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Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill (born October 20, 1952) is a fictional character in the science fiction feature film Stargate and the subsequent television series Stargate SG-1 played by actors Kurt Russell in the former (but spelled as O'Neil) and Richard Dean Anderson in the latter. O'Neill also appears occasionally in the television series Stargate Atlantis. Along with Daniel Jackson, he is one of only two characters to appear in all three. In the movie, he is a United States Air Force Colonel, who leads the first team through the Stargate. In the television series he leads the primary team, SG-1, on further missions through the Stargate before being promoted to Brigadier General and commanding Stargate Command for about a year. The character was then put as head of Homeworld Security and therefore stopped appearing in the show on a regular basis. __TOC__
Events of the movie In the movie it is told that he was married to Sara O'Neill, living together with their only son. However, after a tragic accident when their son shot himself with O'Neill's personal gun, a Beretta 92FS, O'Neill suffered a period of depression, retired from the Air Force and became anti-social. When the Stargate was deciphered by Daniel Jackson, General West knew that O'Neill was suicidal and therefore perfect for the mission (in which he would go through with a team and detonate a nuclear warhead near the Stargate if there was any sign of danger), and had him reactivated. On Abydos, O'Neill and the team found the indigenous population to be simple desert-dwellers. He made friends with a boy called Skaara, the son of the ambassador, Kasuf, to the evil ruler, Ra. During the fight against Ra's forces on Abydos, O'Neill fought in hand-to-hand combat against Ra's First Prime to regain control of the warhead (which had fallen into Goa'uld hands). As the motion picture played out, Ra attempted to escape, only to have O'Neill and Jackson transport the bomb to his ship, destroying it in orbit. O'Neill returned to Earth with all but Jackson (who had married a local woman, Sha'uri), and lied that the Abydos gate had been destroyed. Events of Stargate SG-1 (Seasons 1-8) In the first episode of the television series, , O'Neill is recalled by the new base commander, General Hammond following the Goa'uld, Apophis', incursion through the Earth gate one year later. It is learned that Sara left Jack sometime between the end of the movie and the beginning of the series. O'Neill admitted that he hadn't destroyed the gate, but only after a plan was revealed to send a more powerful warhead through "just to make sure". After visiting Abydos and discovering the true nature of the Stargate network, O'Neill was re-activated and made the team leader of SG-1. In the first season episode, , the viewer is given a little more of O'Neill's backstory. When O'Neill is duplicated by a crystalline energy life form the viewer is introduced to Sara O'Neill, Jack's ex-wife. Flashbacks are used to show how O'Neill's son, Charlie, was killed in an accident with O'Neill's personal firearm. It is shown that O'Neill blames himself for Charlie's death, however the crystalline life form does help him gain a certain amount of closure at the end of the episode. In the second season episode, , O'Neill had the Repository of the Ancients brain. He slowly lost the ability to speak, write, and even comprehend English, he entered hundreds of new gate addresses into the dialing computer that were not on the Abydos cartouche, formulated a new system for calculating interstellar distances based on gate addresses (which, notably, compensated for stellar drift), and translated Ancient text for Daniel Jackson. He finally built a device that produced enough power to allow the Stargate to dial Othala, a planet in the Ida Galaxy and home to a colony of Asgard, using an eight-chevron address. The Asgard there were able to remove the knowledge from O'Neill's mind and return him to normal. Seeing great potential in both O'Neill and the human race, the benevolent Asgard then sent him back to Earth. With this incident, O'Neill became the first known human to meet the Asgard in person. He was also the first modern human to demonstrate the stargate's ability to dial extremely distant stargate addresses with the use of an eighth chevron. It is discovered that O'Neill is one of the first humans to evolve to a level that allows him to use the Ancient knowledge. The theme of evolution and its connection with ascension and advanced mental abilites appears repeatedly in future SG-1 episodes, and in Atlantis. In the Season 7 finale, , O'Neill was again forced to download the Ancients' knowledge into his mind in order to protect Earth from attack by the Goa'uld Anubis. He expected it to kill him, as the Asgard would be unable to help this time, but was willing to sacrifice himself for Earth. After discovering the Ancient outpost in Antartica O'Neill put himself into stasis to preserve his life. His ability to operate the Ancient chair technology means that O'Neill possesses the ATA gene, seemingly in an unusually powerful form. This is later confirmed in the episode "It's Good to Be King". In the Season 8 premiere, , SG-1 attempted to contact the Asgard, only to find that the humanoid replicators had escaped and were again threatening the Asgard. Thor returned with SG-1 to Earth and removed the knowledge from O'Neill's brain, but not before he designed a weapon to destroy a replicator instantly by severing the communication between their blocks. O'Neill was promoted to Brigadier General and put in command of the SGC ("New Order," "Lockdown") after Hammond's promotion. He tried to adjust to life on the other side of the 'Gate room glass, envying his former teammates' journeys. The SG-1 episode "It's Good to Be King" was the only time that he went off-world while the commander of the SGC, and this was only because SG-1 discovered a Puddle Jumper that could only be operated by someone with the ATA Gene. Other Appearances O'Neill fades into the background during Season 9, where he only appears in 2 episodes as Major General Jack O'Neill, and is no longer a main character. He has been replaced by Major General Hank Landry (played by Beau Bridges), who takes command of the SGC early in Season 9. O'Neill appeared in the 200th episode, during Season 10, and made an appearance in the Atlantis Season 3 episode, , both of which were aired on the same night (However, his appearance in The Real World was as a hallucination of Doctor Elizabeth Weir's due to her being infected with Asuran nanites that were trying to convince her that the entire Stargate program was a figment of her imagination). At the end of the 3rd mid-season finale of Atlantis, he was in Atlantis with Richard Woolsey during an Asuran assault, as the two of them were attempting to negotiate for the Atlantis expedition's return to the city. Character developments O'Neill has focused his free time on the more important things in life, such as fishing at his cabin in Minnesota (which in fact contained no fish until the timelime was altered in "Moebius"), watching The Simpsons, doing crossword puzzles, playing chess, collecting stamps and drinking Guinness (and also cooking with it, implicitly as the only ingredient ("Citizen Joe")). It has been mentioned, occasionally, that he likes Mary Steenburgen ("Urgo" and "Heroes (Part 1)"). O'Neill is somewhat of a wit throughout the series. Enemies and allies alike are subjected to frequent quips and facetious remarks. He often derides Carter and Jackson's esoteric interests, though it is frequently hinted that he finds intellectuals intimidating. He is irreverant towards authorities, including his own superiors, and especially revels in mocking the System Lords, whom he views as overly theatrical (as well as over dressed). He also commonly corrects improper grammar, most often saying, "It's whom!", usually doing this when the correctee has SG-1 at a disadvantage, as in The Other Guys. As a last resort, and sometimes as a first, he will resort to sarcasm. Throughout the series, O'Neill's relationship with Samantha Carter has been subjected to a great deal of interest and speculation. On two separate occasions, either O'Neill or a member of his team came into contact with two alternate realities in which O'Neill and Carter were either engaged or married. In the fourth season episode "Divide and Conquer", both O'Neill and Carter had to officially admit that their feelings for one another were more than professional. There are several events and incidents spread throughout the series that imply that the feelings they have for one another remain a subtle constant in their lives, despite various outside influences, such as Carter's temporary fiancé Pete Shanahan, and O'Neill's brief relationship with Kerry Johnson, an officer of the CIA, as well as their relationships with offworlders, particularly (in Carter's case), Narim and Martouf. Unlike Anderson's other famous on-screen persona, Angus MacGyver, O'Neill has no aversion to firearms, apart from the fact that his son, Charlie, accidentally shot himself with O'Neill's weapon, and died (O'Neill never forgave himself). He is a career special forces operator, owns at least one personal firearm, and becomes extremely agitated whenever it is suggested he and his team go anywhere unarmed, including places known to be safe for SG-1 and where said firearms may be a liability. Another trait that set Anderson's two characters apart is that while Angus MacGyver is an all-around scientific genius, O'Neill is confused by almost every form of scientific dialogue or explanation (in which Carter & Daniel often indulge) and likes to defer to magnets as the explanation behind any technology he does not understand. The primary exception to this is in the field of astronomy, as O'Neill is himself an amateur astronomer. Despite these differences, O'Neill and MacGyver do share some similarities, particularly their fear of heights, but also in their past: both characters served in the United States Special Forces. Differences between movie and TV series In the movie, Jack's son is named Tyler (the name is seen on an award in his room in an early scene) as opposed to Charlie (as in the SG-1 series) or Jack Jr. (as in the non-SG-1 books.) Also, the Colonel's name in the film is O'Neil (with one L), a fact which was refered to light-heartedly in the TV series (). While the two O'Neills do have radically different personalities, it is easy to reconcile the two versions of the character, as Kurt Russell's O'Neil is depressed and suicidal over the loss of his son, while Anderson's O'Neill has, over the course of the year between the movie and the first season, since come to terms with his loss and has reverted to his 'true' personality. There are even one or two moments in the film where O'Neil seems to display certain mannerisms common to the series' O'Neill, such as his comments to Ra's guards before killing them; "How you doin'?" and "Give my regards to King Tut, asshole!". Likewise, the series' O'Neill occasionally reverts to his original personality, usually when faced with reminders of difficult events in his past. Trivia See also | ||||||||
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