Rewatch: The Ark

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

On a distant moon, Sheppard, McKay, Ronon Dex and Teyla find an elaborate subterranean base. The technology is anything but up to date and the base seems to be abandoned, until McKay decides to restore power. When he does so, a scientist materializes and it would seem that he had developed a means of using transporter technology to store a person's essence. The technology was developed to save as many of their people as possible from the Wraith culling and there are several thousand of them in stasis. As the decrepit station begins to fail, Teyla is pulled into stasis by one of the surviving scientists forcing Sheppard to risk his own life to save all of them. [Poll #1848954]

Comments

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

"Just one more" John says. *shivers* Those sound like famous last words to me.

Why does Rodney have a white thing over his head, under the space suit? John doesn't have it. Does anyone know what the function would be? Keep sweat off the face, maybe?

Anyway, to go back a little - it was an intriguing start to the episode. With John in a space suit and fighting the controls of a vehicle obviously not a puddle jumper, I thought we were getting a flashback, at first.

Then we found out it was a flash-forward. Our next scene is 8 hours in the past, and John and Rodney are exploring a hollowed out moon.

A conversation goes on over internal radio between John, Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon - it was kind of cool hearing it, without seeing expressions. I was impressed with the emotion in everyone's voice - it was clear without being overdone.

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

I haven't been re-watching along with you guys, but I just had to drop in to say that this is one of my favorite, underrated episodes. Hard to say why--I'll have to go watch it again! All I can say is that is made an impression on me and that I loved the Team interaction even when the team was split apart!

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

Turns out the hollowed out moon was home to a people who stored themselves using a kind of Wraith technology. I'm not quite sure why they thought it would save them for all time. Saving their civilization was a noble goal, and I don't argue that effort at all. But Jameson said something about how they'd be free of the Wraith, forever. I'm not sure why he'd believe that. They must have the same history as every other planet in the galaxy, and know that the Wraith cull in cycles.

Also, I'm with Ronon, I think Jameson wanted to save himself. Maybe he even wanted to be the power of the new world, since most of the government was in the second pod.

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten so much of this episode. I'd forgotten that another puddlejumper made it to the moon before it was too late. The shuttle is lasting a lot longer than I thought it would, too. It takes a long time to cut through a door, but Sheppard is almost done when Jameson opens it.

Jameson forces everyone's hand, and puts Teyla in the storage unit, along with himself - forcing Sheppard to come up with a way to save the souls stored in the device.

Of course, Sheppard does. In a very spectacular way. I'm looking forward to seeing the very end of this episode, as I don't remember it at all.

Oo, Teyla in the infirmary - but fine - and Jameson dead. I won't shed any tears for him.

I understand where he was coming from, and I think I was wrong about him in my last comment - he really did just want the survival of his people. Still, I can't like him, as he put our team's lives at risk, especially Teyla.

Which was a tend of his people - all two that we met. The first man killed himself in a way guaranteed to put everyone at risk, possibly killing everyone. So, while I feel for his grief, I don't have much sympathy for him either.

I think it was a trend for more than just those two, considering what the people in power did to save just a few. Again, I understand their motives, but their methods...*shudder*

Comment A

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

[So, this week, I actually didn't go hog-wild. I just decided to enjoy the episode, especially because of the visuals. I also thought I'd wait until it was over, as I didn't have that much.]

This was a wild roller-coaster of an episode with a very cinematic quality to it. Probably because of the retro space shuttle and the heroics of the crew, especially our manly-man Rodney and space cowboy John. Yee-haw!

I giggled at Rodney's comment about his curiosity getting the better of him re Christmas presents and pinatas. ::ponders:: Hey, I've only encountered two pinatas in all the years (like my entire life) in Toronto.

The music was appropriately quizzical as we followed our intrepid explorers into the station. Poor John. "It's not our job to satisfy your curiosity." I'm sure Rodney doesn't agree. Aren't Atlantis and Pegasus there for just that reason?

Okay, once again we have a totally ridiculous computer joke from Rodney. [The last time it was the DOS groaner on the Hive ship.] Why would you even mention a "Mac"? Writing fail.

John's oops moment with his foot on the storage device is dorkily endearing.

Uh-oh. Both Herick and Jamus are under the misconception that the Wraith are gone, for all time. And our boys don't tell them the truth?

Oh, dear. Herick's just doomed the shuttle and station. I didn't realize that nearly all of the air was vented where John and Ronon were ... and John still managed to walk??? OTOH, it's also interesting to see that even stoic John is disturbed by the way Ronon just whacked his shoulder back into its socket. Yuck.

I love the pact between our two macho guys, John and Ronon. No waiting for a meaningless (burning up in the atmosphere) death for them. Why not make it ... interesting.

Poor Rodney and cracks in windows (hello, Grace Under Pressure). He's lucky he was wearing his suit and got his helmet on just in time.

More fabulous catastrophic dialogue between Rodney and John.

Rodney: True. Alright. I'm gonna take a look around – see if I can figure out a way to seal the compartments between us. I figure it would be nice if we were all together as we burn up.

John (reprovingly): McKay.

Rodney: I'm sorry. I mean, as we get rescued. I always get those two confused. (He looks around as he works out which way to go.) Alright.

Another terrific bit of Rodney playing along with Teyla who is reassuring Jamus that the storage device can be saved as well. And this is after he's being doing all of the heavy hatch closings. What a guy!

Yay for the rescue 'jumper. Aww, when Evan relieved Rodney and told him to head back to the 'jumper, that was so sweet for Rodney to refuse to leave, echoing the Sheppard ethic: "no, we don't leave our people behind".

Comment B

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

And we have another crackpot on board. Echoes of Poisoning the Well ("five generations") and The Tower (obliquely, because of sacrificing their people) and even The Long Goodbye (the hatred that overrides logic and reason to its bitter end). But what these people did (the scientists, eh?) was worse than what happened with the Hoffans. Because here only 1,000 were rescued while hundreds of thousands were massacred as collateral damage in trying to eliminate the Wraith. There's also an echo from Sateda, when Ronon tells Malena that he's arranged transport for her on Kell's evacuating vessel.

Jamus is sneaky and has obviously picked up on John's leave-noone-behind philosophy.

I love Rodney reiterating John's claim that he can fly anything. But, whoa. Interesting to see that Evan agrees with Rodney. But Ronon thinks John can do it. John's confident enough to bet a week's wages with Rodney. Good to see that they're finding real life applications for their competitiveness, now that THAT game is not available.

When everyone except for John is in the 'jumper, it's cute to see Rodney pressing John to see if he has anything else he wants to say. What, Rodney? Like the other times he's gone on suicide missions?

Naturally, nothing goes smoothly when John can't free the shuttle from the moon, 'cuz the bolts won't fire. So he's along for a fiery ride ... until the moon finally disintegrates. The visuals were really fabulous for this one. Of course, John brings the shuttle down in a ::shudders:: controlled glide to the best of his ability. He semi knocks himself out. But will someone tell me WHY he removed his helmet. Was there any air in the cockpit?

Aww, cute coda with John visiting Teyla in the infirmary. Elizabeth is also there. So Carson says there were people who experienced some memory loss while in storage. I'm wondering if going mentally unhinged was also a side-effect, considering what both Herick and Jamus did.

I'm really surprised to hear Teyla say that they would have done the same thing. John's indignant to hear that. I agree. It's one thing to be ruthless and brutal with people who actually DO harm you and yours (hello, Genii?), but our people had done nothing to deserve being threatened. And there's some banter at the end, though Rodney's kinda getting the pointy end of it (in absentia). He so does not deserve it, because I thought he was a very brave and manly little toaster!

Audio Commentary was with Martin Wood (Director and Supervising Producer) and Mark Savela (Visual Effects Supervisor). I'm basically ignoring what they're talking about, because it's mostly about the visual techniques involved (even though I was very impressed). But around 15:35 there's a hilarious oops. On the right side of the screen, near Herick's hand, a film crew member left behind a Snickers bar and a water bottle.

I did learn how funny (well, I don't think Joe F thought so) it was to shoot the scenes of John being all shook-up in the cockpit. Martin Wood was squeezed into a space that shouldn't hold two bodies with a hand-held camera in one shaking hand, while he was shaking Joe's body with his other hand. Well, considering that we've become so accustomed to seeing our people flying around with inertial dampeners engaged, it was fun to experience a jarring old-school space shuttle reentry.

[that-which.livejournal.com]

They are really unsympathetic characters, and I thought they wrote Teyla's response dreadfully - seriously, she didn't go all wooby about the wraith getting the people from the planet that fed their prisoners to the wraith, how is she gushing with compassionate zen for this guy, who fed them an entire world? OTOH, the choice the scientist made wasn't really all that different from the deal Ronon tried to cut to get his wife away from Sateda, was it?

Closing thoughts:

[helenkacan.livejournal.com]

What kind of leadership sacrifices hundreds of thousands of its own inhabitants (basically its ENTIRE population) in order to save two thousand? Those who made that decision were all insane IMO.

How short-sighted is the leadership if it believes that nuclear strikes destroying its own world will eliminate the threat of the Wraith ... for ALL time? This is yet another indicator that too many worlds were isolationist in nature. What? Did they think that, if they didn't associate with anyone else, the Wraith would simply ignore them? I'm sure even Rodney would agree that having a vigorous discussion with one's peers will lead to more options as well as a solution.

I think you already know how I feel. But, let's make it worse.

I presumed Herick was a labourer on the space station or moon itself. He says he devoted his entire life to getting it built (and agreeing to be its first recalled custodian) in exchange for his family being stored in the second device. We have no reason to believe Jamus at all. The most important thing was to get the station built and for him and the people he considered valuable (such as the poet he mentioned) to survive. So we already get the impression that he followed an obsessive ideology. The only way he could guarantee that was to make sure he was on the first shuttle. But why not load both devices on the single shuttle? Did he have NO idea of the panic and riots that would erupt once people realized that the Wraith were coming but that some people had escaped? And wasn't it foolhardy of him to arrange for Herick to be reactivated first? Wouldn't Herick be aware immediately that the second shuttle with the storage device (and his family) was missing? Ack – logic fail.

Can we get back to short-sighted – and extremely lazy? I've mentioned this more than once – that worlds targeted by the Wraith came to some dreadful decisions. How many worlds acted in similar scientific zeal with their focus on only one goal, one which may have been chosen generations ago? And each successive generation that should have shown more insight merely proceeded along the same path, probably in some misguided sense of honouring their ancestors.

How could any society believe that a destroyed world could be made to flourish again with only 2,000 people. If we estimate that there may have been 400 children (at most, if each device held 200), can you imagine how grotesque it would have been for them as they grew up on this world, knowing that their fate ... their duty was to reproduce. Those decisions would probably not have been left to chance either. Each girl and boy would have been given a schedule, I'm sure. I've read enough post-apocalyptic fic to know how grim it could be, especially for women. Also, it's equally horrifying to realize that Jamus and his followers caused far more death and destruction than ONE Wraith culling would have. Sure, ::rolls eyes:: just go ahead and destroy your world. And then expect a pat on the back for a job well done. Ugh.

I find it odd that nobody started a rebellion. Though, with isolationist policies, it would be difficult to get the word out. And, with wraith worshippers in high (and low) places, one could never know when one would be turned in. Still ::shudders:: it's very unpalatable.

The other thing that it is vital to remember IMO is that these worlds were doing this BEFORE John awoke the local Wraith hive prematurely. So it's hypocritical to conduct any type of inquisition whose focus is on the Lanteans without first examining each world's culpability. Let's call it cast-the-first-stone philosophy.

Anyway, considering that we've been doing this for more than one year, I just wanted to thank twinsarein for starting this rewatch. I'm having an incredible time dissecting each episode. ::giggles:: As if you couldn't tell! And, as much as I will always remain a fan of SGA, it doesn't hurt to be coolly analytical about how the show was put together as well as consider where TPTB made excellent decisions and where they (as Rodney might say) were wrong, wrong, oh-we-are-so-screwed-wrong.

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

the choice the scientist made wasn't really all that different from the deal Ronon tried to cut to get his wife away from Sateda, was it?

Nope. I'd say it was pretty much the same. When it failed, though, Ronon focused his rage on where it belonged - with the Wraith. The scientist tried to kill himself in a way guaranteed to take everyone with him (except for the resourcefulness of our team). Instead to focusing his rage on the Wraith for being the true enemy, or even Jameson for making the decision, he included everyone in his wrath. That's why I don't have much sympathy for him.