f13.net

Could have sworn we already had a thread for this but for the life of me I can't see it.

Anyway, new trailer is out for this film (http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/hd/).  I like it. Very much doubt the film is going to be much good but I do like this trailer.

Cool

Really?  It's called Salvation?  The first thing that comes to mind when I hear that title is this* (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6_sZd3viG8).

*I like the Cranberries but that has to be one of the worst, most godawful videos ever made.

I'm hoping they are tying the movies into the TV show, because if that's the case, this could be quite good.

Unfortunately it looks like the usual bag of fairly mediocre action wankery. May be the trailer, but I'm not optimistic. :(

It's got Christian Bale and that helps alot. It looks interesting and means next May will officially be Sci-Fi month for me.

link (http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/12/terminator-5-al.html)

There's a Dubai International Film Festival?

??

Please tell me this is a "green" comment - my sarchasm early warning system is offline at the moment and I fear I may be about to stumble forward into one.

McG?

Yeah, it'll be great  :oh_i_see:

Now, I hate McG as much as the next guy. But the stuff he's produced lately (mainly the show Chuck) has been really good. He may have learned how not to suck.

Or else he's a better producer than director. Chuck and a couple of other TV shows he's been involved with have been good. Well, ok, Chuck and Supernatural. Still, that counts for something.

I'll bet they contradict everything in the TV show just to claim ownership over it. "HI!! I'm Kyle Reese and I'm an only child who most certainly never ever had a brother!"

Latest trailer (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/terminator-salvation.html?showVideo=1)

Not the best use of NIN but lots of stuff that's intriguing

...

the movie that trailer is advertising actually looks good.  You better not fuck my world up, McG: T3 was disappointing enough (and I'm one of the wierdos that liked T3).

What gives me hope that there's at least going to be pace in the film is that very few scenes have been recycled for the trailers.

What concerns me is the slow-motion action scenes of which there appear be to be quite a few. Will it be one long music video?

The trailer does look good.  As good as it looks though I just don't want more Terminator movies, I want it that they actually do stop the war before it starts, that something they do right now does actually stop Skynet.

Why?

Yeah, explain.  I'm stranged out by that wish myself.

Hm. If they actually start to explore the meanings of 'human', 'sentience' and what it is to be 'alive' this movie could turn out to be quite good indeed.

Wow. That new trailer is awesome. Oh, and I can handle the whole thing being in slomo if it means no shaky cam.

I've always wanted them to explore the future world after everything went to shit. T1 and T2 were great, T3 should have jumped the timeline forward like this one is doing. That's one of the reasons I expected the TV show to suck, because I thought they'd mined out all the interesting present day bits. I was wrong about the TV show, but I'm glad this one looks so goddamn good because that means I can forget that T3 existed.

Amen.

Though I occasionally sneak watches at Sword of Xanten for the Lokken.

It just makes everything they go through seem so pointless if its all going to go to shit anyways.  I'd rather they forget all the time travelling and just concentrate on the future war than have these characters that you want to succeed but you know they can't.

?

I'm not sure I see what the problem is? Is this a personal preference - do you tend not to like tragedies or tragic drama? Do you avoid films where the hero fails despite their best efforts (although general Hollywood fare seems to avoid that for the most part?)

Well aware that a whole "free-will" vs "determinism" argument is standing by in the wings, ready to pounce, do you not think it could be argued that the war was always inevitable from the first film onwards? If the war never happened then John Connor would never meet Kyle Reese or send him back in time to become his father - the war is required to take place for John Connor to exist in the first place.

Think I've said it elsewhere - the ending needs to be John Connor defeating Skynet, only to realise he has to sent the Terminators back through time to kill his companion / father, terrorise his life, doom his mother to the wacko life she lived and ultimately birth Skynet (thanks to the parts of the T800 in T1). "No fate but what we make" is so delightfully double-edged I don't think the scriptwriters will be clever enough to use it.

I'm not anti-tragedy I like a good cry sometimes, or a good villain to win.  In a movie I think its easier to handle, I don't know how much longer I can keep watching the Terminator series if its going to be a weekly exercise in futility versus an apocalypse you can't avoid.  I could be wrong though I've only just got through the first series and started on the second one and maybe the positive aspect of fighting against the odds and the small victories on the way will redeem it over the ultimate loss.

But yeah I think that debate about time and free will etc may be what starts to sour the series for me if I think about it too long.  I'm really liking the series but I know soon I'm going to be asking questions like how will they even know if they change the future? Will they just have to wait till Judgment day and nothing explodes, or will Cameron and Reese disappear one episode and everyone will be like 'cool we did it'.  Time traveling gets pretty convoluted and silly pretty easily.

I can dig a movie (and this is going to be the first of three supposedly) set in an apocalyptic future, where there is a war versus robots.  I don't know that it necessarily needed to be in the Terminator franchise, and by doing so shit all over what the series is doing.  I guess I just gotta disconnect the two from each other.

Why is everyone assuming the TV show can't show Judgment Day being stopped for good?  It doesn't have to follow the first two movies. 

The series does follow the first two movies, and can end with them defeating Skynet.  Its this new movie and the possibly two planned after it which says the robots still explode us all.

You've obviously forgotten the lesson the new Star Trek movie honchos have taught us.  Quantum reality divergence, etc etc. 

Harsh. The writers may well be clever enough to use that (depending on who they are). What you've got to hope is that the studio/producer has the balls to go through with it and doesn't demand a rewrite.

What don't you get?

Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that.

Actually I'd prefer the opposite. John Connor wins, comes to this realization and purposefully breaks the cycle even at the cost of his own existence.

Whether or not you're being sarcastic it would seem.  I kinda see where he's coming from given that what you just said could have easily been used to describe the Matrix trilogy as well.

At the same time it could raise all those sorts of questions and explore the issues without actually having the characters sit down and monologue about them in the same way Crime and Punishment deals with questions concerning human freedom, justice and morality without being a socratic dialogue. If they pulled it off it could be an awesome action movie with some genuine depth to it beyond what the original Terminator movies achieved. Which I think is why there was confusion over the sarcasm.

Also: Connor's breaking the cycle could create a Paradox that destroys existence. P4rad0x!!11! Fuck his own life over and restart Judgement Day or give up entirely?

I was using Back to the Future logic. Connor would fade out while playing Johnny B. Goode at the victory celebration!

That's an ending worth watching! Arnie could appear just to give him the thumbs up as they fade :drill:

I'd rather read a Socratic dialogue before reading the last bit of Crime and Punishment again. In fact, I have. There are lots of fun Socratic dialogues to read, while parts of C&P are about as explicit and monologue-y as you can get. You know this!

I'm all for concepts of all sorts being entertained in films, but when it comes to a film like Terminator I can't see how you can have explicit exploration of these issues side by side it being an entertaining action film without it being a giant clusterfuck.

I mean imagine the directior coming out and saying "this film isn't going to be anything like the other Terminator films, we're going to focus on exploring what it means to human and sentient instead". You know that is a recipie for suck.

Alright that wasn't a great set of examples, say more like Dickens' social messages, you can inform people of the plight of the poor without writing a pamphlet. The issues are there but it doesn't have to be handled by constantly talking about them. Hell the first Matrix film had some deep elements while still being an awesome action movie. With all the stuff they've done in the series I get the feeling that this isn't going to be an attempt to recreate the first films and I think making something that raises some interesting issues could be awesome.

I think the Matrix films are actually a good point here. First one was pretty good action film with interesting underlying themes. Second one I havn't seen, but going off the third it probably also ended up going into the "fuck making an action film, lets get exploring the deep shit n stuff" and ended up comming across like first year philosophy students who think they know everything because they just read two pages from Descartes.

Which is to say I think the themes are inherent in the genre and 'world' allready but that an explicit attempt to foreground them would just show the paucity of depth. It's better to hint and keep it on the frienges and let people bring in whatever depth they want rather than try and force something on them and come across shallow.

Maybe it's just me... but I found watching the third Matrix film painful, and would rather T: S be fun.

It wasn't just you.

The Matrix sequels were a failure because they stopped being about the Matrix. The second one has some good action scenes though (the highway chase is top notch really) and Monica Bellucci.

Show, don't tell.

That should be a rule for all movies. If you can show something, then do that as much as possible. Even in a drama. Leave all of the exposition/subtext wankery to critics.


What I'm commenting also though is that the Zion element was very boring. It should barely be shown, let alone told. The Matrix stories are more fun when you're bending the rules of action scenes.

Matrix 2 also had a cameo from Stoney Burke, one of my favorite Berkeley characters.

Was that an general expression of what do do in a movie or a request?

I'll pretend it was the latter.

(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/120/291528546_1ae715abe7_m.jpg)

I suppose technically this wasn't even in the Matrix, but here it is anyways.

(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/29582244_af1bd102d7.jpg)

lol.

The general Cinemaey one.

But the pics are nice.

ghost in the shell? errrr...no.

Ghost in the shell sucked because of the writing. Also, it just wasn't good.

Edit: I'd rather the tv show explore this bit by bit anyway. When I go to a Terminator movie, I expect visual amazingness.

That, and I prefer it to be a bit scary. First Terminator is basically a horror with a sci-fi theme, like Aliens. T2 and T3 I guess got a little more lighthearted, but I guess they were basically chase movies as well. Not sure what angle you can pull that's "horror-ish" in this setting, but I'd like to see some of that. All this shit about AI or time travel are just sidenotes. It's a horror.

Sarah Connor: Are you saying it's from the future?
Kyle Reese: One possible future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.
Sarah Connor: Then you're saying you're from the future, too. Is that right?
Kyle Reese: Right.
Sarah Connor: Right.

Dr. Silberman: Why didn't you bring any weapons, something more advanced? Don't you have, uh, ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology.
Kyle Reese: You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go.
Dr. Silberman: Why?
Kyle Reese: I didn't build the fucking thing!

Heh. So yeah, Kyle doesn't give a fuck to explain it. I like that.

What's he really want to say though?

You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! It's *all* he does! You can't stop him! He'll wait for you! He'll reach down her throat and tear her fuckin' heart out!

Agree with all of that, good post.

Bear in mind, though, that even the trailer seems to have the 'scary robot' factor down.

I hope it's good.

I kind of like where they seem to be going with this.

Sort of brings the entire series of terminator movies to a close by closing the loop to complete the never ending vicious circle of temporal paradox.

- Human race creates sky-net to keep human race from wiping itself out.
- Sky-net circumvents 3laws, decides best way to stop humans from killing humans is to wipe them all out as a 3rd party instead of trying to protect them from themselves.
* Mankind's own creation turns on it

- Sky-net, in an effort to build better machines fpr killing and / or impersonating humans starts creating nearly sentient terminators?
- one of which, goes all "self-aware" on it, and decides to bite the hand that feeds it?
* Sky-net's own creation turns on it?

Largely irrelevant since we know they can reprogram the terminators.

Really, this movie will be great because it's the first time they're not reprogramming and trying to change fate but rather striking straight at the root of the problem in the present day (well, their present day).

At the same time, it leaves room for the TV show to get crazy assuming it doesn't get canned. I wouldn't be surprised if the infiltrator bot in the movie was actually sending information back without knowing it and was programmed to think it was human. Really the best way to infiltrate the humans in that war, make one that doesn't even know what it is. Of course, after they find out, well, that becomes the crux of the movie now doesn't it?

I dont know, reprogramming a terminator and changing its directives, vs having an actual self aware terminator, fully sentient in every sense of the word, which believes it is human are two totally different things i think.

I was referring to the SkyNet's own creation turns on it. Since humans can already make the creation turn on it's master. Much like the robots make themselves turn on their master (humans) through self-reprogramming or whathave you.

The second part that you snipped talked more about the self-aware part and I'm not sure why you snipped it.

I dont know, reprogramming a terminator and changing its directives, vs having an actual self aware terminator, fully sentient in every sense of the word, which believes it is human are two totally different things i think.
[/quote]

I'd argue that a terminator is self-aware. It knows what it is, it understands what it means when it uses a personal pronoun, it is capable of learning (depending on which way the switch is set), it can make autonomous decisions and can understand the impact of its actions on itself, on others and the future (evidenced by the Arnie-bot insisting that it be terminated in molten metal at the end of T2). It also learns to understands emotion ("I know now why you cry. But it is something I can never do.")

Having a terminator believe that it's human (which is suggested in the new trailer) is entirely new to this series. Ontology and Cartesian Doubt have been covered before in Blade Runner and The Matrix though so it will be interesting to see how far they go in T:S beyond paying it lip-service.

I think the concept of a sentient terminator that is unaware that he is in fact a terminator is interesting.  It could be a spy/timebomb from skynet or it could genuinely be a renegade unit, etc.  The problem I have is the time travel device.  It's been used in every movie repeatedly.  It would seem since this is supposed to take place in 2019 that an advanced model that uses literal harvested flesh/organs is way way more advanced than the current models being fought by the resistance.  It looks as if they're fighting early models (600-700) most of which don't have any kind of flesh to disguise themselves, or they're bad versions (look like rotting zombies, etc.).  It would seem that the new model must come from the future which I was really hoping they'd get away from that theme with this movie. 

I just want to see the resistance fighting robots in a regular timeline.  I want to find out why the hell John Connor is so super wicked awesome that all of humanity is rallied behind him and is willing to go back in the past to make sure he's born, etc.

I really don't want to see a remake of the new BSG

Well, that would be because he's the batman.

The one thing skynet didn't calculate... 

I didn't get the idea from the trailers that the new terminator model was from the future. It would make sense given the previous movies reliance on time travel, but I never got that impression from the trailer.

John Conner is so wicked awesome because Skynet conveniently sends back in time each new model for him to train on and prepare him for the war before Judgment day ever happens.

The Terminator series has suffered a bit from the "and so we send through our best merciless killing machine through time, and then a more advanced prototype goes next!" plotting. All I can think is that the writers are going to screw up yet another time travel story by continually moving the goal posts.

John Connor can't be that awesome if everyone keeps getting raped in his timeline so much to the point that he decides he can only win by changing the past.

To be fair the original Skynet had to desperately change the past to survive, so the original John Connor likely was that awesome!

Except there was no "original" John Connor. Skynet caused him to exist by its own actions.

Now I'm confused.

Bound to happen in any plot involving time traveling.

Yup fun with time traveling would there be a John Conner who could kick the robots ass if they were not sending robots back in time to try and kill him and in the process manage to get him trained and motivated to learn all he can to kick robots ass. Self fulfilling prophecies for the win!

There wouldn't be a John Connor at all if not for Skynet's meddling.  Remember, John's dad is the guy who got sent back in the first movie to protect his mother.  So if Skynet hadn't sent that first Terminator back to stop John from being born, Kyle Reese would never have gone back either, and Sarah Connor would never have gotten knocked up in the first place.

Skynet = epic fail.

I still think its possible the original John Connor was not sired by Kyle. He just replaced the original Daddy that didn't get a shot at Sarah because she was running from killer robots instead of hanging around in a bar looking for a hookup. Anybody ever saw a picture of Vanilla John Connor?

No.

This is a temporal paradox.. something that makes physicists rage, but always seems perfectly logical to storytellers and nutjobs like me.   Yes, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and there is no way in a reality where John Connor exsists - in any form - to avoid Judgement Day and Skynet's rise to power.

"There is no destiny but what we make" is a falsehood in this reality. There are certain events that must happen for J.C. to exsist, up to and including Skynet's defeat and humans figuring out how to time travel.

You say that, but there is nothing in the movies that makes this the only possibility.

Sarah Connor got pregnant around the time Kyle was sent back. Sarah (who was the only person deciding on the name) called her first son John.

Those are the only known facts true in every future.

See, this is the crappy thing about all of this speculation.  The damn movie won't be half as good as the half-baked theories people here have come up with on here.

That's really very tenuous. The implication is quite clear - Kyle Reese fathered John Connor. There's no allusion to Sarah Connor sleeping around - the script even implies that she's trying to get a boyfriend (she gets stood up which is why she doesn't go out with Ginger and an unfilmed scene shows her flirting with a guy in a gym before that).

The whole of the Terminator series is predicated on the the fact that it's all paradoxical. Skynet was developed using technology recovered from the Terminator that got sent back in time. If the Terminator hadn't come back then there would have been no Skynet, no Judgement Day, no time displacement machine and no Terminator to send back in time. Similarly, Kyle Reese was sent back in time by John Connor to nominally to protect his mother from the Terminator but also to become his father.

What you said about Sarah being the only person to choose the name? Even that's referred to in the script: Reese tells Sarah all about what John Connor was like. Sarah says "Well, at least I know what to name him."

On a side note, there must still be time travel in the new film. Watching the first trailer back again, the first words out of Sam Worthington's mouth are "What day is it? What year?" As the last trailer implied that he didn't know he was a Replicant Terminator, I'm guessing he's an even more advanced Terminator sent back from the future of the future.

Damn, there goes my explanation why the future savior of mankind sucks that much in Terminator 3. Screwed up genetic material was my only chance.

Terminator 3 ?  What's that ?

Does no one else appreciate it, if only for the wonderful 'Relax. Relax!' line?

Umm, well, I think Nick Stahl is one of the better actors in his age range (the guy who played John Connor), but that movie didn't really display anything bad or good about him.

Kristanna Loken is hot, of course.

"Talk to the hand" was actually funny.

The trailer/truck chase scene though was the only truly worthy thing about it.

Maybe I said it the wrong way. I thought the film was absolute shit in pretty much every way. Apart from the 'Relax. Relax!' bit which was (unintentionally?) hilarious to me and a few of my friends.

Actually, I don't even remember that. That chase scene sticks out though. I'm a sucker for that kind of shit. I've seen the last 15 minutes of the Road Warrior in a greater proportion over the actual movie Road Warrior. Probably the greatest movie ever made.. the last 15 minutes, that is.

Someone's poor (and misogynistic) attempt to turn the Terminator series into a date film.

Well, say what you want about Cameron, but taking him out of the picture will do that to a Terminator movie. And may very well do it to this new one.

What made it misogynistic? The fact that the T-X was a female?

The fact that it was uselessly female. It brought nothing to the film except tits. To be fair, it will always be a long shot topping the liquid metal killing machine in relevant originality.

Wrong. Another significant plotpoint is that Kyle fell in love with Sarah because of the picture that John had given him. The same picture she takes at the end of the movie as she is driving to Mexico or wherever. A major theme of that first movie is that Skynet is creating the very events that leads to its own defeat. And yes, "There is no Fate but what you make" is a falsehood in the movie. Really, in the Terminator universe there is a period of about 3 decades that is very BSGish. "It has happened before and will happen again."

As Megrim said. Also to add: every time the T-800 came up against the T-X, he beat the crap out of her for a while, only for the T-X to then pull an easy win. In "T2" the fights were a lot more give-and-take. I'm especially thinking of the T-800 vs T-X fight in the toilet, where the T-X gets put through everything and her head into a toilet at one stage. For a more advanced model (and, theoretically, one who can ice T-1000s with ease) the T-X sure liked being slapped around.

No point in defending yourself if you can just regenerate. Just wait for the path of least resistance to finally strike. I don't see misogyny. Isn't that like a rule for all indestructible characters? I mean, even Superman just lets people shoot him in the face. The T-800 itself doesn't give a shit about defending much either against human opponents.

You might have a point if they were both male, or genderless. But they're not.

Summary:

PEOPLE WHO LIKE BRINGING POLITICS INTO ENTERTAINMENT: "Anytime anything slightly bad ever happens to a woman/minority/gay person on television/movies (or, in comedies, if any person in any of said groups is made fun of in the slightest way) this proves the show/movie is racist/sexist/homophobic."

EVERYONE ELSE:  "Umm, no.  Entertainment in TV/movies is derived from both dramatic conflict and funny situations.  Thus, unless the media in question is a documentary on carefully multicultural and gender-equal groups of volunteers bandaging wounded puppies in Africa, things will happen to actors."

PEOPLE WHO LIKE BRINGING POLITICS INTO ENTERTAINMENT:  "....the fact that you won't recognize the racism/sexism/homophobia is ALSO PROOF that entertainment is racist/sexist/homophobic!!" 

Just the sort of patriarchal dogma I'd expect from someone whose handle is a homonym for "Try, force her."

Well played, sir.  My masters at the male-centric patriarchic maleocracy will not be pleased. 

Their appearance is gender-based, but they are not.

The only scene that smacked a bit of misogyny (and *gasp* art/entertainment can be political/sociological) was the face in the toilet as it was rather gratuitous (and well-known misogynist Arnold has been quoted as saying he wanted an old turd in the bowl but that the director wouldn't go for it).

That changes everything!!  :awesome_for_real:

I will amend my misguided ways and sign up to the belief that apolitical entertainment is the basis by which all film and TV is created (and should be related to). Will I get some kind of sticker I can put on my car?

I was not disputing the accusations of misogyny, but instead merely stating that some are losing their shit over a movie about cyborgs fighting each other.  Must be tough walking through life with a kneejerk reaction to everything.  How many times do you slam your car into the person driving in front of you when they accidentally wait at a green light?  But only if they are white and male, right?  Anything else would be race/sex-based violence, amirite?

You forgot ideological.

It's ok, things are and can be political, there's no need to get into a tizz everytime someone suggests that it might be the case. It's far more knee-jerk to run around screaming (a la Triforcer) that things aren't political whenever someone else seems to think they are than to just go "hmm, so you thought there was misogony there? I didn't pick that up so I'm not sure if I agree" and just move on.

I was pointing out that at some point a decision was made to represent the T-X as a female, regardless if they are technically genderless, and that as a result of that people can pretty ligitimatly read the Arnie -T-X relationship as a male - female one, and interpret that interchange however they want.

I still want my "film is apolitical!" sticker, though.

Even if her gender wasn't just appearances, the last thing that'd come to my mind is it being misogynistic. The character is a fucking terminator! How on earth is beating the shit out of one misogynistic? Just like Kyle Reese was with the T-800, or the T-800 was with the T-1000, you basically can not relax in trying to deter it.  Do what you can to stop it, and get the fuck out of there. And Loken's character, I guess, is the most advanced one to date. A model created to physically overpower other terminators, able to bring weapons through the time portal, able to hack into other terminator models, able to be more deceptive and switch identities, etc.. There's nothing weak or victim like about either the character or Loken's performance, and the character is just written to be that hard to damage or ward off. You're supposed to want to see Arnold do what he can to incapacitate it, and get John Connor to safety. No different than the T-1000. And the only reason why it's a woman is because they already did the small guy angle with Robert Patrick. It's not particularly originally over that idea, but making the T-X a female is simply to provide the same contrast as T-2. Nothing more. If that is inherently considered misogynistic, to have men and women fighting at all, then so be it. I don't personally believe so. Women aren't inherently weaker than men in my mind. Just different.

I'm fine with films that feature men and women smacking the crap out of each other. Such a thing isn't inherently misogynistic. Take "Watchmen": the film isn't misogynistic (in my view) because both male and female characters are given equal powers when fighting. The attempted rape of Silk Spectre is dealt with and has consequences for all concerned. Or Rorschach's Frank Miller-esque view of women because it is explained in the narrative why he's like that.

Now, take the T-X. Supposedly the most advanced Terminator yet, complete with magic powers of remote car / electronics control, but every fight with the T-800 saw her get her ass handed to her up to the 'I win now' moment. Compared to "T2", the T-1000 vs. T-800 fights were a lot more balanced and equally rough on both combatants. And, as mentioned: the head in the toilet bit in "T3".

On top of this they then turned John Connor into a pussy who needed Clare Danes to basically tie his shoelaces. "T2" had a strong female because she showed she was a strong female. "T3" had a wussy mommy's boy who needed a woman to pull him around and the least effective Terminator to date.

I think we can all agree that "Terminator 3" wasn't a bright spot for the franchise. Except for the DVD extra that explained why all the T-800s look like Arnie. That was great.

Bad stuff can happen to women (or homosexuals, or minorities, or whatever). That's fine and perhaps it might be dramatic. However, when the film appears to be cheering on the bad stuff that is happening to those people then it really isn't acceptable. (EDIT: unless that's what you want to watch, of course. But you shouldn't really be surprised when "Isla, She-Wolf of the SS" isn't exactly full of uplifting female role models.)

I've never seen the T3 DVD extras.. What was it that they said about Arnold's appearance?

I know that John Connor sent him back as is in T3 because the young John would still be nostalgic about him. Not sure about the reasons in T2. I just remember he first scared the shit out of Sarah Connor. I remember in T1's flashback's though, there was that T-800 who raided that camp, and while he was bulky, he didn't look like Arnold. And aren't the terminator models in the TV series basically T-800's? I think River just looks the way she does because John can claim her as his sister or something.

Does that mean that women can't be the bad guys (or gals - whatever)? In a goodie/baddie situation, surely you would always cheer on the good guy? If the baddie happens to be female or coloured or Welsh, does that automatically mean that the film is prejudiced against that minority rather than just that person?

Awesome thread turns retarded.  News at 11.


The only thing I want to add is that I originally thought that the Lokken Terminator would be crap at the infiltration bit.  There's a bunch of beaten and dirty and dishevelled women hanging around a death camp and in pops Lokken looking like, well, that. 

You wouldn't even need the fucking dogs, would you ?

Then I watched the TV series and found out that all the surviving women of the future are hotties.

Hmmm.

How so?

I'm old fashioned :  I find a discussion on why a blockbuster movie would cast a Tits and Ass Terminator retarded.

Sorry.

Fair enough.

I'm interested in Unsub's thinking because it's pertinent to questions relating to something I'm working on at the moment. Until the rules for this subforum evolve to let us discuss stuff about movies that's not related to specific films, it's the only place to discuss it.

I apologize for fagging up your Terminator thread.  :awesome_for_real:

I dare you guys to listen to the audio commentary of Total Recall (verhoven and arnold). That's probably his most intellectual movie, but even that isn't taken seriously. Really, listen to it. It's funny shit. The movie begins with the Tristar horse logo, and Arnold's going "So heah I ahm wit ze hose heah..." and it just gets better from there. :awesome_for_real:

Point being.. yeah, it's a tits and ass terminator. Nothing more. Even more dumbed down than some of Arnold's better movies, which he and no one else in hollywood are deliberately trying to give a fuck about other than to have some explosions and shit. Stop over-intellectualizing it.

Well, in the T3 extras it was Cyberdine that designed the first Terminators. The chose Arnold because he was big enough they could put the Endoskeleton under him. What makes it funny, and not really fitting to the movie's tone, is that Arnold has a corny midwest all American accent. So you get the following exchange.

Exec 1: I like him for the model. But the voice has to go. It's not intimidating enough.
Weasely looking exec 2, speaking in Arnold's voice: We'll think of something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7BYFtWGURI

It's a discussion about someone's perception of a film. I would be (and have) asked exactly the same question of people who feel that "300" is racist and homophobic (something that was nearly touched on in the Prince of Persia thread). Change the film if you like - pick something like "Blade Runner" (two female antagonists, one a "pleasure model", the other an assassin-turned-stripper) or "Misery".  What about that? A film where a man is looked after by a, let's say, over-protective woman is called "Misery". An allegory of marriage perhaps? A man's fear of a relationship with a woman? A misogynstic statement? Or just an entertaining thriller.

I asked a script-reader friend of mine this question earlier and her response was that most hollywood films - including Alien, Aliens, T3, T2 and to a certain extent T1 - are misogynist because the female characters in them are more often than not men in a woman's body. They tend to act and think like males rather than females. (As it happens, she's writing an article for an online magazine on this very topic. Curious timing.)

You forgot the most obvious one: A story about a crazy fan. It's called Misery because she won't let him leave the house and shatters his ankles with a sledgehammer. Not sure what movie you saw. :oh_i_see:

She's only a woman because Stephen King probably based her on some weird Betty Crocker supermarket type that came to one his signings, and held up the line with obsessive behavior. The image of that kind of wholesome innocence and the sick idea for a story in his head became amusing to him. So he wrote it. End of story.

[edit] Gender is totally secondary. It could very well be a story about HRose and Mark Jacobs.  :awesome_for_real:

What does that make chick flicks where all the male characters are women in men's bodies?

That makes them the same thing they have always been: disingenuous bullshit.

It's getting worse.  My eyes are itching.

Too much distinction between genders makes my eyes itch, truth to be told. I don't like that shit. Movies or otherwise.

( . Y . )

Yep. Thread fagged up horribly now. Cockgobblers.

I find it interesting how you can be somewhat aware of such things when it comes to issues of race (see Prince of Persia Thread) yet completely oblivious and Triforcer-ish when it comes to others.

As far as ruining the thread... it's DraconianOne's thread!  :drill:

I'm not sure what the comparison is to race, and I'm not sure what being "Triforcer-ish" is. I just think it's amusing that Gyllenhaal is playing an Iranian, and I think T3 is nothing more than a couple of terminators fighting each other. And stuff like Misery doesn't have some "mommy-hated-me" subtext either. It's all right there for you to see why the author in that story is miserable.

Fortunately this comment is completely clear of misogyny, so I don't need to take issue with it.  :grin:

But, since it is being used as an adjective in a negative manner, it is homophobic.  The correct phrase would be "this thread is fagged/heterosexed up horribly," which implies both methods of intercourse are equally objectionable. 

God, fuck you.

(http://www.horror-movies.ca/albums/Terminator4/terminator-salvation_192.jpg)

Back on track ; Big fucking robots killing humans.

Check the size of that weapon.

It's not the size of the weapon, it's how well you aim the fucking thing.

Cockfag.  :drill:

If the weapon's big enough aiming is irrelevant.

In other news I thought Terminator 3 was 'okay' for one reason only - the ending. They didn't wimp out and Hollywood-happy it up. Other than that it was a mediocre action film really. I don't feel it was especially misogynistic, but the contrast between it and T2 - which had an excellent, strong, lead female role (and was also a far better film) - is noticeable.

Doin' my part to rerail.


Actually, it's more than that even. I haven't watched the TV show, so this only goes by the movies:

T1: Kyle sires John Connor. Terminator comes back to try and kill John Connor. But I could easily go down a really geeky path here and wonder if that wasn't really the goal at all. What if Skynet simply wanted to ensure the mother was scared enough to train up a future military leader? So far we've never seen a world after Skynet was defeated, so I could argue that it wanted the battle it was fighting rather than an unknown timeline. I am almost certain they didn't intend this in the movie of course, but they could easily retcon the IP to tell that story.

T2: Killing Dyson didn't stop Skynet because Cyberdine didn't create it. They created robots.

T3: Bad-robot comes back not to kill John Connor nor to kill his (retconned) wife. She came back to ensure Skynet happened. She was the one to release the virus that forced the military to switch on Skynet as the only thing that could stop it.

So really, the whole show is about the future coming back in time to ensure that exact future happens.

That's the paradox. There can be no future BUT that one, because time travel can't change shit.  :grin:

Heh, I was actually doing tutorials on Time Travel paradoxes last week. What T2 has is a nice causal loop where the future events cause the past events that lead to the future events, etc., etc. You'll all be relieved to know David Lewis' (pretty famous metaphysician) official position is that they're really weird and inexplicable but there's other stuff that's inexplicable so just chill. :awesome_for_real: (awesome phrasing is mine, I break these guys positions down for the kids yo).

Ironically, I have an easier time understanding time loops than I do some of the financial market craziness (speaking of which, off to ask that question now).

TV spots + full trailer (again): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe2C80_mepk

4 minute clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcYdjHpJUV8

I have a good feeling about this.

That was a mighty fine 4 minute clip. I hope that is not the condensed cool of the entire movie.

I call it the "Guys with tits" syndrome, but it hasn't caught on yet.  :sad:

Please link the article when its up.

But wouldn't it also be misogynist to have women act like women, because then they show only stereotypes of how women should act like women are expected to act?

This is why its easier for Hollywood to just not have female lead characters or for Disney to have black princesses or whatever.  If you omit, there is slight grumbling.  If you dare to add, then you are automatically racist/misogynistic/crypto-fascistic immino-patriarchalist/whatever to whatever broken mirror shard faction of crazy decides whatever you did isn't PC.   

Could we please not try to bring back the misogyny discussion?  At least not until the majority of the people who throw the word around actually learn what it means first.

Misogyny is when a Mommy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy and a Daddy all decide that Mommy needs special facial moisturizer.

Right?

Win.  :awesome_for_real:

No, that is called Lady's Night.

Please link the article when it is up.  :why_so_serious:

The article is up at TwelvePoint here (http://www.twelvepoint.com/?q=articles/strong-female-characters).  Unfortunately, you need a subscription to read it.

For those who don't know, Terminator opens tomorrow rather than Friday, with midnight shows tonight.

yawn.

Completely generic. Like, really. Basically the studio made a sheet of Generic-Action-Adventure-Summer-Flick, undercooked it, and then cut it into the shape of a terminator movie to capitalize on the franchise. It is cgi-dosed pablum. It does not even have the decency to bother being a bad movie. It is just a dose of noise and visuals.

 :heartbreak:

Who would have expected Star Trek XI to be better than Terminator IV?

 :cry2:

Given the cast, I would hope everybody.

This is still gonna be awesome.

Everything samprimary said.  Terminator 3 is a better movie.

Ebert proves why he's still top dog:

"After scrutinizing the film, I offer you my summary of the story: Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost two hours."

 :heartbreak:

Sounds awesome.

Somehow that story seems familiar... (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4988255/1/Halflife_Fulllife_Consequences_Free_Man)

In a film by McG? Say it ain't so!

Yea and coincidentally I saw a preview for some movie that I swear was modeled after Half Life.

The movie was painfully generic. There were some cool moments, but otherwise they dumped you into the middle of a story they thought you already knew and cared about deeply, without bothering to tell it good anyway. This one didn't help Bale anymore than his temper did. The freakin' terminator was a better actor.

And wtf is it with single name people? I swear there were like four or five single-namers in the opening credits.

Since you can't repeat names in SAG, they're probably running out of good, easily-recognizable dual-name combos that don't infer you're part of some legacy family.   Think of it as the rise of the Screen Name IRL.

I guess I'm the only one here who didn't hate it? After T3, I went in with low expectations and had them exceeded. I've been a long fan of the franchise though, so them not retelling the story from the first 3 movies didn't bother me.

I liked this movie.

If we accept the Terminator universe as an Alice Universe, that is to say an Alice Universe with instead of 2 distinct routes through time, rather an infinite number - this whole thing fits perfectly in canon. That is, there's a defined universe, Jon Connor is born when Kyle gets sent back to knock up his mom to make sure that there's a leader of the resistance born and protected to make it through Judgement Day and every time the war ends one of the sides isn't happy with the outcome so they send someone back and the same series of events happens on another one of the paths - well, it's perfectly reasonable. It explains Terminator 3, it explains the TV show and it explains well, everything. It allows for anything to happen in the universe as long as:

1. John Connor is alive until Judgement Day.
2. Judgement Day happens.
3. John Connor rises as the leader of the resistance.
4. Time machines are built and one thing (human or machine) is sent back from each side.

There is an infinite number of things that can happen between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4 - but 4 always reconnects to 1. I's a closed circuit, but what happens between them has an infinite number of possibilities.

I liked this movie. Fuck the haters. Even McG couldn't fuck it up.

Also, John having a half-man/half-robots heart explains why he was willing to send back reprogrammed robots in 2 and the TV show. So not only does it explain one of the missing key elements, it explains a huge part of the canon that was missing. Shit was fucking great.

Elfman can choke on a tailpipe though. He sucks so, so hard.

Anyway, in closing: The 4 movies and the TV show can all be treated as different timelines (that do NOT run in parallel - only one timeline is happening at any given time) and it still doesn't fall out of canon.

OK. Had an argument with my roommate. And he makes it make more sense.

John Connor isn't important. The events are, but John himself isn't. As long as Kyle Reese makes it to a time machine, he's capable of always resetting the Alice Universe. Which is to say, the one rule of the universe is the Kyle Reese fucks some chick - any chick - that gives birth to John Connor. If Kyle Reese dies, the series falls apart.

Edit: Also, this implies that points 2 and 3 always happen so that John Connor is targeted by Skynet and Reese can always, somehow, make it back in time. And yes, I realize this all implies that Skynet is just generally dumb, even though the fourth movie has them targeting Kyle Reese - he still, theoretically, gets to the time machine.

Edit 2: So, in closing:

0. Some man, any man, named Kyle Reese fucks some woman, any woman, named Sarah Connor and John Connor pops out 9 months later.

But without John would there be a Kyle in the Resistance to send back?

My theory, even the revised one, forces A John Connor to exist at all times and forces him to become important in the resistance. The TV show, when he jumped forward in time, did nothing but reinforce that idea - John appeared, in the resistance base, wearing Kyle's jacket, and would've explained it all, thus insuring his importance in the resistance. Which is to say, they would've jumped back and revised their strategy and the same events would've happened. But always, Kyle has to get sent back and John has to exist. It allows for infinite possibilities between each of the points.

The original writer (Gale Anne Hurd) is coming back for Terminator 5.

Maybe if they also bring back Cameron and Fiedel we can have something resembling a good terminator movie.

So it doesn't sound like you liked the Salvation's story so much as you liked the fact that you can use it to fanwank some theory on how an unescessary sequel and a failed TV spin-off fit in with the first two movies.  Terminator and Terminator 2 are great movies.  Building a bunch of extra shit around them doesn't make them  better.  You don't need to turn it into a fucking franchise, you don't need alternate realities.  The first two movies said everything they needed to.  You're overthinking it.

Opened to $43 million. Which is nice, but still $30m less than Trek opened with, $40m less than Wolverine, and $10m less than the Night at the Museum sequel it opened against.

It opened on nearly 600 screens fewer than Wolverine and Night at the Museum though. Plus neither Trek nor Wolverine had any significant competition that was released on the same weekend. Even though Terminatior: Salvation is not R-rated, I'm guessing that families going to the movies on this weekend in particular (you do make a thing of the whole weekend leading up to Memorial Day don't you?) are more likely to go and see a outwardly family friendly movie like Night at the Museum than a geek-fest like Terminator which most suburban mummies probably aren't going to enjoy.

Before the weekend they were predicting Terminator would beat out Night at the Museum.

Uh, it is a fucking franchise already. As such, it makes sense to figure out how all of it works together. And this world can exist with a lot less rules than say, Star Wars.

Also, Salvation didn't have a story, it just had tenuous connections to the canon. All it did by the end was reaffirm the fact Kyle Reese didn't get killed before he needed to go back and fuck a Sarah Connor.

I'm not overly fond of all the Star Wars "expanded universe" stuff, but nothing in it requires anything like the tortured alternate-universe fanboy logic you posted the other day.

4 Pretty simple rules so that the universe resets properly with an infinite number of possibilities between them doesn't really fall under the definition of tortured.

None of it really matters though since McG will break the entire loop by the end of his 3rd movie and the entire thing will just be killed outright.

Really?  So did you try to come up with theories on how Highlander and all its shit sequels and the often good, but contradictory TV series all fit together?  Bonus points if your theory includes the animated series and the recent direct to dvd/sci-fi channel movie.

Just because some people don't know when to quit doesn't mean you need to desperatly cobble together a way to make everythng work together.

Ok.

In the future, Edward Furlong is going to travel back in time and shoot whoever is responsible for them digging up the Terminator franchise after part 2.

I just watched Terminator 2 last night, I don't think Furlong has the right to do that as he was, by far, the weakest link in that cast. In fact, he may very well be the worst John Connor Ever. Yes, even worse than 3, something I didn't think previously possible. I wanted to knock his prepubescent teeth out. Though, whatever, still the best movie in the series and one of/if not the best sci-fi movie ever.

Anyone care to explain the first Connor scene (the hole) to me?

I would, but it involves complex math.

What needs explaining? I don't understand the question.

I should! Except the story of Highlander isn't set on Certain Things Happening around All The Same Characters. It's a tournament (or, rather, was supposed to be on a macro level - and on a micro level it was just you know, hollywood drama), not a chain of events.

I just saw it on the weekend. I enjoyed the film. I didn't see any crazy story inconsistencies. I don't understand why people don't like it, or don't understand it. It had a good terminator vs bad terminator(s), john connor, skynet and even the original Ahhhnuld made an appearance, what more do you want from a Terminator movie?

Oh right, you asked that last page. The team that infiltrated the hole was broadcasting the information they were siphoning from the network. I distinctly recall some sort of "uplink established" like statement in the background. Incidentally, I think it was that and the other ongoing connections that let Skynet track the sub.

The atomic bomb was I think Skynet mopping up after the robots were all killed by the force. Or doing the last ditch thing of just bombing it all from orbit. Not like it has any remorse for its minions. More the traditional colony bee/worker-bee setup.

How Connor survived that blast, how he survived getting thrown against a few dozen walls, and how the helicopter fleeing at the end didn't get downed at least by the EM portion of the blast if not for the blast itself, well, that's for the people who liked this movie enough to debate it :-)

I know how he survived everything.

IT'S A MOVIE.

I totally missed the atomic bomb . Are mushroom clouds atomic only? I was kind of assuming that it was a large explosion, but not a city leveling thing, like the power cell Ahhhhnullld pulled out of his manly bosom and tossed behind the truck in T3.

Mostly they're associated with nuclear explosions, but really any huge bomb will do it I guess. And with that goes my assumption that Connor miraculously survived a nuclear bomb :wink:


How were you arguing this movie fit into the IP again?  :awesome_for_real:

Mushroom doesn't mean atomic. The fuel cell was hydrogen based.


Yes, but that doesn't mean anything.

The fusion cell he pulled out of his chest that went critical? Pretty sure that was supposed to be a nuclear explosion. Mushroom clouds are produced by non-nuclear explosions also but in this context its a safe assumption it implies a nuclear explosion.

I'm actually watching it right now. It was hydrogen and he wasn't worried about fallout.

My mistake, i still think its a pretty safe bet that when they use a mushroom cloud its a pretty blatant implication that its a nuclear explosion of some type.

Is he the last one to get out of the hole or the first one?

If he's the last one and everybody else die.  How come the submarine HQ get the secret code/frequency before him?

Or the code doesn't even come from the hole?

Because all the data was being sent on to command as they accessed it.  They weren't there to physically take the data and go, just to enable the Resistance to gain access to it. 

KU KU KU KACHUNG! KU KU KU KACHUNG!

I agree with you here.  I don't think a hydrogen explosion would cause the kind of blast we saw in T3, unless there was a mega-asston of hydrogen jammed into that thing.

I know he said it was a fuel cell, but I think the writers had their science wrong and were thinking cold fusion or something.  Also the terminator from T2 said he could run for 100 years or so on his power source, and I don't see a fuel cell doing that.  Even if it is from the future, you would have to jam an insane amount of hydrogen into that little cell to run a terminator for 100 years without re-fueling.

What's wrong with invented tech? :wink:

I know, which is why my sentence didn't end there (because I read the same article from wikipedia you posted :-) ).

Once again.

Movie.

Actually, I always put it down to Skynet being stupid.  REALLY REALLY STUPID.  I mean, come on, Skynet Monologues about finally killing John, meanhile it sends ONE single Arnold terminator after Connor while he is in Skynet Central?  That room should have been packed wall to wall with the things. Not to mention that It could have killed Reese 20 times over and replaced him with a Terminator lookalike to act as bait but somehow didnt

Mainly, I have to put it down to my own theory that John Connor (and by extention Kyle Reese) actually CAN NOT DIE until after they have accomplished what they have already done.

Connor is stuck in a fixed time causuality loop.  It is literally impossible for Skynet to kill Connor any time before he sends Reese back in time to be his own father.  Same with Reese.  Reese is essentially immortal because he Has to go back in time to Father Connor and then die, because he ALREADY DID IT.

Kind of shits all over the "there is no destiny but what you make" speach that Connor gives at the end of the movie, but that's what you get for building your entire premise around a paradox.

Why are people trying to make sense of a movie that has always revolved around time traveling?

Because the first two movies made sense, and for almost two decades every nerd worth their salt has awaited a terminator movie that takes place during the future war. It sucking is almost too much for a man to bear, so we resort to theoretical physics in an attempt to justify it not sucking.

Just saw it, it's pure shit.  The writing was so bad I had to look up the writers, Terminator: Salvation is written by the team that did Catwoman.

Oh and they're doing the Surrogate movie next, so that is a must miss.

My biggest problem with the movie as a whole was simple:

It didn't explain anything, add anything or otherwise advance the overall terminator franchise storyline in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Absolutely NOTHING of any signifigance actually happened during the movie.  And that, i think, is the biggest problem as a whole.

It was a good flick, not a great one.  And Christian Bale needs to stop making fucking movies for a while.  Jesus, I'm sick at looking at his pinched, weasel face.

John getting terminator parts and trusting that dude (as poorly as it played out) explains a whole lot.

I'm not defending the movie on any sort of script/dialogue or acting merits, but the actual events explain why he's ok with sending back reprogrammed T-800s, Cameron, etc.

Also, we were all totally spoiled by the vastly superior tv show.

No, they did not.

It's true, they didn't. If you watch them back to back it's an insane mess.

The second movie, on its own, is probably one of the best sci-fi movies ever made though. Which is part of the reason people HATED 3 and have major disdain for 4. Because they just weren't as good as 2. Even though, compared to the WORLD OF SCI-FI, they're still better than 90% of the bullshit out there.

John trusted the guy because he knew he had origionally been human, and finally accepted that the machines couldn't take that from him.  Also, he didnt get terminator parts, the heart was a human heart (it just happened to be in a heavily modified terminator).

Not sure how or why that would affect them sending the T-800 back in time, because from what i understand, T-800 were still fully robot, rather then Cyborg half human / half machine mixes.

The point is that it opens his mind up to the POSSIBILITY of things not being what they seem. We know why young John Connor always trusts machines that say they're there to help him (because he keeps getting them sent to him from his future self). But there had to be a reason for John to send them back. A half-human/half-machine thing is a pretty good gateway drug.

This movie was a horrible desecration of the originals, full of gross stupidities that only a fanboy would try to handwave away with a combination of "But it's just a movie!" excuses and torturous geek overanalysis. You're a horrible twat for liking it.

Not really. I haven't even seen it. I just wanted to be the one saying that for once.  :awesome_for_real:

If you've got faith in your ability to reprogram the things, it's certainly a lot more effective to send a Terminator back in time for protection than it is to send a human with no weapons.  I'm not sure how that makes less sense than the idea that getting a heart transplant from a guy who unwillingly had his brain and heart put inside a robot body led to an ability to trust reprogramed Terminators.

And come to think of it, I have no idea why Skynet would choose to use a human heart to power a machine in the first place. I'm sure there's some real geeky explanation along the lines of humans-as-batteries in Matrix (when freakin' microwaves in space, or just, like, colonizing space woulda made more sense). But to me it was merely a plot device to service the open heart surgery at the end.

And as an aside, nothing outside of that heart transplant event really made John Connor "trust" nor even like machines though because that one machine was one machine, a one-off, a prototype with a human personality that overroad whatever memories were intended to be inserted. Considering that prototype had to off himself to let John win to fight a war against the machines he hates, he merely sees the machines as useful tools.

And yea, I'd send a Terminator back for protection detail well before I'd send a human.

Assume, for a second, that the john connor we saw was the first john connor. Or at least, a John Connor that didn't have one or two T-800s protecting him. What then? Why would he even think Terminators can be reprogrammed differently?

Time Travel/Causality makes this a harder discussion. That's why I was trying to lay out the things that define the Terminator Universe earlier.


There is no realistic way for anything in the Terminator series to ever be half as bad as what your precious Star Wars turned out to be. You can mostly blame the fans for that, but Lucas definitely shares a good part of it.

I'd assume whatever scientists are left would take every opportunity to study the enemies' technology and would at some point figure out how to reprogram the Terminators.

I could start busting out the Rotten Tomatoes and/or Metacritic scores, but really I didn't come here to be that way or to take the thread in that direction. Heck, I thought I was making a joke at my own expense.

I've always assumed that whenever someone resets the whole thing (though the TV show confirmed it), the series always pressed the reset button on the future. As in, that same future doesn't exist immediately after their sent back. Cameron and Derek were sent back in the TV show, they jump to a future where John Connor doesn't even exist as The John Connor yet.

I thought so too.  I even laughed.

There, there.

Special effects were excellent and the stuff with Marcus or Kyle Reese were the best parts of an otherwise horribly cheesy movie that was entirely too in love with itself. Christian Bale was ... well, he was Batman. And its getting really repetitive. Almost to the point where I think 2 Batman movies was enough.

If you really want to get into why Skynet is incredibly stupid: why didn't it send back multiple Terminators to make it? And then multiple Terminators to update it to everything that happened in the future? It would have created an omnipotent machine.

But, anyway: still have to see this movie.

I think its obvious that the resistance is always thwarting their attempts. Otherwise Skynet probably wouldn't let them send any of their own back. Also, that's a strong part of the TV series plot. http://www.savethescc.com/ is gathering steam, and campaigning  to save the TV show through letter campaigns, etc and hoping WB or SyFy will pick it up.

Wow, we totally agree on all of these points. I thought the movie was very good. It was an action movie. There were a few plot holes and inconsistencies (some of which are apparently covered up by the prequel novel that's out), but overall nothing that just made me /ragequit. Marcus was very good, Bale was ok, the plot thin as it was didn't suck, and the action was loud, pretty and well-done. I love that they didn't do the typical Hollywood "I shoot at a gas tanker and it explodes" thing and instead had to add a spark.

I would have really loved it if they'd gone with McG's original idea of killing Conner and replacing him with a reskinned Marcus. Or even better, kill Conner and have him not be replaced, but be a legend perpetrated by Reese and his wife. All these things get done in his name but he's really dead. That would have been cool. But they'd never do it with a big-budget action franchise.

Also, yes, Elfman is such a ball-licker.

The movie's original ending was better.

Holy cow that's a stupid script. Artifical Retardation.

Predictions for film no. 2:

- Star grows up to be a superhacker after having seen a field radio be repaired with chewing gum and telekinesis. She then programs a tactically superior terminator that runs on rainbows and hugs, but shoots 120mm grenades and Stinger missiles. Soon thereafter she invents the inexhaustible Apache & Warthog hangar.

- The women remain smoking hot and as saucy-looking as if they just came home from a day at the spa. Also, things are hereonout effectivized and each born female is assigned a future spouse. They have strict orders not to act on these pretenses until assigned spouse performs a suitable, selfless and preferrably terminal, act.

- Kate dies horribly short after the daughter's birth. She names her Sarah with her final breaths. John overcomes his grief by chanting his own name, then decides that, really, something has to be done about these robots! His face remains unchanged throughout this grief process.

- Surprisingly, SkyNet releases a brand new line of sentient kitchen appliances. They each come armed with heavy machine guns and severe misanthropia, but can, with a screwdriver and a Nintendo DS, be disarmed and used normally. Still nobody believes the robots can be reprogrammed.

- SkyNet, recovering from its losses, still takes the high road of sportsmanship and finally accepts the handicap of only getting to have one player on the field at any one time.

- Bobby Fisher returns from the grave and beats SkyNet at chess. Kasparov turns in his grave. Deep Blue cries.

Given that it failed to open in first place, is on track to make less money than T3, and may not make back it's budget at the box office (yes, worldwide) I don't know as I'd start worrying about sequels just yet.

I just saw it, it was decent. Worth the money but not much more.

Watched it yesterday.

Was the usual by-the-numbers summer blockbuster specifically targeted at the least critical demographic that exists. Much of the dialogue made me cringe, the many and varied gaping plot holes made me care a whole lot less about the story and I came away with a distinct sense that someone had utterly wasted the money that could have been used to make several decent films with.

Did shit get blowed up ?

Yes.

It was good enough for me to enjoy.  Robots and explosions people!

The director was horrible, the writing was bad, the plot was stupid. Bale should be banned from being in any new films.

It was very much a movie length production of a Command & Conquer cut scene.  In fact I think you could dub the movie as GDI vs NOD and it would be hard to tell the difference.

I was spoilered about the original ending, and with that in mind I enjoyed this mediocre movie more than I probably should.

The new and improved nonhuman Terminators made no sense. Swimming eel Terminators for water patrols? Motorbike Terminators lodged in the feet of hulking weapon platform Terminators? Sound slike Skynet went a bit overboard in this iteration of the future.

The resistance was a bit too open with its operations. Radio signals between all their bases, both for military and recruitment purposes (Connors Radio Free Resistance). We know Skynet ignored those signals on purpose, but why did the resistance think they could pull that off without being discovered?

Connor was a whiny bitch that had only one thing going for him, the fucking prophecy and therefore the willingness of everybody else to die for his sake. I swear at this rate Terminator X will be called "The Last Man on Earth".

Marcus Wright was the high point of this movie, he played Bale against the wall, and with the current ending all that time was wasted for what basically was a heart donor. With the original ending all of that made sense, though. Skynet being fought and destroyed by what it created, all the prophecy stuff being true and needed, but not in the way everybody imagined. And I would buy why Connor was so good against the machines and could turn the tide against them all of a sudden. Because I don't see that potential in either Bale or Terminator 3 Connor.

Still haven't seen this, but The Editing Room's abridged scripts (http://www.the-editing-room.com/terminator-salvation.html) are usually pretty spot on for mediocre films:

I think those are the older model terminators before they attained perfection with Model Ahhhnold were they not?

Could be, but especially motorcycle terminators are a really dumb idea. How do they even get up again once they tip over? I have this vision of the resistance tipping one on its head and taunting it.

You don't think Skynet thought of a telescoping kickstand/leg that tips the bike back up to balanced level when it tips over?

You mean the same Skynet that didn't think about sending more than one Terminator to kill its arch-nemesis John Connor when it laid a trap inside a Terminator factory?  :awesome_for_real:

It was busy putting its viewscreen back together after Marcus RROD'ed it.

This film was depressingly average. Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was definitely the star of the show for me, although the whole heart transplant ending pissed me off. I also found it harder than usual to willfully suspend my disbelief in this film; the terminator factory full of stairs, chairs and tables seemed odd, but then I was half-expecting to find a cabal of crazed supremacist humans behind the scenes running something that would necessitate all that. Sadly this wasn't the case.

The cameo by CGI Arnie was great though.

I have always just accepted the "human accessible layout" of most Skynet facilities as being based around the fact that skynet was designed by humans, so when it took over, it essentially just moved in to the existing buildings.  

Why is the lab so human friendly?  Because skynet didn't build it, it stole it from whatever human organization initially owned it, and never felt the need to modify it to fit it's own needs.   Personally, I don't picture skynet as much of a builder to begin with.  At the most, it probably just does some basic re-tooling of existing human manufacturing facilities, and ignores everything else about the structure it deems irrelevant.

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On a side note, I have always wondered: Exactly how much about the past / present interactions spawned by it's messing with time does Skynet actually know.

For example, skynet seems to be aware that Kyle Reese is important (it specificly targets some Civilian that the Resistance Command for all intents and purposes didnt even know existed) but we never find out why.  

Why does it put Reese at the top of it's kill list when (if we go by the events of the movies) only John should actually be aware of ANY of the signifigance of Reese and his actions / existance at that point in time.

I am assuming it knows Reese gets sent back in time to save Sara, but does it know Reese is actually John's father?  If it knew that, and we act on the assumption that each time travel event IS iterating changes in the future, would there ever be the possibility that skynet would deliberately NOT invent time travel, basicly preventing John from being born by removing the means for his mother ever meeting his father?  (now how is THAT for a fucked up time travel scenario  :ye_gods: )

Of course, that leaves us back at the first time travel event to begin with, where a man who should not exist (by conventional logic, since at that point his father had not met his mother yet) sends his own father back in time to knock his mother up.  :uhrr:

It's time travel. It doesn't even begin to make sense. :grin:

Finally saw it, I hope the next one is worth watching as I didn't really see the point of this one.

But wasn't it due to time travel that Skynet was invented in the first place? The remains of the first terminator in the past were the building blocks and inspiration for the creation of Skynet by the guy who blows up Cyberdyne in T2.

LOL, I can't stop laughing at his!

Agree. He needs to star in his own franchise. Something brand new from good scriptwriters that will have long life like Mel Gibson in Mad Max, Bruce Willis in Die Hard, Christian Bale in Batman, etc.

Saw the movie last night and enjoyed it. Then again, it was helping me recover from sitting through Land of the Lost earlier in the day with a friend and her seven-year-old (she thought it was a kids' flick, turns out it's a bad stoner movie).

Thanks, that was excellent.

Not that anyone cares, but in the First Terminator Reese says the the first terminators infiltrators had rubber skin, but that the Arnie terminators with human skin were "new."

If you follow the timeline, it was T3 that really screwed up continuity.

With T1, you had the 'new' T800s.

With T2, you had the 'prototype' T1000.

With T3, you had the 'prototype' T-X, which (in some pre-release comics) is shown blowing away several T1000s.

Still haven't seen TS. However, it was T3 that really messed with the lore. Especially John Connor trapped in a dog cage he couldn't get out of.

Yet another movie thread necro by me, sorry.

Saw this last night, finally. God what a pile of weak rubbish. Fell asleep before the end but cannot bear the thought of having to watch any of it again so I think it's getting returned to the rental place unfinished.  Please just let the franchise die now, stop fucking the corpse. And American Psycho remains, for me, the high point of Bale's acting career, he was atrocious in this.

Finally saw this myself. It wasn't that weak IMO, but it was like a lot of action-y movies these days, a lot of flash and flair, but very little real wow-factor. I liked it, though, I had no problems with watching the whole thing, even though there were a few times when I just had to go  :oh_i_see: because things got stupid.

But is it just me, though, or are action-y movies just weaker in general these days?

Overuse of CGI and a focus on style over substance hurts. I think they are also prone to over saturating the action, which devalues it within the film. I'd say that films like Casino Royale, The Dark Knight, District 9 and Star Trek manage to be good action movies by having good action as highlights from an interesting underlying plot; they are not non-stop action.

I think the last good all-action film (I guess) was The Matrix, and that was 10 years ago.

Maybe I'm atypicial, but I also find the action scenes shot live and without CGI far more visceral and interesting than the exaggerated and polished CGI sequences. The set-pieces in films like Die Hard III and Heat are far more real and gritty than most of the pieces I have seen.

I was actually watching the A-Team a few months back (:why_so_serious:), and I was thinking JUST THAT on one occasion, specifically when they were being chased by a chopper which I noticed cut off some of the branches of a tree because it got too close. Nevermind that the cars ALL just went up into the air and flipped 180 onto the roof, it was still filled with more awesomium. :grin:

Just to get back to the movie, I was sort of hoping they'd bring Summer Glau into the mix somewhere, but I suppose I'll just have to make do with the series for that. She's awesome at playing a machine, much more so than the guys they brought into this movie. Their voices all sounded like they were suffering from overexertion and 20 years of whiskey abuse, at the same time, whereas Glau manages to seem very human one moment, then utterly disconnected and machine-like the next. And she's hot.

I watched this last week. I went in thinking it'd be worse than T3 and umm...I really enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised. That said, I wish they had kept the original ending now. My original gut instinct when I heard about it was "that sucks!" but damn if Sam Worthington didn't sell that role. I hope Avatar makes a billion dollars because I'd like to see him in more movies.

I got this for my Christmas.

...

Apparently from someone who must hate me.

What an utter shite pile.

Drivel from start to finish.

Not sure you noticed, but a good number of shots you may have thought were CGI were animatronics and actor suits.

Use it as a coaster.  Everytime you pick up a glass to drink you will be reminded of the time that McG stole from your life.

I finally rented this a while ago.  We might have turned the sound off in the middle.  I don't remember.

What was the original ending?

Christian Bale dies, as in dead for good
They use the Skynet lab to make Sam Worthington terminator look and sound like Christian Bale
Terminator John Connor leads the resistance... except
McG says that ending actually ended with the Terminator John Connor suddenly killing all the resistance people (wife, black guy, Kyle Reese, little girl, hot fighter pilot) there with him at the skynet lab and then leading humanity to it's extinction. Flawless victory for skynet.

Yeah, what Angry Bob said (minus the killing everyone thing I didn't hear that) I just realized a flaw in my plan. What made the character cool was Sam Worthington and I'm not sure Christian Bale could play it as well as he did.

I'm still peeved that they killed Sam Worthington off in favour of Christian Bale; Sam Worthington's terminator was really pretty damn good.

This was a lot better than I was led to believe. About the only thing dumb were the moto-Terminators.. but then, the actual chase with them wasn't bad. Kyle and Marcus were cool characters. Not much to complain about. I was entertained. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be mad about.

[edit] That's the same dude who played Chekhov? I've never seen him in other stuff. Chekhov was a bit much, but he was good in this. I get the feeling he's going to do a lot of cool things.

I just watched this with the missus. The action scenes were pretty cool and Sam Worthington impressed me. Christian Bale was miscast. The young Arnie looked better than the young Kevin Flynn from Tron Evolution. I was good to go until the last five minutes. One word: Pacemakers. Other than that last infuriating scene, I'm willing to settle since Worthington made things bearable. Hopefully, they do a better job on the script for the next one.

It's not a sure thing that there will even BE a next one.

I really liked the first half of this, but then it sort of went down hill.  SEEING the man v. machine war in that kind of post apocalyptic setting was really neat, and I think made for a good story.  Even the John Connor trying to establish himself as a leader part was good.  But then the end where he went off on his own for so long just felt so....movie-like.  I mean, yea, it is a movie, but it felt like they went to such lengths to try and make this gritty/realistic setting for so long, and then suddenly John Connor turns into rambo or something.  Not my preference.

Well, shit, I'm always down for more Terminator movies, even if they aren't as good as T2, which is, like, impossible anyways.

I agree that this one was definitely better over the first half and then kinda went downhill around the time Marcus Wright met John Connor. They needed to trim the Connor scenes because he wasn't interesting enough to be robbing Wright's character of all that screen time. Just hearing his voice over the radio for the first hour would have set up the character for a cool (re)introduction at the mid-point. Connor ought be up there with Riggs or John McLean as badass buckaroo underdogs. The more I think about it, the less I like the movie because the ending was so far off the mark, but it was still fun.