Editing Stargate (film) (section)

===Development===
The film in its original cut and in the director's cut plays out in [[Chronology|chronological order]]. When Devlin and Emmerich edited the film in the director's cut to tighten the narrative, they decided to add a scene at the very beginning of the film to show who the human host of [[Ra]] was before the aliens took him. Only Davidson's upper torso was filmed.<ref name="acdevlin" /> The first scene was a combination of model shots and a set in [[Yuma, Arizona]] where ''[[Rambo III]]'' had been filmed. The scene of the excavation of the Stargate was also filmed in three days in Arizona. A golden look was achieved by filming near sunset.<ref name="acemmerich" /> To keep within the budget, the producers put stick figures with cloth in the distant desert to appear as humans. The original Stargate was painted black, but it looked like a giant tire so it was repainted silver at the last moment.<ref name="acdevlin" />

Daniel Jackson's lecture on his theories was filmed in a hotel in Los Angeles.<ref name="acemmerich" /> The scene was originally much longer and delved more into the theories that aliens had built the Egyptian pyramids, but it was trimmed for time concerns for the release.<ref name="acdevlin" /> The scenes with O'Neil at his house were the first ones filmed with Kurt Russell; his hair was cut short afterwards. Russell requested his hair color to be brightened a little for the film.<ref name="acemmerich" /> The fictional facility housing the Stargate was the largest set for the film, the former [[Spruce Goose]] Dome located in [[Long Beach, California]].<ref name="Dome">{{cite news |last1=Pinsky |first1=Mark I. |title=Long Beach Dome Gets New Life in Film : Movies: The former home of the Spruce Goose earns good reviews as a production facility 'five times larger than the largest stage at Warner Bros.' |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-03-10-ca-41097-story.html |access-date=2 March 2019 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=10 March 1995 }}</ref><ref name="acemmerich" /> Egyptologist [[Stuart Tyson Smith]] joined the production to make all Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and spoken language as accurate as possible.<ref name="acdevlin" />