Terminator: Genisys

[DA_Champion]

I don't agree with that actually, I think the way T2 finishes there's really no justification for the future to end up like was illustrated throughout the first two movies. T3 tried to pass it off that Judgement Day was inevitable, which to me undermines the journey of the two previous movies where the characters went to such length to prevent it. There's really no justification for the future to continue unabated after T2 because all the components from the original T-800 as well as all the documented research were destroyed. Cameron covered all his bases and prevented any logical reason for the story to continue after T2. I could see why he never came back to direct a third even though he may have wanted too because there really wasn't a natural progression to work off. The story feels complete.

You might like this article on ghostbusters, which makes the same arguments you've made about Terminator and Predator:
http://badassdigest.com/2014/06/19/max-landis-did-not-have-a-good-idea-for-ghostbusters-3/

Of course, there's always some place interesting to go if you have a good enough writer. Planet of the Apes (1968) finally got a good sequel -- in 2011. But usually, with singular achievements, sequels will just dilute the product.

 

[jmc]

That article makes the valid point that not every film needs to be a franchise. As much as I can enjoy Ghostbusters 2 it really doesn't advance the story of the original in any way. The same deal with Terminator films post T2. You can make the argument that a good writer can find some interesting place to go, but there also has to be some natural progression to be found from the past instalment in order for said writer to take it somewhere. This is why I don't see the the films post T2 as being part of the same story because there's no logical progression to follow on from after that film. I really don't care that T3 says Judgement Day was inevitable, I just choose to ignore it because the Conner story is completed at the end of T2.

 

[Scarlet Spider]

Regardless of how one feels about Cameron as a filmmaker, Terminator is his creation. It's his baby. He had to give up the rights early on because it was the only way they'd (the people financing the film) would let him direct T1, which basically gave him the career he had.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that regardless of what happens, he gets the rights back in four years (due to copyright law) and after that, nobody will be able to touch it, without his approval.

 

[Steyin]

Regardless of how one feels about Cameron as a filmmaker, Terminator is his creation. It's his baby. He had to give up the rights early on because it was the only way they'd (the people financing the film) would let him direct T1, which basically gave him the career he had.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that regardless of what happens, he gets the rights back in four years (due to copyright law) and after that, nobody will be able to touch it, without his approval.

I remember reading Cameron stole the idea from someone else. Can't remember where, but it was an interesting read.

 

[Steyin]

There's really no justification for the future to continue unabated after T2 because all the components from the original T-800 as well as all the documented research were destroyed. Cameron covered all his bases and prevented any logical reason for the story to continue after T2. I could see why he never came back to direct a third even though he may have wanted too because there really wasn't a natural progression to work off. The story feels complete.

The terminator leaves behind his arm just like in T1, though the novel says its tossed in with Arnie by John. I take what we see in the film as cannon though.

Its funny how we interpret the films, because I get that the future is inevitable (with slight variations) and mainly the path that gets you there is what can change. I found it profound that no matter how hard we try to change things (ultimately), sometimes those things are destined to happen, no matter how good or horrible.

 

[Scarlet Spider]

I remember reading Cameron stole the idea from someone else. Can't remember where, but it was an interesting read.

It's nonsense. It was an Outer Limits episode written by Harlan Ellison and Ellison has a history for being a litigious jerk.

 

[Loki882]

The problem with T3 is that it not only doesn't line up, but it directly contradicts the idea/point of the first two movies. Cameron kept beating you over the head with the fact that a Skynet-ruled world was only one POSSIBLE future, but that it could be averted/changed. Then T3 comes along and suddenly it's "Judgment Day is inevitably and nothing you do can possibly stop it." Something got lost in translation here. Also, it really did seem like the sequels went out of their way to make John Connor seem LESS important. In T3 it's revealed that he hooks up with survivors of the US military and that's how he learns to fight Skynet. So if these guys already knew how to fight the machines, then why do they need John Connor? I was always under the impression that Connor himself invented new and innovative tactics to fight the machines. Also, it's also revealed that he doesn't even survive the war and that his wife essentially takes over after he dies. And of course TS makes it seem like things got WORSE after he took over as leader.

 

[Teelie]

It's nonsense. It was an Outer Limits episode written by Harlan Ellison and Ellison has a history for being a litigious jerk.

That's putting it mildly. He'll sue anyone with even a remote connection to anything he's written, whether or not it even references something he's created in the past.

In the case of Cameron and The Terminator I don't know that the truth is ever really going to come out. I've seen so many claims from both sides that contradict one another I'm not even going to attempt to figure out if Cameron stole the idea or came up with it independently.

 

[GothamAlleys]

T2 neatly tied up the knots and all the character arcs. The best example is that Sarah basically kills the T-800 in the same way she did in the first one, by pressing a button, but this time she went full circle, dropped the prejudice and became human again, this time she does it with pathos and regret. Great literatic rhyme here. And the ending was truly perfect. Cameron didnt want to do with because as he said in his own words "he told the story". I was wondering how will they explain in T3 how the future happened anyway, but in a lazy way they couldnt figure it out so they never did/ Ahnuld should have said "Judgment day is inevitable because people can get rich on it"

As for Ellison, Ellison sued for the first 3 minutes of the film which were similar to one of his Outer Limits episodes in which two warriors from the future are transported back through our time from the future during battle. Thats it, even to his own admission. But that guy sued more people than any other person in the world, he thinks he owns or created such general ideas as time travelling or space ships (he sued Star Trek too, and actually the list of people sued by him is incredibly long)

 

[Tim_Riggins]

Cameron had the idea of Terminator come to him in a dream, he even painted it when he woke up, he showed the painting, so no, didn't steal, and he's not a thief. What an insult.

Anyway, T2 is such an untimely masterpiece.

 

[Tanin]

He had a good reason for suing the Star Trek crew... they weren't paying him his royalties and such over a script he wrote.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I don't think that's accurate. Cameron said he tried to come up with an idea but never had a good enough story in mind for a third movie so eventually he just passed on the project. The studio never ousted him (why would they?)

Cameron himself said they asked him to come back for T3, and I remember it being reported at the time. But they wanted him to direct the existing scrip which T3 became.

Cameron vowed never to direct another persons script after Piranha 2 and he has stuck to that since.

I don't agree with that actually, I think the way T2 finishes there's really no justification for the future to end up like was illustrated throughout the first two movies. T3 tried to pass it off that Judgement Day was inevitable, which to me undermines the journey of the two previous movies where the characters went to such length to prevent it. There's really no justification for the future to continue unabated after T2 because all the components from the original T-800 as well as all the documented research were destroyed. Cameron covered all his bases and prevented any logical reason for the story to continue after T2. I could see why he never came back to direct a third even though he may have wanted too because there really wasn't a natural progression to work off. The story feels complete.

Well the reason Cameron changed the original ending of T2 was to leave it more open in case he wanted to come back to the universe. The alternate ending was too much of an ending so he changed it.

I think he did have some ideas for a 3rd movie at some point.

 

[scatterax]

Cameron himself said they asked him to come back for T3, and I remember it being reported at the time. But they wanted him to direct the existing scrip which T3 became.

Cameron vowed never to direct another persons script after Piranha 2 and he has stuck to that since.



Well the reason Cameron changed the original ending of T2 was to leave it more open in case he wanted to come back to the universe. The alternate ending was too much of an ending so he changed it.

I think he did have some ideas for a 3rd movie at some point.

Sounds more like they asked and he said no.

 

[DA_Champion]

The problem with all this discussion of copyright is that nothing is truly original. Every idea that sonebody has is on some level an adaptation of something seen before, or a mashup of disparate ideas. It's something a lot of fans forget when they discuss the originality of work.

Within science, originality of documents is often estimated by whether or not they cite other pairs of documents not usually cited together.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

True. I was just saying here that Cameron dreamed specifically of the Terminator figure, that exoskeleton & painted it, it then essentially is, not something (that I know of) that had been done prior to him, in that style.

I'm not even sure you can find something new today, a new, really fresh idea, just new ways, or different ways to do stuff that already exists.

 

[Uncle Radiation]

I remember reading Cameron stole the idea from someone else. Can't remember where, but it was an interesting read.

Cameron had to pay up for that. I won't accuse him of stealing ideas without knowing for sure, but The Terminator is extremely similar in many ways to Ellison's story Soldier, as well as I Have No Mouth But I must Scream, and Demon With a Glass Hand.

Here is the Soldier episode on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GTYUHjFwKE

In addition, the 1973 Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks features dirty guerrillas from a future war - against an army of machines - travelling back in time to prevent it by assassinating someone in the past.

 

[Uncle Radiation]

True. I was just saying here that Cameron dreamed specifically of the Terminator figure, that exoskeleton & painted it, it then essentially is, not something (that I know of) that had been done prior to him, in that style.

But that dream must have been inspired by something. Maybe a TV show he saw as a kid and forgot about.

Hollywood (and all film makers) steal, rip-off and use other people's ideas all the time. Indiana Jones is very heavily inspired by The Secret of the Incas. The Lion King is notoriously a rip-off of Kimba the White Lion - in fact it was a full-on remake that pretended it wasn't.

To go further, the first Batman story 'The Case of the Chemical Syndicate' was stolen from The Shadow, something Bob Kane even admitted later on. The Green Lantern Corps are heavily inspired by the Lensman sci-fi series. A modern day dinosaur island amusement park created by a millionaire-? Done by Batman in the 40s almost fifty years before Jurassic Park.

If you've ever created anything, you know that there are always existing ideas that inspire you. You combine these with other ideas to create something new. The line between 'inspired by' and 'ripping-off' is so thin only expensive lawyers can see it.

 

[Tim_Riggins]

Of course, my stuff is usually a melting pot of tons of influences, just like everyone, but it's a different situation here, a different time. He dreamt about that specific machine, cyborg thingy, the Terminator & painted it as he saw it in his dream, influenced or not, it was a unique design....

 

[Uncle Radiation]

Of course, my stuff is usually a melting pot of tons of influences, just like everyone, but it's a different situation here, a different time. He dreamt about that specific machine, cyborg thingy, the Terminator & painted it as he saw it in his dream, influenced or not, it was a unique design....

Absolutely everything, every single idea, comes from somewhere. Everything is influenced by something else.

Sure, Cameron's skeleton robot design was his. But skeleton robots has been done before. Cyborgs with a human appearence (which hunt you down) which is stripped away to reveal the robot below has been done before. Soldiers travelling back in time to prevent future wars with robots had been done before.

Cameron just put existing ideas together, whether he knew where they came from or not.

By the way, I say all this as a huge fan of Cameron and his movies - it's not criticism.

 

[Hypestyle]

So who are the villains-- besides Skynet?

 

[Teelie]

Absolutely everything, every single idea, comes from somewhere. Everything is influenced by something else.

Sure, Cameron's skeleton robot design was his. But skeleton robots has been done before. Cyborgs with a human appearence (which hunt you down) which is stripped away to reveal the robot below has been done before. Soldiers travelling back in time to prevent future wars with robots had been done before.

Cameron just put existing ideas together, whether he knew where they came from or not.

By the way, I say all this as a huge fan of Cameron and his movies - it's not criticism.

And this is why Ellison suing Cameron is ridiculous. Who should be suing Ellison for ripping off their idea? He clearly was inspired by someone else, who in turn was inspired by someone else, going back to pre-history.

There is definitely a line between inspiration and theft but in the minds of Ellison and his defenders, that line starts after whatever he's (re)created in his own vision and anything remotely similar stole from him.

 

[Loki882]

It's why the "Hunger Games is a ripoff of Battle Royale" nonsense annoys me to no end. Just because something may be bare bones similar to something else does not automatically make it a ripoff. If THG is a ripoff of BR, then BR is a ripoff of Lord of the Flies, or the Long Walk, or Running Man, etc. It's the same for Terminator.

 

[DA_Champion]

It's why the "Hunger Games is a ripoff of Battle Royale" nonsense annoys me to no end. Just because something may be bare bones similar to something else does not automatically make it a ripoff. If THG is a ripoff of BR, then BR is a ripoff of Lord of the Flies, or the Long Walk, or Running Man, etc. It's the same for Terminator.

And Avatar is a ripoff of Dances with Wolves, where the latter told a completely original story.

 

[Uncle Radiation]

And Avatar is a ripoff of Dances with Wolves, where the latter told a completely original story.

Is that sarcasm? Because 'man from advanced society finds solace and meaning in more primative, spiritual society/land and then goes native' is a very old story.

 

[Da-Scribe]

Is that sarcasm? Because 'man from advanced society finds solace and meaning in more primative, spiritual society/land and then goes native' is a very old story.

I do believe it was sarcasm.