Review of Terminator Salvation - Read only if you are a fanboy.
The integrity of a piece of fiction lies in its theme. Without a central theme/s a movie,book or poem cannot hope to have any lasting resonance.
Take for example the first two movies of the terminator series - the overarching theme was that your fate was of your own making. That's why we hang on tenterhooks as Sarah Connor flees from Arnie with Kyle Reese- we're thinking, can she do the impossible and save her fate by defeating this seemingly indestructible machine? It's the same in Terminator 2 - How is John Connor gonna escape almost certain death at the hands of the T1000 and in doing so prevent judgement day? Inevitably they overcome their situations but without the central idea of hope in seemingly impossible circumstances and the ability of an individual to do something about their situation, these movies simply would not have worked.
Which was why I was miffed when I caught Terminator 3 a few years back. Sure the bells and whistles were all there: the impossibly efficient and stunningly elegant idea of a woman terminator ( sleeker,faster and more innocuous looking), the big explosions and Arnie back with almost superhuman perfection due to CGI. But everything was just wrong. Especially the ending. The ending depicts Judgement Day happening IN SPITE of what dangers the Connors had endured and overcome. THIS WAS BULLSHIT. Hope was no longer the message. This ending presupposed that everything is preordained, a backhand slap to the series thematically. It simply did not hold up and I was sad at seeing a beloved sci-fi franchise face its own judgement day.
Which was why it was with much trepidation ( but no little excitement) that I bought a ticket for Terminator Salvation. I was intrigued. Intrigued with the idea of Christian Bale as John Connor. Intrigued by Sam Worthington, another one of those aussie thespian types to fly under the radar. Intrigued by McG who was gutted when fans flamed him online as the choice of director and who as a result was stoked to take it on. Could a modern sci-fi institution be saved? Well almost.
Firstly McG is not the most subtle of directors, so he throws at you every possible apocalyptic-future-type image at you: the dry arid lands ala Mad Max, the dank raininess of Blade Runner and the unrelentingness of the machines from the original. You are pummeled by all this and then inundated by a story which is clever in parts but tries a little too hard to pay tribute to the original. The saving grace of course is the finale, the salvation of the movie's name. That is where hope springs amongst the battle scarred earth of 2018 when the movie is set and where McG, savvy filmmaker/businessman that he is, has positioned Terminator Salvation as merely the opening salvo of a series of terminator movies this fanboy hopes stays true to their roots.
" There is no fate except the one you make for yourself." - John Connor
Take for example the first two movies of the terminator series - the overarching theme was that your fate was of your own making. That's why we hang on tenterhooks as Sarah Connor flees from Arnie with Kyle Reese- we're thinking, can she do the impossible and save her fate by defeating this seemingly indestructible machine? It's the same in Terminator 2 - How is John Connor gonna escape almost certain death at the hands of the T1000 and in doing so prevent judgement day? Inevitably they overcome their situations but without the central idea of hope in seemingly impossible circumstances and the ability of an individual to do something about their situation, these movies simply would not have worked.
Which was why I was miffed when I caught Terminator 3 a few years back. Sure the bells and whistles were all there: the impossibly efficient and stunningly elegant idea of a woman terminator ( sleeker,faster and more innocuous looking), the big explosions and Arnie back with almost superhuman perfection due to CGI. But everything was just wrong. Especially the ending. The ending depicts Judgement Day happening IN SPITE of what dangers the Connors had endured and overcome. THIS WAS BULLSHIT. Hope was no longer the message. This ending presupposed that everything is preordained, a backhand slap to the series thematically. It simply did not hold up and I was sad at seeing a beloved sci-fi franchise face its own judgement day.
Which was why it was with much trepidation ( but no little excitement) that I bought a ticket for Terminator Salvation. I was intrigued. Intrigued with the idea of Christian Bale as John Connor. Intrigued by Sam Worthington, another one of those aussie thespian types to fly under the radar. Intrigued by McG who was gutted when fans flamed him online as the choice of director and who as a result was stoked to take it on. Could a modern sci-fi institution be saved? Well almost.
Firstly McG is not the most subtle of directors, so he throws at you every possible apocalyptic-future-type image at you: the dry arid lands ala Mad Max, the dank raininess of Blade Runner and the unrelentingness of the machines from the original. You are pummeled by all this and then inundated by a story which is clever in parts but tries a little too hard to pay tribute to the original. The saving grace of course is the finale, the salvation of the movie's name. That is where hope springs amongst the battle scarred earth of 2018 when the movie is set and where McG, savvy filmmaker/businessman that he is, has positioned Terminator Salvation as merely the opening salvo of a series of terminator movies this fanboy hopes stays true to their roots.
" There is no fate except the one you make for yourself." - John Connor