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Just fired up Terminator: Salvation.... how bad is it?

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Actually I thought T3 was okay... if not great. It had some hokey crap in it for sure, but it did move the plot along well enough.

I like salvation, but like everyone else I thought Bale was the wrong actor to cast for Connor. On top of that, the movie wasn't really suppose to revolve around Connor at all, but around Worthington's char and Kyle Reese (forgot the actors name).

Anyone read the book Terminator: Rise from the Ashes I think the title was called? It was the intermediate book between the movies that covered quite a bit of info on Kyle Reese and a little bit of lead up for the characters that were with Connor in his resistance "cell."

Because of the book I saw where they were trying to go with Salvation, but Bale being the douche he was and demanding more screen time muddled the plot too much.


For reference I own them all on blu-ray.
 
Wordplay said:
Bale was the wrong person to play John Connor. Bad movie overall but near the end there is a cool moment.
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Good read if you're a Terminator fan. Basically the writer of this article says that the casting was the other way around. They wanted Bale to be the terminator and the Avatar guy to be Conner. Bale and his ego managed to get them to totally rewrite shit to make him a focal point of the movie instead of simply a supporting charactor like the original script had him as.

The Terminator Salvation you saw on movie screens this weekend was not
always the Terminator Salvation that was meant to be. Like in the
franchise itself, history has been changed, and the original script for
Terminator Salvation ended up getting gutted.
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http://www.chud.com/19577/exclusive-what-went-wrong-with-terminator-salvation/
 
HumblePie said:
Anyone read the book Terminator: Rise from the Ashes I think the title was called? It was the intermediate book between the movies that covered quite a bit of info on Kyle Reese and a little bit of lead up for the characters that were with Connor in his resistance "cell."
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Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was a decent read.
There were two more books from the same writer that followed it.
 
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GundamW said:
I like T:S better than T3.

In T3, John was just a wimp who tried to hide from his destiny. Most of the fighting were done by the 2 terminators. The girl/wife did more fighting than him. He was far from the leader that we were told by Kyle in T1.
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just like Aragorn in the LoTR films. It took him a while to accept his fate, and was a much better character for it. This is why the Aragorn character in the books was terrible, just a meatheaded GI Joe with no redeeming qualities and flat as a board.

the problem with T3 was the unnecessary silliness. Without that, it would have been better. I thought it was the best John Connor to date.
 
RagingBITCH said:
T3 = worst than Glitter

I really didn't think Salvation was all that bad. It had that nice gritty dark element to it, which returned to it's roots.

That being said - I don't know how the f*** T3 got 70% on RT while Salvation got 38%. WTF?
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the fuck?

Salvation was as far from the Terminator roots as you could possibly get. It was another fucking galaxy

The only thing that it had resembling a terminator movie was that the robots looked the same.

it sucked b/c it completely departed from its roots.
 
Zeze said:
Come the fuck on.

I know ATOT hates little shit kid actors, but the core appeal of T2 was the bond fatherless little John made with Terminator. We were able to feel for Terminator when it had to kill itself in melting pot because it pained the kid greatly so.

The movie wasn't just a blow-up action scifi. It possessed human drama.

T2 WAS fucking perfect. All around.
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You misunderstood me. I had no problem with the character development of a young John Connor and the Terminator, nor with the relevant themes involved, nor with how the plot played out. I DO however have an issue with how annoying Edward Furlong himself was. A more talented actor in the same role with the same lines would have been considerably better, I think.
 
Kadarin said:
You misunderstood me. I had no problem with the character development of a young John Connor and the Terminator, nor with the relevant themes involved, nor with how the plot played out. I DO however have an issue with how annoying Edward Furlong himself was. A more talented actor in the same role with the same lines would have been considerably better, I think.
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Admit it: Everyone thought that was a "cool kid" back in the day.
 
I thought Salvation was great. Of course, I don't obsess over a piece of fiction like some of you in this thread, so I didn't over-analyze it.
 
I hate how everyone takes T3 seriously and then calls fail. T3 was fun. It wasn't even trying to be what you seem to expect it to be (an epic James Cameron follow-up to T2). It was a fun, silly, romp that I am grateful for. It had many scenes that were just "badass LOL" and that is why the movie exists.

T4 sucks because it tried to be the epic follow-up that people expected from T3 and, expectedly, failed to be that.
 
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KeithTalent said:
So very far from true; kids can be good and help provide emotional impact in a film, but his character (and acting) was so damn annoying I would have been happy for him to get killed off and was actually cheering for it. One of the most obnoxious characters ever mucking up an otherwise decent movie.

KT
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He was perfectly cast for that role. I've seen you rail on him a ton, but WTF, he's exactly what that character should be. He's an annoying punk ass kid. For Furlough that's not even acting.

blurredvision said:
I thought Salvation was great. Of course, I don't obsess over a piece of fiction like some of you in this thread, so I didn't over-analyze it.
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If recognizing this as bad is overanalyzing to you then holy hell.
 
blurredvision said:
I thought Salvation was great. Of course, I don't obsess over a piece of fiction like some of you in this thread, so I didn't over-analyze it.
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you didn't over-analyze it because your capacity for thought is either limited, or you're assuming one needs to think to actually see what fails with this film.

there is no "over-analyzing" a move like Salvation. It's failure to be a terminator movie is obvious and quite profound.

As a simple dumb and pointless action movie? sure, it's fine. Maybe a little bit better than transformers (at the very least, humans vs. robots is far, far more interesting and worthwhile than robots vs robots) But it completely fails to be part of the terminator franchise--and that is the complaint.
 
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How does it fail? It is set in the Future that the 1st movie is trying to prevent. Except because of T3, Judgement day DID happen, therefore it follows the logical timeline if altered a bit. It's no grand movie by any means, but it's not completely off like other franchises...(like AvP's to the original A and P, or Species, etc etc). I am not exactly sure what you are expecting from the franchise. It IS a terminator movie, even if it's not a good one.

If you want non plot holes etc..well..its time travel. Good luck. 🙂

I try to just enjoy movies for what they are, as I found that people's jaded opinions just ruin everything. My wife for instance was a funeral director and embalmed people and all that goes with it. Now, every time there's a gory scene in a movie, she's like "oh that looks fake..that's not what it looks like at all." As soon as you try to make it out to be something more than what it is or try to put logic to it, etc, nothing will live up to your expectations. That doesn't mean I like every movie I see. I simply hated T3 for instance.
 
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ImpulsE69 said:
How does it fail? It is set in the Future that the 1st movie is trying to prevent. Except because of T3, Judgement day DID happen, therefore it follows the logical timeline if altered a bit. It's no grand movie by any means, but it's not completely off like other franchises...(like AvP's to the original A and P, or Species, etc etc). I am not exactly sure what you are expecting from the franchise. It IS a terminator movie, even if it's not a good one.

If you want non plot holes etc..well..its time travel. Good luck. 🙂

I try to just enjoy movies for what they are, as I found that people's jaded opinions just ruin everything. My wife for instance was a funeral director and embalmed people and all that goes with it. Now, every time there's a gory scene in a movie, she's like "oh that looks fake..that's not what it looks like at all." As soon as you try to make it out to be something more than what it is or try to put logic to it, etc, nothing will live up to your expectations. That doesn't mean I like every movie I see. I simply hated T3 for instance.
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...and that's exactly the point.

it is set in the future. Terminator works because it isn't set in the future.

It goes from decent-to-good sci fi to silly action movie when you completely abandon the intent of the story.

The "future" always worked in the Terminator films as a threat-something to avoid, something to prevent, something to fear. It was that unseen thing, that message.

there is no message in Salvation.
 
I totally get your point of view now and agree on that aspect. But for me it was T3 that ruined it BECAUSE of judgement day happening. It shut out ANY other possible outcome for the future. For Salvation - you couldn't really have 5 films of john growing up with a "threat" because then the first film would be all out of whack. (I think..god damn paradox)
 
ImpulsE69 said:
I totally get your point of view now and agree on that aspect. But for me it was T3 that ruined it BECAUSE of judgement day happening. It shut out ANY other possible outcome for the future. For Salvation - you couldn't really have 5 films of john growing up with a "threat" because then the first film would be all out of whack. (I think..god damn paradox)
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well, one thing that nicely cleanses the palate of T3 (for those that find it so offensive) is SCC--an awesome series that never got the shot it deserved.

It does take some of the plot lines or story elements introduced in T3, but it tends to erase it from canon. The plot time of the series occurs between T2 & T3...but I don't think you could have a T3 if you accept SCC.

I could be wrong, though--I think it's still the case that Judgment day is inevitable; I guess I don't specifically remember what it was about the show that made T3 impossible.

and for what it's worth, I highly, highly anticipated Salvation. I really wanted it to be good and I thought going in to it that the series needed more time in the post-Skynet world. (I did like T3 despite the stupid campiness of it. The ending left me wanting more; and I honestly have no problem with the inevitability of Judgment day--though the empty/dark road of T2 is a much more useful (and open) metaphor)

However, regardless of the shitty direction of Salvation (McG--are you fucking kidding me? why does this guy get work?), I realized soon after that a more solid film in the same setting still would have failed to be a terminator movie.

I think many people woke up to that notion, whether or not they realized what was so off about it.
 
zinfamous said:
you didn't over-analyze it because your capacity for thought is either limited, or you're assuming one needs to think to actually see what fails with this film.

there is no "over-analyzing" a move like Salvation. It's failure to be a terminator movie is obvious and quite profound.

As a simple dumb and pointless action movie? sure, it's fine. Maybe a little bit better than transformers (at the very least, humans vs. robots is far, far more interesting and worthwhile than robots vs robots) But it completely fails to be part of the terminator franchise--and that is the complaint.
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But it was part of the Terminator franchise. You're just mis-remembering exactly how in-depth the first two movies were. They weren't much more than action flicks either. The only thinking that was required was because of the time-travel mechanic and that was it. There was nothing amazing or mind-blowing about the first two, so I think Salvation fit right in line.
 
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