Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008)

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Directed by: Robert C. Cooper
Starring: Ben Browder, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge

When I agreed to write a review for Stargate: The Ark of Truth I completely underestimated the difficulty of watching and following a movie that is pretty much the culmination of 10+ years of Stargate television shows. I REALLY like the original film as it's one of my sci-fi favs and I guess I had hoped that it would be more of a standalone story line but alas, no. Stargate: The Ark of Truth throws you right into a story line years in the making. To say that this movie can be confusing to someone not familiar with long history of the show is a serious understatment. There is a brief prologue piece you can watch the VERY rapidly throws backstory at you at a pace that you can barely comprehend but honestly I think that the prologue made things even more confusing since it was WAY too brief and dense to make sense to anyone who doesn't know it all anyway. Having said all of that I will attempt to rerview this film on it's own merits and in it's own context. What I mean by it's own context is simple, I don't hold a straight-to-video movie to the same standard as a Hollywood blockbuster nor do I hold a super low budget indie film to the same standard as a TV movie. I rate them as compared to their peer films and according to that measure, even as confusing as it was for someone not intimate with TV series, Stargate: The Ark of Truth is actually pretty good.

The story, nearest I can figure, is that the Ori(those are the bad guys) want to destroy/control humanity and they have the near "magical powers" to be able to do it... a sci-fi staple. Now it seems that at the end of the series the SG-1 team(those are the good guys) sent some device/weapon through a "super gate"(that would be a stargate on crack) that managed to destroy the Ori... but their lackeys, the Priors, managed to come through just fine and are still waging the war on humanity apparently unaware that the Ori themselves are all dead. That's where the Arkk of Truth comes in. To borrow a popular phrase, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far away..." there was a group of people who opposed the Ori and were able to create a device that if would cause anyone who looked into it to "see the truth." In this case, the SG-1 crew want to show everyone in the Ori controlled universe that the Ori are not gods. Now this is made difficult by the Priors who also have "abilites" and are never shy to use them. Now, once again, at some point in earlier episodes the SG-1 crew managed to make a device that could temporarily render the Priors powerless.

To add to the confusion, apparently one of the members of the SG-1 crew got pregnant and had a daughter who grew up(rather rapidly) to become the last surviving Ori and intent on taking over and becoming a full fledged god. In the quest to stop her Daniel Jackson(James Spader's character from the original film) apparently follows visions from none other than Merlin. Yep, you heard that right, Merlin, as in King Arthur and all that. The story does go off on tangents that people familiar with the series can follow better than guys like me but as confusing as this all sounds it comes across better when you view the film... for some reason it seems WAY more confusing to try and explain than it was to watch.

Anyway, as if the Ori and the Priors were not enough opposition to the SG-1 team, the International Oversight Committee(think of them as the CIA for space) have plans of their own to begin a direct armed confrontation with the Ori/Priors with the intent of unleashing Replicators on the Prior controlled Ori fleet. More elements from the series backstory... the replicators are essentually mechanical spiders that, as the name suggests, replicate themselves from materials they, for lack of a better term, harvest from the ship them have infested. It would seem from everyone's reactions that the Replicators are REALLY freaking nasty and almost impossible to eradicate... and the IOC has programmed this particular batch to be even more viscious and hard to kill than usual.

I'm going to go ahead and stop here because at this point, honestly, I am probably more confused than you. Essentually the story centers around SG-1's attempt to finally, completely defeat the Ori and Priors, avoid getting blasted themselves and destroy all the Replicators... all in the nick of time. Now Stargate: The Ark of Truth is actually pretty good and I did enjoy it but honestly it will mostly only appeal to the hardcore Stargate: SG-1 fans. There is just WAY too much that is downright confusing to the casual fan. I actually would give it a higher score if it were less confusing because as far as straight-to-video fimls go, this one is about as good as it gets. I have all confidence that a diehard Stargate: SG-1 or Atlantis fan will be THRILLED with this film so if you are a fan then Stargate: The Ark of Truth will be a much welcomed addition to your collection.




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