Stargate Spotting: Snakes on a Plane Edition

We're egregiously behind the sinuous curve and only just tonight got to see Snakes on a Plane, which is surely the film that will define a generation.


This is a MOTHERFUCKING SPOILER LINE to protect you from MOTHERFUCKING SPOILERS


I'd like to start with the trailers. The trailers that time forgot. The trailers that say to each and every actor in each and every film: You'll never work in this town again. They were:

1. Jackass Number 2
   
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
   
3. Let's Go to Prison (aka the world's longest prison rape joke, starring Chi McBride)
   
4. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (Gunny! Where did we go wrong?
   
5. Tenacious D in 'The Pick of Destiny
   

Yeah, soak in that for a moment.

Next, I need to cover the "There are 100 working actors in Vancouver, BC" beat. My Stargate count was already at 1 before I walked into the theater.

1. Those of you catching up on Stargate: SG-1 Season 1 episodes know him as High Councilor Tuplo ("Broca Divide" and you can look forward to seeing him again in "Enigma"), the passengers on flight South Pacific Flight 121 might have called him "Hair Plug Man" or "Savior from the Dog," or possibly "Asshole Most Justly Constricted," but his family calls him Gerard Plunkett.
   
2. I've got to bow my head in shame here, because I did not identify the Heroic and Most Decidedly Straight Kickboxer as the Monk from Keb in Season 3's "Maternal Instinct" (at least not before I saw his IMDB head shot, at which point I upped the counter). Let's have a big hand and healthy bicep appreciation for Terry Chen. (Although I am shamed by my weak SG-1-spotting fu, this at least puts to rest my suspicions that they descended the character to appear in Season 4's "Absolute Power".)
   
3. Next up is Jonas Quinn's girlfriend from Season 7's "Failsafe," she of the dubious lace camisole under a marching band jacket all topped up with a cut identical to Jonas's Hair Don't. We'd feel worse about her untimely death so soon after her wedding if we didn't know that her relationship was already doomed because she married a guy and did not know he was terrified of flying. It's not romantic, people, it's just poor communication. Nonetheless, let's give a big hand to Emily Holmes.
   
4. The sacrificial pilot lamb is better known to me as . . . oh, well, I don't know his name, actually, but he's the head of the facility in which the team wakes up in the Season 2 Finale "Into the Fire" and gets to deal with in the Season 3 premiere "Out of Mind." (IMDB helpfully points out that the character's name is Major General Trofsky, but his mama named him Tom Butler [unless he was required by the equivalent of SAG rules to change his name].)
   
5. She's only credited as "Driver" (that'd be the blonde chyck who drives "Ground" Agent Harris around and has about 4 lines), but on Stargate SG-1, she's that Thorn in the Side from the Fourth Estate, Tracy Donovan in Season 6's "Prometheus," Season 8's "Covenant," and Season 9's "Ex Deus Machina." She's also probably grateful that the SoaP people were much kinder to her in the way of hair and makeup (seriously, she looks like a stand-in for Ferris Beuller's mom in all her clashing plaid 80s glory on SG-1): Let's all tell Kendall Cross that we never knew she could look so fabulous.
   
6. His mad skills as Dr. Warner in the SGC infirmary in Season 1's "The Enemy Within" and "Legacy," Season 2's "Spirits," and Season 3's "Legacy," clearly qualified him to handle things in the control tower and nearly incite a last-minute race riot. He's Kevin McNulty, and he's Canadian.
   
7. I'm really proud of spotting Nya from Season 1's stinker "Emancipation," as a ho in search of an autograph. Crystal Lowe, may I suggest a new agent?
   
8. The world's least memorable Gate Technician? I remembered him. Even if he was the Gate Technician from the future that never happened. And he's one hell of a fictional dad. Please claim your unruly children, David Neale.
   

And the SG-1 Bush League, ladies and gentlemen.

1. Another miss for me, but I'm giving myself a pass on this one: this guy wasn't just in season 9 episodes, he's a fucking prior. It's a scientifically proven fact that no one can pay attention when priors are on the screen. All the same, he's the motherfuckin' redshirt partner who dies so that Samuel L. Jackson may live, he's Mark Houghton.
   
2. I regret to inform this actor that I do not know who Vosh was in Season 9's "The Ties that Bind," and I had to cheat to learn that he was Mr. Mullet: Snake Provider to the Ambigiously Asian Mafia in SoaP. Better luck next time, Darren Moore.
   
3. Anonymous stuntman in countless episodes of SG-1. Is there any nobler calling than to serve as Siler's Minion? Congratulations on having lines this time, even if you were upside down and unrecognizable, even before your head got bashed in, Scott Nicholson. Do you suppose that your cow-orker Darryl Quon resents your comparative success and will rat you out to Dan Shea for every little thing you do?
   
4. She's cheating. She's a real news anchor, and she she's a fake reporter in Season 6's "Smoke and Mirrors" as well as in SoAP. Isn't everyone tired of seeing Mi-Jung Lee?
   
5. I'm counting our friendly neighborhood snake expert among the honorary Stargate people, because, let's face it: He looks like the love child of Tom Lenk and David Hewlett. Todd Louiso, you will be assimilated.
   

Man the economy of the acting community in Vancouver is so stimulated it must be approaching orgasm by now.

This is long enough. I'll do my review in a separate post.