I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely Fantastic

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I saw several episodes of "Stargate SG-1", but not to the point where you could call me a fan. Still, I really liked what I saw so I could tell it was a great show. I am sad to say that I didn't like this as much as most people did. I still liked it fine! The main problem was that a lot of it did feel like just a long episode of the show. Stop doing that! Now, it doesn't help that I didn't follow the seasons or anything. I would have understood a lot more to see the plot threads resolved. Then again, I watched the "Star Trek" movies with no problems like that.This was still fun and it really gets good in the last third. What's great is that we have very good practical effects and unique character designs. I talk about character designs a lot in animated things, but you can do it in live-action works with makeup effects. This didn't seem to have too much or too little. I admit some of the effects weren't that good, but for the most part, it was enjoyable. It's mostly a nice looking film. The music in this was amazing too and I'm glad it so consistently epic! ***

So clearly I liked the movie. I gave it an 8/10. Was it really an 8? Probably not, but being a fan of the series I felt that I could not give it any lower. Also, while it won't win any awards, I try to give things ratings for what they were trying to be. This was not trying to be an award winning movie and if you think it should be, from the onset you will probably be disappointed (and don't even think of trying to see it without watching at least seasons 7-10 of the show. You will be lost).That said, does anyone else hate Vala? Nothing against Claudia Black but Vala is the one reason I wanted to stop watching the show. She is the classic "let me be an overall impatient idiot who should be shot and save the team the trouble of her antics" character. Sure Jack O'Neill had his moments but they were offset buy humor and actual redeemable moments. Vala is just an idiot. Can they play out the stealing/treasure of her past in any more lame jokes? She is so out of place they may as well use yet another Farscape actor.Bottom Line: Fine movie, if you go in expecting a made-for-DVD movie, and Vala is annoying as ever (but less so if you make it past the first 20 min of the movie).

'Stargate: The Ark of Truth' closes the story left open after the series 'Stargate SG-1' was cancelled. What we must bear in mind however is that the story it closes only began in SG-1's ninth season, and only lasted 40 episodes. The main storyline of 'Stargate SG-1' was already closed at the end of Season 8, after 174 episodes; and I personally would have preferred if the show had ended there. The last two seasons of SG-1 suffered a severe dip in quality that runs straight through into 'The Ark of Truth'.The film makes absolutely no compromise for new viewers, so I will provide a brief backdrop (although even this will be insufficient to understand the film fully). The Ori are beings living on a higher plane of reality posing as Gods, and the more people who worship them as such, the more powerful they become. A set of similar beings, known as the Alterans (or Ancients) are the only defence against the Ori taking over the Milky Way. However, neither beings are able to directly interfere with physical reality, and hence the Ori use their religion, "Origin", to have their bidding done by humans. A huge army of followers has created a "Supergate", a teleportation device, that they will use to send a fleet of starships and troops to Earth - where they will convert its inhabitants to "Origin" by force. SG-1 is the primary five-strong team taking orders from the U.S. Government to counter these inter-galactic threats.There was a lot that could have been done with a Stargate film - something that hasn't been seen since 1994 - and the fans of the TV show were certainly expecting a lot. This is perhaps why the film begins so badly – it's like they couldn't think of anything good enough to match the anticipation, so for safety they picked something completely nondescript. That is, a full 2 minutes of mountains; and literally nothing to go with the mountains other than music. I do not exaggerate - there aren't even titles or credits. It's like it's trying to be the epic introduction to 'The Two Towers' (Peter Jackson, 2002) - which begins by gliding through the snowy peaks of a fantasy land - but lacking the brevity, grace, grandeur and beauty. The only thing epic about 'Ark's beginning is the anticlimax.The ultimate downfall of the film is encapsulated in these first 2 minutes: the production team behind 'Stargate SG-1' had spent ten years making 42-minute episodes - they just didn't know how to handle the scale of something feature-length. The whole film feels like an early Season 10 episode with 60 minutes of padding, as exemplified by these opening fly-bys. Why mountains? As the plot reveals, the mountains have nothing to do with anything. I can easily imagine a brainstorming session the creative team went through, where someone suddenly shouted, "Mountains! Mountains are epic! Just look at the start of The Two Towers!". Any entertainment production needs to grab you from the outset, and 'Ark' crucially fails to do this.What is perhaps most annoying about the introduction, besides its sheer tedium, is that Joel Goldsmith did indeed provide the film with a grandiose score, and it completely fails to make use of it. In the overture, a subtle, multi-instrumental build-up leads to the familiar but deeper and richer Stargate theme tune which, as anyone who has heard it will know, has a very clear "moment of climax". Indeed, in every Stargate production made to date, except one or two early episodes, this climactic musical note signalled the moment for the display of the title. 'Ark' ignores this and continues flying past its unimpressive selection of mountains.Immediately following the introduction we have a short discussion between some Alterans, set millions of years ago when they were human in form. They decide that they cannot use the eponymous 'Ark' as a weapon against the Ori as it is too unethical. Immediately we skip to the present, and SG-1 is searching for the Ark to use as a weapon against the Ori. Have I missed something, or has Stargate quite simply thrown away the very thing that made it stand out from the crowd of sci-fi productions; i.e. philosophically and ethically troubled protagonists? This notion is dealt with very lightly; the main character throws some lines at the screen a few times about how the use of the Ark is the better of two evils, or that they are in desperate times, but this pales in comparison to the Season 5 episode where he literally gave his life to save a civilisation. Why the change? The answer is simple: the writers couldn't think of a better solution to the Ori threat, and so they needed their characters to be okay with it.Because ultimately, what could the solution have been? The show had spent 2 years reiterating that the Ori were a force impossible to reckon with, that their technology was superior to Earth's by light-years, and that if Earth ever came into any kind of combat with them they'd be frazzled before they could don their uniforms: this overbearing power was a necessity both to create tension and also to make the Ori an even more potent foe than the mega-enemies that had just been defeated at the end of Season 8. So when Season 10 concluded, and the Ori were on the brink of invading Earth, what could the solution have been? War would have been out of the question, 40 episodes had demonstrated that negotiation or reason was impossible – we were doomed. Enter the Ark. It is a Deus Ex Machina solution of dizzying proportions, and a McGuffin that sends SG-1 on a padded hunt for 90 minutes, interrupted with improbable enemies. I would have appreciated more creativity than what is effectively looking for a device that has a button reading 'Click Here to Beat the Ori'.

Ark of Truth was a decent conclusion to season 10, but it was quite scatter-shot in the writing. I am a long time fan of SG1, but i felt cheated by this "movie".Why oh why bring back the relicaaatoooorsss, as Thor would say. When that scene played out when they were reveled, I sad to myself, OH NO...Please no more.The epic battle of Ancient/Ori just another light show like the " death of Anubus" Cookies and a kiss???? really??? Thought Carter and ONeall had hooked up by now. Jack should kick Cam's butt for that, but he was smart enough to stay away from this "mission"All in all, I really wish I had just rented this extended episode. I complain about movie ticket prices, yet i paid twice that amount for a DVD I will probably never watch again.