iggystar

Basically, anyone who is in the camp of "I loved it" has already put it more eloquently and I wholeheartedly agree.

Some of the things I really enjoyed was seeing more of the future, the different machines, the very nice mixture of practical effects with CGI and Marcus Wright's character. I think the character development was not as substantial, but McG was able to add enough, along with the action to get the point across.

I cared about Marcus Wright, the decisions he made and was intrigued by his mannerisms. I also really like Kyle Reese's character, seeing the beginnings of the man he's destined to become.

FuQ

I thought it was pretty good. I wish there was a tad more humor and I wish the editing was a lot better. You can tell that Marcus subplot with that hot chick was severely cut down. I think more of that would have made it a stronger film. I wish Kyle Reese had more to do in the third act but it was surprisingly good. I went in with low expectations. The sound in the film is some of the best I've heard, just thunderous.

islandclaws

I'm still on the fence about the film. There were some very good things, and some very bad things.

The good:

- The action is awesome. Everything is clear on-screen; there's not a lot of quick-cutting and super-tight close ups that would otherwise render the scenes impossible to watch.

- The FX work, even CG Arnie (for the most part), was top notch. I didn't notice much questionable CGI (very little, in fact) and the practical effects were excellent. This movie has great production design.

- Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. Even though he wasn't given enough screen time, I think he's got some great potential for sequels. Yelchin is on a hot streak right now. Good for him.

- Marcus Wright. I thought his character had a good arc and some great scenes, even if some of his dialogue was cringe-worthy.

The bad:

- The script is VERY lazy. It's the most blatant case of connect-the-dots I've seen a while. I hate it when information is made so conveniently available to anyone anytime they need it. Connor's use of a Sony Vaio (nice product placement) is laughable. Like cell phones are really going to work in this future. Dialogue is terrible at times, and there are several scenes that exist purely to foreshadow events to come, and anyone with half a brain will know they exist simply as a set-up.

- The mute black kid. Why? He/she (?) is the fucking R2-D2 of the film, always ready with whatever tool/gun/explosive switch a main character needs at just the right time. Reese and Wright's storyline would have been much stronger without him.

- Bale doesn't totally suck here, but I'm tiring of his out-of-breath American accent. I understand he's not supposed to be the main draw here. The guy is just another fighter in the resistance. Just because some people believe he's the prophesized savior doesn't mean he's going to shoot to the top of the pecking order.

- Too much of the film feels overly influenced by The Matrix and Transformers. Not that I'm complaining that much, since I mostly enjoy those films, but some aspects of T4 are a bit derivative of their look and feel.

- Elfman's score sucks. Bring back Brad.

- The ending? Seriously? Connor would have been dead LONG before they performed that ridiculous operation.

Overall, I'd give it a 6 or 7 out of 10. I give it a slight pass for being clunky and unsteady out of the gate because this is a new start. Hopefully McG learns from what didn't work here and applies it toward any sequels. His direction wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated, but the sequel definitely needs new writers. With a tighter script this movie really could have been something more than it is.

Supermallet

Are you havin' a laugh? (Is he havin' a laugh?) Marcus is one of the best movie characters EVER?!? Hyperbole much? He barely even has a story arc. When he thinks he's human, he helps humans. When he learns he's a machine, he helps humans. When he's faced with the true nature of his existence, he helps humans. He never has a moment of indecision or doubt. At no time in the movie is the audience worried that he will turn on the humans. He killed more people as a human than as a robot. No, Marcus is not a fully realized character at all. Only in comparison to the other paper thin characters that populate this shallow film does he feel fleshed out.

Also, if Skynet knows to kill Kyle Reese because he's Connor's father, why doesn't Skynet just not invent a time machine? No time machine, no Connor.

invisiblegt

I believe that, in this film, Skynet has come to the realization that what has happened in the past is done. Sending Kyle back in the past, or stopping him from doing so, may not necessarily do anything, as the "future" is unfolding differently than it "originally" had.

As such, Skynet knew that the best proposal was to bring Connor to them, and eliminate both he and Kyle, thereby removing any doubt.

islandclaws

What I don't get is, even if Kyle Reese is killed, why should that affect Connor? Reese was sent back in the original timeline, and he created John, so how would killing him erase Connor? Would he just disappear or something? This is why the series was destined to be full of even more holes once they moved it to the future. The gaps in logic are astounding.

Also, anyone else find it funny when Connor said to Marcus, "You tried to kill my father, Kyle Reese", and then Marcus tells him he knows how to find Reese, yet he doesn't even seem to bat an eyelash over the fact that Reese is obviously much younger than Connor?

.unholy

That was one of the things that really bugged me. Same with the meeting between Reese and Wright. I realize the kid has grown up in some messed up times, but he comes across a guy who obviously has no idea at all what's been happening over the past 15 years and doesn't ask any questions? Really?

I guess that would depend on what theory of time travel you subscribe to. If it's alternative timelines, it wouldn't. (I think this is the theory the franchise seems to be following, with a new future splintering off every time a change is made to the past. Of course, that would make the entire quest to save Reese pretty pointless.)

If it's single timeline, then I guess he just sort of fades away while playing "Earth Angel."

iggystar

I was thinking the same thing during the movie. Would he look at his hand as it's fading away?

islandclaws

Exactly. Not only did Wright wake up 15 years in a post-apocalyptic future, but - HELLO - he was executed! You'd think the guy would have a bevy of metaphysical questions, aside from the obvious ones like "what the hell happened?". And then, of course, conveniently at the end he plugs in to the Skynet database and magically accesses all of the info he needed to fill in the gaps. I HATE scenes like that, where info seems to just rain down from the sky in order to fill in not only our lead, but the (apparently) dim-witted audience.

Supermallet

I'm positive it's not the alternate timelines theory, otherwise how would it benefit Skynet to send Terminators back in time? Terminator is operating under a single timeline theory.

Other things that bugged me:

badlieut

Supr,

I agree with you and your list is many of the problems (the knocking out scene was laughable) I've been thinking about since last night.

Marcus pops out 15 years later and has no real questions of anyone. Kyle just explains Skynet and terminators very quickly and Kyle doesn't even question Marcus as to why the F he doesn't know this stuff already. Marcus just accepts the explanations, "Oh killer robots..okay...makes sense...human race bordering on extinction...okay."

The Moon Bloodgood relationship with Marcus wasn't fleshed at all. Suddenly, she "sees it in his eyes" that he is good so she tries to help him run. I guess maybe in a deleted scene he terminates her vag and she can't think straight.

Maybe I missed it by why/how is Skynet looking for Kyle Reese? How do they know he's the second father of John Connor (second since Connor had to exist before he sent Reese back).

The ending just blew period.

Rainet

I thought this quote from Rotten Tomatoes was pretty amusing.

-
The whole ordeal made me fantasize about building a time machine so I could send a cyborg into the past to terminate McG's mother before she could give birth to him.
-

I love the whole Terminator series, so i will be seeing it tonight. I'll keep my expectations in check though.

jeffkjoe

Kinda makes you stand back and realize in horror that McG was THIS CLOSE to directing the Superman comeback film....

islandclaws

I place blame on McG for not knowing to tighten up the script, drop the black kid and shoot a good ending, but his direction on this film isn't nearly as incompetent as I had anticipated.

kstublen

One complaint I saw mentioned above was why they didn't just kill Kyle Reese the moment they had him. I thought the same thing at first too, but I think I have the answer.

Obviously Connor had to have a father before he sent Reese back. Sarah gave birth to him, Judgment Day happened, and he led the Resistance to victory. Toward the end, Skynet, in a last-ditch effort sends back the T-800 to kill Sarah. Connor sends back Kyle Reese, who ends up fathering Connor, and then the future happens all over again and that is T2: Judgment Day. T3, Skynet has decided that it is futile to send back Terminators to kill John and since he is off-the-grid they don't have a record for where he would be, so they take out all of his high-ranking officials.

Now we have Terminator Salvation. This obviously takes place in the "second" future, after "first" future John sent back Kyle. I say this, because John knows that Kyle is his father, which means this is the same John we saw in T2 and T3, but not the same John that must have originally sent Kyle back in time. Since John knows, he thinks that if Kyle dies, he will cease to exist; since we don't know enough about real time travel, this is possible. It is also possible that if he failed to send Kyle back, the space-time continuum could be messed up and the entire future as they know it and are existing in it would collapse. Or it could be that if he doesn't send Kyle back, nothing happens at all. If we are talking about a cyclic universe, then he is destined to send Kyle back forever.

Anyway, Skynet must have found out that Kyle fathers John in the past, but they too are unsure what will happen if he dies. They are obviously not 100% certain that killing him will eliminate Connor, because after all, John Connor existed before he sent back Kyle Reese. Therefore, they capture Kyle Reese and use Marcus Wright to lure Connor to Skynet to rescue Reese. They know that Connor isn't going to try and infiltrate Skynet without being 100% sure that Reese is there; this is where Marcus comes in. Skynet counted on Marcus gaining Connor's trust and going in ahead of Connor, so he can give Connor the go-ahead that Reese is inside. All of this played out exactly like Skynet wanted it too. Had Kyle been dead, Marcus wouldn't have told John and John never would have come, thus frustrating Skynet's goals. There is further proof for this when you realize that Skynet unleashed the T-600 on Reese and the T-800 on Connor at the same time.

---
On another note, I really liked the Marcus Wright character. I thought that while he was lacking in overall development, he was meant instead to represent humanity's struggle for redemption and treading the fine line between acting human and behaving like a machine. Connor's superiors were acting like machines with complete disregard for human life; Connor was willing to risk it all to save them (even before he knew Kyle was in there). Marcus fell somewhere in between and was representative of all humans. And maybe I'm in the minority, but I thought that perhaps a lot of what he did up until ripping the chip out of his brain could have been influenced by Skynet (we really don't know how much was his own free will or the chip making him act; I don't even think he truly knew). Him ripping the chip out solidified that him going to save Connor and him giving up his heart were his own choices.

And I can see why they left him alive when they discovered he was part-machine. Connor knew about the T-800s; a machine covered in human tissue, blood, etc. Presumably Kate knew too and I imagine they told their friends/fellow soldiers. However, no one had ever seen something like this before; it was a machine, but it had a human heart and a human brain. It was nothing they encountered before and they probably wanted to figure out what was going on.

skiblet

Against my better judgement, i went to see this today. I knew the reviews were kinda bad, but - LIKE EVERYONE - i am a fan of the 1st / 2nd film, so went in with that glimmer of hope that it would recapture some of the magic from the first one-


Sorry to say, but the movie sucked even harder than the 3rd one. (which was pretty bad)

The VFX are your standard A quality, flashy high CGI stuff. The CGI sequence of arnold, especially one paticular shot when he slowly turns his face towards the camera, was amazing. But alot of the other effects i thought were totally average, and seemed dated. The facial makeup on markus when his metal is showing through didnt hold up well in my opinion at all. It just looked painted on-

The plot is eye-rollingly bad, and rips off several other movies. Youll know it when you see it. If the primary objective of skynet is to kill kyle (johns father) thereby preventing kyle going back in time to make john . . . then why didnt they kill him when they had him!!! ??? WTF. The plot and the story in general was so poorly constructed and doesnt do the terminator franchise justice.

I actually laughed out loud at the ending. I wont give a spoiler, but - i literally have to knock a star off the rating for how hard the ending sucked. It was jsut. . an "eye-roller".

So, whatever. Overall - if you are going to go, just go for the explosions, terminator fights, and cool bike scenes. If you go expecting to be immersed in a well crafted and well fleshed out plot/story, its really dissapointing (especally after seeing star trek)

1.5 out of 5 stars for me

Superboy

Don't try to rationalize the movie. Just enjoy it.

Jumpman

I wouldn's pass judgment on this film just yet. If you really watched the film, this experience should feel a lot like the Kingdom of Heaven theatrical cut...meaning a lot of stuff that's seen in the trailers that's rather important to the plot details and story of John Connor got axed for whatever reason....

I mean, you can just FEEL the cuts in this film, mostly on the dialogue scenes between characters (mainly John and his wife, Kate).

I came out wanting to bash it too but I couldn't because, for one, tonally, this is what it should be. Just based on that, it's leagues better than T3. That film always pisses me off because it's basically a self parody of the franchise and it didn't really have the balls to do anything different until the last five minutes of the film.

With this film, the franchise has changed significantly. I much prefer this tone than the one in T3.

Now, I do think it's fair to criticize this cut of the film but I just got a feeling that McG did deliver a good Terminator film but the suits got involved a cut the guts out of it (character development).

I'm hoping with those deleted scenes we get on the DVD, my assumption will be right.

Jumpman

As for this situation with Kyle Reese, yes, it's quite easily to make the conclusion that if they've captured him so quickly, why not kill him to erase Connor?

But that asks another question...one that Connor seems convinced is the truth, ie, if Reese dies now, do I cease to exist?

I think the answer is no...because of the actions in the third act. Capturing Reese was all about luring Connor to Skynet to die at the hands of the newly developed and ahead of schedule T-800...hence Arnold's digital cameo instead of Connor fighting a host of T-800s.

Convoluted? Yes...but I think because of the fact that the future has changed twice in this franchise (the actions of T2 and T3), this is Skynet's rational for this plan of theirs.

Some of it doesn't remotely work but I personally think the theory is sound. I don't begin to know how Skynet knew of Reese but I just don't think that's the point considering the future has been changed twice. You can make any explanation by using that excuse...

mdc3000

I see where you're coming from, but could Skynet not have programmed Marcus to believe he's human, to believe that Kyle Reese had been captured and LIE to John Connor about it. KR could have been dead and as long as Marcus still told John that he was alive etc. John would have believed him....

It's something that can be argued back and forth all day long I think, and I guess maybe the screenwriters thought it out long and hard like you did above, but I'm willing to bet they just needed the easiest way to make the finale happen, logic be damned, and that's what they went with.

I'm thinking of MAYBE giving the film a second chance... I was so pumped for it that maybe I was expecting far too much (I actually LIKE McG and think the guy is pretty talented, so don't mistake my criticism for a McG hate-boner.)... not sure though.

Super X

Just got back from an early afternoon show. There were maybe 25 peeople in the theater tops, a little low for my expectations of an opening Friday, even for a matinee showing. Overall, I thought it was okay, but not an overly memorable film. It had an almost plodding pace in its race to an ending in which there really was not much of a change in the status quo at all.

Now, some of the logical criticisms of the plot I wasn't as bothered by, but the one that really stood out at the end:

Jumpman

Super,

The film builds to the original ending that would've worked much better than what we got...that's why this ending doesn't work because it was tacked on after the original ending got leaked. McG was really going to in a very, very interesting route with the original ending...

...but because of internet backlash, they axed that bitch quick...and it hurts the film.

MBoyd

I am glad someone else noticed this!

.unholy

This is one of the prime examples of the unbelievable incompetence of the script. Instead of making sure that the plot develops logically, why not ask the audience to try and rationalize it retrospectively?

So: why wouldn't it be possible to knock Marcus out? He's got a human brain, so no problem there, right? Makes perfect sense. He could even get concussed. Never mind that no character in the film knows about this at that point.

(A side note: I really wonder what being tied to several hundred pounds of metal and dropped some 40 feet would really do to that brain of his...)

lamphorn

It felt very much like TV pilot episode. How on earth the writers of "Catwoman" and a bunch of bad TV got this gig is beyond me.

I will say it was better than T3, but that isn't saying very much. It was not as horrible as I thought it would be. But it will be a forgotten footnote of mediocrity in years to come.

One thing that bugs the shit out of me is