Terminator salvation first reviews (OMG SPOILERS)
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Soldato
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There was an original rumour at beginning of production that what would happen is a shock ending where we find out connor is a robot and he had died earlier in a mission but to keep mankinds resistance alive they reprogrammed a robot to be like john connor. now that would have been an awesome plot twist for the movie. instead it just sucked.
Just to add my own diatribe to this discussion. Also, apologies to those that havent seen it for the few details this post contains, skip on by if you want to know nothing about this film at all 
This film did not work. It was never going to work, it should never have been made.
As a devout fan of the first two films, of course I went to go and see it, I was willing it to be good, it wasn't
I could moan forever about the bad job that McG did, he clearly pandered what should be a very adult themed franchise so that it would get a 12A rating, I dont mean swearing and violence, I mean the general feeling of the film, sure the first two films were gory etc., but there was something missing from everyone, that feeling of menace rather than just "kick ass gung-ho". Things all felt very mad max and thats just not what we saw in camerons vision, we saw the sky blackened, piles of skulls (not just one token skull), droves and droves of terminators, not just one or two clunky ones. Also... why were everyones teeth so damned white?? I hate the hollywood smile, but I know they all have it, however, why would literally every single person in a post apocalyptic future have perfectly white gnashers???
I know this film was set before the flashbacks from T2 and so the terminators etc. were less advanced, and I do appreciate the effort put into trying to make the storyline work with the originals, but thats as far as my appreciation goes.
Putting the terminator amongst us in our time in T1 and T2 was a stroke of genius (we wont mention T3). A single machine whos sole purpose is to kill one person makes them like a murderer, only a murderer that is nigh on impossible to stop, cant be reasoned with and simply will not listen.
Similarly the same ethos applied to a hero makes them a fantastic hero. We needed the vision of the future to explain where the robots came from, we needed judgement day to give the whole thing a feeling of impending doom, but ultimately what we have is a brilliant traditional psycho-esque concept.
However, when there are lots of terminators, judgement day has happened and everyone you see is kick ass and expecting to die, what you have is a sci-fi war, and we have seen many many sci-fi war movies before.
Imagine T1-T3 had never happened, you have never heard of the terminator, you dont have any good childhood memories of arnie etc, then imagine T4, it simply does not stand up on its own, from the terrible CGI helicopters (pet hate) through to the problems with continuity and the weak storyline.
Sure its got some good effects, but nothing new and arguably some worse than things that have come before it, christian bale plays john conner as batman for some reason i can't fathom, even the guy who plays reese is unconvincing and he currently has a brilliant role out in Star Trek, so the guy can act when given the right direction and script...
I'll leave this rant with one final thought, in T2 we saw Arnie melted in standard liquid metal. In T4 we see a skeleton covered in (I assume) liquid metal of the kind they make their own skeletons from, so we must assume its tougher than say mild steel, yet all that happens is it cools as a shroud (clearly going for the grim reaper look) and it breaks free. 10 minutes thought and respect for the original would have shown that bit of script writing to be simply wrong in the context of the originals, yet McG went with it anyway. No doubt because he couldnt be bothered working out something more cerebral and because he thought it would "look cool" to see it clawing at bales face.
Apologies for the long post, I was gnna stick it on IMDB but then I thought I would probably get more discussion here than there so wrote it up here instead!
This film did not work. It was never going to work, it should never have been made.
As a devout fan of the first two films, of course I went to go and see it, I was willing it to be good, it wasn't
I could moan forever about the bad job that McG did, he clearly pandered what should be a very adult themed franchise so that it would get a 12A rating, I dont mean swearing and violence, I mean the general feeling of the film, sure the first two films were gory etc., but there was something missing from everyone, that feeling of menace rather than just "kick ass gung-ho". Things all felt very mad max and thats just not what we saw in camerons vision, we saw the sky blackened, piles of skulls (not just one token skull), droves and droves of terminators, not just one or two clunky ones. Also... why were everyones teeth so damned white?? I hate the hollywood smile, but I know they all have it, however, why would literally every single person in a post apocalyptic future have perfectly white gnashers???
I know this film was set before the flashbacks from T2 and so the terminators etc. were less advanced, and I do appreciate the effort put into trying to make the storyline work with the originals, but thats as far as my appreciation goes.
Putting the terminator amongst us in our time in T1 and T2 was a stroke of genius (we wont mention T3). A single machine whos sole purpose is to kill one person makes them like a murderer, only a murderer that is nigh on impossible to stop, cant be reasoned with and simply will not listen.
Similarly the same ethos applied to a hero makes them a fantastic hero. We needed the vision of the future to explain where the robots came from, we needed judgement day to give the whole thing a feeling of impending doom, but ultimately what we have is a brilliant traditional psycho-esque concept.
However, when there are lots of terminators, judgement day has happened and everyone you see is kick ass and expecting to die, what you have is a sci-fi war, and we have seen many many sci-fi war movies before.
Imagine T1-T3 had never happened, you have never heard of the terminator, you dont have any good childhood memories of arnie etc, then imagine T4, it simply does not stand up on its own, from the terrible CGI helicopters (pet hate) through to the problems with continuity and the weak storyline.
Sure its got some good effects, but nothing new and arguably some worse than things that have come before it, christian bale plays john conner as batman for some reason i can't fathom, even the guy who plays reese is unconvincing and he currently has a brilliant role out in Star Trek, so the guy can act when given the right direction and script...
I'll leave this rant with one final thought, in T2 we saw Arnie melted in standard liquid metal. In T4 we see a skeleton covered in (I assume) liquid metal of the kind they make their own skeletons from, so we must assume its tougher than say mild steel, yet all that happens is it cools as a shroud (clearly going for the grim reaper look) and it breaks free. 10 minutes thought and respect for the original would have shown that bit of script writing to be simply wrong in the context of the originals, yet McG went with it anyway. No doubt because he couldnt be bothered working out something more cerebral and because he thought it would "look cool" to see it clawing at bales face.
Apologies for the long post, I was gnna stick it on IMDB but then I thought I would probably get more discussion here than there so wrote it up here instead!
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Soldato
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Where were the dogs?
Soldato
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I thought exactly the same thing!
dont watch Valkyrie then, they all speak english and have english/american accents
the white gnashers didn't bother me so much as i was too busy face palming myself in a packed theatre at all the rest of the crap.
dont watch Valkyrie then, they all speak english and have english/american accents
the white gnashers didn't bother me so much as i was too busy face palming myself in a packed theatre at all the rest of the crap.
I can handle that in Valkyrie, tbh they do it quite well, with everything in German then morphing to English. i can suspend disbelief with things like that, after all, the cast wern't German and I didnt want to have to read subtitles, and giving everyone a corny German accent would have been worse.
In this film though, the teeth (and everybodies general good hygiene) were so blindingly obvious and just typical of the films overall lack of any real thought as to what it was they were trying to actually portray. Those people would be undernourished, rugged, unwashed.
Hell, the people walking away from Glastonbury this year would have looked more in place than the majority of the cast of this film...
Very few films make me angry, normally I just shrug the bad ones off and never watch them again, this film however was such an obvious kick in the teeth for one of the best ideas in a Hollywood film.. ever.. that it really doesnt deserve forgiveness.
It should never have been made, however there was enough support for it to be inevitable, so as it was, it could have at least paid just a modicum of attention to Camerons original vision. As it stood, the mighty McG thought he knew better.. he didn't. Back to Charlies Angels me thinks.
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The only good thing about the movie was Sam Worthington who played Marcus Wright...
he stole the show
he stole the show
Bledd has nailed it. It DOESNT deserve the recognition and prestige to be awarded with the name "Terminator : "
However, not a bad film as long as you don't think about it, decent watch but as a fan of the first few - you aren't going to be too happy in terms of REAL content and delivery.
However, not a bad film as long as you don't think about it, decent watch but as a fan of the first few - you aren't going to be too happy in terms of REAL content and delivery.
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If you go in to the film ignoring the fact that it's meant to be a Terminator film and just don't think about the original films it's a good popcorn action flick. Other than that, it's a refreshing take on the franchise but there's just so many inconsistencies that it doesn't make for a worthy addition to the franchise nor should it represent what a modern day Terminator film should look like.
Not picking on you d3moliti0n mate, but just a wider trend... I can't say I'd even go as far as to make the apologist 'oh well he tried' statement that 'it stands on it's own as a good action movie'. In a sea of 'good' (read: decidedly average and cookie-cutter) action movies, this is just another fish, in fact it's not even that good an action movie. There was no god-damned soul.
I unreservedly and without apology state that this movie was utter pish.
Soldato
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I echo those sentiments.
Never mind, at least there's always the first two films to go back to. Unfortunately they aren't cleaning away the Terminator Salvation dirt from my brain.
Never mind, at least there's always the first two films to go back to. Unfortunately they aren't cleaning away the Terminator Salvation dirt from my brain.
Waiting around until the machines starting coming up with Terminators covered in flesh?
Just come back from seeing this and I enjoyed it.
Yes, it was heavy on action, but the action was pretty impressive and it managed to hold a plot together while they were doing it. The effects were great and some of the cinematography was brilliant - the long take near the start with the helicopter crash was amazing.
Sure, it wasn't as good as Terminator 2, but that film is still my benchmark for sci-fi action and I doubt it will be bettered any time soon. It was certainly better than the appallingly bad T3.
I'm more than happy to accept Salvation as part of Terminator canon.
Yes, it was heavy on action, but the action was pretty impressive and it managed to hold a plot together while they were doing it. The effects were great and some of the cinematography was brilliant - the long take near the start with the helicopter crash was amazing.
Sure, it wasn't as good as Terminator 2, but that film is still my benchmark for sci-fi action and I doubt it will be bettered any time soon. It was certainly better than the appallingly bad T3.
I'm more than happy to accept Salvation as part of Terminator canon.