Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

On March 13^th of 2007, one of the most beloved sci-fi series created came to a saddening end, with the 28^th top cult show ever made being cancelled and not renewed for an 11^th season. However, that was not the end of the cult series and on April 9, a continuation of it came in the form of a DVD movie that neatly wraps up the Ori Arc that began in Season 9 and continued on through to Season 10, where the series ended, though the finale episode dealt less with Ori and focussed more on the individual characters. This DVD movie is Stargate SG1: Ark of Truth which follows the SG1 team as they travel to the Ori Galaxy to find a long lost weapon that the Ancients had developed as a final resort to combat the Ori threat but did not use because they felt that the Ori followers should be allowed to believe in whatever they choose to, even if it’s a lie. To get a proper understanding of the movie, one truly must have seen Seasons 9 and 10 of Stargate SG1, if not the rest of the series to understand it, as Ark of Truth is essentially a two hour long season finale and while it does explain some aspects of the series, it doesn’t go to the degree it needs to without needing your friend to ask you what the hell is going on. So to begin, I shall attempt to explain the plot of the Stargate Series and its myths as best and promptly as I can.
Stargate SG1 follows SG1, a secret team consisting of members from the US Air Force who travel to other planets via the Stargate, a round circular portal that establishes a wormhole to other stargates dotted around the galaxy, in a bid to find new and advanced technology to enhance our own. The first 8 seasons of the series dealt with the Goa’uld, a parasitic alien race that takes over human hosts and ruled a vast empire that stretched across the galaxy and enslaved humans known as Jaffa who acted as hosts to the Goa’uld larvae. During that time, SG1 also encountered the Replicators, a race of non-sentient beings who replicate themselves (hence the name) to produce more of themselves and infest technology such as spaceships and control them. These small self reproducing robots were so powerful that they were able to bring the Asgard, one of the most advanced alien races to their knees. The first eight seasons also explored the concept of ascension and how the Ancients escaped extinction by ascending to a higher plane of existence. At the end of season 8, the Goa’uld Empire had been overthrown, the Jaffa liberated and the Replicators destroyed, peace in the galaxy seemed to be just on the horizon. However, before peace could settle, a new threat emerged in the from of the Ori, ascended beings in another galaxy that draw their power from the masses of followers who believe in them in the hopes that it will give them ascension, which all turns out to be a false promise. At the end of season 9, a fully operating supergate that is was constructed by the Ori that allowed for an incursion of the Ori fleet. During Season 9, in a bid to destroy the construction of an earlier supergate, Vala Mal Doran was accidentally sent through the blackhole that was used to power the supergate and ended up in the Ori galaxy, where she met Tomin, a crippled devout Ori follower who finds Vala in the middle of a field and takes her to his home village where they get married. However, Vala turns out to have been impregnated by the Ori, the child is born upon Vala’s return to the Milky Way galaxy following the Ori incursion through the supergate. The child is named Adria and possesses the knowledge and powers of the Ori and leads the Ori fleet in the Milky Way in a race against SG1 in search of the sangraal, an Ancient weapon devised that was capable of destroying Ascended beings such as the Ori or the Ancients (who were the enemies of the Ori). In Season 10, the sangraal is found and completed and used against the Ori, destroying them all completely, only just to have Adria ascend and assume all of the power of the Ori, leaving her as probably the most powerful being in the galaxy.

The film opens millions of years in the past and in another galaxy, where a group of Alterans (Ancients) discuss whether or not to use the Ark of Truth, which would have converted the Ori followers into seeing it for what Origin really is: a religion that does not provide its followers with the promised ascension they devote themselves for. After heated debate, it is decided that they will not use the arc.
Skip to the current day, events after end of the series (as evidenced by the silver streak along Teal’c’s hair) and SG1 is at the ruins of Dakara, which was once the capital of the Free Jaffa Nation after they were liberated from the Goa’uld but was soon leveled by Adria and her mothership. There, Daniel, Vala and Teal’c discover what appears to be an ark but are unable to open it due to it being sealed shut. Before long, Cameron and Samantha are attacked outside by Ori forces, leaving them with no option but to retreat inside to where Daniel, Vala and Teal’c were. They soon surrender after the commander of the Ori force, who happens to be Tomin, promises to spare their lives if they did so. SG1 proceeds to goad the accompanying Prior (an Ori priest that wields Ori powers to a certain degree) to open the ark. After they do so, the ark turns out to be nothing more than a chest containing old scrolls. Following this, the Prior orders SG1 to be killed, to which Tomin disagrees and enter into a scuffle, to which Cameron uses as a distraction to take an Ori’s staff weapon and kill the prior, whose powers had been disabled by an anti-Prior device. Seeing that the Priors and Ori for what they really are, Tomin abandons his post and joins Stargate Command on Earth, where he reveals that the ark they seek may still be residing in the Ori galaxy. And so SG1 sets off in their ship the Odyssey through the supergate the Ori constructed. On board along with SG1 is Tomin and James Marrick, a representative of the IOA (the International Oversight Advisory), the civilian body that provides funding and oversight of Stargate Command and the Stargate program and former CIA black-ops operative. Once in the Ori galaxy, they find out from an Ori-Resistance member that the ark is on Celestis, the homeworld of the Ori.
When they do arrive on Celestis, SG1 not only has difficulty locating the Ark of Truth but their mission is also hampered when Marrick accesses the Asgard Core aboard the Odyssey to create a replicator, as a means to destroy the Ori fleet believed to be preparing to enter the Milky Way. The replicator however escapes and wreaks havoc in the ship.

As you would expect, Ark of Truth follows in the tradition of the Stargate SG1 series and uses the regular cast and maintains the mythos that made the series so popular and provides a perfect conclusion to the Ori Arc of the series. As you would also expect of a DVD movie, it also has a much lager budget than that of a regular episode and given the film is two hours long, would require a larger budget. And with the bigger budget, Ark of Truth does look prettier and sounds better than the original series, though it seems that much of the seven million was used on aerial landscape shots that dominate the movie. Nonetheless the money seems to have been put to good use, as everything appears and sounds more refined and detailed. The Ori ships, the Odyssey, the settings, the ripples in the active wormhole of the supergate all carry more depth and realism than they did in the series. Even the sounds have been improved, with Ori staffweapons and the guns sounding more powerful. One can actually feel the roar of the Odyssey engines roar and the impact of the beam from the Ori motherships.
Apart from the amazing story and the star battles, many Stagate fans watch the show for the stunning firefights they manage to choreograph and Ark of Truth is no exception. It still has the gun battles we have grown to love and improved upon it, with the use of a swooping camera that feels as though the battle has been brought to us. A complaint though is that there just wasn’t the amount of gun battles as I had expected. Not that it ruins the film mind you, but would have been nice to have more of a good thing.

Janson Says: Though Stargate SG1 may have ended; the spirit lives on in a series of DVD movies, the first of which is this. Ark of Truth continues on the series but at the same time puts a fine and fitting end to the Ori Arc of the series. Using the same strong formula that we have loved the series for, Ark of Truth keeps the ideals of the series alive but at the same time adding its own touch that makes it something new. It is a lovely piece that every Stargate fan needs to watch and would be a new experience to those who don’t know the difference between a Goa’uld and a Tok’ra which Im sure they will thoroughly enjoy. And now, all we do is wait for Stargate: Continuum to come.

Imagine getting off a plane at a normal international airport after spending some time abroad. You’re walking through the terminal, thinking about seeing your wife again, showing your son how the souvenir you bought him works. Before you make it to the luggage carousel, a security guard asks you to step out of the crowd, telling you that there is an emergency message for you. Worrying that something may have happened to your family, you obligingly follow, but none of your questions are being answered. As soon as you step through a door, a hood is slipped over your head, your mouth is gagged and your hands and feet become bound. You’re taken to a car and driven to some place. You’re made to get out and made to walk up some steps and is then seated. You hear a rumbling noise that distinctively belongs to a plane’s engines. Once you land and is driven by car somewhere, you are taken out, the hood removed and kicked into a tiny cell where there is barely enough room to lie down straight. Your hands are chained, clothes removed and replaced with drab grey prison overalls. You are unable to sleep in your hard dark dirty cell because of all the thoughts that are running through your mind. Thoughts of your family. Thoughts of your loved ones. Thoughts of your friends back home. Thoughts of your darling wife who must be worried sick about you. Thoughts about what could happen to you. When you wake up, you are brusquely dragged out of your cell, your prison clothes are sheared off and forced to sit naked on a cold metal chair. A man circles around you, carrying a lit cigarette and asks you questions, questions about a man you have never heard of, questions about where you have been and who you have met, questions about bombs and terrorist attacks. You ask to see a lawyer, ask to know what is going on. Instead he hits you hard across the face, sending you off from your chair. You are dragged into your cell naked and locked in, with no blankets or anything to cover yourself up from the harsh cold night. The next time you are dragged out, you are asked some more questions and when you are unable to answer, your chair suddenly falls backwards and soaked cloth is draped over your face, and blisteringly cold water is poured over it, making it feel as though you are drowning. The next time, your mouth is gagged so you won’t scream as three hundred kilovolts are sent through your body. This is the secret practice known as extraordinary rendition, the moving of suspected terrorists by the CIA to secret “Black Prisons” outside the United States where the suspects will have no rights and will be subject to so-called “harsh interrogation techniques” to extract what information the supposed terrorists are supposed to have. This secret practice is the focus of Gavin Hood’s new film Rendition, and the effects it has on those involved.

Rendition opens with a suicide bombing in a crowded square in a North African country killing 19, including a CIA case worker who was “just wrong place, wrong time”. To find those responsible, Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep) orders the extraordinary rendition of one Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian born chemical engineer travelling from South Africa back to his home in Chicago, on the basis that he supposedly received a phone call from a known terrorist. As soon as he lands, he is taken by agents and moved, his luggage taken, his name removed from the arrivals list. Before long, he finds himself arriving in some the country where the bombing took place and being tortured for information by Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), the target of the attack. Overseeing the interrogation is rookie analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was in the bombing and was sitting next to the CIA case worker when it occurred. The harsh nature of the interrogation is not something he signed up for. On the other side of the world is Isabella Fields El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), the pregnant wife of Anwar El-Ibrahimi, waiting for him with their son at the airport terminal waiting for him to arrive from South Africa. When he doesn’t, she calls upon old college friend Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard), an aide to Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin) to investigate and help find her husband.

Rendition is one of many films that examines life post September 11 and takes a look at an often overlooked subject: the price of freedom. Is the price too much? Is the torturing one man to save a thousand justified? Though the answer isn’t explicitly given, allowing us to come to our own conclusions, it does make it very clear that torture is not right. It also examines the reasons behind such attacks that would bring countries such as the United States to conduct themselves in such a way.

This film is beautiful. From the way it is written, to the way it looks, to the way it sounds, to the way it feels. All of it is beautiful. All of it puts a weight on your heart and makes you feel as the characters feel. You will feel the pain Anwar El-Ibrahimi feels when being water boarded. You will feel the conflict of morals Douglas Freeman feels while watching. You will feel the worry as Isabel El-Ibrahimi fears the worst for her husband. All of this is possible by the superb acting that the entire casts put in, especially Meryl Streep as the cold hearted Corrine Whitman, who will and does do anything to maintain national security. But the star of the movie is Omar Metwally as Anwar El-Ibrahimi, whose performance was most convincing and probably had the toughest role in the film. The scenes that affected me the most and nearly bought me to tears were scenes that involved him. He was true to the role and never took it too over the top, which may have made the film look cartoonish and unrealistic. The realism of the film is another of the film’s strongest aspects, next to the acting. Arabic is spoken when appropriate, and not just replaced with English so that people may understand and not have to read subtitles. The torture is based on real torture techniques and does not take anything from the Saw franchise. The extremists are not portrayed as radicals that simply enjoy death and destruction, and actually do have a cause to fight for.

In a realistic and convincing film that touches upon us on so many levels, from the emotional to the ideological level, Rendition opens our eyes to real events that are happening behind the news reports. People are still tortured for information. People are forcibly taken and held without charge or legal representation. It makes us question and think about the world around us in a new and horrifying new way. Though this film is not suited for the young, it is one that those who are mature enough to understand the growing post 9/11 world around them and is one they must watch. Strikingly made, it strikes at the heart of all us, hitting us where it hurts the most: our sense of morals. Though it was not nominated for an Academy Award, it is one that seems to be left out for ulterior motives, for it is truly deserving of winning. If there was anything that was truly deserving of a perfect score, this is it.

This is one of the more interesting sites I’ve been to. http://post-reviews.blogspot.com reviews not music, not movies, not games but other websites. When I found this, I was like “a website reviewing websites…” but the more I read on, the more interesting I found this website to be. Not only does vampirexxx (the writer) describe the website (which includes a nifty screenshot of the site being reviewed), it also provides an analysis of the writer of the site, giving us a snapshot of their personalities and ideals which is different to other reviews which is often just a cold hard look at what’s in front of them and not at the soft parts behind it. Not only that, vampirexxx gives tips and advice on how to make the website better, such as “if only she can move the adsense to the top or in the sidebar to get more exposure”, which are measures that all bloggers, such as myself, can adopt on their on website.

The layout used for this site is very effective, with the red stars at the top giving a sense of Hollywood and movies being reviewed, though the reviews here are of websites, not films or actors. The dark colour of the page suits the writer well, and does bring out the white text of the blog stand out but not to the extent that it blinds the reader. The site does have a number of ads and objects on the sides, they do not appeared cluttered and are perfectly in line and does not detract the focus from the centre where all the action is and reviews are. The site also includes a star ranking system which allows readers of the site to review the review of the website vampirexxx is reviewing. Did that make sense? An aspect of the site I find questionable is vampirexxx’s use of internet slang such as LOL in his reviews, which Im not sure is appropriate, though in this modern age of blogs, internet and technology, who is to say what is appropriate or not.

Janson Says: A fantastic site that gives an in-depth look at other websites and provides readers with an idea of what’s out there in the final frontier: the big wide expanse of the wide world of the web. Now excuse me while I take a ride through Ms Pink. The review provided by vampirexxx was simply too interesting to ignore.