At the end of the 1920s, an archaeologist unearths a ring-shaped device in Giza, Egypt. This object is brought to the USA where it is studied by the army, although they are not able to fully understand it. Some decades later, the controversial Egyptologist Daniel Jackson is contacted to help the government with this work. He manages to decipher some of the inscriptions and learns that the ring is a tool using spatial coordinates. A wormhole appears as soon as the device is activated. Jackson, accompanied by soldiers, enters the portal, and they are taken to another planet in the universe. There, they encounter a people enslaved by an alien posing as the Egyptian god Ra. The opening of the Stargate on Earth leads the Terrans, the enslaved people, to fight against the false god and win back their freedom.

With the context of the Stargate’s discovery and the presence of the alien god Ra, Egypt is omnipresent throughout the film. The wormhole brings the team of explorers to the planet Abydos, named after a prestigious site in pharaonic Egypt (both from a historical and religious perspective).

The Stargate is placed inside a pyramid, which is also a base on which Ra’s spaceship can land. Thanks to his advanced technology, this alien manages to impose his will on the inhabitants, who worship him as a god. According to the film’s lore, the Abydonians were all brought to the planet from ancient Egypt before the Stargate was hidden after a revolt on Earth. This is why they all live following the pharaonic way of life, and this aspect is especially seen in the costumes of Ra and his court.

In front of his people, Ra wears a mask composed of a false beard and a nemes, which is unequivocally reminiscent of the funerary mask of Tutankhamun. In private, his face is revealed, but, behind his head, he wears an ornament in the form of a Hathoric crown. The alien also uses a sarcophagus-like tool that helps him to regenerate when necessary. The other characters also resemble Egyptians: the god’s personal guard wears canine-shaped masks, and the children who serve him have shaved heads and wear childhood locks.

An interesting fact is that a real Egyptologist, Stuart Tyson Smith, worked on the movie to make the characters’ speech more authentic and the hieroglyphs grammatically correct!

The film is part of the neo-Evhemerist movement (ancient gods as aliens) and takes all spectators into a world that is pharaonic but also futuristic.

Author: Thomas Gamelin