Stargate [Blu-ray + Digital HD]

Finally! Have purchased the 1994 Stargate movie four times. The first was the original two-sided DVD with the movie split into two parts and encoded as a 480p (640 x 274) Full Screen letterbox format. While this DVD always has and continues to play correctly, for more than a decade I have been trying to upgrade my library to a 1080p HD Blu-ray version of the film. Unfortunately, the 2006 "Extended" Blu-ray Disc I bought refuses to mount on any of my three LG drives, a Pioneer drive or my Oppo player. So I tried a second Blu-ray purchase—the 2009 "Fifteenth Anniversary" Blu-ray release. Guess what! This disc may or may not mount on any of my devices. However, whether or not it finally mounts, it still won't play or even open the menu. Instead, it simply spins merrily away until until it either self-ejects or I am forced to eject it manually. As you may have guessed, by this point I was beginning to consider myself the unluckiest man alive. After all, what are the odds of buying two different versions of the same movie and both having "manufacturer defects?" So I figured it might be time to do a bit of research. It appears there is a rumor going around on some video discussions boards indicating earlier VC-1 Blu-ray Discs may have been improperly encoded and that the disc manufacturer had secretly corrected the problem without divulging there was an issue. It was further suspected that none of the MPEG4/AVC Blu-ray Discs suffered such problems. Since the 2014 re-release of the "15th Anniversary Edition" (also sometimes called the "20th Anniversary Edition") was released in the MPEG4/AVC format exclusively, I decided to give it one more try. While I cannot confirm nor deny the validity of this issue as proposed, I can confirm that my latest purchase does mount and play as expected. Further, it also includes both the theatrical and the extended versions of the film making me a very happy buyer... Finally! Since most purchasers are undoubtedly already familiar with the film's plot, this review targets possible issues of earlier versions of the Blu-ray Disc and why you may wish to immediately evaluate the playability of your copy in the event you should wish to return it.

After watching this, and then being sufficiently interested to watch the ensuing TV show Stargate SG-1, I came back to see this old Stargate movie and was pleasantly surprised to see it's better than I remember.In some ways, I like it even more than the Stargate SG-1 series as it manages to maintain a sense of wonder, mystery, and seriousness throughout the film. Stargate SG-1 did a great job of maintaining a sense of wonder and mystery, but was riddled with jokes that spoiled the mood for me, and lets be honest... some types of episodes in that show were getting pretty tiresome by the time you reach the end of the series (such as replicators episodes and the comedic episodes). But SG-1 had its good points as well (the mythological richness, exploration, and adventure I experienced as I watched the SG-1 team unravel the Goa'uld story was top-notch).And that brings me to why I love this old Stargate film so much in retrospect having watched the Stargate SG-1 TV series: it maintains that sense of mythological richness, mystery, adventure, and excitement, without the more disappointing aspects of SG-1.For those reasons, I highly recommend people watch this again if they were fans of the Stargate SG-1 television series, because I think if they are anything like me they will develop a renewed appreciation for this older Stargate film after they've finished watching Stargate SG-1. In that sense, this film got better for me when I rewatched it after having seen Stargate SG-1.That said, you might want to watch this first if you haven't seen Stargate SG-1 yet.

Stargate and the TV Shows SG1, Atlantis, Universe were the best of SciFi imo. Amazing concept, amazing execution that spawned all the lore and stories for 15 years and the best 15 years of weekly viewing from 1997-2011.Stargate the movie is well acted, well directed and has an amazing concept. Kurt Russell was terrific as was James Spader who stole the show. Along with the very lovely girl who was honestly innocent and just breathtakingly captivating in her innocence and her smarts and determination. She was the perfect woman to Dr Jackson and being a first time actress acted resolutely and well against seasoned actors.The whole concept of Stargate was not yet fully established nor details provided on the background of Ra or his uprising mentioned or where he came from, his species etc. (TV shows go in this fully) but it was so well done. Some of the lines are just iconic "Show him", "Banniwei", "It's your Stargate", "we're going home" etc.Amazing movie. For me, this is in my top 5 movies of all time.Rating: 10/10

This is one of my favorite movies. It arrived in a timely manner and was in perfect condition!