Does Terminator Salvation salvage the franchise?

[Saigh]

*MINOR SPOILERS* *but beware of comments*

The answer is more or less, but not so much...er, well, it certainly beats the Terminator 3 and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles by a couple of light years, something which is not hard to do given that both were poorly written, directed, produced, acted, cast.... . Terminator Salvation in contrast is fairly well written, with the exception of one scene that is very important to me, well directed, well acted and cast and the production quality is outstanding. Special effects, absolutely state-of-the-art...but I must say Arnie never looked THAT good, ever. It's will stand as one of the top action films for a long time.

However, it's also light years away from being what Terminator and Terminator 2 were, which shows how far apart I see them from what came in between.

First off, yes, my doubts about McG being up to this have been knocked on their ass, he can direct action, it was a pretty and loud film.

Christian Bale is, by far, the best John Connor to come around since Edward Furlong played him as a kid in Terminator 2. By far this role has now been salvaged from the whiny emoness that Nick Stahl (T3) and Thomas Dekker (T:SCC) infected it with. He is truly the real Sarah Connor's (Linda Hamilton) son, skilled, smart, intense and remembering that which she momentarily forgot and he had to remind her in T2 while others here forgot it. That the fight against the machines was done to save humanity, not in spite of it. That the value of human life was the most important thing and sacrificing people as collateral damage was not acceptable. Okay, especially when it's his dad, but even long before that, in the beginning of the film, his horror at the callousness, the machineness, of his superiors is obvious.

While others might have hooted at him saying Arnold's signature line, my own heart soared when he went to cyclejack one of the Terminator motocycles and lured it by blasting "You Could be Mine" by Guns N' Roses (and mind you, I'm not a Guns N' Roses fan, even). Yes, this was clearly OUR John Connor, the real John Connor. I do not think anyone could have done the role better.

While he had to reclaim a role already well done by Furlong but damaged in between, Bryce Dallas Howard had to totally create, with not enough screen time, the role of Kate Brewster, John's wife, which never had a chance of development in T3. While I'd have just as soon had them ignore that movie altogether, I suppose they had to acknowledge it, but this really was the only nod they really gave, having Kate. Howard showed strength and command, while not being a warrior in this movie being a pregnant doctor at the time...yet she still had the moxie to go out to try to rescue John and no one dared tell her she had to stay behind for either of these reasons (which in my mind, being a doctor is the best reason to not let someone go out...I'm sure doctors are scarce, even ones who must have self-trained in human medicine after their veterinary schooling, and when doctors are scarce you guard them.

As it is, neither John nor Kate developed a great deal in this movie, I will admit. They weren't the actual central characters, after all, even though their roles were expanded from the original script, from my understanding. One hopes that in the next two movies this will be rectified.

Anton Yelchin, like Bale, had to reclaim a character miscast in T:SCC(Jonathan Jackson, just wrong and what was up with the ugly barely-there facial hair?..sorry, have to mention it as it was really rather nauseating to see), Kyle Reese. Yelchin was totally convincing, both in his good looks and mannerism, as a teenage future/past father of John Connor. He got to develop more, I felt, even if not the true center.

Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was the center of the story. He played the conflicted anti-hero well, showing both vulnerability and softness and the air of a harsh killer at frequent intervals and sometimes at the same time.

Now, the role I was most hopeful for was Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams, so I saved her for last. As a pilot and resistance fighter who wields a Desert Eagle .44, she certainly seemed she'd be a kick-ass warrior in the footsteps of Hamilton's Sarah Connor. Certainly Bloodgood seemed to have the ability to pull such a thing off. With extreme sadness I have to say that this was the worst part of the movie, which, in this blog I'll just link to my other blog post Terminator Salvation and Physical Feminism at TEOTWAWKI. This has ruined the movie as being a favorite of mine, no matter how good it is otherwise.

I do hope that this major flaw, this "women are victims" message we got from the rape attempt scene, is rectified by Blair's development in the next two films and/or by other women. Certainly there were a lot of women shown as warriors, even among the survivors. The tough takes-no-shit-from-the-macho-boys leader of a group of survivors, Virginia (Jane Alexander) and the (gotta say it) cliche cute savvy kid, Star , were actually quite wonderfully portrayed and played. They certainly could do better in regards to showing what fighters women can be.

Yes, it's a good action film and a great special effects film, flawed by portraying a woman fighter as needing a man to save her. It certainly reclaims the franchise despite that. And despite the fact that it just seemed lacking to me. Seemed to fall short of what the first two movies, well, felt like. Something that just moved me when I watched those that was lacking here. And it wasn't just that we only had Hamilton's Sarah in brief bits of her voice on tapes or the issues with that scene, it's certainly not due to the lack of a real-live Schwarzenegger nor Jame Cameron either.

I think the "spark" missing was that the first two movies where about something alien coming from the future into our world, it allowed us an identity with what was happening. It would be difficult to do this with a Future War feature, at least one where we're suddenly the aliens in a world we don't know. Perhaps it could have been recaptured if this trilogy started before or at Judgment Day, if it showed the arch of people suddenly thrust into The End Of The World As We/They Know It rather than starting after the Resistance has been already started. And if there were less military infrastructure left, more survivalist cells who would be more likely to follow John Connor. There is a loss of "this is happening to us" in this. I'm disappointed that it really showed nothing of that earlier period, at all. Perhaps one of the other movies will go back and address it? If so it will probably seem artificial now

This too is probably part of the reason the end seemed hokey and sort of pointless, as compared to the poignant endings of the first two. The first two simply touched something this one couldn't find. At the same time, it caused none of the nausea that the third and That TV Show caused...which is some saving grace, I suppose.

So, it does not compare to the first two movies, for all it so superior to the third and That TV Show. Something was needed because of those two offenses, but I still feel that they shouldn't have existed in the first place. Without them I might be tearing this movie apart even more not only for the offensive sexism of the way Blair Williams story was written, but for not living up to the first two movies. But after them, it seems really good...other than....well, ....do I need to say it again?

All in all, I still think that there should only have been two movies. That's it. Ever. Nothing else on film, period. But as it is, we need something to wash the ick of T3 and That TV Show....hopefully the next two will wash away the ick of sexism.

[Thistle]

This is really interesting, and I agree with you completely about the connectedness issue. It is hard to connect to this version because it is not our world, and also because we didn't see the characters as who they were before Judgment Day or on Judgment Day. So I agree, it would be a good thing for them to maybe back track a bit in one of the upcoming films. I do think it is an important aspect of the character development.

[Saigh]

Actually, I remembered after writing that that they probably aren't going to back track as an official prequel novel was commissioned...so I'm going to be getting myself a copy.