boris badenov
2008-06-25 20:37:43 UTC
also sprach supermann...
Welcome to the existential nightmare that is known to most as
STARGATE. Stargate was 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 giving Stargate a 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". Stargate is 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 movie STARGATE never 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 find Stargate so facinating. There were many
films that tout, explicitly or implicitly, sociopathic erges and
bias,
but I believe that STARGATE is 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 a stargate, 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 saw Stargate, 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.
Welcome to the existential nightmare that is known to most as
STARGATE. Stargate was 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 giving Stargate a 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". Stargate is 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 movie STARGATE never 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 find Stargate so facinating. There were many
films that tout, explicitly or implicitly, sociopathic erges and
bias,
but I believe that STARGATE is 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 a stargate, 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 saw Stargate, 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.