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deird_ljSaw it this afternoon.
Or rather... saw the first third, fast-forwarded through at least 50% of the second third, and then rolled my eyes, pressed eject, and caught up with the rest of the plot on Wikipedia. It really sucks.
I'm a big Terminator fan, and have been ever since the second movie blew me away by not doing anything I'd thought it would. I like the first movie (although it's boring at times), love the second one beyond belief (along with the rest of the world), actually quite enjoy the third one (surprisingly), and am halfway through the Sarah Connor Chronicles (and absolutely must buy the second half).
And I hate the fourth movie with a fiery passion.
So, I was trying to figure out why. Sure, it's not the world's best movie, but why do I have such a negative reaction to it - so much so that I skipped the ending completely?
I think, for the most part, there are four reasons the Terminator movies work:
1) the protector/enemy dynamic
There's one guy protecting you. And another trying to kill you.
The enemy is hostile, and willing to do anything to kill you. He's also extremely powerful.
The protector is... well, not quite so hostile as the enemy. But only because he's not actively hunting you down. He is, however, rude, seemingly irrational, from a future you can barely imagine, scary, willing to put you in very inconvenient situations with absolutely no regard for your feelings, and prone to offing innocent bystanders if they get in his way.
2) the time-travel thing
Your son sends his own father back in time to become his father; your mother makes you memorise a speech so that when you send your father back in time he can memorise it, tell her, and she can memorise it and tell you; you've got a mythic destiny and you haven't yet finished high-school; you get kidnapped because you're this crazy guy's future wife, and then because you were kidnapped, end up in the situation which leads to you getting married and thus having your life threatened back pre-kidnapping; you sent soldiers back in time 100 years so that they could build an extra time machine to send you forward in time - and when you get to the future and meet them, you really must remember to send them backwards in time to do that...
3) civilians don't realise what's going on
People keep getting in your way.
The police keep trying to protect you, by stopping you from running away from the unstoppable machines. The FBI are hunting you down for terrorist action. People keep trying to lock you up and telling you you're crazy. They keep complaining about you knocking them over, crashing cars into theirs, and taking their families hostage - and really, you're just trying to save the world! If they'd just realise that, everything would be so much easier.
4) fight! fight! fight!
This might sound shallow - but watching Summer Glau slamming huge robots around a room is REALLY COOL. Terminator-on-Terminator fights should always be encouraged.
And Terminator: Salvation doesn't have any of that.
There's no protector. There's no need - all the protagonists have guns, and know how to protect themselves.
There's no time travel. The closest we've got to it is the paradox of John Connor having to protect Kyle Reese at all costs... and, sorry, but that's really not so paradoxical.
There aren't any civilians getting in their way, because there are no civilians. (And the army guy says that Kyle Reese is a civilian? Why? Isn't he busy fighting Skynet, just like the rest of them?) No-one's going to interrupt them with small petty concerns, because everyone knows what's at stake.
And there's a severe lack of robot-on-robot combat. They need more Terminators on their side. (As opposed to Marcus, who's actually quite boring. I'm sorry, but when you've experienced the identity-angst of Dawn Summers, Echo, Harvey, the Buffybot, Illyria, Boomer, and Cameron, then Marcus getting conflicted just can't compare.)
In short, they have systematically removed every element that made the rest of the series enjoyable.
Also? Movie Three. (Yes, I really did like it.)
If they'd gone from the second movie straight to the fourth, it could have worked. It still would have sucked (see: the rest of this post), but not quite so much.
You'd see John Connor as a snarky kid, and then the sequel would have John Connor as the junior soldier, gradually making his way up the ranks. One day, he'll be the leader! Go John!
...however, there's another movie in the middle there.
Why did I like the third movie? Mainly because of the end. John and Kate end up in the fallout shelter - the big, presidential fallout shelter, with communications set up to all the other fallout shelters - and they're right there, ready. And all the other shelters start calling them, and asking what's happening, and John's right there and he's the only person in the whole world who knows exactly what's going on and why, and he can tell them all... and THIS is how he becomes leader of the resistance! Not through his amazing skillz of leadership, but through being in the right place at the right time - and he's only there in the first place because the robot from the future put him there so that he could become who he was, and TIME PARADOX. SO VERY COOL.
And then, somehow, these other guys end up in charge, and John Connor's some nobody soldier who's gradually making his way up the ranks.
...huh?
It doesn't make sense.
I think I will drag T:S to the Discontinuity pile, and leave it there, never to be referred to again.
*clears throat* I love the Terminator franchise. The tv show, and the movies - all three of them. *nods*
Or rather... saw the first third, fast-forwarded through at least 50% of the second third, and then rolled my eyes, pressed eject, and caught up with the rest of the plot on Wikipedia. It really sucks.
I'm a big Terminator fan, and have been ever since the second movie blew me away by not doing anything I'd thought it would. I like the first movie (although it's boring at times), love the second one beyond belief (along with the rest of the world), actually quite enjoy the third one (surprisingly), and am halfway through the Sarah Connor Chronicles (and absolutely must buy the second half).
And I hate the fourth movie with a fiery passion.
So, I was trying to figure out why. Sure, it's not the world's best movie, but why do I have such a negative reaction to it - so much so that I skipped the ending completely?
I think, for the most part, there are four reasons the Terminator movies work:
1) the protector/enemy dynamic
There's one guy protecting you. And another trying to kill you.
The enemy is hostile, and willing to do anything to kill you. He's also extremely powerful.
The protector is... well, not quite so hostile as the enemy. But only because he's not actively hunting you down. He is, however, rude, seemingly irrational, from a future you can barely imagine, scary, willing to put you in very inconvenient situations with absolutely no regard for your feelings, and prone to offing innocent bystanders if they get in his way.
2) the time-travel thing
Your son sends his own father back in time to become his father; your mother makes you memorise a speech so that when you send your father back in time he can memorise it, tell her, and she can memorise it and tell you; you've got a mythic destiny and you haven't yet finished high-school; you get kidnapped because you're this crazy guy's future wife, and then because you were kidnapped, end up in the situation which leads to you getting married and thus having your life threatened back pre-kidnapping; you sent soldiers back in time 100 years so that they could build an extra time machine to send you forward in time - and when you get to the future and meet them, you really must remember to send them backwards in time to do that...
3) civilians don't realise what's going on
People keep getting in your way.
The police keep trying to protect you, by stopping you from running away from the unstoppable machines. The FBI are hunting you down for terrorist action. People keep trying to lock you up and telling you you're crazy. They keep complaining about you knocking them over, crashing cars into theirs, and taking their families hostage - and really, you're just trying to save the world! If they'd just realise that, everything would be so much easier.
4) fight! fight! fight!
This might sound shallow - but watching Summer Glau slamming huge robots around a room is REALLY COOL. Terminator-on-Terminator fights should always be encouraged.
And Terminator: Salvation doesn't have any of that.
There's no protector. There's no need - all the protagonists have guns, and know how to protect themselves.
There's no time travel. The closest we've got to it is the paradox of John Connor having to protect Kyle Reese at all costs... and, sorry, but that's really not so paradoxical.
There aren't any civilians getting in their way, because there are no civilians. (And the army guy says that Kyle Reese is a civilian? Why? Isn't he busy fighting Skynet, just like the rest of them?) No-one's going to interrupt them with small petty concerns, because everyone knows what's at stake.
And there's a severe lack of robot-on-robot combat. They need more Terminators on their side. (As opposed to Marcus, who's actually quite boring. I'm sorry, but when you've experienced the identity-angst of Dawn Summers, Echo, Harvey, the Buffybot, Illyria, Boomer, and Cameron, then Marcus getting conflicted just can't compare.)
In short, they have systematically removed every element that made the rest of the series enjoyable.
Also? Movie Three. (Yes, I really did like it.)
If they'd gone from the second movie straight to the fourth, it could have worked. It still would have sucked (see: the rest of this post), but not quite so much.
You'd see John Connor as a snarky kid, and then the sequel would have John Connor as the junior soldier, gradually making his way up the ranks. One day, he'll be the leader! Go John!
...however, there's another movie in the middle there.
Why did I like the third movie? Mainly because of the end. John and Kate end up in the fallout shelter - the big, presidential fallout shelter, with communications set up to all the other fallout shelters - and they're right there, ready. And all the other shelters start calling them, and asking what's happening, and John's right there and he's the only person in the whole world who knows exactly what's going on and why, and he can tell them all... and THIS is how he becomes leader of the resistance! Not through his amazing skillz of leadership, but through being in the right place at the right time - and he's only there in the first place because the robot from the future put him there so that he could become who he was, and TIME PARADOX. SO VERY COOL.
And then, somehow, these other guys end up in charge, and John Connor's some nobody soldier who's gradually making his way up the ranks.
...huh?
It doesn't make sense.
I think I will drag T:S to the Discontinuity pile, and leave it there, never to be referred to again.
*clears throat* I love the Terminator franchise. The tv show, and the movies - all three of them. *nods*
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 12:15 pm (UTC)(One of the things I like about Terminators is that they're always so polite, even if they're about to kill you.)
Other than that, all I can add is that I've only ever seen the first two films and T:SCC, so I can't comment on the rest.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 01:38 pm (UTC)Also, the first half of your review sounded like you were getting a bit Vegemited. So what if a movie doesn't follow the same formula as the first? Plenty of sequels don't, among them those often regarded as the best sequels, such as The Empire Strikes Back or The Wrath of Khan.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 07:05 pm (UTC)Largely because they took out everything that was good. And left us with... um... guns. And ruined buildings. And lots and lots of yelling. That's it.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 10:48 pm (UTC)Well, you've pretty much just described T2 - you do realise that, don't you? :-p
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 02:03 pm (UTC)(Long story short: Connor was never supposed to be a real character in the movie, just an off-screen presence until the very end. Bale took the roles, and it got expanded, and the mess resulted.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 09:56 pm (UTC)*shakes head*
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 05:10 pm (UTC)I did love the Sarah Connor Chronicles though and, while there are obviously differences, I thought it a suitable continuation of the series.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 10:01 pm (UTC)(Don't bother with T:S. It's really not worth it.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 09:23 pm (UTC)Not to mention that John Connor's amazing, world-saving leadership capabilities seem to be limited to telling a fighter pilot being fired upon to take "EVASIVE MANEUVERS NOW!" Gee, thanks John, I bet no half-competent pilot would ever have thought about that on their own.
Oh, and Roland Kickinger of Son Of The Beach fame with Arnold's face badly CGI'd on... what the everloving FUCK?!?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 10:03 pm (UTC)Oh, I fully concede my wrongness. (But it's good, really.)
Gee, thanks John, I bet no half-competent pilot would ever have thought about that on their own.
That's the thing - if he's going to become a leader through his awesome skills of leadership, he actually needs to be good at it...
no subject
Date: 2010-03-08 11:32 pm (UTC)I can see the potential though for going back to a more basic "man vs. monster" approach, using the war and genocide as a backdrop to a few survivors on the run, but the blockbuster approach seemed to win out.
There were however a few points that did annoy me;
The "He needs a new heart!" / "Waitaminute... I have a heart!" ending felt way too convenient and "urrr... get this disgusting dangling plot point off me!" to be taken seriously. Marcus's sacrifice might have meant something if he and Connor had bonded a little more, but as it stands...
Skynet... oh skynet. Once Skynet was, well, God. I think there's some mileage in identifying Skynet with an Old Testament style God, a foreign, slightly alien omniscient being that rained hellfire down on Man. The Terminators are Skynet's angels; the point of interaction, the divine will enacted, vengeance made real. Especially in the original film, our two protagonists are pursued through a dark, gloomy Dante world by the invincible figure, its will that of the Lord/Skynet.
But in Terminator Salvation we finally get to meet the ender of Man, and, let us not forget, Marcus's maker. My memory of the details here are a little sketchy, but I do remember it being a disappointing scene. There's no equivalent to Roy Batty's "I want more life, Father", no questioning about why he was made, no begging for the redemption of man. No, we just get some cheap gloating followed by an obligatory fight in a darkly lit factory.
Though I suppose you could make something of the contrast between the white sterility of Skynet's heaven, and the purgatory (complete with darkness and flames) of the factory.
Oh, and can we do away with gatling guns in Terminator films now, please?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 01:11 am (UTC)I can easily imagine the twisted timelines that lead back to T3 and T4, and even to T:SCC, but they don't really interest me on quite the same level.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 01:19 am (UTC)Whenever I think of the second movie though there are just so many damn iconic scenes. Like when Sarah's running down the hall of the asylum and she sees Arnold and time slows as she falls to her feet and screams "No!" and starts scrambling to run in the other direction.
Damn, T2 is so awesome. Oh, and Arnold lowering himself into the thermite (?) at the end. Gah.