Just saw Terminator Salvation this afternoon.
Ok first the “could have been better”:
- McG doesn’t have the subtlety and nuance or the focus on character development of James Cameron, but he does ok.
- Christian Bale occassionally busts out into his Batman voice
- At times it’s too chaotic in a Charlies Angel kind of way
-Clear Matrix influences as well as some War of the Worlds - Dialogue a little over the top sometimes. Too many NOOOOOOOOs and THAT’S A T-600!! (you could have just said “killer robot”)
- Hamhanded insertion of fanboyillia
- I miss the Brad Fidel soundtrack of the first two films
Now, what I liked:
- Stuff blows up real good
- The Terminators are scary as fuck. No “Jason and the Argonauts” endoskeletons or CGI Cylon Centurians here.
Was…okay.
My issues with it:
-The whole “New guy is a terminator without knowing it” would be a lot more interesting if it hadn’t been given away in the trailer.
-The Human heart symbolism was incredibly heavy handed. And no…I didn’t see every plot “twist” involving that coming a mile away…particularly the one at the end.
My major gripe is that while I know they changed the past from all the time travel shenaginans in the previous movies, but throughout most of the movie, I kept thinking of the little speech from the first film
Kyle Reese:… Most of us were rounded up, put in camps for orderly disposal.
[Pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark]
Kyle Reese: This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive… to work… loading bodies into dumpsters and incinerators. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah, your unborn son.
That coupled with the few snippets of the future gives a much different picture of what I expected from this movie.
The original and even the 2nd shows a rather desperate humanity, hopelessly outclassed, living in tunnels, herded into concentration camps, paranoid of terminator infiltration, constantly tired and hungry and no doubt damaged from the constant stress(Kyle Reese was having nightmares in the first film). John Conner ends up inspiring them to rise up and make a desperate fight, eventually, through long, hard struggle, finally winning and prompting all the time traveling. You know, a real epic, from almost extinct to final victory.
The new movie…well, humanity doesn’t really seem that desperate. I mean, they’ve got at least one airbase with C-130’s, A-10’s, a small fleet of helicopters, not to mention all the infrastructure, supplies and technical support to maintain them. Not to mention power and a lot of computer screens.
That’s a far cry from living in crappy tunnels and dodging giant tanks all the time. Hell, the fact Skynet can’t even locate a friggen airbase(despite the fact skynet probably has satellites available) implies it’s kinda stupid. Hell, even after all those flares and explosions at their base, Skynet apparently never bothered to send a couple HK’s to investigate.
And instead of John being the leader? Well, he’s just the head of a local base…after his officer in charge gets blown up and still playing second fiddle to a group of douchbags on a sub(who are apparently really surprised that skynet figures out where they are despite their continued broadcasting).
It’s not a good sign when I’m watching the movie and having nostalgia for the first two before the movies even over.
On the bright side, I was rather pleased that the T-800 takes at least as much punishment, if not more, then the terminator in the original before going down. I was beginning to wonder when the terminators in most of the movie went down with just a dozen assault rifle bullets.
I have to admit, I too was disappointed by T4’s vision of the future.
In the Kyle Reese speech that you quoted above, it sounds like he first encountered John Connor while in some sort of concentration camp. Now I can concede this point on the basis that John and Sarah’s meddling in T2 changed a lot of things about the future and, for whatever reason, in this particular alternate reality Reese evades capture by Skynet.
But the impression I got from the first two films was that the Resistance was a ragtag army on the brink of starvation fighting with rudimentary equipment (laser rifles not withstanding) - certainly a lot bleaker than what they show in the new film.
And IIRC in the first movie Reese said that they fought mainly at night to avoid detection, but it seems most of the action in T4 takes place during the day.
I didn’t watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles much, but from what I did see it seemed much more faithful to the James Cameron movies than this latest installment. Their version of the future looked pretty much as I would have envisioned it, given what they showed in the first two films. And more importantly the stories had heart. Yeah they did have some kick ass action scenes, but that wasn’t the only reason you tuned in. You actually wanted to see what happened to the characters.
Unfortunately McG just seems like Michael Bay-light.
I have not seen the movie yet , however it would have been better for the resistance folks to scrap it out in the daytime, with the advance sensors on the robots and hunter-killers, humans would have just stood out like blobs of heat, day time has more ambient sounds, light ,color and so forth for the droids to sift through.
Declan
Actually he did. Kyle doesn’t meet John Conner until later in the movie when he busts him out of a Skynet detention center. But he knows of him.
I am willing to accept that it is soon enough after J-day that the humans still have aircraft and weapons. Over the next several years, I imagine that Skynet will be busy inventing time travel and phased plasma rifles in the 40 watt range while things will be getting progressively worse for the humans until they are left with nothing but stolen weapons and Somalia style “technicals” to fight with.
Part of the problem is that James Cameron was really able to make you care about the characters in T1 and T2. And with the help of Brad Fiedels score, he really created this sense of despair and desperation. You don’t really get that in T4. It plays out like a videogame. Action sequence. Character dialogue to advance the plot. Repeat.
I mean think of all the shit Marcus has to deal with. He wakes up in this post apocalyptic wasteland right out of Fallout 3. Then he’s attacked by killer robots. Then he finds out he’s a robot. Then he finds out he was supposed to be an evil robot. And yet at no time do you think that he finds any of this odd or unusual for more than a minute or two.
Also, it really wasn’t as gruesome as other Terminator films.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for a thread on this - I was beginning to think that nobody wanted to admit seeing this piece of crap movie.
Plotwise, this film made no damn sense. Shit blowed up good and everyone looked badass, but that was about it. Let’s look at what coincidences had to happen for Marcus Wright’s ‘mission’ to be the success that Skynet said it was:
1)Marcus Wright walks from wherever he was ‘born’ to LA, where he happens to be saved by Skynet’s Most Wanted #1, Kyle Reese. Kyle is soon picked up by Skynet, and rather than being killed immediately is used as…bait? But how is that supposed to work, exactly? Who knows that he’s there besides Skynet and Marcus?
2) Marcus starts to go after Kyle, but happens to cross paths with the pilot who can put him in contact with Skynet’s Most Wanted #2, John Connor. He wins her total devotion when they happen to cross paths with some Deliverance types.
3) At this point, Marcus would be of little to no interest to John Connor, but because he happens to step on a magnetic mine he is revealed to be a cyborg, which is interesting to John. Still, John has no reason not to kill Marcus posthaste, except that
4) John happens to make a little speech to Marcus and name-drops Kyle Reese, which gives Marcus the opportunity to name-drop in return.
5) Marcus must now apparently subliminally influence John Connor to follow him to Skynet SF.
Man, making sense of this shit is impossible.
Thats exactly what they said, HKs had infrared so they just hid at night.
I just saw it and it was a big mess of a movie - none of the despair of the Cameron visions, just a bunch of stuff that Blowed Up Real Good. A couple of other eye-rolling issues:
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Everybody shoots as if they were trained, poorly, by the A-Team. Tens of thousands of rounds fill the air about our main characters in any 20-minute stretch of film and, in the one time per character that they’re hit, they’re never disabled enough to prevent them from running away.
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Why were the terminators coming after our guys on a one by one basis? Where’s the columns of the Terminator Army? Why doesn’t Skynet use mixed-arms tactics - “Hey, we could use the worm-terminator as our infantry - just pour them out by the millions. Send the T-600+ models in later, for mopping up, and we’ll have our big guys just stand back pounding the humans with that artillery of ours.” “No, no need to make use of our production abilities - send out a single hunter-killer airplane with not a single robot on it. And let’s have only one, maybe two Robocops per 100 mile stretch of desert highway.”
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Q: What does Arnold in Predator, John Connor in Terminator Salvation, and Indiana Jones in Crystal Skull have in common? A: They have what it takes to out-jump and out-manuever atomic and atomic-like explosions.
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What’s the point? Why are the machines doing this? What will they plan to do once humanity is wiped off? A few moments spent on the machines motives might have helped.
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We’re told “don’t drive at night”. Except, of course, when the plot needs you to. Why have the rule if you’re not going to stick with it?
I agree with some of your other points, but this one was intentional, and kind of the point of the movie - John knows his ultimate destiny, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world does. The character arc of this movie shows how he goes from a lower rank guy with potential to finally being the leader of the resistance.
The coincidences didn’t bother me so much because the time loop explains them away.
I had read some bad reviews, so I had low expectations, and therefore ended up really enjoying the movie. I’m so so happy that they didn’t pull a transformers and make everything choppy cuts and blurry action. There were long steady shots of all the robot action so you could actually see what was happening. The one-shot helicopter scene in the beginning was brilliant.
I quite liked the Marcus stuff, even though some of it was heavy handed. The actor was perfectly cast. And quite attractive. I loved the scene where he’s covered in mud. 
Moon Bloodgood was good but I kept thinking she was Derek’s girlfriend from the TV show.
The “Arnold” cameo was a lot of fun.
I didn’t catch Conner’s wife’s name - was she the same character that Claire Danes played in the previous movie?
I guess I should have said that his speech in the first movie made it seem as if he had spent a significant amount of time in a detention center, certainly more than he did in T4.
Ultimately here’s the problem with the whole future war thing. If you have humans in ratholes fighting an endless unstoppable army of robots, how can we ever realistically expect them to win? And if the humans have A-10 fighter bombers and other advanced weapons, it takes away a lot of the sense of despiration.
Also, the visualization of the robot war was pretty well established in the first three films. H/K tanks and aircraft supported by endoskeleton infantry fighting humans in beat-up pickups with laser weapons and rocket launchers.
Another thing, I thought the T-600 models were early infiltration terminators that looked like humans with rubber skin. Not clearly robotic infantry with gattling gun arms. Why couldn’t the robots in the film be T-500 models or something?
I thought a lot of the references to previous movies were pretty hamhanded:
-The Sad Sarah photo
-The Sarah Connor Tapes
-You Could Be Mine
-I’m Kyle Reece! Yeah, I introduce myself to everyone using my entire name.
-I’ll be back
-Come with me if you want to live
Ultimately most of that stuff is pretty petty though and doesn’t really speak to the quality of the movie. The Cameron films were about the characters. The first movie was really a love story and the second was really a mother and son reconcilliation story. What’s this one? Another robot learns the power of self determination? John Connor learns that the humanity isn’t just limited to humans…again?
She is the same character. Although I’m not sure if I would want a veternarian to perform a heart transplant on me.
The T-600 in LA still had worn and ripped clothing. I like the idea that at one point it looked like a human, but was slowly worn away. Maybe Skynet has practically abandoned the T-600’s in favor of the new line. I hope the next movie (you know there’s gonna be another movie if this one is even remotely successful) goes into “Who” Skynet really is. Maybe show that Skynet eventually loses because they spend all their resources on building more advanced Terminators instead of making waves of lower end ones.
Now, I enjoyed this movie. Did it has as good characters/dialogue as the first two? No, but I wasn’t expecting it to. But I love it for one reason - Terminator 3. That crapfest of a movie ruined the series, but T4 is a step in the right direction.
I actually enjoyed the homages to the first two films, and I loved Ahnold’s cameo at the end. But most everything else was bad. Moon Bloodgood just annoyed me and the lame attempt at a romance did not work at all. I know she was pregnant, but Bryce Dallas Howard was very underused.
Sam Worthington gave a good performance. I almost wish he had been cast as John Connor instead of Christian Bale.
The bad news is that in the future the machines will kill off almost all of humanity. The good news is that all the women left alive will be very very beautiful, but all the old men will be on a submarine.
I thought it was flawed, but OK. I guess that’s in comparison to T3.
I think it was very derivative and influenced by 80’s action movies. The early chase with the motorcycle terminators was reminiscent of the opening chase form Road Warrior. Skynet central was inspired by the pyramids of LA from Blade Runner. The T-800 fight near the end was almost a move-for move remake of Kyle & Sarah’s fight with the T-800 ftom the first Terminator movie.
You know thay had to use the lines “Come with me if you want to live” and “I’ll be back”. I was surprised they didn’t work in “Get Out” and “Fuck you, asshole”.
I hated the long explanation from Helena Bonham Carter’s Skynet Borg Queen. That piece should have been left on the editing floor. I liked the “young Arnold” T-800, and I hope there will be another movie showing John and Kyle in the concentration camps leadint an uprising.
A couple technical points bugged me:
[ul]
[li]GUI. The skynet computers had a fututristic GUI with the clear glass touch screens. Why? GUI was developed for humans. Specifically for humans who aren’t familiar with programming languages. Skynet is all machines, they only need command-line Operating Systems.[/li][li]Bullets. Our brave fighters used lots and lots of bullets, as if there were ammunitiion manufacturing companies still producing the stuff. My dad and brother in law have trouble finding .45 APC and 9mm ammunition today. .22LR and some .30 caliber are commonly available today, but the rounds our heroes were throwing away are impossible to find in the civillian world. I do understand suspension of disbelief, but come on. Make them use some alternative form of projectile, like the booby trap that young Reese & his mute little sister improvise. Hopefully T5 will have more of that.[/li][/ul]
So, not nearly as good as the first 2 Terminator movies, but much better than T3.
Honestly, the motorcycle scene reminded me of the chase scene in T2, just in reverse.
And the GUI seemed solely intended for Marcus. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Conner had to hook up a screen to the system in order to hack in.
I think the disparity we see with the whole “only fighting at night” thing and the desperation of humanity is the fact that the future we see is in 2018. The future that Kyle describes to Sarah is in 2029. A lot can change in eleven years, especially in a post-apocalyptic time.
It’s certainly possible that things could become a lot more bleak for humans as time passes. They could lose much of their fancy computer equipment and weaponry, as well as much of their infrastructure.
At the same time, their tactics could improve, and they could gain more intel about Skynet. Such as learning that it’s better to fight them at night.
I haven’t seen the movie, so please forgive me if what I’m asking has already been answered. It’s more of a general Terminator question too, but since we’re already comparing the latest film to the franchise, I thought it okay to ask here instead of starting an entirely new thread.
John Connor knows the role he’s going to play in the resistance because Reese was sent back in time to protect his mother, but does Skynet (in the future) have any idea?
I went in with low expectations and thought it was average. I didn’t think it sucked, but I didn’t think it was that good either. Very boilerplate action movie in the Terminator setting. I hope a new director is hired for the inevitable sequel (the Quest to Sent Kyle Reese Back?).
Also I have to echo the posts of those above who said this is early in the War and things definitely can get more and more bleak for humanity until it is what we saw in the first 2 films.
It was better than I expected, mainly because (like many others here it seems) I had heard of all of the bad reviews going in and had very low expectations. Sam Worthington was the highlight of the film for me… well, that and looking at Moon Bloodgood. Christian Bale was sort of unimpressive, honestly.
I’m sure many millions will be made and we’ll have T5 a few years down the road.