Terminator: Salvation

[UnSub]

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.

[apocrypha]

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.

[tgr]

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  because things got stupid.

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

[K9]

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.

[tgr]

I was actually watching the A-Team a few months back (), 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.

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.

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[Ironwood]

I got this for my Christmas.

...

Apparently from someone who must hate me.

What an utter shite pile.

Drivel from start to finish.

[Mrbloodworth]

Overuse of CGI

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

[ahoythematey]

I got this for my Christmas.

...

Apparently from someone who must hate me.

What an utter shite pile.

Drivel from start to finish.

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.

[Signe]

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

[Threash]

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.

What was the original ending?

[angry.bob]

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.

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.

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[K9]

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

[stray]

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.

[stu]

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.

[HaemishM]

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

[Malakili]

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.

[stu]

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.