'The Ark of Truth' General Discussion

[AscendedTauri]

Well 'Weapons to Maximum', I'm in agreement.... things seemed so forced. I guess it had to to fit into a 1hr. 40 min. film. I just wish Cooper had realized this and just scrapped the whole replicator part to the movie. I mean, the IOA using the Replicators to attack the Ori was a good idea... but don't let it be half the focus of your first ever SG-1 movie ABOUT THE ORI! My gosh man... give me an Ancient council scene!
Give me an ACTUAL ship battle.
Give me ascended Adria in action!
Give me Ori death and terror throughout the Milky Way!
Give me background on the Ark, not just some 2 minute moral discussion scene!
Give me Ancients vs. Ori debate/war background!
Give me SG-1 teamwork!
Give me a Season 11!!!!!!

[zodden]

First off the added budget and film quality really made it feel special and not just another episode, even a series finale. The ships, landscapes were all amazing to look at. Got a bigscreen TV, 5.1 sound and an upconverting DVD player then you are in for a real visual and audio treat! I have not watched with the commentary on yet but that I will check out this weekend.

Listening to the 1994 movie music as it started was nostalgic. I liked it and it ramped up my excitement.

The story I thought was good for the most part. If I was grading this flick I would give this a B+. Some of that grade due to the budget related film quality aspect. Some of that is just happy we got something after the series ended. The acting was great as always but I have a problem with a part of the story.

Why O why do we need to see the freaking replicators again? First off I am tired of them but thats not really the issue. I doubt the IOA would sanction such a move. How and when did they get the ability to create a replicator and at the same time make it immune to anti-replicator weapons? With the almost obscene caution the IOA displays they would sign off on a plan that puts Earth at risk, the innocent civilians of another galaxy and SG1 all at the same time? The plan is risky beyond measure and I find it impossible to believe they would come up with such a plan, not to mention the ability to pull it off.

Tealc walking across the mountains like that in what seemed to be like a day also seemed implausible but maybe Morgan gave him some extra speed and strength. Did he have that white streak in the Midway episode?

So I wasn't too happy with that whole side plot. I wanted battle with ORI ships, and more focus on ORI storyline, not a timewarp to season 8 and earlier.

Beyond that I did enjoy it, loved the ending on Celestia with Adria battling morgan. That was awesome and unexpected for me.

[Weapons To Maximum]

The thing troubling me the most right now is knowing the future of the SG1 franchise hinges on the performance of these DVD's. Knowing that, how could Cooper watch this finished product and not try and fix it. I think the time and money would have been well spent on re-writes or CGI space battles instead of 10 minutes of panoramic shots of Teal'c hobbling along mountain cliffs. This did not seem big budget at all. They must have spent all the money on Continuum.

I don't know why, but he let everyone down.

[AscendedTauri]

Well, in all fairness, I think 'Continuum' is going to be marketed on a much broader and bigger stage. It's more of a stand-alone movie probably designed to bring in new fans to the franchise as well as go back to the more 'classic' feel of the early Stargate days. I have to be excited about that, and overall from what I've heard from the producers, they have been more openly praising Continuum than they did Ark of Truth.

[delrey]

I did not like seing replicators, it was kinda cool for the little bit of action it provided, but when i saw them i was hoping they were going to increase the power of the ody and blow up atleast a few ori ships, but that didnt happen.

And also im confused as to why it seemed that the ody could take so many shot and not blow up after uneilding where just a few and it was almost destroyed?

[peragrin]

They destroyed the mountain. A remote area that had nothing to do with the village....

um the village was on the side of the mountain. The visuals, and even the ruins makes that quite clear.

Most likely the entire village was Alteran, that way they had enough people for genetic diversification. They all left at once in one quick move, the ori wouldn't be able to respond fast enough.

My question is though how do they travel between worlds. The villages are known to have ring platforms, maybe they have a way of using satellites to massively upgrade the range?

[jelgate]

Jelgate's Two Cents

Hallowed is Robert C. Cooper. That’s right, you heard me. I was a little skeptic that a movie would be able to finish the Ori arc. I am glad to say I was proven wrong. For I believe this was an excellent movie. Time for analysis of the movie's plot.

The prelude to the Ancients leaving the Ori Galaxy was a nice touch. It sheds a little light into why they left in the first place We always knew that the Ancients decided to prevent a war with the Ori, but I at least never knew that the Ori have superior numbers to the Ancients. It now makes more sense that the Ancients would leave instead of fighting a losing war.

I had forgotten all about the Ancients influence on Dakara. I know it makes sense that an Ancient artifact would be on Dakara, but I am still a little shocked that an artifact but the fact that an Ori weapon is locates their surprises me. Don't get me wrong, it was a great opener, but it surprised me a little bit that we found it their. I really enjoyed the battle on Dakara between SG-1 and the Ori soldiers. Season 10 showed us how Tomin was beginning to doubt the Ori's power. I was pleased that we finally saw Tomin snap and renounce the Ori's power. But I can't feel sad that my favorite Prior was killed at the beginning of the movie.

The scene at the SGC was very short, but to the point. It answered some questions I had about the ark when SG-1 was on Dakara. Which makes sense. You should show the action before you give the explanation. It quickly tells us (the fans) why we have to go the Ori Galaxy and begins setting up the plot and secondary characters. Mitchell getting command of the Odyssey was an interesting development. I have to say that I didn't think it was possible, but I hate the IOA even more.

The Odyssey going through the Supergate was really cool looking. I remember watching the 304 going the gate and wondering how in the world is that possible. I was ready to post a negative comment about going through the gate. But Daniel knowing to dial the gate from his time as a Prior makes sense. As CGI goes, the effects of the wormhole travel looked awesome. Good thing the TPTB were using that extra money for good reasons.

The finding of the location of Celsis seemed a little rushed to me. It seems that we magically discover an anti Ori follower who knows the location of the planet where the place of evil is. It seems a little far fetched to me that we were able to find them so quickly when you factor in that according to Vala that the anti Ori underground is a very small group. Luckily that is one of my few complaints.

It seems that Merlin is still helping (or so I thought at the time) us out. I mean we would never have found out the underground tunnel if it wasn’t for his influence. I kind of thought that there would have been more safeguards against the discovery of the ark, but I guess when you think about it does make sense. Why Ancients would put safeguards that they never were going to use that the Ori were going to destroy in the first place.

I think the writers like Teal’c being shot. Despite not possessing a symbiote, he still acts like the same person. It was obvious that he was in pain as he walked towards Celsis, but he kept on walking until he could walk no more. Despite all his strength, he was still not able to succeed in making it. I am curious in why Morgan Le Fay was allowed to interfere with curing Teal’c of his injury. I’m assuming that it was Morgan. It makes the most sense that Morgan was the one who healed Teal’c.

Do you remember at the beginning that I said that this movie has made me hate the IOA even more? I wonder if the IOA is becoming the new NID. I can say without a doubt that Mr. Graham is the biggest idiot of Stargate. Even people like Kavanngh and Gen. Baur (Chain Reaction) would never have come with a plan that was this idiotic. Using Replicators has to be the single minded stupidest mistake that I have ever heard of. It was enjoyable to see Col. Mitchell and Col. Carter shooting the Replicators. I felt like I was watching an old-fashioned SG-1 episode. Carter doing her best to shut them down and everyone else is shooting their guns trying their very best to stop the Replicators.

I have to say that the new human form Replicator was very disturbing. He looked like something out of a horror movie. I wonder if their is such a thing as Mitchell whumpers on this forum. If so I think they get too much whumping for that character. After the battle between Mitchell and RepliGrahm, there was blood all over his face. It was almost too gruesome for me. Credit to the stunt coordinator on the fight between Mitchell and RepliGarhm.

No adventure can be complete without sense of danger. The story would be boring if there wasn’t an outside threat that was about to attack the Odyssey. Things went from bad to worse until the point that the ship was being attacked by the Ori ships. Another compliant of mine was the fact that the ship was under attack from the Ori ships from a long time until the Replicators were defeated. The Odyssey shouldn’t have been able to take that many hits for that duration of time.

Adria had me very scared in this movie. There is something wrong about seeing a single person with so much power. The look she had while interrogating Vala was way creepy to me. I like creepy . I was pleased that we got confirmation that the Ori were destroyed in The Shroud.

I don’t think we give Morgan enough credit. After seeing the end of the movie, she was a major influence in the defeat of the Ori. I think Morgan La Fey felt a little guilty for her past deed. I know that is a given, but the levels she went in this episode were very risky. I have to give her credit for helping Daniel. It looks like he was about to give up until she appeared and gave him the motivation to open the ark.

Speaking of the ark, it never would have been opened if wasn’t for Adria’s want of love from Vala. It was Vala’s distraction that caused Daniel to access the correct code (Origin ) and Teal’c to break the table. Ironic that the people who brought the Ori into the Milky Way helped rid them from the universe. Their was a parallel between the movie and Threads. Morgan and Adria are locked in a never ending battle much like Oma and Anubis. Thus the universe is safe from the Ori.

I found the whole plot about Landry and the Prior kind of pointless. It seemed to serve no purpose but for the end of the movie. We could have easily gone to a planet and opened the Ark at a MW planet. I think it was just served to have the Landry character to do something while SG-1 was in the Ori Galaxy.

I really enjoyed the ending too. Was I only one laughing that the team was blaming Vala and Daniel for unleashing the Ori on us. I hope there is a follow up on the fact that the Ark is now being kept in Area 51. Under normal circumstances, know one should be allowed with such power. The scene between Vala and Tomin was sad. You can tell he is sad that Vala won’t leave with him but he understands that she would rather stay on Earth/

In conclusion the Ark of Truth is a good SG-1 movie with a few minor complaints. I can overlook them due to the fact that it is difficult to defeat an enemy in a single movie and I can also see why TPTB would like to do stand alone movies.

[seinfeldsg1]

I did not like seing replicators, it was kinda cool for the little bit of action it provided, but when i saw them i was hoping they were going to increase the power of the ody and blow up atleast a few ori ships, but that didnt happen.

And also im confused as to why it seemed that the ody could take so many shot and not blow up after uneilding where just a few and it was almost destroyed?

Because we probably have the same shields on the odyssey now that were used on the oneill class warships.

[Shan Bruce Lee]

I absolutely loved the movie. I put this stuff in spoiler tags just incase somebody reading hasn't seen it.

Spoiler:

GOOD
+"weapons to maximum" It's a joke... a damn funny one.
+Music
+Landscapes
+Tomin was awesome
+Ellis!
+That repli-skeleton
+Morgan was incredable. (And she looked good too) It was nice to see Merlin even though it wasn't him
+Adria (loved the fire effect)
+The Docci/Priors were even better than they were on SG-1
+The gunfight in the forest
+"Millions of years ago..." Anybody else catch that? lol
+SG-1. Every single one of them took it to the next level.

BAD
-RDA wasn't in it.
-"Not if I have anything to say about it" I didn't really like that line but it wasn't the worst thing ever. That's about it for the bad list.

[Zatnikitelman]

Gotta agree about the replicators, they've been done to death, and defeated time and time again. Especially that skeletor thing, WTF was that all about? The method they used to bring them back was realistic based on what Carter said about how you tell the comp what to do and it does it.

Just to set everyone straight. This comes between Unending and First Strike. Apollo from what we know did not return to Earth until after Carter had command of Atlantis. This means no Asgard Plasma Beam Weapons. Shields, perhaps, a bit easier to replicate pardon the slight pun. The battle would have been about like Camelot, except about 7 times more one-sided in the Ori's favor.

As for the IOA, I think a different storyline not involving the replicators could have been done. Perhaps instead of the replicators, he could have stolen the ark and reprogrammed it to where the Ori would attack the Goa'uld or Wraith or Asurans or something, but it back fires due to his imbicility turning him and the village people and maybe some of Odyssey's crew into "kill all human" zombies.

[delrey]

Because we probably have the same shields on the odyssey now that were used on the oneill class warships.

I dont see the difference, as soon as we were under attack in uneilding the asgard core was online and incorporated into our systems, thor said a number of asgard would beam aboard and begin upgrading and modyfying our ship, when they left and mass suicided the upgrades were complete, i dont see how that could have been improved? Just to seems to be a plot hole. But i did like the movie and glad i bought it. Was kind of wishing for more though.

It would also seem that when the first ori ships came through the supergate that the asgard oneil was destroyed. And it was only ever showed being hit by the less powerfull cannon weapons, not the main ray.

[seinfeldsg1]

Gotta agree about the replicators, they've been done to death, and defeated time and time again. Especially that skeletor thing, WTF was that all about? The method they used to bring them back was realistic based on what Carter said about how you tell the comp what to do and it does it.

Just to set everyone straight. This comes between Unending and First Strike. Apollo from what we know did not return to Earth until after Carter had command of Atlantis. This means no Asgard Plasma Beam Weapons. Shields, perhaps, a bit easier to replicate pardon the slight pun. The battle would have been about like Camelot, except about 7 times more one-sided in the Ori's favor.

As for the IOA, I think a different storyline not involving the replicators could have been done. Perhaps instead of the replicators, he could have stolen the ark and reprogrammed it to where the Ori would attack the Goa'uld or Wraith or Asurans or something, but it back fires due to his imbicility turning him and the village people and maybe some of Odyssey's crew into "kill all human" zombies.

I personally love the idea of unleashing the replicators on the ori, if we had gotten a season 11, it would be a story arc Id absolutly be in favor of!

[Shan Bruce Lee]

And of course there are all the little things that make no sence. Weapons To Maximum you're not the only one to notice or be bothered be the fact that while Sam and Cam dealt with the replicators, we'll give them 10-15 hours for that, Teal'c crossed what seemed like several mountains, not to mention the miles and miles of flat around Calestis, while he had no food or water and he was seriously injured.

He was walking along the ridge of the mountains. It's a lot faster to walk across the ridge than climbing up and down a bunch of mountainsides. I'm not saying that makes it perfect timing, but it's enough for me to believe it.

One minute Tomin is the poster child for Origin and the leader of the Ori armies and then pan out and in and he's the 6th member of sg1.

They've been building that arc since the Avalon 2-parter. He's struggled with the confliction between the Ori on one side and Vala on the other since the beginning. And the last time we saw him in Season 10 he was arguing with a Prior. The same one he was arguing with in the movie.

[seinfeldsg1]

I dont see the difference, as soon as we were under attack in uneilding the asgard core was online and incorporated into our systems, thor said a number of asgard would beam aboard and begin upgrading and modyfying our ship, when they left and mass suicided the upgrades were complete, i dont see how that could have been improved? Just to seems to be a plot hole. But i did like the movie and glad i bought it. Was kind of wishing for more though.

It would also seem that when the first ori ships came through the supergate that the asgard oneil was destroyed. And it was only ever showed being hit by the less powerfull cannon weapons, not the main ray.

Well now wait, they installed the asgard beams because they were probably already constructed and ready to simply bold on, same with the core. In the short amount of time they had though I doubt they were able to construct a new shield generator for the ship. They wouldnt be able to just install one from an oneill class ship, probably be way too big but Im guessing in the core were instructions on how to build it for the deady. It makes sense that we got all their knowledge and then soon after our shields are ALOT better, I really doubt its just a coincidence or a mistake. AS for the asgard ship that was destroyed,it wasnt an oneil, it was simply a smaller science vessel that looked like an oneil. And Im pretty sure it wasnt destroyed because it wasnt in the wreakage and the asgard on board Im pretty sure showed up later in the next episode.

[KindlyKeller]

Fantastic movie, I thought. I found the Replicator-IOA angle genuinely surprising, and a really fun twist. The Cam/Sam ship stuff was actually the best part for me, and I thought Merrick was a really fun love-to-hate character.

My only "complaint," and I don't even know that I'd call it that, is that TPTB made a big point of noting how it "felt" like a movie and looked really big, but I didn't get that sense at all. It was basically a two-parter with a really big budget for me. That didn't change how much I enjoyed it, though.