Stargate (1994)

Before they unleashed the idiotic mayhem of Independence Day and Godzilla, the idea-stealing team of director Roland Emmerich and producer-screenwriter Dean Devlin concocted this hokey hit about the discovery of an ancient portal capable of zipping travelers to "the other side of the known universe." James Spader plays the Egyptologist who successfully translates the Stargate's hieroglyphic code, and then joins a hawkish military unit (led by Kurt Russell) on a reconnaissance mission to see what's on the other side. They arrive on a desert world with cultural (and apparently supernatural) ties to Earth's ancient Egypt, where the sun god Ra (played by Jaye Davidson from The Crying Game) rules a population of slaves with armored minions and startlingly advanced technology. After being warmly welcomed into the slave camp, the earthlings encourage and support a rebellion, and while Russell threatens to blow up the Stargate to prevent its use by enemy forces, the movie collapses into a senseless series of action scenes and grandiose explosions. It's all pretty ridiculous, but Stargate found a large and appreciative audience, spawned a cable-TV series, and continues to attract science fiction fans who are more than willing to forgive its considerable faults. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

Not the best bluray but the price was right

I wasn't too happy with the quality of the movie as others have said but then again I believe it was filmed in 1994 and wasn't expecting a full 1080p transfer to look that great. And I got this movie for $9.99 which I figure is a few bucks more than the dvd costs right now so it can't hurt. Other than that the movie itself is rather great; I have seen all of SG-1, Atlantis, and the two new Stargate movies but never the original.

The subtitles on the movie are not defective they are just hidden. If you hit your subtitle button a few times I believe track 5 English has the subtitles ONLY for when the aliens talking. The first English track is for subtitles on ALL the time.

I gave this movie 4 stars because I thought they could have done a better job transfering the movie to high-def and they could have figured out that English audio track 1 should have subtitles for the alien language instead of putting it on a separate track... as if any of us speak English AND the alien language to NOT need the subtitles.... December 24, 2008

What happened to the 1080p

I cannot get the movie to play in 1080p as advertised all over the box. I have an HDMI cable between my Blu-ray player and my plasma, but it continually says, 480p. Any suggested or did I get duped? December 14, 2008

Stargate Blu-Ray

Like other reviewers, I love the movie and already had it on dvd, but was VERY disappointed with the Blu-Ray transfer. When the scenes are bright (e.g., in the desert), the picture is excellent. But darker scenes are horrible. Very grainy. I'm not even sure grainy is the right word. There's snow on the picture like I'm receiving it with an antenna and the signal is weak. But then, switch to a brighter scene and we're back to crispy again. I can't figure out what went wrong. Was the original film poor in lower light conditions? I doubt it. Did they transfer from a copy of a copy of a copy? Probably. Regardless, I CANNOT recommend this Blu-Ray for now. Perhaps an "ultimate" or "collector's" edition will come out so I can buy it a 3rd time and they'll have cleaned it up. Hello? Criterion? Are you there? Somebody get the rights off these Lionsgate boobs.

I understand a lot of companies are doing this - rushing to put out a blu-ray versions with no effort to make good transfers. I'd rather they hadn't issued a Stargate blu-ray at all. I suppose they know I'll buy it again and again, like a lab rat getting repeatedly zapped at an electrified food dispenser.

Also, I didn't see any extras on the blu-ray at all, just the commentary, which was on the dvd. December 7, 2008

Terrible Picture Quality for Blu-ray

I bought the blu-ray edition of the movie and was blown-away at how horrible the picture looked. I'm not sure how they transferred the film to digital but the blu-ray looks worse than DVD copies of the film I've seen. You'll be looking at the TV wondering if its on the fritz becuase there's so much snow and artifacts in the picture - and no I don't mean archeological artifacts either. Avoid the blu-ray version! December 4, 2008

Comparison between DVD and Bluray

I own this both on DVD and this bluray. Some scenes are noticeably crisper. Other scenes suffer from granularity due to the low exposure and light levels in many of the scenes in this film. November 23, 2008

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