The rental and sell-thru releases of Roland Emmerich's SF extravaganza (that took over £10 million at the UK box office alone) loose much of the film's epic alure on the small screen. In spite of the sumptuous visuals (particularly truncated in the pan-and-scan version) the TV tube makes the viewer focus more on readily the film's shortcomings, i.e. derivative cultural elements from earlier SF films and fiction, and that not an awful lot happens, plot wise, once through the gate. Still, the most expensive European co-production ever deserved to do well to guarantee the safe passage to the big screen of the rest of Emmerich's proposed trilogy, which with the passage of time and subsequent dull Stargate SG1 TV series looks increasingly remote.
Rob Dyer
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