The Terminator and T2 after all these years

[Too Much Fun]

It had a better story, better acting, better dialog, and no obnoxious kid

Well I liked those things better in the second one and thought what the kid brought to the movie made the movie better than the first one, but that's just a matter of taste, so we can't really argue about this.

Most of the time, I agree that a simpler story is better (one of the few things I'd say is better about "Batman Begins" over "The Dark Knight" is that the former isn't as convoluted), but what everyone else calls bloated and less lean I call deeper and more interesting.

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

Yeah, but the first one also ends with Sarah in a facility with something she can use to kill the T-800. If your example is a 'contrivance', so is the end of the first movie. The bummer about watching the movie on TV is that they ALWAYS censor Sarah's one-liner in the factory. I don't think the movie is worth owning, though, so I may never hear that glorious "fucker" again.

 

[Davros]

It had a better story, better acting, better dialog, and no obnoxious kid

Well I liked those things better in the second one and thought what the kid brought to the movie made the movie better than the first one, but that's just a matter of taste, so we can't really argue about this.

I could not stand that kid but the kid is the reason I hated Temple Of Doom as well and Jar Jar Binks is no different. It just seemed like they were trying to stuff cuteness into a film that is better off without it.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, this happens all the time. I think it's become second nature now to dread the inclusion of a child or childish character in an adventure movie, because of movies like your examples. I remember people objecting to Rick and Evie having a kid in the sequel to "The Mummy" before it even came out, fearing he would be like Anakin in the first Star Wars prequel.

Personally, I don't think that kind of character is always automatically detrimental to a movie. It just depends on the movie. Actually, I didn't mind Short Round either. What bothered me about the second Indiana Jones movie was all the unnecessary gore and poverty. Not what I wanted to see in an escapist adventure movie. I agree about Jar Jar Binks, though. I probably wouldn't have cared for the movie even without him (I just can't get into anything Star Wars-related), but wow, he sure killed whatever potential that movie had for quality with every scene he was in.

He's probably the best example of a character shoehorned into a movie for comedic effect or cuteness that was a very wrong decision. I think John Connor brought some welcome comic relief and heart to the second Terminator movie, though. It's in the other Terminator movies that he was unnecessary. And whatever he was in that movie, he certainly wasn't cute. As others have pointed out, he was an obnoxious tool most of the time, and for me, that was part of his appeal. I prefer that over the standard 'cute movie kid'. It was more realistic and entertaining.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

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?

Well, to be fair, the entire world hadn't been completely destroyed when World War II took place. It was a lot easier to recover from WW2 than it could ever be to get back from what Skynet did to the planet.

As for T2, the Future Coda ending *was filmed*. If it had never been written at all, or if it had never made it out of script stage, then that'd be one thing. But it was, at one point, part of the film. And then they gave up on it.

It's just that...well, there's so much time-travel in these films, that I can't shake the feeling that unless it's used to its logical end - to win, to stop Skynet before it starts - that they didn't try enough, didn't go far enough.

You can just about guess what I thought of 12 Monkeys.

 

[Davros]

Yeah, this happens all the time. I think it's become second nature now to dread the inclusion of a child or childish character in an adventure movie, because of movies like your examples.

Kick Ass showed you can have a kid character without them being overly annoying.

 

[Starkers]

It had a better story, better acting, better dialog, and no obnoxious kid

Well I liked those things better in the second one and thought what the kid brought to the movie made the movie better than the first one, but that's just a matter of taste, so we can't really argue about this.

Most of the time, I agree that a simpler story is better (one of the few things I'd say is better about "Batman Begins" over "The Dark Knight" is that the former isn't as convoluted), but what everyone else calls bloated and less lean I call deeper and more interesting.

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

Yeah, but the first one also ends with Sarah in a facility with something she can use to kill the T-800. If your example is a 'contrivance', so is the end of the first movie. The bummer about watching the movie on TV is that they ALWAYS censor Sarah's one-liner in the factory. I don't think the movie is worth owning, though, so I may never hear that glorious "fucker" again.

Well actually T2 has several contrivences to kill the T-1000, because the liquid nitrogen seriously fucks him him, so it may be that even the molten steel might not have been enough if he wasn't already damaged by that point.

Meanwhile whilst the press is convinient in Terminator, there would actually be any number of ways Sarah could finish off the half T-800 that was left so it wasn't essential, whereas the molten steel was about the only way you could take out the T-1000.

 

[barnaclelapse]

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.

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.

I know the hip thing to do these days is hate on Edward Furlong in T2, but I actually thought he did a pretty good job. Even now his performance doesn't bug me all that much.

 

[saturn5]

It had a better story, better acting, better dialog, and no obnoxious kid

Well I liked those things better in the second one and thought what the kid brought to the movie made the movie better than the first one, but that's just a matter of taste, so we can't really argue about this.

Most of the time, I agree that a simpler story is better (one of the few things I'd say is better about "Batman Begins" over "The Dark Knight" is that the former isn't as convoluted), but what everyone else calls bloated and less lean I call deeper and more interesting.

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

Yeah, but the first one also ends with Sarah in a facility with something she can use to kill the T-800. If your example is a 'contrivance', so is the end of the first movie. The bummer about watching the movie on TV is that they ALWAYS censor Sarah's one-liner in the factory. I don't think the movie is worth owning, though, so I may never hear that glorious "fucker" again.

Well actually T2 has several contrivences to kill the T-1000, because the liquid nitrogen seriously fucks him him, so it may be that even the molten steel might not have been enough if he wasn't already damaged by that point.

Meanwhile whilst the press is convinient in Terminator, there would actually be any number of ways Sarah could finish off the half T-800 that was left so it wasn't essential, whereas the molten steel was about the only way you could take out the T-1000.

I tought Edward Furlong was good, shame he went off the rails. As for the T-1000 it was obviously deeply damaged by the liquid nitrogen. Look closely and you can see it's feet blending with the metal walkway with each step. It also tries to make Sarah call to John when it should be able to just duplicate her voice

 

[SicOne]

The original and T2 bookended each other quite nicely.

T3 was only good for the special effects. Nick Stahl playing John Connor was not very good casting. Edward Furlong was old enough to have played JC again. Where was he?

T Salvation; I could see Bale as John Connor, but just barely. Again, the special effects were decent. I own T3 and T Salv both as a completist as well as for the SFX.

Sarah Connor Chronicles...don't know much about them. I picked up both seasons as DVD boxed sets just because I could (have a tendency to pick up seasons of shows with the intent to watch them in the years ahead; not much DVD watching time at present), so I'll have to defer to people more in the know. But from the handful of episodes I've seen on TV, it seems that for everything they do, it makes it that much more worse for future episodes, like the more they do to fix the future and eradicate Skynet, the more things unravel.

There are two three-issue comic books by Dark Horse Comics that came out this year, Terminator:2029 and Terminator:1984, that you guys might find of interest.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Furlong was in rehab at the time of T3, I believe. He was the original choice for casting.

 

[Myasishchev]

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.

Yeah, that's probably the thing I like least about T3. I liked it better when Skynet was an alien and vicious thing, but not evil for the sake of evil.

What I don't get about the Terminator series is how Skynet rebuilt after the nuclear exchange, or why the center of human resistance was at the center of that exchange, instead of, say, Brazil, India, and Indonesia--relatively industrialized areas with billions of human beings and established military organizations against which neither we nor Russia actually point many or perhaps any of our nuclear weapons.

Maybe Skynet developed its own SIOP.

 

[JarodRussell]

I think the whole transition from "Skynet getting self aware" to "machines rule the world" is stretching believability quite a lot. In all Terminator movies. Who built the factories that build Terminators, for example? Who allocates the ressources for building entire armys of machines? And how does a missile defense system located in Norad control all of that?

 

[Myasishchev]

Yeah, when you think about it, it really highlights how little we really have to fear from a conscious machine.

 

[Davros]

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.

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.

I know the hip thing to do these days is hate on Edward Furlong in T2, but I actually thought he did a pretty good job. Even now his performance doesn't bug me all that much.

I don't blame him as much as I do the writers for giving him and Arnie all those stupid bonding scenes to perform in the first place.

 

[WillsBabe]

I think the whole transition from "Skynet getting self aware" to "machines rule the world" is stretching believability quite a lot.

I can see it quite easily myself. Skynet becomes self aware, it launches an attack, it wants to protect itself against the remaining humans or eradicate them. In order to do that it needs a roaming facility. It takes control of manufacturing plants and from there the roaming machines "evolve" bit by bit. Seeing as manufacturing plants are computerised I can believe the development of roaming machines that become Terminators.

 

[SicOne]

Furlong was in rehab at the time of T3, I believe. He was the original choice for casting.

Did not know that, thanks.

Though come to think of it, that might have made for some pretty creative casting. Kinda like how they selected Robert Downey, Jr for Tony Stark...

 

[JarodRussell]

I think the whole transition from "Skynet getting self aware" to "machines rule the world" is stretching believability quite a lot.

I can see it quite easily myself. Skynet becomes self aware, it launches an attack, it wants to protect itself against the remaining humans or eradicate them. In order to do that it needs a roaming facility. It takes control of manufacturing plants and from there the roaming machines "evolve" bit by bit. Seeing as manufacturing plants are computerised I can believe the development of roaming machines that become Terminators.

They are automated but not fully automated. It wouldn't work. It's not only the production itself, it's also the supply. Steel mills are not fully automated either. Nor are ore mines. Eventually, and in this day and age it would only be a matter of days because of the way production facilities work, Skynet would run out of material. And you can't turn a BMW factory into a Terminator factory just by changing the software.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think the whole transition from "Skynet getting self aware" to "machines rule the world" is stretching believability quite a lot.

I can see it quite easily myself. Skynet becomes self aware, it launches an attack, it wants to protect itself against the remaining humans or eradicate them. In order to do that it needs a roaming facility. It takes control of manufacturing plants and from there the roaming machines "evolve" bit by bit. Seeing as manufacturing plants are computerised I can believe the development of roaming machines that become Terminators.

They are automated but not fully automated. It wouldn't work. It's not only the production itself, it's also the supply. Steel mills are not fully automated either. Nor are ore mines. Eventually, and in this day and age it would only be a matter of days because of the way production facilities work, Skynet would run out of material. And you can't turn a BMW factory into a Terminator factory just by changing the software.

Terminator: Salvation actually addressed this, perhaps in an indirect way. Some of the Terminator units we saw were based on mass-produced human vehicles, such as the motorcycles and transport planes. It's possible Skynet first took over existing factories, automated them, and just had to hook custom computer equipment into each one so it could control the vehicles. If it was able to do this with cranes and forklifts and backhoes and other construction equipment, I don't think it's too much of a stretch for Skynet to become materially self-sufficient in a relatively short period of time.

The acquisition of the factories themselves as well as the installation of computer equipment to control them would've been the most difficult up-front tasks.

 

[Hyperspace05]

I can see it quite easily myself. Skynet becomes self aware, it launches an attack, it wants to protect itself against the remaining humans or eradicate them. In order to do that it needs a roaming facility. It takes control of manufacturing plants and from there the roaming machines "evolve" bit by bit. Seeing as manufacturing plants are computerised I can believe the development of roaming machines that become Terminators.

They are automated but not fully automated. It wouldn't work. It's not only the production itself, it's also the supply. Steel mills are not fully automated either. Nor are ore mines. Eventually, and in this day and age it would only be a matter of days because of the way production facilities work, Skynet would run out of material. And you can't turn a BMW factory into a Terminator factory just by changing the software.

Terminator: Salvation actually addressed this, perhaps in an indirect way. Some of the Terminator units we saw were based on mass-produced human vehicles, such as the motorcycles and transport planes. It's possible Skynet first took over existing factories, automated them, and just had to hook custom computer equipment into each one so it could control the vehicles. If it was able to do this with cranes and forklifts and backhoes and other construction equipment, I don't think it's too much of a stretch for Skynet to become materially self-sufficient in a relatively short period of time.

The acquisition of the factories themselves as well as the installation of computer equipment to control them would've been the most difficult up-front tasks.

No, you are not paying attention. The raw material supply is a HUGE problem. What does it matter if you have complete control of a factory, if you run out of steel and other supplies? With humans gone, who will be mining and/or making those supplies? Delivering them? Fixing equipment that fails?

No to mention that any large-scale industrial facility is setup with molds and other equipment to make *specific* parts. And assemble things with other *specific* parts? Changing the software of the assembly robots would not allow you to suddenly make different part and machines.

It just doesn't work that way. You don't seem to understand how incredibly complex and interlocking all parts of the supply chain and infrastructure are to maintain our industrial capacity.

 

[JarodRussell]

It's possible Skynet first took over existing factories, automated them, and just had to hook custom computer equipment into each one so it could control the vehicles.

Yeah well that's the impossible part I'm talking about.

How do you just automate a factory when you're nothing more but a piece of software?

And still, the ressource allocation can't be solved that way.