Stargate is a truly unique franchise in pop culture history. Though the original film by Roland Emmerich received a mixed reception — and didn’t receive an intended trilogy — it led to the highly popular Stargate: SG-1 TV show. SG-1 led to a fleet of Stargate spinoffs, and gained its own legion of fans. But while the original Stargate is now considered a sci-fi classic 30 years after its release, it’s still baffling that it didn’t make a bigger impact when it was first released, especially with Kurt Russell and James Spader as part of the cast. Part of that is probably timing; Emmerich had released Universal Soldier prior to Stargate, with the former film spawning its own franchise, and then followed up Stargate with Independence Day. But it also turns out that Spader wasn’t a big fan of the material, and Russell had to drag him out of his trailer one day.
Kurt Russell’s Comeback to James Spader Is as Funny as It Is Honest
If you haven’t watched Stargate, the concept is simple: Spader’s Daniel Jackson, a brilliant linguist, and Russell’s Air Force officer Jack O’Neill are part of a project dedicated to unlocking the secrets of a strange metal ring that was found in Giza, Egypt. Jackson finds out that the ring is a “stargate,” meant to teleport its users from one world to another. He, O’Neill, and the rest of their team activate the Stargate and encounter Ra (Jaye Davidson), who turns out to be an alien tyrant instead of an Egyptian sun god. Already the script is swinging for the fences, something that would come to define Emmerich’s body of work.
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Stargate weirdly got Spader’s attention because of how bad he thought it was. “The script was just awful, and that sort of intrigued me,” he told Entertainment Weekly prior to Stargate‘s release. But it apparently got to a point where Spader was so disappointed with the scenes that he refused to come out of his trailer, and Russell had to talk to him. Stargate producer/co-writer Dean Devlin recalled the exchange in a Variety oral history celebrating the film’s 25th anniversary:
“There was one day where [Spader] wouldn’t come out of his trailer until we rewrote the scenes. Kurt Russell got very upset with him. He burst into his trailer and said ‘What are you doing?’ And Jim said, ‘Come on, admit it. The dialogue is horrible.’ Kurt Russell said, ‘Of course, it’s horrible. That’s why they pay you a million dollars. If it was brilliant, you’d do it for free.'”
While Russell had a fair (and quite hilarious) point, the exchange between the two actors underlined where they were at that point in their careers.
Kurt Russell and James Spader Were at Different Points in Their Career During ‘Stargate’
Prior to Stargate, Russell and Spader were at two very different career points. Russell had just come off the success of Tombstone and Backdraft, meaning that his name carried weight; in fact, Devlin revealed that he had turned down Stargate because he didn’t like the script, and that it took the allure of a higher salary to hook him. Spader, on the other hand, was struggling to replicate the success he’d had on films like Sex, Lies & Videotape. (Suffice it to say that Steven Soderbergh and Roland Emmerich are two different flavors of director.)
Even though Spader had to be coaxed out of his trailer, Devlin revealed that he and Russell eventually did get into the groove of things once they realized the tone that Stargate was going for. “Once they started to understand the tone, they started to really get it. When the movie was finished, both actors were really pleased with it. They were really happy, but I think it just took them a while to get where we were going with it,” he said. Indeed, Stargate remains a film that is every bit as ridiculously earnest as the science fiction films that it followed. And while Stargate isn’t exactly Shakespearan or on the same level of sci-fi franchises like Star Wars or Star Trek, the fact that it’s sparked a whole legion of TV series is admirable, even if one of its leads needed the proverbial kick in the pants.
Kurt Russell and James Spader’s Dynamic Is the Best Part of ‘Stargate’
Even if it took a while for Russell and Spader to come around on Stargate, it was worth it because their characters’ dynamic is a major factor in why the film works. Jack O’Neil and Daniel Jackson are from two different worlds; the socially awkward Jackson finally feels in his element decoding the Stargate, while O’Neil – struggling with losing his son – is resigning himself to a suicide mission. This ends up leading to one of the film’s best sequences, where O’Neil confesses to Jackson that he wants to die and gets this in response: “I don’t want to die. Your men don’t want to die, and these people here don’t want to die. It’s a shame you’re in such a hurry to.” Spader and Russell sell the grief and the determination that both characters are experiencing, teeing up Stargate‘s final act while also reminding the audience that they’re damn fine actors.
Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich even made attempts to develop two more Stargate films that would have reunited Russell and Spader, and this time around both actors were interested. “They’ve always said they wanted to do it. … The irony is actually because it was 12 years ago that we made Stargate, [and] part two was actually supposed to take place about 12 years later. We were just going to kind of age them up as actors. So it actually works out really nicely,” Devlin said during an interview at San Diego Comic-Con 2006. Those sequels never came to pass, but one has to wonder how Spader and Russell would approach the material for a second go-around.
Stargate is available to watch on Pluto TV in the U.S.
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An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt, leads to a planet with humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the god Ra.
- Release Date
-
October 28, 1994
- Director
-
Roland Emmerich
- Cast
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Kurt Russell
, James Spader
, Jaye Davidson
, Viveca Lindfors
, Alexis Cruz
, Mili Avital
, Leon Rippy
, John Diehl - Runtime
-
116 Minutes
- Writers
-
Roland Emmerich
, Dean Devlin
