Review of Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008) by Matthew B — 30 Mar 2008

I thought it was going to suck more, as it was straight-to-DVD, and the show was cancelled beforehand (:'(), so it had a lot against it. The premise was extremely out there (a box, or "ark" that can make anyone believe what you tell them aslong as its the truth), as the television program made no mention of it beforehand, and there was little intro to it; with the weapon that was used sometime near the finale of the show, it was atleast mentioned and hinted upon several times throughout the season and beforehand, so it was odd for the writers to create something so powerful and unknown to base a continuation of the series upon.

I don't know how exactly the ark decides what to tell those you show it to - for example, if you wanted to tell someone the sky is blue, how are you supposed to tell the ark to tell them that? It wasn't explained at all :(. Also didn't like how they used the Replicators, AGAIN, as ffs even "Atlantis" has them now! Wtfz! They were cool back when there were Asgard and stuff, but now they're just retarded and outdated, and I didn't like how they devoted a bunch of the movie on fighting them, as its all stuff I've seen before every-single-time that Replicators (non-human-form ones anyway) are-on-the-show; just the SG team and whomever's with them sitting there, firing off guns for hours until they're defeated. Not one bit exciting or entertaining :/. Oh, and added to that... Replicators burrowing into a guy and turning him into one of them (sorta)? Ghey. Why not just kill him? Stupid, stupid writing.

Also, DAMN THEM for trying to get Carter and Mitchell to be together! They've worked for nearly a decade on trying to make everyone feel Carter's and O'Neill's connection with one another, and they just throw all that work away to try and put her with the guy that ~replaces~ O'Neill?!?!? So, he gets his job (both show-wise and on the show as an actor) AND his woman? Damn him to Hell! Ben Browder's not even half as good as Richard Dean Anderson (might know him as "McGuyver" :P lol), either.

Anywho... It ended sorta anti-climactically for me,.

*SPOILERS*.

As Adria didn't even get to put up some measure of a fight :/; just pooof, no more powers, get dissipated and die :(. Not an ending for a villain that's been around for a season or two that's been kicking their ass :/. Oh well, they atleast ended the stupid Ori storyline, even if they had to bring back the *cough* retarded *cough* Replicators to do so... :(.

*/SPOILERS*.

Next DVD is supposed to be a time travelling one, which were always bad episodes on "SG-1", so not looking forward to that one... ALTHOUGH, it DOES apparently have Richard Dean Anderson back in it, so meh. Take what you can get, I suppose.

Camerawork was iffy all around, as it was in too tight for a few of the shots, and the landscape ones that weren't from actual places (ie: the CGI'ed and painted backgrounds / landscapes) were bad, and the backgrounds in one of the first scenes was HORRIBLE, as it was a painting and it was extremely close to the actors, so it was just painfully obvious that it was a painting and like 3 feet away from the closest actor to it :/; they could have literally reached out and touched a 'mountain' that was behind them. Bad. Bad.

The effects were okay; recycled from the show for almost all of it, with a few new ones here and there (like Adria's 'cloak' I would call it). Replicators still didn't look real, and in one scene where Carter's firing off her P90, they had added in the sound later rather than having her shoot off blanks like they usually do :/ Uber fake. Sure, you couldn't see the muzzle flash as only the end half of the gun was shown in the close up with her, but I knew, I knew the sound was added in. Damn them. lol. *NERD ALERT*. Blah. Hate that kind of stuff with a passion. Ships still looked cool.

Presentation was good, as Hell, its "Stargate", and the mythos (aslong as it stays in the Milkyway Galaxy, anyway... damn "Atlantis" presentation and such!) and presentation are always kick ass.

Writing was bad, like the above mentioned stuff, and some of the dialogue was great while others was barely passible to fill up the time to say it all. The film felt like a rush job to me, which shouldn't be true as they started to work on it almost immediately after "SG-1" had ended :/. Damn them.

Anywho, if you've watched "Stargate: SG-1" for atleast one season, you will probably like this, unless you watched only episodes from the first season, then you won't know who most of the people are or what is going on :/. This 'new' "SG-1" still feels like 'Farsgate: SG-1-scape' to me :/ (as Ben Browder and Claudia Black, two main characters from "Farscape" came onto "Stargate: SG-1" to be main characters... and Ben Browder essentially plays his characters the exactly the same between the two shows :/:().