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LTTP Terminator Salvation and I actually enjoyed it SPOILERS

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I finally got to watch it after taking GAF's advice on skipping The Happening. My God.

The first act is actually pretty good and has some rockin' action, but once the harvester shows up, it is all downhill.
How the hell nobody saw or even noticed such a gigantic, diesel powered beast until it was too late?
The shitty, nonsensical cuts, the non existent character development, the awful
"hybrid" thing (the entire plot, really)
, that terrible looking CG Arnie... and good grief,
what's up with the resistance infiltrating Skynet just like that and evacuating hundreds of people without a hitch?

Awful, awful movie. Looking at the action, cinematography and sound design, I think that McG had his heart in the right place. Unfortunatelly he is not cut for steering the Terminator series.

Edit: And the music was absolutely forgetable. Actually, I didn't even notice it. WTF?
 
Okay so I got this on BD for Christmas and I just started re-watching it because there have been plenty of times for me in the past where I didn't really spark to a film first time in theaters but subsequently came to love it on DVD (The Hunt For Red October being one example).

Right off the bat I've got one big question I'd love to ask McG: why the fuck did you ditch the original theme music? It's absolutely one of the best and most iconic elements of the whole franchise and pretty much the easiest way to get a skeptical audience onside right from the opening credits because no-one can resist the FUCK YEAH awesomeness of that classic theme. But instead you go with some bullshit new generic theme? I cannot even for one second begin to fathom the thinking behind this decision, it just seems staggeringly wrong-headed and indefensible to me.

Anyone?
 
Gary Whitta said:
Okay so I got this on BD for Christmas and I just started re-watching it because there have been plenty of times for me in the past where I didn't really spark to a film first time in theaters but subsequently came to love it on DVD (The Hunt For Red October being one example).

Right off the bat I've got one big question I'd love to ask McG: why the fuck did you ditch the original theme music? It's absolutely one of the best and most iconic elements of the whole franchise and pretty much the easiest way to get a skeptical audience onside right from the opening credits because no-one can resist the FUCK YEAH awesomeness of that classic theme. But instead you go with some bullshit new generic theme? I cannot even for one second begin to fathom the thinking behind this decision, it just seems staggeringly wrong-headed and indefensible to me.

Anyone?
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I thought that classic cue was repeated a couple during the movie...maybe I'm imagining things. Even in T2 it is used sparingly. That score is mostly like clashes and bangs of metal. :P
 
jett said:
I thought that classic cue was repeated a couple during the movie...maybe I'm imagining things. Even in T2 it is used sparingly. That score is mostly like clashes and bangs of metal. :P
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There's a brief sting of it at the end of the credits. It's just that both of the Cameron movies opened on full, epic renditions of that original score, so it seems like it would have been a no-brainer here. Struck me as typical of all the ways in which this movie felt off-key.
 
black_13 said:
I guess they could've done much worse but it's still terrible as a sequel. Sam Worthington was the only good thing I remember from it.

And I think it would've been more interesting at least if they had gone with the alternative ending in which...

John Conner actually dies at the end from his wound, and Sam Worthington's character goes under face surgary to look like John Conner so he could continue the fight.
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I actually just watched it last night and honestly thought this is what was going to happen. T4 was okay. Shouldn't have been called a Terminator movie though. T3 was garbage.

Edit: Also - it was the Director's Cut. Haven't seen the Theatrical version yet. And yes there were definitely issues with the plot and some of the AI believability, but my expectations were VERY low.

Scullibundo said:
If you look at the film in context of it being a Terminator movie, that really is one of the biggest slights against it - John Connor. At no point did he come across as the sort of man that Kyle Reese would give his life for. I always imagined John Connor as being ruthless only to the point of doing what needed to be done. I imagined him to command respect like Ender.
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I know what you mean, but I think this movie was supposed to be some sort of prequel. The John Connor we saw, is still becoming the John Connor we've heard about. Again though, this should not have been a Terminator movie.
 
They just don't make film soundtracks like they used to. Man, Brad Fiedel was the fucking man. I would love to see more (good) contemporary examples of synth soundtracks (besides in porn).
 
This is 11 years before the Terminators are sent back in time, so John Connor is still becoming the legend that everyone thought he would be. Besides, I'd say Reese is already positively imprinted after getting his ass saved by Connor. I hope if they make another, and I mean if, that it's many years into the future, more to the point where we saw the resistance getting completely destroyed like in the first two movies.
 
Gary Whitta said:
Okay so I got this on BD for Christmas and I just started re-watching it because there have been plenty of times for me in the past where I didn't really spark to a film first time in theaters but subsequently came to love it on DVD (The Hunt For Red October being one example).

Right off the bat I've got one big question I'd love to ask McG: why the fuck did you ditch the original theme music? It's absolutely one of the best and most iconic elements of the whole franchise and pretty much the easiest way to get a skeptical audience onside right from the opening credits because no-one can resist the FUCK YEAH awesomeness of that classic theme. But instead you go with some bullshit new generic theme? I cannot even for one second begin to fathom the thinking behind this decision, it just seems staggeringly wrong-headed and indefensible to me.

Anyone?
Click to expand...

Yeah, the lack of Bard Fidel epic theme constantly felt off in T3/4.
 
I rented this a couple weeks ago and thought it was … OK.

I liked it more than T3, that’s for sure. I think it benefits from not repeating the same time travel story as the last 3 movies. T3 really suffered as it invited so many comparisons to T2, attempting to repeat the same formula.

This one is different enough from the previous terminator movies so as to not invite such comparisons.

it still feels very generic though. There’s not a whole lot of personality in it. Definitely has a lot of faults but I didn’t have a very negative reaction to it like most of Gaf has. :\
 
I watched this in the theater. It was eh, completely ruined John Connor's character.

The other thing was in T1 we got this awesome part where they showed the future full of hunter killers running over mountains of human skulls while the rebels had lazer guns.

Flash forward to Salvation and it the future was like Mad Max in Arizona.
 
What I don't understand is how the FUCK DID all these Helicopters/A-10's survive the Nuclear blast. If Skynet has patrolling waters, how the hell didn't they discover a damn nuclear submarine. And how did they train the A-10 pilots? Do they have access to the military's simulation training? And the scene where Ashdown relieve Connor of his command, why the HELL are all those planes out in the fucking opening. A single HK could've wiped them out. How did Skynet build these crisp office like buildings? How did it after destroying the world get a "factory" of machines. It can't build it on it's own. GAH this movie makes me upset. :(
 
I thought the movie was amazing tbh; just as good as T1 and T2. Conner's intro was amazing and the Marcus character was fascinating.

I never understood the hate. Maybe it sucked in theaters or people were expecting something completely different (i'm not to deep in the story), but seeing it on DVD was excellent.
 
TacticalFox88 said:
What I don't understand is how the FUCK DID all these Helicopters/A-10's survive the Nuclear blast. If Skynet has patrolling waters, how the hell didn't they discover a damn nuclear submarine. And how did they train the A-10 pilots? Do they have access to the military's simulation training? And the scene where Ashdown relieve Connor of his command, why the HELL are all those planes out in the fucking opening. A single HK could've wiped them out. How did Skynet build these crisp office like buildings? How did it after destroying the world get a "factory" of machines. It can't build it on it's own. GAH this movie makes me upset. :(
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To be honest, I try not to think about it that much concerning the entire saga really, as these bring up questions for the entire Terminator thing since the first 1. Remember, Skynet was building terminators in the future post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout and the human resistance did win, and the time traveling terminators were a last ditch effort.

And then there is the John Conner sending his own father back in time, impregnating Sarah Conner to which he would eventually be born thing going on.
 
Insertia said:
I thought the movie was amazing tbh; just as good as T1 and T2. Conner's intro was amazing and the Marcus character was fascinating.

I never understood the hate. Maybe it sucked in theaters or people were expecting something completely different (i'm not to deep in the story), but seeing it on DVD was excellent.
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...it's no wonder that you don't see the problems, then.
 
Count Dookkake said:
McG is a better director of action scenes.

Better cinematography.

Better sound design.

Also, much less abuse of artificial lens-flare.
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There was only one standout moment of cinematography/action direction in the entire movie and that was the crash of the helicopter in the beginning.

"Sound Design" sounds like a stretch.
 
I wrote a review of Terminator Salvation on my blog on AtariAge.

Terminator 2 is my personal best movie of all time. I watched this movie multiple of times, and it never seems to get old. The Original terminator had a human vs the machine, while T2 had an obsolete machine against a superior machine. T3 had the same obsolete machine against the overpowered machine. Terminator Salvation ditch that cat and mouse game, instead it's human race vs machine. Now Terminator and Terminator 2 are awesome and they were made by James Cameron. The other 2 lack something that Original Terminator and T2 has. I'm just going to keep those movies separated and James Cameron was wise not to make more sequel past 2nd movie. We can see that John Conner grew up pretty quickly in T2, and in the third movie he's a junkie. However, I'm going to focus on Terminator Salvation in this blog because this movie almost had potential to be good, but manage to disappoint. I am hard of hearing so I couldn't hear some spoken dialogue, therefore some information in the movie itself may be incorrect.

First of all, the movie's rated PG-13. That means that they have to keep it tame right? There isn't anything disturbing about this movie. Avatar's too rated PG-13, but that doesn't stop it from showing a horse being set on fire(Hey they ripped off Parasite Eve!!). Anyway, Terminator Salvation was just way to tamed. Second of all I avoided most of the information and forgotten about the movie trailer when I saw it for the first time. Third, this blog is based what I saw during the movie for the first time from my memory.

In the first scene, where Marcus is in a jail cell with a lady with a clipboard. I couldn't make out any of the word spoken because they were whispering. So I didn't have a clue what was going on. What's the point of whispering, couldn't they speak normally? Were the other prisoner taking a nap or something? Couldn't they speak in another room? Can't they show the audience what is being written on that clipboard?

Oh, They have to show the title of the movie twice, just in case we missed it the first time. I guess someone at the screening fell asleep before the movie start and complained that he didn't see the title screen after the screening. Didn't anybody proof read this movie?

After that scene, John Conner fights off some useless T-600 terminator and takes off into a helicopter to avoid an explosion, which was pretty neat. I was confused how the movie started and how did John get back to command center. Maybe I was concentrating more on the popcorn I was eating and didn't remember much about it.

Then after awhile, John somehow got on board a huge airplane and then jump from the back of the plane and into the ocean. Then the scene quickly transition to the submarine with John on board. How does swimming to a submarine works in an raging ocean? There should be a tween between those scene because it would be interesting to see how John swim to the submarine without being pulled by the massive undertow and fight off the sharks, Batman style. I know this might sounded funny, but I think it would be interesting to see a human overcoming obstacles in the water scene that would be impossible for real human like us, who can't imagine how to swim to a submarine without special swimming gear on. Also, it'll give us viewer some entertainment to watch before we watch the boring the on-board submarine scene.

Marcus!!! He awaken and confused where he is. Shouldn't there a be a scene where he came from and see how he was awaken from a coffin. Instead we see him in the middle of the ruined city. What's the point of that? All the terminator movie had people appear out of nowhere awaken, naked, and had to find clothes. In this movie, there was none of that and I think having Marcus awakening from his slumber would make this movie more interesting and we can get some idea what he look like. I was confused when Marcus was place in a middle of a ruined city. I was thinking he was John Connor or something. They both look alike. Anyway, his mission is to find Kyle Reeves. Marcus approached a terminator-tank and then Marcus get the idea that it wasn't his friend, evaded the machine. A car piano fell on a terminator-tank that can barely aim. Marcus finds Kyle Reeves and we get the Terminator movie throwback that Marcus was the one taught Kyle Reeves the shotgun-trick. I think they used the line, "Come with me if you want to live.", which sounded force. Same with I'll be back line, doesn't really needed to be use.

I don't remember how Blair joined Marcus in the movie so I'm skipping ahead.

I'm going to fast forward a bit to the scene where Marcus and his companions stopped at a gas station in a middle of nowhere. I have no idea that Marcus was a machine at that point. Earlier I can see him taking a breath when he emerge from water during the terminator air battle scene. When they went into the gas station. We get to see new characters, like mute little girl, old lady that looks like a wise sage, and etc. This point is a perfect place for the movie to relax and we can get to know the characters bit better. Marcus turning down carrot is a bit odd, and made me think that he's a machine a bit. Does Marcus know that he's part machine? Anyway, I was hoping to hear the old lady speak about something... so... this movie would give us something to care about. I wanted to know more about the world and etc. Instead, we were interrupted by the huge harvester that dropped from nowhere and Kyle Reeves and the people got kidnapped(OH NOEZ). What the heck!!! The character just was introduce were people like us and we would like to connect them some how. Yet, they got captured. It's just stupid how the movie maker set this scene up. It just kill the mood. Anyway, we'll see that muted girl right? We don't want to see little kid getting killed in this movie. Hopefully, we will see this little girl come along and save the day, right? RIGHT? ...

The scene when Kyle was on the harvestor. Was this scene necessary? Are we going to learn more about the character? Maybe Kyle Reeves can some how incite a riot or something and somehow escape. I really thought he would eventually find a way out of there... Maybe it would make this stupid movie better.

The scene that Marcus and Blair vs the outlaws. I thought that part of the movie was awesome. In the past terminator movie, we get to see a powerful machine fight against the human. It was refreshing to see someone overpowering something in this movie just by fighting. This is the ONLY part movie that I thought is the most interesting.

Now... the climax... well the point that the movie really took a nosedive... The part that just... wrong... Ok, Blair and Marcus walk through a mine field, and a mine flew up and attach itself to Marcus's leg. Scene fades out... Too bad we don't see Marcus blown into bit and pieces. We have to leave that up to our imagination. GOD!!! What is wrong with the people who made this movie! After this part, the mystery of Marcus has ended. It's all down hill from here.

Okok... The part that drives me nut that John Connor have Marcus chained up like Jesus Christ. John is so paranoid, that he doesn't realize that the past 2 terminators save his ass twice. He start interrogate Marcus and shoots him like he's a piece of junk. What's the point of that?! Ok, "You tried to kill my mom" *shoots* "You tried to kill me" *shoot* "You killed my Dog, Woofie, err Max!!! WHY!?!" *Shoot him multiple of times*. I mean, seriously, this is stupid. Instead, he should have just talk to the guy and see what he knows. Marcus doesn't really know he's part machine, I assumed he still has a human brain. He has a beating heart, and bullet can kill that you know Connor. Don't you want to be careful who you kill, that may help you win the war against the machine? Blair is guilty of doing this too!! Doesn't she want him to be OK? Does she really love him? Sigh...

Ok, Marcus escape with the help of Blair, even though she shot him for no apparent reason. This doesn't make Blair any more human. Ugh... Marcus is escaping, with a full army and John Connor on his ass wanting him dead. John Conner comes after him, shooting at him, while Marcus tries to plead with him. If I was Marcus, I would say forget him and go on his merry way. Conner is way too angry, if he was really human, he would have backed off and listen to Marcus. But no, he has to have his anger make the best of him. Anyway, John Conner somehow got into the pond infested with terminator leechs. Marcus saves John. John still not trusting this Marcus, gave him the location of terminator base anyway. Marcus went off his on his way.

Let's take a moment and analyze John Connor in this movie. John Connor isn't the Connor we knew in T2. This movie does not show what Connor did good in the movie. We learned that John Connor is a very angry and unstable man. He couldn't keep his composer and act professional with others. He can't reason with anything. Yet, his speech being heard from a radio suppose to make John Connor a good man? This movie doesn't show that at all. Why should be care about Connor if he lives or not?

Anyway...(I'll just put this out there, because I know it drives people crazy.)

The scene where Kyle Reeves get picked up by the machine from the hoard of human. I'm not sure anybody noticed, I saw Kyle put something up his sleeve!! I swear to god he did!!! I thought, ooo... he must be up to something. This movie would be better if Kyle would somehow use that metal bar to his advantage, like try to escape and stuff. You know, bash the terminator's face in, because they suck at killing human since this movie is PG-13. Avatar doesn't have a problem with Marine shooting the natives, killing them in a few shots. The machine selection arm pick him out of the pack of human like an arm prize grabbing game machine, instead sending the lazy ass terminator in there and take drag Kyle out of the crowd. Sigh... darn, there's goes the fun in this movie. Can't they add a scene that Kyle is talking to a prisoner so we can have more character development so we can learn a bit more about the situation. I just thinking of something that would give us something to care about. Really there is no humanity in this movie. I think no one cares about the humans since we do not know them or care about them. Seriously, I only care about Marcus the most in this movie since he the character that is the most mysterious and I kinda feel sorry for him for being in the middle of this craptastic movie. I was rooting for Marcus for the entire movie because he's opposite what Connor is and he is actually likable in this movie.

The last part of the movie is the worse. Why? Let's just lower our defense and lure John Connor to Kyle Reeves. Brillant!! Last have our one and only new terminator T-800 try killing people because all of other terminators just stand there and knit clothing to wear on their head. Aww, this terminator have Arnold's skin on him, how cute. Seriously, it's a real model not a CG. A model of an object in real life have infinite resolution. Lighting doesn't need to be perfect since it is already being illuminated by it surrounding. Lighting in CG is quite difficult to master. Therefore, this model convince me that it is actually Arnold. It's nice to see something real for a change. Anyway, the skin of the model disappear quite quickly after liquid lava got poured on it. Remember from the older movie, there was a model of arnold walking towards the group of swat police. You can see bits and pieces of skin tearing off. I guess the guy who made the model was to proud of his work, and didn't want the studio destroy it. Why need set a trap to kill Connor? I guess it is too smart to send waves and waves of terminator and try to kill Connor with a rubber bean bags.

One of the thing that bother me the most during the terminator fight between Connor and Marcus, T-800 punching Marcus's heart and knocking him out cold. John Connor revives him by shocking him with electricity. Jees, might as well have the terminator try dusting or something. That heart punch was the stupidest part of the whole movie. That T-800 have the strength and sharp fingers to jab that heart and instantly kill Marcus at whim. Eventually Marcus and John beat the T-800. Hey, there's nukes lying around, how freak'n convenience! Let's blow up robot city!!! Marcus and dying John, since he got shot in the heart(I think), escape. The mute little girl got the remote and robot city blows up.

Sadly, Marcus gave up his heart to revive John Connor and the movie's over; Even though, it was damaged during the T-800 fight. Why? Because they want reason to keep Christain Bale on board for the upcoming sequel I guess. It makes me sad that Marcus gave his life to a jerk I didn't care at all in this movie. In my mind, Marcus wins in this movie.

Overall, this movie this movie had potential to be good, but missed the point entirely. The end of the movie was a disaster rewrite. It should have ended with Marcus since he's neutral since he's both machine and human. Marcus should of been the one keeping the balance between human and machine, good vs evil. Whatever, it's not a terminator movie. It's just a machine movie taking care of a farm. Really!!! The Terminator harvest human to fuel their research on better terminator, which doesn't make sense. Christian Bale wasn't a good cast to play John Connor, and he was way too angry. They should have pick Edward Furlong. Sam Worthington did a great job in this movie. The writing in this movie sucks and some part of the movie should have elaborated and more logical to keep the movie interesting. The special effects and the sound in this movie is the best part of this movie. Humanity should have been explore more in this movie and the world should have been explain a bit more. Why do they have to ruin something that could have been great. They needed better director, writer, and etc to carry on the story in the Terminator universe.

At least it's better than the Phantom Menace, right?

from: http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/340/entry-6697-kiwis-blog/
 
Gary Whitta said:
What exactly did they put back into the director's cut? Aside from the gratuitous boob shot I didn't really notice anything else.
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I think that is all they did.

I am hoping against hope that they eventually try to release the much longer cut. It would probably fix a few of the more serious complaints involving character development.
 
I don't know where else to put this. I know the Avatar thread is full of Cameron movie talk but this seems a better place:

Keeping in mind the first two movies only (so no shifting/moving Judgment Day future stuff that T3 and T4 have), wouldn't sending the Terminator back in time in the first place completely alter the timeline? The Resistance wouldn't have time to react since to them the change had happened decades ago, unless they got word what was going on and both Kyle Reese/T800 and T800/T1000 were sent through at the same exact moment in time to different locations. The weren't traveling in a DeLorean together. It's like 2029 and 1984/1995 existed at the same time.
 
AniHawk said:
I don't know where else to put this. I know the Avatar thread is full of Cameron movie talk but this seems a better place:

Keeping in mind the first two movies only (so no shifting/moving Judgment Day future stuff that T3 and T4 have), wouldn't sending the Terminator back in time in the first place completely alter the timeline? The Resistance wouldn't have time to react since to them the change had happened decades ago, unless they got word what was going on and both Kyle Reese/T800 and T800/T1000 were sent through at the same exact moment in time to different locations. The weren't traveling in a DeLorean together. It's like 2029 and 1984/1995 existed at the same time.
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I think that's where the divergent-streams theory comes along.

In Timeline A, you can never change what has happened. You can send someone back in time to try to spare others your misery but Timeline A will always exist; your actions may cause a Timeline B, C, or D though.

The Resistance couldn't undo Judgment Day for themselves so they sent one of their own back to hopefully prevent it from happening in an alternate reality. If sending a person back would change their timeline, it would mean that the person is never sent back at all because the events leading up to the time travel would have never taken place.
 
WickedAngel said:
I think that's where the divergent-streams theory comes along.

In Timeline A, you can never change what has happened. You can send someone back in time to try to spare others your misery but Timeline A will always exist; your actions may cause a Timeline B, C, or D though.

The Resistance couldn't undo Judgment Day for themselves so they sent one of their own back to hopefully prevent it from happening in an alternate reality. If sending a person back would change their timeline, it would mean that the person is never sent back at all because the events leading up to the time travel would have never taken place.
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So the original thing went like this:

Sarah Connor was impregnated by some guy who wasn't Kyle Reese. This kid grew up to be John Connor and John Connor defeated Skynet. Skynet sent back a Terminator to 1984 to kill Sarah.

So now there's an alternate reality A where Skynet kills Sarah Connor and Skynet has no problems against John Connor because there is no John Connor.

Meanwhile, the Resistance sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 from the very original timeline into the alternate reality A creating another alternate reality, which is what the first movie was. So what we're watching is really a second alternate reality of the past. And then in T2, things get even more complicated when this timeline fractures two more times again- into a reality where T1 happened and the T1000 kills John Connor and one that we see as T2: Judgment Day.

Actually, T2 could be taking place in any number of realities, since John Connor and Skynet keep sending back a Kyle Reese and a Terminator respectively. I want to see the time-space continuum crash in T6 since everybody thought they were in Back to the Future.
 
I don't really see the machines knowing about Kyle Reese being too much of a problem, because there are opportunities for Skynet to know in advance.

Sarah told the story to her doctors - see Silberman repeating it in T2 - so it would probably be in her medical records. Also Reese was arrested and told the police everything in T1, so it's documented that he went back there.

If I was Skynet and suddenly had control of all computers the first thing I'd do would be to run a quick search for 'Skynet', 'Terminator', 'John Connor', 'Sarah Connor', 'Tech Com', etc. Harvest that info before you destroy it all.

That doesn't solve all the other nonsense, though. How they didn't hear that giant robot, why the bike ones are ridable, why the bike can access a retinal scanner, how Skynet missed the airfield with all the military hardware, etc. I especially liked it when they flew the helicopter with their mortally wounded leader over the nuclear explosion at the end and got away with no ill effects to themselves or the aircraft.
 
If we’re attempting to take the fiction seriously, I have to wonder why Skynet doesn’t send Terminators further back in time. Instead of sending them to kill Sarah, then her son, then her son again when he’s older and knows about the future, why not send back Terminators to kill Sarah’s parents or grandparents?

You go back to the turn of the 20th century and get Sarah’s great-grandparents. Are they gonna escape in their car? no, cuz they’re driving a friggin horse carriage.

BAM, series over. Skynet wins.
 
LCfiner said:
If we’re attempting to take the fiction seriously, I have to wonder why Skynet doesn’t send Terminators further back in time. Instead of sending them to kill Sarah, then her son, then her son again when he’s older and knows about the future, why not send back Terminators to kill Sarah’s parents or grandparents?

You go back to the turn of the 20th century and get Sarah’s great-grandparents. Are they gonna escape in their car? no, cuz they’re driving a friggin horse carriage.

BAM, series over. Skynet wins.
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No, because the first Terminator had to kill several Sarah Connors because Skynet didn't know which Sarah Connor to kill. If he went and killed every Connor in the past, he risks the fact that some descendant of one of these Connors was instrumental in inventing technologies necessary to create Skynet (Of course if you want to take this fixed timeline seriously, it should not be possible for Skynet to kill itself this way).
 
I sung the praises of the film when I saw at at the cinema but now I think I'd prefer it if Cameron got the license, made one last film and retconned T3 and T4, enough damage has already been done to the franchise and obviously they should have never made any films after T2.
 
LCfiner said:
If we’re attempting to take the fiction seriously, I have to wonder why Skynet doesn’t send Terminators further back in time. Instead of sending them to kill Sarah, then her son, then her son again when he’s older and knows about the future, why not send back Terminators to kill Sarah’s parents or grandparents?

You go back to the turn of the 20th century and get Sarah’s great-grandparents. Are they gonna escape in their car? no, cuz they’re driving a friggin horse carriage.

BAM, series over. Skynet wins.
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You're assuming that they would know who her parents are. I think Sarah actually asked this question in the first Terminator (Why me, why now?). Kyle explained it by saying that the records that Skynet had access to were highly limited and highly specific. They knew the Sarah Connor that they needed was in that city at that time but they didn't know what she did before or after that time and they didn't know exactly what she looked like.

You have to think about this from their perspective. In the undiluted timeline, Skynet had no reason to consider information about the Connor family because they hadn't yet been threatened by them. Skynet likely had access to a great deal of information that it simply didn't deem relevant at the time that it initiated Judgment Day. The Connor family was just another set of names in a sea of irrelevant information that it never contemplated needing after the bombs dropped.
 
numble said:
No, because the first Terminator had to kill several Sarah Connors because Skynet didn't know which Sarah Connor to kill. If he went and killed every Connor in the past, he risks the fact that some descendant of one of these Connors was instrumental in inventing technologies necessary to create Skynet (Of course if you want to take this fixed timeline seriously, it should not be possible for Skynet to kill itself this way).
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I maintain that Skynet would have no problem killing those families, a couple dozen people or so, back in 1900. They would have determined that they would not be at risk.

of course, that would probably make for a much duller movie than T2. so that’s why we got what we did. It’s a better story to have the kid with the Terminator and who gives a damn about the internal time travel logic. going down that rabbit hole is asking for trouble.
 
Gary Whitta said:
What exactly did they put back into the director's cut? Aside from the gratuitous boob shot I didn't really notice anything else.
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I noticed a couple extra VERY BRIEF robot shots... I think all the added footage was just scraps.
 
Gary Whitta said:
What exactly did they put back into the director's cut? Aside from the gratuitous boob shot I didn't really notice anything else.
Click to expand...

I think they removed the second TERMINATOR SALVATION title in the intro :lol
- Scene with Connor in the drainage with his team, one of the robots show up; it was in the commercials, but taken out of the theater release.
- Blair and Marcus scenes at night sandwiched around the 'too far' boob show.

McG tells our friends at Collider that the Terminator Salvation DVD will likely have 30 to 40 minutes of deleted scenes. We know about the now infamous Moon Bloodgood topless scene, and after the jump, we’ll talk about the alternative ending, but McG also says “There are great long takes of Connor giving speeches, evoking Sarah Connor that we ultimately lifted because I didn’t want it to feel that he was dependent on the voice of his mother to find his leadership.”
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind another 30 mins... a fuck of a lot better than the three and change we were given. And no alt ending :(
 
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