Indiana Jones, Space Linguist

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

The makers of the upcoming Star Trek picture, Generations, can find either comfort or anxiety in the success of Stargate. It has spent two weeks at the top of box-office charts, surprising even its distributors and proving there's still a general audience for sci-fi. But if Stargate has already sated that crowd, then Generations might end up as leftovers.

One thing Stargate definitely proves, though, is the old adage, If you're going to steal, steal big. If you're caught, you can always claim you were doing an homage. Director Roland Emmerich's chief honorees are the Indiana Jones and Star Wars sagas. In a prologue set in 1928, archaeologists in Egypt uncover a large metallic ring. Fifty years later, Daniel Jackson (James Spader), a nerdy but stalwart linguist, deciphers the ring's hieroglyphics. They suggest it was left behind centuries ago by supersmart aliens (oh, hi there, 2001). By twiddling a few dials, scientists set the ring humming, and Jackson and a quarrelsome combat team led by Colonel Jack O'Neil (a glum Kurt Russell) are transported to a galaxy far, far away.

The movie, which does have a sort of cheeky energy, goes into narrative and cliche overload once the spacemen start exploring the unnamed planet -- Shall we call it Lucasland? -- where they set down. There's a slave population to be freed, a tyrant to be deposed, some cheapish special effects to put on display, and a lot of problems about getting safely back to Earth to solve. Tying all this together, Stargate stumbles to a hasty, muddled ending instead of soaring to a conclusion worthy of the only thing that's first rate about it -- its sources.