Terminator 4

[Phasmid]

Anyone seen it yet?

*possible spoilers*














I saw it today. I liked it... BUT...

There are a few things which really annoy me.

- First, it's set in a post-appocalyptic warzone against a heartless mechanical enemy... and yet EVERYONE has perfect teeth and all look well nourished and in general good health... despite war, famine and nuclear fallout.

- Second, the film is rated 12A... what the fudge? That seriously ruins the feel for the film as I shall explain in:

- Third, the age register means the film lacks in emotional content. For instance, humans are taken by the machines and processed in order to creat the T800. Good... sounds like it could be a heart-wrenching and emotionally powerful part of the story... but no. People are merely mildly inconvenienced by fences and nice hygenic prison cells.

As horrible as it sounds, I feel that the film should have been rated 18 for the fact that the creators could show SkyNet and the Terminators for what they really are - heartless machines, with no feeling. The development of the T800 would be more dramatic if they'd shown human suffering i.e. humans being experimented on and organs, skin etc. forcibly taken from them in order to create this infiltration unit.

This probably makes me seem sadistic. But I'm not... I would feel sick watching such a thing. But that would add so much to the film. After seeing such things, when Arnold (or his CGI likeness) appear, you'd think, "That perfect functioning machine is the culmination of countless human's suffering". It would mean something, it wouldn't just be a mere camio.

- Fourth, when John Connor does finally meet the T800 (Arnold) he quite naturally seems surprised, but then just shoots him etc. I think at they missed an opportunity to draw the audience in further at this point.

I feel they should have made the T800's entrance in slow motion, with the classic dreary, dreadfilled music of Terminator 2, and showed J. Connor (Christian Bail's) face change from emotions of almost happiness at seeing an old friend, and then suddenly to the realisation that this machine, which has played a key role in his life (of protector) is actually there to kill him, without pitty or remorse, and then begin the firing.

It's this little things that nagged me about the film. It's just pandering to the masses. Lots of special effects with little substance. It's supposed to be a post-appocalyptic warzone, full of human suffering, but with a hope in the resistance.

If you're like me, then when you watched the original Terminator and Terminator 2 (probably at a young age) you thought, "Man, what a cold hearted, unrelenting son of a *****. I sure hope he doesn't win". But in the latest movies... you don't get that. The machines aren't cold and heartless... they're big fwuffy kittens... makes me sick /rant.

Your thoughts?

 

[Quagmire]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Phasmid.

From the first two T-movies you would expect the world of the adult John Conner to be a lot more hellish than it appears to be in T-4.

In the original Terminator, Kyle (Conners father) is a walking study in advanced PTSD.

In T-4 the young Kyle looks like he's having fun most of the time.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

T4 rocked my socks.

'nuff said

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't have very high expectations. Many of the issues Phasmid has with it didn't bother me because the whole human vs machine concept is a farce anyway so I was already expecting to have to swallow major improbabilities anyway. To me, these machines act far too much like humans to be considered machines. Instead of cold and inhuman they come across as mean and vindictive. But I was just there for the action and so I was pleasantly surprised when the story was pretty good too.

 

[Storm]

I'm with Trey. All the things the OP mentioned would have been improvements, to be sure. Still, I wasn't expecting much from this one, just a summer action flick.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Yeah - who cares if they have perfect teeth?

AND I thought that Arnold's appearance was awesome!

 

[Phasmid]

I'm not saying the film was bad. I enjoyed it. I was just disappointed that it didn't recindle any of the old feelings I had for the first and second films.

One other point I forgot to mention.

In almost every film where some super strong creature (or machine in this case) hits a person in the chest, the person goes flying across the room. Something tells me that their chest would impload, or the hand would simply go straight through them.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I'm not saying the film was bad. I enjoyed it. I was just disappointed that it didn't recindle any of the old feelings I had for the first and second films.

One other point I forgot to mention.

In almost every film where some super strong creature (or machine in this case) hits a person in the chest, the person goes flying across the room. Something tells me that their chest would impload, or the hand would simply go straight through them.

Not if they are John Connor. :beach:

 

[Phasmid]

Not if they are John Connor. :beach:

Christian Bail seemed to be confused about that... half the time I swear he was playing Batman.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

Christian Bale is amazing. Don't you dare say a bad word about him.

 

[Storm]

He'll always be Cowboy to me (from Newsies). Which makes his more recent roles... surreal.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

He was amazing in the Prestige with Hugh Jackman and Michael Caine.

 

[rojse]

Watched Terminator: Salvation last night. Oh, yes, there will be spoilers.

It does have lots of nice explosions and shiny robots and the like, and some decent action sequences. I don't really see $200m worth of explosions and special effects on this film (whereas I could see $100m in special effects for T2), but it still looks quite nice for the price of a movie ticket. Would have preferred some more original and memorable set-ups, though.

Now that I have done the cursory compliment to this movie, I felt that there were a lot of problems in this movie that greatly detracted from the experience. Firstly, the main storyline has too many inconsistencies to be enjoyable. The idea of Marcus Wright made little sense - it's a good idea to have an infiltration robot, and to make him from an actual person, but this idea is completely ruined by the fact that Wright's programming does not work at all, and that the alterations made to him are so blatant and easily detected that he might as well be a robot. The reactions of varied people to Wright do not make sense either - people who are battle-hardened veterans and have had friends killed by robots are either going to kill Wright or be dissecting him to study. If a moment's examination is done, it would be obvious that Wright is not going to be able to befriend them when they think he is a robot.

Phasmid raised some good points about the problems with the world itself, and I agree with him. It's a world run by robots, which are doing their damnedest to eradicate humans. I expect blood and violence, and I expect this to be done in the most explicit manner possible. I expect the Skynet work camps to be places where people either do serious hard labour or provide biological resources for furthering Skynet's aims. Moving the plotline of The Terminator franchise to the apocalypse was a good idea, but they failed to capitalise on this. It fails to match the apocalypse scenes in T1 or T2, where life is snuffed out with little fanfare.

Overall, dissapointing. It's better than T3, certainly (that's damning the movie with faint praise), but definitely not as good as the first two in the series.

 

[3.14]

In almost every film where some super strong creature (or machine in this case) hits a person in the chest, the person goes flying across the room. Something tells me that their chest would impload, or the hand would simply go straight through them.

depends on the pressure and the spread ( a punch would create a hole but a flat hand would push and just damage the ribs and internal organs)


ps i give the movie 3 of the possible 5

 

[rojse]

depends on the pressure and the spread ( a punch would create a hole but a flat hand would push and just damage the ribs and internal organs)


ps i give the movie 3 of the possible 5

I'd give the movie a 3, maybe a 3.5. Out of 10.