Amph Come with me if you want to live: The Terminator Thread

which is why it's about on par with T3, but nowhere near the The Terminator and T2.

But out of all the actors in the film, I think Yelchin was the best.

 

Yes! Finally, a worthy sequel to T2! A solid concept, full-throated performances from a topnotch cast, and some gripping, gritty, bone-crunchy action sequences, and we have a damn fine Terminator film that could act as a direct sequel/prequel to any or all of the previous films, including (why not?) the TV series. Color me impressed.

My gripes are the score, which is too warm and orchestral for a T film -- it should have been more mechanistic and synthesized -- and the occasional clunky moments in the action (such as the scout-disk chase), along with a few moments of accent-faltering from the otherwise excellent Worthington.

I'm giving it a provisional 4 stars (out of 5), which may change depending on future viewings.

 

Saw it and totally dug it! It's not as good as the first two... but seriously, those are two of the best sci-fi films of all time.

I wrote a full review on my blog, but I'm just glad people seem to generally disagree with the critics on this one.

 

The critics can get stoppered. Sure, the film's not perfect -- there isn't a single moment of humor in the entire thing, which is a problem in a T movie -- but it's a sight better than T3 in both concept and execution.

 

thinking back after seeing it, I've come to the conclusion, that this movie sucked big time. The Characters were boring, with the exception of Yelchin's Kyle Reese, the music was horrible, what has happened to Danny Elfman? They should of just let this franchise dead when Cameron decided not to direct T3. Heck, the Sarah Connor Chronicles, is 10 times better than this film.

The action was boring, mainly because I just wasn't interested in what happened to the characters. The alley chase scene in T2 is better than every action scene in this film. Oh and the future scene at the beginning of T2 was much better than this film. I hope they don't make a T5, or if they do, the only way I'll see it is if Cameron comes back as director, which most likely will never happen.

oh and Bale is not even the lead of this movie, that was the only reason why I checked out this movie, was cause of Bale and even he was rather boring.

 

I found The Sarah Connor Chronicles superior in every single aspect -- especially Bear McReary's score. That's along with the performances of Lena Heady, Summer Glau, Thomas Dekker and Brian Austin Green -- and the amazing writing.

That being said, I enjoyed Terminator Salvation a lot. However, I think a lot of my enjoyment was due to the fact that I read Timothy Zahn's lead-in novel, From the Ashes, which does a fantastic job introducing us to these characters.

I was still surprised at how effective Anton Yelchin was as young Kyle Reese. He really conveyed Michael Biehn's mannerisms well, and portrayed the character's loyalty and bravery.

The action scenes did a fine of job of capturing that grinding-metal feel of the first three films.

What I didn't like was Christian Bale as John Connor. You could do a lot worse, but Bale just doesn't convey that leadership quality found in John Connor. He grunts and screams a lot, and I never want to follow him into battle. To be fair, I'm not a fan of any of his work as an actor. He's passable as Batman to me because of Christopher Nolan, David Goyer, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, the great Gary Oldman, and others around him.

 

Continuity is my biggest concern here. Time travel needs to only come into play in the last film because it's after Skynet realizes that's it's going to lose does it get desperate and send the T-800 back to kill Sarah. Kyle says, "It had no choice. Skynet's defense grid was smashed. We'd won. Taking out Connor then would have made no difference." So Skynet's still there but with no defense.

That's my biggest issue with T3. With T2, maybe the T-1000 was a prototype they already had (much like the T-800 in Salvation) to send back after they know the first one failed. I don't think they would have had time to develop the "all-powerful" T-X.

But if they start messing with continuity and start sending more and more stuff back in time, I'm jumping off. That's why I never watched TSCC.

 

Saw it. Thought it was really cool. I've never seen a Terminator movie before but I've heard about each one and understand the characters and concepts of the whole thing. So for me this was a very good movie indeed.

 

It rocked. Far superior to T3 which I didn't like that much - T3 copied too many things from T2. T-X was like the T-1000 ... whatever.

 

Exactly. T2 was like the opposite of the first one which is what made it cool, but T3 was just a ripoff of T2. This was it's own thing.

 

Umm, T2 was practically a remake.

Warrior from the future comes back to the present to try preventing a seemingly-unstoppable machine from destroying John Connor. The final confrontation takes place in an industrial complex, where facilities designed to aid in creating machines are used to destroy the assassin. The warrior sacrifices his life, and his charge is left to face an uncertain future.

 

Saw it yesterday. That was an exicting movie to see on the big screen. I hated Star Trek but this was rockin!

 

I agree that the 'taking the fight to Cyberdyne' element is the big thing that distinguishes T2, but don't forget the parallels of character development that take place between action scenes.

The T1/T2 formula:

-Time travelers come back to present
-Hero rescues Connor from assassin just in the nick of time; chase ensues
-Escape from government building
T1: Sarah and "crazy" Kyle break out of police station when assassin shows up
T2: John and T800 break "crazy" Sarah out of hospital when assassin shows up
-In hiding
T1: Sarah and Kyle hide at the motel and stock up on weapons, they fall in love
T2: Sarah, John, and T800 hide in desert and stock up on weapons, T800 becomes John's 'father' figure
-*T2 only* Dyson and Cyberdyne section
-Truck chase and final fight at industrial complex

So the scenes with Dyson and Cyberdyne are really the only places where T2 really diverges from the formula of the original film. Interestingly enough, there's a deleted scene from the first film in which Sarah suggests taking the fight to Cyberdyne, pretty much spelling out everything that they do in T2. If that scene had remained in the film, we'd have a nice parallel between 'talking about taking the fight to Cyberdyne' and 'taking the fight to Cyberdyne'.

 

So I just started watching T1 again, and was reminded that the opening titles refer to that film's events as the "final battle" of the war with the machines.

I can't recall anything in T2 that explicitly says Uncle Bob was sent -after- Kyle. So it occurred to me that it might be really cool if the Bale-as-Connor trilogy worked out some way in which Uncle Bob is sent back before the final victory over the machines, and the last film ends with that victory as described by Kyle in T1 and it's truly a last-ditch effort by the machines when they send the T-800 to kill Sarah.

Of course, this scenario would have to ignore the events of T3, unless they DID go with the 'robot John' bit. I don't know WHY these T3/TS writers are so hellbent on killing John!

Anyway, here's my ideal layout (throwing T3 out of the mix)

T1: Kyle saves Sarah from T-800
T2: Uncle Bob saves John from T-1000
Terminator Salvation
TS2: Skynet develops time-machine; sends T-1000 while Connor manages to send Uncle Bob
TS3: Humans defeat Skynet; Skynet in its death throes sends T-800 while Connor sends Kyle

Nice symmetry, eh?

I just really like the idea of the 'last' Terminator movie having a cliffhanger ending the resolution of which is the FIRST movie.

 

I approve of this idea

 

So, I'm pretty new to this whole series (yeah I know, shame on me )

I watched the first one today and I plan on renting T2 soon. All this in preparation for seeing Salvation with some mates.

But my question, do I have to see T3? Most of my co-worker (I work at a cinema) think I should just skip it and reading some quotes by McG, it seems they didn't really take it into consideration alongside the tv-series. Can I just watch watch T1 and T2 and go straight into Salvation without too much confusion?

 

T3 can be avoided. I don't see it as absolutely necessary in terms of continuity of the series. However, it is still an entertaining film that is enjoyable to watch.

 

T3 can be avoided. It is absolutely unnecessary in terms of continuity of the series. In addition, it is a silly film that is frustrating to watch.

I just thought of something that might be fun. Given the often contradictory nature of subsequent Terminator installments, it would be neat to compare preferences for what we individually prefer as personal 'canon' for Terminator.

Canon Possibilities (and yes, I realize I COULD include T2:3D and the novels in here but that would just get too ridiculous. I've included a description of T2:3D below, if anyone wants to tack it on to one of the other timelines - ex. "B plus T2:3D"):

A. The Terminator only. The machine war ended just before Kyle went back, and his defense of Sarah is truly the 'final battle' of the war. Sarah will train her son for the inevitable Judgment Day.
B. T1 and T2 only. John and Sarah live to fight another day, unsure whether or not they've stopped Judgment Day.
C. T1, T2, and T3. Judgment Day happens, John learns of his future demise in a future war that continues to rage. Everyone is just a player acting out their part in a chain of inevitability.
D. T1, T2, T3, and Terminator Salvation. C plus the uneventful events of Salvation.
E. T1, T2, and Terminator Salvation. John only ever sent Kyle and Uncle Bob, and as far as we know he will survive to win the war.
F. T1, T2, and TSCC. Sarah and John continue to fight the future in the present. The timeline of the future is a malleable one. Some time travel events facilitate the original future (Kyle fathering John) while others alter the chain of events (Derek killing Andy Goode).
G. T1, T2, TSCC, and Terminator Salvation. Theoretically plausible. Obviously there are some sizable date/timeline discrepancies, but those exist even between T1 and T2.

T2:3D. Several years after T2, Cyberdyne starts back up, and another Uncle Bob model saves John and Sarah from another T-1000. New Uncle Bob briefly takes John to the future where they destroy Skynet headquarters just as John returns to the present.

My personal order of preference (best to worst):
F, B plus T2:3D, B, A, G, E, D, C.

 

Oh well thank the lord for small favors....


-T_S_R

 

The last Terminator film won't end like that because McG has said that if he directs anymore of them then he would eventually kill off John Connor(as it's stated in T3). Connor is still alive in the future during the events of T1 as it was him who sent Reese back.