come anticipate and then bitch about Terminator Salvation

"3x as much silver": does this mean, in the color palette we see on screen, or the actual reactive agent in the film, giving everything a fried-out look?

is McG talking about next level Silver Surfer type CGI or wuht?
is McG talking
is McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG
McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG McG

will suck

http://literaturaecultura.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/breton.jpg
"COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE"

He helped produce the debut album by Sugar Ray, Lemonade and Brownies

He is also due to start work on an American version of Spaced, but without the consent or contribution of the original makers Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright or Jessica Stevenson;

Ledge OTM.

Ahnuld's thoughts:

"I still don't know how it will play out with this one," said the star-turned-politician, who said he was given a private screening of early footage from "Terminator Salvation" by producers of the franchise reboot. "They showed me some footage, but I don't have a feel for the movie. I didn't see enough. I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how the strong the movie will be."

And there are more bon mots:

"There are such high standards and now there are always new standards being set for action," Schwarzenegger said. "You see that with 'Iron Man' and with the new Batman movie and that other film this summer, um, 'Wanted.' That was an excellent movie! There was this train coming down from a bridge, falling, and they're fighting inside the train car. Jesus, that is unbelievable that you can do that. To have the imagination to write it and the talent to shoot it and make it real on the screen. It's a whole new dimension."

The father of four said it's the "huge visual effects, the super-heroes," that make him and his kids want to "run to the theater," but the state's chief executive apparently also has a soft spot for "Step Brothers" and "Semi-Pro."

"It's the big action ones or the ones with Will Ferrell. In those you howl for two hours and you feel like you get a six-pack [of ab muscles] from all the laughs!"

and then it was pointed out to him that he already has a six-pack

and then it was pointed out to him that he already has a six-pack

http://bp1.blogger.com/_1jXJfONmTEA/RkxFMRDWu5I/AAAAAAAAA0k/DIBJUOmjaFg/s1600-h/arnold_schwarzenegger_fat.jpg

Hey, wtf? Where'd my image go? Let's try again:

http://bp1.blogger.com/_1jXJfONmTEA/RkxFMRDWu5I/AAAAAAAAA0k/DIBJUOmjaFg/s1600-h/arnold_schwarzenegger_fat.jpg

a six-pack of butter

OK, how about this one:

http://www.dietician.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/fat-arnold-schwarzenegger.jpg

a six-pack of butter

In which the "A loaf of bread, a container of milk" kid gets Mom's and Dad's shopping lists confused.

'Get a milk loaf for me, wouldja?'

as a kid, I always heard him saying "a loaf of bread, a potato of milk..."

Batman wanders the new Batc...oh:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/10/tsd19432r_2.jpg

watching t2 now, have a little hope for this

Trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/terminatorsalvation/
The fact that Bale appears to be doing another version of his Batman growl in most of this fills me with dread

All this Terminator stuff is too confusing now. People fighting in multiple pasts and multiple futures betrays the ominous and impending "judgment day" which should be inevitable no matter what the characters, heroes or villains, do.

I'll still go see this though.

I'll still go see this unless the reviews and comments here say "big ol' pile of wank". At the mo I have moderate to high hopes, moderate to low expectations.

Bale should know better than to do this.

That must be a human terminator factory? I'd expect the Machines to be more tidy.

looks like it could be fun

I read somewhere Bale at first told McG to "fuck off" when asked to do this movie, saying he would only do it if it was written like it could be read cold off a stage. Not sure that's what the terminator franchise is about though. The trailer left me pretty cold anyway

ok, this poster is pretty awesome

http://i40.tinypic.com/vh6dc8.jpg

(oops, resized by ILX, I guess. http://i40.tinypic.com/vh6dc8.jpg )

yes

Would stick on wall if I were a student.

No Shoeboogie, no credibility

it's the final frame of a moving thingy: http://rss.warnerbros.com/terminatorsalvation/motionposter.html

aw, wish I'd seen that first.

yess

xpost: sorry, discovered them in the wrong order myself :-(

New trailer in front of Watchmen looks dreadful with the worst aspects of post-apocalyptic Transformers. Based entirely on audience response, Star Trek is going to nuke this movie from orbit.

audience response? i liked the trailer still looking fwd to this

Still looking forward to it but since the new trailer evokes, in places, painful memories of AI, I'm somewhat less excited than I was.

When I saw this trailer before Watchmen, about two dozen iterations of "It's fucking distracting," "Oh, gooooood for you," etc. erupted from the audience as soon as they realized what it was. Oh, Balepaws.

So, Jonathan Nolan was brought in to do on-set script rewrites and apparently changed enough that the novelization had to be completely rewritten among other things. I mean, he's still working with McG and started with a script that wasn't his, but that seems promising.

<3 new trailer

I thought the trailer looked intriguing, actually;it was certainly the first thing to make me think I might want to see this. Doubly so now I see ^^ that J Nolan's working on it;I'm assuming that McG's actually a patsy, and Bale's the effective 'director' then, right? Hence McG not saying anything during Bale's spat.

why are you assuming that

mcg has directed some pretty successful movies you know!

I am pretty stoked for this after seeing the new trailer!

ditto!

we didn't actually get that trailer before Watchmen here, just a much shorter version without NIN or cyborg guy

terminator movies essentialy all boil down to one robot blowing up another one so any level of story on top of that is welcome, but it really boils down to how impressive the effects are and how non-annoying the non-robots are (which is why t3 failed, based on the hour of it I watched yesterday)

don't you cry
don't you ever cry
don't you cry tonight

omg i watched some of t3 this weekend (housesittin w/cable) and the production quality is unbelievably bad. str8 90s Sci-Fi channel bullshit, so terrible

I am pretty stoked for this after seeing the new trailer!

co-sign

I think with T3 I spent too much time marvelling at how sexy the Terminatrix was to notice bad special effects.

yeah new trailer is way better then the 1st

and how non-annoying the non-robots are (which is why t3 failed

no-one in T3 is as annoying as Ed Furlong in T2, being a young teenager was not enough of an excuse (i love T2 anyway tho)

I am pretty stoked for this after seeing the new trailer!

co-sign

― Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, March 9, 2009 12:59 PM

^^

I am pretty stoked for this after seeing the new trailer!

co-sign

― Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter (J0hn D.), Monday, March 9, 2009 12:59 PM

^^

― eman, Monday, 23 March 2009 16:26 (1 month ago) Permalink

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/05/20/wtf-horrific-terminator-salvation-kids-costume/

LOL

Awesome.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.cinematical.com/media/2009/05/t600kids.jpg

DOOM lost weight

eh

sorry

Can't wait for the horror film that uses that mask Michael Myers-style.

pg-13!

http://www.nypress.com/article-19827-terminator-salvation.html

McG’s boyish sensationalism is inoffensive, justified by paying attention to how Wright preserves an unlikely human essence. Worthington is a find. He suggests a pin-up version of the character actor Michael Rooker and gives the franchise’s most empathetic performance since Linda Hamilton’s stunned, almost-silent-movie pantomime of fear and surprise in Terminator 2. Worthington makes Wright’s sacrifice pitiable, strong and a little orgasmic.When an entranced resistance fighter (Moon Bloodgood) puts her head to his chest, she exclaims, “You have a strong heart. God, I love that sound!”

This is getting terrible reviews...

Will only watch if Sam Worthington reprises his lines from Macbeth.

"Is that a dagger I see before me or...(long pause)...a dagger of the mind??"

panned in the Guardian, BAH

That Guardian review is a definite 1 star, they obviously couldn't bring themselves to do that though.

bit of a half-hearted panning, not exactly sure what he didn't like about it. it's a little confusing, and grey, apparently.

wired likes it, kinda
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/05/review-loud-terminator-salvation-makes-for-grim-spectacle/

it looks fucking awful...none of the darkness of the originals

saw it today...it's kind of underwhelming. nice fx and some cool shots.

the story is really half-baked, like they shot it with an unfinished strike script or something.

i mean, even compared to most blockbusters

God that pisses me off. Using the NIN in the trailer, building up to what looks like a kickass summer movie, and Sam Worthington's reveal in the trailer is the only hand they've got? Seriously. WTF. The story's practically BEGGING to be written and everything's getting chopped off at the knees.

It's all down to George Miller and Mad Max 4 now. Come on George. Don't fail me now.

just saw it. was terrible.

though it does have one teensy little trick up its sleeve ;)

but even that is cheap and disappointing.

This was not very good at all.

---SPOILERS----

This needed like half an hour more of evil HBC being sinister.

Are the phrases "I'll be back" and/or "Come with me if you want to live" spoken by any character, human or non?

yes, both

WTF, this was dope!

I found it witless and joyless, and I thought that taking the machine mayhem out of the present-tense setting took all the fun out of it. Also, Bale sucked (and I suspect was largely responsible for the film's humorlessness).

Also, for the first time, no worthwhile female characters (though T3 skirted it pretty close). BOO.

Whaaaaa? Blair was awesome. And yeah, Sam Worthington (and Anton Yelchin! and Jadagrace Berry!) totally kicked Bale's ass.

Is it even worth it for the crashes and bangs?

I would think it a given that it sucks in terms of story and acting etc, but if the explosions are amazing enough then that might do me...

Yes, yes, yes, super bleak, sorta like Children of Men (but duh, not that good)

I had no desire to see T3, and so much less interest in this one. Why was it even made?

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118004090.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

I liked it too. Don't listen to these hipster douchebags. They only like movies if they're done by Gus Van Sant, and have 6 minute tracking shots of the back of somebody's head with no dialogue and an Elliott Smith song playing in the background. It's so moving and thought provoking!

Don't listen to these hipster douchebags
Don't listen to these hipster douchebags
Don't listen to these hipster douchebags
Don't listen to these hipster douchebags
Don't listen to these hipster douchebags
Don't listen to these hipster douchebags

It was a hundred times better than Star Dreck, anyway.

^^^ uh no.

a couple of sort of neat scenes but this was pretty bad. it felt like a really uninspired mash-up of children of men, battlestar, the matrix (that HORRIBLE expository big screen TV scene), the "mordor" bits of lord of the rings... transformers... every crappy scifi movie of the past few years, really.

(that HORRIBLE expository big screen TV scene)

Why would anyone want to rip that off?

slocki otm

there was one neat surprise that was kind of cool though

oh look mcg made a bad movie

The one 10-second clip of the Judgement Day wars in T2 is better than all of this. But everyone really knew that already.

ya i couldn't help but think about that...

Not enough Terminators I thought, or at least recognizable 'old school' Terminators. Too many flying machines, weird snakes, rolling Terminator motorcycle things, etc. all over the place. Seemed kinda unorganized and not nearly as scary as a post-apocalyptic world run by anti-human AI should be.

SPOLIER AHEAD Christian Bale doesn't add a whole lot of personality to his role but I like the guy playing Kyle Reese. Why no Clare Danes and they bring in that one lady to play some ridiculous stereotyped female role. So, 'woman falls in love with robot' because he's going to be 'disassembled'. 'Disassembled?' someone says. 'Killed' someone says back. The Terminator franchise now steals from Short Circuit.

Entertaining, but at times definitely some 'bad movie' territory.

kyle reese = chekov

anton yelchin is like mr. prequel

This is my Anton Yelchin thread

ok - i enjoyed this.

Seemed kinda unorganized and not nearly as scary as a post-apocalyptic world run by anti-human AI should be.

OTM. There was daylight! A lot of it! Wouldn't there be, like, some nuclear-winter-based darkness all the time or something?

Seemed kinda unorganized and not nearly as scary as a post-apocalyptic world run by anti-human AI should be.

Things that could have made this movie better (SPOILERS INCLUDED):

1. No "override" kits that mean you can take over any machine or building with the push of a button.
2. Skynet should be slightly harder to infiltrate than R2D2 opening a door on the freaking Death Star.
3. No adorable little mute kids with big eyes and fluffy hair.
4. ARNOLD what the hell.

There's basically no way to write a list like that without coming off like a douebag nerd, but I did my best.

Gah, douchebag.

haters are crazy, if you didn't enjoy this then I question your commitment to action movies as a genre

i mean, it had fucking a-10s and motorcycle robots

Yeah, but I preferred watching the (generally non-CGI, even in T3) smashups occur in mundane present-day settings instead of a bombed-out shithole planet that barely looks habitable anyway. Oh yeah, also the characters were useless and the sense of fun and menace was almost all gone.

wait, what? you liked T3 more than this? The only part about Salvation that I thought was lame was when Zordon from the Power Rangers showed up.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Zordon-prz.jpg

T3 wasn't great, but it had at least one awesome action sequence and had some fun with the (increasingly nonsensical) mythology. On the other hand, TS added nothing except the lame woe-is-me android and color saturation.

Somehow in my earlier post the part about how I thought the movie was really fun got eaten. The action was genuinely awesome and tense, and I enjoyed it much more than T3. As someone mentioned upthread, the problem was that some of the serious bits went way too far and just got laughs from the audience I was in, when they were clearly going for sad or scary. The cheese factor was just a little too high but otherwise it was great.

http://www.transbuddha.com/images/uploads/2009/02/johnny5isalive.jpg

No disassemble!

So thats what death tastes like

More interesting than the movie, I'll bet.

Things that could have made this movie better (SPOILERS INCLUDED):

1. No "override" kits that mean you can take over any machine or building with the push of a button.
2. Skynet should be slightly harder to infiltrate than R2D2 opening a door on the freaking Death Star.
3. No adorable little mute kids with big eyes and fluffy hair.
4. ARNOLD what the hell.

5. Dogs can sense terminators!

it's sad because this McG douche had so many great elements to work with and made a joyless grinding chore of a movie.

Is it bad that I derive joy from the fact this film way underperformed it's opening (4-day) weekend? I haven't even seen it yet, still I hate it passionately.

i spent most the movie trying to guess which scene was the "FUCKING AMATEUR" one

Dragged to this over the weekend. Fucking terrible. Plenty loud and actiony but damn if I didn't almost fall asleep twice. Haven't felt that disengaged or uninterested during a film in a while.

There was one scene where a guy falls off of a speeding flying machine and skips across the surface of a river like a stone. That was probably the highlight.

Not even near the quality of Star Trek and I doubt the sincerity or sanity of anyone who says it is.

This article that explains that Bale wasn't even originally cast as John Connor is worth reading.

Finally saw this yesterday. Someone chopped the hell out of this script, didn't they? There were a couple awkward transitions and a lot of insufficient explanation as to why characters were acting the way they were. Other than that, a few really nice action scenes.

ya you know the terminator-saving chick had some backstory up in that

Exactly, the part where she's setting her gun down and other stuff for the night kind of hiccuped into the scene where she's getting assaulted to the extent where I thought there was a reel transition error in the theater. Looked like a last-minute edit for length.

I am a Terminator fanboy. I am the type that would excuse egregious errors just cuz I'm a fanboy.

I hated this movie.

Whomever wrote the screenplay is the biggest hack on the planet. While some critics have praised the Marcus Wright arc, I thought it was insulting and idiotic.

--MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW--

Why would the machines build an actual cyborg, when they viewed all of mankind as a threat, including babies and infants. There's no way machines that were that quick to pull the trigger on man after they became self-aware would trust a half-human cyborg to do their bidding.

And why the HELL would Skynet decide to EXPLAIN their sinister plot to Marcus Wright BEFORE they had even carried out their deed? Or better yet, WHY TELL HIM AT ALL? None of it made any sense.

Plus...did anybody think that Skynet didn't seem all that omnipresent or threatening? In the first three movies, the scenes are that of constant chaos...it never rests. Kyle Reese quips in the first movie that "you stay down by day", except people seem to move about with ease during the day in this movie. The only reason the machines are even alerted is because they are stupid and make loud noises.

I know they explained the machines hadn't really infiltrated LA much but that seems idiotic given their extreme advantage over the humans....ya know, like 120 year lifespan, not having to breathe and eat and stuff...being able to regenerate at alarmingly fast rates (humans don't come off an assembly line last I looked).

And uh....why is it that there are no plasma weapons? Why are the machines now easily defeated with conventional military weapons which did little more than poke a few holes in them in the first three movies?

Gahh....gahhh...there wasn't even much in the way of eye candy in this movie. I found most of the action scenes boring.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

oh, and Christian Bale, who I like, plays John Connor like an agitated insubordinate grunt rather than some fearless leader. Not to mention the awful dialogue.

"THIS IS JOHN CONNOR...IF YOU'RE LISTENING, YOU ARE THE RESISTANCE!"

This FINALLY opened in Australia. I don't know what to think about it, to be honest. Some good bits, but some big flaws, too.

1. Why did Skynet have such an insanely complicated plan to catch Connor? Why didn't they just shoot Kyle Reese when they spotted him the first time (or, say, when they had him in custody for DAYS), thus rendering Connor non-existent?
2. Why were they kidnapping humans?
3. "So you're the prophesied great leader, John Connor!" The fuck? Prophesied by who? This makes no sense!
4. As someone said before, it looked awfully sunny for a nuclear winter.
5. "They've never come this deep before!" says Connor of the machines, as they fly around within sight of the machine home base.
6. Connor seemed like a dangerous pain in the arse rather than a great leader.
7. Why is his cunning robot-over-ride device made by Sony?
8. Those post-holocaust survivors who live in the rubble sure do have nice teeth.
9. Heart transplant done in the dusty open desert by a vet without checking for tissue/blood matches, etc.
10. Nuclear explosions without any of that annoying EMP to wreck the electronics--handy.

I know I'm over-thinking this, but I'm a huge fan of the first two Terminator films, and was one of the few people who actually really enjoyed the third.

Also, 11. Why were all the Skynet bases set up for humans, with nice big monitors and lights and offices and so-on?

1. Because Skynet had a completely different plan that involved John Connor having a minimal role in the script, and Christian Bale insisted that he be JC and get a lot of scenes.
2. For their uh, cybernetic infiltrator program that they were working on! Or alternatively, for a completely ditched plot point (check that CHUD link above, it references the original script, which had plenty of its own flaws).
3. He locked himself in a secret mountain base in T3, maybe he was good at spreading his own PR!
4. Nuclear summer. Hazy shade of winter?
5. The machines love the rainy San Francisco client and hate LA. Can't say I blame them.
6. Pretty much!
7. Terminators were mostly based on the Aibo, so the override technology is repurposed Sony Clies.
8. I thought Yelchin had really white, but irregularly-spaced teeth. Obviously smart enough to realize they were straight enough to avoid post-apocalyptic orthodontia, but still shelling out for some peroxide for the pearly whites.
9. Heart transplant done from A MACHINE who had been punched directly in the heart, and shocked to life hours before!
10. Meh, EMP is overrated.
11. Skynet is there to protect humanity by nuking it, the base was probably set up to house all the humans they were going to create after they killed all the humans. Yeah.

this was one of the worst movies ive seen in a while - i thought every scene was boring, just tons of flash-bang but nothing was even happening. def thought wolverine pwnd the hell out of this

I admire mh's cunning thinking!

good god I read that CHUD article and I'm in shock. I did enjoy the movie but the potential for what might have been was pretty incredible.

Is there any chance at all for a sequel after it underperformed by so much?

I watched it last night in a small country town cinema while massively drunk, approaching Oliver Reed levels. I enjoyed it but I don't think I would have if I were sober.

It would have been funny if the mute kid had spotted a Skynet On/Switch, and no one responded to her anxious pointing.

I quite enjoyed this film.

The female roles were awful - insultingly superficial in a movie where the male characters are paper thin sketchy caricature in the first place.

The plot was stupid every which way, going beyond the 'you have to suspend disbelief' of, say the star trek films when old Spock meets young Scotty.

But I could take the poor scenery chewing acting and the lame plot if there was any actual entertainment in the film.

The motorcycle terminators were like something right out of the Attack of the Clones videogame.

Yeah the women were pretty sad, a pregnant lady and a tough chick who thinks she's badass but really needs a dude to save her and falls in love with him even though he's not human. One day with this robot and she's all "No disassemble! Johnny Five is alive!"

Yeah, classic Terminator has always been about strong women. Had the directors been inclined they could have made the Marcus character a female.

Marcus kinda annoyed me because he was too "boo-hoo" when he found out he was mostly robot. It's one of the best things that could happen, and I wouldn't go giving John Conner my heart.

I really liked this actually, probably because I had zero expectation and was basically expecting a Charlies Angels style camp fest (T3 was pretty camp in places). It went downhill a lot in the last third though.
I can kind of excuse a lot of the plot holes as being down to time travel nonsense or editing for length (would imagine they were going to explain why they were capturing the humans instead of just gassing them/shooting them but this got cut...??) but the biggest one for me was that I don't get why the machines would want to kill Kyle Reese at that point. They don't know what he's going to do in the future, do they? Maybe they 'infiltrated' the tape player Connor was listening to his mom's tapes on which handily explained everything for them. Or maybe 1984 Arnie told them.

my guess is that they were farming the humans for terminator parts. it never occurred to me that it wasn't explicitly explained.

Except we already know that the Terminators can heal themselves. At first I thought the humans were there for research, but then obviously the machines already know how to make cyborgs. So having read that Chud piece, I can only imagine the human camps are still more leftovers from an early draft that explicably made it into the final product. Certainly after I saw this I considered all the loose ends and contradictions, compared to the relatively slick effects, and thought: really? Did you really go forward with a complete screenplay? Because what's on the screen seems more or less made up on the fly, with little consideration for sense or continuity.

And I may have missed it above, but were we actually supposed to be surprised to find out Marcus was a cyborg? Really? Was that supposed to be a big twist or something? Because if it was, then it was one of the biggest busts of all time.

I don't think it was intended to be a twist for us, just a revelation that was meant to take the characters by surprise.

I think the whole reason the Terminators don't kill Kyle Reece is the problem with the premise of the Terminators. It would be pretty anti-climatic...not to mention it is kind of non-sensical...I doubt John Connor would merely evaporate if they vaporized Reece, because the Reece that impregnated his mother had already gone back in time and even though killing him later might have...

oh dear I've gone crosseyed. movie sucked.

I think the daylight + lack of lasers ruins any chance this movie had of letting me ignore the lousy plot and characters.

terminator 2 is one of my favourite films of all time, terminator is obv. incredible. i even thought terminator 3 was fun enough, so i have a high totlerance for nonsense, but this was probably the worst film of a generation. so incredibly careless. almost incompetent. that hundreds of people spent years making this film fills me with sadness. not even enjoyably terrible.

Jesus Christ this thing

a few things i liked about it:

1. the insistence on practical effects, at least with the t-600s; rest of it was matrix flavored crappppp
2. cgi arnie was a cool lil touch i think, didnt see that cumming at all
3. helena bonham carter showing at the end for no reason, looking exactly like queeny love, airbrushing and all
4. i thought the sam blublublub guy who played marcus was actually really good! i was expecting him to just be some generic dude but i liked watching him a lot. christian bale should be banished from movies forever. nice usage of 'the rooster' too @_@

otherwise, this is otm:

it's sad because this McG douche had so many great elements to work with and made a joyless grinding chore of a movie.

― bnw, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 1:49 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sam worthington easily the best thing about this

Movies like this makes me just want the machines to win. After all, "this isn't the future my mother warned me about".

well guys now i'm merely excited to see just how bad this film is for myself (via torrent obv)

take a shot every time Christian Bale says "This is John Connor"

just read that chud article, the original script sounds even worse tbh. the poisonous legacy of the matrix movies, where they need to build up to some shitty ass sci fi 'twist' instead of just makin a damn movie bout robots, needed to be excised completely imo

dont be excited blueski it's not bad in any kind of hilarious or awesome way, just in a grueling numbing retard-o way

"but this was probably the worst film of a generation"
caek, I Love Everything (no stars)

needs to be on a revised poster

I took my boy to see it today after putting it off for 3 weeks. It's like watching somebody else playing a really boring video game for 2 hours, on the same boring level, over and over and over.

can't take credit for that line, xp: http://www.powells.com/review/2002_07_04.html

i went to see this ~_~

a couple of sort of neat scenes but this was pretty bad. it felt like a really uninspired mash-up of children of men, battlestar, the matrix (that HORRIBLE expository big screen TV scene), the "mordor" bits of lord of the rings... transformers... every crappy scifi movie of the past few years, really.

― s1ocki, Friday, May 22, 2009 4:33 PM

^ sums it up pretty well (add lawnmower man to the list for the stupid computer face). i actually liked the first half or so, the chase/bridge scene especially. severe nosedive when they get into infiltrating skynet which turns out to be some lame looking factory with some trucks driving around on their own lol. the worst was the payoff at the end with the heart, just awful. and the way scenes switched in a disjointed way throughout was really bad. also thought it was funny how the opening credits end and lead into that expository prison scene but then when that ends you suddenly get "directed by mcg". whattan asshole

expository introductory

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services.

He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: “Take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, “OK, now what?”

First hunter = The Terminator franchise. Second hunter = McG.

Victory has a thousand parents but defeat is a lawsuit:

LOS ANGELES – August 17, 2009 – In a lawsuit filed in Superior Court here today, The Halcyon Company, which owns the rights to the Terminator movie franchise, accused a former employee of a Santa Barbara hedge fund of fraud and double-dealing, and of conspiring with the fund’s current CEO in a scheme to line their own pockets at Halcyon’s expense.

In a second suit also filed today, Dominion Group, LLC, which is owned by Halcyon principals Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, accused Pacificor of wrongfully filing a lien on certain of Dominion’s assets in order to block it from obtaining vitally-needed financing for Halcyon.

The two lawsuits each seek upwards of $30 million in damages from Santa Barbara-based Pacificor, LLC, and former Pacificor employee Kurt Benjamin. The Benjamin suit alleges that current Pacificor CEO Andy Mitchell conspired with Benjamin to take actions that represented not only a betrayal of Halcyon, but were also a breach of Pacificor’s fiduciary duties to its own investors.

Pacificor originally provided the financing for Halcyon’s acquisition of the motion picture and related rights to the Terminator franchise in May, 2007. Following its acquisition of the rights, Halcyon produced Terminator Salvation, the fourth movie in the Terminator series, which was released earlier this year.

According to the lawsuit against Benjamin, when Benjamin introduced Halcyon principals Anderson and Kubicek to potential financier Pacificor in early 2007, he presented himself as an independent contractor acting on Halcyon’s behalf. In fact, the lawsuit alleges, Benjamin was an employee of Pacificor at the time. Moreover, it says, not only did he not reveal to Halcyon that he was a Pacificor employee, he also did not reveal to Pacificor that he was being separately compensated by Halcyon for arranging the deal.

Oh well!:

TermRobot The producers of "Terminator Salvation" have filed for bankruptcy and their list of creditors is a veritable "who's who" of Hollywood.

Just a day after the duo sued their investors for allegedly pushing them into a series of bad business decisions and placing what they claim is an illegal lien on their property, three companies belonging to Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, owners of the "Terminator" franchise rights and the producers of May's "Terminator Salvation," filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday.

Even though the movie has sold a healthy $370 million worth of tickets around the world and has yet to be released on DVD and in other post-theatrical markets, Anderson and Kubicek apparently couldn't stay afloat. As detailed in yesterday's lawsuits, they don't have the assets to pay back one of several loans made by Santa Barbara hedge fund Pacificor, which financed their $30-million purchase of the "Terminator" rights and loaned $9 million for other operating expenses.

...

The following is a partial list of creditors listed in the bankruptcy filings of Anderson and Kubicek's companies. For many of the individuals listed, the actual creditor is a company that they control. In most cases, the amount owed was not reported.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld (law firm)

Christian Bale (star of "Terminator Salvation")

C2 Pictures (Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, from whom Anderson and Kubicek bought the "Terminator" rights)

Electric Shepherd Productions (production arm of the estate of science fiction author Philip K. Dick, with which Halcyon announced a deal to develop films in 2007)

Franchise Tax Board (California state tax collection agency)

Peter Graves (marketing consultant who helped facilitate the "Terminator" rights purchase)

Greenberg Traurig (law firm)

GRIN (developer of the "Terminator Salvation" video game)

Paul Haggis (Oscar-winning screenwriter who did a rewrite on the "Terminator Salvation" script)

Internal Revenue Service

Latham & Watkins (law firm)

Dan Lin (producer of "Terminator Salvation")

McG (director of "Terminator Salvation")

Mario Kassar Productions

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

Motion Picture Assn. of America

Bahman Naraghi (former Halcyon executive, now chief operating officer at Graham King's production company)

O'Melveny and Myers (law firm)

Randy Paul (a former Greenberg Traurig attorney who went on to become chief operating officer of Halcyon)

Arnold Schwarzenegger (briefly appeared in "Terminator Salvation")

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Sitrick and Co. (public relations firm that previously represented Halcyon)

Universal Studios

Warner Bros. Pictures

Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca and Fischer (law firm)

It kept me vaguely entertained on a Saturday night, but it was pretty gash really.

I just found it stupid that people kept surviving in these huge battles with ridiculously hard-ass massive machines. Like how would flying around in current day planes be any kind of match for a hunter killer?! The machines would have kicked our asses long before.

^haw, exactly

i watched this last night and it is probably the first (big-budget hollywood) movie where i've actually ~noticed~ how terrible the editing was.

and yeah, i know it's boring and unimaginative to crap on the realism of a sci-fi movie, but ffs: SkyNet has NUKES and enormous walking robots and w/e and yet somehow humanity is just scrapping away? kids are destroying chaingun wielding robots with home alone pranks?

also, there were some weirdo temporal/editing things that didn't make sense... how did a teenager and a mute child set up elaborate traps in precisely the right places in a landscape that allows virtually infinite points of access for hunting robots? why did sam worthington's dude allow himself to have his heart stopped by the terminator, as if anticipating that connor would jumpstart it? why the fuck did the hot lady take her shirt off in the rain and just stand there, topless, esp when the movie then immediately jumped to her clothed, dry, not in the rain, but apparently immediately after the gratuitious toplessness?

anyway this was just really, really bad. it only just dawned on me, but really the Matrix movies are the whole SkyNet premise but *done much more plausibly*

why the fuck did the hot lady take her shirt off in the rain and just stand there, topless, esp when the movie then immediately jumped to her clothed, dry, not in the rain, but apparently immediately after the gratuitious toplessness?

director's cut?

i think so.

still totally disjointed, tho

ftr this movie was a diseased dick

i am watching this right now and it's kind of incredible how little sense it makes

unlike the first 3 movies

why the fuck did the hot lady take her shirt off in the rain and just stand there, topless

this seems like the Platonic ideal of the "lady if you have to ask..." question

I can't remember the last movie I watched that made me feel "I'm angry that this has to exist." Surely it's impossible for a movie to be this aggressively stupid by accident.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/paramount-sets-terminator-relaunch-for-june-26-2015/

the fuck??? so the Terminator: Salvation story arc is gone (n necessarily a bad thing), and they're starting over? kinda bummed that what was once a good 1-2 punch of flicks is now gettingoing to be a George Lucas sized franchise. Assuming, of course, that any of these films actually get made.

a few things:

1) I completely....completely forgot that McG was talking about a 'surreal' Terminator film in the early going until I re-read this thread. And I even remember the early trailers bearing that out. Then the film comes out and there's NONE of that at all, and it's just an action film with straightforward narrative and shots. What happened here? Did McG abandon the surrealist approach midway through? Does he not know what "surreal" means? idgi

2) Rewatched the first Terminator flick and although I've always loved it, the thing I appreciate the most is how it manages to be epic in scope w/out being epic in length. I've always enjoyed car chases in 60s-80s films more than today's because they overengineer them, but the car chases in this film are fantastic in their unhinged nature. I loved the chases in T2 as well, but they had a feeling of being more choreographed (a la Die Hard choreography w/ vehicles), which, while it was cool and all, paled in comparison to the off the wall recklessness of the chases in the original.

What was also cool is how it was believable in context. Reece has driven cars before, obviously, but only in battle. He's only used to driving recklessly, presumably he wouldn't even know what the traffic signals meant. and he grabs for his shotgun when he gets out of the car to face the cops not as a suicide mission but because he has no clue how the police operate and he's so battle tested, it's reflexive!

3) Unless I missed it, the term "Skynet" does not actually appear at all in the original Terminator. It's weird as I always remembered it being mentioned in Reece's monologue, but he only describes it in a roundabout way as being a project for NORAD.

4) The first Terminator was the best sheerly because it was the only film of the tetralogy not to have cyborgs exceeding their scope. T2 had Arnie acting like a curious robot trying to be human, which aggravated the shit out of me (oh yay, family friendly Terminator), whereas T3, while Arnie's robot was more grounded (except for the cringe-inducing humor and the psychoanalytic bullshit), you had the damn Loken-bot orgasming at John Connor's DNA, and having a look of fear upon her termination. bulllshiiiiit.

5) MVP for the first Terminator really goes to Arnold's facial expressions. Dude was never a great actor, but his face work in this film is actually pretty amazing - never over the top, always believable in the context of a cyborg attempting to assimilate into a society it's never seen before. the way his eyes bug out when he's processing something always wigged me out as a kid.

6) in a way, the later Terminator films kind of stretched the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point with the extra-sophisticated newer model Terminators. I get that they did this because hey, we have this big special effects budget now, let's Manhattan Project flex our muscles to the world, but i nthe context of the first film, you found it somewhat believable that humans could mount a resistance to the machines. The T-101, while difficult to destroy, was destroyed in the sense you'd expect - organically, through much wear and tear. It wasn't invincible, it was merely difficult to destroy given its extra-sensory abilities, and powerful chassis. In the future, against plasma weapons, I could see humans picking them off.

The T-1000 and the T-X, though, with their liquid metal bullshit? How the hell would the humans of the future stood a chance against an army of them? They could imitate more than voices, they could outright imitate other people!! In a way, it bugged me because my strategic brain enjoyed thinking of ways Hamilton and Biehn could off the T-101 in the original, and comparing it to how they actually managed to...whereas in the 2nd and 3rd, I was kinda like "idk what teh rules even are, how the hell WOULD you destroy one of these?"

I hope the additional films never get made.

Finally watched this to prepare for this new one. Yeah, it was pretty bad, but not quite the donkey dick everyone said it was; mostly just a very generic, very grey action movie. Bale and Worthington were both kind of awful. I miss seeing Moon Bloodgood in things.

This movie is all going to be retconned anyway, but I guess John Connor keeps his face scar?

face scar is a long-established john connor trait iirc

http://www.comicbookreligion.com/img/h/u/Human_Resistance_4.jpg

ah, that's what i thought. everything in Salvation stinks of empty placation to pointless callbacks. which I normally love! but the movie felt so pointless

"We have set out to achieve a completely new visual style that hasn't been seen before... Basically, we are adding three times as much silver.

lol so much for that idea

doing a series rewatch and don't think I'm gonna include this one.

toss-up between this and genisys as the worst of the series imo

I think Genisys takes that one easily.

Jai Courtney turns Kyle Reese into awkward rom-com character

genisys has some interesting ideas! it just has no idea how to make them work

it'd be a lot cooler if they turned the franchise on its head by having judgment day constantly thwarted, then reinstated, until somehow someway, Sarah/John etc destroy Skynet "forever" and finally 20 years pass and Judgment Day never actually happens but they still have the nightmares of all the battles from multiple timelines and they walk around society scarred and suffering PTSD and nobody feels sorry for them cos it's 2035 and nobody has ever heard of Skynet.

ok, this poster is pretty awesome

http://i40.tinypic.com/vh6dc8.jpg

― StanM, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 15:50 (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed!