Alderaan said:
After seeing Independence Day: Resurgence, this weekend, I just watched Stargate again. Really like it, and only Emmerich film that I think is any good. I don’t think the editing is the cause of any of the weaknesses in Stargate, so I doubt a fan edit would do any good, but good luck.
Biggest problems to me:
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The film intimates that Catherine’s team had already decoded the first six ciphers on Stargate combination, and they only needed to figure out the seventh and final one. This is really, really stupid, because they could have just tried every cipher for the last symbol until the combination worked. I think in reality what happened is that they thought only six symbols were needed, and it was Daniel who made the discovery that the combination was seven symbols long. But the film messes this up, big time.
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The soldiers who go through the Stargate with Colonel O’Neill and Jackson, those guys are really not believable as elite soldiers. Pretty much worst special ops team I’ve ever seen on film.
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Daniel’s character doesn’t exhibit any vulnerabilities in the film, and I think this is really a mistake on the part of the director. Colonel O’Neill has the whole subplot of his son’s death, and there’s some real weakness for him there, but Daniel doesn’t have anything. People walk out of his speech and he just laughs at himself. The soldiers punch him and he just shrugs it off. They throw his belongings out into the open desert and he sits down and eats a candy bar. Really messed up on his character I think.
Finally, the story is not bold enough to embrace some horror elements and until the ending it doesn’t really have many moments of joy either. Emotional rollercoasters are necessary and lacking.
Not sure if you can fix any of these things with a post production edit and no new footage. But I still love the film regardless of it’s flaws, don’t understand how anyone can hate it at all.
Ok I have been doing some research and reading the novel and the draft script which has thrown some answers up regarding your second point. And some alternative scene orders potentially which is what really I am all about. Putting things back in the correct order and within context. It seems that there were a few alternate versions of scenes filmed.
This I believe is quite evident come the finale which is a bit of a mess but there is more to this film than we see on the screen. The film has been toned down slightly for the PG rating which it would not have got if the changes were not made. So we ARE talking censorship and we ARE talking about things being changed to make it softer, when quite evidently it has quite a hard edge and can feel quite grim which I admire about it. It’s not all happy but is elated and it also has this dark tone but believe me it was weakened slightly.
The first evidence I have noticed of “Tinkering” or re-shuffling (I honestly hate this technique of changing films to have a weaker impact). Is when the pyramid lands and the troops are attacked.
The first 2 soldiers that are attacked are in fact killed. The other (last) two survive to see the watery pit. Basically I am going to do my best on this to make it feel adult and joined up. The obvious cut is with the second soldier who witnesses his dead mate being dragged behind the pillar. I plan to add Blood to the sand under his body to give that a harder edge. And screams of pain. But this guy that is scared and backs off. There is an important part missing where he spins and shoots the Bullpup at the camera. You can see it right at the start of the ultimate edition documentary. So it was definitely filmed. It was a scene extension. But it was censored. I am going to try and fix it but I don’t know but I will try. The next point is the guy with the hand gun I think it’s a P90 or a Beretta obviously offloads the clip in his gun and then goes for the MP5 back in the center of the room. So I am also going to try and fix this somehow.
Next up on the list is the scene of the guy who get’s bashed at the end of that sequence get’s dragged along the floor in front of “Ra” this scene come’s later as when O’neil (Kurt Russell) is dropped in the watery pit this dude is clenching his face with fresh wounds so that scene happens before Kurt get’s thrown in the watery pit but probably in that order.
The end of the film is also going to be put in a better order that “Makes Sense” as it is bullshit although likeable bullshit it’s so obviously shuffled to tame it down and break the flow so I am definitely going to improve the action in this film if I can. Let me know your thoughts on the action and how it has been tamed or censored.
I have also ordered a dvd version of the 2008 DVD release if this documentary footage is not on that disc then it’s on the rare Japanese Laserdisc only perhaps which would be bad. Hopefully it’s on the 2008 optimum DVD release. Fingers crossed!
So far I have only placed the very first special edition scene on a tmeline and looked at it. I am not going any further until the 2008 version arrives.