The Terminator

Agreed, D. THE TERMINATOR has always been 1: a shining example of excellent low-budget filmmaking, 2: an excellent example of thoughtful sci-fi, and 3: a killer adrenaline-pumping action flick. There's so many great things about the movie, it's lean as hell and there's nothing that's unnecessary, the score is excellent, the three leads are amazing, the action is great, the whole mood of the film is awesome, and it's one of the most quotable flicks ever.

T2 and T3 pale in comparison.

Best war flashback ever. That scene still gives me nightmares to this day.

Terminator owns. T2 is just a pale, loud imitation devoid of heart, soul, and emotional impact. T3, while the highlight reel of the previous two, at least brings back the emotional impact and heart thanks to Nick Stahl's performance and the ending.

Terminator is also one of the greatest love stories ever made.

And I've always said it was Michael Biehn's film. I can understand why he's a tad bitter about that. The remainder of his career he did to himself...but he was the star of Terminator...

Are you guys joking? I mean, I love the first film, but the second one owns its dated ass.

I think that of all the ways that I would describe Nick Stahl's performance, "emotional" and "heartfelt" are less obvious than, say, "shit-fest" or perhaps "bad". By the end of that movie, it wasn't like I felt any emotional attachment to the characters at all. If this had been my only complaint, I would have just written the movie off as a high-priced action flick, but there was so much more that really bothered me, for example the overdone and generally bad special effects that really distracted me. I thought that it wa really funny, but that was really out of place in the scope of the series. There was comedy in the first two, to be sure, but it wasn't a center piece of the movie, where focusing on a constant story line was the most basic premise. In T3, what the hell ever happened to the idea of the TX chasing the lieutenants-to-be? That sorta dissapeared. I generally thought that the movie was meant to set up more movies. I really love T2, and although I am probably too young to understand the effect that the first Terminator had on the whole Sci-Fi genre, I can still appreciate it as being a pretty high-quality action flick. I never really understood the whole idea that it was a great romance....at all. So thats my two cents.

Summary: T1- good but not a romance. T2- excellent without any pretense of romance. T3- overrated crap that broke from the series.

Um. No. I used to think so, but not anymore.

T2 was writen in 7 days and it shows.

A revolutionary film in its day, now reeks of crass commericialism.

A great action flick it is, but also a lousy sci-fi film.

Where the first film based its love story amidst the war of the machines, the second film has no emotional core. Three people running is all we have. We only route for Sarach because she's there. Kid Johnny is a lousy little actor who never seems awed by any of the events aroud him. HE never seems to take any of the events seriously. His lack of skills translate into a one-note character who is more annoying than sympathetic.

His last scene with the terminator could have/should have been effective had the kid known how to act, but he does not so....

As for the love story in T1, even those idiots at ET Weekly placed it on their list of the greatest love stories ever filmed.


Give me part 3 anyday. Stahl is tortured, conflicted, hesistant and confused by who he is. NONE of those emotions are on display in T2.

At the end of the day we can only blame Cam for plucking the kid out of a local Boy's Club and not hiring a professional actor.

And people bitched about Jake Loyld, Yeeeeaaah right.

That's just my take.

Django can elaborate if he so desires.

I loved T2 when it came out, caught the midnight premiere, but like Field of Dreams and The Usual Suspects, it lost its shine quickly.

T1 now easily leads the pack in my book, not least for Biehn's performance. Arnold got all the hype, but Biehn is the soul of the film. Funny how Bill Paxton catapulted past him in the career department.

T2 is saddled with the same thing Episode 1 is. A child actor who was cast in a role too dimensional for him.

However at least Lloyd can look like he's about to beat the shit out of someone. I see the hate, fear, and anger. All I ever see in Furlong is an unwarranted clone of Michael Pare with half the ability.

Take that as you will.

Stahl is conflicted. Tortured. As such he has heart and soul. There's none of that in T2.

Speaking fo which...what ruins T2 is how Cameron reduced Sarah Connor to a cold, manipulative machine...which may have been the point, I'll conceed. However when you as an audience care about what happens to the fucking machine more than the heroine...you've got a problem.

The Special Edition helps this somewhat by restoring Biehn's cameo as a reason why she finally tries to escape to fight again. Which I suppose is kind of heart, sorta soul.

All T2 had was some expensive water weenies from The Abyss chromed by the geeks at ILM.

However if explosions over human emotion is your thing...goddamn are you dumb...

ehm... close the series? you seriously think this was the end? everything about it screamed "to be continued".

but i agree that is was better than anyone thought. i know i felt that way, and i kind of enjoyed it. but it's nowhere as good as the matrix sequels are; no fucking way.

[slowpulse]

Huh. I thought it was a movie about a kid whose mother is incapable of having a relationship with him, no matter how hard he tries; and the only functional, parental figure in his life is a machine that feels no emotion and will ultimately be sacrificed in favour of the guidance of a woman who can't keep her shit together.

I thought the film had heart. Furlong spoils much of his character through performance; but how can you find no emotional core in this film?

The computer generated FX in T2 are nice. Not revolutionary. I much actually prefer the practical Stan Winston Studio creations to the ILM trickery.

Which in a lot of ways is nothing more than The Abyss water worm program redefined.

This is why I'm so damn happy Django is back.

My opinions:
T1: Awesome movie. Never gets old.
T2: Well made, well written... but cold and tiresome. I watch it rarely, and when I do, I get distracted easily.
T3: I love it. It's flawed, but the heart is there.

I don't think T3 is better than T2 exactly... but I will probably watch it more often. T1 is still king, though.

The Robert Patrick factor puts "T2" as my favorite in the series. But I would never get in a serious argument over which is the better of the first 2 films, "Terminator" is one of the best examples of not needing a ton of cash to make a great sci-fi/action flick while "T2" is a perfect example of how good a movie can be when you spend a ton of cash the right way.

As for part 3, it's exactly what a 3rd film should be. It reminds me of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Die Hard With a Vengeance" in that they aren't groundbreaking but are extremely entertaining and do a nice job of reminding folks why their respective series of films are so fun.

I think Moltisanti takes the square on this one. That second paragraph of yours sums T3 up perfectly.

Well played, Sir.

And I'm all about Liquid Metal. In fact every time I go to Universal I have to stop myself from leaping out of my seat and tackling "John Connor" for him...

The first Terminator is a fun, but small, film. T2 is a rollicking, kickass ride. I prefer the over-the-top heroics of the sequel, although I do have to acknowledge the deft hand Cameron used to balance the drama and the action in the original. Terminator 3 is an overblown piece of mediocrity that failed to entertain me, and almost failed to keep me awake. It felt like an odd sci-fi channel remake of the original with a budget undeserved for its nature. It's a little sad that small low budget films like The Big Hit or Equilibrium deliver more in the action department.

You must have been sleeping during the crane chase, the graveyard shootout, the several other chases, and the ending battle at the Skynet complex... because, hot damn, those were some fucking action sequences. Probably the best action I've seen in 5 years. No slow-motion. No obvious quick cutting. Totally seamless CGI. Lots of explosions. FUCKING WONDERFUL sound design (this needs an oscar right there). Seriously, I felt every impact the Terminators made. It was totally old fashioned action filmmaking using modern effects (there is NOTHING Matrix inspired in this whatsoever).

I have no idea what movie you watched, Bateman, because what I saw was a movie that totally took action back to its roots and upped the scale all at the same time.

And the future-flashforwards in this movie are so damn amazing I could put my player on AB repeat of those scenes and be happy all day.

Terminator 1: One of the greatest sci-fi flicks of all time. A real testament to Cameron as a director who really has a vision.

Terminator 2: A revolutionary step forward in SFX, and one of the five best action movies of the 90s. Also, the one I feel does have the most heart. Eddie wasn't the best actor, but I did believe in their relationship, thanks mostly to Arnie, I guess. "Now I know why you cry.." really does get me every time.

Terminator 3: The best action movie of the year (or at least, the best action in a movie this year), and from my excitement over now owning the dvd, could very well become my most played of the series.

Originally posted by Sean Bateman:

Okay, I'll bite. "Equilibrium" had some extremely inventive action scenes but what scene in the "The Big Hit" can compare on any sane level with the sequences in "T3?"

Speaking of Terminator, I'm sure if you've checked out the dvd you've seen the deleted scene...I liked it, glad it was cut from the film, but it's funny and kind of ironic scene.

"Look it's me" Love that last shot there.

I enjoyed T3 overall, it's a great action film, it's got all the right elements in them that made the first two films popular, and also it managed to give a good reason for there being a sequel and sorta breathed fresh air into the series after we were led to believe in T2 that the war had been stopped from ever happening.

I think Nick Stahl played a good John Conner, someone who was afraid to face his destiny and ultimately was forced into it, and I like Claire Danes in this film, she was alot like Linda Hamilton in the first film, and I liked how Arnie sorta turned bad there for a moment, I think that was enough to keep John from getting too close to the T-101 who was sent to kill him in the future, it'd be nice to see this sequence in T4, afterall they do have Arnold's likeness in CG.

This film reminded me of all the things I loved about The Terminator films as a kid, it was good fun escapism.

Oh and BTW the TX had a nice ass too.

Yes, Moli and Django got it.

T3 is not high art, it might even be a stretch to call it a great movie, but damn if its not entertaining and one of the most fun summer flicks in many moons.

And unlike Revolutions, it is it's own beast.

Plus the TX had a flamer thrower so that elevates it for me.


And what an ending!

They can't and don't.

"Equilibrium" had some great fight scenes, but was for the most part dull as butter.

"The Big Hit?" Was I the only one foolish enough to pay to see this? It's a non-entity. Nothing is memorable about it except its badness, but that was not even that inspiring.
All I remeber about it was some black dude who constantly talked about jacking off.

Yeah, I see why T3 is worse.

Children take note:

This is TRUTH.

I'm a little bit baffled as to the mocking of T2 here. No heart? Cold? What, did you sleep through the film? The scenes with Silberman, Dyson and the scenes in the desert with Enrique and family? T2 is magnificent, possibly Cameron's best film. And that's saying something.

Anyway, I really like the first film, it's got a lot of story and vision, and the love story between Hamilton and Biehn is brilliant, moreso for the time paradox it encompasses. I wish Cameron would put the deleted scenes back in the film, especially the Cyberdyne reveal and Reese's speech.

T3 is, well, it comes across as a weak, an excuse to make money. The tone and hopeful themes of Cameron's films are ignored.

T2 is not Cameron's best by a long stretch.

But I'll give you that whatever emotion is in the film comes from Joe Morton...

Joe Morton Rocks.

"I don't know... how much longer... I can hold this..."

The themes are NOT ignored.
Listen to Connors narration towards the end of the film when humanity is getting wasted. It's all about hope, baby. He says they may have lost the battle, but not the war and that he will never give up and continue fighting.

Cams best movies are a three-way tie between "Aliens, "Terminator" and "The Abyss"

But the hope is supposed to be about stopping the war! Instead, in T3 there is a progressive feel of hopelessness, in between the gay jokes, where it becomes clear that everything we (well, some of us) were hoping for was worthless.

Especially when they gave Sarah cancer. A pox on T3, I say.

I can't exactly say what it was, but something about that movie just pissed me off.

ifyou think that series is ended, you are sadly mistaken
Arnold maybe be temporarily out of action, but the series will continue, either with him in a few years or without him.

i gotta disagree here. I think that the end of this movie was just meant to be the beginning of yet another. It didn't have the definite end that the others did

I gotta tell ya, mankind is overrated. Read a paper. Watch T3. Its not that great

Having watched my "T3" DVD over the weekend I'm still puzzled why so many can't appreciate it as a fun installment of one of the best series of films ever. It serves as both a nice end to the trilogy, or a jumping off point to a whole new series.

I do have one gripe that I didn't notice when I saw the film in the theater. We don't see how the Terminator gets the shotgun he uses on the TX during their first encounter. In "The Terminator" we see him in the gun shop, then in "T2" he swipes the shotgun from the bartender, but in "T3" he just gets out of the truck and has a shotgun in his hand. It's not a huge deal, but it's too big a leap to believe that he would have been lucky to find the shotgun in the truck he hot wired.

That Sgt. Candy scene should have been in the movie. I also would have had Sgt. Candy pop up towards the end when both the TX and the T-850 were at the lab.

Some people just can't take nukin' the world.

Fuck 'em if they can't take a fallout...

FYI T4 is already in the works. Producer Mario Kassar has stated that the screenplay for Terminator 4 is going to be finished by next year and they will make the picture with or without Arnie. Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, and director Jonathan Mostow are expected to return. And Arnold Shawrzeneggar has passed the batton to The Rock.

http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=16332

http://www.countingdown.com/movies/2756420

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808406215

And might I add, the only reason why they've taken so long to release sequels in the past was because of legal battles over who owned the films because the production companies that produced the first two Terminator films went bankrupt.

Well they did a nice job of getting John to accept that he cannot stop it from happening, that he has to be a man and face his destiny or else face the destruction of mankind.

And besides, if he had actually stopped the war he would cease to exsist. Which in turn would keep him from ever stopping the war in the first place.

I don't believe that.

But isn't that what we thought when T3 was made?

I share Moltisanti's sentiments on all of the above.

It's a great little scene. I too wish it were in the movie.

Someone else mentioned that this was deleted scene, but if you watch the making of the T3 video game, you'll find out this scene was made specifically for the video game. I'm sure if they had filmed it previously, they would have included it.

If that's the kind of scene they put in the video game I need to pick a copy up as soon as possible. Since this is a "Terminator" film there will surely be other DVDs of "T3" at some point. Hopefully they'll find a way to put this scene in a future version of the film. The CHUD DVD review of "T3" likened that scene to the type of humor found in "Robocop," which is a perfect comparison.

Believe what you want but it's only logical, though probably the writers and prodcuers havn't though about this too much. But John Conner's father exsisted only in the future until he was sent back to 1984 where he inpregnated John's mommy. If John stopped the war he would cease to exsist because Skynet would have never created the time displcaement spheres and John's father would've never been sent back to 1984, and if John ceased to exsist then who would be there to stop the machines in the first place?

We do? We know some basics, there's going to be alot of ass-kicking and Nick Stahl and Claire Dane's reprise their roles, but we don't know much about what's going to happen, it'll obviously be different from the other films as we're no longer seeing the war in flashbacks and dreams of the future, but we are now in that war.

I wouldn't go assuming anything jsut yet, but I have a hunch we'll see a young Kyle Reese in the flick.

The Rock as a terminator? Its not exactly suited to a guy who puts facial gestures into every syllabal of every word, but alright.

I think he can handle being a more straight face killing machine, it can't be that hard.

Let me say that The Terminator is the best of the series, but some of the swipes taken at T2 aren't fair. Linda hamilton's perfromance in that film is INCREDIBLE, if you think T2 is soulless, you haven't watched close enough. The anger,the rage,the repressed love she has to hold back for her son and humnaity's sake...great epic stuff.

And T3 was a fantastioc return to an action style that does not exist any more, one that is sadly missed, a style where coherent, logical, and effective cinematography and editing work to show off the action in front of the camera instead of the action behind it.

I really like Terminator, but it has one of the worst endings. It doesn't make any sense. It would've been fine if Reese came saved Conner and left, but no, they had to through in the sex and baby-makin to completely ruin the film. It wouldn't make sense if John was born only after he sent Kyle, because John wouldn't have existed then. Oh well, otherwise, it's great. But seriously, movies should just stop doing time travel. Just stop it, it never makes sense and nothing good comes out of it (except Back to the Future :-) ). Just cut it out.