Terminator Salvation: Review Central

[Solidus]

Wiseman, you are wrong there will be sequels. The DVD sales will be huge. It's a "guy's movie" buy. No matter, WB will pick it up for two more to finish the series with Bale on board...but they'll probably need to pick a better month to release in or atleast not a weekend when a big family movie comes out. This whole month's releases hurt the movie.

Solidus, I understand what you are explaining about when they did send back in time and everything but the semantics is the focus. With a time travel movie like this series has been its full of "oops" and clean ups but still has "huhs". That's my point. Why discuss minor details, not you, when major paast details have been confusing?

Still, why didn't Skynet make more giant bots with motorcycle guys to kill all humanity.

The main issue to me is "What is this all about? Why are the machines full fledged on ending the human race?" Alluding to this question would have been atleast something McG/Jonathan Nolan/other writers should have discussed. We still know nothing about the machines but what they are currently doing and their models.

T1 and T2 may have had small little things, but nothing major. Like the one you tried to use was explained. Cameron is a man of detail always has been. No matter what movie time travel or not has small errors. But T1 and T2 were very solid, with very few problems. T3 and TS have a SLEW of problems, and plot holes. That is where it differs. T1 and T2 are still considered masterpieces because they were so solid in story telling.

 

[Nivek]

you see, can't even joke around to try to lighten the mood. I'm sorry that you have money invested in the film and so personally you feel hurt by the fact that it's not going to have a sequel.

Please, come up with better material, slacker...

"Oh... oh, youz gots monez invested in it? Then Shut up! It's teh sukerz!!! Duuurrr..."

There, more on your level 'seman?

 

[AnimatedFury]

this is an interesting read...



Source: Entertainment Weekly

So Christian Bale is ******ed, then?

 

[Steyin]

T1 and T2 may have had small little things, but nothing major. Like the one you tried to use was explained. Cameron is a man of detail always has been. No matter what movie time travel or not has small errors. But T1 and T2 were very solid, with very few problems. T3 and TS have a SLEW of problems, and plot holes. That is where it differs. T1 and T2 are still considered masterpieces because they were so solid in story telling.

I disagree, but there's too much to go into detail about.

And your icon is not Big Boss Solidus, its "Old Man"

 

[WeaponXProject]

I don't know Solidus, and I'm not trying to start and argument but how does it make sense that Skynet sent back a robot from the future to the 80's and was destroyed besides its arm and then the Cyberdyne gets it and that's how they develop the technology for the future...starting with that piece?

The same with the John Connor/son, Kyle Reese/dad thing...

If the robots didn't suceed once, twice, three times then why do they continue more agressively or just quit after the first try...and since they know they didn't suceed then why don't they change their objectives/variables in the present TS reality...


Blah, blah, blah...
There's unanswered logical questions but in my post i state...it doesn't matter. It happened. I accepted it. I don't see much wrong with TS in the continuity aspect.

I also don't understand why people were disappointed with the T-800/John battle at the end...why the f*** would you want anything else in the first of 3 movies with the first commision of the T-800. John needed to meet the one that scared the pants off his mom and saved his skin. If anything I would have liked to see more from the 1st and 2nd act when it came to the T-600's and T-700's. All we got were giant bots and HK's in huge cinematic sequences. I wanted the more grounded Cameron's vision of the war...where it felt like a giant battle field of soldiers and humanoid robots and terminator tanks. Not just nukes and ships...

Idk...still liked it though. It's a f***ing better start than wat Lucas did to SW prequels, IMO.

Hmmm, this is a futuristic prequel? In a way...

 

[AlteredEgo]

this is an interesting read...
'Terminator Salvation': The shocking, bummer of an ending you didn't see!

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read any further if you don't want to know plot details of Terminator Salvation. Seriously! You've been warned!

Two weeks before Terminator Salvation hit theaters, the film's director, McG, sat in his L.A. production office for an interview with EW. He was talking about the swirl of rumors and gossip surrounding the film -- about how bloggers had posted all kinds of far-fetched speculation during production and how it drove him nuts.

And then, out of nowhere, McG smiles and says, "Here's something I've never talked about before...".

Now, before we go any further, there's some backstory about the movie's plot you'll need to know if you haven't already seen it. Terminator Salvation is set in the year 2018 -- after the apocalyptic Judgment Day, which was prophesied in the earlier films. There are three main characters in the story: John Connor (Christian Bale), the son of Sarah Connor who will lead the resistance against the evil Skynet; Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), the young resistance fighter who will grow up and eventually travel back in time (as seen in the 1984 original when Reese was played by Michael Biehn) to impregnate Sarah Connor with the young savior, John Connor; and Marcus Wright, a mysterious dude who's half human, half machine programmed by Skynet (the fact that he's unaware of this makes for some of the most poignant scenes in the film).

Okay, now back to McG's big, juicy secret. A secret, by the way, that Bale will back up as you read on.


"There was talk on the Internet about an alternate ending where Connor dies and they take Connor's likeness and put it on top of Marcus Wright's machine body. So that it's actually a machine that's leading the resistance! And the Internet caught wind of that and people went, 'That's bulls---! We don't want that!'"

McG grins. "Well, that's not really what the ending was."

Actually, the bloggers were on the right track. Except, McG adds, the original ending actually went even further.

"Connor dies, okay? He's dead," McG continues. "And Marcus offers his physical body, so Connor's exterior is put on top of his machine body. It looks like Connor, but it's really Marcus underneath. And all of the characters we care about (Kyle Reese, Connor's wife Kate, etc.) are brought into the room to see him and they think it's Connor. And Connor gets up and then there's a small flicker of red in his eyes and he shoots Kate, he shoots Kyle, he shoots everybody in the room. Fade to black. End of movie. Skynet wins. F--- you!"

F--- you, indeed.

We tell the director that this would be the darkest, bleakest summer blockbuster ending of all time. He agrees.

"It's the most nihilistic thing of all time. And Christian went f---ing crazy, of course. He was insistent that it be done that way! He wanted the bad guys to win! Can you imagine the oxygen going out of the theater?! What just happened! It would piss you off! But maybe two years from now, you'd think it was ballsy. But in the end, it just felt like too much of a bummer."

He pauses, thinking about the alternate ending that wasn't. "Maybe we blew it."

McG says the studio had signed off on this original dark-as-night ending. But something about it didn't smell right to him in the end. How could a movie with a reported budget of $200 million and a possible future of sequels possibly end that way?

EW sits down with Bale the next day and tells the star how McG let the cat out of the bag. Bale laughs. "There's not much McG can keep in, is there?"

Was he really, as McG says, gung-ho to shoot that everyone-dies ending?

"I'm not the director," says Bale. "There came to be a different option that almost everyone, except myself, felt was the better way to go. I took a bit of convincing, but you know, at the end of the day, you need a director to make that call."

But doesn't he think that his Salvation would have been a depressing bummer, not to mention suicide at the box office?

"Done the way I saw it? No. But am I disappointed with this one? No."


Source: Entertainment Weekly

everytime i read that article it sounds like an interesting but bogus idea. bogus because im pretty sure they always wanted a trilogy and that pretty much ends that idea. and it also sounds bogus because in the article it says that christian bale laughs. which we know he does not do.

 

[Solidus]

I disagree, but there's too much to go into detail about.

And your icon is not Big Boss Solidus, its "Old Man"

Yea I know...but I have a feeling its Big Boss It's Kojima never know what that sneaky genius is up to. t:

I don't know Solidus, and I'm not trying to start and argument but how does it make sense that Skynet sent back a robot from the future to the 80's and was destroyed besides its arm and then the Cyberdyne gets it and that's how they develop the technology for the future...starting with that piece?

The same with the John Connor/son, Kyle Reese/dad thing...

If the robots didn't suceed once, twice, three times then why do they continue more agressively or just quit after the first try...and since they know they didn't suceed then why don't they change their objectives/variables in the present TS reality...


Blah, blah, blah...
There's unanswered logical questions but in my post i state...it doesn't matter. It happened. I accepted it. I don't see much wrong with TS in the continuity aspect.

I also don't understand why people were disappointed with the T-800/John battle at the end...why the f*** would you want anything else in the first of 3 movies with the first commision of the T-800. John needed to meet the one that scared the pants off his mom and saved his skin. If anything I would have liked to see more from the 1st and 2nd act when it came to the T-600's and T-700's. All we got were giant bots and HK's in huge cinematic sequences. I wanted the more grounded Cameron's vision of the war...where it felt like a giant battle field of soldiers and humanoid robots and terminator tanks. Not just nukes and ships...

Idk...still liked it though. It's a f***ing better start than wat Lucas did to SW prequels, IMO.

Hmmm, this is a futuristic prequel? In a way...

It was the chip primary that they found of the Terminator that started the creation of Skynet. Why? Some people believe *with time travel there are many plausible theories* that even if some one did invent a Time Machine it really *possibly* would not change anything, due to the fact that, it was ALWAYS going to happen like that, that there is no such thing is changing fate it just happens the way it always meant to happen.

Skynet took a chance hoping to change is fate, which some believe could be plausible, but Cameron explored the possibility that time travel in that movie was always going to happen, and unfold the events the way it always was meant to.

Same thing with Kyle being John's father, it was always meant to be, there was no Original time line like some try to say. T1 happened the way it always was going to happen, because the theory that time travel would not change anything because it always happened that way. Back to the Future has a more hookey kinda approach to it, saying that you can change time lines drastically.

When the first two Terminator's claimed that even though humans want to change their fate...they can't. If some one created a time machine in the future, that means that that person always had created it, and when he goes back in time to do something, that event always happened because he invented it in the future. Get it? Cameron was a genius with this take.

The problem with TS....first Cameron made the T-800 a killing machine...not a "pushing" machine. The T-800 if he would have gotten his hands on John he would have killed him. In T1 and T2 it made it clear if the Terminator got close enough to its main target, they were dead. And this Terminator was just pushing him around instead of logically just crushing his head. Which we have to remember these machines think logically.

As well Skynet should not have known who Kyle was because they said most records were burned and destroyed after the war. And that Skynet really knew little about John himself, just enough to find his mother and him when he was 10 other then that, if you listen to the story they were off the grid so to speak. It always made sense why Skynet sent them to those specific times because in between T1 and T2 Sarah and John lived off the grid no one knew where they were. But once Sarah got caught Skynet knew John popped back up in records living with foster parents.

And Skynet knowing about Kyle seemed against what originally was said, and even still Kyle grew up after the war...how in the hell would Skynet know what he looked like? He would not. And how would he know its John's father? Why does Skynet want to Kill John so bad right now? John was not even the full leader yet? And Skynet IMO was a moron in this. Why would he let Marcus turn off the guns.....then not turn them back on when John walked past...BAM John's dead. Why would Skynet send one machine after John? Skynet in this movie what made it such a plot hole is he acted like a human moron, and not like the cold machine that was the smartest computer ever made.

EDIT: BTW Like the avvy

 

[WeaponXProject]

I would have liked the ending in a dream sequence. Like John awakes from a dream that he keeps having like he is one of "them" now. To see a struggle as if the more military gung ho he becomes and with Marcus' heart is he becomming one of them. The "are we so different?" aspect.

If it was a stand alone movie not called "Terminator" with a huge fanbase...I would have loved Bale's ending...

 

[WeaponXProject]

Yea I know...but I have a feeling its Big Boss It's Kojima never know what that sneaky genius is up to. t:




It was the chip primary that they found of the Terminator that started the creation of Skynet. Why? Some people believe *with time travel there are many plausible theories* that even if some one did invent a Time Machine it really *possibly* would not change anything, due to the fact that, it was ALWAYS going to happen like that, that there is no such thing is changing fate it just happens the way it always meant to happen.

Skynet took a chance hoping to change is fate, which some believe could be plausible, but Cameron explored the possibility that time travel in that movie was always going to happen, and unfold the events the way it always was meant to.

Same thing with Kyle being John's father, it was always meant to be, there was no Original time line like some try to say. T1 happened the way it always was going to happen, because the theory that time travel would not change anything because it always happened that way. Back to the Future has a more hookey kinda approach to it, saying that you can change time lines drastically.

When the first two Terminator's claimed that even though humans want to change their fate...they can't. If some one created a time machine in the future, that means that that person always had created it, and when he goes back in time to do something, that event always happened because he invented it in the future. Get it? Cameron was a genius with this take.

The problem with TS....first Cameron made the T-800 a killing machine...not a "pushing" machine. The T-800 if he would have gotten his hands on John he would have killed him. In T1 and T2 it made it clear if the Terminator got close enough to its main target, they were dead. And this Terminator was just pushing him around instead of logically just crushing his head. Which we have to remember these machines think logically.

As well Skynet should not have known who Kyle was because they said most records were burned and destroyed after the war. And that Skynet really knew little about John himself, just enough to find his mother and him when he was 10 other then that, if you listen to the story they were off the grid so to speak. It always made sense why Skynet sent them to those specific times because in between T1 and T2 Sarah and John lived off the grid no one knew where they were. But once Sarah got caught Skynet knew John popped back up in records living with foster parents.

And Skynet knowing about Kyle seemed against what originally was said, and even still Kyle grew up after the war...how in the hell would Skynet know what he looked like? He would not. And how would he know its John's father? Why does Skynet want to Kill John so bad right now? John was not even the full leader yet? And Skynet IMO was a moron in this. Why would he let Marcus turn off the guns.....then not turn them back on when John walked past...BAM John's dead. Why would Skynet send one machine after John? Skynet in this movie what made it such a plot hole is he acted like a human moron, and not like the cold machine that was the smartest computer ever made.

EDIT: BTW Like the avvy

All condescension from you aside...I have obviously seen the movies and understand that fate was set. I understand what you are saying and what happened in the first two...now what I don't get is if the Terminators/Skynet know that it doesn't work (since John is alive and the resistance exists) why not change things? Use what happened to their advantage...

But were the machines too "machiney" to figure it out after the first time Sarah survived and John survived...why would they continue sending one back. Why didn't they change/alter plans in the future/present TS world if it doesn't work? If that was explained then i kind of missed that part...if I missed details i don't care because what Cameron explained I always understood about fate being set for mankind and knowing the difference between man and machine. But what they never discussed was why on the Skynet side of things? Why kill us?

 

[nintendo nerd]

Wiseman, you are wrong there will be sequels. The DVD sales will be huge. It's a "guy's movie" buy. No matter, WB will pick it up for two more to finish the series with Bale on board...but they'll probably need to pick a better month to release in or atleast not a weekend when a big family movie comes out. This whole month's releases hurt the movie.

Solidus, I understand what you are explaining about when they did send back in time and everything but the semantics is the focus. With a time travel movie like this series has been its full of "oops" and clean ups but still has "huhs". That's my point. Why discuss minor details, not you, when major paast details have been confusing?

Still, why didn't Skynet make more giant bots with motorcycle guys to kill all humanity.

The main issue to me is "What is this all about? Why are the machines full fledged on ending the human race?" Alluding to this question would have been atleast something McG/Jonathan Nolan/other writers should have discussed. We still know nothing about the machines but what they are currently doing and their models.

 

[BestGirl]

I hated that Marcus gave his heart to John. They spend the whole movie establishing that Marcus was more human than machine and then in the end they kill the guy to save Conner. They basically killed one human being to save another. And seeing as Marcus was a better character in the movie than John, I was sitting there thinking just let John die and keep Marcus around.

I think it would've been a better ending if Marcus had demonstrated some remorse throughout the movie for the people he killed in the past. That way, his sacrifice would come off as an atonement for the lives he took. As it was in TS it just felt like a bit of a waste of a good character and soldier.

 

[Solidus]

All condescension from you aside...I have obviously seen the movies and understand that fate was set. I understand what you are saying and what happened in the first two...now what I don't get is if the Terminators/Skynet know that it doesn't work (since John is alive and the resistance exists) why not change things? Use what happened to their advantage...

But were the machines too "machiney" to figure it out after the first time Sarah survived and John survived...why would they continue sending one back. Why didn't they change/alter plans in the future/present TS world if it doesn't work? If that was explained then i kind of missed that part...if I missed details i don't care because what Cameron explained I always understood about fate being set for mankind and knowing the difference between man and machine. But what they never discussed was why on the Skynet side of things? Why kill us?

It was explained in T2 why Skynet was killing us. He saw us as a threat, it was a message to show that how advanced our weapons are, and in a sense that we are the true bad guys in everything. How war, and nukes and how we just want to kill one another. Skynet saw us all as threats he was designed to protect the US from its enemies. But Skynet began to learn about everything human and history at a geometric rate. Then due to his learning computer abilities *wheather he was right or wrong* Skynet decided that we were all dangerous to ourselves even, so he must eradicate us. In TS it made a horrible Matrix like excuse to what Skynet was doing.

Cameron always said Skynet was HAL on steriods. And that is what made Skynet so awesome, he was a cold calculating computer, and decided our fate in a microsecond Kyle and the T-800 in T1 and T2 explained all this in detail.

As well, Skynet sent all the Terminators back in time, in a small time period of probably minutes. Remember the resistance was killing Skynet as he sent the Terminators back as quickly as he could in a last ditch effort.

 

[GhostPoet]

That's an interesting twist...but I have a better one. A terminator warps into our reality in out time and terminates McG. The end.

 

[LostSon88]

Man and I thought the Marcus becomes John ending was bad...

Seriously, that whole Marcus becomes John, kills Kate, Kyle, etc. ending really is a big **** you to the whole series and fans in general...

 

[Etienne]

He has spoken.

Schwarzenegger's ego bruised by kids' approval of Terminator Salvation

Action star-turned-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated America's Memorial Day weekend (23-25May09) by taking a family trip to the cinema - to check out the latest movie in the franchise that shot him to superstardom.

The former actor went to watch Terminator Salvation with his wife Maria Shriver and their four children, and he's given director McG's work the thumbs up.

But the original Terminator star admits he was left with a bruised ego after his kids declared the new movie their favourite.

He says, "Oh yeah, the whole family went to see it. It's a great film, I was very excited.

"The only thing about it was, I was a little upset because when we came out, I said, 'What did you think of it?' and they said, 'That was the best Terminator movie ever!' So that's really, like thanks a lot, that really helped (my ego)."

Schwarzenegger starred in the first three Terminator films - 1984's The Terminator, 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003.

He makes an appearance in Terminator Salvation - but didn't film a single scene. Instead, producers used footage from the original trilogy and spliced it into the new movie.

 

[Jackasscoley15]

Cameron always said Skynet was HAL on steriods. And that is what made Skynet so awesome, he was a cold calculating computer, and decided our fate in a microsecond Kyle and the T-800 in T1 and T2 explained all this in detail.

Not he, Solidus: It. IT was a cold calculating computer.

 

[Solidus]

Not he, Solidus: It. IT was a cold calculating computer.

Yes thank you t:

 

[Rishi]

got a good laugh out of Arnold's kids t:

 

[FCEEVIPER]

got a good laugh out of Arnold's kids t:

How old are his kids, does anyone here know.

 

[Wiseman]

How old are his kids, does anyone here know.

Well he's like 83 now(modern medicine is amazing) so his kids have to be around 30-40

 

[CELTICPRED]

He said he gave the comencement speech for his daughter at USC last night on Leno. So one is at college level already.


Schwarzenegger was hilarious as always.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

Kewl.

 

[SurfDUI]

I really wanted to like this, but damn...Nobody even got 'Terminated' really...I know it was PG-13, but CSI shows some pretty graphic stuff 3X a week on over the air T.V.
This movie left a lot to be desired.

That's an interesting twist...but I have a better one. A terminator warps into our reality in out time and terminates McG. The end.

Save some sharp stabbing weapons for the producers also.

Seriously, that whole Marcus becomes John, kills Kate, Kyle, etc. ending really is a big **** you to the whole series and fans in general...

QFT

 

[Deadpool876]

Seriously, though this series had confusion from the get go and everyone knows it so why discuss tiny details about why Skynet should have done this and that...

There are inconsistantcies througout this series...like why the hell wouldn't Skynet just send back 20 Terminators for John or go back to a more vulnerable time when John was teeny weeny baby. It just didn't happen...no big deal to me.

If there are any inconsistencies that bugged me its why Skynet wouldn't make 20 giant robots and end it all.

Well, how about this one--Don't you all think that the Connors (in T2) SHOULD NOT try to prevent Judgement Day? Just think about it, if they succeed in preventing it, John Connor will not exist!

If Judgement Day didn't happen, there won't be a war between Man and Machine, Skynet won't be losing hence they won't send a Terminator back in time and Kyle won't be following and he won't be able to impregnate Sarah Connor.

 

[Rishi]

Well, how about this one--Don't you all think that the Connors (in T2) SHOULD NOT try to prevent Judgement Day? Just think about it, if they succeed in preventing it, John Connor will not exist!

If Judgement Day didn't happen, there won't be a war between Man and Machine, Skynet won't be losing hence they won't send a Terminator back in time and Kyle won't be following and he won't be able to impregnate Sarah Connor.

Preventing a nuclear holocaust is worth the life of one little kid.