Ahhh ... The Terminator...

[MinionZombie]

Been on a Terminator revisit binge the past couple of days and have just finished watching #3. I still can't decide which one I prefer - T1 or T2 - I think they both need to be lumped together in one bundle of utter greatness.

Especially with T2, I was watching it and it just felt like a perfectly executed, beautifully deep orchestra - the visual and the audio mixing perfectly in crescendos with a clear tempo. The first two are just intense, incredible pieces of filmmaking...

...

Then we come to T3 ... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear .... oh dear. :(

A completely useless script that justifies itself with schoolyard level reasoning (it just happens, okay!?), followed by off-the-shelf direction and a sackload of self-referential (completely opposite direction of what Cameron intended in terms of Terminator-bound humour) 'gags' ... then more ridiculous story that doesn't make any sense whatsoever ... the future war glimpse was far too short and all the machinery had changed ... CGI endoskeletons are also crap and don't look at all real (give me a puppet on some dude's shoulders with rear screen projection anyday of the millennium).

The ONLY good thing about the movie are the effects - those are generally excellent (expect the overuse of CGI - Terminatrix (another thing I HATE about this crap excuse for a movie) and endoskeletons being the culprits), however I will say that CGI really came in handy for doing Arnie's face. Just whack some green on him and you can make an even more acurate face ... but again give me 6 hours in a chair gluing bits of plastic onto Ahnuld's mush any day of forever.

T1 and T2 - that's where it should have been left. :(

[DjfunkmasterG]

DO you watch Entourage?

In Season 2 they had Cameron as the director for the fictional Superhero film Aquaman on the show. I know Aquaman is real, but they never intended to make a film, but in the show they had James Cameron directing it and now the comic fans want an Aquaman movie directed by Cameron with... get this... Adrian Grenier who plays Vincent Chase on the show, and Aquaman in the fictional movie to play him for real.


I would love to have seen Cameron's version of Spider-Man, and I am huge fan. Hell I even like Titanic because of the scope and the execution (not the love story bs) I think James Cameron is probably one of the best filmmakers of our time and I want to see more from the man.

[Danny]

I know Aquaman is real.


...okaayyyy......:lol:

anyway t-2 kicks so mutch ass i saw it tuther day on terrestrial and it was impressive for the time and is still impressive, and it was from a time when cg was used to further the sotry and nothign more wereas nowadays its renered hollywood cinema down to nothing more than a camp amusement park style affiar.

cough- king kong -cough!:shifty:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[MinionZombie]

Heck, it was from a time that CGI was barely a newborn. It'd been used in The Abyss (another Cameron flick) and basically that was about it (bar Pixar, but they're more cartoons, rather than realism), so the stuff they were doing back in 1990 is amazingly impressive ... all the more in that almost all the effects stand up today. You can see the odd rough edge here and there (but for a film that's 15 years old, that ain't bad!).

And yes, like you say, the effects were part of the story, not in replacement of it - there's basically 30 minutes of set up and character work (that doesn't feel at all boring in any way) before the first action sequence - the storm drain chase. All the effects are there for a purpose, used to the amount that they're spectacular, but never overtake the whole film.

And I personally really liked "King Kong"... :p

[bassman]

T2 takes the taco, for me. The original is just a half of a step behind.

I wasn't that impressed with "3" either, but it was a pretty good ride....

Any of you guys seen the "Terminator 3D" thing at Universal Studios Florida? It's actually damn good. Directed by Cameron, Starring Ahnuld and Furlong......good stuff.

[MinionZombie]

I'm reading the script of T2:3D, it seems very much like a ride - rather than a "continuation of the story" like Cameron said on T2 Ultimate DVD (T2:3D making of).

As far as I'm concerned the whole thing was over after T2 ended, simple as. The ride is completely separate and more just having fun, how could it be a continuation of the story when only a few ride-goers in America in one state get to see it? lol.

As for Terminator 3: Rise of the Gay, the only good bit was the big chase about 30 minutes in, that part smelt a bit like what Cameron did 100 times better in T2, so that sequence - with Cameron behind it - would have been astonishing, but as it was just Jonathan "Who The F*ck Is He?" Mostow behind it, it just felt far too average (the whole film I mean, that one sequence was the best part, but it still sagged below the bar Cameron set up).

Also - the TX (ghey) licking blood...how stupid is that? Just to get randy 13 year olds to wish their ding-a-ling was there instead of the bloody rag I say. Also, her inflating her tits, another ghey little joke that doesn't sit at all well with the film ... those ghey star glasses ... the whole "talk to the hand" bits, SO GHEY ... Sarah Connor being killed off with *picks random illness* Leukemia (because Hamilton read the script and hated it, refusing to take part) ... the numerous instances of one of the Terminators finding the humans without actually knowing how to find them ("they just do, okay?!" - ghey).

Yep, "Rise of the Gay" was truly, utterly ghey ... bar one sequence, which still didn't cut the mustard when compared to Cameron's efforts.

[Eyebiter]

T3 had many issues

1. No Edward Furlong. John Conner is supposed to be a screwed up headcase. Long as he had good handlers Furlong would have been great for the role. The other guy tried but just didn't have any edge.

2. T3 script problems. John Connors 8th grade ex-girlfriend just happens to work at the vet clinic he breaks into? And her Dad is an Air Force General working on the Skynet project? And in the future she is a leader of the human resistance movement? And she decides to send the terminator that KILLED her HUSBAND back to the Rise of the Machines era? And instead of a biker bar we will have Arnold show up at ladies night at a strip club?

What bozo dreamed this up?

3. Skynet as a computer virus. Personally I didn't like this change. Traditionally in all of the previous comic books and novels Skynet computer core was located in the depths of the NORAD complex at Cheyenne Mountain. The change meant that all the efforts to stop in the Terminator in T2 and T3 were futile. No matter what you try you will eventually fail and nuclear war will occur. This makes the entire concept of "NO FATE" outlined in the second film completely irrelevant.

4. The video games associated with T3 were poor. T3: War of the Machines was released by Atari as an incomplete bug filled mess. They wrote off all tech support within a few weeks of the games release. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (for Xbox and PS2) wasn't much better. I've been told Terminator 3: The Redemption (GC) was fair, but haven't played it.

If your going to go through all the expense to license your intellectual property, don't give it to some whack job fly by night outfit that is going to put together a crap game in just a few months.

[zombie04]

T1 and T2 are both excellent movies. James Cameron has always been a favorite of mine, so these movies rank very high on my list. The first was good because it really showed what Cameron was capable of as a director. After that and the Abyss, he gave it his all with T2 and that is why I think it is better than the first. If people new in advance of the first what he could do, I think he would've had the money for slightly better effects and the movie could've been just as good as T2. After seeing Titanic for the first time in 1997, I thought it was his best work(but that was the first movie of his I saw in theaters). Just the scope of that movie with James Horner's score and the visuals made it something better than T2, though it's still a damn great movie. T3 was truly a mess because I think it was a studio looking for quick cash, or Mario Kassir looking for funding for Basic Instinct 2? Either way it was written and directed without Cameron's intellect or vision and that is why I think it failed.

[erisi236]

the chase scene and the showdown between TX and Arnold were both just too cool for me to write of T3 :)

[general tbag]

there was only a few things i didnt like about the all the termintor movies

- i wish in t2 the original intro was used , with the rebels breaking into the factory and reprogramming it and sending it back.

- i liked the t3 story but the actors sucked.it was a nice tie in with the past films, and leading up to judgement day. i also found that they did try to stay true to time travel theory.

btw anyone see T2 3-D: Battle Across Time

[zombie04]

btw anyone see T2 3-D: Battle Across Time

I seen it. It's good. It's no continuation of the movies but it's just fun to experience.

[general tbag]

btw


He was set to reprise his role of John Connor in the third part, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines but couldn't commit due to legal problems for his trouble with drugs and alcohol. To this day he claims to regret this mostly because he feels that he "let down" many fans of the series who loved his performance in T2 and really wanted him to return for T3. Because of this, he's is rumored to be doing "everything he can" to return for the rumored fourth installment of the series.

yea it would of added more to t3 that for sure.

on a side note to isnt it kinda freaky the chips they were making in 2 looked like a proto for the new dual and quad core chips coming out.

[MinionZombie]

Annnnnnd another thing - the Terminator themetune!

It appears ONCE in T3 for about 60 seconds and it's some hideous new version with a terribly conducted orchestra, making a theme which was once powerful and hair-raising turn into a limp spread-butt-cheeks fart.

As far as I'm concerned, T3 doesn't exist in the Terminator story. James Cameron said to Arnie himself that if Ahnuld's gonna do it, then bleed them for all they've got (hence the record-breaking $30 million payday). The movie also barely broke even, clearly the people have spoken about that movie.

T2 was the end of it as far as I'm concerned, and what an ending, the T-800 descending into the molten steel still chokes me up, it's just such a powerful moment of filmmaking - Cameron made you feel connected to a killer cyborg for cryin' out loud!

[HLS]

Been on a Terminator revisit binge the past couple of days and have just finished watching #3. I still can't decide which one I prefer - T1 or T2 - I think they both need to be lumped together in one bundle of utter greatness.

Especially with T2, I was watching it and it just felt like a perfectly executed, beautifully deep orchestra - the visual and the audio mixing perfectly in crescendos with a clear tempo. The first two are just intense, incredible pieces of filmmaking...

...

Then we come to T3 ... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear .... oh dear. :(

A completely useless script that justifies itself with schoolyard level reasoning (it just happens, okay!?), followed by off-the-shelf direction and a sackload of self-referential (completely opposite direction of what Cameron intended in terms of Terminator-bound humour) 'gags' ... then more ridiculous story that doesn't make any sense whatsoever ... the future war glimpse was far too short and all the machinery had changed ... CGI endoskeletons are also crap and don't look at all real (give me a puppet on some dude's shoulders with rear screen projection anyday of the millennium).

The ONLY good thing about the movie are the effects - those are generally excellent (expect the overuse of CGI - Terminatrix (another thing I HATE about this crap excuse for a movie) and endoskeletons being the culprits), however I will say that CGI really came in handy for doing Arnie's face. Just whack some green on him and you can make an even more acurate face ... but again give me 6 hours in a chair gluing bits of plastic onto Ahnuld's mush any day of forever.

T1 and T2 - that's where it should have been left. :(


I vote that the first movie was the best!
I remember seeing it on opening day and for movies at its time it scared me on a deep level way back then.I did not think the third measured up to the first two.

[zombie04]

I guess one way to look at the trilogy would be Terminator 1 and 2 are the story, that's just the truth. T3 is just a "what-if" situation or it counts as an extended universe like a Star Wars video game put on film. You can ignore it, but not the first two.

[Danny]

T2 was the end of it as far as I'm concerned, and what an ending, the T-800 descending into the molten steel still chokes me up, it's just such a powerful moment of filmmaking - Cameron made you feel connected to a killer cyborg for cryin' out loud!

not wanting to sound nerdy but was it the t 800 or t 101 like in the first one?:confused:

plus t3 sucked, then gobbled goats balls. the only ,ONLY bit i liked was after the nukes hit and we see arnys skeletal head half buried in ash, that really seemed to set the whole circle leading up to the first film going again for me.

i also liked how the machine jet...things we see in t-1 were programmed by the lamely cliche' t-x, that added a bit more continuity, as for storyline it was to t-2 what jurassic park 3 was to the lost world, rehashing the same basic story for the moohlah.:|

[Tullaryx]

I'm in the minority that thought the story for T3 was the logical continuation of the storyline started in the first film. It's called the Grandfather Paradox. In order for John Connor to exist the Rise of the Machines and of Skynet had to occur. What the second film did at the end of the film was to readjust the timeline. Postpone the inevitability of what was to occur. If Skynet truly was a self-aware AI then it would've calculated all probabilities and scenarios that could've stopped it from being created.

The fact that the final version of Skynet was really a massive computer program that soon turned viral to infect all military hardware really made Skynet all-encompassing. All John and Sarah Connor did was to delay Judgment Day from happening on 1997 to 2003 instead. By allowing the event occur --- however delayed --- the third film fixed the Grandfather Paradox the first two film caused but never solved. In the end, Skynet will not be destroyed in the past but in its unchartered future.

[MinionZombie]

What are you on about? Arnie played another (third) T-800 (which the moronic film T3 got wrong, they called him a T-101, which isn't the right number!!! That number refers to another thing about the T-800, serial number or something like that, my brain's farting today and I can't be arsed to google it, ha!).

So yeah, Arnie was playing another T-800 in "Rise of the Ghey" (they said that all T-800s look like Arnie ... but that'd be a bit random for them ALL to look like Arnie - besides, it's not true - look at Terminator 1, the one that invades the bunker and shoots the dogs - that isn't an Arnie mould - clearly they have a number of different facades, but not a whole load - that would be inefficient to the machines themselves to have a new face/body shape for every single T-800).

Someone said earlier that it would have been cool to see the resistence invading the compound (or whatever you wanna call it) and reprogramming the T-800 in T2, yeah, that would have been hella cool.

[Tullaryx]

I'm not discounting what you're saying. All I was pointing out was how I thought the storyline for the third film made the most sense in fixing the Grandfather Paradox the first two film caused. I mean, if Skynet ceased to exist because they stopped it from ever going on-line then how would John Connor have come to existence if he never sent his father, Reese, back in time to hook up with his mom.

[general tbag]

also if in t2 they did blow it up and alter the future , the terminator/t-1000 and john connor would of all disappeared when they blew up the building and got rid of the chip/arm.

t3 was well written in my books, people see the events as to unbelievable, but really it was fate. what i never got was, if indeed a machine was sent back with all this data how come they didnt pump it for more info . like really. everything from sports betting , to when they died and such.

[MinionZombie]

Nah mate, hehe, I was saying to Hellsing "what are you on about", cos I didn't understand what he was saying about 101 and 800 as numbers, from how he'd written it.

The whole theory behind time travel is a tricky old mistress, the possibilities are endless, it's the sort of thing you'd not wanna think about when out of your head on mushrooms, or even just weed for that fact...or just plain sober, damn...:D

[Wooley]

Most of T3 wasn't that great, namely for the reasons stated-he just happens to break into the vet officer where his old school friend works and her dad just happens to be the head officer of the Sky Net project...

But I liked the ending. Takes nuts to do a downer ending in Hollyweird I think, and the missiles in space, and the Civil Defense guy on the radio asking Conner who was in charge and him saying, "I am." That was pretty good I think.

Plus it also fixed that problem that was mentioned of how could Conner exist if the war never happened, since Reese wouldn't have been able to go back in time to be his dad.

They never mentioned how the T-1000 or TX were able to go back since Reese in T1 said only living tissue could go.

Kristianna Loken in leather, drool...