The Terminator Movies

[Scott Intellectual Carrot Find all posts View Profile Close Scott]

Watched the original Terminator with my boys this weekend. It warms my heart that they love the film as much as I did. It's hard not spending a few seconds while watching not getting disappointed that Salvation didn't try to mimic the original film's future just a little bit. I don't hate Salvation but it's not the future Terminator film I've been waiting 30+ years to see.

It's such a great movie with a great score and a relentless pace. I love it to pieces. And agree about the future scenes.

The second film takes everything we remember from the first movie and pokes fun at it. The rest of the sequels attempt to make sense out of something that isn't supposed to, similar to Star Wars and every other franchise that spawned from a single great film. All you have to do is watch the first TERMINATOR to see how much they get wrong with these endless crummy films. It's all about the tone and the atmosphere. It's a thriller and more of a horror film than a goofy action film. But they've been stuck in goofy action mode since part 2.

For me at least.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

John Connor is killed off less than 5 minutes into the movie and the movie itself is really bad. There you go, you don't need to see this now.

[Scott Intellectual Carrot Find all posts View Profile Close Scott]

Appreciate that.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

High five!

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

Watched a cam yesterday. It's complete shit. As expected. Avoid.

[Darcy Parker Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Darcy Parker]

It's such a great movie with a great score and a relentless pace. I love it to pieces. And agree about the future scenes.

The second film takes everything we remember from the first movie and pokes fun at it. The rest of the sequels attempt to make sense out of something that isn't supposed to, similar to Star Wars and every other franchise that spawned from a single great film. All you have to do is watch the first TERMINATOR to see how much they get wrong with these endless crummy films. It's all about the tone and the atmosphere. It's a thriller and more of a horror film than a goofy action film. But they've been stuck in goofy action mode since part 2.

For me at least.

The biggest problem is that the whole point of the second movie is that nothing is inevitable, fate is not real, but for the sequels to be made, they had to ignore that the actions taken in the second movie had destroyed the seeds of the future events.

Any further stories would have to piss all over what came before to even exist.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

The biggest problem is that the whole point of the second movie is that nothing is inevitable, fate is not real, but for the sequels to be made, they had to ignore that the actions taken in the second movie had destroyed the seeds of the future events.

Any further stories would have to piss all over what came before to even exist.

The second film disregards the time travel rules they set up in the first film. Which is one of my many reasons why I have never cared for T2.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Since I never agree with Alex K on anything, I went and saw this. It was not quite as cruddy as he made it out to be. In fact, it was a helluva lot better then Salvation and Genisys.

This said, this was not a good film by any means. It felt like a rehash of not only the old Terminator films, but of every modern blockbuster action in recent memory as well. It had extremely wooden acting from everyone, and the CGI was all over the place like embarrasing in moments and world class amazing in others.

But what really does this film in is that it feels like such an example of studio filmmaking by commitee that all the things it has going for it feels wasted and accidental.

Still, it was a step in the right direction as far as Terminator movies. But let us all hope this is the last step this franchise ever takes, as it feels staler then when they blew up the Death Star for the third time in Star Wars.....

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

The Contrarian Swede strikes again!

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

As the Swede says, stale would be the word. Objectively it's comfortably the best of the series since the first two but, honestly, who can be bothered?

I like the two new girls, the new Terminator is a scary beast again for the first time in a while and Linda Hamilton gets a paycheck (going by her performance, that's all she got out of it).

It's a serious rehashing though. We've done all these scenes several times before by now and I miss the old days when the monster in a blockbuster would come back once after you kill him rather than 7 or 8 times. It just gets a bit relentless. I had to skip out on the last 20 minutes as something came up and I'm not sure I can be bothered going back for the rest. I feel it's already done the climatic action a few times in the last half hour and watching them do it another couple times for the last 20 minutes doesn't appeal hugely.

Sounds like production wasn't a bed of roses. The director going on record recently to say he would never work with Cameron again. Linda saying she hopes the franchise is dead. The box office on this might finally do the trick for her.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

I don't see how this is "the best of the bad sequels" it's the same exact movie as Terminator 2. There's not a shred of originality in this POS. Instead it bends a knee to the politically correct crowd in service of... Nothing.

For fucks sake, they even rip off the ending of Terminator 3.

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

Just watched this one since it showed up on Prime. I think I largely agree with most of what's been said. As a time-wasting action flick that has some involvement with The Terminator, it's...okay. The acting is horrible, though. Effects were okay, but yeah, make a list of each scene and try to tie it to an earlier Terminator flick, and you won't have much trouble.

A revisit of Terminator 3 convinced me it wasn't as bad as I remember, but really, the only things great about the second film are the effects, and Robert Patrick's performance. Edward Furlong is fuckin terrible, the whole, "Hasta La Vista, Dickhead" scene was idiotic. Too bad that was the start of Arnie tryking to be humane in every single following performance.

The first one is still a classic. Love it.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Salvation is almost underrated. At least it was different.

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

Salvation is almost underrated. At least it was different.

I know I saw it, but like Genisys, I remember nothing about it.

I also won't take a director who calls himself McG seriously.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

A revisit of Terminator 3 convinced me it wasn't as bad as I remember, but really, the only things great about the second film are the effects, and Robert Patrick's performance. Edward Furlong is fuckin terrible, the whole, "Hasta La Vista, Dickhead" scene was idiotic. Too bad that was the start of Arnie tryking to be humane in every single following performance.

The first one is still a classic. Love it.

Couldn't agree more about the relationship between the first film and T2, Mark. The first picture is a lean, mean thing - more horror movie than action. T2 was (imo) utterly unnecessary and pushed the series into the action realm, retrospectively affecting how viewers who came to the first film after the release of T2 saw the original TERMINATOR. There was so much potential for a sequel to THE TERMINATOR to go in a different direction - perhaps a more horror-focused picture using the original chameleon-like nature of the Terminator (as per the initial drafts of the script, up to the point that Henriksen was considered for the lead role).

Salvation is almost underrated. At least it was different.

TERMINATOR: SALVATION has its issues, and to be fair, they are massive; but I'll admit to liking it a heck of a lot more than the other sequels to THE TERMINATOR. There are some interesting ideas in that film (eg, the work camp).