> On Jun 25, 4:37 pm, boris badenov yahoo.com> wrote:
>

>> also sprachsupermann...

>

>>  Welcome to the existential nightmare that is known to most as
>>STARGATE.Stargatewas a PG-13 sci-fi epic that was released in the
>> summer of 1994 to lack-luster reviews, but some popular acclaim. The
>> many critics that panned this film concentrated on what they believed
>> were plotholes and sub-standard creative abilities on the part of the
>> script.Stargate, they belived, was a badly written story, and with
>> their strict time restraints in viewing new releases, the critics
>> were
>> forced(?) to move on to the next lemon without givingStargatea more
>> careful look. The general audience did more or less the same. That
>> had
>> turned out to be an earth-shattering mistake.
>>   The official synopsis is as follows: A discredited Egyptologist,
>> Daniel Jackson (played by James Spader), decyphers the function of an
>> ancient mechanical portal, long buried in the sands of Giza. Upon
>> which, the air force dispatches a team of "military specialists" to
>> utilize the portal to transport themselves halfway across the
>> universe
>> to a desert planet inhabited by north africans, "enslaved" to labor
>> in
>> quartz mines by an astounding being identified as the Egyptian god,
>> Ra. In the coarse of events, the specialists do battle with the sun
>> god, "liberate" the down-trodden inhabitants from forced servitude,
>> and rescue the earth from total inihilation at the hands of Ra.
>>   An erroneous social and political context was applied by the
>> audience when they had viewed this film and certain salient details
>> about the characters, their behavior, and their motivations have all
>> been left unsaid...or even unnoticed. The erroneous context applied
>> was simply that this is just a "movie".Stargateis not just a
>> science
>> fiction film. I would be more accurrate if I were to refer to it as a
>> parable about a particular event....our present situation in Iraq,
>> how
>> we came to be involved there, and the moral, ethical, and psychiatric
>> disposition of the people who got us there.
>>   The movieSTARGATEnever made any sense as a science fiction tale,
>> but as a primer of ideological aggression of the reactionary
>> persuasion, it is nothing less than an emotional template of what may
>> be going on in the heads of the Bush Crime Cartel and their
>> immeadiate
>> adherents in the right wing. Certain details may not match up, but,
>> as
>> we all have seen, the results are generally the same.
>>   It is with this that I findStargateso facinating. There were many
>> films that tout, explicitly or implicitly, sociopathic erges and
>> bias,
>> but I believe thatSTARGATEis the first film that is so totally
>> self-
>> aware and accepting of its anti-humanist leanings, that for reasons
>> only known to themselves, the producers allowed, in the script,
>> subtle
>> hints and clues that the sun god RA is actually little more than the
>> victim of Colonel O'Niel's military aggression, and it is the Colonel
>> himself who is more worthy of being designated the "villian". These
>> so-
>> called clues are definite and unshakable, once they are percieved.
>>   Unfortunately, "perception", as in the case of watching this film,
>> is a matter of political outlook. Far too many people watched this
>> film and could not see below its glossy, symbolistic superficiality.
>> Noone was watching too closely, or listening too carefully.
>>   The "facts" are as follows:

>

>>   Colonel Jack O'Niel, a deranged and suicidal individual, was given
>> charge of an atomic weapon, presummedly under circumstances that
>> would
>> preclude a sane and well-adjusted man.

>

>>   O'Niel secretly transport the weapon, unbeknownst to his
>> subordinates in his recon team. The Japanese would refer to this
>> policy as "kamakaze". A recon team without a nuke would be considered
>> "expendable". A recon team WITH a nuke would be considered already
>> "expended".

>

>>   You know, if a squad of american soldiers were to travel billions
>> of
>> light-years through astargate, only to arrive on a planet inhabited
>> by harmless, pre-industrial north africans, you would think that
>> relations with these people would go with little trouble....instead
>> of:

>

>>   In the very first instant upon meeting the africans, O'Niel drew
>> his
>> weapon and brandished under the nose of a frightened teen-ager. The
>> boy screamed and fled. Noone else in O'Niel's team saw it fit to draw
>> their own weapons.

>

>>   Later, and with the very same boy, O'Niel again found it neccessary
>> to menace the boy again with an automatic weapon. The child, merely
>> curious, had attempted to pick up the weapon to examine it. He
>> screamed and fled again after O'Niel's second assault.

>

>>   And later still, when O'Niel and his men were, in every respect,
>> "legally" apprehended by Ra's guards and brought to the throne room
>> to
>> answer for, among other things, the presence of an atomic bomb among
>> their personal effects, O'Niel's only response was to physically
>> attack everyone in the throne room. All this, within close proximity
>> of a dozen young children, mostly pre-teen. And at the climax of this
>> scuffle, O'Niel trained his weapon at these same children, struggling
>> with the idea of killing them in order to get at a seated and unarmed
>> Ra. At the instant that O'Niel was struck down from behind, it was
>> clear enough that he was losing his "struggle" and was about to pull
>> the trigger.
>>   With a movie audience that's an expert at drawing moral conclusions
>> based on a quick sketch of moral character in action, how could so
>> many have accepted what has taken place in that room to the point
>> that
>> they ignored all the subsequent war crimes accumilated by O'Niel by
>> the end of the movie? They were numerous:
>>   Needless to say, according to continuity, those same schoolchildren
>> were still in the pyramid when it was destroyed by O'Niel and
>> Jackson.
>>   Prior to that, O'Niel led a battillion of heavily armed teenagers
>> on
>> a frontal assault against Ra's pyramid fortress( All individuals
>> deemed "teenagers", are, in my estimation, well below 18 years in
>> age.). A situation made worse as they took on heavy casualties. If
>> the
>> boys had decided to do this on their own, it's a tragedy of it's own
>> making, but they were, apparently, illegally conscripted by O'Niel
>> for
>> combat they weren't trained to win, in a situation instigated solely
>> by O'Niel.
>>   during the same firefight, according to editing, it appeared as
>> though Jackson accidentally shot one of his own boys...he squeezed
>> off
>> a couple of shots backwards over his shoulder without aiming, looking
>> in another direction.

>

>>   Prior to that, O'Niel captured one of Ra's guards, an individual
>> barely out of his teens, himself. This person, who surrendered
>> without resistence, was executed with his own weapon by O'Niel,
>> solely
>> to prove to the north africans that the guard was a mortal, like
>> themselves.

>

>>   Prior to that, while hiding in a cave, O'Niel had made the partial
>> admission that his case was less than defensible, but now "that Ra
>> has
>> the bomb", something must be done. Considering that "the bomb" was
>> actually the weapon that O'Niel secretly brought with him from earth
>> in the first place, that kind of circular logic to justify an action
>> movie maybe a disturbing indicator.

>

>>   And prior to that, During the one verbal confrontation with Ra, The
>> sun god essentially made a rational ultimatum of exchanging the life
>> of O'Niel for the lives of "all who knew" Jackson...implicating the
>> planet earth. By this time, O'Niel was so criminally culpable, that
>> the choice was perfectly easy to make. Needless to say Jackson didn't
>> make that choice. To be fair, the dialogue did not make that point
>> explicitly clear, but that was the underlining jist of what Ra meant.
>> And although one may resent being dictated terms to by an enemy in a
>> position of power, You must remember, Ra didn't CHOOSE to be the
>> enemy. It is the most disturbing moral aspect of this movie.
>>   However, on the other hand, the conversation could also be
>> interpreted as your run-of-the-mill "Ming the Merciless" tirade,
>> threatening the earth and it's inhabitants if Jackson didn't comply
>> with his demands.
>>   The grammer and syntax of the verbal exchange was so precisely
>> ambiguous, that it was possible for even the most discerning observer
>> to derive two different meanings from Ra's statements. The verbal
>> acrobatics of this dialogue seems to indicate to me that the
>> producers
>> were well aware of the moral and ethical ambiguity, but sought to
>> lean
>> the movie audience toward the reactionary side by using certain
>> stereotypical cues and signs, like menacing mood music and indicative
>> posturing, to "demonize" Ra's character before the audience. For
>> example, when I first sawStargate, I thought Ra was the "heavy",
>> solely because of the way he walks about the throneroom; sexually
>> suggestive, stalking like a cat almost, with a soundtrack that's just
>> as feline as he is. I knew that no good could come from such a
>> person.....and he hasn't even spoken his first lines yet. Somehow,
>> "content of character", the exact criteria in judging "good" from
>> "evil", was completely absent from these procedings.
>>   When one produces a "good vs evil" action film, but shows a certain
>> disinterest in the core meaning of what "good" and "evil" stands for,
>> then it stands to reason that this character flaw will somehow
>> translate itself into the screenplay....as it did here.
>>   But we needn't fuck around with such hub-bubbery as this. The film,
>>STARGATE, is obviously politically driven. Do I have a problem with
>> it? I sure do, but it's not the main thing. The main thing is that so
>> few people percieved the true motivations of this greek tragedy, that
>> if anything like this were to take place in real life, at the expense
>> of american taxdollars, would there be enough people to garner
>> political support to put a stop to it?

>

>>   Tragically, in our particularly sad case, the answer is no.

> Thank you for quite an interesting AND intriguing perspective
> onStargate, one of my favorite movies.
> I shall most certainly view it again in the light
> of the implications and interpretations which
> you have suggested, there DOES seem to be
> an element of definite applicability of your
> interpretation connecting current events with the movie.
>
> One often wonders if the screenwriters and producers
> INTEND to make the implications or ambiguities
> that appear in films and in many cases I believe
> that they do.
>
> Aon Flux, for example, was SPOILED by an overemphasis
> on the theme of technology out of control
> by the evil scientists while ignoring the possibility
> that it was the underlying politics IN CONTROL
> of the scientsts that should have been emphasized.
> My critical review of this failed film at Amazon
> mentions this point and suggests to the producers
> that the next time they wished to make a movie
> with such themes, they would have done well to
> make it based on a book, now largely forgotten,
> "The City and The Stars" by Arthur Clarke.
>
> V for Vendetta, on the other hand, was
> stunning and brilliant in its adherence to
> the conflict between the totalitarian state
> and the obstinacy of a movement inspired by
> a man whose desire for revenge transcended the
> easy lies and patriotic platitudes of the
> state.
>
> More recently, the controversial "Golden Compass"
> move again succeeded in staying true
> to its ideals while concealing underneath the
> surface an entire SPECTRUM of the most unexpectedly
> profound metaphysical, socio-political and philosophical
> implications VERY relevant to us and our future.
> It was NOT, as other have tried so very hard
> (jumping up and down and pouting and whining)
> just another fantasy genre movie.
>
> Citizen Jimserac