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Spoilers (4)
This was the first movie to ever have an official website. It was set up by Dean Devlin in 1994, and featured images, trailers and behind-the-scenes clips and actor information.
The eye glowing effect that Ra has, was actually added in post-production, because test audiences didn't think that he was alien enough. This trait was continued in Stargate SG-1 (1997), as an identifier to people who are taken over by the Goa'uld.
James Spader admitted that he did the film for the money, as he found the script to be awful. He said, "Acting, for me, is a passion, but it's also a job, and I've always approached it as such. I have a certain manual-laborist view of acting. There's no shame in taking a film, because you need some fucking money."
The early pre-release screenings of the movie were disastrous. The percentage of the audience who liked the movie fell into the mid-30s, and Executive Producer Mario Kassar realized the main problem was that the plot made zero sense. His solution: have the Ra character's dialogue subtitled, and made into information that presented a clear storyline. When these changes were made, the subsequent test screenings produced an overwhelming majority of positive reviews, and this carried the movie into becoming one of the surprise hits of fall 1994.
Alexis Cruz (Skaara) and Erick Avari (Kasuf) are the only actors to appear in both Stargate (1994) and Stargate SG-1 (1997).
Dr. Jackson (James Spader) says disdainfully that the translators have obviously been using Budge, and wonders why "they keep reprinting him". He is referring to noted Egyptologist Sir E.A. Wallis Budge (1857-1934).
High school teacher Omar Zuhdi claimed in a 1995 copyright infringement lawsuit that virtually the entire film was stolen from a manuscript he began writing as a college student. Zuhdi even had his former Egyptology professor from Johns Hopkins University vouch for him. Contrary to popular belief, Zuhdi never personally submitted his manuscript directly to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin; he claims he submitted it only once to 20th Century Fox, who rejected it in 1984, five years before Emmerich and Devlin even met. However, the suit alleges that StudioCanal eventually acquired a copy of the manuscript, and some years later hired Emmerich and Devlin to make Stargate, using Zuhdi's ideas. Zuhdi sued Emmerich, Devlin, all of the film's other producers, StudioCanal, and MGM for 140 million dollars. In 1997, the case was settled out of court for 50,000 dollars. In 2013, Zuhdi published a novel called "Egyptscape", based on the manuscript he says he submitted to Fox.
Jaye Davidson's dislike of the attention that he received after The Crying Game (1992), made him reluctant to take the role of Ra in Stargate (1994). He didn't want to just turn the offer down, so he made what he expected to be an unacceptable demand of one million dollars. This was accepted, and he appeared.
According to the DVD commentary, the group of scantily-clad youths, which surround Ra, were intentionally included to create unease in the audience.
As it happens in Mexico with most movie titles translated from English, the title for this movie was not a literal translation of the original title. Stargate became "La puerta del tiempo" which translates to "The Gate of Time". Some moviegoers mistakenly thought the far away planet the squad goes to was just a very early time in Egypt, and were seriously confused with the storyline.
James Brown's scream from "I Feel Good" was used as a sound effect in the scene demonstrating the alien taking control of the young boy's body.
David Arnold was working as a clerk at a record store in England, when Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich hired him to compose the score for this film.
Jaye Davidson despised the costumes he wore so much, on the last day of shooting his scenes, after hearing the final "cut", he stripped naked on the set without going to his trailer. Moreover, Davidson retired from acting after completion of this film. Since 1994, as of 2010, he has only appeared since in The Borghilde Project (2009), a 17-minute film.
Although the planet visited through the Stargate is never referred to by name throughout the length of the movie, its spin-off television series Stargate SG-1 (1997) would later reveal the planet's name to be Abydos. While it says in the movie that the planet is located in the Kaliam Galaxy, in the television series, its location is retroactively changed to be within the Milky Way, while travel to another galaxy necessitates a combination of eight instead of seven glyphs.
The horse-like creatures on the planet were, in fact, real horses with external costumes draped over them. Dogs were also used.
Wardrobe and cinematography had to work around Jaye Davidson's nipple rings - he refused to remove them.
In a magazine interview, James Spader said that he found the original screenplay "awful" but also that it was so bad it actually intrigued him. He then met with Roland Emmerich, was inspired by the director's passion for the project, and decided to make the movie because he felt the energy and craziness of making such a film would translate into an exciting final film.
When Professor Langford first sees the stargate in the opening sequence, he exclaims "Herregud! Hva er det?". This means "My God! What is that?" in Norwegian, Erik Holland's native language.
The mountain entrance to the place where the giant ring is kept on Earth, is the same entrance that was used to enter NORAD in the movie WarGames (1983).
Ra's former host's race was never identified throughout the movie. While the television series Stargate SG-1 (1997) would later identify the entity of Ra as a Goa'uld, his former host was still never identified, but it does bear a strong resemblance to the Aesir (Thor's race)--so much so, that the Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game would even go on to identify Ra's former host as an Áss known as "Famrir".
Costume Designer Joseph A. Porro was jokingly referred to as "The evil Joseph Porro" after the film was scored, because the music turns ominous at the same time his name appears in the opening credits.
French Stewart (Lieutenant Ferretti) is the only actor to appear in both Stargate (1994) and SGU Stargate Universe (2009). He played Dr. Andrew Covel in SGU Stargate Universe: Alliances (2011).
Alexis Cruz (Skaara) and Erick Avari (Kasuf) are the only actors to appear in Stargate (1994) and Stargate SG-1 (1997) as their respective characters. However, Richard Kind appeared in Stargate (1994) and then plays a different character called Lucius Lavin in Stargate: Atlantis (2004).
The stargate is a system designed to open a wormhole. A wormhole is a hypothetical way of space travel called "Rosen-Einstein bridge", named after scientists Nathan Rosen and Albert Einstein. According to them, the wormhole should be capable to unite two distant points in the universe, altering space-time laws to cross from a point to another in a brief period of time. The name "wormhole" compares the universe to an apple, with a worm boring through it to reach a point on the other side instead of crawling the long way around on the outside. The same concept was used in Contact (1997).
Theatrical trailer and promo reel found on the European DVD (distributed by Kinowelt/Momentum) include extensions or snippets of additional scenes which are neither included in the theatrical cut nor in the special edition version of the film: - one of the guards appears behind Sha'uri and Daniel. This is presumably from the scene where Sha'uri gets shot - when Sha'uri is in the sarcophagus, Ra holds his hand above her - a different take of the scene where Ra punishes his guard. Here Ra is seen from the side - village scene at the beginning is longer - longer entrance of Ra at the assembly. O'Neill and his men are pushed down by the guards - extended entry to the control room. Daniel gets an explanation of how things work. You see that the conference room is directly above the control room - extended activation of the Stargate. You see more of the two technicians operating the Stargate. General West orders final evacuation. The two technicians leave the control room. O'Neill looks back at West. West leaves the conference room and the shutters close
The film is included on the film critic Roger Ebert's "Most Hated" list.
Richard Kind (Dr. Gary Meyers) is the only actor to appear in Stargate (1994) and Stargate: Atlantis (2004).
Vaitiare Hirshon auditioned for the role of Sha'uri, but lost it to Mili Avital. Bandera would later play the character (renamed Sha're) in three episodes of Stargate SG-1 (1997).
Kurt Russell, James Spader and Djimon Hounsou would later join the cinematic Marvel comic book universe. Djimon Hounsou starred as Korath in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). James Spader starred as Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Kurt Russell starred as Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (2017).
DIRECTOR_TRADEMARK(Roland Emmerich): [44]: The probe is a model "44".
Sir John Gielgud was on the possibles list for Ra.
When the scene opens, Col. O'Neal is sitting on his son's bed. As the Air Force officers make their way to the bed room, he pushes the pistol under a pillow with Egyptian hieroglyphics on it.
The Stargate is basically a space portal that allows instantaneous faster than the speed of light travel across space from planet to planet.
Hasbro released action figures of the film such as Daniel Jackson, Anubis, Jack O'Neil, Ra, Anubis chief guard etc.
Dean Devlin agreed to do the film because he had always wanted to do a "Lawrence of Arabria in Space" and helped Roland Emmerich to develop the story.
Spoilers
A stargate is a ring composed of a fictional superconductive mineral called "naqahdah", marked with 39 glyphs that operates using a combination of 7 glyphs or chrevrons to establish a space route to travel from a point to another. Using mathematical combinatorics, it implies that a single stargate can locate 77,519,922,480 places throughout the galaxy, increased to 137,231,006,679 if in the combination one of some glyphs can be re-used. Using an 8 glyph combination for an extragalactic travel, a stargate can locate 2,480,637,519,360 places throughout the universe, increased to 5,352,009,260,481 if one or more glyphs can be re-used.
Stargate's ring has 39 glyphs or chrevrons. In the television series Stargate SG-1 (1997), Stargate: Atlantis (2004), and SGU Stargate Universe (2009), it is explained that the number of glyphs in a stargate, depends of the galaxy where this stargate belongs.
At one point of the movie, Jackson explains to the staff of U.S. Air Force that for any space travel, it is necessary to have seven symbols to mark coordinates. Six of them indicate the destination, signing stars or constellations, to locate the place where to go. The seventh, and last symbol, indicates the point of origin to start the travel. In the television series, an extra glyph was added, which indicates the destination galaxy, however, it is not needed unless they plan on going to a different galaxy.
The film bares a couple similarities with Dune (1984): Daniel, Jack and the soldiers discover on the desert planet the humanoid tribe are mining the planet for a strange mineral. The tribe's leader Kasuf thinks Daniel and Jack are emissaries of Ra and are welcomed into the tribe. Daniel falls in love with Sha'uri. Ra is mining the desert planet for the strange mineral required for his alien technology. The tribe unites with Daniel and Jack and fights back against Ra and his warriors and Daniel decides to stay on the desert planet with the tribe.
