Stargate Cast Goes Off On The Dumbest Part Of The Series And Every Fan Agrees

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 50 seconds ago

Stargate SG-1 turned an early-90s Roland Emmerich film into the foundation for a franchise that’s lasted 30 years and counting. One of the best additions to the franchise came with the villainous Goa’uld symbiotes, who can live for thousands of years and thoroughly enjoy enslaving others to do their bidding.

The problem is that the Goa’uld also use advanced energy weapons, including the Zat’nik’tel, a handheld “ray gun” with capabilities that make no sense the moment you put any thought into them. Michael Shanks, who played Dr. Daniel Jackson, thinks they are the dumbest weapons ever made, and during Oz-Comic Con in 2015, he unleashed decades of resentment in an amazing tirade explaining why the “Zat Gun” was stupid. 

The Zat’nik’tel Is The Dumbest Weapon In Sci-Fi

While on stage with Ben Browder (Colonel Cameron Mitchell in Seasons 9-10, and also the lead from Farscape) and Cliff Simon (Ba’al the Goa’uld System Lord), Michael Shanks takes an innocent fan’s question about why the SGC team uses P-90s as a sidearm instead of the far more powerful Zat Gun. Shanks starts off slowly, explaining he refused to ever carry a Zat’nik’tel because “it’s the dumbest weapon ever invented by sci-fi.” 

For five more minutes, Shanks goes off on everything wrong with the Zat’nik’tel, from its phallic shape to the barely noticeable physical firing effect, before zeroing in on the very stupid way that the weapon works. The first shot from a Zat’nik’tel stuns the target, the second typically kills, and the third causes them to disintegrate. At first, that sounds pretty badass, but as Michael Shanks points out, it makes no sense. 

Shanks argues that if you shoot a lock like O’Neil did, is the lock stunned? Then why did it break open?  How long is too long between shots? Can you shoot someone an hour later? Does that stun, or does that count as the second shot? And after stunning them three times, shouldn’t they disappear because that’s three shots? 

The Zat’nik’tel makes no sense in Stargate SG-1, a show where, again, the big villains are evil, nearly immortal symbiotes. While Shanks is ranting, Ben Browder and Cliff Simon are cackling along with him, having experienced the inconsistent rules around the Zat Gun firsthand. Shanks points out that the third shot that disintegrated was created on the spot as a solution to the pile of bodies the SGC team was leaving behind while infiltrating a spaceship. There was no grand plan; it was an attempt to fill a plothole with a larger pothole. 

No Sci-Fi Franchise Is Perfect

Every sci-fi franchise has parts about it that make no sense, and Stargate is no exception. What’s refreshing is Michael Shanks willingness to have fun with the audience about exactly why he despises the Zat’nik’tel, and again, everyone who’s been in a sci-fi franchise can relate. Star Wars gave fans midichlorians, Star Trek’s timeline drives fans crazy, and Battlestar Galactica revealed the identity of The Five. None of those are as ultimately inconsequential as the Zat’nik’tel, which is what makes Shanks exasperated rant so over the top: it’s the equivalent of Jonathan Frakes talking about how a phaser works. 

Stargate SG-1 fans have known for years that the Zat’nik’tel is a very dumb weapon. As part of its first-anniversary episode, “Wormhole X-Treme,” the crew even got to make fun of the Zat’nik’tel by having it described with a completely straight face, followed by the response, “That’s stupid.” It is, and it’s refreshing when the people making the series acknowledge that, yeah, they messed up when creating this, but at least they can laugh about it. 

Compared to Star Wars and Star Trek, Stargate doesn’t have the name recognition or the same sort of cultural impact, though all that may change, and we may get an updated Zat’nik’tel when the new Amazon series debuts in a few years. In the meantime, there’s plenty of time to binge all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and engage in the fun of discussing why every single planet in the galaxy looks like Vancouver.