Plot
After the discovery of a massive cover-stone ring in the sands of Giza, Egypt in 1928, by a young Catherine Langford and her father, she offers Egyptologist Daniel Jackson, a linguistics professor, the chance to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Jackson accepts and travels to a US Air Force installation where he translates the hieroglyphs on the stone ring's cover stones quickly. Recently reactivated Special Forces Colonel Jack O'Neil arrives to take command of the project and declares it classified before Jackson can learn more.
Jackson deduces that the symbols are star constellations and coordinates for a location within space. The sequence creates a stable wormhole to a location in another galaxy. Catherine gives Jackson the eye-of-Ra medallion she found in 1928 by the ring. O'Neil leads a team with Jackson through the Stargate and they find themselves inside a pyramid in the middle of a desert. The team cannot dial home because the coordinates to return are missing so Jackson, O'Neil, along with others explore the surrounding area and discover a mining operation run by humans who when they see Jackson's medallion, assume them to be sent by Ra.
Jackson begins communicating with the locals using a dialect of Ancient Egyptian. The team develop friendships with Skaara and his friends, and Jackson is given a gift of the leader's daughter Sha'uri, who he initially rebuffs, but soon develops a romance. Jackson discovers that Sha'uri may know where the cartouche containing the symbols required to get back to Earth are and they leave the city. Jackson learns how the Egyptian god Ra was actually an alien lifeform who was seeking a cure for his own mortality and come to earth, where he "possessed" the body of a human youth, and enslaved humans transporting some of them to another planet to mine the quartzite-like mineral on which all of his technology is based. Humans eventually rebelled and buried the Stargate on Earth. Jackson also discovers the symbols they need but the seventh symbol is missing.
At night, a pyramid shaped spacecraft descends over the pyramid. O'Neil and Jackson are captured and taken to Ra who appears to be a human youth, but the whites of his eyes frequently glow. Ra reveals his intention to send an atomic bomb brought by O'Neil, its destructive power now enhanced 100-fold with an accompanying shipment of his quartzite-like material to produce cataclysmic results. O'Neil tries to disarm the guards and kill Ra, but Jackson is killed and O'Neil is thrown into a dungeon with the remaining captured team members. Jackson is regenerated in a sarcophagus-like device and meets with Ra who states that he will kill Jackson and everyone who has seen him unless Jackson kills the rest of the team to show the villagers that Ra is their true god.
Once Ra has the local people gathered before the pyramid, several villagers create a distraction and Jackson, who has been handed a guard's staff-weapon for the execution, swiftly turns and shoots at Ra and he, O'Neil, and the rest of the team escape and take shelter in a cave with Skaara and others. The next morning, when Skaara draws a picture of the victory against Ra, Jackson realizes that part of this drawing depicts the seventh symbol needed to reactivate the Stargate.
O'Neil and some locals attack and overpower the overseers of the mine and are able to convince the locals that their "gods" are human and, with their help, they, and the remaining members of the team make it back to the Stargate to deactivate the bomb. Faced with open rebellion, Ra prepares his ship to leave and launches fighters to attack Skaara and those fighting him. Sha'uri is killed in the battle, but Jackson takes her onto the ship and resurrects her in Ra's sarcophagus. Ra meanwhile orders the bomb and minerals to be sent to earth immediately and sends a guard with the bomb who battles O'Neil. Jackson manages to escape the ship with Sha'uri as O'Neil, having overpowered the guard activates the transporter rings and transports Jackson with Sha'uri down to the planet and the kills the guard. As Ra's craft rises off planet O'Neil and Jackson transport the bomb to Ra's ship. The bomb detonates, killing Ra. The people on the planet celebrate their freedom and Jackson decides to remain on the planet with Sha'uri while O'Neil and the team returns to Earth.
Read more about this topic: Stargate (film)
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
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—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)