rachel500 | Stargate Ark of Truth

Stargate Ark of Truth aired on Sky in the early part of 2008. It starred the main SG1 cast (Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, Claudia Black & Beau Bridges). The aim of the movie was to conclude the Ori arc left open by the premature cancellation of the Stargate SG1 series.

Review

The Ark of Truth delivers a slice of Stargate entertainment as SG1 get back to saving the galaxy. Drama, action and special effects abound in a tightly written script which succeeds in wrapping up the Ori story. It is not without its flaws; the pacing is off, the story rarely attempts depth, and only Teal’c truly gets showcased as a character. Indeed, while on one level I found myself enjoying the movie immensely, on another I find that it embodies much of what I disliked about the last two seasons of Stargate SG1.

Where the movie succeeded in spades was in delivering entertainment. Slow to set-up, when it got going, it was easy to get swept along in its wake. There is little doubt that much of that came from the action and special effects. The realisation of the Replicator battle on the Odyssey was wonderfully done – the RepliSkeleton a fantastically scary invention even if it did remind me of the original Terminator movie. Adria constantly aflame was stunning, and the clash between the Ascended beings also visually very effective, (although I did find Morgan slightly reminiscent of Casper the Ghost at times).

The movie also succeeded in concluding the Ori arc. The quest for the never-before-heard-of-but-answer-to-everything Ark means at the end the universe has reset with all major enemies defeated, leaving the slate wide open for further movies to be more stand alone in nature. Robert Cooper does deserve credit for writing a script that picks up all the dangling threads and provides answers. Yet it is also within the script that the flaws start to seep in. Given the compressed time, it seems strange to me that the whole story isn’t mostly given over to the main plot. Instead, the action is split between the quest for the Ark, a Replicator sub-plot and the invasion of Earth mini-plot. The mish-mash ruins the pacing at times and the overall result is that the Ori arc skims the surface.

The issue of a technology that can effectively remove free will is never truly explored and little time is spent on the mythology and the Ancients beyond the set-up of the Ark and Daniel’s short scene with Morgan. The arc had previously attempted a more ambiguous framework around good and evil which is abandoned. What we end up with is a story with very little substance beyond the tying up of loose ends. As a result, the characters miss out. When Vala is given scenes, they lack drama. The confrontation with Adria comes nowhere close to those in S10’s Dominion and Vala’s relationship with Tomin lacks the previous conflict and emotional connection. Claudia Black does a good job in trying to convey the emotions that should be in the scene but she can only do so much with so little provided by the script.

Michael Shanks fares little better with Daniel. Daniel, at least, is given a central role as he’s the one having visions about the Ark and the one intent on its discovery. The story arc allows his past to be explored – although never in depth – and his continuing disillusionment with the Ancients. Most of the meat of it is distilled into one scene with Morgan (wonderfully acted by Shanks) and the final denouement. Disappointingly his role in beginning the chain of events is swept aside as though unimportant where it should have been shown to have had an impact as it did in Origin.

The surprise character in this final Ori arc story is actually Teal’c. The arc had previously attempted to use the Jaffa to draw parallels with the fight against the Goa’uld but unsuccessfully. Here it manages to do so by paralleling Tomin’s defection with Teal’c’s. The scene in the mess is incredibly powerful as Teal’c opens up to Tomin; excellent acting by both Chris Judge and Tim Guinee. Additionally, the rest of Teal’c’s story is just wonderful.

It’s a stark contrast to Sam and Mitchell who get relegated to the sub-plot, and Landry even more isolated with the mini-plot. The Ori arc never attempted to emotionally connect any of the military characters to events so perhaps it’s unsurprising that it failed to do so again. Landry’s plot is nonsensical; an invasion of seven ships who simply wait instead of attacking even though apparently the Ark only works one galaxy at a time? No drama, no tension. The mini-plot was poorly executed.

The Replicator sub-plot isn’t as badly executed although the fact that it is there at all casts doubt on whether Cooper believes his original Ori concept had the strength to stand alone. The set-up of the sub-plot with Merrick (very well played by Currie Graham) is done well and it delivered tension, drama and action. Unfortunately, that very tension is down to the simplistic shoot ‘em up scenario it degenerated into with Sam stuck to the computer and Mitchell to battling a RepliMerrick Zombie. Browder and Tapping are fantastic actors but here, the word wasted comes to mind. For me, this was the embodiment of all that was bad from a characterisation perspective in Season 9; Sam demoted to science exposition and Mitchell going it alone. Maybe having Mitchell battling a Zombie single-handedly was meant to be an ironic humorous nod to fans; I wasn’t impressed.

At least, the teaminess so well developed in Season 10 emerges unscathed with multiple scenes of the team backing each other up from Sam backing up Mitchell with Merrick to Daniel gaining hope when Teal’c appears and the final walk up to the Stargate of the whole team.

Ultimately, this team feeling, the epic battles and the overall quality production of the movie delivers an entertaining finale to the Ori arc. I might wish for a better story with more substance and character development, one that acknowledges the very missed Jack O’Neill, but if I got the worst of the previous Seasons’ flaws, I also got its best success; a reformed SG1 teaminess that seeps from the screen as SG1 save the galaxy again.