Over thinking much..?

Suddenly the “why doesn’t he just turns into a bomb that blows everyone up” line from T2 makes me feel that the lack of sense has always been with this series.

Well, you said this was pre-time travel Skynet, right? Maybe some of these things, like the voice changing, came in later Terminator models. Or did they call them out by name early on?

Good points really hehe :)

I think one of my main issues with the terminator series is the way the time travel aspect isn’t exactly consistent. In Terminator we have the machines making a rather desperate move sending a machine back to assassinate Sarah Connor, which John then moves to counter by sending one of his trusted men back (Kyle Reese). It kind of supports the predestination paradox of time travel, as the desperate attempt by skynet is actually the reason John Connor came to be.

After that Terminator 2 seemed to shift more to the grandfather paradox side of things, with consistency actually being thrown off somewhat in the timeline with how they were trying to avert judgement day, and were shown to have managed it to an extent.

I kind of prefer the predestination paradox in that if time travel were possible we would not have any impact on the time line. Well, I guess there would be an impact, but that impact would have already happened and we would simply be unknowingly keeping everything consistent.

I guess that with the future already being known all the events leading up to it would have no real tension to them, and likely not make things as riveting for a viewer. But it would certainly stop me going around in circles trying to understand what they were going for with the time travel in this series. However I think the problem is that there isn’t truly any consistency so trying to understand it is likely an impossible task.

Hmm… yes I can agree with those. Did anyone notice that red mark on whats-her-name’s forehead?

It seems like the fact that the timeline got screwed up is an excuse for taking all the original events and TOTALLY mixing them all up. Like they wrote them down on slips of paper and threw them into a hat to draw.

While I loved the movie and have loved the Terminator Mythos since I was a child, my biggest issues is that Skynet is a cold calculating machine. It’s supposed to be driven by logic and plausability with it’s plans. Time travel and changing a timeline is the LEAST plausible and logical action for anyone, especially a highly tuned machine, to take. I don’t even know that a totally logic based machine machine would consider time travel as a possible solution even if the technology were possible. Seems that it would make more sense to a machine that the past is unalterable regardless of what technology exists and that any attempt to change the timeline would result in A) Nothing or B) Catastrophic events that could wipe out existance.
We accept the Terminator Mythos because we are people who act on a combination of logic and emotion, but, even in T2, while the T-800 learns about humans,understands them, and makes it’s noble sacrifice, it never developes an emotional or illogical response.
The point is, even in the face of absolute eradication, self-aware or not, Skynet would be more likely to accept it’s destruction as the result of the exhaustion of all options rather than ever considering changing the past in the first place! I guess the only possible explaination for a machine acting this way is that there is a human illteligence somehow behind what Skynet is upto, which may yet be revealed in the next two movies. *shrug*

After reading all of this it seems like Deadpool from X-men Origins: Wolverine was more of a Terminator than the Terminators in this movie.

Rebutting some of these (more spoilers):

“Skynet is guarded by exactly one terminator without a gun.”

Remember, Skynet was trying to let Marcus and John in.

“Despite the fact that it is demonstrated that terminators can be created to exactly replicate the appearance and voice of people they’ve captured to infiltrate or lure the Resistance into traps, Skynet chooses to keep Kyle Reese alive to lure John Connor into a trap.”

The Terminators can’t really imitate anybody yet. Remember, at this point, Marcus and the T-800 are prototypes.

“Seriously, what possible reason could Skynet have for keeping Reese alive? Killing him ensures that John is never conceived. Even if you’re willing to argue the grandfather paradox here, you have to admit, it couldn’t fucking hurt.”

Reese was kept alive specifically to lure John into the base. Apparently, Skynet wanted to avoid the Grandfather Paradox and kill Connor both now and in the past in one fell swoop.

“Apparently, you can jump into the ocean from a helicopter and just swim down and enter a nuclear submarine without any kind of diving gear.”

It’s an action flick. Superhuman stunts are the order of the day.

“The resistance has the talent and technology to perform a heart transplant.”

Yeah, this one kinda bugged me too.

“The enormous ten-story tall Harvester robots are capable of astounding feats of ambush. They’re big, but they can walk on tippy-toes.”

Just because they’re big, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re noisy.

“They also moo.”

???

“Blair is willing to betray her entire race and everyone who was willing to fight and die with her for a robot she’s known for less than two days and is unquestionably some kind of trap created by Skynet.”

Sometimes, people do stupid things out of emotion.

“Terminators have highly-unstable nuclear power cells which would be much more effective as weapons against the Resistance than robots with guns.”

This kind of bugged me too.

“These power cells apparently weren’t in the terminators destroyed in the first two movies.”

Well, they never really get blown up in the first two movies. The first one is crushed, and the second is melted into slag. It’s entirely possible the power cores survived.

“John Connor is immune to radiation, because he’s usually within a few hundred yards of these nuclear explosions when they occur.”

Yeah, that was pretty dumb too. But hey, if Indiana Jones can survive a nuclear bomb hiding in a fridge (again, with no sign of radiation poisoning), why not?

“Skynet has no idea where the Resistance is, even though there’s a lake full of amphibious snake terminators in the lake two hundred yards outside their main base. Nor do these aquatic robots aid Skynet in any way to find the nuclear submarine serving as the Resistance HQ. In the ocean. The watery place you’d want your swimming robots to be.”

Well, it knows where the Resistance is now… because Marcus was a mole and all. As for the sub, the ocean’s a big place.

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to simply stuff Marcus full of explosives and program him to explode when he encounters John?”

Even if Skynet had done so, it wouldn’t have gone off. The Resistance had him unconscious and stripped to the bone. They would have found any explosives.

“John is a war hero among the Resistance for teaching them how to fight the machines and exposing all of their weaknesses like, uh, shooting them a lot and running away.”

Yeah, I know, big fucking weaknesses, right?

The sad part is, most of these are points that I picked up while actually watching the movie for the first time. It’s one thing to look back after the fact and pick a movie apart, but when there are so many holes in plot and logic such that you’re picking them up even while following the story, it’s usually a bad sign.

Oh, I got one. When Marcus and Spunky Euroasian are escaping from the resistance base, why is the resistance shooting at them and lobbing explosives. It just seems like a big waste of ammo when you have a ROBOT-TURNING-OFF FREQUENCY!

Maybe they want to intimidate the robots^^

Ok, I agree on the whole “earlier T-models”-thing, so the robots can’t really imitate the humans 100% yet… but Skynet and the robots acting so totally out-of-character bothered me too…
Remember that scene with the old lady called Sarah Connor in T1? Remember how Arnold just mercilessly….pushed her, explained his evil plan and took her as a prisoner? Yea, great scene wasnt it?
The single awesome thing about T1, 2 and yes, even 3 was that those machines weren’t EFFING FOOLING AROUND!

Hmm, and well maybe John Connor being able to survive radiation is what makes him the JEBUS of the rebellion!

I hate what current movie industry is doing. They are ruining every good thing they did in the past.
Spoony , maybe you could give a review about how to destroy good movies by remaking them.
But even if you do so, will anyone listen to you and stop doing it??? I guess not.

I think the film studio just knows their audience. If a movie is bad and the fans of the ambitious original complains they “aren’t watching it the right way” or “are nitpicking”.

“John Connor is immune to radiation, because he’s usually within a few hundred yards of these nuclear explosions when they occur.”

Yeah, that was pretty dumb too. But hey, if Indiana Jones can survive a nuclear bomb hiding in a fridge (again, with no sign of radiation poisoning), why not? —-

Oh dear, if you’re using Indy4 logic/plotlines (or lack thereof) to justify events in T4 it gives me no hope whatsoever for T4.

What bugs me on these issues is that it’s actually not that hard to come up with a basic plot and storyline that would make sense inside the basic Terminator setting. I’m not talking about the merits of good dialogue, or acting, or effects, just the basic plot. I honestly think any half cogent fan could do it without making the kind of outright errors that seem to be the case with this movie (I’ve not seen it yet I hasten to add). Why on Earth do Hollywood allow very expensive fanchise movies to get released without first weeding out these kind of clear errors?

I’ve wanted to watch a Terminator Future War movie since before T2 came out, what a shame they have clearly fucked it up. The plot sounds ludicrous, and based upon deep mistakes (SKYNET knowing Reese is John’s father, and also knowing John is the Saviour of Mankind, for two). Unless of course the TX told SKYNET about Connor in T3, in which case that needed to be made clear, otherwise SKYNET knowing the future makes no sense at all. I suspect this is just ignorant writers not understanding the setting as well as fans – which is bloody terrible.

Re – why the Terminators in the original 2 movies didn’t just pack themselves with explosives and blow up when they were close to Connor. Well, imo, that isn’t actually a sure fire way of getting a kill, the Terminator might have blown itself up and not killed Connor, and then of course having blown itself up would get no second shot. If I were SKYNET I would have relied on the sheer lethality of the Terminators rather than turned them into one shot ‘all or nothing’ walking IEDs.

Sounds like Marcus could have just shot Connor (and Reese) to me? I’m due to see the movie end of the week, so I guess I’ll decide then, but I dislike even the principle of SKYNET knowing about Reese and Connor, and setting a trap for them. It just sounds hokey. I’d much rather SKYNET had been kept unknowable and distant (kinda like a Machine Sauron).

“These power cells apparently weren’t in the terminators destroyed in the first two movies.”

The first two terminators were NOT nuclear powered. The T-850′s, however, were. Regardless, either the movie fucked up, or they were trying to show that the altered future were progressing MUCH faster and effiecently when it comes to lifespan.

Maybe I’m slow, but I never really saw any evidence for Skynet wanting to keep Reese alive. That one terminator shooting at them certainly didn’t seem to try and keep him alive. Then in the scene where he’s picked up out of the line, I figured he was caught trying to hide that steel rod.

Now, what I don’t get is how did Cyberdyne manage to make Marcus into a robot when all of the prototype stuff was destroyed in T2?

What if Skynet just have to advanced logic for us humans to comprehend? That all of it’s plan are genius but we’re to thick to understand it… probably not.
Damn you stupid-robot-logic-science!

“Now, what I don’t get is how did Cyberdyne manage to make Marcus into a robot when all of the prototype stuff was destroyed in T2?”

Do you really think they didn’t have an off-site backup?

@Madz The T800 he fights at the end does use a voice changer to trick Conner.

Sponny I again agree with you 100%. From the robotic screaching eels to the ginormous super sized silent robots, to the stupidity of skynet’s so called plan. Just fucking kill Kyle and get it done with. You know Conner is going to show up, just having him there is insurance enough that he’s going to come for him. There’s no need to keep him alive. FUCKING DO IT ALREADY. However it does raise the question of how does skynet know any of this? Do they have a crystal ball to see into the future? Neither one have really done much in their present to warrent Skynet needing to assassinate them yet. I just don’t get it.

I think skynet has windows on it to ,do so monumentally stupid things.

I think skynet has windows on it to ,do so monumentally stupid things.

There are a LOT of points here that can be refuted, Spoony. (But i just want to preface this by saying i’m a long-time fan… i’ve watched most of your vids).

I don’t really have time to get into everything, but one thing that is easily explained away is the “issue” of Skynet knowing about previous iterations of the future. Do any of you remember in T3 when the female terminator hacked several of the terminators at the Cyberdyne base to kill John Conner? This is done off-screen, but is it really so much of a stretch to think that information wasn’t somehow uploaded to Skynet’s central network as well?

See, just small things like that can do away with much of your nitpicking… which is what it really is when all is said and done. Why aren’t the terminators more efficient killing machines? Because in the previous movies SINGLE terminators were able to kill everyone who wasn’t another terminator. Now imagine if all the terminators in the future were that efficient. Do you really think the resistance would have any hope of winning? Humans would’ve been eradicated within the first year of Skynet’s creation, there wouldn’t even be time to organize a resistance! It’s a movie, you have to suspend your disbelief or you won’t be able to enjoy it.

If you don’t pop culture in the face, nobody else will.

Thanks for calling out this movie. You saved me $20.

There was talk about them making a Robocop VS Terminator movie years ago I wonder what happened to it?

That’s the only terminator movie I would want to see in the future.

Plus I haven’t been more bored with WAR in my life. Constant saturation in the News, Games and Movies hence why I probably won’t go to see his movie.

And I hate it when they have open ended lame ass ending to continue the possibility of more films in the future of the franchise like they did with the Matrix Revolutions and T3 which resolves nothing and makes the movie pretty pointless.

please, just stop.
stop trying to invent stupid reasons why something works just because you dislike spoony ranting on something.
for example the post of SorCa was the most stupid thing i have read all day. If you want to counter logic by more logic then you end on the point that its a movie and not real. duh.
If you cant admit that the producers fucked around and did a bad job you should not try to counter a rant at all. If the resistance has no chance of surviving a war THEN THEY DONT. which means the first film is a bag of shit already. If i read here in a response that a nuclear reactor will not blow up when it is crushed but it will blow up when its shot at, i just congratulate you for managing to type the message.

Maybe we will see star trek vs. terminator crossover next. Time travel that these these two franchise has, creates somekind of twisted timeline with them. At the end of movie Galactus finaly apears and destroy this fucking nonsense. silver surfer can’t save the day because he is in other shitty movie.

Afterall terminator 3/ salvation didn’t ever happen.

Quote —- I don’t really have time to get into everything, but one thing that is easily explained away is the “issue” of Skynet knowing about previous iterations of the future. Do any of you remember in T3 when the female terminator hacked several of the terminators at the Cyberdyne base to kill John Conner? This is done off-screen, but is it really so much of a stretch to think that information wasn’t somehow uploaded to Skynet’s central network as well?

See, just small things like that can do away with much of your nitpicking…~~~~~~

IF that’s the reason SKYNET knows about Reese and Connor … then imo it should have been spelt out on screen, or at least hinted at.

If it’s true it also raises the question as to why SKYNET has waited so long (it’s been what; 15 years since Judgment Day?) before taking action against Reese and Connor.

I just got back from seeing it, and I can refute a lot of these.

>>Despite the fact that it is demonstrated that terminators can be created to exactly replicate the appearance and voice of people they’ve captured to infiltrate or lure the Resistance into traps, Skynet chooses to keep Kyle Reese alive to lure John Connor into a trap.

Yeah. Why kill one and rely on a paradox (risking destroying everything) when you can just kill what will hurt you in the future?

>>The enormous ten-story tall Harvester robots are capable of astounding feats of ambush. They’re big, but they can walk on tippy-toes.

They’re deployed from HKs. It’s not like they have to move far.

>>Skynet has no idea where the Resistance is, even though there’s a lake full of amphibious snake terminators in the lake two hundred yards outside their main base. Nor do these aquatic robots aid Skynet in any way to find the nuclear submarine serving as the Resistance HQ. In the ocean. The watery place you’d want your swimming robots to be.

Oceanic pressure. ‘Nuff said. Also, they had the signal for this. Why go on a wild goose chase when you can lead them right to you?

>>Wouldn’t it have been simpler to simply stuff Marcus full of explosives and program him to explode when he encounters John?

Kinda defeats the purpose of an infiltrator, doesn’t it? Why go for a random chance of killing your target with no second chances when you can create fear and doubt on the inside? Skynet may be a machine, but it’s not stupid. If you can get someone in to kill a target, and get them back out intact, that’s a more favorable scenario.

>>John is a war hero among the Resistance for teaching them how to fight the machines and exposing all of their weaknesses like, uh, shooting them a lot and running away.

“There’s a chip at the base of the skull! A knife there will disorient it!” And this actually does get used.

>>Skynet is guarded by exactly one terminator without a gun.

This was a trap. Did you even pay attention to the end of the movie? Skynet wanted the resistance to get inside and use the “off switch” signal. It was fake.

>>Terminators have highly-unstable nuclear power cells which would be much more effective as weapons against the Resistance than robots with guns.

Which is more beneficial to Skynet? One shot that can cause total obliteration to an area, thus robbing it of any resources in the area, or powering something that can kill the enemy with a little more precision, saving whatever scarce resources are left.

I know I’m overthinking this, but simple logic is all that’s required. Well, simple logic and a little bit of attention to detail. Oh, and before any of you guys decide that I’m just ruthlessly attacking Spoony, I’m a fan. I’ve watched and read his material for a couple of years now.

My own personal complaint about this movie: It’s not the future we were fucking promised! Where’s the valleys full of the dead? The tank HKs? The never-ending darkness? WHERE WERE THE PLASMA WEAPONS?!

“Maybe we will see star trek vs. terminator crossover next.”

Perhaps with the same cast as in the latest Star Trek and Terminator movie. Now imagine Reese meeting Chekov…

@Doktor Sleepless
“Oceanic pressure. ‘Nuff said.”
You know, it is so much more easier to make a machine to stand the pressure of high depths than to make a submarine that can support people inside of it, not really an issue. Also, they could use sonars like modern navy equipment uses.

Quoting Neobara
“Why aren’t the terminators more efficient killing machines? Because in the previous movies SINGLE terminators were able to kill everyone who wasn’t another terminator. Now imagine if all the terminators in the future were that efficient. Do you really think the resistance would have any hope of winning? Humans would’ve been eradicated within the first year of Skynet’s creation, there wouldn’t even be time to organize a resistance!”

“Do you really think the resistance would have any hope of winning?”
YES, because of Connor. That’s the whole point. The Terminator in the future ARE as deadly as the ones that were sent to the past, BUT CONNOR SAVES THE DAY. That’s the whole point of the entire franchise.

With the Terminators being so deadly there’s no way humankind could resist, BUT CONNOR knows a way. That’s why he’s the key to mankind’s survival.

“See, just small things like that can do away with much of your nitpicking…”
No, they don’t. You just missed the point.
First you SUPPOSE the TX informed Skynet of events from the future, and then you SUPPOSE AGAIN that the Terminators in the future are weaker than the ones sent to the past, which makes no sense(and even less sense if the TX gave information to Skynet).

I’m mostly in agreemnt with post 31 Doktor sleepless: a couple things though.

We were shown laser guns (maybey they were plasma) never-ending darkness (which to be fair it was dark at skynet), and time travel. Even if you accept that time-traveling negates any certainty of anything, it doesn’t exuse the producers from skimping out on it. Gatling guns while neat, are not lasers.

On the same token while being precise to that extreme is necessary when time traveling, that level of precisness wouldn’t be neseccary in the present. They can blow everything and anything they want and not threaten their existence, or the space/time continum. Same applies to humanity. As it is this is a lousy stand-alone movie story wise.

On the positive side at least most of you can say its better than T3.

“Apparently, you can jump into the ocean from a helicopter and just swim down and enter a nuclear submarine without any kind of diving gear.”

Batman, I mean, John Conner does demand he be met by a full diving team before he jumps into the water.

“These power cells apparently weren’t in the terminators destroyed in the first two movies.”

It could be argued when Judgment Day was delayed by the events of T2, the SkyNet of the new timeline developed the Terminators slightly differently including putting these highly explosive fuel cells in them.

“John is a war hero among the Resistance for teaching them how to fight the machines and exposing all of their weaknesses like, uh, shooting them a lot and running away.”

I think he’s suppose to have also started the resistance by breaking out the first people from the work camps, but was somehow passed over for leadership of the Resistance as a whole and completely unmentioned in Salvation. Maybe John Conner isn’t suppose to become the war hero until later when he actually does something heroic or not stupid like what happened in Salvation, BUT because Kyle Reese went back in time and taught Sarah Conner about the machines and she taught John so he when the machines did start attacking he wasn’t at all shocked and looked confident so all the other resistance fighters took that as leadership.

Umm I thought I add this about everyone complaining about the lack of laser and skulls. Kyle Reese’s flashbacks are to 11 years ahead of when Salvation takes place. Therefore we’ve got 11 years for SkyNet to develop lasers and layer the ground with skulls.

Newt: What about the mounds of skulls from the people who died when the NUCLEAR BOMBS WENT OFF? It’s not like Skynet decided to redecorate later on!

I’m going stick with SkyNet decides to redecorate, but I think the skulls never belonged in the first place you can show apocalypse without showing death barren destroyed cities are all the imagery I need. And if you really don’t accept that, then let’s pretend the skulls are laying the ground of some area of Earth we haven’t seen yet, maybe NYC or something.

@Doktor Sleepless

Newt: In that case you’re asking me to pretend Kyle Reeses’ flashbacks/forwards were just plain wrong.

Giant robots that moo? That sounds vaguely familiar…

(First off sorry for the double post)

@Doktor Sleepless:
>>>>”Despite the fact … John Connor into a trap.”

>>Yeah. Why kill one and rely on a paradox (risking destroying everything) when you can just kill what will hurt you in the future?

I think what Spoony meant was that he could kill him and use a copy to lure John Connor. So this makes it a valid complaint.

>>>>”Skynet is guarded …without a gun.”

>>This was a trap. Did you even pay attention to the end of the movie? Skynet wanted the resistance to get inside and use the “off switch” signal. It was fake.

Here Spoony probably meant he thought the trap was pretty shitty if there is no giant death trap waiting for John Connor except for a terminator without a gun.

The rest I can understand what you are getting at I just thought you missed the point on these two.

Maybe Reese just embellished the truth about what the future was like. A darkned wasteland with skulls litering the ground all over the place. Listen lady, I’ve had it really rough…I’ve never felt the touch of a woman, now give me some nookie.

hehe, you made me remember that I always think about how the heck, does Indy gets into and hides aboard that Nazi u-boot. He just swims to it and then they just cut to the island. :)

As far as I’m concerned, T3/Salvation never happened. The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the true cannon.

I usually agree with a lot of Spoony’s comments on other films, but I think he’s just plain wrong here. Having rewatched the previous movies before this one I found that a lot of what he complained about is stuff you see in the previous terminator movies. Is it really that hard to admit it was a good addition to the series? (Except T3 which shouldn’t count)

Just a comment on Spoony’s observations of John Connor’s character not being so great, and feel free to comment on my theory I’d love to know if it’s a pop opinion or not. Basically everything we know about John Connor we get from Reese, who as we’ve seen in Salvation was just a kid when he met him. So what I think is that maybe John Conner is actually a very inconsequential figure made into this deity by a little kid who looked up to Connor and made him into something he’s not. And since Reese, wrongfully, sees John as some kind of saviour, so does everyone else when he goes back in time and, paradoxically, creates the myth that John is the hero of man instead of a simple soldier. So in this new altered timeline because of Reese’s interference with the past, everyone, including skynet, is dooped into thinking John is important to the war when he’s really just a man idolized by a scared little kid growing up in a fucked up world without a dad.

the movie was crap. How can skynet know that Kyle Reese is important IT WOULDNT. And if it knew why not kill him when Marcus first met Reese. Kill Reese and Conner is also dead. It doenst make sense. AAAAH damn you writers of catwoman!
If they didnt have the Marcus character and just focus on Conner and Reese this would have been a OK movie.

PS. spoonys review was dead on, as Always.

“The enormous ten-story tall Harvester robots are capable of astounding feats of ambush. They’re big, but they can walk on tippy-toes.

They also moo.”

Terminator: Salvation has Metal Gear GECKOs?!

In the first two movies, John Connor was the resistance. He was such a threat that a Terminator was sent back in time to kill his mother, and then to kill him as a child.

Why the Terminator didn’t go back further and try to kill his grandma before conception, I don’t know…

But Sarah Conner turns into this ultimate badass fighter in Terminator 2, and you can easily see where John learned how to fight. He’s been preparing for it for his entire life. He’s a hacker and knows how to put Terminators down.

In number 3, he becomes a COMPLETE panzy, and it’s revealed that the ONLY reason he was ever made “leader of the resistance” is because he was sent to a VIP fallout shelter, for presidents and leaders. It was put forth that his “leader of the resistance and last best hope for mankind” attributes were PURE accident and coicidence.

Which basically flies in the face of everything he’s been through in the first few movies. It flies in the face of all his training and experience.

Yeah, sure, “the future isn’t certain”, but that training doesn’t just disappear overnight. And not within less than 10 years.

And at the end of T3, it’s revealed that Judgement Day could have NEVER been stopped because Skynet is in EVERY computer on the planet. It has no central location. It’s everywhere, it’s in the internet, and connections, every computer on the planet.

It’s also revealed that Arnold killed him before being reprogrammed and sent back to the past… to protect him… Which… made no sense to do in the first place, especially since the machines succeeded and killed him in THEIR present day.

Since the induction of Terminator 3, John Connor has become a complete idiot and total tool. Why would they do that? He WAS the savior of mankind. He taught the survivors how to fight and even how to win.

But now, he’s a jerkwad with too much time on his hands and not enough training going on.

“Since the induction of Terminator 3, John Connor has become a complete idiot and total tool. Why would they do that? ”

Well, they probably had to ‘reset’ him so they could spin another 3 movies out of the franchise.

‘Since the induction of Terminator 3, John Connor has become a complete idiot and total tool. Why would they do that? He WAS the savior of mankind. He taught the survivors how to fight and even how to win.’

dude the answer is simple James Cameron didn’t write T3 and T4 therefore the movies sucked. It was written by lesser writers who thought that by seeing the first 2 they could write a terminator script.

@Tai MT- Yeah, it would be interesting if they went back further in time. Seeing the Terminators go back to the wild west and try and kill his great grandfather or something. But I think it would all turn out to be a BACK TO THE FUTURE kind of thing.
There more and more I think about it would it really matter if you killed Kyle? I mean John would had to of had a different father before Kyle got sent back in time and beat the other guy to knocking his mom up. If Kyle dies he could always send someone else. That person could succeed in stopping the Terminator as well. The only difference might be what John looks like. Hell, if we keep this up and keep creating alternate time lines we might also have one where John is a Jane instead.

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.

lol, they are worth looking into though.

That robot was pretty much the worst visual gaffe Ive seen in a while. At least in Jurassic Park the appearance of the T rex at the end is at least credible enough not to warrant a person to step out of the film wondering where the hell it came from. Spielberg shows that you can pull this stunt off succesfuly, McG just seemed to not care which is indicative of why there are so many things wrong with the whole film

Nice Terminator:Salvation review, Spoony, as usual. I wasn’t planning on going to see it, unless my brother-in-law dragged me along, and now I’m definitely not going to see it under any circumstances after reading several reviews. If James Cameron can’t direct any more Terminator movies, they should look up this guy- http://www.goingfaster.com/term2029/. He has a great Terminator fiction site, IMHO.

As for your comment on Skynet’s concentration camps, it would be logical for Skynet to use humans as a source of menial labor – T1 explained this well enough – and as a biological source for testing bio/chem weapons and for exploring human anatomy. Alas, from your review, it seems that in Terminator:Salvation, the camp was only for the convoluted Trojan Horse scheme (and for inappropriate Holocaust imagery).

Anyway, all the best to you Noah and good luck with all your projects!

If I took the time to look at all the time paradoxes in the Back to the future movies, I wouldn’t have enjoyed them half as much as I do now, even the third one with the ending so off the wall it will take you some serious thinking and logic (or throw out your logic entirely) to explain. Much like what everyone is doing here.

Tai had even said himself, why couldn’t skynet just send back a terminator even further and destroy the connor family history entirely, especially if it has any and all information stored in every computer ever made.

I just think people are reading WAAAY to into this. It’s almost impossible to make complete sense out of any story that involves time travel unless you have a scapegoat, such as believing the “Multiple Universe” theory, or “Multiverse” theory, or you just make the connections. The ONLY piece of entertainment that has so far made the best sense out of its time travel story has been the Show “Lost,” and even then, it gets pretty damn confusing or even at times impossible to explain.

With that said, I enjoyed the 4th terminator movie. Pretty much the only thing it didn’t have going for it was a story that actually made good sense, but then again, even T2 was stretching it thin. Everything from presentation, acting, directing, were all amazing.

If you HAVE to place blame on anyone for this 4th movie, blame the writers solely. I would admit they could have done a better job. But considering all the negative criticism I heard about Terminator Salvation before I saw it, I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it, including the ending, as predictable as it was.

However, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they rewrite the story for the next one, because I really don’t like it at all.

I just pretend everything after Terminator 2 didn’t happen.

PS. The show is better than this movie still, IMO. Hopefully Fox will renew it for a 3rd season and actually put it on at a decent time slot. Friday at 8PM Eastern was basically a suicide timeslot and they STILL got ratings for it, yet it still suffered.

To answer a few questions, and raise some issues, the reason why skynet was taking prisoners into camps and forcing them to help build more machines is nothing more than the fact that kyle explained this to sarah in the parking lot of the 1st movie, so in essence the creators of this film are trying not to contradict themselves.
Secondly the reason why the arnold terminators were much stronger than others was because it was a newer model, another thing explained by kyle in the 1st movie. the model before were series 6 and had rubber skin which were spotted easily so the arnold model were created to provide a much more sufficent disguise but looking at this movie its now seems contradicted by the inclusion of marcus so I think its a mistake made by the creators.
A few issues I have with this from the trailers ive seen is 1. why is the sky not messed up as it appeared to be from the flashbacks which kyle experienced? It seemed permanently dark and ruined wereas this movie seems to lose that point completely.
2. I may be wrong on this but it seems this film is basically directally after the 3rd T film which if it is why the hell is kyle reese there. He explained that he wasnt born till much later from judgement day, plus in the 1st movie he stated that he was put to work in a camp and showed his arm which had a barcode tattoo.
Another question I have is do the resistance have those laser guns that kyles flashbacks showed in the 1st movie if not why?
I think I have the reason why john wasnt killed in this movie. In the 3rd T film the terminator protecting john explains that he infact assinates john which is why his wife takes leadership position, with that being the case why wasnt marcus played by arnold so that this event could happen?

I don’t believe John Conner needed to have Kyle Reese as his father. All that is needed is for there to be a father and for Sarah Conner to know about the Terminators to ensure she trains her son.

Although it is worth mentioning that since they went with the logic that Skynet was inevitable then it should also be logical that Skynet’s fall would be inevitable as well.

After seeing this movie, I kinda of have to agree with Spoony that T3 made more sense than Salvation. After Skynet explained it’s evil plan to Marcus, why didn’t Skynet just immediatly activate Marcus’s chip and take control of him instead of letting him peel the skin off the back of his head and removing the chip? If the machines are that stupid, it makes me wonder how they put up such a fight for the resistance. The Terminators fall for the simplest traps and they walk so slow. I can’t believe that you can have them stand in place and then just drop a ton of metal on top of them. Also, apparently clothslines appear effective. Are the machines using Microsoft? Why are they that stupid? Also, why don’t any of the Terminators run and give chase. Some of them do, while others just walk after you. Also, apparently some will go down in a few hits while others like the Arnold Terminator can take a ton of damage. What really struck me as weird is when the Terminator has to scan for a vulnerability while fighting Marcus? Shouldn’t it have knowledge programmed into it by Skynet about Marcus’s vulnerabilities? Also, when the Terminator punches Marcus in the heart and is apparently terminated, how can Marcus by suddenly be brought back to life by shocking him if he has internal damage? In fact, how can Marcus’s heart be used as a transplant for Connor if it got damaged? The movie didn’t make sense at all.

I was watching this movie an hour ago but i fell asleep. >.> that hasnt happend since i was a little kid

It’s not so much that the resistance can do a heart transplant that bothers me. Sure, maybe supplies are scarce, but hey, maybe they do have the required equipment. I’ll grant them that. What I want to know is, how do you perform open-heart surgery in the middle of the friggin’ desert!?! I mean, they don’t even have a closed off tent! It’s open air! What if a light breeze passes through and blows sand in Connor’s chest cavity? Ugh…..

John blows up something to attract a HK so they can test out the signal they got. Other humans also hide from the machines so they don’t get spotted (the underground resistance base, for one). So WHY, when chasing Marcus, does the Resistance go ahead and firebomb and entire stretch of forest and wage a war against one fleeing unarmed robot? Wouldn’t that just attract more machines to their base? Wouldn’t they want to kill him in a more subtle fashion so as not to risk HK’s seeing (whatever) the heat signatures and gunfire and explosions and swooping in to bomb the shit out of the place?

SpitefulCrow: The area they blew up a car to attract the HK was a piece of land that was heavily patrolled (as it was in traffic zones for skynet). They say that in the movie. The human base is far down where skynet doesn’t much venture.

90% Of the complaints people have against this movie have answers that were said in the movie, and manage to make sense. I’m beggining to think no one paid attention (though maybe that could be a fault of the movie.. I dunno, I did fine)

There was some dumb things, most of which I attribute to them changing the ending. Had they not, movie would have been flawless.

Oh, and it managed to make the convulted time travel plotline actually make sense (indirectly, if you consider it for a while), which is a miracle.

Anyway, I don’t get why people are complaining about the things in this movie, yet no one cared about the billions, BILLIONS of MASSIVE plot holes in Star Trek, yet everyone says that movie was well done.

Well done my ass, that movie was done terribly, in every conceivable way.

People are just stupid now I guess and are entertained by shit. I’m not calling Terminator 4 brilliance here (maybe if it went with the original ending), but it wasn’t full of plot holes as people seem to think.

TL:DR; T4′s plotholes are mostly user error, Star Trek was terrible, RIP the days of Babylon 5

Maybe I dont know much about how radios and radio signals work, but how in the hell do radio signals still broadcast music when all of humanity had the crap bombed out of it? I really hate that they put the fuel cells in this movie too. I think its implied (and theorized about on the terminator wiki) that the arnold terminator in T3 was a T-850 instead of a T-800, and for some reason the T-850 was built with a nuclear power source thing. But of course this movie messes that up by making it so all T-800s have it apparently.

We need new material. No more old franchise.

@ Salsa

I didn’t SUPPOSE the terminators in the future are weaker than those in the past. You misread what i typed. I’m saying from a purely story-based perspective there’s no way the writers could make the terminators in the future as efficiently lethal as the ones sent into the past. There’s no way humans would have been able to survive long enough if their adversaries were that efficient at killing, even WITH someone who had knowledge of the future (you see how much that helped Connor in T2 and T3 take down 1 terminator… IT DIDN’T). Who knows, though, the terminators before the T800 might just not be as durable or strong as the ones sent back into the past. Look at the Arnold Schwarzinager (SP?) bot at the end. It endured a fuckload more than the generic T700/600′s or whatever shown earlier in the film. But i don’t know, that’s just a guess.

And yes, i’m assuming that the T3 did inform Skynet of John Connor’s threat, but you’re just assuming that such an act DIDN’T occur as well. At least i’m trying to fill in a temporal gap of time between two on-screen events and not just throwing my hands up into the air and claiming “zOMG PLOTHOLE!”.

I saw a few questions on here talking about what if Connor didnt do anything at all in reality. (That maybe Reese gave John more credit or that John was only the leader by luck and not skill)

In the start of Terminator 3 (if I remember correctly) there is a scene that shows John Connor (an old one too) with a torn up American Flag behind him and the resistance cheering around him with the narrator commenting that John had led them to victory, that they won the war. So John did contribute major gains in the future war.

Which after seeing that scene makes me wonder why John was such an idiotic whinny baby in the 3rd movie. (Its like, how did whines a lot Anakin Skywalker becomes kills the men under his command for apologizing Darth Vadar)

You know what would have being cool? To have the original ending where Marcus kills John Connor and since Skynet gives it his face, Skynet sends the disguised Marcus inside the rebel bases to digg out any remaining humans. But in the way there, or once there, Marcus gets hit or damaged in some way, which screws up Skynets control and his memory. Then, everybody else fills him on the details, believing human and that he has amnesia. This way, Marcus ends up believing he is actually John Connor. Marcus, now believing he is John, fights next to the resistance and since he has the robotic body, he is superior in combat and able to excel and eventually become the leader of the resistance.

If John or Kyle get killed, then Kyle won’t go back, and skynet will never be, since the chip and arm from the first Terminator are what made them work on Skynet in the first place

Man, I might even hurt myself thinking about this

Also, John was the one who broke them out of the camps and got them organized and taught them to fight, but, still, it’s a stretch considering that T3 shows him in the fallout shelter, but hey, he is important

It’s crazy

Though, I was entertained by T4, I’ll say that

Did anyone else want to see a scene where one of the soldiers chewed Connor out for releasing the female pilot?

Soldier: With all due respect, ‘sir,’ she cost us two good men and a helicoptor while betraying us all for a damned machine. I don’t want her at my back, and I guarantee she’ll get a bullet in hers. Keep her close if you must, but keep her away from me.

@Gamble Yes, that would of been cool…and might of been what the originaly ending was, I know it had something to do with Connor dying. Either way that would of been fucking awesome.

Question: You think the European, Asian, African Resistance forces would follow a yank who keeps bitching and moaning?
i’m just saying, a lot of people in Europe would have a hard time following somebody half the globe away giving useless tips on the radio like ‘shoot them a lot and run.’

Biggest terminator question still is “how the hell t1000 was able to time travel? Remember, only living mater.”

Ok, I recently watched the first three terminator movies, I have not yet seen this newest one. But one thing strikes me about the third movie that, judging from Spoony’s comments, this one suffers from as well and that is the “motive” of Skynet. The sequence of events is made quite clear in the first two movies:

1) Skynet is created
2) Skynet is put in exclusive control of everything that can result is mass casualties.
3) Skynet becomes self-aware.
4) The creators of skynet realize how dumb they were in step two and try to kill it.
5) Skynet, not wanting to be deactivated, responds by killing the human race to protect itself.

In other words, if it were not for people trying to kill it, Skynet wouldn’t have, at least at that point, waged war. However, by the time they get to T3, we have a Skynet that is already self aware before it is given ultimate control of every weapon available, and appears to be raising hell so that people will give it what it wants so it can then start killing people. Do I really need to explain why the idea of a self-aware computer being inherently evil and hell bent on destruction is just plain idiotic? Who programmed the A.I., Dr. Wiley from Mega Man? It had an evil mater plan right from the beginning? Yes, I know, it’s all just entertainment and the terminator series is just riddled with story problems, but must good entertainment always get this watered down at some point?

Everything after Terminator 2 didn’t make much sense.

The concept that the future is not set is completely broken once you accept that Kyle Reese is Connor’s father. This pretty much guarantees that the timeline has to follow a set predestined path. It’s a non-linear path, but there’s only one path for it to follow that creates some kind of stable time loop. By going back in time in the original Terminator movie, those events actually lead to the creation of both John Connor and Skynet. After that, it’s guaranteed that judgment day has to happen, because at some point in the future Reese has to go back in time and create John Connor so he can later blow up Cyberdyne and send Reese back in time. Because John Connor can’t even exist without Reese. And if you can accept some form of time travel, that vaguely makes some sense. It’s got some weird non-linear progression of events, but the actual series of events is stable in that context if destroying Cyberdyne was just something that always happened and didn’t do anything to stop or even slow Judgment day. T2 was nice in that it left that open and unresolved. You never really knew if they changed the future or not.

In Terminator 3, they totally fucked with that, and made it such that the future could be changed, because judgment day got pushed back. Which means that the John Connor, son of Kyle Reese, is a completely different John Connor than the original one Reese was sent back to protect. And that just makes no sense.

(to Gorvar )

If I remember correctly, the original terminator made it something like Skynet actually nuked the Russians, the Russians then Nuked all the NATO members, and thats how the world is a massive living hell.

They also portrayed Connor to be an amazing commander, like Robert E. Lee who everyone respects and liked, even his enemies. Thats why im so suprised at how this movie can apperently fuck something as easy as that up (as it sounds like they did big time) *sigh* hopefully I will be able to see it by the end of next week, I need to see how much they are destroying this series

Oh yeh, i heard something similiar like that in T2.
But still, you think there would be a Resistance in Europe aswell, we humans are a race of survivors.
Would Skynet have troops there and thus engage the European Resistance, if there is any?
i’m not that well known in the Terminator expanded universe, so i dont know much about any source material from Europe if it appeared.

As for fucking up the franchise and the charectures….yes i have to agree with you on that one. The only known franchise i know that isn’t screwed up recnetly is the new Star Trek movie since it’s a alternative timeline.

Terminator is not going so well at the box office. It’s a bad sign when a kids movie is making more money than a Terminator movie (Night at the Museum 2).

“John is a war hero among the resistance” yet was it just me or did it seem like he was just some asshole running around doing
whatever he wanted to do… while the guys in the sub were the real deal? I can’t remember if you mentioned this spoony but I know
when watching this piece of shit I was questioning John Conners place in the resistance…

also, isn’t it funny that in a world where every major city and military defense post has been nuked to shit by skynet during judgement day…
it’s sunny out? I mean unless the future war flashbacks from T1 & 2 were intentionally always shot at night and meant to be at night, i
would assume that any sun light would have been blotted out…. people are eating vegetables?? and aparently consumer electronics
are still being created in bulk b/c it looked like all of the computers the resistance had were brand spanking new.

I don’t think John Conner was ever the hero in any of the movies. The story was always central to him, but he was never the one saving people, he was the scrappy guy who was constantly being hauled out of the fire by serious badasses.

That said, John always seems to come out on top while still maintaining his morals.

Despite me liking the movie (7.5/10), I do agree with what you’re saying, Spoony. I know there are flaws, and many of those flaws stem from McG and the production companies.

Apparently after James Cameron left as producer of these flicks Mario Kassar figured he could take a huge dump on the entire franchise…hiring people like Mostow and McG to direct these movies that are pretty good, but in no way as good as the first two. And the WRITING TEAM!! Fuck…what kind of hack writers did they get on this? I heard that they one of the Nolan brothers to work on the script to beef it up…but he didn’t beef it up at all!! It seemed like they had a good idea but figured it was a safer bet to not take any chances.

Oh, and I believe in the 3rd movie they alluded to the power cells. Arnold’s skeleton was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, not a nuclear one. And if it became damaged it was unstable, which caused a hydrogen bomb like explosion.

I don’t know where they got the nuclear thing from…but maybe it’s just future continuity.

I liked Salvation, it wasn’t as bad as 3 and if you paid attention it actually does make perfect sense, in fact I think i have a rebuttal for every comment listed here. If I am missing anything or even if you disagree with me, feel free to make corrections.

1. Skynet is guarded by exactly one terminator without a gun.

A. I assume you are referring to the Arnold terminator in skynet HQ. Skynet had a defense grid, but marcus shut it down when he entered the building.

2. Despite the fact that it is demonstrated that terminators can be created to exactly replicate the appearance and voice of people they’ve captured to infiltrate or lure the Resistance into traps, Skynet chooses to keep Kyle Reese alive to lure John Connor into a trap.

A. Skynet did not know that Reese was Connor’s father. They only knew that the resistance was looking for him therefore making the plot to use him as a hostage reasonably intelligent. Only the T-1000 and T-X can replicate appearances and they weren’t invented yet.

3. Seriously, what possible reason could Skynet have for keeping Reese alive? Killing him ensures that John is never conceived. Even if you’re willing to argue the grandfather paradox here, you have to admit, it couldn’t fucking hurt.

A. Who says they weren’t planning to kill him after they wasted John Connor?

4. Apparently, you can jump into the ocean from a helicopter and just swim down and enter a nuclear submarine without any kind of diving gear.

4. I got nothing for this one I agree it was pretty stupid

5. The resistance has the talent and technology to perform a heart transplant.

A. It could happen, they have doctors and not a whole lot of technology is really needed for a heart transplant, just surgical tools and expertise.

6. The enormous ten-story tall Harvester robots are capable of astounding feats of ambush. They’re big, but they can walk on tippy-toes.

They also moo.

A. The terminator in terminator 1 had overly exaggerated mechanical noises too because it makes it less human and therefore scarier. Also you mentioned in the video that the harvesters and human camps are nazi references which they are not. Watch Terminator 1 again, Kyle Reese specifically states that the terminators rounded up the humans “into camps for orderly disposal”.

7. Blair is willing to betray her entire race and everyone who was willing to fight and die with her for a robot she’s known for less than two days and is unquestionably some kind of trap created by Skynet.

Women are nuts man, nuff said!

8. Terminators have highly-unstable nuclear power cells which would be much more effective as weapons against the Resistance than robots with guns.

A. Says terminator 3, but seriously, that movie was dog shit. This one is more in tune with the original Cameron films and ignores T3 and so do I.

9. These power cells apparently weren’t in the terminators destroyed in the first two movies.

A. Right, and the technology of the terminators is coherent with the Cameron films.

10. John Connor is immune to radiation, because he’s usually within a few hundred yards of these nuclear explosions when they occur.

A. I honestly don’t remember him being near any nuclear explosions but then, I only saw the movie once.

11. Skynet has no idea where the Resistance is, even though there’s a lake full of amphibious snake terminators in the lake two hundred yards outside their main base. Nor do these aquatic robots aid Skynet in any way to find the nuclear submarine serving as the Resistance HQ. In the ocean. The watery place you’d want your swimming robots to be.

Actually, Skynet did know where the base was, it destroyed the submarine near the end.

12. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to simply stuff Marcus full of explosives and program him to explode when he encounters John?

A. I guess, but you could make that same argument about ANY movie in history.

13. John is a war hero among the Resistance for teaching them how to fight the machines and exposing all of their weaknesses like, uh, shooting them a lot and running away.

A. This movie wasn’t about John Connor, it was about Marcus who was a much more interesting character. It really doesn’t say much about John becoming the resistance leader or anything either.

This movie was definitely a fan service, but as a huge fan of the franchise I have to give kudos when a new director makes a solid entry to the series. This movie wasn’t great but it was satisfactory. I think it actually played it safe a little too much but at least it was willing to move forward and not give us the same plot over again. If there ever is another Terminator by this director, I will be first in line to see it because I think the next one will be amazing.

lol well about the arnold terminator being so unstoppable…

i do believe because the arnold = T-800 while the others were T-600s (as said by kyle reese … [mmm yum reese] =] )
i just dont understand if skynet could make the t-800 why don’t they do it so much earlier.. it sounds like the AI had to learn more calculations -.-” shouldn’t it have all the calculations if it was a machine and it was self aware?

Sure one of the neculear powercells in the terminators must have blown up while a terminator was being crushed and made a nuclear explosion on atleast one other occassion!

Nuclear explosions create EMP’s which destroy electonics (and stop even cars from working) so i don’t know how their helicopter is still flys.

I don’t know John Conner is taken down my the nuke at the beginning when he’s in the helicopter but this would make sense however in the skynet explosion they continue flying barley not even a mile away from the blast not even taking into account EMPs.

hmmm, i wonder what james cameron thinks about both rise of the machines and $alvation

also, youre right spoony, it was very anticlimatic of McG’s script of the terminators capturing reese but not killing him. i thought terminators prime targets were humans, especially if they are escaping from prison or resisting arrest

The future scenes in The Terminator were all shot at night. In the film Kyle Reese explains to Sarah about the future when they are resting somewhere that’s made of concrete (under a bridge?) after having escaped from the police station.
Kyle says “You stay down by day, only go out at night. The HKs still have infra-red though so you’ve got to be careful.”
I’m not sure how long nuclear winter would last, and I know these films weren’t exactly aiming for scientific accuracy but I think it is unlikely a planet would still shrouded in nuclear winter after 30 years – assuming Judgement Day occured in 1997 – at least a planet with any kind of humn life left alive. Bacteria would be doing well to survive after something chucked that much crap into the sky.
So I think it was night in 1 & 2 because of tactics. Then again, if the enemy have nightvision and you don’t, wouldn’t the day be a level playing field?
1 and 2 are classic sci-fi. 3 is Alien Resurrection. 4 is..would comparing it to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull be going to far?

An event like true AI, the singularity, a machine-servant rebellion, cybernetics superior to biological parts, etc. will never happen. 

I find stuff like the snake-terminator’s failing to find nearby prey more realistic. They would never be programmed well enough to use their sensory input as well as a human could. They may see the resistance subs on a daily basis and register them as whales.