Notes and Observations: "TERMINATOR SALVATION" (2009)
After I had watched ”TERMINATOR SALVATION” for the third time (that’s right . . . three times), I managed to noticed certain scenes that had failed to catch my attention the first and second times I saw the movie:
Notes and Observations on “TERMINATOR SALVATION” (2009)
*The official who gave the signal to execute Marcus Wright via lethal injection, wore a Western hat and bolo tie. This made me wonder where Marcus had been convicted and executed. Perhaps Texas or Oklahoma? Or perhaps New Mexico?
*I must admit that I was very impressed by Shane Hurlbut’s photography and McG’s direction in the movie’s opening battle that ended with the deaths of John Connor’s men at that Skynet base and Marcus’ emergence from the wrecked base. Very impressed.
*I also noticed that Marcus’ body had been among the other bodies that John barely saw inside the Skynet base.
*” Come with me if you want to live.” - Kyle Reese said these same words not only to Marcus, but also to Sarah Connor in 1984. And T-800 protector first said those words to John in 1997.
*From the moment he first met Kyle Reese and Star, Marcus seemed bent upon traveling toward San Francisco and Skynet’s California base. No wonder he was willing to leave Kyle and Star behind, when the former proposed they head east in search of the nearest Resistance base. When the teenager and the nine year-old were finally captured by Skynet, he finally had a reason to travel to San Francisco.
*It took me three viewings to realize that the Skynet hydrobot that John and his colleagues were using to test the radio frequency capable of shutting down machines, came from the river situated near the Resistance base commanded by John.
*I have to repeat that the look on Kate Connor’s face, when she realized that Marcus was a cyborg, was simply priceless. That is one moment I will never forget.
*Speaking of expressions, I noticed after three viewings that whenever Star had a frozen expression on her face, one or more terminators appear to hunt them down. Was this a sign that she could sense the presence of terminators before anyone else?
*I noticed that the moment the T-800 Model 101 makes its first appearance at the Skynet Marin County base, the camera covers its (or actor Roland Kickinger’s) nether region with a fuzzy soft focus. Yet, in the 1984 movie, you can definitely see full, frontal Schwarzenegger (at a far distance).
*John had not lost his hacker skills when he hijacked that moto-terminator, on his way to the Skynet base in San Francisco.
*” You want to know the difference between us and machines? We bury our dead. But no one is coming to bury you.” - Kyle said this to Marcus, when the latter was about to leave him and Star stranded in Los Angeles. Where these words added to the script following the decision to change the ending . . . or before? Kyle’s words do seem to fit what happened to Marcus in the movie’s final cut.
*Great moment between Kate and Barnes, when both came to a silent agreement to head for the San Francisco Skynet base and give air support to John and the others.
*The interesting thing about this movie’s plot is that like another favorite summer movie of mine - ”X-MEN ORIGINS: Wolverine” - the villain(s) commence upon a major con job on the hero. In the case of ”TERMINATOR SALVATION”, Skynet uses Marcus to infiltrate groups of the Resistance to find Kyle and use him to lure John to its San Francisco base. And it nearly worked.
If you have noticed anything new upon multiple viewings, let me know.
