I’ve been thinking about why I don’t hate Terminator Salvation like most people do. I don’t really love the movie, but I thought it was okay. It was better than Transformers 2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for sure. It had some bits I liked, although I think earlier drafts of the script might have created a more compelling movie. But why is it that I remain “Eh, it was okay,” while everybody else is just appalled by it?
I think it’s because I’m not a huge fan of the Terminator movies. I think Terminator 3 is atrocious, a completely boring daytime remake of the second one, making us wait 90 minutes for what should have been the opening scene. And I think Terminator 2 is kind of a slog – yeah, the action scenes are good, but I don’t care about anything else that’s happening in that movie. And I don’t really like any of the characters. The death of John Connor would have been a blessed relief for me.
The only Terminator movie I honestly like is the first one. It’s smart, it’s sleek, it’s atmospheric, it’s about stuff other than pumping bullets into robots. Now, Terminator Salvation doesn’t hold a candle, a match or a tiny LED light to this film, but in my opinion it isn’t like the two sequels were anywhere on par with the original anyway.
So for me the news that the Terminator franchise rights are probably going to Lionsgate for a paltry 15 million dollars doesn’t elicit much of a reaction beyond curiosity. Surely a franchise like this must be worth more?
It’s important to note that this deal – a bankruptcy sale in which current rights-holders Halcyon are trying to unload their shit – is only for the rights. Lionsgate wouldn’t suddenly own the older movies, just the rights to exploit the characters et al from them. So Lionsgate isn’t getting Terminator 2, but simply the ability to make movies that are set in the Terminator 2 world.
Anyway, Halcyon got these rights for $30 million back in 2007, according to Variety, and now they’re going for 15. That’s half off, which is nuts. And while the headline of the article makes the joke that McG ruined the value of Terminator, the reality is that the failure of The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn’t help much either.
The real lesson here? Probably that nobody wants to see a Terminator movie or show without Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that this franchise is likely dead as a blockbuster juggernaut until it gets the old reboot. I am curious what Lionsgate would do with the franchise, though – I can’t imagine they buy it just to sit on it. After all, it’s not a really good horror movie!
30 comments
Each Terminator film is owned by a different studio so I expect Lions gate to make one more film than sell the rights.
OT: I'm guessing we can add Nolan to the list of directors you hate for no real reason then?
I forgot TS existed already. I watched the bootleg of it at least, thought it was the best b-movie ever made. Of course it was going to be garbage. Who thought the charlies angel guy would make a decent terminator anything… I prefer T3. at least that movie had some epic dialogue at the end. that's old school film making, actual poetry, my God.
Hey, guess who's had the DVD rights to Terminator 2 for close to a decade now? Yup. Artisan was cranking it out originally, and since Lionsgate acquired Artisan way back in the early '00s, it's been their name on every release of Terminator 2 since. There is no "getting" T2, as they already had it, at least in terms of distribution rights…I think.
I liked Terminator Salvation, and I love the Blu Ray. The movie looks great, but the script needed fine tuning.
The concept of Salvation is a good one, it takes me back to the NOW Terminator comics from the early 90s. I hope the Lionsgate deal falls through, they won't put any money into it. Didn't Salvation have a worldwide gross similar to Star Trek?
TS felt like a puzzle piece carved especially for one purpose: to fill in the gaps of the stories left over from the first 3 films. We had to meet an adult John Connor finally, we had to see him meet a young Reese, we had to see Skynet in full form. The film didn't do it's own thing; it did what it thought was expected, what the fans wanted, and it was dull because of it. Aside from new models of Terminators, it didn't really add anything new to the mix.
TERMINATOR SALVATION is like JURASSIC PARK III to me — totally unnecessary, but pretty entertaining nonetheless.
I agree with Devin here. I actually saw TS twice in theaters (though the second time I realized it wasn't as cool as I remembered), but it certainly saved the franchise from the hell that was T3. I never really thought any of the sequels lived up to the cleverness of the original, but T2 is leaps and bounds over T3. TS is an okay movie, and I give it extra kudos for paying much homage to the original. I think it opens the door for some great sequels, and I think I'll be happy if they're at least as good as TS.
How does a four-star review in Empire magazine (which, according to their website, denotes an "Excellent" film) become "better than Transformers 2 and Wolverine" in just eight months?
You're the only other film fan I know that also isn't in love with T2. I REALLY like Terminator, kind of liked T2, and didn't like T3. It seems most people have T2 and the original reversed from my opinion, and it's always nice to know that my opinion isn't 100% off from the masses.
As for the latest Terminator, I finally got around to see Salvation today, and literally 30 minutes later I couldn't think anything memorable about it. I couldn't really think of plot points, or character moments (other than I wish there was more Kyle Reese) other than I didn't necessarily dislike Salvation, but it's far from a real good movie.
I also enjoyed Terminator Salvation and agree that it was so much better than both Wolverine and Transformers 2.
I think the idea is that so much has never been explored creatively. They are all rehashes of the same old concepts. Over and over. I would hire a high profile writer to attack the material. Just think what Nicholas Myer did for the Star Trek franchise. What about Shane Black?
Now Cameron has perfected mocap he an Weta should make the reboot but with a cgi Ahrnold.
Yup. The only real good Terminator was the first.
Gabriel Gray scares me.
Salvation is fun for all the odd-ball pre-Terminator robots. But when the Arnie Terminator turns up it reminded me too much of that vast gap between the original and it's sequels. The Original Arnie in T1 was a startling presence and genuinely threatening, helped along by Biehn so effectively selling his outright fear and hatred of the thing. The leg-less endo crawling after John after the copter crash earlier in TS sort of captured a bit of that malignant energy too. They need to stop fussing with the complex plans and explanations and get back to the core jeopardy scenarios. On the gut level, the Terminator is still an effective technological boogey-man.
Seriously 15 million? Why doesn't Cameron buy the rights and mocap Arnold and make another TERRMEENAITAH!
so now you don't like T2 either… oh,well. I've always felt True Lies to be Cameron's weakest film, it drags on and on. Salvation is very watchable on blu-ray, I like it a lot more now than when it was released. You can see they all set out to make a good movie, but with McG at the helm it just wasn't gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if they rebooted it with Cloverfield style approach.
Lionsgate is buying it to remake (reboot, re-invent…whatever the kids are calling it these days) 'The Terminator'. You watch and wait. We won't get a T5. We're going to get a re-done T1. I think it's a horrible idea, but I don't blame Lionsgate for jumping on a guaranteed profit. Lionsgate doesn't give a shit. 'Terminator: Reborn'. Starring budget actors, and a treasure-trove of foreign pre-sales based on the title alone. Lionsgate would be asses NOT to pick this title up for 15 cool.
Terminator Salvation is the poster child of the "too grim, too serious" approach you always rail against. They forgot to make the movie any fun. And it may prove to be their death nell. Everyone wants the next Star Trek or Iron Man not this drudge.
i stopped reading at "And I think Terminator 2 is kind of a slog "
Well, I've said for years and years that The only Terminator that I liked was the first film and, good or bad, you're the first person I've ever seen/met/heard to say the same thing. Don't know where that leaves us or the argument, but I agree. One of those rare times out on the limb where I'm not sure if I'm the one in the right, but I never liked the film or saw why it was compelling. T2, to be frank, is mall movie tripe.Only T1 is worth a shit. Suck it if you disagree.
MetalMickey (#14) – couldn't agree more. What set the first two Terminator movies apart from the ones after it was the sense of dread that these machines were nigh-unstoppable; Arnold in the first movie and Robert Patrick in the second gave both films villains that were downright threatening and scary. Which is the main reason I didn't really like T3 – that female Terminator didn't seem one-tenth as badass as the T1000 did. I still really like both of the first two movies (save Edward Furlong's mostly irritating dialogue in the second) just because of the "they're machines and they can't be stopped" feeling that they give off. The only thing I liked about the third movie was the ending, but that didn't make up for the two hours that I had to slog through to get to it.
Terminator: Salvation was my favorite terminator flick so far.
Saw TS in theater and didn't like. Watched it again with the wife the other night and came away with a more favorable impression. Love Yelchin's performance and actually dug Worthington's too. Bale was Bale, but it was nice to see him being a little less grim than he is as Batman. I liked seeing the expanded world and the ways the resistance was dealing with Skynet's omnipresence. Definitiely missed the sense of unstoppable threat from T1 and T2, though. On the other hand, TS was never trying to be a chase movie.
I find the problem with the films after T2 is they always seem to be one step behind the film that they should be making. And T3 was a massive waste of time, the only redeeming feature of that film is the closing scene, the rest is awfull. People should look at these films (including the tv show) as the template as to how to destroy a franchise.
Awesome to hear that there are other people out there that aren't gaga over T2. It looks pretty, but Devin's absolutely right, I didn't like any of the characters, especially whiny-ass Eddie Furlong. For as slick as he looked, the T100 made do sense to me either. How do you program a blob of metal? I thought you had to be naked to travel through time. Sure, the T100 makes himself look like a naked man, but that doesn't change the fact that he's inorganic metal through and through. The original Terminator was so much more tightly written too. According to T2, Skynet was created using the technology from the T800 of the first film. OK then, so how the fuck was that original Terminator created? It's sloppy writing and time paradox bullshit.
i'll always like T2 the most.. i'm more into sound and T2 has the best sound of 92', an oscar for sound in an Arnold flick.. #25: i assumed the research on the T1 terminator advanced their progress to see T1000s, that is, if the T1&T2 terminators were sent from the same year.. theres lots of retarded choices made by our future selves..from what i see, the resistence never had such technology to send anyone back in time, it was a madmax life.. T3and4 were pointless cowmilkers (fuckin kill the fools in charge of skynet you selfish future human jagoffs, forget saving the tool in charge of the resistance)..
So now TS is being bashed for being too serious or too grim when T1 was just as serious? I liked TS, it was way better than T3 and probably the best film they could've really made considering what they wanted to do. The big difference between T1 and TS is that you spent more time with Sarah and Reese since they're the only other characters of significance other than the Terminator. Even then I feel like it dragged a little, but TS was trying to squeeze in so more more story and action that we couldn't get as attached to the characters and a lot of the character stuff ended up on the cutting room floor or rewritten. The big difference between T2 and T3 and TS was that those films tried to be fun and add a little humor to it. It's the same quality that sorta saved Star Trek. TS was too serious to be as fun and there were only a few bits of humor scattered throughout the movie. But I do commend TS for being a half decent film in the first place with awesome action pieces and made the T-800 a scary unstoppable boogeyman character again
The first film is great. The second is alright; but I wish the terminator was just a badguy. The third one sucks big green donkey dick and Salvation was entertaining, but not great. It wasn't terrible either.Thus, it will not be remembered by me that much. The problem with the last three films are it they played it safe…way too safe…with the story. Anytime you have time travel in a franchise, you have to realize you have to really take risks in terms of story. Really shock people.
T3 was not that bad. And it easily had the best action sequence in the whole series with that truck chase in the middle. Seeing Arnie swinging on that hook and kicking over an ambulance was worth the price of admission alone. TS was not that bad, but not very good either.
how did you build it?
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