Terminator: Salvation Discuss/Grade <Spoilers>

And now you see exactly what turns Tim Burton on.

 

I think i just died a little inside.

 

Those scenes were cut to secure the PG-13 Rating. That was the scene where she removed her uniform top to treat the wound on her arm while Marcus looks for firewood. The MPAA told them if the scene was included they'd be rated R and it was removed by order of WB.

That entire plotline was cut due to negative fan reaction. Parts of it were included - her speaking to Marcus - but the reveal of her still being alive was cut when they decided against Skynet being controlled by her and a group of human/terminator hybrids.

 

I give it a C+ (slightly above average)

Its slightly better than T3, IMO, but no where near close to T1 or T2.

YMMV

 

Grade: -F
*sigh*

Where do I start? This movie could have been so much more. So, so much more. It's like they just thought what would be cool and then somehow hastily joined the thoughts with glue hoping to stick. I am so disappointed that I don't even want to comment further.

Stupid, stupid movie.

 

Then, my friend, I think you are in the odd...or everyone I've ever known is. (Which may be possible.) The Terminator was a classic long before they even considered a sequel, and helped cement Schwarzenegger's status as a bonafide star. The Terminator was one of those movies that everyone loved, and even Schwarzenegger used to say that they made T2 because both him and Cameron were sick of everyone asking them about it and if they'd ever make a sequel.

 

By the way, here's an interesting article from Chud about the Terminator: Salvation that might have been. I've always said the original ending was interesting and could have been great. It would have been a hell of a lot better than what we got. The studios and creatives should never...never...worry themselves over internet reaction. Hopefully the end of the Terminator franchise will at least have that positive effect.

http://chud.com/articles/articles/1...NT-WRONG-WITH-TERMINATOR-SALVATION/Page1.html

 

It's an interesting read. While I have yet to see the film, the material in that article does seem a helleuva more provocative and interesting than what was filmed, but then again I'll reserve judgment until I see the film this week.

However I think it's a tad premature to call this the "end" of the franchise just yet. It might still end up being successful enough to warrant a sequel. I think it's too early to tell yet.

 

If production and marketing cost as much as they're saying, it'll take James Cameron himself to resurrect the franchise.

*crosses fingers and prays it's James Cameron himself who resurrects the franchise.*

 

Looks like the movie brought in $43 million this weekend, with $56.4 million in total if you include Thursday. It came in second place after Night at the Museum 2.

 

Yeah, definitely below estimates. Not a good sign.

 

Well, I thought it was great. The action setpieces kicked all kinds of ass, the Arnie final battle especially. We actually got to see Skynet for the first time, instead of one of its soldiers -awesome. Marcus was a great character. Connor was pretty cool (except for the masked crusader voice, ugh) and clearly frustrated that he had yet to rise to lead the humans to victory. Knowing what's supposed to happen must hugely suck when its a decade away from happening.

All the new model robots were very well done and the sfx were top shelf (and Arnie's deaging or outright cgi replacement were phenomenal, which is what I suspect actually happened, was the best use of the tech I've seen - the X-men examples simply suck ass in comparison). A-10s for the win, baby.

I have two beefs with what I saw, but nothing I'm really going to loose sleep over. One, having Marcus don Connor's skin would have been beyond cool and much better than the heart transplant in a sand storm we got. I hadn't heard any of the apparent leaks of the original ending, but I suspected something like that would happen sicne the two men already seem to look so much alike, it would be awesome, and the whole rusty rebar through the chest seemed pretty fatal to me.

Two, if Skynet had been informed by the T-X of T3 about the time travel its future self would carry out a) that should have been explicitly pointed out in the film, since it otherwise makes no sense for Skynet to waste resources on Kyle Reese b) it should have just killed Reese the first chance it got. Assuming Skynet has a binary hardon for timetravel, the only logical option, other than not to develop it at all, is to kill the kid who's going to grow up and use it to concieve your arch nemesis.

Forced to come up with some reason why Reese wasn't immediately executed, I have to wonder if Skynet either knows or strongly suspects that such a severe alteration to the already existing timeline might end up preventing its existence at all or ensuring its ultimate defeat.

If the end result of all the various timetravel episodes is the Skynet (of T4s present) getting bootstrapped into existence and it has no clue what will happen if it prevents the original time travel event, it has to play a very different game than simply killing Kyle or John outright. What exactly the end game of toying with Kyle and Connor at the end might have been, I can't really just pull out my ass on the fly, but perhaps it was something involving altering one or both as it did Marcus and, of course timetravel. Argh, I'm getting a headache.

Anyway, great movie, I thought. Hope they make the next two.

A

 

The movie is wasted potential, completely and utterly worthless.

 

So they edited it with a wood axe?



Well, I guess we cannot expect much from a director who calls himself "McG."

 

Yeah...im getting a little worried that T5 may now be in jeopardy. I think that this movie may crack $125m domestically and not much more. I think it cost almost $200m to make which and $75m IMO is a lot of money to try and make up overseas.

 

I would actually expect the foreign gross exceeds the domestic gross, so while T4 would not be 2009's huge blockbuster, it could easily do modestly well enough to warrant a T5.

As for the movie itself, it was unabashedly action fare, which is fine, given that the Terminator films have always been chase films with a generally predictable plot. What I didn't expect this summer was seeing Star Trek reduced to mediocre action-film fare, having a plot with holes so big you could fly the Enterprise through them.

 

Watch Terminator 2 again.

 

Thanks, I have seen it recently. It is quite literally a chase movie at its core. Most of the added emotional content comes from scenes that were cut from the theatrical release (mainly setting Uncle Bob's chip to write mode to motivate Sarah's ending comments about a machine learning the value of human life). But I never felt that such themes were central to the film; it is driven mainly by the action sequences.

 

You missed the scenes of the Terminator learning what it is to be human?

Ultimately becoming MORE human the Sarah?

Sarah learning to respect the machine -something she has been fighting hard to stop from exsisting.

John finding a father-figure in the Terminator?

Dyson giving up his life's work, and his life, for the good of all humanity after hearing about the dystopic nightmare of the future?


Sure, the action drove the story. But the point is that there WAS a story to be driven!

Every good plot needs something to "drive it" to keep the viewer watching. In T2 that driving force, yes, was the action. In some movies to drive the story it's characters, in some it's mood, in some it's dialogue.

This movie was just nonsense that stopped on ocasaion for the sake of "plot."

As I said, there's some good solid and notworthy themes here but it never takes advantage of them and it buries them all under a heap of nonsense.

In T2 the action grew out of the story. The entire chase between Cyberdyne and the steel mill, for example. Beautifuly crafted and grown out of the story itself. The story lead them to that. And it was one result (blowing up the factory to save the future) that led to another result (the completion of Sarah's softening and appreciation of the Terminator as well as the Terminator's "self sacrafice" and learning what it is to be human.)

In T4 the action just stops to have some "story" and then action just starts up again without growing out of anything. There's characters standing here talking BAM a machine comes and snatches them out of the gas station.

A character is standing here resting, BAM a group of thugs come and pester her!

This movie it felt like the action happened for the sake of something needing to happen. In T2 the action grew from the story.

"McG'



What else does one expect from the guy almost remade Revenge of the Nerds and almost made a Hot Wheels movie?

 

Most of which was undercut by the cuts in the theatrical release, just as many cuts were made from T4. I absolutely don't consider T4 to be anywhere near T2, but I contest the notion that T2 is some sort of deep meditation on what it means to be human. The elements you mention are there, but are, in my opinion, fairly superficial.