'The Ark of Truth' General Discussion

[Shan Bruce Lee]

The only thing I hate about the movie is knowing (or at least pressuming) what they could've done with a true movie budget in the Stargate Universe.

[IrishPisano]

The only thing I hate about the movie is knowing (or at least pressuming) what they could've done with a true movie budget in the Stargate Universe.

enter a stargate during a solar flare and go back to 1995... go to blockbuster... and rent this movie named "Stargate" by Roland Emmerich...

[Shan Bruce Lee]

enter a stargate during a solar flare and go back to 1995... go to blockbuster... and rent this movie named "Stargate" by Roland Emmerich...

Ark of Truth was better than the original.

[IrishPisano]

Ark of Truth was better than the original.

without the original, there would be no Ark of Truth

[golfbooy]

(I haven't really written one of these in a long while. So, um, I watched Ark of Truth, then did. It ended up a three-banger. Sorry. Really. I'm embarrassed. So much for brevity.)

Ding! Dong! The Ori storyline is dead! Uncork the champagne, break out the victory cigars, and let the party begin. SG-1 can now hopefully put this unpleasantness behind it, move past the most awkward and unsuccessful phase of its long existence, and accept that continued life at any cost in the face of a fearful death is perhaps too high a price to pay. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. But that's for later in the post. For right now, I want to reiterate a point I've made previously about this incarnation of SG-1, a point that can't help but jump out of whatever antiquated relic or technologically pumped up screen upon which you view the movie. Dare I say it, but this notion, this trait, this tenet of New SG-1 is so magnificently encased in the awe-inspiring vessel of The Ark of Truth that the producers, expertly gauging the preternatural penetration and perspicacity of their audience specifically constructed the movie and selected the title so as to make The Ark of Truth the movie proper, an actual ark of truth itself. I know, I know. I can hardly believe it as well. But as you view the movie, as you take in the blinding white light of pure truth, you can't help but become totally enlightened as to the defining characteristic of the new SG-1. It may be an artificial means to Nirvana, a way to achieve ascension before one is ready. But who are we to cast aside edification wily nily? Will you be the one who refuses the sublime palliative offered by this first SG-1 movie? No, good stewards of Stargate. Drink up. Drink up this new SG-1. Know them for who they are, know them for what they aspire to be. As The Ark of Truth must undoubtedly prove to all unbelievers, this cobbled-together version of SG-1 is, without qualification, The Unteam.

Never in the wildest reaches of my barren imagination, never in the farthest corners of my so called mind could I have ever sown the seed that would lead me to suspect that the members of SG-1 would spend so little time together in this movie. There is absolutely no significant scene with all the members of SG-1 together. The closest you could say is perhaps the opening bit wherein the false ark is found and Tomin is “converted”. At least everyone was in the same location. But even that scene opens with Sam and Mitchell away and with only Teal’c, Daniel, and Vala involved in the dialogue. From then on the story is told from various points of view, sometimes falling on Landry and Merrick, sometimes on Sam or Mitchell, and sometimes on Daniel. This isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. The Ark of Truth ended up being far more equitable and even-handed in terms of screen time, activity, and importance than ever seasons nine and ten were. I was expecting far more Daniel and Vala than we got; I was expecting far less Sam and Mitchell. Personal preference will dictate whether the outcome works for each viewer, but I was mostly pleased in that regard. There was a lot of ground to cover in this one movie, maybe even too much. In the end, I’m left to merely point out the obvious: New Stargate began with our SG-1 team fractured and broken, and it ended the same.

But a dearth of team feeling aside, The Ark of Truth’s most glaring shortcoming is the one thing I thought would be very good--the story itself. Despite what many fans here seem to think, it’s always been my opinion that Rob Cooper excels at writing SG-1 stories. He’s by far the most prolific writer in the franchise, and by all accounts, he’s the brain behind most of the episode ideas that get made. Rob Cooper’s scripts are most often the ones that move the Stargate universe in some large way. When events have to happen, when the story must go forward (or at least sideways) it is usually Rob Cooper who concocts how that movement will be achieved. He did it fantastically by adding the replicators in Nemesis and Small Victories; he does it with the Russians in Watergate, 48 Hours, and Redemption; the ascension arc and the mystique of the Ancients are Cooper‘s (mind you the Ancients as depicted in SG-1; the Ancients as depicted in Atlantis make me want to scrub my brain with a wire brush); he does it again with all of the Goa’uld/Anubis stuff in seasons seven and eight in Fallen, Evolution, and Reckoning. And even though I believe it to be a failed venture, he moves the story again as the principle architect of the Ori. But The Ark of Truth just isn’t a great story. And since I don’t think that it’s possible for Cooper’s writing skills to atrophy so fast, I’m inclined to blame the subject matter. The most damning thing I can think of for this much vaunted Ori storyline is that Cooper had to bring in the replicators to add any sort of menace to the story. This was a Stargate movie. It’s primary objective was to be BIG. But, just as in seasons nine and ten, the Ori arc just doesn’t lend itself to a big, pumped-up story. There’s not enough there. The Ori are impossible to depict with enough pomp and grandeur, hence we never see them. Not even here. The Priors, stoic and singleminded as ever, provide an unsatisfying face for Origin. Priors are too easily defeated now and too often seen over the course of the last 40 episodes to provide the shock and menace that comes with the appearance of a true antagonist onscreen.

All that is left is Adria, a weak creation foisted upon the producers by the mistimed addition of Vala while Claudia Black was very pregnant. Adria’s own personality is so schizophrenically written that even the characters seem to inwardly groan when she makes an appearance. Is she evil? Not really. Is she the lonely girl hungering for acceptance and love, a la her mother? Once in a while. Is she an initiate of Origin, a true believer in the Ori and her own role in that mythos? Um, she was at first. In The Ark of Truth, though, Adria is none of those things. She’s just evil for evil’s sake, a veritable Goa’uld, sans the snake. Honestly, if I were Cooper I’d have left Adria possessed by Ba’al. She’d have been able to play the same part in the movie and it would have been a hell of a lot more interesting than what we got. Then there’s Morena Baccarin’s still very stilted acting. Honestly, the one aspect of the Ori at large that really worked for me was the Doci. How much more interesting and exciting the whole portrayal of the Ori’s war against “evil” could have been if only the Doci was the one leading the followers of Origin instead of Adria. Julian Sands has even less screen time in this movie than Morena Baccarin, but every second he’s on camera, he’s giving it to the producers. And when the Ark is opened and the full truth of his existence is revealed, all the atrocity, both in what he’s done and in what he’s become, when the depths of his own deception is slammed home to him, the Doci’s reaction is touching. And it is fitting, both cruel and just. In that one, too short moment we don’t revile the Doci, we pity him. He is the saddest figure of all, a man laid bare in pure agony, bereft of everything and anything else, save his own wretchedness. Sorry, though. It’s Adria we get. Too bad for you, New Stargate. You were thiiiis close.

One of the symptoms of the weak story and absence of character interactions is that I felt like I could “see” The Ark of Truth being made. Amanda Tapping’s time was spare, so Sam Carter is kept firmly entrenched in her little room. Ben Browder was always available, so we get a gratuitous twenty minute fight scene. Chris Judge got taken up to the mountain by himself, so there’s a wide swath of Teal’c alone inserted in there. Morena Baccarin and Julian Sands were together only for one day, apparently, which leads to too little screen time for both. Availability was an issue all throughout the shoot, and while the movie might have held up under the strain of one such instance, the aggregate imposition of each actors’ schedule makes the movie seem somewhat disassociated. It’s not just as if two separate movies were going on, one with the Ori and one with the Replicators. It’s as if each character is in their own little world. I said above that there was perhaps too much to cover in one movie, and here is where it really shows.

However, for all of that, The Ark of Truth did more or less try to service each character in some way. And most of that effort can be called successful, in particular regarding the secondary characters. I’m no fan of General Landry, but I thought Ark of Truth saw Beau Bridges give his best and most effortless performance of the character yet. His scenes with the Prior were serious and well put together, and absent was the bluster and bombast that always put me off him. Julian Sands as the Doci was stupendous, and absolutely put Adria to shame. Seeing him broken at the end drives home the terror of the Ori on such a more visceral level than anything else we’ve ever seen. You can keep Adria and the foot soldiers and all the warships and explosions the effects budget can buy--one good actor and one good visual sold Origin as a threat and a menace and as something to be fought against in a way nothing else had to that point. Marrick, as played by Currie Graham, presents an imposing and non-caricatured IOA figure, and while I didn’t buy the IOA’s plotline in the story, Marrick as a character is a success (at least until the replicator thing). And lastly, I think that Tim Guinee’s Tomin is the greatest triumph, character wise, of Stargate’s final two years. His journey from simple devotee to grim soldier to cynical repentant has been both consistent and convincing, and has brought another perspective to the fight with the Ori in the same way that the Jaffa added to the fight with the Goa’uld. Bottom line, there’s no better scene in New Stargate than his talk with Teal’c in the mess hall.

(yeah, that's right, to be continued)

[golfbooy]

All of that good, though, pales entirely in the shadow of the wrongness of the IOA storyline. I have serious problems with the role the IOA played in this movie. And it’s not that I have a problem with the IOA being shown as ruthless or single-minded in the pursuit of their goals. That is, after all, how they’re supposed to function in the show. My problem lies in the fact that it’s both implied here and later shown on Atlantis that the SGC continues to cooperate and submit to the oversight of an organization that would commit such treachery. That the SGC as an entity doesn’t remove itself from the IOA’s purview or, at the very least, doesn’t fight for a total revamp of the agency is not believable. The actions that Marrick took on behalf of the IOA are the actions of a rogue organization. You know, like the rogue NID or the Trust. That’s why SG-1 used to have those players, so that there could be believable villains that could be used to contrast the righteousness and heroism of the SGC. That’s basic storytelling. But the IOA isn’t that entity. Or at least it wasn’t. The IOA as portrayed before Ark of Truth in the series and after Ark of Truth in Atlantis is meant to be a legitimate organization--often at odds with the SGC, but legitimate nonetheless. But that portrayal is blown out of the water in this movie. It makes absolutely no sense for things to simply remain the status quo following the enormity of these events. But they do. Sorry, guys, but you fail on this one.

The notion of weaponizing the replicators does, however, work for me. At least to a point. The producers keep saying that this is the storyline of what would have been season eleven. I buy that. I buy it because I can easily see a midseason two-parter built around the premise that Earth attempts to use the replicators to stop the proliferation of Origin and to strike back at the overwhelmingly powerful armies of the Ori. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s a good idea and probably would have made for an interesting story arc. But here, in the final gasp of the Ori storyline, it does seem out of place. Considering how little actual development and explication we got for the Ori, their conflict with the Alterans, and the current position of the now Ascended Ancients, I think it’s hard not to feel that there were simply more important aspects of the storyline that needed to be addressed. And, yes, it’s obvious that the decision to use the replicators in this manner was more a structural and production based decision than a creative one. And, yes, it gave Sam and Cameron something to do. But this is a Stargate SG-1 movie. And it’s the first SG-1 movie. Maybe squeezing filming into 18 days and forcing Carter onto Atlantis weren’t the best moves for the sake of quality.

I hate that Teal’c just walks right into Celestis. I hate it. Seriously. Total hate. And I’m not talking about the walk across the mountains. Those shots are terrific, add scope and grandeur to the film, and go a very long way towards making Teal’c the biggest winner in The Ark of Truth. But when he just pops up in front of Daniel Jackson’s cell I had a conniption. The Atlantis knobs often find themselves magically spirited into every Wraith, Genii, and Asuran facility that they need to “infiltrate”. It angers me there, but that’s just Atlantis. I expect crap from that show. To see it here, in an SG-1 movie, just rankles all the more. It’s sloppy and lazy. That said, I was satisfied overall with the end of the Ori. The torture scenes are good, if a little awkwardly edited. But I think that’s more a result of the ridiculously long Cameron/repli-Marrick fight scene. Daniel’s encounter with Morgan is well done, though Morgan’s own motivations needed a little fleshing out. And, honestly, I was rather impressed by the blocking, setup, and execution of the final scene. I was waiting in terror for the lid to be dramatically flung open with a flourish by Vala, Daniel, or worse yet, Cameron, so I loved that the Ark was ultimately opened by Teal’c shooting the leg off the table. I can understand some fans being disappointed with the battle between Adria and Morgan. It is, after all, nothing we haven’t seen before. But I can’t find it in myself to be disappointed with the end of the Ori story, no matter how unspectacular it was.

Now, back to where I started. The Unteam. The character beats in The Ark of Truth are incredibly fulfilling and satisfying for longtime fans of the show, effortlessly displaying the camaraderie and affection that these characters have for each other. Oh wait. No, they aren’t and, no, they don‘t. Well, then the way that SG-1 seamlessly works together and plays off of one another’s strengths makes my fannish heart sing. Oh wait. They don’t do any of that either. Ok, ok. At the very least, the character beats and teamwork displayed in The Ark of Truth don’t suck. Yeah, that one’s got it. The character stuff doesn’t suck. And it doesn’t suck because it doesn’t exist in the movie. Clever, that. The major reason, for me and I suspect many other fans, that seasons nine and ten didn’t work is that the characters lost the ease and connectedness that was the hallmark of SG-1 for eight years. That ineffable quality that gives certain shows “it” was gone once the cast changes took place and the focus was put more on the Ori story than on the characters. The much vaunted team aspect of the show, the oft-mentioned “family feeling” of the cast and crew that used permeate the boundary between production and finished product was lost. Or it at least lost its ability to shine through onto our screens. That’s still very much the case in The Ark of Truth. The characters now seem to operate solely as individuals. Whatever character stuff each of the players gets in The Ark Of Truth, almost all of it happens to each character while they’re separated from the others. And that’s disappointing.

I am totally and completely shocked at how little the character of Vala got in this movie. After having more than my surfeit of Vala in season ten, I fully expected her to be one of the two main players in this movie. After all, she is the mother of Adria, and I was expecting more from the final showdown of these two now diametrically opposed characters. But there’s really nothing made of the conflicted feelings that each must have over the way things worked out. Adria, as presented here, is done with Vala. And Vala is done with Adria. I have to watch it again, because right now I’m not sure if it plays as character progression or as an abandonment of characterization on the part of the writers. On a similar note, I’m totally and completely shocked at how little interaction there was between Vala and Daniel. Daniel is really Vala’s only connection to the team and to SG-1 in general. Without that strong connection she seems to slip into the background, becoming a bonafide supporting character more on the level of a Tomin or a Harry Maybourne. So, while the expected antagonistic banter and playfulness of Daniel’s and Vala’s interactions is on display in the initial scene, it doesn’t really make an appearance anywhere else. Nor are the deeper, more sincere aspects of the Daniel/Vala relationship touched upon. Go figure. Vala’s best scenes in this movie were with Tomin. There are clearly feelings between the two of them. It is not a one sided attraction, and Vala does not simply love Daniel with an unbridled passion and revile Tomin with uncontainable repugnance. That relationship plays as it was meant to, sad and bittersweet and ultimately, heart-rending. Both Vala’s and Claudia Black’s best scene in Ark of Truth comes at the end, when she and Tomin say their goodbyes. Her confession to Tomin that she hopes she belongs here on Earth, at the SGC, with SG-1, whatever--is sweet and endearing. Claudia Black mixes Vala’s embarrassment over these feelings and her reluctance to cop to them with a sense of hopefulness that reveals the characters vulnerability and, just for a moment, makes her more human. I don’t know what kind of role Vala could or will play in future SG-1 movies, but I hope it’s this Vala we get to see. The one that snipes at Daniel all the time and excludes everyone else can stay home.

Obviously, the other character who I expected to dominate this movie was Daniel. And, to be sure, he did. Daniel is the lead character in Ark of Truth, and it’s up to him to keep the tension of the Ori storyline at a fevered pitch. That effort is undermined a bit by the replicator fight scene, but the stuff with the Ark is clearly still what this movie is all about. As I mentioned above, I expected the Daniel/Vala aspect of the show to play more here. I’m glad that it didn’t because it seems that all the other interesting facets of the Daniel Jackson character got swallowed up by that dynamic in seasons nine and ten. Daniel is far more than just that relationship. So much of the Ori storyline has become wrapped up in Daniel’s personal journey throughout the series. There had to be some closure brought to his ascended storyline. I’m not entirely satisfied with the place that the Ascended Ancients had in this movie. I think we had to see more from them. But Daniel’s broken plea to Morgan is excellent. One of the things that always impressed me about Shanks, Tapping, and Judge was that even in SG-1’s early years, and even under the supposed suppressive dominance (though I never bought into it) of megastar Richard Dean Anderson, all three clearly knew when it was their time to be the star, to know when they had to step it up and tell the story. Michael Shanks, in that scene with Morgan, knows that it’s up to him to tell the story, to make it big and to sell it. And he does. This Daniel, here, is not the angry Daniel we saw in Pegasus Project. He’s moved on past there. This Daniel, here, is broken. He’s worn out, worn out believing in the Ancients, and worn out believing that his journey and experiences with the stargate mean something special. It’s not the torture that leaves him broken, it’s not the supreme exhaustion. It’s the doubt (momentary though it may have been, quickly as it may have been forgotten), that it was all for nothing. It’s that his journey is so much worse than simply being a failure. It’s meaningless. The rest of it is mostly by the book stuff, but I do just want to mention that I love the scene in the cave where Teal’c baldly asks Daniel if they should turn back. It’s a great beat that Judge and Shanks get to play, and it’s one of the few exchanges in the movie that play with the enormity of everything these characters have been through. I’ll have more of that, please.

(what? even SG-1 had 3 parters.....I think)

[golfbooy]

Cameron Mitchell. Oh, Cameron, why do you cause such problems? Mitchell is a character that gets a lot of flack from fans sometimes. And it’s easy to see why that can be frustrating for fans of Ben Browder or fans who are intent on loving all aspects of Stargate. But, the fact of the matter is that most of the flack Mitchell gets is well deserved. Even here, in what should have been a carefully crafted outing, the character of Cameron Mitchell is written in such a way that his continued inclusion in the story seems forced and ungainly. Indeed, in order to provide the character with his shining moment of glory, namely the balls-to-the-wall, leave-it-all-on-the-mat, loser-goes-home-dead bloodbath between him and Marrick, the writers have to write him as stupider than an incredibly stupid thing. Mitchell, supposedly blessed with innate leadership qualities that are so subtle no one can see them, on this fully complimented ship teeming with strapping young soldiers, goes to fight the replicators alone. Not only does he go alone down there to kill that ***** of a queen, he chooses to go down there all alone. Alone. Alone, to face an enemy he’s never fought before. Alone, to face an enemy he knows was capable of destroying the Asgard. Alone to face the enemy that did in fact effectively wipe out the Goa’uld. Alone, to be the hero. And that is where the character fails again. Unable to fit cohesively and to many fans’ satisfaction with the other leads, Mitchell is always given things to do by himself, even when it makes no sense. And by “things to do” I mean get his ass kicked again and play Stunt Boy. I mean, for cripes sake, would it have been so hard for them to show Mitchell skillfully leading a team down to whatever deck to take out the replicator queen, have them all get killed in some way or another, then have Mitchell fight repli-Marrick? And, no, you can’t both command the Odyssey and beam down to dangerous planets intent on being with the team on their jaunt to Celestis. It doesn’t make sense. Dare I say it, it demonstrates bad command skills. None of this is meant as a personal affront to Ben Browder. In fact, I think he did better than usual in this film, for the most part. He seemed more comfortable on the whole, despite Mitchell’s no better than usual writing. The conflict between Mitchell and Marrick was disappointingly one-note, but that aside, I have to say I absolutely hated Ben’s delivery of the line “Then replace me!”. Sorry, but it’s the delivery that just grates. It’s just like the “Big, fat Aunt Emma” line from Ripple Effect. To be fair, though, I did like the way Browder played the bridge scenes with Lt. Marks. Mocking and understated beats over-the-top every time.

I’d like to write a whole lot about how great Carter was in this movie. And what there was for Carter was good. But, let’s be honest. There wasn’t much. As I said before, I think shoe-horning her onto Atlantis really curtailed Amanda Tapping’s availability for this movie. And that was to the detriment of the Carter character. Carter (and Mitchell and Teal’c) being so little involved in the Ori storyline has been one of my biggest gripes over the past two years. Any storyline that effectively wallpapers three-fifths of the cast is a bad storyline. That said, Tapping portrays Carter as eminently competent and very much experienced at this sort of thing. It’s no surprise that Carter’s brilliance allows her to figure out how to defeat the replicators, but it is a comfortable way to end that conflict for the audience. I suppose the one scene in the movie where Carter gets to play some is her scene with Cam in the infirmary. It‘s a sweet and playful scene, and Carter‘s teasing of Mitchell does more to ingratiate him with the audience than all the heroics Cambo‘s ever pulled off ever will. All told, though, I’m not sure whether we’re seeing Carter or Amanda Tapping herself in that scene. But if she did break character there, it was a good time to do it.

Teal’c wins. No seriously. He’s the winner in Ark of Truth. Unlike with Mitchell or Ronon on Atlantis, the writers do a great job of not reducing Teal’c to just his basic characterization. Teal’c is not just the fighter. As his scenes throughout the movie show, Teal’c fulfills many functions in SG-1. Be it the humor he displays on Dakara while participating in Vala’s teasing of Daniel, his oh so delicious chat with Tomin on the Odyssey, or his trudge over the mountains after being hosed by a staff weapon, nobody got more different cool things to do in this movie. The scene on the ship with Tomin is the most character development and affirmation that any SG-1 character has gotten since season eight. And it is fantastically delivered by Judge. The resolve Teal’c shows, and the amount of self contemplation that the scene implies Teal’c has done actually adds depth to the character. And I didn’t think the writers had it in them to do that at this stage in the game. To avoid an excessive use of superlatives and amount of praise I’ll stop there. But Teal’c is the winner. By massive Chris Judge-sized strides, he’s the winner.

I don’t want anyone to get me wrong here. I liked The Ark of Truth. But, to be honest, I think I like it more because it’s SG-1 than because it was a great movie. Ark of Truth, whatever else fans may have wanted it to be, is just the producers shutting down New Stargate. I wish it could have been a bit more spectacular in its conclusion, but it really wasn’t that spectacular in its existence to being with. A great movie would have had more character interaction among the players. A great movie would have been without the larger of Ark’s plotholes. A great movie would have actually addressed the moral implications of using a device like the Ark, instead of just totally ignoring them. That was particularly ballsy--just not in a good way. But as I said before, The Ark of Truth allows the producers to now put the ugly mess that was seasons nine and ten behind them. And, frankly, I can’t wait for Continuum. Have you guys seen those pictures? Holy Buckets!!

(see, that wasn't so bad, right? right? guys?)

[jenks]

tl;dr

[Shan Bruce Lee]

without the original, there would be no Ark of Truth

What's your point? I'm talking about what tptb could do with a normal movie budget. It has absolutely nothing to do with the original.

[Silverwings]

tl;dr

Your loss. It's a good read, with some excellent insight.

[mapsc]

Golfbooy,

Great post. I always enjoy reading them since your views on Stargate mirror my own. I really hope you're right on AoT being the final act of "New Stargate".

Mike

[jenks]

Your loss. It's a good read, with some excellent insight.

I really don't think I'm going to take much away from a rant that begins with...

"Ding! Dong! The Ori storyline is dead! Uncork the champagne, break out the victory cigars, and let the party begin. SG-1 can now hopefully put this unpleasantness behind it, move past the most awkward and unsuccessful phase of its long existence, and accept that continued life at any cost in the face of a fearful death is perhaps too high a price to pay."

[Silverwings]

Again, your loss.

If you're just skimming, though, at least read the first and last paragraphs. That tends to give you a better idea of the whole document, at least if it's written well.

[jenks]

Again, your loss.

How can you tell?

If you're just skimming, though, at least read the first and last paragraphs. That tends to give you a better idea of the whole document, at least if it's written well.

That's what I did read. I'm not suggesting it's not well written, just too over opinionated for my taste, I don't like being told what sort feeling I'm getting when watching a film, especially when it's so wide of the mark.

[Silverwings]

Seems to me that's the point of a discussion on the movie. If you don't like a review, don't read it, fine. But don't be rudely dismissive of it because it doesn't happen to agree with your views. It's also possible to learn something from people who don't agree with you.

I've not seen the film yet, and I doubt I'll agree with everything that was written, either, but that doesn't stop me from learning from it, or enjoying the parts that I do agree with. I suspect that I'll like the show overall, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.