James Cameron working on a new Terminator movie

[Leo656]

My thing with stuff like this or Jurassic Park is, at some point you either have to move the story forward or let it die off. You can't keep repeating the same old "Something bad is about to happen/kinda already happening/NO WAIT we stopped it... For NOW!" gimmick, and that's essentially all they do, every single time. At SOME point, we need to just have Skynet take over and just pick it up with the Future War and watch that play out, with ostensibly the final film showing them sending Reese back in time to close the time loop. And that's what Salvation tried to do, which I give them credit for, but unfortunately too many people whined about there not being enough laser beams in the future, or some sh*t, because lord knows THAT's what's most important, so they didn't move forward past that, even though that's the only logical thing to do.

"No, instead we're going to tell the exact same story EXCEPT that now Sarah and her son are no longer relevant to the story anymore, Because Reasons, and someone ELSE has to protect the future! SEE? Totally different now, you guys!" Except that it's NOT, it's the exact same goddamn sh*t we've already sat through a hundred times. Move forward or just f*cking STOP, already. Having "NOT Sarah" fulfill the exact same storyline role as Sarah doesn't actually change anything at all.

At some point, one has to realize that until those damn dinosaurs finally escape and take over the Earth, or until Skynet finally takes over and we get to the Future War in its entirety, then anything else they do with those franchises is simply going to be a rehash of movies we've already watched. Which is f*cking pointless and stupid.

It's both comical and annoying to me, because collectively, people will bleat and whine about "Wanting something new", and THEN spend all their money watching the same thing they've already seen a hundred times, and declare it "Awesome" because it reminds them of those other, better movies.

I mean, it's whatever. But I don't get it.

[Hamato Yoshi]

Same thing with horror films (Halloween etc) and the now dead Police Academy film series , they'll churn them out if people pay

[Wildcat]

I’ve mentioned many times I wish Salvation would have continued because it finally got on with the war. It was a good movie too imo. It was fun seeing how Skynet operated.

I’ve been told on other forums that Salvation was bad because it’s portrayal of the future did not match exactly to the T the brief segments from the first two.

Complaints like that really bother me because it’s the most nit picky nostalgia fueled issue you could have. Arguments like Skynet would never have other types of transformer-ish robots and overall it was not grim enough. So ya basically not enough lasers.

How is it sooo unbelievable that Skynet would have other types of robots that just did not appear in those flashbacks or flash forwards? Those segments in the first two are just a peak at what happens.

Leading up to Dark Fate some people started using the term Marvel-ized as way to say it’s too cgi/action heavy and it should be more horror-like without any upgraded terminator model.

Again just nostalgia fueled hate. It’s about AI starting a war with the world. Action is required and expecting Skynet (or whatever it’s called) to never upgrade terminators beyond T1000 is just stupid.

The argument was the war had ended and T1000 was the last resort for Skynet or something. I looked it up because I had forgotten and it technically matched continuity. However going back in time changes things. Skynet never advancing under any circumstances makes no sense.

I don’t mean to rant but I’ve had some really dumb arguments about Terminator.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Hamato Yoshi

Same thing with horror films (Halloween etc) and the now dead Police Academy film series , they'll churn them out if people pay

That's another thing that kills me. Not really about this franchise - as others have pointed out, the newer Terminators don't really do all that hot at the box office - but just about movies in general, especially Big Franchise Movies, and peoples' insistence on paying to see them even when they acknowledge that they look very bad.

I was reading an article about Star Wars, and literally every single comment for a good long while, like 20+ in a row, was some variation of "Not gonna waste the money," "I'll be staying home", etc. etc. And it's like... oh, how I WISH that were true. If even 10% of these yokels actually followed through on their "threats" we wouldn't be in these kinds of situations.

Me? I actually do stay home rather than go see any movie I know I'm most likely going to hate. "Hate Watching" something makes no sense to me. I don't have the time, money, or inclination. People who waste their own time or money to watch something just so they can rant about how awful it was are idiots. I'm occasionally forced to watch something on DVR even though I know I won't enjoy it - because that's what happens when you're married - but at least I didn't actually reward the people making it with any of my money, nor did I willingly sacrifice any of my precious free time just so I can spend the rest of the day angry.

I wish people who thought the new Terminator or Star Wars or whatever looked crummy really would stay home, but the fact is, they'd rather waste the money "just to PROVE it was as bad as I thought it would be," or to "EARN their right to complain about it." Okay, great, but the studio doesn't actually care if you had a good time, they don't care if all you do is talk about how sh*tty the movie was... they got your money, so they're thrilled. Again, look at "The Last Jedi." I've never had a face-to-face conversation with a single human being who thought it was even decent, let alone any good. But it made over a billion dollars, thus insulating it from any and all criticism, even (and especially) legitimate criticism. "How can it be bad... LOOK at all the MONEY it made!"

Again, not really specific to this franchise, but just to your larger (and accurate) point. "I'm staying home when _______ comes out in theaters!" is the same impotent threat as "I'm moving to Canada if _____ becomes President!" People rant and rave, and in the end, they cave in. Because Doing Something - or NOT doing something, as in not going to see a bad movie - is harder than ranting and raving semi-anonymously on the internet. But if anyone actually followed through, well then hey, that'd be great for everyone. They just never do, and it's irritating.

[Xav]

"Terminator: Dark Fate Is the Gayest Terminator Yet"

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I don’t mean to rant but I’ve had some really dumb arguments about Terminator.

To be fair, any argument aside from "Which was better, T1 or T2?" is by default a "dumb argument", because after that there's really nothing worth talking about, especially not having an opinion strong enough to argue or debate about. I mean, what IS there? "I thought the naked dragon girl from Game of Thrones was a better Sarah Connor than Linda Hamilton"? "Who's a better Adult John Connor, the guy who played Batman or the guy nobody ever heard of?" "Which movie COMPLETELY wipes its ass with the established lore the most?" Like seriously, those movies don't even give a person anything to discuss, beyond, "Was the newest one Awful or Just Kind Of Okay?" I mean, really. I'm not even being mean, here.

The only "debate" I can think of is, "Do any of the movies after 2 have any right to exist?", and the only HONEST answer is, "Not really, no." They're just THERE, taking up space for no reason and mucking up what was once a reasonably-simple sci-fi story to the point of total incomprehensibility. They don't do anything except take the franchise, which was once simply referred to as, "Those two Really Great movies," and turned it into something which can now only ever be referred to as, "Those two Really Great movies, and then the rest of them."

When your franchise has nowhere to go but down, pull the plug before you completely rub the shine off. That's something these guys had already figured out in 1991. But then $omehow, $h*t Happen$, and people mi$place their value$. Then what was once Great is simply Mediocre.

Happens to most things, sadly. But it shouldn't. It really, really shouldn't.
----------------

I did enjoy Salvation more than most. But that almost went tits-up, too, with the original "Cyborg Guy replaces John Connor when John dies, then abruptly turns heel, single-handedly kills the entire Resistance, Skynet Wins, credits roll, franchise over" ending. Would have been ballsy, I admit, but man, aside from deliberately killing the franchise - which Bale said at one point was one of the main reasons he wanted to do the movie - would anyone have actually enjoyed that? "It was all for nothing, Bad Guys Win, enjoy your crapsack dark future!" I'unno, I would'a been a little miffed. The ending they went with was kind of weak and predictable, but at least it wasn't completely bonkers.

Also... HOW MUCH COCAINE was Christian Bale on when they filmed "Salvation"? On a scale of "1980s Madonna" to "1970s David Bowie", I'm gonna go ahead and say "2010 Nicki Minaj". Which is a lot.

[Wildcat]

Ya I don’t think I would have liked the bad ending very much but the ending we got was fine. Made sense to have to takeout other Skynet bases.

The thing with Terminator there’s clearly 2 or 3 movies worth of story if they just set in the future war. I’m glad we’ve gotten one attempt so far but I’m surprised nobody seems to care to do a future war trilogy.

It’s the perfect setting for a sci-fi action movie and it’s actually part of the storyline. Salvation was perfectly fine to continue off of.

I’m sure if T2 came out now people would have complained about it. Having a kid play the lead, being another chase style movie etc. The usual. So it kind of annoys when T2 is automatically crowned a masterpiece. Great movie but people are biased due to its era.

Like I’ve said before I’m sure I’ll enjoy Dark Fate because I’ve enjoyed all of them but pick whatever continuity you want and get in with the war already.

It’s funny because I’ve thought about it from a comedic standpoint...are the resistance and Skynet just watching some space age monitor that can display the past because they don’t seem to care about the war at hand. They’re more interested in outdoing each other by constantly sending back soldiers.

[Leo656]

I think, based on what I've read, that the ending they used for Salvation was actually the third option, and oddly enough, the one they least wanted to actually use. We only got the ending we did because the first two endings they came up with pissed too many people off in test screenings.

The original ending was the one where they spend the entire movie beating you over the head with the whole "Don't judge a book by its cover; he might be an infiltration cyborg created by Skynet for the SOLE purpose of gaining your trust and then assassinating what's left of the Resistance, but he's still HUMAN, damn it! He haz teh Feelz!" heavy-handed moralizing, only to yank the rug out from under the audience and reveal, "Huh, nope, turns out Obvious Murder Cyborg Was Obvious." Specifically, John Connor gets killed, the Resistance members realize that most people have never even seen John Connor, they only know him as a symbol, the mythical "Leader of the Resistance", and figure, "Hey, the unkillable Cyborg guy can just SAY he's John Connor and nobody will ever know! That way the Resistance can live on!" And the Cyborg dude's like, "Yeah, great idea, I'm down with that"... and then he kills everyone.

Why THAT, specifically, was the first-chosen and much-preferred ending among the filmmakers themselves, I have no idea. Other than, as I joked about, there was "allegedly" a ton of cocaine involved in that movie's production. Within that context, it *almost* makes sense. But not really. I mean, for one thing, as I mentioned, it completely undermines the entire point the rest of the movie was trying to make about trust, hope, faith, etc. Which would be ballsy and unexpected, sure, but also kind of a screwjob. I don't think it would have played well, and allegedly it did piss a lot of people off in the very early going, which is why it was changed.

But it wasn't entirely changed. Apparently Option B was to do 99% the exact same thing, and have Connor still die, except NOT have the Cyborg guy turn out to be evil, he was just going to replace John Connor legitimately and become the leader of the Resistance in his place, pretending to be him since nobody knew any better. This apparently went over a little bit better, BUT, was ultimately scrapped for the most pragmatic of reasons: Christian Bale was the ONLY reason anyone even planned on seeing "Salvation", and people weren't happy about seeing him killed off. Apparently, he'd already refused to do any sequels, so the studio felt like killing him off was the only option, but they also couldn't risk alienating the fans who were going to pay to see him.

That's how we got Ending C, the really-real one where John almost dies and the Cyborg guy gives him his own heart, or whatever, sacrificing himself for the humans. Which may be a little (or a lot) predictable, overly-sentimental, "We gotta wrap this up so let's race to a Happy Ending", whatever... but it was ultimately probably the best possible outcome. At least it was consistent within the movie's own themes and storyline, which again, might be a little bit too on-the-nose or heavy-handed with the "Don't pre-judge anyone, even murder robots are human beings" thing, but at least it wasn't a complete 180 that came out of nowhere. The original ending sounds like they were really just trying to follow up on T3's "dark ending" by going even darker, but it comes off like edgelord fanfiction. At least to me.

I like Salvation alright - it's probably the best Terminator movie since the second one - but the whole thing feels like a missed opportunity. So many bad decisions made along the way. Like finally getting to the Future War, but insisting it be PG-13 to maximize ticket sales, thus ensuring that nothing too graphic or horrifying could happen. Or trying to position it as a trilogy-starter, then for their star they go out and hire a guy who's notoriously anti-sequel and also an admitted huge pain in the ass to deal with, who didn't really wanna do the movie and only relented on the premise that he be killed off. They just made so many questionable decisions, and it really painted them into a corner they had no satisfying way out of. I'm kinda sad that it's the one nobody remembers (or even saw), but I'm also not surprised, either. It was really doomed before it even opened.

I agree, though, that I'd much rather see the series continue in that universe, rather than the constant "Skynet keeps sending killer robots back to Our Present because they only have one idea" cycle which we've been stuck in ever since, and most likely will be for a while longer yet. Except now we won't have the established characters we already care about (because we were told how important they were to everything for 30+ years!) to hold things up when everything else is shaky, because they're suddenly "not so important after all".

Kinda like Luke in TLJ; funny how that stuff works, isn't it? You could write a whole article about it, and I'm sure someone probably has.

[Andrew NDB]

The Marcus putting John Connor's skin over his was ridiculous and they realized that early on. Even if we're to buy that just throwing skin over a Terminator endoskeleton isn't going to just immediately die, rot or be rejected, what about things like bone structure, cheeks, etc.? Just because you put my skin on top of John Travolta's body doesn't mean it's going to look anything like me.

Also, saw Dark Fate. Didn't like it. It borrowed WAY, WAY too much from Genisys and especially T3. The ending is like a remake of T3's climax, right down to

Spoiler:

someone pulling out a power cell and stuffing it in the Bad Terminator's head

.

It also seemed pretty politically charged in a few places.

Spoiler:

The main characters openly discuss and complain about how demeaning it is that Sarah and (they think) Dani are only women that had to bear the MAN that would become the savior of the world. Later, there's stuff about the Bad Terminator mistaking detainees in a Border Patrol facility for "prisoners," and keeps calling the facility "cages." Also, when Grace springs all of the detainees, in the chaos the Bad Terminator ONLY kills Border Patrol agents, and he kills a whole lot of them

.

[Leo656]

Wow, that bit in the Spoiler tags sounds incredibly subtle.

I saw your FB review, which I'd love for you to post here as well. Seriously, that sh*t sounds ghastly. Here I am, ranting and raving about how they're all out of ideas, can only recycle the earlier films, it's all a waste of time, etc., and here they go and make a movie that seemingly does nothing but copy/paste stuff from every other film in the franchise thus far! Can I call 'em, or what? This thing sounds like the "Force Awakens" of the Terminator franchise, and given that we already got that one movie ago - and it was terrible - I think it's far past time they nail the lid shut on this sucker.
-----------------------

See, I personally never read anything about the cyborg guy "wearing John's skin" in Salvation's earlier endings, so I can't speak to that. I only read stuff where the Resistance were all like, "Well... nobody actually KNEW John except for whoever's in this room, so... technically ANYBODY could say they're 'John Connor' and nobody would know better, plus this guy's kind of indestructible and knows a lot about Skynet, so hey, Bonus! This guy'll be 'John Connor' from now on." I swear I read a line of dialog where one of them specifically mentions how nobody knew what John looked like, therefore the ruse wouldn't require anything too elaborate. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I never read anything about the guy Marcus literally wearing John Connor like a Halloween smock. I agree, that would be f*cking terrible, but I kinda don't think they were actually going that far.

Not that it matters now, but yeah, I kinda don't see it. Maybe it was discussed once and then dropped, or taken out of context, I'unno.
----------------------------

Anyway. What's your over-under on how long until the NEXT re-reboot? Seriously, this thing sounds even worse than I'd feared, and I feared something pretty bad. Thanks for taking the bullet.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I’ve mentioned many times I wish Salvation would have continued because it finally got on with the war. It was a good movie too imo. It was fun seeing how Skynet operated.

You'd wish for it to not to continue, because, McG's plan was to set sequel in the present day, where Skynet and Resistance send their armies.
It would have been Bay's Transformers, but with Hunter-Killers and some contrived plot about Marcus.

[Leo656]

So... even when the filmmakers were ostensibly trying to experiment with fresh, new things... they still only had One Idea to rely on. Huh.

You knooooowwwwww... call me crazy, but I'm starting to think maybe Terminator really never had a lot to say or teach us in the first place. Sigh.

[Wildcat]

Well I’ve never really read up on Salvation. I just wish it picked up from that ending and continued fight other Skynet bases.

I wouldn’t have minded if somebody replaced Bale as John Connor if he didn’t want to do sequels. That would have been ok. Marcus taking over the roll of leader was ok too.

The PG13 rating never bothered me. Once things get going and the action starts you don’t really stop and think...oh this is too toned down. I mean after a point you’re just into the movie, right? I am anyway. I don’t really know how violent it should have been.

People joke about the next reboot but even DF is not successful enough I really do not see a huge hiatus for the franchise like some think. They’ll probably make another fairly soon. Arnold has talked about a 7th movie. The follow up to this.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I saw your FB review, which I'd love for you to post here as well. Seriously, that sh*t sounds ghastly. Here I am, ranting and raving about how they're all out of ideas, can only recycle the earlier films, it's all a waste of time, etc., and here they go and make a movie that seemingly does nothing but copy/paste stuff from every other film in the franchise thus far! Can I call 'em, or what? This thing sounds like the "Force Awakens" of the Terminator franchise, and given that we already got that one movie ago - and it was terrible - I think it's far past time they nail the lid shut on this sucker.

All right, here it is:

Saw "Terminator: Dark Fate." It was well made. The Bad Terminator seemed to be more relentless, no-nonsense and capable than any Bad Terminator since 2. Music was the best since 2 (as in, actually registers). Editing, pacing A+. The set pieces are good. I like how things move in a line, over a crazy day or two. A few really funny comedic moments are here. The first R-rating since T3 isn't a bad thing, either. A movie about assassins from the future murdering a lot of people probably shouldn't be pasteurized for 13-year olds. In fact, that's probably really irresponsible to try and do.

I'm also not sure I completely liked it. If I'd never seen T3, T4, and T5 (the ones it ignores anyway) then I'd probably like the movie a whole lot more, but it openly steals large pieces of T3 and T5... leaving things not seeming so fresh. There's a few strange choices in the movie and kind of like at the end of Genisys, I'm not sure where they'd even want to take things that I'd want to see.

Basically, if you're A: one of the people that pretend T3-T5 don't exist (or better yet, if you've never seen) or B: just plain don't care if you see stuff borrowed directly from those movies, give it a chance and there's a pretty good chance you'll dig it. If you like even just T3, this movie will probably irk you.

People expecting a big "return of Cameron" thing here will be flat out disappointed. I can feel his hand in the editing side of things, but this didn't feel like a Cameron movie at all. A lot is coming out lately about how little he had to do with the movie, too, never even visited the set or met any actors, and disagreed with the director on story points (without revealing who won said battles).

1. T1
2. T2
3. T3 & T6 (a tie)
4. T4
5. T5

Spoiler:

Speaking of things lifted from the other movies...

* Sarah Connor's actions in T2 only delayed Judgement Day a number of years. Like T3.

* Someone in the present is being targeted by a Terminator from the future because of what they will do in the future. Like in T1, T2, T3, and T5.

* That same someone receives a time-traveler to protect them. Like T1, T2, T3, and T5.

* Before the events of the main film, an Arnold Terminator kills John Connor. Just like in T3 (in the future instead of the past, but same difference).

* The main hero of the story is a human-Terminator hybrid. Like Marcus, the main hero in T4.

* The bad guy Terminator is a hybrid endoskeleton with malleable skin. Like the T-X in T3 and the T-3000 in T5.

* Arnold's CSM-101 T-800 is back in an ally capacity. Like T2, T3, and T5.

* We get "Old Man Arnold T-800." Like "Pops" in T5.

* SkyNET "evolves" to be called something other than SkyNET. Like T5. ("Genisys" there, "Legion" here, apparently... and interestingly enough, both bible verses)

* Good Guy Arnold Terminator has to say goodbye to his friends before sacrificing himself. Like in T2, T3, and T5 (sure, he survived T5, but he didn't know he was going to).

* Pulling a power cell from the future out of a body and stuffing it into the head of the Bad Terminator is the key to killing it. Just like in T3.

* At the end of the movie, the final scene is the heroes visiting a child version of one of them. Just like one movie ago in T5.

There's more, of course. I could get into the obligatory car chase stuff that's in every movie that I'm pretty tired of by now ("Take the wheel while I shoot at this Terminator behind us!" "OK!" blah blah), and it even tries to one up the airplane/helicopter stuff from the last movie. People compare it to "The Force Awakens" and there's a bit of that (except here, half of the new characters are eliminated by the end), but mostly it feels like "Alien: Covenant" in that it plays like a "Terminator: Greatest Hits" album, trying to be fresh but in doing so only shows why it ends up being the opposite of that.

See, I personally never read anything about the cyborg guy "wearing John's skin" in Salvation's earlier endings, so I can't speak to that. I only read stuff where the Resistance were all like, "Well... nobody actually KNEW John except for whoever's in this room, so... technically ANYBODY could say they're 'John Connor' and nobody would know better, plus this guy's kind of indestructible and knows a lot about Skynet, so hey, Bonus! This guy'll be 'John Connor' from now on." I swear I read a line of dialog where one of them specifically mentions how nobody knew what John looked like, therefore the ruse wouldn't require anything too elaborate. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I never read anything about the guy Marcus literally wearing John Connor like a Halloween smock. I agree, that would be f*cking terrible, but I kinda don't think they were actually going that far.

Not that it matters now, but yeah, I kinda don't see it. Maybe it was discussed once and then dropped, or taken out of context, I'unno.

It was definitely a thing. And tons of people were upset that they didn't do that. Dumb.

Anyway. What's your over-under on how long until the NEXT re-reboot? Seriously, this thing sounds even worse than I'd feared, and I feared something pretty bad. Thanks for taking the bullet.

They haven't even done 1 reboot yet. 1 soft reboot so far and one... soft reboot with some ridges, this movie (like a root canal... drilling out part of a tooth but still saving the tooth). Specifically, T1-T5 work with one another with a minimum of explanation... but T6 can't exist with T3-T5 unless Sarah somehow faked her leukemia death and the T3 Judgement Day of 2004 eluded her.

Though sh*t. That after the end credits scene in Genisys with Genisys/SkyNET waking back up could be read as "better send a message to send more Terminators to kill John" and it'd all work. But what a mess.

Unless this movie pulls a miracle, the next Terminator we see will be a 100% page 1 reboot. No events from any existing movie ever happened, ever ever. 8-10 years away.

Originally Posted by Sumac

You'd wish for it to not to continue, because, McG's plan was to set sequel in the present day, where Skynet and Resistance send their armies.
It would have been Bay's Transformers, but with Hunter-Killers and some contrived plot about Marcus.

Awful. I heard that and I was livid. And McG was so happy to soften the blow with, "But we'll see Robert Patrick as a doctor!"

The only thing I liked about Salvation was its delivering on the beginnings of the Future War. I would've preferred one ultimate, definitive Future War movie, but I was willing to wait for Salvation's sequel to take us further into it. The thought that instead of that, another time travel romp to the present? Appalling.

Originally Posted by Leo656

So... even when the filmmakers were ostensibly trying to experiment with fresh, new things... they still only had One Idea to rely on. Huh.

You knooooowwwwww... call me crazy, but I'm starting to think maybe Terminator really never had a lot to say or teach us in the first place. Sigh.

Very dumb. Though to be fair and not to defend him, but I think the "John Connor and company go back in time to the present to defend against new Terminators!" was kind of a last ditch pitch to try and keep his version of T5 afloat after the critical pounding Salvation got. I don't think that was his plan A.

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Well I’ve never really read up on Salvation. I just wish it picked up from that ending and continued fight other Skynet bases.

I wouldn’t have minded if somebody replaced Bale as John Connor if he didn’t want to do sequels. That would have been ok. Marcus taking over the roll of leader was ok too.

I think the series got way too crazy with recasting John Connor. They should have kept Bale and soldiered on.

The PG13 rating never bothered me. Once things get going and the action starts you don’t really stop and think...oh this is too toned down. I mean after a point you’re just into the movie, right?

Not when you realize this isn't how people would talk in these situations, or that gunshots should probably have a little blood.

People joke about the next reboot but even DF is not successful enough I really do not see a huge hiatus for the franchise like some think. They’ll probably make another fairly soon. Arnold has talked about a 7th movie. The follow up to this.

Arnold can talk about whatever he wants but he's not the one funding these things. He's not even like Stallone, who moves mountains and produces and directs if need be. All he needs to do at this point is King Conan. No more Terminator for him. They had yet another chance to utilize Arnold as an actual human in this (something actually fresh) and they squandered it.

[Leo656]

Wildcat: They always talk about "the next one"; they've already played that game four consecutive times, and "the next one" always ends up being a reboot. It's a work; a "work", for the uninitiated, means "hustle" or "straight-up con". The point of the "work", in this case, is to build consumer confidence; "WOW, this one must be really good, because they're already talking about the next one, and the one after that, even! They certainly wouldn't do that unless they were SURE this one was great!"

Thing is, I'm a "worker", so I can spot the works from a mile away, because whether you're talking about movies, TV, pro wrestling, whatever, it's all just entertainment, and that means selling tickets, and that means straight-up lying to your audience if that's what it takes to get their money. Consider this: You have no idea how many "First Annual _______ Event" type things I've wrestled on; how many of those "first annual" events ever got a "Second Annual" show, d'ya think? Try ONE, and there was no "Third Annual". It's all smoke and mirrors, brother. So when a movie producer or even an actor starts talking about "the next one" before This One even comes out, please, PLEASE be aware that they're lying to your face. Not because they're mean, or bad, or even dishonest in general, but simply because that's The Job.

Cases In Point: While "Superman Returns" was still playing, Bryan Singer went around telling anyone who'd listen that The Next One was gonna be the "Empire Strikes Back" of the Superman film franchise, and would include Brainiac and (he later revealed) Doomsday. And "Superman Returns" did alright, financially, but it didn't light things up like they'd hoped, so in spite of whatever was promised, we never got that movie. NOR did we get the "Dark Knight" sequel that WB producers talked about (literally ONE DAY after Dark Knight premiered), featuring Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin. I'm sure we all saw "Dark Knight Rises", and suffice to say, the movie they originally said they were going to make (without even asking Nolan, it's important to note) did not end up anything like the movie they did make.

It's marketing, bruh. "We want you to think we have a plan, when really, we're just totally winging it." The fact is, there are too many moving parts involved in managing a film franchise over a period of years - studio management, public mood/opinion, other studios' output, etc. etc. etc. - for there to ever be any kind of "plan" in anything but the absolute vaguest sense (even the MCU guys have since admitted to booking most of it on the fly). Arnold can say whatever he wants, but he ultimately has no stake in any of what happens next. He's also, I'll remind you, the guy who says each new movie in the series is "Brilliant", until the next one comes out, and then the last one was "trash". Cameron himself does the exact same thing, every time, like clockwork. So again, these guys are all just playing the game. Enjoy their work, but don't actually take anything they say at face value. They don't even have any control over it, they're merely employees. That's like the register guy at McDonald's promising to sell you a Shamrock Shake on Christmas Eve; he can sweet-talk you all day long but he has no power to actually deliver on his promises, so don't pay them any mind.

They're not lying to you to be Bad People, they're just in the business of separating fools from their money, like any entertainer. Likewise, I don't point these things out to be mean, but rather to educate and explain.

IF this one does poorly, then we can expect another long hiatus, and possibly another rights-turnover as well. I'm not up to speed on the ins and outs of who owns what regarding the Terminator franchise, but I'm aware that the rights to the brand have changed hands several times between T2 and now... usually because the latest "trilogy starter" imploded on the launch pad. But I have no idea what the current status is; regardless, if it doesn't make a lot of money, they're not going to rush right into making another expensive sequel; they'll have some hard questions to ask themselves about what comes next.

I don't think it'll do too badly, though. I honestly expect it to do pretty well simply because Linda Hamilton is in it. I've spoken with several people who swear to me that they don't even care if the movie is bad, they just want to see Sarah Conner again. I have to believe that type of person actually adds up to a whole lot of people willing to pay to see this for just that reason, and based on that, it should do alright, whether it deserves to or not. I think their logic is flawed - "Looks kinda bad, but I like One Person in it and I haven't seen them in a while so that's worth a $40+ night out!" - and I wish people wouldn't be that way, but it's entirely their prerogative. I think her name alone will sell a lot of tickets, but we'll obviously have to wait and see if the movie does really well or Just Okay.
----------------------------

I get what they were maybe trying to do by making "John Connor" more of a symbol than a person with their early ideas for "Salvation", and assuming someone else could simply assume his "role", but I still don't like it. I even get the irony of a Skynet-created cyborg leading the Resistance that eventually destroys Skynet itself, but it still seems kind of an ass-pull. Part of what's annoying me about the new one is the whole, "So John and Sarah Connor actually aren't THAT important; they can apparently just be easily replaced, mere cogs in the Time Travel Loop story" thing. These characters ARE important and we've been told/shown that for several decades, so it feels disingenuous to just shrug and say, "Yeah, someone else gets to save the future now, deal with it." That's NOT how these things work. So while Marcus as "John Connor" would have been kind of interesting, I don't like it and I don't think most people would have accepted it either. If humanity can't even save itself from Skynet, and humans have to rely on a malfunctioning murder-bot in order to "win", then that kind of implies that they don't even deserve to. I'unno.

I agree 100% with Andrew that they should have just tossed a sack of cash at Bale and told him to tough it out. We've had so many "John Connors" already that it's a gag. Some consistency, please.
---------------------------

Side Rant: Movie ratings are bullsh*t, full-stop. Because Real Life is rated Hard R, and for that reason there shouldn't even be any ratings system at all. I've never understood why it's preferable to have movies and TV shows where people get shot but don't bleed, or get thrown out of a moving car at 75 mph and just get up and dust themselves off, or people don't swear in situations that obviously warrant it, or people have sex under a blanket. It's such f*cking nonsense. I'm not saying every single thing needs to be 100% gratuitous, with over the top gore and tits everywhere; obviously it needs to be placed in an appropriate context. But what I'm saying is, movie ratings are bullsh*t because they present a completely nonsensical facsimile of the reality that every human being deals with every day. When people get shot, they bleed, and just about every child has already heard every possible swear word by Age 5 unless their parents and everyone else they know are Mormons; most of them have even seen boobs. So it's laughable that there exists an arbitrary system of censorship which claims to "protect" younger people from things that they're already well aware of. I mean, I get it; ratings exist so that someone can't make something that looks like a Disney cartoon that's actually a softcore porno, because God forbid kids see nipples. I get why they exist in theory, but in practice they're absolute bullsh*t and they really do nothing except handcuff filmmakers and keep them from doing their best work, solely in the name of still selling sex and violence to kids so long as it's "safe" sex and violence, which is totally disingenuous and frankly, a little gross. I'm with Frank Zappa and John Denver; art doesn't need labels to "protect" people from things they see and hear every single day. It's stupid.

ANY movie that is predominantly about war needs to be not just rated R, but HARD R, or it's bullsh*t. Furthermore, I'd expect a war between human beings and a merciless AI with an army of amoral killer robots with no conscience or restraint at their disposal to be especially violent and horrifying. If you're not going to "go there" then there isn't any point to making that movie whatsoever. If all the Terminators are gonna do is stand there looking sinister, well... that's dumb, and it's a waste of some terrific potential.

....I typed that whole thing and then saw Andrew say the exact same thing in two sentences. What a pair, eh?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Wildcat: They always talk about "the next one"; they've already played that game four consecutive times, and "the next one" always ends up being a reboot.

Cases In Point: While "Superman Returns" was still playing, Bryan Singer went around telling anyone who'd listen that The Next One was gonna be the "Empire Strikes Back" of the Superman film franchise, and would include Brainiac and (he later revealed) Doomsday. And "Superman Returns" did alright, financially, but it didn't light things up like they'd hoped, so in spite of whatever was promised, we never got that movie. NOR did we get the "Dark Knight" sequel that WB producers talked about (literally ONE DAY after Dark Knight premiered), featuring Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin. I'm sure we all saw "Dark Knight Rises", and suffice to say, the movie they originally said they were going to make (without even asking Nolan, it's important to note) did not end up anything like the movie they did make.

I question some of those things "promised" about TDK, but idk. Might have been fake. But then again through the whole Batman trilogy it seemed like Nolan just continually deferring to Goyer on "what are we doing next?"

I absolutely remember about the TESB stuff about MoS 2.

It's marketing, bruh. "We want you to think we have a plan, when really, we're just totally winging it." The fact is, there are too many moving parts involved in managing a film franchise over a period of years - studio management, public mood/opinion, other studios' output, etc. etc. etc. - for there to ever be any kind of "plan" in anything but the absolute vaguest sense (even the MCU guys have since admitted to booking most of it on the fly). Arnold can say whatever he wants, but he ultimately has no stake in any of what happens next. He's also, I'll remind you, the guy who says each new movie in the series is "Brilliant", until the next one comes out, and then the last one was "trash". Cameron himself does the exact same thing, every time, like clockwork. So again, these guys are all just playing the game. Enjoy their work, but don't actually take anything they say at face value. They don't even have any control over it, they're merely employees. That's like the register guy at McDonald's promising to sell you a Shamrock Shake on Christmas Eve; he can sweet-talk you all day long but he has no power to actually deliver on his promises, so don't pay them any mind.

Cameron cares even less. This movie is like a distraction for him. He's on set with like 30 Avatar movies back to back. You want to make this movie some kind of angry statement about illegal immigrants? I'll fight you, but only a little bit. I'm good either way.

They're not lying to you to be Bad People, they're just in the business of separating fools from their money, like any entertainer. Likewise, I don't point these things out to be mean, but rather to educate and explain.

IF this one does poorly, then we can expect another long hiatus, and possibly another rights-turnover as well. I'm not up to speed on the ins and outs of who owns what regarding the Terminator franchise, but I'm aware that the rights to the brand have changed hands several times between T2 and now... usually because the latest "trilogy starter" imploded on the launch pad. But I have no idea what the current status is; regardless, if it doesn't make a lot of money, they're not going to rush right into making another expensive sequel; they'll have some hard questions to ask themselves about what comes next.

The rights issue is apparently very complicated. More complicated than I imagined. Something like... most of the rights were always going to revert to Cameron in 2019 (which is how this movie got made) but very recent changes to copyright law like within this past week or two give the power back to Gale or something somesuch? It's very strange.

I don't think it'll do too badly, though. I honestly expect it to do pretty well simply because Linda Hamilton is in it. I've spoken with several people who swear to me that they don't even care if the movie is bad, they just want to see Sarah Conner again. I have to believe that type of person actually adds up to a whole lot of people willing to pay to see this for just that reason, and based on that, it should do alright, whether it deserves to or not. I think their logic is flawed - "Looks kinda bad, but I like One Person in it and I haven't seen them in a while so that's worth a $40+ night out!" - and I wish people wouldn't be that way, but it's entirely their prerogative.

I think we'll know the box office power of Linda Hamilton in 2019 by Monday.

Honestly though, as much as I don't like much of this movie... is it weird that I don't want it to fail? Have I succumbed (finally) to battered wife syndrome? Because I know this series won't get a fourth chance, certainly not without a clean slate reboot.

I get what they were maybe trying to do by making "John Connor" more of a symbol than a person with their early ideas for "Salvation", and assuming someone else could simply assume his "role", but I still don't like it. I even get the irony of a Skynet-created cyborg leading the Resistance that eventually destroys Skynet itself, but it still seems kind of an ass-pull. Part of what's annoying me about the new one is the whole, "So John and Sarah Connor actually aren't THAT important; they can apparently just be easily replaced, mere cogs in the Time Travel Loop story" thing. These characters ARE important and we've been told/shown that for several decades, so it feels disingenuous to just shrug and say, "Yeah, someone else gets to save the future now, deal with it." That's NOT how these things work. So while Marcus as "John Connor" would have been kind of interesting, I don't like it and I don't think most people would have accepted it either. If humanity can't even save itself from Skynet, and humans have to rely on a malfunctioning murder-bot in order to "win", then that kind of implies that they don't even deserve to. I'unno.

What I got out of the movie was the filmmakers being ashamed of the whole white male savior thing and this being both the apology and the cure... not making him a symbol. I'd be surprised if he even gets a mention if a T7 gets made.

Side Rant: Movie ratings are bullsh*t, full-stop. Because Real Life is rated Hard R, and for that reason there shouldn't even be any ratings system at all. I've never understood why it's preferable to have movies and TV shows where people get shot but don't bleed, or get thrown out of a moving car at 75 mph and just get up and dust themselves off, or people don't swear in situations that obviously warrant it, or people have sex under a blanket. It's such f*cking nonsense. I'm not saying every single thing needs to be 100% gratuitous, with over the top gore and tits everywhere; obviously it needs to be placed in an appropriate context. But what I'm saying is, movie ratings are bullsh*t because they present a completely nonsensical facsimile of the reality that every human being deals with every day. When people get shot, they bleed, and just about every child has already heard every possible swear word by Age 5 unless their parents and everyone else they know are Mormons; most of them have even seen boobs. So it's laughable that there exists an arbitrary system of censorship which claims to "protect" younger people from things that they're already well aware of. I mean, I get it; ratings exist so that someone can't make something that looks like a Disney cartoon that's actually a softcore porno, because God forbid kids see nipples. I get why they exist in theory, but in practice they're absolute bullsh*t and they really do nothing except handcuff filmmakers and keep them from doing their best work, solely in the name of still selling sex and violence to kids so long as it's "safe" sex and violence, which is totally disingenuous and frankly, a little gross. I'm with Frank Zappa and John Denver; art doesn't need labels to "protect" people from things they see and hear every single day. It's stupid.

ANY movie that is predominantly about war needs to be not just rated R, but HARD R, or it's bullsh*t. Furthermore, I'd expect a war between human beings and a merciless AI with an army of amoral killer robots with no conscience or restraint at their disposal to be especially violent and horrifying. If you're not going to "go there" then there isn't any point to making that movie whatsoever. If all the Terminators are gonna do is stand there looking sinister, well... that's dumb, and it's a waste of some terrific potential.

Preaching to the choir on all of this.

Sidenote: how sad is it that the one thing that brought the extended cut of T4 from PG-13 to R on blu-ray is one shot of a screwdriver ambiguously being shoved into a chest? And with no blood?

I was mortified. Finally! Future War! Yay! McG... eh, well, he seemed hyped up at San Diego ComiCon with the T-600 next to him. And then... boom! It's gonna be PG-13.

[Wildcat]

I know Arnold has no control. He’s quoted in an interview that Cameron will write the 7th movie. Which I know that does not mean it’s 100% confirmed. I’m just saying I do believe there will another whether it’s a follow up to DF or not because there has not been a super long hiatus since T2-T3.

Sure a lot plans go unfinished and something else happens. Cameron probably wants too but he can’t guarantee it right now.

As for the rating. I agree that Salvation taking place during the war the violence could be upped but I don’t really know where there should be more blood.

The fight scenes are against robots and the human deaths are not really on-screen. Which I guess they could have been on screen but I did not feel like it was necessarily censored...just the focus was on the robots and the cast fighting their way into Skynet.

Again maybe it’s just me but once the movie gets going you just start focusing on what’s happening but ya they could have made it more violent if they wanted to.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I question some of those things "promised" about TDK, but idk. Might have been fake. But then again through the whole Batman trilogy it seemed like Nolan just continually deferring to Goyer on "what are we doing next?"

I absolutely remember about the TESB stuff about MoS 2.



Cameron cares even less. This movie is like a distraction for him. He's on set with like 30 Avatar movies back to back. You want to make this movie some kind of angry statement about illegal immigrants? I'll fight you, but only a little bit. I'm good either way.



The rights issue is apparently very complicated. More complicated than I imagined. Something like... most of the rights were always going to revert to Cameron in 2019 (which is how this movie got made) but very recent changes to copyright law like within this past week or two give the power back to Gale or something somesuch? It's very strange.



I think we'll know the box office power of Linda Hamilton in 2019 by Monday.

Honestly though, as much as I don't like much of this movie... is it weird that I don't want it to fail? Have I succumbed (finally) to battered wife syndrome? Because I know this series won't get a fourth chance, certainly not without a clean slate reboot.



What I got out of the movie was the filmmakers being ashamed of the whole white male savior thing and this being both the apology and the cure... not making him a symbol. I'd be surprised if he even gets a mention if a T7 gets made.



Preaching to the choir on all of this.

Sidenote: how sad is it that the one thing that brought the extended cut of T4 from PG-13 to R on blu-ray is one shot of a screwdriver ambiguously being shoved into a chest? And with no blood?

I was mortified. Finally! Future War! Yay! McG... eh, well, he seemed hyped up at San Diego ComiCon with the T-600 next to him. And then... boom! It's gonna be PG-13.

- Nobody "promised" anything; just coked-up Red Carpet talk by some of the producers who talked to Page Six or whoever at the Dark Knight premiere. Everyone was raving about the film while wondering aloud how anyone could top Ledger's performance in a sequel, and one of the producers made an off-the-cuff remark about Depp and Hoffman, citing who they'd play. He made it sound like it was already a done deal, and all the newspapers were talking about it for a few days, until everyone calmed down. Both guys said they'd never even talked to anyone at WB about it, and by the end of the week it all fizzled. My point remains, though: These people say lots of stuff, but it's mostly lies, and even if they're not lying, they're almost certainly drunk and/or coked up, so c'mon.

I was told on my first day "In The Biz" to believe exactly half of what I see and none of what I hear. It's genuinely terrific advice, because most people are amazingly full of sh*t!

- I think you mean "Superman Returns 2" (which ironically enough would have been called "Man of Steel" if they'd made it). And even on that, Singer went back and forth on a few things. Like at one point it was gonna be Zod, but then it was Brainiac, but then maybe both? The one constant was that Clark's son was going to get infected with some kind of alien virus and morph into Doomsday, thus leading to Superman actually having to kill his own son in the third act to save the world. Yeeesh, and people think Snyder was too into forced angst and melodrama? I used to be mad they never made a sequel to Returns, but now that I know what it was gonna be like I'm pretty glad it didn't happen.

In Bryan Singer's "defense", he's well-known to be a super-heavy abuser of crystal meth and cocaine. Not even gonna get into the other stuff about him, but yeah, it explains some of his more... "colorful" ideas.

- Christ, Cameron and his "Avatar" sequels. Jesus, who even remembers that movie? I remember blue cat-people hair-f*cking and something with Sigourney Weaver, but absolutely nothing else. For a movie that made a bazillion dollars, it left all the cultural imprint of a gentle breeze.

- I haven't seen the film, but I'd wager anything that your "White Savior" theory is dead-on. Just like Rey is better than Luke because she's female, Dani is better-equipped to save humanity than John Connor, because John Connor is a Straight White Male but Dani is an Hispanic (I think?) Female who exhibits sexual tension with her female co-stars. "Progressive!"

- I was only referring to John Connor being a "symbol" within the original planned ending for "Salvation", when the Resistance was going to have a Fake Shemp fill in for him after his death. Just to clarify. It seems pretty clear that, as far as the new storyline goes, John's usefulness is completely at an end.

- We all should've known the deal with "Salvation" when we heard "McG". To be fair, though, it's probably his best movie. Although... what does that even say?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I know Arnold has no control. He’s quoted in an interview that Cameron will write the 7th movie. Which I know that does not mean it’s 100% confirmed. I’m just saying I do believe there will another whether it’s a follow up to DF or not because there has not been a super long hiatus since T2-T3.

Sure a lot plans go unfinished and something else happens. Cameron probably wants too but he can’t guarantee it right now.

As for the rating. I agree that Salvation taking place during the war the violence could be upped but I don’t really know where there should be more blood.

The fight scenes are against robots and the human deaths are not really on-screen. Which I guess they could have been on screen but I did not feel like it was necessarily censored...just the focus was on the robots and the cast fighting their way into Skynet.

Again maybe it’s just me but once the movie gets going you just start focusing on what’s happening but ya they could have made it more violent if they wanted to.

I've been told I have a very... vivid imagination, but just off the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen ways in which a murderous robot with no remorse, conscience, or soul could gruesomely eliminate any fleshbags who crossed its path, all of which would necessitate an NC-17. And those are just the easy ones.

It's like some people who said "Brightburn" relied too heavily on its gore for "shock value". Motherf*cker, your movie posits a supposition on what would happen if a disturbed super-powered alien exercised his Heat Vision on a human face/skull, and you tease us with the possibility of seeing this actually happen; if you don't commit to that and actually "go there", then you're a gigantic dripping pussy and you don't respect your audience even a little bit.

If *I* were an evil Murder Robot from the future - and I'm not saying I'm not... - but IF I WERE, I would definitely make "popping human skulls like overripe ticks in my amazingly strong robot fist" a staple of my repertoire. Like seriously, they're nigh-indestructible alloy and super-strong, not to mention they're programmed to know exactly what hurts, what kills, and how badly; f*ck shooting guns, these things should just be casually walking around ripping human limbs off with all the effort it takes to strike a match. Cracking open ribcages like rusty fence gates. Literally snapping people in half and ripping people apart. Especially if there's millions (billions?) of the Terminators and only a scattered handful of humans making up the Resistance.

So what stops them? OH, right... that pesky Ratings Board. Darn our luck in not seeing things that would actually happen withing the context of the scenario that's been presented to us! If only there were some way around that... like not giving a sh*t about adhering to ratings, for starters.

Verisimilitude is a wonderful thing. And it's an extremely simple process: "So IF this story were real, what would actually happen? Great, now go and Do That." That should be Rule #1 for any story or film (except obviously in cases where being surreal or absurd is entirely the point of the exercise). Unfortunately, movie ratings go entirely against that sort of approach, because ratings demand compromise while art at its best is uncompromising by definition. You cannot tell your best story or do your best work while wondering if some Nanny in the office down the hall is gonna yell at you for something in it.

In theory, in the hands of a competent filmmaker and presented without any compromise whatsoever, the "Future War" of the Terminator universe would best resemble something that would make The Walking Dead look absolutely mundane. So if you can't see why that would ultimately be better for the story they're trying to sell us on and how "horrific and awful" it's supposed to be in this terrible future, or even "where they'd find room to be more violent", then brother, you simply lack imagination and vision. There is absolutely zero logic in an army of "killer robots" who spend a half-dozen movies doing nothing more menacing than occasionally throwing someone really far. Have you noticed that sh*t? WHY do these Evil Terminators always just up and toss people once they finally grab 'em? COME ON! These "Terminators" are great at the whole "stalk menacingly" part but they f*cking SUCK at actually "Terminating".

I mean, we all know why. But as I've explained, it is very, very, very, very stupid all the same.

[Wildcat]

I know. Salvation could have had some really violent scenes.

What I’m saying is leaning more so on the robots and infiltrating Skynet...I was ok with that. The battles still make sense.

Like the giant robot that attacks that hideout. Clearly those people died. They do show some of it but Marcus and Reese escape and the cycle bots go after them.

If it had been more violent I’d be ok with that too. I just did not mind how it’s portrayed.

The robots are not just standing around looking scary. They do attack accordingly even if the scenes are not brutally violent.