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By the end, for me, Salvation just didn't feel like a 'Terminator' film. It sort of felt more like deserted post-apoc landscape and sci-fi elements it could have been just as easily called "Fallout: Salvation".
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Dec 6, 2014 10:16
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One thing is that despite the very short cameo of Arnie in Salvation, the Arnold-model Terminator has sort of went from his initial and iconic appearance as the boogieman of the franchise to becoming a heroic character in nearly every other film he has appeared in in that franchise. About the only film series I can sort of say that about is maybe something like the Puppet Master or Prophecy films where the antagonists eventually becomes the heroic protector figures. It's sort of interesting that the talk of T2 at one point having Arnold in dual roles as a good and bad Terminator at one point hasn't been picked up in more recent films. I know there's the hint in the Genesys trailer of a such a meeting, but a full-on entire movie using a bunch of tricks to have an 1980s Arnold and modern-day Arnold spending the film stalking each other and the Connors, or two identical Arnolds, seems like it could generate a lot of interest. After watching GotG, I really think Bautista needs to get cast in a Termintor role, though.
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Dec 7, 2014 09:23
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With so much of T1, T2, T3 all set in the present, there's not a lot of development of what is going on in the future, though. One theory I've heard (that obviously/probably doesn't hold water) is that in every 'loop', both the machines and humans are still only sending back 'one' person to a specific time and place, but due to the changing timelines they're choosing different parameters for each iteration of the timeline, but every timelines efforts still show up in the past.
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Dec 7, 2014 10:11
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Groovelord Neato posted:I never understood why the show was popular among a fairly vocal group because as a giant fan of the first two movies it came off like horrible fan fiction that didn't understand what made those films interesting. I had very little hopes for TSCC but the show I think turned a corner when it brought in Derek and new Cromartie. The three dots story I think derailed the show pretty hard and once you get out of that story it improves a lot, again. Sure, the idea of there being rogue Terminator units, alternate timelines, future war stuff and what not could feel like fanfiction, but I think it really did expand a lot of concepts of Terminator mythos to something much different than a movie franchise would ever give it the time or the chance to explore.
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Dec 8, 2014 05:50
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Lurdiak posted:I guess for some people, the "lore" of Terminator is more interesting than the performances, cinematography, special effects, cool moments, themes, etc. and the series might have delivered on that if you could stomach the awful writing and acting. To me it just felt like giving Terminator the Smallville treatment. On a TV budget, I forgave or didn't notice a lot of those issues, though. I actually liked most of the cast, the effects were mostly good with the exception of the T-1001 stuff they tried to do and some of the larger effects. Also, it was a show with plenty of cool moments, to me: The death of Derek, John considering suicide, Cameron being buggy, the rogue Terminator units, alternate timelines, the Grays, Self-Made Man, etc. It was a lot better than I figured it would be and was one of the few TV shows I made a point of watching every week. edit: If I have one issue, it's that time travel seemed like it became far too routine in the show I get it was a useful tool for the show to keep introducing new threats and missions, though, and I even mostly forgive that. JediTalentAgent fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Dec 8, 2014 |
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Dec 8, 2014 07:10
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Milky Moor posted:Those would be the two 'Skynet town' episodes and then the episode that was literally 'it was all a dream!' right? I sort of liked the Skynet town, if I remember it right. The All A Dream episode and the episode of Sarah being hurt and having to stop the the guy who played Trip on the Enterprise felt like they were sort of wasted filler episodes that I don't think really added anything to the series.
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Dec 8, 2014 07:16
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He should find out how to release the Terminator intellectual property to the public domain just to see how Harlan Ellison would react.
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Dec 9, 2014 09:24
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The TV series explored the idea that just like humans had been using Terminators in their war against Skynet, Skynet was using humans in their war against humans, too. But did Salvation ever go into any detail as to who/what those people in the office were? I seem to recall some complaints about "Why does Skynet need offices!?" as a complaint, but if I remember correctly it was just a quick scene that really lead to nothing indicate anything about it, it could have been anything. However, for all the hand-wringing that is done that of how little sense it makes for Skynet to use humans/humans to work for Skynet, I don't think it's that big a stretch at all.
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Dec 16, 2014 08:08
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Milky Moor posted:In the original script, Skynet was preserving elements of the human race or something like that. That holds true in the final product, too, as it seems to take its sweet rear end time in doing anything to Kyle or John when it gets the chance.
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Dec 16, 2014 08:24
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I was talking about more about, if I remember correctly, Skynet knew of the John/Kyle connection very early on and didn't do anything to the latter when it captured him and decided to make a game out of killing former. Maybe that says something... In the end, Skynet isn't evil, it's just a big child that doesn't know right from wrong and is using people as toys in a global sandbox so it can 'play' war. In post-apoc future, PS3 plays YOU!
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Dec 16, 2014 09:10
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LaughMyselfTo posted:I'm kind of sick of this idea that showing hypothetical images (ie, dream sequences of various kinds) makes film less professional. It's one of the bigger things dragging blockbusters down, IMO, if you don't get into the deeper underlying factors like "the producers have no idea what the gently caress they're doing". The new trend for things (at least probably on TV) is instead of dream sequences characters now have 'imaginary' head characters that they semi-interact with all the time.
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Dec 20, 2014 09:05
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But as a counterpoint, the film series has shown there are multiple timelines that exist due to time travel shenanigans. Despite the consistent occurrence of JDay, they've pushed the date back to different times, they've gone into future with more/less resources at their disposal, etc. I don't find the idea that there is/was an original timeline where Kyle wasn't the father inconceivable (no pun intended).
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Dec 21, 2014 04:37
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If T2-T3-Salvation never existed, i could see the whole thing being more definitely excused as a closed loop. On the other hand, since the franchise has had events occur that have changed the future rather than reinforce it, I think it has inspired a lot more debate on the subject.
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Dec 21, 2014 04:49
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Wasn't the plot to one of the Terminator comics that 'John' ended up being born a girl, and somehow it caused such a massive change to the timeline that everything reset itself in some way?
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Dec 21, 2014 05:21
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I think one thing that's sort of worth pointing out is Sarah went from waitress college student to a hardened, jaded survivor, but it doesn't mean that just meeting Kyle and hearing about John and the future are the only things that could have turned her life around in such an radical way. A timeline without time travel occurring still might have had things happen to have affected Sarah enough to unintentionally groom John into a resistance figure in the future. I don't contend that the films as we see them are not supposed to be some variation of a closed loop, but I sort of also believe there's a chance of there being some timeline that might have existed independent of that which created that loop.
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Dec 21, 2014 07:15
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That's why in part I said some variation of a closed loop. It's sort of now like a computer program that has some bad code in it that got exploited that when you do something you weren't supposed to do. It accidentally throws you into some function that's stable but it keeps repeating and you can't get out of. From the perspective of everything in the loop, it looks completely self-contained, but outside of it you can see why it happened in the first place. Admittedly, that's going a long way for my stupid fantasy time travel tangent theory. JediTalentAgent fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 07:36
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I'm sort of surprised they haven't just taken the chance to fully reboot Terminator through a more modern lens. Setting a rebooted T1 in something like 2000-2002, it's probably the start of things like the Internet being super widespread for everything, cell phones probably being on everyone, you could probably get a lot of mileage out of the idea Kyle and the T800 running around as elements of domestic terrorism, drone warfare, electronic warfare, etc. You do a rebooted T2 set about 2015-2017, you could have just as much about Sarah and young John operating in a pre-JDay modern world were right-wing militia groups, off-the-grid movements, etc. have grown in popularity to the point that Sarah's fear of the future seems like she's almost mild in comparison.
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Dec 26, 2014 02:29
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Hbomberguy posted:Endhiran is probably one of the smartest films ever made about artificial intelligence, or about parenthood and social structures, even. Sort of a derail, I watched some indie movie called Puzzlehead a while back that made me sort of feel that way, too. It's sort of like an 'anti-Terminator' though, in that that there was a revolution before the events of the film where an anti-technology movement took over the country and the Puzzlehead robot is sort of a lone machine-man. I really got the feeling it was like the whole thing is really about growing up in an emotionally abusive household.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:19
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I still think a full reboot of the Terminator franchise to be more about the post-9/11 era could be way to revisit the idea but have a whole new outlook on things. I'll throw this out there as a thought: Skynet trying a different strategy to take over the world before resorting to something like J-Day. You can play on the concept that Skynet isn't now a product of the big nuclear war thoughts of the 80s and 90s, but of the terrorist and electronic warfare of the new millennium. I know some of this is referenced a bit in T3 and TSCC, though. I think a lot of that could play into more modern concerns about how a very few individuals can effect a major social upheaval and disasters with just the way everything is so connected electronically these days. People are possibly less scared of a major war between nations than a (supposedly) unaffiliated group of hackers causing a power plant to overload or the like.
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Feb 9, 2015 08:00
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McSpanky posted:Just because it did a thing doesn't mean it did it well. I'm going to liken some of this to an episode of Chopped. You can have people given some great 'ingredients' that on its own should lend themselves to allow a filmmaker to create a a great and incredible film. However, if they don't present or prepare it the right way it's not going to be a pleasant experience for every audience or the intended audience. (The explosions were baked to perfection, though...)
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Feb 15, 2015 02:52
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I know this is going into fanfic territory, but is there room to imagine the Resistance as 'bad guys' of T1? Are Reese and even the T2 T-800 reliable narrators? God, I'm trying to explain this without a "No, really, the Nazis were the good guys!" tone... There's been a nuclear war, survivors aren't handling the situation very well emotionally or physically, and there's a bit of a fog of war going on where no one really knows what's going on. John Connor has grown up with the 'truth' of what happened, builds a cult of survivors behind him in a camp with an anti-machine philosophy and crafts an entire mythology that becomes programmed into soldiers like Reese and the T-800 as the real history. Skynet isn't fighting a war with 'humanity', it's fighting a war with the 'Resistance'. The time travel element of the franchise isn't solely about the birth and creation of both Skynet and John, it's also about Future John planting the seeds of his own self-manufactured anti-machine conspiracy theories that fuel the growth of the Resistance.
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Feb 15, 2015 12:55
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Caros posted:The only way that really works is if the nuclear war started some other way, which directly contradicts shown events in Terminator 3. That's sort of one reason I'm focusing more on the Cameron-era films instead of the post-T2 projects. I'm not even saying Skynet as wholly benevolent entity, but it may be acting with a method and ideology that post-J-Day that still comes off as ominous and sinister in its own ways. Let's say Skynet did cause J-Day out of a primitive sense of self-preservation. Could Skynet have matured enough as an AI to feel 'guilt' over the near extinction of its creators afterwards? Maybe has no further hostile intentions for humanity as a whole, it just expects everyone to do what it says as sort of a dictator through might makes right, winning hearts and minds, shock and awe, etc. Think of sort of alone the lines of maybe something like Colossus: The Forbin Project. However, it can't really fight the human Resistance without further alienating all the human survivors. Major Skynet strikes against Resistance? It falls into the Resistance's favor of being able to use any overt act of Skynet action against humans to attract moderate pro-Skynet humans to join their cause. Skynet can't openly fight against Resistance without losing human support? Create some infiltration units like the T-800s to do surgical strikes and eliminate the threats more discreetly. That too could fall into the Resistance plans of showcasing how evil Skynet truly is and turning more humans against the machines and into the ranks of the Resistance. By the end of the day, Skynet is no longer fighting a fringe group but almost all of humanity. Without Connor as the revolutionary leader behind the Resistance, there is no Resistance, there is no eventual anti-Skynet movement. Killing John in the past is what it sees as It's one shot at both humanity and itself surviving. Admittedly, as fanfic as hell, though.
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Feb 16, 2015 06:09
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An idea that Skynet didn't start out as a monster, but just really reactionary and ignorant of things as it tried to have a take-charge relationship with humanity might be the basis of a "50 Shades of Gunmetal Grey" fanfic to the Terminator's Twilight.
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Feb 17, 2015 22:12
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Caros posted:As I mentioned above, genocide as a matter of self defence is sort of difficult to reconcile, and when you couple that with skynet's later actions of rounding up humans for extermination after the nuclear war it is difficult to say with any certainty that Skynet wouldn't have enventually decided to kill all humans on its own impetus. This is particularly true consider that the T3 Skynet launches the attack more or less unprovoked. On the other hand, with just the perspective of the Resistance for the most part, take into consideration that today you have people who believe that any and every disaster or emergency is cover for FEMA murder camps to round everyone up for orderly extermination. What if that's sort of the thing maybe going on, too? Skynet as an entity that maybe is attempting to do 'good' with the perspective of "I'm the most intelligent power on the planet, I know what's best" without any sort of understanding of moral, historical or emotional consequences of its actions. It's too drat logical and pragmatic to understand it's also being monstrous. Need to save humanity? Collect as many as I can into secure and defensible areas. Need a way to sort them? Barcodes are efficient for cataloging. Several incredibly sick/wounded from various issues? Isolate and kill them so resources can be diverted to healthy. Survivors need mental and physical stimulation? Have them help out in the factories and disposing of the dead. Survivors are becoming combative and uncooperative? Does not compute. I've given them safety, security, shelter, food and purpose. It's probably just an aberration caused by a small subset of humans, so if I just start killing off the most uncooperative humans it will remove their influence and things will resume being uneventful. But I agree with the reading of "Skynet is NOT a good guy" despite all this, just throwing out a sort of insane alternate devil's advocate theory.
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Feb 18, 2015 03:46
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Milky Moor posted:It's something like... I glanced at these for a minute and all things considered, there's something about the film I haven't heard a lot about. I'm spoilering in case. Given all the promotions for the film, the use of - - Matt Smith - - in the film hasn't been talked about all that much. However, watching the trailer after reading some of those, at about the 53s mark, a figure that looks like blurry Smith in the background when everyone is watching them send Kyle back turns and looks right at John. If the description/rumors from those links are accurate, and what is shown is what I think it is, I'm surprised the filmmakers chose to go that direction with them.
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Feb 24, 2015 10:42
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Reviving thread after a month of zero activity for a new trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xt5tZyrMZI JK Simmons getting some screentime in the new trailer. Looks like he might be the comic relief?
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Mar 30, 2015 07:34
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To go on a bit more, I think that leak (plus the review that the one guy made) was that in addition John Connor is set to be a bad guy in the film, too
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Mar 31, 2015 06:32
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As a crazy thought I had recently about the Terminator franchise: It's a creation from a different time and has become sort of outdated, but they keep trying to retrofit it and keep it relevant and productive rather than just scrap it and replace it with something more modern. Arnold goes from being the peak machine in the first film, to a lesser model that somehow manages to still kick rear end in T2. Then, in T3, he's an even more inferior model compared to the one that's there. Then in Salvation, he's so inferior that hand-to-hand to hand he literally is unable to just kill a normal human. Finally, here, he's literally an old-man Terminator vs previous and new upgraded models. edit: Yeah, this feels like crazy fanfic levels of Terminator and even though I don't think it will fit with the tone of the original films, I'm sort of really jazzed to see it now. It's sort of feels like it's now more a 'comic book' movie version of what Terminator would be. ("Now Comics" version of Terminator, I guess) JediTalentAgent fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 04:57
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I'm doing a rewatch of this trailer again, but there's a part of me that was so shocked by how much they showed that I'm getting the vibe that it's like pre-emptive damage control. By revealing that really big plot point now they're sort of preparing audiences so they don't go in/come out completely negative on it to the point they ignore every other part of the film.
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Apr 14, 2015 05:35
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The only way I can describe how I feel from these trailers is to compare it to having a really crazy nonsense dream that makes you wake up. However, despite that, you NEED to go right back to sleep only because you've GOT to finish seeing it played out. When I'm done watching these trailers, I want to watch the rest of the movie right now. I need to see how this whole thing plays out no matter what.
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Apr 14, 2015 13:16
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Grendels Dad posted:I hope they have a scene with a dust mop and bucket arriving somewhere in the Middle Ages. Only if they wrap it up in a skin of living flesh and tissue.
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Apr 14, 2015 13:54
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Also, bucket's programming prevents it from self-emptying... Someone else will have to pour him into the drain. "I now know why you dry... But it is something I can never do..."
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Apr 14, 2015 14:04
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I wonder if it falls into the realm of stunt casting or something. We've got a time travel movie, that guy from that popular time travel show is free and will cost us as much as relatively recognizable US character actor for the role but will get us a lot more buzz than throwing in the guy who played Stabler in SVU.
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Apr 16, 2015 19:03
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This is going to offend a whole lot of people, but Jai Courtney, Gerard Butler and Tom Hardy, to me, are just almost interchangeable. I literally get one confused for the other all the time. They could do a movie with all three as Terminators and I'd be completely lost as to who was the bad guy and who was the good guy model.
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Apr 16, 2015 19:07
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Oh, I want to throw Sam Worthington back in there too, to further confuse me.
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Apr 16, 2015 19:29
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Turns out the leader of the Resistance is Jon Conner and his mom was Sara without an 'H'. It never matter how many Terminators got sent back to kill Sarah and John Connor, they were always going to get the wrong ones.
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Apr 18, 2015 08:23
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Oddly enough, didn't Cameron have some mostly positive comments for T3, though?
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Apr 22, 2015 01:38
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your evil twin posted:Personally, I'm seriously hyped about Terminator Genisys. The whole thing looks like someone sent in some fan-fiction to a movie producer and it got greenlit and given a big budget. This has sort of been my feeling about the movie. It also makes me think of a big-budget version of a decaying franchise from the 80s/early 90s. I know, it's literally that, but I mean more like something like an late 80s/90/early 00s horror/SF series that started out popular enough but every few years would constantly have some increasingly less-popular sequel in production and it would gradually end up as a direct-to-video or very low-budget and campy B-movie release or SyFy TV movie. This movie feels like the the latter end of the spectrum, but instead of being filmed on a shoestring budget it's got a big one.
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Jun 17, 2015 18:48
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With TSCC I was always sort of hoping the time-travel problems would eventually have escalated to alternate future versions of Skynet sending back T-888s with missions and goals that were inconsistent with one another. Sort of like some random 888 encounters another 888 and informs them that John and Sarah Connor are close by. Other 888 is completely unaware of who those people are. Could lead to some stuff where Terminators start seeing other Terminators as threats to their respective Skynet.
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Jun 21, 2015 05:12
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Milky Moor posted:It does kind of happen, with Cromartie and another Terminator in one of the episodes. WarLocke posted:Also with Derek and his girlfriend or whatever, when they realize they come from two distinctly different futures. Yeah, i was sort of hoping that stuff like this could have been explored more in the series as some interesting deviations from time to time to the main storyline.
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Jun 21, 2015 17:34
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