Terminator: Salvation

[PoolMan]

Hey gang, I'm just curious if anyone here actually saw the new Terminator. There's no MRFH review, and unless I'm in need of new glasses (AGAIN), there's no forum thread aside from when the trailer came out.

I just saw it, and I have to say, I think I'd put it ahead of T2, and behind T1. I heard all kinds of humdrum reviews, but I actually quite liked it. Sam Worthington may have a future in this game, so says I!

PS: The CGI-enhanced Arnie-800 actually worked surprisingly well. Colour me shocked!

[DTH]

Terminator Salvation.

I enjoyed it. It was very good in places, however, it wasn't ever going to be a fantastic film.

It had some great 'splosions and certainly did an excellent job of expanding the Terminator universe (and CGI Arnie was a FANTASTIC surprise). I'd always wanted them to do a future terminator movie (all the stuff hinted at in previous movies was cool!) and they deliver one.

There's just some things that don't sit right with me. For starters, there were a lot of "That bit's from Terminator, that bit's from Terminator 2, etc". While that was kinda cool, it did go a little bit too far. While I was 100% fine with the resistance base and the aged photo of Sarah Conor (which ends up in Kyle Reeses' possession), there were some other bits that, in hindsight, smack of too MUCH E.g. the fight in the bowels of the terminator factory was very reminiscent of T2's foundry fight, there was a chase scene that was lifted directly T2.

Also: there were plot holes big enough to drive a police motorcycle through. And Christian Bale's talents were wasted in this movie.

But this is Terminator and it has NEVER been one for explaining things, so I don't worry about that too much

Overall, I give it 3 out 5 and home that they make more and that they try make better movies.

[StarOpal]

I saw it and I really liked it. I, like DTH, was hoping for a movie set in the post-Skynet future for a long time. Kyle Reese and the John Connor he described were cool characters.

Hopefully though this'll just have been an introduction to the universe movie and setting up how Connor becomes the leader, and any future ones will focus on the already established bits we've been given of the future. Because, dude, seriously, I don't really care about the cyborg with an identity crisis, I care about already established characters and The Resistance.

I liked the return to the grittiness of the first, and a look at what we already knew about the future, but it never really reached it's potential and Christian Bale really was criminally under used.

So really I sum up as follows: It's good, certainly not the worse of the series, but I hope better is to follow.

[PoolMan]

See, ham-handed though it tended to be, I really liked Marcus. I liked him more than John (and maybe that was the whole point, with the "choosing to be human theme... like I said, ham-handed).

It was pretty 'splosiony (a word we seem to be using a lot this summer), but I thought it was mostly in keeping with previous installments.

Oh, and I really liked how the T-800 didn't say anything - EXCEPT to trick us into thinking Kyle was there. That was a really appropriate throwback to T1.

[StarOpal]

Jun 27, 2009 0:02:31 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

See, ham-handed though it tended to be, I really liked Marcus. I liked him more than John (and maybe that was the whole point, with the "choosing to be human theme... like I said, ham-handed).

Well let me amend my statement. It wasn't Marcus I had my problem with, it was-

HOLY SPOILERISHNESS, BATMAN!

-the fact they built up this new character, so much so that he was more important than Connor, Reese, or the Resistance, and then bumped him off. I mean I known there was that infamous other ending, which I also didn't want (yes I'm picky I know), but it didn't feel right to just kill him off with so much time invested in him. Felt, I don't know, cheap? I guess. Or a little side story (like something you'd see in one of those shorts collections like Animatrix) only it was given feature length. You know what I mean? I'm not sure I'm explaining it right.

Oh, and I really liked how the T-800 didn't say anything - EXCEPT to trick us into thinking Kyle was there. That was a really appropriate throwback to T1.

I agree.

EDIT: Looking over my first post, I crack myself up with the fact I can start out with "I saw it and I really liked it." and the proceed to nitpick. It really is a compliment because it means I was invested enough to put in the effort.

[PoolMan]

I think I get what you're saying, Opal. Although you have to admit, killing off the most well-developed characters is kind of a hallmark of the Terminator series. The only character who DOESN'T get killed (or otherwise removed) with astonishing regularity is John himself.

Still, I agree. They put a lot of effort into developing Marcus quite well, only to get rid of him by movie's end. That's a bit of a shame. They even made darn sure to clarify that he was a one of a kind Terminator (although who knows if they were being honest).

[DTH]

Jun 27, 2009 11:09:16 GMT -5 StarOpal said:

Well let me amend my statement. It wasn't Marcus I had my problem with, it was-

HOLY SPOILERISHNESS, BATMAN!

-the fact they built up this new character, so much so that he was more important than Connor, Reese, or the Resistance, and then bumped him off.

[snip]

I guess. Or a little side story (like something you'd see in one of those shorts collections like Animatrix) only it was given feature length. You know what I mean? I'm not sure I'm explaining it right.

I think your problem with it is the lack of consequences. As far as anyone is concerned, Marcus has had no impact upon the franchise apart from this film. He was neither mentioned before nor likely to be mentioned again after this outing.

So, no one knew about Marcus and it took till the events of "Salvation" for him to be "activated".

Bit of a waste. Throwing in a cyborg (rather than the android T-800s) was an interesting idea but kind of like "Cyberdyne were doing cyborg experiments way back before Skynet went live? Okaaaaaay."

SOME THOUGHTS

How did Skynet get involved?

Well, we have to assume that Skynet learned everything that humanity has to offer before/after Judgement Day. This is substantiated by not only having access to all Cyberdyne's old research (T3 states Cyberdyne was bought out by the USAF) but also that proto-skynet had infiltrated the world's computer networks.

We also have to assume that Skynet is either 1) a logical, self aware machine 2) completely insane.

If it is 1, then it HAS to have all the information/facts at its disposal to realise that, travelling far enough along the line of logic, its only solution for survival is to try and kill all humanity which then it learns it cannot do, so attempts time travel to ensure a reality comes about where it CAN survive.

If it is 2, then the writers can literally do whatever they like, without logic and just say "Yeah, Skynet's crazy, whatcha gonna do? *shrug*".

2 is lame and lazy writing. But does mean that all those plot holes and unexplained things, well, there's your answer.

Well, given that Skynet is logical and doesn't want to "die", it decides to eliminate humanity. It forces humans to make better factories, so it can make its better terminators and continue the fight against humans.

In Salvation, Skynet appears to know that John Connor and Kyle Reese will become lynchpins to its eventual destruction.

So Skynet tries everything it can, even in to getting (possibly) the only cyborg in existence to believe its human so it can get close to John Connor and put the latter in to a position where Skynet might be able to kill Connor.

However, again, Skynet's attempts to create it's own reality through manipulation of events (even if Time Travel isn't involved this time), go awry and instead work in favour of its eventual destruction.

Let's consider:

1) It wipes out all the Resistance Command (on the sub) that were against John Connor putting Connor in charge and he's the only one who knows all about Skynet.

2) It also reveals that the T-800s are ready to go online, so that cat is out of the bag ('cause even if John Connor knew that Skynet was making terminator androids, he could never be sure when, Skynet could have got more use out of that surprise).

3) He also got Kyle Reese to John Connor, who wouldn't have got there if A) Marcus hadn't been involved B) John Connor hadn't been manipulated to going Skynet City (Not its real name ).

So, this means that Skynet is not only privvy to the future (how else would it know that John Connor is going to be instrumental in its destruction), it also believes that it cannot win the war against humans (also echoed by the fact that Marcus quite easily disables Skynet's control over him) in the current future (and worse, there have been several different futures/realities that all changed due to the influence of Time Travel*).

*Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3 and Salvation