Mandy Kaplan:
Hello everybody, and welcome to Make Me a Nerd with Mandy Kaplan. I am Mandy Kaplan, a mainstream mom whose mission it is to explore the world of nerd culture that I’ve been missing out on and afraid of my whole life. I beg every week for people to hop on Apple Podcasts and leave me a five-star review and write a message. I’m begging again, because it helps more people find this podcast and support my journey. I got a review from Foxy Mom: “Thank you, Mandy, for honoring nerd culture and viewing all of my faves with fresh eyes. Love your humor and goodwill.” Thank you, Foxy Mom.

I really took on this mission to truly find an appreciation for things that I thought I would never appreciate. And today is no exception. We are talking Stargate, a word I didn’t even know existed before my wonderful friend and one of my favorite guests, Jonny Lee Jr., suggested it. He’s back. Give it up for actor, singer, brilliant performer in Miscast and on stages all over the country, Jonny Lee Jr.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Hi, everyone.

Mandy Kaplan:
Hi.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Hi.

Mandy Kaplan:
I am weirded out that I had never heard of Stargate.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
That’s actually really surprising to me, because I feel like it was a pretty big movie when it came out in the mid-’90s, I would say.

Mandy Kaplan:
I was so drunk.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And the—oh, there you go.

Mandy Kaplan:
That decade, I just blacked out that whole decade.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
There you go. And the TV show had basically ten seasons. Ten seasons, so it’s been around.

Mandy Kaplan:
Ten seasons and a big, huge famous movie, and I had never heard of it. I mean, you think of Star Trek and Star Wars. I didn’t know there was Stargate.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah. And I feel like—I do think the amount of fans for Stargate is less than those two properties, obviously, because there isn’t actually a Stargate happening right now, but the people that are fans of it are just rabid and super into it.

Mandy Kaplan:
Conventions, cosplay, all of those things I’m learning about.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yep. Yeah, into it.

Mandy Kaplan:
Have you ever dressed up as anybody from Stargate?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, because Stargate cosplay is, in my opinion, a bit boring, because it’s kind of militaristic. Unless you want to dress up like an ancient god or something like that. But for me, it’s all about watching the show and taking the story and just remembering the movie and how awesome it is.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay, so this movie, if you could pitch it—because I found so many weird similarities, you’re gonna think I’m nuts. Like, I’m going Wizard of Oz, but—do you get it?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah, I totally get that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Do you get it? Yeah, okay. Pitch it in two lines. Elevator pitch it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay, modern-day pitch would be: it’s ancient aliens, but more fun.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. The plot is that—oh my God, etymologist? What is he, a linguist?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
Egyptologist, linguist. The military comes to him and they say, “Hey, we need you.”

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
And then they send him through a wormhole, basically, to another planet that is like ancient Egypt.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yep. Exactly.

Mandy Kaplan:
Nailed it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
All right.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Thank you, Wikipedia. I didn’t even watch the movie.

Right off the bat, the music is so beautiful and so epic for the opening credits.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Isn’t it? That opening credits, you’re just kind of like, whoa, it’s so cool.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. And it felt so childlike. I thought this was going to be a very adult, complicated entity, but it really seems like it’s fun for the whole family. I mean, you were young when you saw this.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, I watched it in elementary school.

Mandy Kaplan:
Elementary.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I loved it. Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, you’re so cute.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Your little face just lit up when you said that.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Like I could feel you experiencing it for the first time.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It was basically—I remember seeing the trailer for it, and I was like, oh, it’s a weird ancient Egypt type story. And at that point in my life, I was obsessed with mythology from Egypt and Greece. So I was constantly going to the school library, taking out books about both cultures. And then when I saw that there was a movie that kind of explored the idea of ancient Egypt, I was like, I have to go see this. So I definitely saw it and just fell in love with it, bought the VHS, bought the DVD when it came out, all that.

Mandy Kaplan:
At that age, I was obsessed with Ricky Schroder. So it’s similar, you know, like we were—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I don’t even know who that is.

Mandy Kaplan:
That’s for the best these days. So did this become a huge mainstream hit and I just missed it, or did it never really get into the mainstream?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I’m not really sure about the numbers for the actual movie. But it was a big enough hit for them to think about making it into a TV series. So I think there were maybe enough numbers to warrant that. So yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
And was that later, or was it like a year after the movie came out, they started making a TV series?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
My recollection of that time is a little hazy, but I would say maybe a year or two, or maybe three even, because—while it was still hot, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Okay. So while it was still hot. The movie starts very grounded. James Spader, who’s such weird casting, I think, because we think of him—he’s so douchey usually.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
You know, in all honesty, right? So when I look at James Spader nowadays, I think about Blacklist, and when he was the voice of Ultron in the Avengers movie. And so he kind of plays a little bit more of a gruff, a little bit mean type character nowadays, but this particular character is more nerdy and more optimistic, I would say, than what we usually see him in nowadays, which is cool.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. First of all, never seen any Avengers movies, so you’re welcome.

Second of all, in the John Hughes era, he was just pure douche. He always played a slightly rapey, misogynistic, awful, snobby guy who at any moment could snap. That was his brand.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
So he kind of has been typecast as that for his entire life.

Mandy Kaplan:
So this, to me, was like, yes. In this movie, he’s insecure and nerdy and sweet, and it was refreshing.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Ah.

Mandy Kaplan:
It was a fun switch.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Nice, I didn’t know that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh yeah. Oh, we really are a different generation. It’s crazy. Maybe I could make you a nerd about John Hughes movies or something.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Most definitely. I’ve seen zero of them.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, we’re doing a reverse Make Me a Nerd. About Breakfast Club.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
It’s gonna be so good. Oh, okay. I’m so excited.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
So the military brings him in. We see Kurt Russell. He’s lost a child, is that correct?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yes, his son, I believe.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. They did it very quickly and succinctly. We see that he’s lost a child, and then boom, he’s off. And then we know he’s a man who doesn’t really care about living or dying, ’cause he’s in such deep grief. We don’t know anything else about him. We just know, uh-oh, this guy is ready to die if he has to.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
He’s just bitter. Bitter.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. They go through a wormhole. Is that accurate? With the—it’s like water, it’s like a screen of water.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
And it looked so good.

I was amazed it was 1994, and it reminded me of—I did an episode about the movie Sphere, which had that big sphere, which also had a watery surface. The effects were better in this, and Sphere was four years later.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, I wonder why. I really remember seeing that Stargate with the water in the movie and just being floored, because it looked so real.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, and there was no ounce of cheesiness to those effects.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, no.

Mandy Kaplan:
And is that part of the appeal? Because that’s when the movie becomes sci-fi. Up until then, it’s more like Da Vinci Code, where they just get this professor and they’re like, come with us.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Exactly. You know, I do think that the movie itself has a really good design, because it does seem very grounded in reality as compared to, let’s say, Star Wars, for instance. With Star Wars, the idea of their design was very much this kind of of-the-time, retro-futuristic style, and with Stargate, it kind of just relied on the ancient aspects of Egyptian architecture, design, all that stuff, and I think that really led to the believability of it.

Mandy Kaplan:
And also, you just sparked a thought for me. If you’re gonna time travel back to ancient Egypt, you are really beholden to accuracy, historical accuracy.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
This is a different planet. So it’s their version of it. Do they call it Egypt? They say it’s similar to ancient Egyptian civilization.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It’s similar. It’s similar.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I think it’s—is it called Abydos? I think the place they go to is called Abydos, maybe. I could be wrong. It’s been a minute since I’ve watched the original movie. But the idea is that these aliens took people from Earth, brought them to this other planet to become basically slaves, and then just used the ancient Egyptian culture from that point. It’s basically like if aliens took ancient Egyptians, put them on a different planet, and then they developed in a very slow manner because they’ve been ruled by these aliens.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, they are living a primitive lifestyle.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
However, when they have a ceremony, they have a red carpet. Where the hell did ancient Egyptians—Abydonians on a different planet—get all that red carpet? That really jumped out at me. Everything is sandy and muted colors, and the walls are made of sand, and then all of a sudden it’s like E!

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. For me, I could forgive that, because I’m like, oh, that’s the alien culture where they’re high tech and shit.

Mandy Kaplan:
And Patrick Gomez is on the red carpet asking, “What are you wearing?” It’s an inside joke. One of our favorite guests and one of my dearest friends, Patrick Gomez, editor-in-chief of Entertainment Weekly, who goes on the red carpet and asks people what they’re wearing.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh, Patrick. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
So we get to know a few of the soldiers. There is some weird casting. Was this French Stewart before he was on 3rd Rock, or was he on 3rd Rock from the Sun? Do you even know what that is?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Is it Frank Stewart? I think I do know. He—Kawalsky.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. No, Kawalsky—I wrote, today this would be Rob Riggle.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Uh-huh.

Mandy Kaplan:
He’s that guy who’s like, let me at him, I want to fight. And he’s so stereotypical.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. Yeah, I remember French Stewart in the movie. French Stewart was in the movie?

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, he’s one of the soldiers. And it’s through no fault of their own, but casting like that takes you out of it, because he’s such a goofy character actor.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Wow. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Richard Kind is one of the guys in HQ giving orders. And I’m like, Richard Kind? No, I can’t take him seriously. That’s just me, though. I’m not criticizing. Those bits of casting took me out.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. No, totally, because you have all this history behind what you’ve seen them do. For me, when I saw it the first time, I don’t know these people, you know?

Mandy Kaplan:
Of course. Of course. You were how old, do you think? Ten or something?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Well, if it was ’94, I was born in ’85, so yeah, about nine, ten.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. I guess I was so shocked by how adventurous and spirited and family friendly it was. I thought it would be much more technologically driven.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm-hmm. And I think that’s the reason why, normally, when someone’s interested in getting into sci-fi, I do recommend Stargate, because it’s not very focused on the sci-fi aspect and the technical aspect of it. It doesn’t really go too deep into technology and sci-fi crap, right? It’s really more about the story of these adventurers discovering this parallel world, really, and how it became what it was. And then it’s also, in a way, for Kurt Russell’s character to get over his bitterness and his grief.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, it’s an adventure more than a sci-fi movie. And then they have to get back to Earth, and they have to save Earth from the missile—from the bomb, from the Stargate bomb.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yes, from the nuclear bomb.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. So it becomes more of an adventure. And that surprised me, and I really enjoyed it. And then there was a big old cameo on the planet, a megastar from my childhood, and I will reveal who that was right after this.

We’re back, and I want to tell everybody that Make Me a Nerd is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by the peerless Pete Wright. My theme song is “Wonderstruck” by Jane and the Boy. You can get me on Instagram at Mandy underscore Kaplan underscore Klavens, both with K’s, and I’m on TikTok at MandyMiscast. If you want to support my journey in a big old way, hop on to makemeanerd.com/join, and hitting that button will get you your episodes ad-free and early, and my eternal gratitude. And don’t forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Jonny, Snuffleupagus is in this movie.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Huh?

Mandy Kaplan:
You don’t know who Snuffleupagus is?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Really? No, I don’t. But the name is very familiar. Everyone always says Snuffleupagus, and I never thought about what it is.

Mandy Kaplan:
So he’s this giant imaginary elephant-ish creature from Sesame Street that no one can see. I think Big Bird is the only one who can see him, and no one believes he’s there.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay, yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
So this creature appears who looks like a Jim Henson creature, and he’s a little intimidating, and then it turns out he’s really sweet.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
Do you know the creature I’m talking about?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It’s the animal, right? The animal.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
I was like, holy shit, Snuffleupagus is in this movie.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh my God. Hold on, I actually have to look this up. I have to see how it compares. That’s so funny.

Mandy Kaplan:
Well, nailed it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh no, yes, yes, true, very true. Nailed it.

Mandy Kaplan:
The movie just has comedic undertones. But James Spader is like, oh, you’re friendly, and I guess he grabs onto the rope—grabs onto his leg—and the creature takes off, and it’s very Keystone Cops. He’s bouncing along the sand, being dragged, and then the animal has to lick him awake, and that saliva looks so gross.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, oh my goodness, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
But that reminded me of Indiana Jones, or—I did an episode of Labyrinth with the amazing Krissy Lenz. Creatures like that are so imaginative and really geared towards children, not for adults.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, totally. I mean, now that you say it, it really is in the same world as Indiana Jones in terms of storytelling, right?

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
So yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Now, this brings up an awkward subject, but it really did not get good reviews.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh, I didn’t know that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Do you know this?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I did not know that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Rotten Tomatoes, it’s a 53% from the critics and a 73% from people like you and me. I’m wondering what that is.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Interesting. You know, I do feel like in the early ’90s, reviews were a bit harsher in terms of opinions and such. I don’t know why. I really enjoyed the movie. I still enjoy the movie, and I can’t really imagine people disliking it.

Mandy Kaplan:
How many times do you think you’ve seen it?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Probably like six or seven times throughout my lifetime. And I’ve watched the TV show three times, I would say. I have the whole box set. I have everything.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay, talk to me about the TV show. How did it spark from this, and how did it take off in its own direction?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay, so the creators of the TV show are completely different creators as the movie. So the movie is Roland Emmerich. And I think the TV series is Brad Wright and somebody else.

Mandy Kaplan:
Hm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
But basically, it’s an MGM property, right? So they took the IP and decided to spin it off into a long-running TV show. And initially, I think it was on Showtime, and they did a miniseries-type movie, which continued the story from the end of the movie with some new casting. Richard Dean Anderson as the Kurt Russell role.

Mandy Kaplan:
MacGyver?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, MacGyver. I actually think about him in Stargate more than MacGyver, because he’s amazing in Stargate.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Well, also, you were born when MacGyver was popular, so—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Exactly. And I did watch MacGyver, but I loved Stargate. And then they just spun it off that way. Initially, I remember watching it on Showtime, and it was a little bit more risqué, because there was nudity, in terms of boobage. There’s boobage in the first episode. Because Showtime, you know?

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And I think it lasted on Showtime for one or two seasons, and then it got canceled but picked up by the Sci Fi Channel. And then for the rest of the run, it was on Sci Fi.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And story-wise, they basically kind of rejiggered the plotline so that the aliens are now these aliens called the Goa’uld. And what they do is, they’re these parasitic, worm-type creatures that take over human bodies and then enhance the human and give them these very strong powers and such.

And so they make it, in a way, a bit like a Star Trek series, where every single episode, a team of humans from Earth travel through the Stargate, go to different planets that are interconnected throughout this entire web system created by these aliens, and either save the planet, help the planet, or destroy the planet. It’s all individual, all very episodic, and—

Mandy Kaplan:
But it’s this same team, the Stargate team, going.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Same team. Yes, same team.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Called SG-1. Stargate 1.

Mandy Kaplan:
Now, the only kind of worm I want is a tapeworm. But that’s—yes, right?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
[unclear]

Mandy Kaplan:
I eat like I have one, but it’s not paying off.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Right? Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
I found the movie—I found Kurt Russell a bit xenophobic in this movie.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

Mandy Kaplan:
He dismisses this whole race of people and mocks their way of living and their language. At first—of course, he comes around—but I wonder, did the series have tinges of that? Or do you think I’m seeing it through today’s lens, and I’m too sensitive to something like that?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I don’t think so. I think you were correct in your assessment of that, and I think that is partially because of the times, right? And also the archetype of the character. He’s supposed to be this big military guy, probably very patriotic, a slightly nationalistic character for the United States of America.

So I do want to say that Americans tend to be dismissive sometimes of other cultures, and I would say that is a great description of that character, right? In the TV show, he does change a bit, because he’s past his grief for his son and is a little bit more of a positive type of character, and also falls into comedic relief a lot of times within the TV show.

Mandy Kaplan:
Really?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah. And that’s why I kind of like his character, Colonel O’Neill, in the TV series more so than the movie.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. And there’s no James Spader in the TV show.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, so James Spader’s character is played by an actor called Mike—his name is Michael Shanks, who was also an amazing Daniel. I actually think I like him more than James Spader as well. He’s also hotter.

Mandy Kaplan:
So, okay. Good to know. So they justify his being around because he knows other languages and cultures, or how do they justify it? It seems like they only needed him for this one mission.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I mean, we’re going into spoiler territory here, but basically, after Ra is exterminated, a new alien person comes along and decides to take over the entire system and basically kidnaps his wife, Sha’re, and implants her with a Goa’uld parasitic worm. So she becomes this godlike creature, and he’s trying to save her. So he returns to Earth and has to travel through these different planets to try to find her and save her.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, okay. So the same woman he fell in love with in Stargate.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
And there’s also a cute moment where they call him a husband, and he’s like, what?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Exactly.

Mandy Kaplan:
When did I become a husband? It’s very charming.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
That ritual.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yep. Although, watching him try that meat—that chicken or whatever it was. Remember, he eats a bite of slimy meat out of this gross-looking brain thing?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh, the meal. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
And then I was so repulsed, and I wanted to know, would you have tried it? You would have.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I would’ve tried it, because I’ll try anything at least once. Even if it looks disgusting, I’ll taste it. If it tastes amazing, I close my eyes and just not imagine looking at it. I’d be okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh my gosh, I couldn’t. It was so gross. And then, of course, tastes like chicken.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. I want to say really quickly—this is just on top of my mind—with the movie itself, something that really drew me to the movie was Ra himself.

Mandy Kaplan:
That’s who I was just—we’re mind-melded.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Just gonna get into—we’re on the same, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
So Ra is played by Jaye Davidson of The Crying Game.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm-hmm. Well, I had no idea who he was. I’ve never seen The Crying Game either.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, Jonny, it’s a fantastic movie.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
It’s really, really, really good. Jaye Davidson, here’s a little bit of history. He was a model and a fashion designer, and he was cast in The Crying Game having never acted before in his life. And then he became—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
He was nominated for an Oscar. He became very well known.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
And when they offered him this movie, he said, I don’t want to act. I don’t want this kind of attention. I’m out.

And so—not jokingly, I guess—he said, I’ll do it if you pay me like a million dollars. And they said okay. And so he did this movie, and that was the last movie he ever made.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Whoa. That’s amazing. Oh my goodness.

Mandy Kaplan:
He’s a fascinating—I know.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And so good.

Mandy Kaplan:
You could just stare, and, you know, he has this beauty, but this darkness and this spark. Please see The Crying Game.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, the androgyny. The androgyny of the character Ra was fascinating to me, because at that point, I had never really seen a character like that. Because at first, I was like, who is this beautiful woman? I was like, oh wait, that’s a man. And then just the overall costuming and the way he portrayed the inner power of Ra—it captivated me. I loved it so much.

Mandy Kaplan:
It was almost hypermasculine and hyperfeminine.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Right, yeah, exactly.

Mandy Kaplan:
As opposed to being neither, it was both to the extreme, which, combined—he’s mesmerizing. And I’m saying “he” because that’s how I read about him, that he is a he.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
So I hope I’m not being insensitive in any way.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, I think nowadays he presents very masculine, you know, and then this is when he was younger and was just passing—very androgynous type thing.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Yeah, but they also—we don’t see Ra for two-thirds of the movie, or almost two-thirds of the movie, so there’s a lot of buildup. And that’s this cool—he comes out with a sphinxy head, and then the head disappears like a Transformer.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, and I think it’s designed after the King Tut funeral mask.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, uh-huh.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It looks like King Tut’s funeral mask. And so basically, when it recedes, just the way it snaps off, I was like, whoa!

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, it’s good animation.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It looks so cool.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, very, very cool. So when they meet him, they get thrown on their knees in front of him. And that’s where I was like, this is essentially Wizard of Oz. They’ve gotten trapped in this world.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
They have a mission they have to complete, and then they want to go home, but they can’t. And the man behind the curtain, Ra—I mean, he has legitimate power, or they have legitimate power, that the man behind the curtain, the wizard, didn’t have.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm-hmm.

Mandy Kaplan:
But it also occurs in the He-Man movie, and I did an episode of—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Like the original He-Man?

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. The Most Excellent 80s podcast with the fabulous Krissy Lenz.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay.

Mandy Kaplan:
I did an episode about He-Man because I had never seen it, and I went on her podcast. And I said that, and the hosts thought I was nuts, but I’m like, no, when you bring these people up to the creator on high, and the creator has all the power to send them home, it’s very Wizard of Oz to me.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Most definitely. Yeah. There’s something about that archetype of a story that’s very captivating. Trying to get home, you know.

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm. And thank you for not calling me crazy. I’m so proud of myself for that.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, it’s a great train of thought. It’s a good connection. It makes sense.

Mandy Kaplan:
Did you have the action figures and the toys?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I did not. So as a kid, I actually never had an action figure. I actually would draw on pieces of paper and cut them out and use them as action figures.

Mandy Kaplan:
I love that. Oh, that is so precious.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It’s because my parents were so cheap, and they would only give me gifts during Christmas and my birthday, and I never got action figures for any of them.

Mandy Kaplan:
And yet you still take your father’s phone calls.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. Of course.

Mandy Kaplan:
I’d cut that shit off right now.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I’m a filial Chinese son.

Mandy Kaplan:
I don’t know why it feels strange that there were action figures and toys. I guess because most of the characters are very human—the Egyptians are just Egyptian. It didn’t feel like, ooh, creatures and robots, which I understand would be action figures.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. You know, I feel like it’s very American to be capitalistic about a property. Just be like, hey, this was an interesting-looking movie. Let’s make toys and make more money, you know? It always happens that way, no?

Mandy Kaplan:
I’m gonna push back. I did an episode about Super Sentai a couple of weeks ago with Omari Miller. And every one of those properties has its own line of toys and merch, and that’s Japanese.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, Bandai, right? Mm-hmm.

Mandy Kaplan:
So it’s not just Americans that capitalize.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It’s basically any capitalistic society, right?

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And Japan learned its capitalism from America.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. Oh, shit. All right. Game, set, match, Jonny Lee Jr. I did a little bit of research, and I have an interesting fact about this movie that I bet you don’t know, and I’m gonna tell you right after this.

We’re back. And did you know that in January 1995, a man named Omar Zuhdi, a high school teacher, filed a lawsuit against the makers and the originators of this movie, claiming they stole the plot and story of his 1984 film script called Egyptscape? And that was the basis of this film. And they settled out of court.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh, interesting.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Wow.

Mandy Kaplan:
If you didn’t steal it, you go to court and you speak your truth.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I wonder, because there are a lot of instances where people are like, oh, this is the story I came up with, but oftentimes there are ideas that coalesce and become the same thing. And I wonder if they actually did steal. Who knows? Only they know, right?

Mandy Kaplan:
Only they know. Who knows? I wish there were more. I didn’t do a deep dive. That was from Wikipedia. But I want to know, did this guy submit that script to festivals or agents? Where would they have gotten their hands on it if it was in his drawer from his dot matrix printer?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And I could imagine two people having the same sort of idea, because this idea of pyramids being built by aliens isn’t a new thing.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
There were people, I think, in the ’70s and ’80s that came up with this idea to begin with. And just rolling with it, you could definitely come up with something very similar.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, okay.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And the term, I think, Stargate even comes from the government. The Stargate Project. There was some sort of government research thing that was recently released to the public. Some weird thing. I don’t really know what it is, but you can look it up. There’s a Stargate program that happened in the government.

Mandy Kaplan:
Well, there was a Star Wars program in the ’80s. Reagan’s Star Wars, right? But that was post–Star Wars movie, so that was like a nod to the pop culture.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. I think this might have been before. I mean, I could be wrong. I’m just trying to pull from my memory of reading about this. But yeah. Might be something to look into.

Mandy Kaplan:
Where does Stargate rank for you in terms of your nerdery and movies you love? I’m sure you’ve seen some movies more than six times. Where does this fall? What’s your favorite favorite?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay, so under sci-fi, Stargate is my number one, because it combines two things.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It combines technology and ancient civilizations, which I love. It feeds my archaeology, ancient culture type of need to learn.

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And then they use the sci-fi to be more inventive and futuristic. So having that combination basically makes me so happy.

Mandy Kaplan:
It was like the musical episode of one of those Star Treks, the one with Rebecca Romijn. Have you ever seen that?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I’ve never seen an episode of Star Trek, because the [unclear].

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, okay. The aliens?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, the aliens. Klingons gross me out.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Those ones with the big ears gross me out. That’s why I can watch Stargate, because in Stargate, all the aliens just look human.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. But I have to say that this Star Trek, it’s one of the brand-new ones on Paramount, and they did this musical episode with fantastic music and choreography. And so that was when I did an episode about Star Trek, when I very first started this journey, with Brian Bradley, who is an old friend and a writer on one of the Star Trek series. And he chose that episode very wisely, because that’s the gateway, right?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
So your gateway is ancient history and sci-fi, and mine could be musicals and sci-fi. So that makes sense why this is your favorite. What are some of your other favorites? I can’t believe you’ve never seen Star Trek. That’s amazing.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I just can’t watch it. They gross me out too much. My second one would be Battlestar Galactica, which I talked to you about, which you—

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, right. We’ll do it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And then after that would be, unfortunately, Ender’s Game, the novels, because—

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
You know, we all know the problems with the author there, but I always thought the idea—and that’s the same thing too with Ender’s Game—it was a combination of sci-fi but also cultures.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Right?

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Of different—I mean, not in Ender’s Game, but anything after that. He did incorporate other cultures from Earth and then develop things through that. So I guess anything that really touches on real human history along with sci-fi bullshit, I’m into.

Mandy Kaplan:
You must be a time travel junkie as well.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I love time travel.

Mandy Kaplan:
The theme of time travel, yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I love time travel, and I love new world, like Narnia or Wizard of Oz type stories.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. This is just a brief family story. I was nervous about something. I had to have a talk with someone. And I said to my husband, [unclear], whom you know and the listeners know—I don’t know why I said that—I said, this was out of the blue, “Do you ever imagine a scenario and really explore it in your mind, and go over beat by beat how something will happen?” And he said, “Yeah. Time travel.” And I was like, no, I meant like a difficult conversation I have to have with someone.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm-hmm.

Mandy Kaplan:
And if I say it this way, they’ll say this, and then I can respond this way. But he was like—he’s a grown-ass man who was like, “Yeah, I do that all the time. Time travel.”

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Time travel. That’s so funny.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. So I get it. It’s not my passion, but I get it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah. Your brain doesn’t go there.

Mandy Kaplan:
Not really. History gives me anxiety. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but we won’t go there.

James Spader has a very powerful speech at the end of this movie, and he says it to Kurt Russell’s character. He said, “It’s a shame you’re in such a hurry,” or, you know, “None of us wanna die. It’s such a shame you’re in a hurry to.” And he walks away. And I was like, the biggest line of the movie ends in a preposition. What just happened? Now who’s a nerd?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Well, it leaves it on a cliffhanger, in a way, right?

Mandy Kaplan:
No, it’s just bad grammar. And he’s a linguist by profession.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
You’re like, my dramaturgical brain is not working here.

Mandy Kaplan:
“It’s a shame you’re in”—right? And then I think the last line of the movie might be “Give my regards to King Tut, asshole.”

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, of course.

Mandy Kaplan:
Or one of the last lines.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm-hmm.

Mandy Kaplan:
That doesn’t take you out? That line was like, what?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No. You know, I would have to watch it again at my current age to see if it would take me out of it. But I love it so much it probably wouldn’t. I’d probably be like—

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I was there.

Mandy Kaplan:
Well, this movie topped the box office for two weeks. Do you know what dethroned this movie from the top of the box office in 1994?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
’94? No, I don’t.

Mandy Kaplan:
Interview with a Vampire, which was the last episode we did together.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Oh my God. That’s amazing. My goodness, wow! That’s so cool, actually.

Mandy Kaplan:
So, back to back, and one toppled the other one from the throne.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
So two movies that I love came out basically the same year. Back to back. Wow. ’94, what a great year for me.

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm. Let’s talk about the battles at the end. These got nuts. There were pew-pews from spaceship thingies.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yep. Mm-hmm.

Mandy Kaplan:
That felt like Star Wars to me at the end. And I somehow missed how that happened. There was a lot of hand-to-hand combat, and it got intense.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Mm.

Mandy Kaplan:
I’m not such a fan of watching that, but I muddled through. And then—how did they get in those flying spaceships and start shooting lasers?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
So those are the aliens, right? So the aliens—I would just call them the Goa’uld, even though they’re not called that in the movie—the Goa’uld have high-tech spaceships, like the giant pyramid ship that docked onto the pyramids.

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
So basically, that’s just Ra, like, kill everyone. Destroy it.

Mandy Kaplan:
And sending the minions, yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Sending his minions out, yeah. And the technology they came up with in terms of the aliens was, I thought, kind of cool, because you know how Ra has that hand thing? That was weird.

Mandy Kaplan:
Remind me.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Do you remember? He has this hand device that can zap people’s heads.

Mandy Kaplan:
No. Oh yes, yes, yes. He kills one of his henchmen just by squeezing his skull with his hand.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
It’s really hard to watch.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. And to me, I thought it was really cool, because it was very different from Star Wars in terms of the design element of it all.

Mandy Kaplan:
Mm-hmm.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And I just loved seeing the soldiers too, the ancient Egyptian–looking soldiers, the armor and such, like the—what they—

Mandy Kaplan:
You mean Djimon Hounsou?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Who? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Him, yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
Djimon Hounsou, the model, yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
I mean, I can’t remember—he was in that Janet Jackson video, but he was a fine actor. He did a lot of really beautiful work in a lot of movies, and this was before that, when he was a model.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, I think this is basically one of his first roles, I would say.

Mandy Kaplan:
He doesn’t do much.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Spoiler.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, but no. But I’m remembering other stuff.

Mandy Kaplan:
He just grunts a lot and glares at people and looks good without a shirt. But gee, I wonder why you liked this movie so much.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
A lot of good-looking buff guys without shirts.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Nah, it’s literally all the ancient Egyptian stuff. And I bet he didn’t care. I was just like, ancient Egyptians, spaceships, I love it.

Mandy Kaplan:
There’s probably not a lot of things that combine those two things, so I get it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I think this is the only thing that really combines those two things.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. Did it bother you at all that James Spader starts the movie saying, like, oh, I don’t speak this language, and five minutes later he’s fluent?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
It did. Because knowing how we try to discern what ancient Egyptian sounds like, to me it really wasn’t that believable, but I could suspend my disbelief for the moment in that. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
And the thing is, the TV show itself also has—every single time they go to a planet, they all speak English. So I have to, when it comes to traveling to different planets and language being understood between different races and cultures and such.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. I always call out movies where—I mean, even Schindler’s List, a movie like that, it’s like, why are they all speaking English? And I understand, but it always bumps for me to see a bunch of people in other countries speaking English.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Right.

Mandy Kaplan:
Just so we can understand it.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Which doesn’t feel accurate, but I get it. Yeah, but we actually don’t know, because if you and I took a vacation together to another planet, they might be fluent in English. We don’t know.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Who knows? They might.

Mandy Kaplan:
So I’ll—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
They might do our radio broadcasts and learn English from there.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, and I will allow it in this, but Spielberg, that hack—I’m not having it in Schindler’s List.

Jonny, my sweet, wonderful friend, we are at the end of our time together, if you can believe it. I know. Is there any overarching thing about Stargate that we didn’t talk about that you want to gush about, nerd out about?

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I would say that I love the extended universe that they created with the TV shows. So if you look at it, they have three major TV shows that are based in the Stargate universe, which would be Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe. And all three of those shows are fantastic.

Mandy Kaplan:
Wow.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I think they are really well written and really combine comedic but also dramatic storytelling really, really well. Maybe not Stargate Universe, but both SG-1 and Atlantis have just really great, deep characters that really develop and change throughout the shows. And I don’t know, I just think about it so fondly. I actually want to sit down and just rewatch all of it again, talking about it.

Mandy Kaplan:
Do you ever hope you get just a minor cold so you have a reason to do that? Sometimes I’m like, I just want to get a little sick, so I have a reason to binge something like that.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Yeah. I mean, yeah, the last time I watched it was introducing the entire show to Justin, and we just plowed through all of them. And I could have done it during quarantine, but I was binging other stuff then.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
But yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
Well, thank you for nerdicating me about it. I literally had never heard the word Stargate, and now you’ve opened my mind to this whole universe. And I thank you so much.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
No, thank you for watching it and enjoying it.

Mandy Kaplan:
It was—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
I’m really happy you enjoyed it, because it is one of my favorite sci-fi movies.

Mandy Kaplan:
I highly enjoyed it, and I was just very surprised, totally, that I understood it and was on the ride. It’s really a fun ride. And if anybody out there is thinking, huh, I haven’t seen that in 20, 30 years—it holds up. It doesn’t feel dated.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Good.

Mandy Kaplan:
Other than the playful xenophobia.

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Okay. Yeah. Other than that, everything’s great.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. All right. Well, thank you for coming back. Depending on when this drops, you are in the next Miscast on Sunday, November 8th. You are going to astound and amaze, as you always do. So if anybody’s in Los Angeles, come see Jonny and me in Miscast: Right Singer, Wrong Song. It’s our 49th show. Tickets on Eventbrite. And if this drops after then—

Jonny Lee Jr.:
Forty-nine.

Mandy Kaplan:
Forty-nine, yeah. If this drops after November 8th, you missed an amazing show. Shame on you.

Okay. Thank you for being here, Jonny. I love you. And thank you all for listening.