Terminator - Salvation... anyone cares?

[ave]

I couldn't find a thread for this one so I thought even if it was just for random ranting about the film's quality, I'd open a discussion.

It started at the 4th of June in Germany and as I really like the Terminator-series, I had to watch it asap. Ok, last night I seem to have dropped into the cinema for it but what can I say. A short summary of the predecessors:

T1: Cyberpunk post-film-noir style, dark, dirty, violent, thrilling
T2: a lot softer yet very entertaining, very honest and brilliantly realized action sequences
T3: still honest in regards of action (honest equals for me the lack of fast cuts which are one main part of the action itself, like i.e. in certain Michael Bay-movies)
TSCC TV-Show: bullshit, won't bother talking about this any more.

So first of all I think they did a lot better than in the TV show. Which is not a hard job. But there were quite a few things I was missing: A thrilling storyline (most of the time I was asking myself "why the hell are they doing what they're doing")... I mean, all the Terminator-movies had a very easy to follow storyline: There's a bad robot and a sometimes good robot. The aim is: destroying cyber-dyne, saving person X.
Well in T4 we have it like that:
* Destroy Cyber-Dyne
* There's no specific bad nor good robot
* nobody saves anybody from anything
Further critic:
* Acting was below average (Christian Bale behaved like a fucking grunt from Gears of War, took his "idol-state" simply as provided in advance, leaving it to the viewer's imagination why anyone has a "god-like" impression of the mighty John Connor)
* dialogues were pending between boring and brain-damaging. I watched it in German so I can't quote correctly, but the worst dialogue happened probably in the deportation container when Reese said like "They can't do us any harm if we just survive: Here (points at his head) and... here (points at his heart)!" :lol::lol: I mean what the fuck is this? Terminator always had its weird pseudo-philosophic trips, but this hard? And anyone who watched the end of the movie knows that it wasn't supposed to become ANY better... not a tad. The opposite happened... oh my god.

So for an action-film, I'd say there were many scenes that were quite likeable. For a Terminator-movie, it was not acceptable. Loads of ideas/images felt like one has seen them before (giant robot -> Transformers; hillbillies offending woman -> Mad Max; Bike-racing between damaged cars -> Mad Max; giant skynet-base -> Matrix) and other than in T1, T2 or even T3, the movie simply lacked a good script that let the actors develop. Nothing happened with them, they left as they had come. Weird. To sum it up: Disappointment >_<
I thought a PC-FX-logo would be a good metaphor for what T4 is in comparison with T1-3 (embodying PC-Engine).^^

Sorry for the rant, but this had to be said!:(

[MoBoRoS]

T4: Scharzeneger's guest star appearence

[Taucias]

I thought it was absolutely incredible, except for the last 5 minutes or so. T3 was a travesty, but this one totally redeems the franchise. I am very excited to see the next one.

I don't know what the hell critics thinking giving it the weird reviews they have. It was almost as good as T2, and that is one of the best blockbuster action movies ever made.

[Alien Workshop]

If you were a real fan of Terminator you would know that T3 is non-canonical dog shit and that TSCC is really good and is actually more intelligent than any of the films :110: I'm a huge Terminator fan, I watched TS on opening day, it was ok but not what I was expecting. I'm a little pissed off that Josh Friedman said there could be no tie in with the TS and TSCC.

[Taucias]

Yeah, T3 got some good reviews (70% avg on Rotten Tomatoes) which blows my mind. The only good thing about it was Arnie's Terminator being more like the original character.

[Sojiroh]

Terminator Salvation is crap. I thought I was gonna be the best Terminator thing since Chronicles, but it let me down completely. I knew it was going to be epic fail when they announced that the original ending was removed.

[ave]

It was almost as good as T2, and that is one of the best blockbuster action movies ever made.

WTF? Almost as good as T2? Why that - because of the bad acting, entirely unmemorable characters, boring as hell and pretentious dialogues or because the entire movie was ended with a blast that apparently didn't change a shit. Or at least we are supposed to think that because of two cheapass sequel-promising phrases that Connor spit in our faces during the final take before it was too late to show how necessary a sequel would be.
Some action sequences were nicely done, granted. But even though the movies are called "Terminator", they never lived from continous terminations alone... the characters and their development parallel to the storyline were essential in every Terminator film except for the latest which is completely lacking this part. There are just two grunts and it never occurs to the viewer why this emotion-lacking guy called John Connor is the hope of everyone in the resistance (they just blindly follow his commands). The fate of Kyle Reese is being ignored from some point on, Blair is not saying shit during the whole movie except for "I'm cold, warm me up"... even T3 (which I consider, while I'm still liking it, the "worst" of the three other T.-movies) gave us a deeper impression about the characters (i.e. his latter girlfriend).

[graciano1337]

My brother said he was just straight up laughing out loud in the theater for like the last 10-15 mins of the movie.

[Hawanja]

I didn't think it was so bad... the acting was semi-decent, not Gone with the Wind, but this is a movie about cyborgs and time travel. Who cares about acting? True there was little character development, the only thing John Connor seems to grapple with is that he's unsure of himself. The Movie tends to focus more on Marcus and the whole redemption thing, which would have been better if they would have shown the actual circumstances of his crime (which I suspect will probably be a deleted scene in the dvd release.)

The giant robot thing, well Terminator had giant robots before the Transformers movie, so you can't accuse them of biting. There were a couple of things I would have liked to have seen done differently (most notably, how John Conner is able to sneak into cyberdyne all by himself at the end with no problem) but I was still able to enjoy it.

[7Force]

I thought T3 was okay, it wasn't as bad as some of the reviews say, although some things were just plain stupid like Arnie's character suddenly acting against his programming near the end; the oldest clichè in the book where a brainwashed character suddenly snaps out of it by seeing his friend? That would be laughably bad in a Saturday morning cartoon these days!

And of course, the plot completely contradicts T2 because it says there's no way to prevent the annihilation of mankind while T2 made it clear that no one's future is predetermined. I haven't seen the new one yet, but after seeing some trailers I wondered why they put a Transformer in a Terminator movie. That giant robot even looks like it belongs in the Michael Bay TF movie.

[unclejun]

And what about Battle Across Time and its T1000000, it's more action packed than any of the movies...don't you agree?

[Taemos]

I thought it was okay. It was at least better than Terminator 3.

[madhatter256]

I liked T4, too.

[Skaarg]

I thought the movie was really good. As far as the whole series of movies goes T2 is the best though. T1/TS are very close to each other, and then the shit pile T3. I really should watch the TV series some time though.

[graciano1337]

I'm about to try out the 360 game. lololol.

[Sojiroh]

I'm about to try out the 360 game. lololol.

22 minutes have passed since you posted that, I guess you've beaten it by now.

[Taucias]

The bad thing about T3 were the main two actors and the stupid comedy scenes/backing music. The casting spoiled it.

[C-Rocks]

i expcted a LOT more terminators in the film tbh. Bit of a let down.

[Johnny]

I thought T3 was okay, it wasn't as bad as some of the reviews say, although some things were just plain stupid like Arnie's character suddenly acting against his programming near the end; the oldest clichè in the book where a brainwashed character suddenly snaps out of it by seeing his friend? That would be laughably bad in a Saturday morning cartoon these days!

And of course, the plot completely contradicts T2 because it says there's no way to prevent the annihilation of mankind while T2 made it clear that no one's future is predetermined. I haven't seen the new one yet, but after seeing some trailers I wondered why they put a Transformer in a Terminator movie. That giant robot even looks like it belongs in the Michael Bay TF movie.

Totally agree. I haven't seen T4 yet but i liked T2. I actually only saw T1 after T2. T3 had some cool scenes but fails as a sequel.

Never had any interest on watching the TV show, as i probably anticipated it would suck.

[MetalSlime]

i wasn't to thrilled by it, though my expectations weren't high to being with. cgi arnold was the highlight for me. none of the characters stood out very much. felt pretty bland overall. have to say, t1 was my favorite in the series.