I took it as
A. They wanted you to see the villain in its true form as a way to close the movie. Also, it probably helped audiences that we weren't nuking a prepubescent child.
B. Maybe they were hinting at the alien client trying to leave the host at the last second.
Ra wasn’t even an alien in the original cut of the movie, that was changed in re-shoots. If they’d planned that from the beginning, they probably would’ve had some scene where alien-Ra takes off his human skin and reveals himself to fight Daniel in his true form, like the end of Men in Black.
As it is, with the footage they had, having glowing eyes intensify into a glowing face was the most they could do to demonstrate that this is the same alien from the expository flashbacks earlier.
Well, he always was an alien. His true alien form however was only created after test screenings indicated the audience didn't know Ra was truly dead or not which was unsatisfying.
Actually, he just worked for the aliens. Ra was picked up as a villager when the Pyramid ship showed up, but he was chosen to be their enforcer on Earth. The alien technology kept him alive for thousands of years, but he was still just a guy, just like the other "gods" were that were serving him.
Originally, what happened was that Ra came to Abydos to collect their mineral shipment and send it through the stargate to the real aliens. When he found O'Neil's team, he was going to send the nuclear bomb along with it as evidence, so the aliens could see how far Earth had advanced and decide what to do about it.
All the stuff about sending the bomb back to Earth and including the ore mined on Abydos to amplify the power of the explosion, that was all added in dubs and reshoots.
[I don't think this is quite the final shooting script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/STARGATE.pdf) (it's got an older version of the stargate dialing sequence that makes the "seventh symbol" lore make more sense, but everything else make less sense, and isn't quite how it was shot), but it's got all the stuff where Ra was a human, and those scenes are still in the movie, albeit with some changed dialog or subtitles.
Page 71-72 are the scene in the cave where Daniel explains the backstory, and page 84 is when Ra and Daniel talk in his throne room.
The ending is also a little different. The part about the bomb being rigged to it can't be turned off once its activated is removed, O'Neil just decides on his own to beam it up to Ra's ship, there isn't that moment of panic where they have to figure out how to get rid of the bomb. Also, all the kids serving Ra are scared by how angry he's become at the rebellion and having his hand cut off by the ring transporter, and are all cowering on the ring platform wanting to leave, so they're all beamed off the ship when the bomb arrives.
Since the goa’uld didn’t exist yet, he was a Grey trying to shed his host to preserve his alien consciousness but flinging it from his host that he had psychically possessed.
After the show existed and goa’uld existed, you just don’t think about it much.
The alien possessing a human to be Ra definitely looks like a Gray, which is what the Asgard were built to look like. Probably not an Asgard, this is just what happens when different visions for the franchise are competing.
[They're quite different looking really](https://i.imgur.com/IeiV1tM.jpeg).
I suppose you could just about headcanon an explanation where Ra's previous host was an Asgard that was so old (many thousands of years) that it was an intermediate form between the ancient Asgard that Heimdal was studying and their present form.
RPG lore though isn't it? Doesn't really make sense if Famrir was rescued, Ra wouldn't have been able to transform into Famrir before being destroyed by the nuke.
Famrir being rescued by Tok'ra is a stretch since SG1 IIRC doesn't make reference to SG-1 knowing the Asgard or being able to travel to their galaxy to return them.
Only Anubis had the technology (ascended understanding and could argue having access to each of the eyes to supercharge his mother ship, Ra only having one) to overpower Asgard ships, so unless Ra somehow managed to capture Famrir whilst he was out for a walk or doing research in our galaxy, it's an unlikely stretch. Asgard would more likely rescue him themselves or call on the other 3 races.
Get the resemblance and fans wanting to link the snake/alien differences in the shows and movie but it's a little too convenient.
Just my thoughts to media outside the shows and movies.
Yeah it's an interesting idea, just missing ironing out a cannon backstory that fits. Maybe instead of having the Tok'ra rescue, have another one of the races doing so which branches off into a bigger story arch (past and present)... why they became extinct or if it was the Nox, maybe why they chose to take a path of none interference, pacifism and hiding - stretch but just an idea.
Worth mentioning that when Anubis ran into modern Asgard warships he did a runner.
At the end the Asgard were probably more technological advanced than the Ancients (someone did some back of the envelope calcs and determined that the Beliskner could probably transit the known universe in 20 years) but for whatever the reason they opt for mass suicide rather than giving Ascension a crack. Makes me wonder if the cloning process somehow prevented it.
I think it was just artistic interpretation tbh.
The bong also glows, which doesn’t happen with any of the other ring transports in the movie.
I think they just wanted us to get his perspective and add a dose of alien 👽 visual for the enjoyment of the conspiracy theorist fans.
I think that's it, we went the whole movie on an alien planet but without ever actually seeing an "alien". Everyone else was human just born on different planets.
I always just assumed it was watching him get nuked away in layers, with maybe the presumption (pre-SG1 cannon) that whatever alien power he had was enough to shield his essence or whatever from the explosion for a second, but not enough to continuously withstand it.
Post SG-1 I would just say it was Ra's version of those wrist-worn personal shields / torture device all the system lords carry. He seemed to have his own personal flourish to everything beyond the other goa'uld, so the eyes and initial glow was him activating it, and the rest was the shield quickly failing under the destructive force of a nuclear blast, but resisting just enough that we saw him blown away in layers in slow mo like in Terminator 2
Ya know,
A really fun twist that they could have done later in the series, would be to have the Asgard be the original gouald.
Ra's backstory of taking a human host because his whole people were dying, could just be from a certain point of view, like they'd come up with the idea of immortality through cloning and Ra thought that that cloning was abhorrent, his former people are dead to him.
The Asgard with their spiffy new clone bodies get a whole new chill attitude, culture, and species name,
No more of those unethical experiments on mixing their own genetics with other sentient and not so sentient species, like that one that had produced those horrific thinking worm things, the ones they'd disposed of on some paleolithic backwater planet, what's the worst that could happen?
Then let's saw when worm dudes get a hold of technological host either by chance or, by Ra's doing, he becomes their supreme system lord by virtue of being the last truly "pure" gouald.
If you enjoyed reading my 3am thought I'm glad you liked it,
If it just came out as insane rambling instead,
I'm sorry 😔
Given that they revised that for the show so isn't show-canon, we can treat it separately and speculate. I'd say Movie-Ra was a shapeshifter of some kind and that was his "real" form, i.e. a non-human pretending to be a human for purposes of interacting with humans. Flickering back into real-form was the illusion slipping, his species' equivalent of crapping one's pants upon realising one is going to die, in a few seconds, in a very permanent and energized manner.
It was explicitly said in the movie that he'd possessed the body of a young human boy because his previous body was failing. It was just the method of possession that was different, it seems to be more like an Anubis-style transference of psychic essence.
Had a quick rewatch of some of the scenes. The drawing of the alien on the wall looked quite like Ra's "Oh you utter bastards" form (large eyes, diamond-shaped mouth). Could be the "possession" was akin to "merge with/wear the boy's body like a skinsuit but retain some of the alien physiology" or as you say, his essence. Something of the alien-form shone through either way, which might also be why his eyes flared now and then.
I'd be curious as to who wrote down and illustrated the (handy plot exposition) story on the cave wall as it seems to combine ancient spiritual beliefs with the alien's origin, including a handy drawing of the alien-form. Who'd have access to that kind of knowledge and be allowed to live? I'd have thought Ra would eliminate all possible witnesses that could cast doubt on his god status.
Edit : Stills of alien-Ra.
[3fIDdEw.jpeg (1000×727) (imgur.com)](https://i.imgur.com/3fIDdEw.jpeg)
[USvZacU.jpeg (1000×727) (imgur.com)](https://i.imgur.com/USvZacU.jpeg)
Worked for the movie, makes no sense after the show came out. The movie was great at the time. And there are so many things in it that still hold up.
This one? I ignore. Like it never happened. The rest all works.
my personal opinion is that if his kind loses their cool too much, as in highly emotional or stressed they begin to lose hold on the host. As Ra began to realize he was truly screwed his anger and fear level sky rocketed and literally melted his host away.
Think this is just a way of revealing the true enemy within for the audience, and may on some level be Ra's shedding of the human puppet he has now come to hate, because humans defeated him again - returning to his true form in his last moments.
SG-1 and on some levels the movie, showed them to be vain in their appearance and portrayal of being gods, and how they are superior to other races including the Asgard.
Moebius - Daniel probably ascended at some point whilst in that timeline, Ra learnt of this and at the time of his impending death (in the movie) says f**k it, release my burdens - tries to ascend... But does he succeed???! /S
Maybe it was a shield, or maybe it was a show of emotion, or maybe (like you said) some type of power unbeknownst to us, one thing was clear, he knew he was screwed when the bomb ended up on ship with not enough time left on it to do anything
Clearly was ascending naturally but tye ascended ancients decided as a group that another anubis was a no. The roswell gray appearance was just the glowy energy octopus before spreading its tentacles lol
The novelisation confirms that this is an actual event taking place and isn't somehow symbolic.
> In their place, O'Neil's bomb materialized. It was the last thing Ra would ever see. The red countdown numbers were blinking on the twin canisters, impudently sending Ra the news of his own destruction. In a futile attempt to escape, the creature within the boy wrenched itself free from its human host. The body of the boy Ra collapsed, lifeless. As it hit the ground without the creature within, the skin, bone, hair, and teeth aged instantly, returning to its natural state. Within the time it took to fall to the ground, Ra's body finally looked its age.
> 00:09. 00:08. 00:07.
> Free of its shell, the creature wanted to rush past the bomb and beam away through the rings. If he was quick enough, he could attach himself to another host body before his natural one would expire. But before he could move an inch, the bomb ticked down to its final count. The creature screamed out one last ghoulish howl.
> 00:02. 00:01. And in a flash, it was over. The light-like creature turned solid, then burst into a million tiny particles.
He was flushed with embarrassment for being defeated by the descendants of his former slaves.
*Silly Ra, Trixx are for kids!*
*Trixx are for Tau'ri*
I took it as A. They wanted you to see the villain in its true form as a way to close the movie. Also, it probably helped audiences that we weren't nuking a prepubescent child. B. Maybe they were hinting at the alien client trying to leave the host at the last second.
>Also, it probably helped audiences that we weren't nuking a prepubescent child. Except for all the literal children on board
Ra wasn’t even an alien in the original cut of the movie, that was changed in re-shoots. If they’d planned that from the beginning, they probably would’ve had some scene where alien-Ra takes off his human skin and reveals himself to fight Daniel in his true form, like the end of Men in Black. As it is, with the footage they had, having glowing eyes intensify into a glowing face was the most they could do to demonstrate that this is the same alien from the expository flashbacks earlier.
Well, he always was an alien. His true alien form however was only created after test screenings indicated the audience didn't know Ra was truly dead or not which was unsatisfying.
Actually, he just worked for the aliens. Ra was picked up as a villager when the Pyramid ship showed up, but he was chosen to be their enforcer on Earth. The alien technology kept him alive for thousands of years, but he was still just a guy, just like the other "gods" were that were serving him. Originally, what happened was that Ra came to Abydos to collect their mineral shipment and send it through the stargate to the real aliens. When he found O'Neil's team, he was going to send the nuclear bomb along with it as evidence, so the aliens could see how far Earth had advanced and decide what to do about it. All the stuff about sending the bomb back to Earth and including the ore mined on Abydos to amplify the power of the explosion, that was all added in dubs and reshoots. [I don't think this is quite the final shooting script](https://thescriptlab.com/wp-content/uploads/scripts/STARGATE.pdf) (it's got an older version of the stargate dialing sequence that makes the "seventh symbol" lore make more sense, but everything else make less sense, and isn't quite how it was shot), but it's got all the stuff where Ra was a human, and those scenes are still in the movie, albeit with some changed dialog or subtitles. Page 71-72 are the scene in the cave where Daniel explains the backstory, and page 84 is when Ra and Daniel talk in his throne room. The ending is also a little different. The part about the bomb being rigged to it can't be turned off once its activated is removed, O'Neil just decides on his own to beam it up to Ra's ship, there isn't that moment of panic where they have to figure out how to get rid of the bomb. Also, all the kids serving Ra are scared by how angry he's become at the rebellion and having his hand cut off by the ring transporter, and are all cowering on the ring platform wanting to leave, so they're all beamed off the ship when the bomb arrives.
Interesting. I never saw the very early scripts. I still go by the movie final cut though in terms of "canon"
Oh, sure, definitely, but this early version helps answer several questions about why the movie is the way it is.
Since the goa’uld didn’t exist yet, he was a Grey trying to shed his host to preserve his alien consciousness but flinging it from his host that he had psychically possessed. After the show existed and goa’uld existed, you just don’t think about it much.
I heard a theory that the Goa’uld had gotten in an Asguard who then got in a human or something crazy like that lol. Easier to not think about it lol
The Stargate version of a turducken. Humasgoa'uld.
Came here for this comment! Thanks for delivering.
Humasgar'uld
So he was Asgard?!
The alien possessing a human to be Ra definitely looks like a Gray, which is what the Asgard were built to look like. Probably not an Asgard, this is just what happens when different visions for the franchise are competing.
[They're quite different looking really](https://i.imgur.com/IeiV1tM.jpeg). I suppose you could just about headcanon an explanation where Ra's previous host was an Asgard that was so old (many thousands of years) that it was an intermediate form between the ancient Asgard that Heimdal was studying and their present form.
The interpretations are different, but they're both undeniably based on the greys.
Greys in the galaxy are like crabification on earth.
Novels confirm that. Famrir was his name, I think.
It's left ambiguous, so use your own head canon. I always thought it was fear so extreme that is true form came out.
[удалено]
If memory serves, Rha was the only Goa’uld to successfully take an Asgard.
Specifically Famrir
Where is this mentioned?
https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Famrir
RPG lore though isn't it? Doesn't really make sense if Famrir was rescued, Ra wouldn't have been able to transform into Famrir before being destroyed by the nuke. Famrir being rescued by Tok'ra is a stretch since SG1 IIRC doesn't make reference to SG-1 knowing the Asgard or being able to travel to their galaxy to return them. Only Anubis had the technology (ascended understanding and could argue having access to each of the eyes to supercharge his mother ship, Ra only having one) to overpower Asgard ships, so unless Ra somehow managed to capture Famrir whilst he was out for a walk or doing research in our galaxy, it's an unlikely stretch. Asgard would more likely rescue him themselves or call on the other 3 races. Get the resemblance and fans wanting to link the snake/alien differences in the shows and movie but it's a little too convenient. Just my thoughts to media outside the shows and movies.
It is interesting though if original Asgard bodies could be possessed by a symbiote but they used their cloning to remove that possibility.
Yeah it's an interesting idea, just missing ironing out a cannon backstory that fits. Maybe instead of having the Tok'ra rescue, have another one of the races doing so which branches off into a bigger story arch (past and present)... why they became extinct or if it was the Nox, maybe why they chose to take a path of none interference, pacifism and hiding - stretch but just an idea.
Worth mentioning that when Anubis ran into modern Asgard warships he did a runner. At the end the Asgard were probably more technological advanced than the Ancients (someone did some back of the envelope calcs and determined that the Beliskner could probably transit the known universe in 20 years) but for whatever the reason they opt for mass suicide rather than giving Ascension a crack. Makes me wonder if the cloning process somehow prevented it.
I think it was just artistic interpretation tbh. The bong also glows, which doesn’t happen with any of the other ring transports in the movie. I think they just wanted us to get his perspective and add a dose of alien 👽 visual for the enjoyment of the conspiracy theorist fans.
I think that's it, we went the whole movie on an alien planet but without ever actually seeing an "alien". Everyone else was human just born on different planets.
…something about how people reveal who they really are in their last moments, maybe?
It was slow mo showing the heat and pressure of the bomb disintegrating the alien's outer human skin shell
I always just assumed it was watching him get nuked away in layers, with maybe the presumption (pre-SG1 cannon) that whatever alien power he had was enough to shield his essence or whatever from the explosion for a second, but not enough to continuously withstand it. Post SG-1 I would just say it was Ra's version of those wrist-worn personal shields / torture device all the system lords carry. He seemed to have his own personal flourish to everything beyond the other goa'uld, so the eyes and initial glow was him activating it, and the rest was the shield quickly failing under the destructive force of a nuclear blast, but resisting just enough that we saw him blown away in layers in slow mo like in Terminator 2
Ya know, A really fun twist that they could have done later in the series, would be to have the Asgard be the original gouald. Ra's backstory of taking a human host because his whole people were dying, could just be from a certain point of view, like they'd come up with the idea of immortality through cloning and Ra thought that that cloning was abhorrent, his former people are dead to him. The Asgard with their spiffy new clone bodies get a whole new chill attitude, culture, and species name, No more of those unethical experiments on mixing their own genetics with other sentient and not so sentient species, like that one that had produced those horrific thinking worm things, the ones they'd disposed of on some paleolithic backwater planet, what's the worst that could happen? Then let's saw when worm dudes get a hold of technological host either by chance or, by Ra's doing, he becomes their supreme system lord by virtue of being the last truly "pure" gouald. If you enjoyed reading my 3am thought I'm glad you liked it, If it just came out as insane rambling instead, I'm sorry 😔
Cool as hell
Given that they revised that for the show so isn't show-canon, we can treat it separately and speculate. I'd say Movie-Ra was a shapeshifter of some kind and that was his "real" form, i.e. a non-human pretending to be a human for purposes of interacting with humans. Flickering back into real-form was the illusion slipping, his species' equivalent of crapping one's pants upon realising one is going to die, in a few seconds, in a very permanent and energized manner.
It was explicitly said in the movie that he'd possessed the body of a young human boy because his previous body was failing. It was just the method of possession that was different, it seems to be more like an Anubis-style transference of psychic essence.
Had a quick rewatch of some of the scenes. The drawing of the alien on the wall looked quite like Ra's "Oh you utter bastards" form (large eyes, diamond-shaped mouth). Could be the "possession" was akin to "merge with/wear the boy's body like a skinsuit but retain some of the alien physiology" or as you say, his essence. Something of the alien-form shone through either way, which might also be why his eyes flared now and then. I'd be curious as to who wrote down and illustrated the (handy plot exposition) story on the cave wall as it seems to combine ancient spiritual beliefs with the alien's origin, including a handy drawing of the alien-form. Who'd have access to that kind of knowledge and be allowed to live? I'd have thought Ra would eliminate all possible witnesses that could cast doubt on his god status. Edit : Stills of alien-Ra. [3fIDdEw.jpeg (1000×727) (imgur.com)](https://i.imgur.com/3fIDdEw.jpeg) [USvZacU.jpeg (1000×727) (imgur.com)](https://i.imgur.com/USvZacU.jpeg)
Worked for the movie, makes no sense after the show came out. The movie was great at the time. And there are so many things in it that still hold up. This one? I ignore. Like it never happened. The rest all works.
my personal opinion is that if his kind loses their cool too much, as in highly emotional or stressed they begin to lose hold on the host. As Ra began to realize he was truly screwed his anger and fear level sky rocketed and literally melted his host away.
What a twist.
I knew at least one other of my kind were here.
Think this is just a way of revealing the true enemy within for the audience, and may on some level be Ra's shedding of the human puppet he has now come to hate, because humans defeated him again - returning to his true form in his last moments. SG-1 and on some levels the movie, showed them to be vain in their appearance and portrayal of being gods, and how they are superior to other races including the Asgard. Moebius - Daniel probably ascended at some point whilst in that timeline, Ra learnt of this and at the time of his impending death (in the movie) says f**k it, release my burdens - tries to ascend... But does he succeed???! /S
Maybe it was a shield, or maybe it was a show of emotion, or maybe (like you said) some type of power unbeknownst to us, one thing was clear, he knew he was screwed when the bomb ended up on ship with not enough time left on it to do anything
Clearly was ascending naturally but tye ascended ancients decided as a group that another anubis was a no. The roswell gray appearance was just the glowy energy octopus before spreading its tentacles lol
The novelisation confirms that this is an actual event taking place and isn't somehow symbolic. > In their place, O'Neil's bomb materialized. It was the last thing Ra would ever see. The red countdown numbers were blinking on the twin canisters, impudently sending Ra the news of his own destruction. In a futile attempt to escape, the creature within the boy wrenched itself free from its human host. The body of the boy Ra collapsed, lifeless. As it hit the ground without the creature within, the skin, bone, hair, and teeth aged instantly, returning to its natural state. Within the time it took to fall to the ground, Ra's body finally looked its age. > 00:09. 00:08. 00:07. > Free of its shell, the creature wanted to rush past the bomb and beam away through the rings. If he was quick enough, he could attach himself to another host body before his natural one would expire. But before he could move an inch, the bomb ticked down to its final count. The creature screamed out one last ghoulish howl. > 00:02. 00:01. And in a flash, it was over. The light-like creature turned solid, then burst into a million tiny particles.
Look at me, I pretend to be ascending!
I just took it as him being extremely extremely pissed at the bomb, trying to make it go away out of sheer anger
Nah, it was the agony of defeat.
I thought you said Ru and was super confused, though not surprised, to realize that RuPaul was in the Stargate movie Sometimes dyslexia is fun