Introduction
The first direct-to-DVD movie to be released after the cancellation of Stargate SG-1 is Stargate: The Ark of Truth. This movie, written and directed by Robert C. Cooper, will close the Ori story arc that was started in Season Nine. MGM is aiming for a fall of 2007 release.
Production Details
According to the British Columbia Film Commission, The Ark of Truth will be filming from April 17 to May 8.
ARK OF TRUTH, THE
Kawoosh Productions DTV I Inc.
Director: Robert Cooper
Exec. Prod: Brad Wright, Robert Cooper
Prod: N. John Smith
DOP: Peter Woeste
PD: James Robbins
PM: George Horie
PC: David Magee
LM: Lorne Davidson
ALM: Dominic Main
SPFX Coord::
Wray Douglas
Casting: Sean Cossey
Sched: Apr 17/07 – May 08/07
All of Season Ten’s main cast will be returning to reprise their roles. Additionally, it is anticipated that Tim Guinee (Tomin), Greg Anderson (Prior), and Morena Baccarin (Adria) will also be returning, but there were some scheduling concerns brought up by Baccarin in a recent interview with The Scifi World, “We’re trying to work that out right now. I am shooting a tv series at the same time (called Heartland).” Heartland is being filmed in Los Angeles and will be making its premiere on TNT in June.
The actual budget for this movie has not been revealed, but there is some indication when its companion movie, Stargate: Continuum, was referred to in a Reuters press release as “MGM’s $6 million-$7 million extension of the long-running sci-fi series Stargate.”
With a larger budget than episodic television, the movie will feature a new soundtrack composed by Joel Goldsmith. In an interview conducted with GateWorld in November 2006, Goldsmith stated, “As a matter of fact, just last night Brad [Wright] and I were talking about how we’re going to work live orchestra into the movies. And we were just discussing that and how, logistically, we were going to do that. Because there is a little more budget on that. So we can do it.”
Plot Details
Robert C. Cooper said the following in an MGM video interview from December 2006:
And now I feel like I’ve really put a lot into Season Nine and Ten, the whole Ori storyline, and the story between Vala and her daughter Adria — and Tomin — and the new characters Mitchell and Vala. I wanted to participate in how that all resolved, and I had an idea for how that was going to resolve and had originally intended, as I’ve said, for that to be kind of arced out over a full season, in Season Eleven, but now it’s going to be kind of condensed into a very exciting two hours.
Some fans who attended the Vancouver Creation Con in March said that Cooper read a few pages from the script for the movie that were most likely from the movie’s opening scene. Similar to Stargate Atlantis pilot “Rising”, the scene is set millions of years ago and shows some Alterans hiding the Ark of Truth before fleeing from their galaxy from the Ori to find a new home in the Milky Way.
Somehow, Daniel Jackson discovers the existence of the Ark and his team goes in search for it, but comes up empty-handed. In the meantime, Vala’s husband Tomin surrenders to them at Dakara and volunteers to lead the team to the underground resistence and to a place called “Ortus Mallum”, most likely the place where the Altera and Ori split and the Altera hid the Ark. They decide that the Ark is in the Ori’s home galaxy and plan to take Odyssey there. Not knowing if the Ori are truly dead, they realize that their mission into the enemy’s territory to stop another wave of Ori warships could be very short and accomplish nothing. Adding to the trouble is IOA representative James Merek who believes that Tomin is not telling the truth.
The Ark of Truth is a valuable artifact, one that Daniel believes will stop the Ori army from furthering their invasion of the Milky Way and enlighten all that the Ori weren’t everything that their worshippers were told they were. It was the hope of Fannis, one of the members of the underground resistence met by Daniel and Vala in the Ori’s galaxy (“Avalon” and “Origin”), that eventually Daniel and Vala would return to his home galaxy and tell the truth about the Ori. Before his death, he said, “If I can help you speak the reality of our existence to your people, maybe one day in turn, you will spread that word back here. Harrid, Sallis, and I, all those who believe as we do, have known for some time that we may give our lives for our cause. We can only hope one day the truth comes to bear as a result.”