Stargate Is Getting A New Release With Multiple Cuts And Tons Of Extras That Fans Will Love
The Ultimate Edition of the 1994 Stargate movie is being released with tons of special features.
Stargate fans, get ready: according to Blu-ray.com, Australia’s Via Vision Entertainment is getting ready to release the “Ultimate Edition” of Roland Emmerich’s Stargate film from 1994, which kicked off an entire franchise of related content. The two-disc set will contain loads of special features and will be available starting May 24, 2023.
And just what kind of special features are we talking about, you ask? Well, it all starts with both the original theatrical cut of Stargate and the extended cut of the film. Then there’s the audio commentary by Roland Emmerich, who co-wrote and directed the film, and Dean Devlin, who co-wrote and produced it. There is also a documentary titled “The Making of Stargate” and five of the original Stargate movie previews.
But wait! That’s not all! There are also four Stargate featurettes: “Deciphering the Gate: Concepts and Casting,” “Opening the Gate: The Making of the Movie,” “Passing Through the Gate: The Legacy,” and “Is There a Stargate?” There is also the gag reel, an important part of any box set, as well as B-roll footage from the film, and optional English SDH subtitles for the main movie.
This seems like plenty of content to make any Stargate fan happy… but apparently, that’s not the case. The majority of the comments on the announcement page are almost all from grumpy fans asking why the set isn’t being released in 4K. And the answer to that, we can assume, is that you can’t have everything!
Stargate has been met with a mixture of adoration and audience panning in the almost 30 years since it was released. The film stars Kurt Russell, James Spader, Viveca Lindfors, Jaye Davidson, and Alexis Cruz, and its story begins in 1928, when an ancient artifact is discovered at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Several decades later, The U.S. government asks Egyptologist Dr. Daniel Jackson (played by James Spader) to help decipher the symbols on it.
Jackson discovers that the artifact is a key to a Stargate, which is a portal to the other side of the universe. Kurt Russsell’s Colonel O’Neil and his military unit then join the doctor on a journey through the Stargate to another world, which turns out to be a futuristic desert presided over by a godlike king, Ra. As the protagonists soon discover, their curiosity has opened a corridor in space and time that the ancient Egyptians closed centuries ago to keep Ra at bay.
Like many space adventure films made in the 1990s, Stargate is equal parts cool and cheesy, but, as critics say on Rotten Tomatoes, the cheesiness is all part of the fun. Audiences branded it an “instant classic,” and fans have stuck with the film for decades, generating enough interest for there to be a television series created to serve as a sequel. That one didn’t star Kurt Russell or James Spader, but it helped to increase the film’s popularity even more.
Stargate is a fast-paced, entertaining movie whose special features will surely delight fans even more… even if it isn’t available in 4K, as so many commenters would like it to be, apparently.
