The Terminator and T2 after all these years

I've seen each Terminator film only once. The first one is the best. The last two should not have been made.

 

Do I have to bring a bottle?

 

Bring some adreneline and soma.

 

The problem with me and the Terminator franchise is that it always leads to Skynet winning. Apart from T2's alternate future-coda ending (where Skynet is wiped from the timeline and never exists), time travel is never used to its logical conclusion. It never works. Humanity never wins. And that's why I don't like it.

 

In T1 humanity does win, the Terminator is Skynet's last throw of the dice. I think humanity will always win in the series but the studio doesn't want to kill a franchise

 

Yeah this is the problem with the franchise idea really. The first film is wonderfully self contained. It is both the begining and the end of the war... In effect Kyle and Sarah defeating the T-800 is the last battle of a war that hasn't started yet. Unfortunately all the sequels have done is muddy the waters.

T1- History is imutable, what has happened will happened.
T2- There is no fate but that which we make for oursevles, you can change the future and save humanity!
T3- Change the future all you want but Skynet will still rise and war with the machines will happen, all you can do is change the date.
T4- I have no idea what this film was trying to say, except that possibly transformers are cool?
TSCC- Pretty much the same as T3

"I only drink to be sociable...cheers Orac!"

 

I tend to watch both films at some point during a given year. As I get older I find that I have to consider Terminator to be the superior of the two films. It's got such a bleak, desperate atmosphere and a near-perfect sense of pacing. I also love the ending. However because of nostalgia I still get more enjoyment out of T2. It's still a rare example of Hollywood going completely over the top and still coming out with something worth watching.

 

That was the reason for T1 and T2. Skynet lost the war in the future. Every time.

 

The only way for humanity to truly win is for Skynet to never have existed. At least *one* of T2's endings has this...

 

Why? Is the only for the way for the Allies to win WW2 is for Hitler to have never existed? John Connor was winning against Skynet. Sending the Terminators back was a last desperate attempt.

 

I think you have neatly summed up my thoughts with this.

 

I love the original Terminator - the sequels and spin-offs, not so much.

 

I watched all four films recently (Salvation for the first time) and the original is definitely my favorite. It's just such a good, taut story with a great atmosphere. The effects and music are a bit cheesy but those are artifacts of the film's budget and the technology available at the time. It's still an excellent film in its own right.

T2 went the "bigger is better" route but I think it lost something in the process. A great movie, as far as I'm concerned, but substantially more muddled than the original.

T3 was an enjoyable popcorn flick. I can watch it when I want something mindless.

I don't know what to say about Salvation. I'm not sure the people who made it know what it was supposed to say, either. It's a mess. There's no narrative cohesion at all.

 

The best thing about Salvation? That awesome, awesome fucking trailer with NIN's "The Day The Whole World Went Away." I still watch that thing when I'm in one of those weird moods where I spend an hour watching old movie trailers on YouTube.

T3 has grown on me a little, but I still consider it a vastly inferior film to the first two. I've just never been all that keen on Clare Danes or Nick Stahl.

 

Worst thing about T3 is that the cinematography is vastly inferior to T2. And they fucked up Skynet pretty much. From the information given in T2 I always got a "Wargames" vibe of how Skynet turned against humans. In fact, in T2 Arnold explains that Skynet became self aware and then the humans tried to pull the plug and then Skynet considered this an attack and defended itself against humans. That's the tragic part of the story that got totally lost in T3 and T4.

 

I agree with you on the Salvation trailer. That was epic. Too bad the movie was so bad.

 

I caught a bit of "The Terminator" on AMC the other night. Now, more than ever, I am baffled by all the people calling it better than its sequel. The particular sequence I caught is a perfect example of how much it pales in comparison. Reese and Sarah are driving around trying to elude The Terminator and all the while, Reese is going on and on with endless exposition about the future. I remember even the first time I saw it, this was one my least favourite parts.

I know it's necessary to establish the back story, but this is boring to watch. One of the advantages of the sequel and many sequels is that all of the back story is out of the way, so instead of wasting time with characters explaining shit to other characters, there's more time for more natural conversations that explore their personalities, and of course, more elaborate action sequences.

I also noticed that the supposed most powerful dialog that Reese says (something about how The Terminator can't be "reasoned or negotiated with" and feels "no remorse") is extremely similar to what Ash says about the creature in "Alien". To be fair, it is an impressively delivered little speech, presented with great intensity, but it's not original as it thinks it is. Hollywood seems to recycle a lot. This whole bit is quite similar to what Alfred would later say about The Joker in "The Dark Knight" as well.

One thing that impressed me in the exposition car chase sequence was the overall look of the movie. It has this grimy, dark, ominous look. Very '80s, but in a cool way. I also forgot what a tremendous job Cameron and Arnold did of making his Terminator frightening through simple facial expressions and lighting. This moment where he's in a cop car looking around menacingly and impersonates a cop's voice was quite chilling. I'm sure these aesthetic qualities are part of the reason people like the movie more than its sequel, which is much more slick and sterile-looking.

Still, as a guy who is more interested in good dialog and acting, the second is clearly better. There's also the massive difference in scope when it comes to set pieces. How can anyone be thrilled by the simple car chase between Reese/Sarah and The Terminator after seeing epic slam-bang set pieces like T-1000 in the tanker truck trying to mow down The Terminator and John on a motorcycle? There is no comparison!

 

It had a better story, better acting, better dialog, and no obnoxious kid in gut wrenchingly horrible cutesy bonding scenes between him and the robot. T2 had better special effects and that is the only area in which it outshines the original.

 

It's also a much leaner film, T2 is somewhat bloated and turning the most lethal machine in existance into a cute idiot savant father figure is somewhat odd to say the least, but they're two very different films and I enjoy them both. I still remember the first time I saw the T2 trailer with Arnie's "I promise I will not kill anyone."

As for the exposition in Terminator? At least it's part of an action scene, I don't see how it's any worse than Arnie Sarah and John driving around while the T-800 explains things?

 

Also, T2 ended on the contrivance on them crashing into a facility that contains something they can use to kill the T-1000.