say that SG-1 was only "loosely based" on the original movie. However, there was nothing in the movie that indicated there *wasn't* a DHD...the stargate room in the pyramid was never shown completely, and when it was shown there was usually something else climactic happening so noone bothered to focus on the environment.

In conclusion: the original movie was chock full of plot holes. SG-1 retconned a lot of things to make them make more sense. I do like the movie (surprisingly since I've absolutely hated every other Emmerich/Devlin movie), but it's an action movie, and if you try to analyze things in-depth like you can with SG-1 it utterly falls apart.

[Mitchell82]

[B][COLOR="Magenta"]The movie, the Stargate was for exploration. No known threat was there. O'Neil *not two L's* was ordered to go through, gather information and come back. If there was a threat then he was suppose to blow up the gate. That was not carried through into the series, the series said he was suppose to destroy the gate, period.

Because he was. He was sent to blow the gate on the other end no matter what.

Danny was necessary to the expedition because of his linguistic skills. They did not know how to translate the symbols on the other gate, so they needed Danny to do it for them. Of course, if they ran into people on the planet, which they did, he could also act as the interpreter.
What Danny didn't tell them was that he was iffy with the language and would have to work at it to translate it. He kind of fudged how much he knew in order to go on the mission.

True.

One of my major nitpicks with the movie, the one that stands out even though I haven't watched it in awhile, was Kawalski.
He was wearing LTC rank, but O'Neil kept referring to him as LT. And I am not sure how IMDB lists his rank.

Actually it could be either Major or LTC. Since he is a major on SG-1 that is most likely his rank. You are right on Oneil calling him Lt which is a blatant screw up.

I really hate how the series kind of forgot or ignored a lot of what was in the movie. There is a lot of inconsistency and lack of continuity in the characters and stories.

They didn't screw up anything. They changed the origin of the Goa'uld and kinda changed a few things but they didn't screw anything up if anything they made it better.