Grames Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 The first two movies about in the Terminator franchise were excellent entertainments. Both were genre science fiction starting with time travel and malevolent artificial intelligence, had strong plot action with chase scenes and human-terminator and terminator-terminator violence. The first movie had a strong romantic love story element, the second a mother's love and protectiveness of her son. I credit the success of these movies to director James Cameron, who clearly knows all of the elements that make a good story. T3 was T2 minus the love, so it was just chase scenes and violence in service of the plot whose only goal was to place John Connor in a bomb shelter during "Judgement Day". The movie lacked a soul. Terminator Salvation (T4) is more terminator on terminator violence, with the slight improvement that the audience is led to believe for a while that one of the terminators is human. The dubious humanity of the protagonist undercuts the drama of the story, which is machines against machines as people watch. T4 is an improvement over T3, but it still falls flat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris.S Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 You just broke my heart, sir. I've been so excited for this move for months. I still have to wait till August unfortunately, so I'll reserve my own judgement till then (August 16th...Judgement Day). It's odd that Christian Bale would do a "flat" movie after his recent successes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D'kian Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 The first two movies about in the Terminator franchise were excellent entertainments. Both were genre science fiction starting with time travel and malevolent artificial intelligence, had strong plot action with chase scenes and human-terminator and terminator-terminator violence. The first movie had a strong romantic love story element, the second a mother's love and protectiveness of her son. I credit the success of these movies to director James Cameron, who clearly knows all of the elements that make a good story. I've yet to see the 4th movie. I thik the main problem for continuing the series is that Cameron effectively closed the story with the second movie. After all, Sarah, John and the Terminator aborted Skynet and lived to see nothing at all happen on Judgement Day. That ends the story. Any further movies start with a plot hole big enough to hurl the Titanic through, namely why is there a movie at all? The Fox series was good enough in terms of plot and ambiguous enough in terms of time travel to be interesting, and to distract the audience from noticing the series shouldn't logically exist. But the third movie barely mannaged to cobble together a gimmick to explain away the logical non-existence of Skynet. Also the second movie strongly supported the idea of free will with the quote from future-John as relayed by Kyle Reese"There's no fate but what you make." The third instead endorsed determinism. The good Terminator in this one asserts the future could be pushed back, but not changed. It says you have a fate and there's nothing you can do about it (The series does go back to free will, as the four main characters are trying, again, to prevent the birth of Skynet). I will likely see the fourth movie anyway, but my expectations are low (that sometimes even helps). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Chiill Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I thought the new movie was pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister A Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I hated Salvation. The 'twist' of Wright being a cyborg was telegraphed far in advance (even if you hadn't seen the trailers) and the Skynet robots utterly lacked the aura of menace projected by the previous terminators (including Lokan's TX). Flying camcorders and sentient motorcycles are laughable compared to the stone-faced golems we remember. That 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' cameo of Arnie's pre-surgery head CG'd onto a body double was a condescending reminder of what was expected from a Terminator film but never delivered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axiomatic Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 I cannot believe Bale did this movie. He was my favourite actor, now he has failed so bad with this I have to relegate him. What an appalling piece of cinema. No discernible intellectual or emotional plot structure. Flat characterisation and pitiful scenes of action that had little suspense and imagination. Utterly bogus, don't even bother spending good money to see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rearden_Steel Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 (edited) I was going to see it but unfortunately Christian Bale and I are done professionally. Edited June 3, 2009 by Rearden_Steel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myself Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 I was going to see it but unfortunately Christian Bale and I are done professionally. "Shut the fuck up Bruce!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEgoist Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 Oh gooooood for you! Anyway, Terminator 4 was mcmediocre. Go see it, but don't rush to see it. A good walking pace, perhaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas M. Miovas Jr. Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 I thought the movie was OK, but I didn't see T3 and so I thought some of the plot was missing So, I don't know, I'll ask: Is it necessary to see T3 to fully understand T4? Was Skynet built around that guy who was turned into a terminator? or did Skynet already exist before he was imprisoned? In T1 and T2, Skynet existed only in the future, so to me, it was like where did Skynet come from? Does T3 go into that aspect of the sequence? By the way, I think it was called "Salvation" because the guy turned terminator at the end gave up his heart, thus showing he was more human than machine. That is, only humans are capable of self-sacrifice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grames Posted June 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 I thought the movie was OK, but I didn't see T3 and so I thought some of the plot was missing So, I don't know, I'll ask: Is it necessary to see T3 to fully understand T4? Was Skynet built around that guy who was turned into a terminator? or did Skynet already exist before he was imprisoned? In T1 and T2, Skynet existed only in the future, so to me, it was like where did Skynet come from? Does T3 go into that aspect of the sequence? In T3 Skynet is depicted as an inevitable byproduct of the internet. If you recall, the internet didn't really exist during the time frame of the first two movies so that was an updating of the premise which allowed a new episode to be filmed. Now that you have been fully briefed, no you don't need to see T3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris.S Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 (edited) Actually, in T3, Skynet is the product of military defense research into automated war machines and tech. I think it was supposed to be based on the research previously done in T2 that the US government took control of (somehow, even though ), although that part really isn't fleshed out in the movie. Anyways, Skynet was initially a closed system AI at the research facility, but somehow it leaked a virus to the internet, infecting half of the US's (or world's) computer systems, including the US governments. So then you have some military commander, thinking the virus is an attack, telling the head of the research facility to let loose Skynet to fight it and fix everything. The guy (Kate's father, actually) initially has reservations because the scientists don't quite know what Skynet is capable of, but one guy pipes up and says "It's ok", and voila, the machines take over, launch the nukes, and the T-800 crushes the T-whatever-thousand just in time for Connor and Kate to get into the old-school command bunker and avoid the fallout, and to become the saviour of Mankind. Most of the T3 movie is Arnold fighting a Fembot and running Connor and Kate to the command bunker to fulfill their "destinies". Some of the story also shows the T-whatever-thousand terminating Connor's future lieutenants while they're still children. (Sorry Grames, it's just that I had watched all 3 older movies a few times each just in late April as a lead-up to Salvation ) Edited June 3, 2009 by Chris.S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fountainhead777 Posted June 3, 2009 Report Share Posted June 3, 2009 I liked this movie better than the rest. The special effects were good and I think there was more depth, atleast in Marcus Wright's character. The sketchy areas of human and machine made it thought provoking and made atleast oen of the characters actually develop. Christian Bale sucked though. He had liek one motivation and no depth or range of emotion. His dialogue was weak and so was his acting. I think the movie was fairly good. Nothign excellent or must see but entertaining. I am not a fan of the ending though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D'kian Posted August 3, 2009 Report Share Posted August 3, 2009 Would you say this movie is worth paying the premium charged by a VIP-style theater? Roughly it's double what the normal theater charges. Of course the movie-wathcing experience is much better. You get a very comfortable seat that really reclines, has a foot-rest, a small side table for drinks and snacks, waiter service, and usually no noisy kids. But I pay it only for movies that are worth it (the last was Dark Knight). I dind't pay it, for instance, for the last two Star Wars prequels. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axiomatic Posted August 3, 2009 Report Share Posted August 3, 2009 Unless you like special effects with no decent plot devices or any reason to care about the characters I would not even pay the price for the ticket. If I could I would have gotten a refund. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake_Ellison Posted August 3, 2009 Report Share Posted August 3, 2009 You just broke my heart, sir. I've been so excited for this move for months. I still have to wait till August unfortunately, so I'll reserve my own judgement till then (August 16th...Judgement Day). It's odd that Christian Bale would do a "flat" movie after his recent successes. I like Christian Bale, but he was bad in this one. I would assume it's mostly the director's fault, since he's a very good actor, but still, his acting was terrible. And he put on the same annoying voice he had as the masked action figure in the Dark Knight, which is the last cartoon he was in. I wish he'd get back to doing real movies, with people in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kukuruza Posted August 22, 2009 Report Share Posted August 22, 2009 I consider that, it has turned out much more interestingly the third part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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