It’s not as good as the second one, but as good as the first one. I think it got cut up a bit to bring it down to its current running length, which seemed a bit short.
Arnold was great, but I was particulary impresed with Nick Stahl and Claire Daines.
I hope they do make a fourth one; this one makes you think they will.
A few questions:
Why do they always only send one Terminator, one for good and one for evil?
Why does the Terminatrix only have guns on one arm? And why does she maintain her regular form so much?
So…Terminators reboot automaticaly if they shut themselves down? And why wasn’t Arnold still conflicted when he rebooted?
It’s not out in Dallas yet - and it’s probably the only movie (besides Nemo) that I’ll see this summer on the big screen.
So, you’re saying they’re leaving it open for future episodes? Who’s going to assume Arnold’s role? (sorry, couldn’t resist).
I think I know the answer already, but what age group of children is it appropriate for (rated R, so I’m thinking no-go on small fries?) I wouldn’t take my boys to see it in a theater, but wondered how many scenes are off-limits for below 8 yr olds if we purchase the DVD.
Of course the first one was the best one – but it was made a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away. Thus, all debates as to the “best” Terminator movie are between 2 and 4.
I saw the first one at a drive-in theater, too long ago.
Me too! Did everybody start honking their horns during the sex scene at the one you saw it at?
The second one could have been better, if they’d kept Arnold’s good side hidden until later in the film. (If you didn’t find out that Arnold was a good guy until Linda Hamilton did, the film would have kicked major ass! Instead, all it did was look pretty.)
I liked #2, but after seeing them again for the first time in a long time my reasons for liking the first one better really boil down to the following.
The Terminator in #1 was an unstoppable killing machine but was also completely cold blooded. Having a warm and fuzzy killing machine protecting John isn’t nearly as fun as the cold blooded arnie from the first movie.
The 2nd one felt like it was bordering on Anti-nuke preachy at times.
The 2nd movie contridicts the first one and even threatens to set up a paradox.
Namely: Sarah blows up Cyberdyne in the 2nd movie to prevent judgement day. While wanting to prevent the end of the world is laudable, it has to happen, or else Kyle would have never been sent back to father John, and tell her about it. If that never happens, then she has no reason to blow up cyberdyne and it all happens.
Oh, and the fact they keep sending back terminators despite the fact that A.) Skynet was supposed to be destoryed in #1 and that’s why the terminator was sent back, because it had lost (or so rest said anyway). and B.) The time machine was destoryed after Kyle went through.
Great SFX and chase scenes, but the first one had fewer loose ends in my mind.
I also prefer the first movie. The DVD includes a deleted scene in which Sarah and Kyle debate what to do; Kyle just wants to keep her alive, but Sarah wants to go proactive, and try to take steps to prevent the terrible future Kyle grew up in. (This avoids a paradox if you assume the creation of an alternate time-line.) Kyle doesn’t think it’s possible.
Of course, they end up, of all places, in the Cyberdyne plant at the end of the movie, with the result (as explained in T2) that surviving fragments of the Terminator spur new technology that leads to Skynet, Judgement Day, and that dark future of robotic killing machines rolling over mounds of human skulls. (Not really a paradox, but a causal loop.)
I doubt if I’ll see the new movie; it looks too similar to the second movie, but without Linda Hamilton, and without Cameron’s great skill at directing action. Roger Ebert (one of the few mainstream critics who grew up reading science fiction) makes the case that while the first two movies descended from the Analog tradition of concept-oriented science fiction, the latest one is more like Thrilling Wonder Stories.
I was very hapilly suprised. I thought it was going to be a sub-par, hey, let’s belch-out-a-sequel-cos-it’ll-draw movie. It was actually pretty well thought out. Were it not for the heavy violence, I’d actually call it a comedy. Ahnuld has realized what a fantastic straight-man the T is, and uses it to great effect. We also get to see the return of a character from 2 in a little 5-minute cameo that had me practically rolling on the floor (ewww… Movie theater floor…) So, from me, a big thumbs up. Despite the whole temporal paradox thing (which I DESPISE)
T3 stunk it up compared to the other two and T1 was by far the best of the bunch. It was the first time in a movie where the bad guy didn’t toy with their victim before trying to kill them (which of course left the victim time to get away somehow). Instead in T1 the terminator sees its target and does its damndest to kill them. I think the terminatrix in T3 is the least scary of all the terminators even though she is the most advanced.
Now for a major issue with T3 (MAJOR SPOILER BELOW):
[spoiler]How the hell does Skynet survive its own attack? We have it that Skynet does not really have a central core but rather is spread out over all the computers of the world. Fine.
But now Skynet nukes the world. While some computers certainly survive the vast majority are blasted to hell. Skynet, being the super-AI it is (sufficient to become self aware) certainly needs a vast amount of computing power available. How can Skynet possibly survive taking out (say) 90% of its own capacity?
Further, how does Skynet build its robot army? Factories are blasted to hell, power plants are gone. There are no robots around that could actually build anything (i.e. have fingers to use tools instead of guns for hands).
I know some suspension of disbelief is necessary in sci-fi. Clearly the paradoxical possibilities behind the whole premise can get you but I’m willing to allow this is somehow just how it all works. However, the above issues are deal breakers to me. [/spoiler]
Oh yeah…another unexplained issue that bothered me:
[spoiler]John, Kate and the terminator are going to find Kate’s father to stop him from enabling Skynet.
Next thing we know terminatrix pops-up looking like Kate so she can kill Kate’s dad. Still no problem.
Two seconds after the terminatrix pops-up gunning for Kate’s dad there is Kate, John and the terminator shooting at her.
How in the hell did they get in? This is presumably an advanced military installation. They just stroll past the front gate and through the front door and into the main operations center loaded with weapons and NO ONE sees fit to stop or question them at any point? We might assume the terminator fought and bashed heads to gain entry but then we would assume alarms would sound and that isn’t the case either.
In T1 and T2, it is mentioned several times that Judgement day is in 1997. All well in good, considering the movies were made in 1984 and 1991 respectivly, but the new movie comes out in 2003, 6 years after judgment day supposdly happened. Doesn’t it destory the disbelief a little bit to make a movie where the end of the world happens years before the movie was made?
If T3 were made in 1996 this wouldn’t be an issue, because judgement day would still be a year in the future hypotehically, but in 2003 it’s very apparent that 1997 has passed without a nuclear apocolypse.
