Rewatching TERMINATOR 4 SALVATION

[david g]

This is a movie that improves a bit on second viewing. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a disaster. Now I find it extremely flawed but not entirely uninteresting.

I particularly like the cruder, bulkier, but in some ways more terrifying Terminators. I particularly like the flesh-melted-off Arnold T-800 at the climax.

What this film is lacking entirely, I guess, is the human interest of all of the other films. Christian Bale is a fine actor, but John Connor is a really boring figure here, and Bale basically glowers through the role. Indeed, Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese and Sam Worthington's Marcus are so much more interesting that I wish the film had simply focused on them.

I also *hate* that they give Skynet a human personality, played simperingly here by Helena Bonham Carter. That was campier than anything in any of the movies, including that awful moment in the otherwise underrated T3 where Arnold "talks to the hand," takes the male stripper's outfit, and puts on a pair of drag queen glasses.

 

[Gepard]

My opinion on T4 has yo-yoed back and forth a few times. The first time I saw it, I went in with no expectations and thought it was great. The second time, I went in remembering how much I'd liked it, and somehow thought it was really bad. Then I rewatched it yesterday with the Rifftrax commentary and thought it was decent but not great. For all its other flaws, I think the fimmakers made the right choice in focusing on Marcus's character arc and putting Conner in a supporting role, even though Conner's position in the plot suggests he originally had a much more substantial part. As you say, he was just too bland. It helps that I liked Markus and Sam Worthington's performance a lot.

But I can say this: at no point have I ever thought it was worse than T3, that's for sure.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Bale is a detriment to the film. And I generally like Bale's performances in other films.

 

[DevilEyes]

The movie was OK. Not great, but not a disaster. I agree with the previous posts. Bale was really weak, but the focus on Marcus helped; Worthington and Yelchin made the movie worth watching.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The best part of the movie was its spin-off: the Bale rant.

 

[The Fatman]

My opinion on T4 has yo-yoed back and forth a few times. The first time I saw it, I went in with no expectations and thought it was great. The second time, I went in remembering how much I'd liked it, and somehow thought it was really bad. Then I rewatched it yesterday with the Rifftrax commentary and thought it was decent but not great. For all its other flaws, I think the fimmakers made the right choice in focusing on Marcus's character arc and putting Conner in a supporting role, even though Conner's position in the plot suggests he originally had a much more substantial part. As you say, he was just too bland. It helps that I liked Markus and Sam Worthington's performance a lot.

But I can say this: at no point have I ever thought it was worse than T3, that's for sure.

Re: John Connor... it's actually much the opposite. In all earlier drafts, Connor had almost zero presence in the movie. All he was was a voice on the radio... until the films climax where he would show up, only to die in battle with the Terminator. They then rebuild Marcus with Connor's face. Since almost no one sees him, they can still have their figurehead for the war. Once Bale signed on to play the part, he pushed to have the role expanded, and McG brought in Jonathan Nolan to add in new scenes. They also feared the fanboy backlash of the "Connor Dies" twist, so that was scrapped last minute (and may have even been filmed).

Ultimately, I didn't HATE T4... It was just unnecessary.

 

[Gepard]

Huh. That's weird. There's at least two spots in the movie where it really looks like they cut material with Conner -- once when he shows up on the submarine and Michael Ironside mentions some "Aquaman stunt" we didn't see, and again when Conner has a moment with some woman we'd never seen before just before he leaves for Skynet. They both play like callbacks to something that we should have watched but didn't.

 

[Mach5]

I don't know of any "Terminator 4"

 

[bigdaddy]

I thought the movie was a perfectly fine action movie, completely forgettable. However I would most likely watch a T5.

 

[Kaijima]

I thought the original ending premise where you discover Conner becomes just an idealized figurehead for the resistance would have made for a bold, even daring way to reboot the Terminator franchise into a future war series.

 

[RandyS]

My opinion on T4 has yo-yoed back and forth a few times. The first time I saw it, I went in with no expectations and thought it was great. The second time, I went in remembering how much I'd liked it, and somehow thought it was really bad. Then I rewatched it yesterday with the Rifftrax commentary and thought it was decent but not great. For all its other flaws, I think the fimmakers made the right choice in focusing on Marcus's character arc and putting Conner in a supporting role, even though Conner's position in the plot suggests he originally had a much more substantial part. As you say, he was just too bland. It helps that I liked Markus and Sam Worthington's performance a lot.

But I can say this: at no point have I ever thought it was worse than T3, that's for sure.

Re: John Connor... it's actually much the opposite. In all earlier drafts, Connor had almost zero presence in the movie. All he was was a voice on the radio... until the films climax where he would show up, only to die in battle with the Terminator. They then rebuild Marcus with Connor's face. Since almost no one sees him, they can still have their figurehead for the war. Once Bale signed on to play the part, he pushed to have the role expanded, and McG brought in Jonathan Nolan to add in new scenes. They also feared the fanboy backlash of the "Connor Dies" twist, so that was scrapped last minute (and may have even been filmed).

Ultimately, I didn't HATE T4... It was just unnecessary.

Agreed, but then, you could say the same for T3. BOTH were unnecessary, since the story came to an effective end with T2. That said however, T3, despite being an almost literal retelling of T2 (with an ending that pisses all over T2), is the better film. I don't hate the last two films either, but there was no good reason to make them.

 

[MNM]

I've never understood the hate. I saw it in the cinema, and have watched it on dvd a couple of times, and it's a perfectly fine film. the best Terminator film? no, but certainly watchable.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

The "salvation" angle for Worthington's character was actually a fairly worthwhile story. But it was undercut by the increased role for Bale-man. The result is a film that is too unfocused and disjointed.

 

[Pingfah]

I did not notice that Christian Bale had a lisp until I saw this film, and I've seen most of his films. Weird.

 

[DevilEyes]

The best part of the movie was its spin-off: the Bale rant.

And the really awesome remix: Bale Out

 

[Gaith]

The definitive T4 autopsy is here. Basically, it was doomed from the start (the bullshit "Salvation" aspect), but it started out being doomed in an original way, whereas it ended up being merely a bland failure.

In Big Jim's original T2 drafts, which featured a much longer Future War/Skynet invasion sequence, most of the human resistance fighters were South American guerrilla types, as there would have been few nuke targets hit down there. Ergo, I have a hard time imagining any post-T3 story succeeding without heavily focusing on that idea.

 

[david g]

One thing I simply dont understand in T4 is that John Connor seems to have no idea what a T-800 looks like, is made from, et al. Yet in every other way he seems to have the experiences of the JC from other films. What gives?

 

[T'Baio]

One of the problems with Terminator Salvation is that it had a trailer that sold it as a much better movie.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/large3.html

That was one of the better trailers I had seen in some time. Unfortunately, it was way better that the actual film.

 

[Ethros]

I've never understood the hate. I saw it in the cinema, and have watched it on dvd a couple of times, and it's a perfectly fine film. the best Terminator film? no, but certainly watchable.

This is what I would say too. It's a decent enough action movie, I wasn't really expecting it to be a cinema classic like you could say T1 & T2 are.
Plus I'll watch Bale in anything. And it has Bruce Wayne, Jake Sully and Pavel Chekov in it

 

[Jax]

It was a decent action movie but a poor Terminator movie. I never go the hatred for T-3 but this movie was the end of the franchise as seen by the Box Office total.