T4 Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins

Goldstein · 21-09-2010 3:46am

krudler wrote: »

Am I the only person that prefers T3 to this? yeah its not without massive faults but theres a great Terminator movie in there somewhere, TS is a good sci fi movie with a Terminator storyline tacked on.

I love how T3 ends,
its ballsy for a big budget Hollywood summer movie to end on the end of the world.

No, you're not the only one. T3 was the better movie as I see it and it had Arnie (for more than 2 seconds) and a somewhat plausible plot.

The remote controlled cars scene was idiotic alright but as you say, there was a good movie struggling to get out. Definitely more loyal to the franchise than Salvation was.

"Drop your weapon.......and the coffin" C'mon, that was pretty cool.

indough · 21-09-2010 5:44am

juma wrote: »

Why did you think they were cringe worthy?

serious question?

how anyone could watch him driving a bike listening to the guns n roses song or the cgi arnie at the end without feeling at least abit uncomfortably embarrassed is beyond me

also the scene where he talks to youknowwho as the computer near the end was embarrassingly poor

Galvasean · 21-09-2010 12:55pm

Krudler, can you please be more careful when talking about the end of movies. Spoiler tags please.

re: T3 vs T4. I prefer T4 as for all it's faults it is at least it's own film, wheras T3 just feels like a rehashed 'bigger badder' version of T2.

JP Liz V1 · 21-09-2010 1:39pm

Sam Worthington had the better role and completely outshone Christian Bale for me

Handsome Bob · 21-09-2010 1:43pm

That's because Sam had the better role, it's as simple as that.

The same thing can be said about the upcoming Micky Ward film starring Bale and Mark Wahlberg. Everyone is going on about Bale looking great in the trailer while dumping on Wahlberg, but that's only because Bale maybe has the more interesting and fascinating role than Wahlberg does.

At the end of the day, it's all about the quality of the character, and how much time he is given. It's not really a case of one actor outshining the other.

Ditto in regards to Bale and Ledger in TDK, people go on about Ledger outshining Bale and he did, but that's not because he out acted him, it was because The Joker was by far the best role in the film to have.

Goodshape · 21-09-2010 1:59pm

T3 was awful. Absolutely, dreadfully, awful.

Having Arnie's saggy 90 year old man tits on screen does not make it a good film, it just shows an utter lack of original thinking.

T4 wasn't great but at least it wasn't T3.

Lamper.sffc · 21-09-2010 5:10pm

Any film that would do this to the classic openings of the first two deserves to rot and never be discussed again. There is no T3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inPijjFNNSI

Dempsey · 21-09-2010 6:49pm

Goodshape wrote: »

T3 was awful. Absolutely, dreadfully, awful.

Having Arnie's saggy 90 year old man tits on screen does not make it a good film, it just shows an utter lack of original thinking.

T4 wasn't great but at least it wasn't T3.

He had the same body weight and muscle measurements in T2 and T3

Mackman · 22-09-2010 3:33am

Galvasean wrote: »

re: T3 vs T4. I prefer T4 as for all it's faults it is at least it's own film, wheras T3 just feels like a rehashed 'bigger badder' version of T2.

+1, T3 has pretty much the same story as T2, nothing original about it at all. Its a good action flick alright, but its definatly the worst in the series.

As for T4, i enjoyed it a lot. Its not as good as T2, but not many action movies are IMO. I even bought it on Blu-Ray the other day, looking forward to watching it again

Goodshape · 22-09-2010 12:52pm

Dempsey wrote: »

He had the same body weight and muscle measurements in T2 and T3

That was sort of a cheap dig; he did look great for his age.

But, muscle measurements aside, he did look his age and the whole thing just felt like fanboy appeasement. "zomg! you cant hav Terminator without Arnie! zomg, arnie's the greatest!!".

He's a frackin robot. They're interchangeable! I would have been much more interested in seeing Linda Hamilton back and even that I would have sacrificed for a decent story. As it turned out, we got nothing. Just comedy moments with misunderstandings in gay bars and sexy cyborgs using Internet dialup tones straight out of 1996.

I remember being quite excited about T3, and watching T1+2 back-to-back the night before. Huge mistake. Just brought the whole atrocity into perspective.

Dempsey · 22-09-2010 1:24pm

Goodshape wrote: »

That was sort of a cheap dig; he did look great for his age.

But, muscle measurements aside, he did look his age and the whole thing just felt like fanboy appeasement. "zomg! you cant hav Terminator without Arnie! zomg, arnie's the greatest!!".

He's a frackin robot. They're interchangeable! I would have been much more interested in seeing Linda Hamilton back and even that I would have sacrificed for a decent story. As it turned out, we got nothing. Just comedy moments with misunderstandings in gay bars and sexy cyborgs using Internet dialup tones straight out of 1996.

I remember being quite excited about T3, and watching T1+2 back-to-back the night before. Huge mistake. Just brought the whole atrocity into perspective.

I actually thought the CGI effort in T4 was the better option for the T800. The fanboy's might not have liked it but I thought it worked well considering the T800 is suppose to look 'timeless'.

As for Arnie's appearance/age, he looked different in all 3 films if you want to be fair. Just that T2 was so good, that gets overlooked. Its just a pity that the franchise went to development hell after T2 and Cameron went onto other projects.

One of the things that annoyed me greatly, and its happening with alot of films is the toning down of violence solely to get larger target audiences.

You can easily watch 1,2 & 4 and not be lost bar wondering where Sarah Connor was (which scenes could have been easily done for T4 to tie that up)

Mostow's film was a parody sequel of T2 which he should receive capital punishment for

Snake Plisken · 22-09-2010 2:21pm

Am i the only one who thought that T2 was a bit of a let down after T1? I loved T1 back when it first hit VHS, I then went to see T2 when it came out and ok from a tech/stunt aspect it was great, but I thought they should have left Arnie be a bad terminator, I thought this might have been an Arnie demand that he be good but it was Cameron's as I saw an interview with Arnie that when he read the script he told Cameron that it wouldn't work as he got to kill no one.

Dempsey · 22-09-2010 2:41pm

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Am i the only one who thought that T2 was a bit of a let down after T1? I loved T1 back when it first hit VHS, I then went to see T2 when it came out and ok from a tech/stunt aspect it was great, but I thought they should have left Arnie be a bad terminator, I thought this might have been an Arnie demand that he be good but it was Cameron's as I saw an interview with Arnie that when he read the script he told Cameron that it wouldn't work as he got to kill no one.

I think Cameron got the story right, Arnie as a bad terminator in T2 would be nothing but a rehash of the first one really but better done stunts. The T1000 was so much better at infiltration

Goodshape · 22-09-2010 3:04pm

Yeah, the swtich was good storywise. Sarah having to come to terms with it, putting her life in the hands of her worst nightmare. The conflict between trusting this "good" robot and knowing that that, essentially, is what starts the whole mess. Great film

.

T1 is equally great, I would say. It's a bit like Alien/Aliens with the shift in tone from horror/thriller to action/thriller.

DirkVoodoo · 22-09-2010 3:15pm

If by "remaining faithful" you mean that terminator was simply a rehash, a cheap imitation bordering on parody (I'm sorry, walking into a biker bar and it's "ladies night" is something I would have expected from SNL) then I have to disagree. Terminator 3 was guilty of the same crimes that Superman Returns committed, namely being too afraid to stray from a more successful prequel and in the end offering nothing new.

The franchise, if it needed continuation, had to move into the future and show us the war against the machines that all the movies hinted at. Unfortunately McG was not the director to do this and the script had a ridiculous plot asking a simple question of what it means to be human. The original idea was probably more interesting before Bale wanted to be Connor, forcing his character to be rewritten and expanded, along with the new ending (the first ending sounded far more interesting and much more of a ballsy effort than the ending of T3).

However the basic story was pretty poor, we never really saw a world overrun by terminators or humanity struggling for survival, in fact it seems if you stayed away from San Francisco you were pretty safe. Bale's Connor was never shown as a true leader and saviour of humanity, just as a man obsessed by prophecy. In fact, they should have ditches the whole "chicken and egg" philosophy, it really bogged the movie down - "So wait, you don't matter anymore, the human race doesn't matter, all that matters is saving Kyle Reese?". This is the future now, let's not worry about time travel and who has to go back in time and screw who, it just makes the movie less fun.

But above all, I never got the impression that machines were taking over the world. I mean, what the hell have they been doing between T3 and T4 except sending out a few terminators to rust away in piles or urban rubble?

Dempsey · 22-09-2010 3:48pm

However the basic story was pretty poor, we never really saw a world overrun by terminators or humanity struggling for survival, in fact it seems if you stayed away from San Francisco you were pretty safe. Bale's Connor was never shown as a true leader and saviour of humanity, just as a man obsessed by prophecy. In fact, they should have ditches the whole "chicken and egg" philosophy, it really bogged the movie down - "So wait, you don't matter anymore, the human race doesn't matter, all that matters is saving Kyle Reese?". This is the future now, let's not worry about time travel and who has to go back in time and screw who, it just makes the movie less fun.

The point in time where the terminators have overrun the resistance and when John Connor is recognised as the leader of the resistance is 2029, T4 is set around 2018 AFAIK.

He only received his scars at the end, the same ones you see in T2

Still, all you had to do was turn on a radio to alert a scout party.

Did you really expect everyone to believe, straight away, a guy with zero military training was ready to lead a war?

I didnt like the way skynet explained their plan to Marcus, it felt like watching an old Bond movie

Handsome Bob · 22-09-2010 5:17pm

Dempsey wrote: »

Did you really expect everyone to believe, straight away, a guy with zero military training was ready to lead a war?

Very true, to add to that as well, you wouldn't really expect the military hierarchy to bow down to the guy either until he actually demonstrates leadership skills beyond being privy to information about Skynet and the Terminators.

Goldstein · 23-09-2010 2:44am

So I watched T4 again, in its entirity, just to be sure.
I'm just gonna spoiler the whole thing - for the record, you shouldn't be here at this stage if you haven't seen it yet.

Hey, I've got a good idea for a terminator - let's give him a ridiculous weakness for no reason, ...perhaps a human heart. He's lucky Luke Skywalker didn't turn up in a small x-wing and mistake him for a death star.

If I ever get impaled through the chest by a girder-wielding T800, that's definitely the surgical team I want performing my in the field heart transplant. No doubt.

That's assuming I live long enough to: (with no heart remember)

1. Survive being carried out of a tall skyscraper (Which was important somehow)
2. Survive the helicopter ride to "the nearest safe zone" (Which I'm thinking could be a bit of a jaunt away from Skynetopolis) Although they did disable that 1 gun turret so all should be well.
3. Survive long enough for it to be daytime in the next scene.
4. Survive long enough for robot buddy to donate his heart (ahhhhh I see what they did there, the weakness must have been put in there for this, that's incredible writing), touching moment with Father, touching moment with robot & hot chick pilot etc.
5. Survive the actual (triage) heart transplant.

Still though, just as well the little 5 year old girl picked up the remote detonator and passed it to the (heartless at this point) Connor so he could blow up Skynet's (skyscraper factory we'll call it) or the entire episode would have been a bit of a waste of time.

Also a good job Skynet didn't just kill Reese when it found him (target #1 we're told, even more important to kill than Connor) or it would have been problem solved (No more John Connor). Skynet could have kept the T800 from T1, the T-X from T3 and all the TSCC T's and used them as bowling buddies instead. The imprisonment for no reason option was certainly the way at go.

Skynet is software. Skynet is not a building - And I'm not buying the token "oh ya, I forgot that fact" disclaimer in the last scene.

The entire movie made no sense, none. I mean God help MCG if I was to go through the entire movie like I did its last 10 minutes.

T3 was crap, and a complete regurgitation of T2, but I stand by the assumption that it was better (if not prettier) than T4, just because T4 was (even more) utterly ridiculous. I think I watched a different movie to most people in this thread.

(Assume there are many of these: :rolleyes: dispursed throughout the above but you know - readability and all that.)

BlitzKrieg · 23-09-2010 3:02am

The franchise, if it needed continuation, had to move into the future and show us the war against the machines that all the movies hinted at. Unfortunately McG was not the director to do this and the script had a ridiculous plot asking a simple question of what it means to be human. The original idea was probably more interesting before Bale wanted to be Connor, forcing his character to be rewritten and expanded, along with the new ending (the first ending sounded far more interesting and much more of a ballsy effort than the ending of T3).

I said it waaaaaaay back on page 1, but I actually felt going into the future was the biggest mistake the franchise did.

Going into the future removes pretty much everything that made terminator interesting.

The time travel, the infiltration unit, being forced to use modern weapons, the disjointed flashforwards of the impending horror mixed with the disorientation (t1) of time travel or obsessive motherly fear (t2) hell even the grim responsibility of T3 touched it briefly. These are what made terminator unique.

Remove the past and time travel and it loses alot of what makes terminator interesting.

Its the same as the matrix series, take out the matrix and focus on the war against the machines and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

It just too wide and bland of a narrative scope. Hell we dont even do it with war films.

So if they do decide that a fifth film is possible (and not a reboot) they need to work in at least time travel again. To scrape back something interesting hopefully.

Faith+1 · 23-09-2010 10:44am

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

So if they do decide that a fifth film is possible (and not a reboot) they need to work in at least time travel again. To scrape back something interesting hopefully.

It's already in post production!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBw9E2Q_aY

Dublindude69 · 25-09-2010 4:35pm

Terminator Salvation is awful beyond words. 3 wasn't great but it was a hell of a lot better then this mess. This has to be one of the worst sequels of all time.

indough · 25-09-2010 5:33pm

not a chance, terminator 3 is miles worse

leaving aside the **** storyline, retconning of the nature and development of skynet (and reason why the terminators were sent back in the second movie), plus the character assassination of john connor into a pathetic whinging arse hole - the movie fails by default and is automatically relegated to 4th spot thanks to the retarded gay joke scene and general parodying of the first two films in the series

also bear in mind if the travesty that was 3 was made better then there is a fair chane the 4th would have been better as it would have had something better to build on

Goldstein · 25-09-2010 6:00pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P7yx3q3m8k

(sorry if that was posted already)

d.anthony · 25-09-2010 9:01pm

I cant' believe so many people hated this film...

I'm a HUGE fan of the series, hated the 3rd film but thought Salvation was awesome... Especially the little things, like explaining how Kyle learned to grab the gun that you see in the first film and loads of other nice little touches.

mikhail · 25-09-2010 9:35pm

d.anthony wrote: »

I cant' believe so many people hated this film...

I'm a HUGE fan of the series, hated the 3rd film but thought Salvation was awesome... Especially the little things, like explaining how Kyle learned to grab the gun that you see in the first film and loads of other nice little touches.

Given it clearly understands his significance, why didn't Skynet just kill Reese?

Handsome Bob · 25-09-2010 9:43pm

mikhail wrote: »

Given it clearly understands his significance, why didn't Skynet just kill Reese?

Maybe Kyle was never the true target and was just used as bait to lure John into Skynet HQ.

Dublindude69 · 25-09-2010 10:10pm

LZ5by5 wrote: »

Maybe Kyle was never the true target and was just used as bait to lure John into Skynet HQ.

But if they kill Kyle then there would be no John.

Handsome Bob · 25-09-2010 10:16pm

Dublindude69 wrote: »

But if they kill Kyle then there would be no John.

They might not know that Kyle is John's actual father though, for all Skynet know he's just the guy John sent back in time to protect his mother.

Meh, fcuk it, I accept that it was a massive plothole. :pac:

Goldstein · 25-09-2010 11:41pm

Terminator Salvation, 18:24

Resistance general: "A kill list was intercepted from Skynet. Says everyone in this room will be dead by weeks end. You're number two on the list."
John Connor: "Well who's number one"?
Resistance general: "I don't know, a civilian...Kyle, Reese."

Terminator Salvation, 21:44

John Connor: "Kill Kyle Reese...Reset the future...No John Connor."

Q.E.D.

indough · 26-09-2010 12:36am

what do you mean by that? do they definitely know at that stage hes connors father or perhaps just know he must be important because connor has been searching for him? i cant remmber the film too well only watched it once

T4 Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins

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