So.. can their time machine only go back to 1984? Why not send someone back to whenever skynet was first being invented? Is that like killing hitler or something?

Estimated budget of 170 million. Look at them T-1000 graffix at 1:16!!

Also PG-13!

the 3rd movie setup the more realistic scenario that skynet is a government AI/virus thing that spreads worldwide, and the nihilistic (sequelistic?) premise that Armageddon cant be stopped by time travel, it just delays it/changes how it happens, or something.

IZ, that was the plot of Terminator 2. It might've been easy to miss in all the whitewashed violence and ZOMG HE WALKED THROUGH BARS effects, but the good guys do manage to stop skynet from ever being built by blowing Cyberdyne to robot hell and back.

Then 3 came along, shouted "LOL NOPE GETTIN' THIS APOCALYPSE TRAIN ROLLING ANYWAY" and took a big wet shit on Judgement Day's lessons, namely that even a known, incurably bleak future can be altered or downright averted by our choices, and that even a killing machine can learn to understand inarguably human qualities like emotion and empathy.

Yeah, I'm amazed anyone has kind words for T3's ending. Bleak nihilism and magical Diabolus Ex Machina do not automatically make your writing clever. In fact it makes you a shitty Outer Limits episode (the 90s remake).

Yeah I get that part (although it has been years since I've seen the movie) but wouldn't it be smart just to assassinate Alan Turing or something? Plus I'd love to see that instead of Terminator 1 but with Sarah in charge of Reese this time. What a plot twist!

Maybe by terminator 13 they'll get to covering the paradox issue.

A humanitarian fund estimated that 00 USD is sufficient to save a child's life. 0,000,000/3500 = 48,571

To be fair Terminator 3 was one of the earlier examples of the bleak nobody-wins nihilism endings in Hollywood, and when I was 17 I thought it was pretty rad.

Also it is a lesson more directly applicable to real life, so suck it up.

Guess Cyberdyne didn't invent the time machine.

Teenertot raises a good point: if the humans were really smart, they'd go back to prevent the damned time machine from ever existing.

My biggest problem with T3 wasn't the ending so much (I mean, it was kind of surprising to nuke the world after the previous two films had sort of been about averting that) but the fact that at least half the movie was nothing but callbacks to T1 and T2.

There was also a certain cheapness to the production. There's a scene where a truck hits a fence between two other cars, yet all three explode for some reason.

Sputum man, you have GOT to see more movies if you think T3 was one of the earliest examples of that.

I mean earliest among big-budget mass-appeal Hollywood movies.

I'm starting to believe that this movie started out as a remake of the blues brothers but was changed to terminator at the last minute.

http://youtu.be/ouHkL7u9qLw

What the hell happened with movie costs? This movie's budget is 0 million and looks terrible. For comparison, Terminator 2's budget adjusted for inflation was 0 million. Going back further to the movie that STILL looks the best (eyeball surgery mannequin scene excluded), the original was made for a paltry million (adjusted). I doubt Arnold's salary is higher than it was in 1990.

Well, there's something to be said for vision, talent, and inspiration.

famous actor salary does inflate it a good bit, but it's mostly all the shitty CGI.

gasoline mortars, abandoned buildings, miniatures and stunt drivers are cheap in comparison to thousands of man hours and server time to make the same scene CG (but that extra bus flip totally worth it, dude!)

I think it depends, Sol. For example, the guy who did the FX for the movie "Moon" said they saved a lot using models and miniatures. However, the shots for that were always lit the same (it's the Moon) in an unfamiliar environment (so lighting wasn't a huge issue) that was pretty monochromatic.

If you're trying to do a spaceship dogfight, give a non-human alien creature a lot of facetime, or create an alien landscape (like a planet in Avatar), CGI will save you money vs. building models, animatronics, lighting (if its outdoors), etc.

The consensus on the actual use of CGI among those also creating practical FX seems to be that CGI is amazing and can do a lot in conjunction with practical effects, but it depends on the director. They often laud Jurassic Park but point out you can make something craptacular like Van Helsing.

Like anything else it's a tool and how it's used determines the outcome far more than the tool itself.

A bad crafts-person blames their tools.

Can I just point out how great it is that "special effects" has been recast as "practical effects"?

Really? It kind of looks like they're embracing the mess the franchise has become, like someone royally fractured the timeline.

I'll reserve judgement (day), though I'll probably watch it via DVD or Netflix.

The problem is it's ANOTHER rehashed "skinjob chases Sarah Connor/human" movie. We've already seen this movie 3 fucking times already in Terminator 1-3. It was still good to do in Terminator 2 because it changed the dynamic with John being chased, and the Terminator protecting a human. But 3 was a lazy rehash, even if it at least tried to move the series forward. And now this is another rehash of the same shit we've already seen, only it goes backwards with a lazy "twist" of a Terminator protecting Sarah as a child, and acting like the other 2 movies never happened.

It's all stupid, just move on from this "sending a robot back" bullshit give us a damn future war movie that doesn't suck. But what am I saying? They couldn't even get that right, meanwhile Cameron did it convincingly in 3 god-damn minutes.

It's awful how they finally went with a 100% future war movie and botched it so badly.

Terminator Salvation was one of those movies that was bad the first time you watched it, but you didn't realize HOW bad it was until you thought of it later. I wish my old review on poe-news was still around. Basically it seemed like it had 2 sets of writers who had no clue what they were doing. One guy thought he was making Transformers 3, the other thought he was doing Blackhawk Down 2. This was most obvious when they constantly had scenes showing that the machines immediately homed in on loud noises and heat sources like fire, then immediately followed it with scenes of people sitting around outdoor bonfires at night.

"And then the robot snakes jump out of the river to attack the helicopter" is up there with "and then the peanut butter rats explode" from Wanted from script moments that should immediately tell you your movie went wrong.

If the franchise and its owners wasn't such a money whore 2 would have been the ending....no future war because it's prevented.

I remember your review on poe-news. It was awesome.

"THE GIANT ROBOT SNOOK UP ON US!"

Found it!

http://www.caltrops.com/pointy.php?action=viewPost&pid=137646

FABIO: As I understand it, the movie was being made when either they added Christian Bale or someone thought making his role more prominent was a great idea. Ergo, they had to shoehorn a bunch of scenes with him in it after a lot of the film was written/made, which is why it seems to kind of stutter along, I think. Someone with more first-hand experience would have to confirm all the specifics, but I can see how that would wreck a movie.

Also, I'd like to give a shout out for the Terminator TV series. It was doing some pretty interesting things, even with the time travel going on. I wish it had been given one more season at least.

Fabio, do more reviews. Either start a blog and share the link or just post them beneath a relevant video when you feel like it.

Most of my reviews are short and lazy. It takes something really bad like Salvation for me to write anything of length.

"Very funny," I thought. "What's the movie's REAL name?"

Genesys would be a good name for some sort of telecommunications company or something.. oh wait it already is.

Sega console

Crap meant for robin and kid

TIMEY WIMEY RAGGEDY MAN

You know what? I've figured it out and it pisses me off way more.

Most studio executives think we are imbeciles. They really do think if they put up enough pretty explosions and vehicle chases that's enough to keep us entertained, like jangling car keys in front of an infant.

FUCK THEM!

There's a good RLM review where they talk about that exact thing. I can't remember which one, maybe one of the new Spiderman movie ones. Basically, they literally bank on moviegoers being morons, as you say.

Nah, If this was Anita Sarkesian's Terminator Sarah Connor would be a vaguely female, a-sexual, demolition expert while the Terminator hangs out at his mom's house eating Cheetos.

Is this the new "blame Obama" for the Call of Broshooter set? Everything awful is somehow tied to butthurt over video games?

Did you uhm miss the strong female lead? Like the black storm trooper, it's pretty subtle. You really need to _look_ for it.

Okay...I don't get the Sarkesian connection.

You mean Sarah Connor? Like in T1 and T2?

Well, let me don my hoop earings and flannel shirt and 'splain.

First slide.

Here we see the wonderland that is 1984. The nascent governor of California is sent back in time to kill the mother of the future savior of the world. He's about to do the job, when allofasudden supersoldier Kyle Reese appears and saves the girl from the maurading molestor Donkey Dong. Hooray!

This class, is called a trope. See, girl needs rescuing, and boy saves the day.

Next slide.

Here we are in the foul year of our Lord 2014. The former governor of California is digitally ressurected and sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor. And once again, supersoldier is ready to save the day. But WTF!!!!! He's getting his ass kicked by the new high definition Donkey Dong 2.0! and then, allofasudden, in pops Sarah Connor with a massive strap on to save the day. "Hey", he sez, "I was sent here to protect your virginal behind! What happened"

"Well, you need to watch these youtube clips ( but they won't be invented for another 20 years or so.) ...

But Mr Wildcat, it can't possibly be Anita's work. It wasn't funded by Kickstarter, and it actually got made.

Except that's something it sounds like you're coming up with to justify your dislike of someone not associated with this film, because it ignores the reversal of expectation in said trope, Mr. Wildcat.

Girl needs saving? That was the plot of the first movie, but at the end and in T2, girl became a badass. If we're rehashing T1, the expectation is that said girl will need saving again, BUT WAIT! She's ALREADY a badass? And it's something to do with time travel? There's probably more to this film than a redo of the original plot.

Or, y'know, you can play dress-up, if you insist.

If you look at my earlier comments about Anita, you'll see my major beef with her is that she's pointing out in a shrill and humorless voice that the sky is blue, and whatever is the point of that? Does she really think that we can't see it?

I can see now that I'm going to need to re-evaluate that position. Because clearly there is a felt need to point out the blueness of the sky.

But just to clarify for SPK's sake.

You are exactly right. The trope is reversed! You see, it's like someone took the original Terminator, and rewrote it to be Sarkesian compliant! Now read my first comment.

Wow, this is like pulling teeth.

Pretty much. JP4 looks pretty cool, sticking with the same formula that held up for some of the second one and didn't work at all with the third. Someone else mentioned that they'd like to see the logical "dinos invade new york or whatever" conclusion that the novels implied, but it tried and failed in one of the worst endings in movie history. Some of the big summer movies of last summer surprised me though: both Snowpiercer and Guardians of the Galaxy were fantastic. I don't think anybody saw Snowpiercer except for me though. I mean it. I was the only person in the theatre. :(

I think Jurassic Park is about due for the old "This time, the evil dinosaurs are the GOOD GUYS!" treatment. Like maybe in this next one, the dinosaurs could team up with the humans, in order to save a children's summer camp from a bunch of invading aliens.

T6: Terminators in Space
T10: Terminators in Hell
T13: Terminator Chef

etc.

"Term' in tha Hood", "Terminator vs The Yeti", "Terminator the Live Musical", and of course, "Terminator, Jr", a family-friendly direct-to-video hit which will spawn such sequels as "TerminatorS, Jr" (Terminator has some moar kids!) and "Terminators: The Spirit of Christmas".