I saw it tonight. I think it might be my favorite Terminator movie. I will need to stew on that a bit to be sure. But the action was top notch, the shots of the future were the best they have ever been since T1 and the new Terminator is terrifying in a way that escalates from the T800 and T1000.
Pretty much enjoyed, except for a bunch of 1/2 star reviews whining about politics, womans and SJW. As if it’s yet another concerted goon effort to rubbish a film....
They're probably from folk who've not actually seen it but read the particular subset of reviews that played the film up as a "Smash the Patriarchy! It's better now 'cus it's all wimmins!" affair.
Whether that's actually true or not doesn't matter(not seen it myself, will wait for home media) - the reviewers got their clicks, and the Culture Warriors got their outrage dopamine hit.
Oh you can tell they've not seen it. Comments are literally 'muhhhhhh.......wimmins in mah movee, waaaaaaaaah.
Because if they'd actually seen it, then along the same lines as those in this thread that have seen it, they'd be confirming it's actually pretty decent and entertaining.
If I could be bothered, I'd work out what percentage of the 'reviews' are 1/2 star, one line whines, and recalculate the Audience Approval Score. Even with them factored in, it's an impressive 85%. The Terminator is currently on 89%, and Terminator 2, Judgement Day on 94%.
I really do feel that professional critics saying its 'The Terminator Awakens' are just being lazy. The sole similarity is that it's a late-in-the-day sequel to stone cold classics.
But there's real value here. Sarah Conner absolutely nails it, and Mackenzie Davies is frankly superb.
Yes there are a couple of bits which I feel land a bit flat - but not to the overall detriment. The fight and chase scenes are frankly superb. There's a genuine sense once again that the baddie Terminator is a terrifying foe.
There's no real Deus Ex that I noticed (others may have though?). The fights are beautifully choreographed, and feel suitably desperate, like the Goodies don't know they can actually win, but have to fight on regardless. Sure, they fight with arguably greater skill - but like a good Terminator, it just keeps on going.
And we actually care for the protagonists and their fates. Given half of them are newly introduced, that's no mean feat.
You know, it's opening weekend might not have been great - but I suspect this may be a slow burner thanks to word of mouth. Certainly I can see it doing pretty well on home media, once word of mouth has settled the nerves of those (entirely understandably) wary of yet another entry in The Series Of Diminishing Returns.
A lot of negative audience reviews quote lines that are heard in the trailers but aren't in the actual film, which sort of gives the game away really.
I have a very strong suspicion too that some of the sincere confusion over the plot comes from detail not visible or too clearly audible in the rip that's circulating, like Carl's scar or some of the future war stuff.
I think yeah, like you say, time will be kind to it, but it's pity it'll come too late for the movie franchise. They're talking about moving into a spin off cartoon - since this was R rated and didn't take - which is just freaking undignified.
But it was a good film for Sarah and Arnie to bow out on, and I'd very much like to see a Director's Cut, so I guess I'll live with it.
On the bright side of potential no sequel? The story is nicely self contained within the film.
Yes, there is room for more, but it's not a requirement in the way Gensisys set itself up (and I'm still disappointed we didn't even get a comic follow up)
Its opening weekend was about the same as Genisys, which makes me wonder if the franchise has now hit a point where it's shed all but the real fans of the franchise who'll turn out for anything, and the population at large has developed enough apathy to it that they either won't bother or are content to wait for a home release.
Its opening weekend was about the same as Genisys, which makes me wonder if the franchise has now hit a point where it's shed all but the real fans of the franchise who'll turn out for anything, and the population at large has developed enough apathy to it that they either won't bother or are content to wait for a home release.
there's likely something to that, the first movie is pushing 35, and everything after Judgement Day has been diminishing returns, or I could blame it on the Supers,,,
As noted before, I quite get people’s reticence to see this. But when the vast majority of viewer comments are ‘ it’s decently entertaining, and easily the third best’, I still expect it’ll find its market on home media release, probably via online rentals.
I mean, globally it’s taken £129,000,000 or so, against a budget of £189,000,000 or so. It’s ad campaign seemed relatively low key compared to other blockbusters.
I reckon it’ll at least break even on production budget, and then make the profit when people can rent it, enjoy it, and then add it to their collection.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Mind you, brief research shows Genisys took £440,000,000, making it the second biggest take next to T2.
So if Dark Fate follows that box office, it will turn at least a small profit in the cinema.
Got a feeling that word of mouth might still help this slow mover, and there aren't that many big-name action-franchise movies between now and Jumanji and Star Wars.
If you go in accepting that its a cockup in continuity for the sake of Cameron getting back his franchise, then you'll find there is still a well made sci-fi action thriller to be enjoyed. If you have a cinema subscription or just fancy a good action flick for the evening - don't deny yourself. The "road movie" part is genuine as the gang attempt to cross the border and keep Dani alive, and the cast get on very well together considering the weak material they have to work with.
Oh, Mackenzie Davis is butt naked in this one! You know it was inevitable given the tradition, but there is something to be said for "seeing is believeing"! Definitely worth the ticket price alone!
I genuinely like most of the Terminators films - even the ones that are considered terrible. I like what they're going for and the casting/action/timeline rewrites so far have been great. I saw the film this week and I'd probably rate is a 6/10. Worth a watch sure but I'm not sure introducing a friend to the Series and watching T2 followed by this.
It was dramatically better than the recent Star Wars films. I liked it but the only gripe I had is the casting. Mild casting rant:
The actor Gabe Luna as the terminator, Dani as the chosen one, and the Mackenzie Davis actress as Grace.... were all terrible choices. The music, the action, and the pacing was great and carried the film. These three actors just seemed terribly out of place and awkward in their roles. Lets have the Terminator as another jacked bodybuilder that looks dangerous, Dani as a younger Edward Furlong aged kid instead of a generic teenager. Grace just seemed bad at acting. I prefer to awkward boob scene of the T3 terminator to the entire character of Grace. The CGI didnt seem really high budget - but very "okay". I didn't like renaming things / Legion. Seemed out of place or some IP related thing. No idea
My new rule for watching movies at a theater is to never watch trailers or read reviews so I can go in blind. This worked with this film. The trailer is TERRIBLE. After the fact I understand why critiques didnt like the movie and agree the highway scene was terrible how they introduced Sarah into it.
Stevefamine wrote: My new rule for watching movies at a theater is to never watch trailers or read reviews so I can go in blind. This worked with this film. The trailer is TERRIBLE.
Agree 100%. The trailers for this made it look absolutely execrable. I too think I need to just avoid trailers for stuff I want to see now.
I agree with you on the actress who played Grace - she was a little underwhelming. You can tell from the dialogue when they were trying to build her up into what she is supposed to become, but I don't think she sold it super well.
I disagree with you on Gabriel Luna, though. He wasn't physically large, but had a terrific sense of menace, and what's more... I don't think the giant buff bodybuilder type really works that well as a concept. Yes, it's cool, and yes, I loved the first 2 blah blah, but if you think about it - if you're making an infiltrator unit designed to blend in until it's killing time, what works better: a guy of average build with the ability to emote on a basic level, or a 7 foot jacked roid monster who can barely speak the language? Anyway, it's not like there isn't a male precedent - Robert Patrick certainly wasn't ripped by any definition.
Legion wasn't renamed -
Spoiler:
Skynet never happened, judgement day never happened, and Legion is a totally different thing. The Rev9 isn't even a Terminator.
I assume it resembles a Terminator in that any near-future apocalypse will develop along a limited variant of technological designs.
Interestingly, the original Terminator role was meant to go to Lance Henriksen.
And I feel making it a relatively skinny bloke adds to the horror, and works better as the concept of an infiltration unit.
Consider that post Judgement Day, humanity is down to the bones of its collective arse. Society is gone. Which means people are eking out an existence.
Yet the 6’2” muscle man wanders into your camp, and nobody blinks?
Really? Really really? Everyone else is a starving waif......and someone well fed and totally ripped isn’t even in the slightest bit suspicious?
Again, I like that Lima’s Terminator has better social skills. Body shape apart (ways and means, such as Lord Haw Haw broadcasts, promising well fed and trained military support), that he can chat the breeze makes it far more convincing.
And in my mind, makes him more convincing than the T-1000 (but not the actor, Robert Patrick nailed the role). Physically looks the part, but the behaviour is off.
Particularly today we live in Uncanny Valley. Humans are very good at picking up on oddities. Consider all the times you’ve been out and about, and there’s been someone you just know isn’t quite the full shilling. And how you react to them.
Luna’s Terminator is properly convincing. Speech cadence is better. The body size is better. He plays not necessarily a better Terminator (because respect to Arnie), but a better infiltration unit.
I didn't think it was possible to make a film worse than the last jedi.
But they managed to pump some life into this bloated long dead corpse and managed to pull it off flawlessly.
Arnie is a waste of time. Stop bringing him back just for the memes. Nobody cares. Put him back in his wheel chair.
Nobody cares about your Mexican border political bullcrap.
Saying "skynet is gone" to only then replace it with the exact same thing is not clever writing.
I found Luna to be the most menacing terminator since the T-1,000. Perhaps equally menacing, really. It wasn’t so much that he was physically dangerous so much that he came across like a sociopath who could manipulate or kill anyone at the drop of a hat. So, I found him to be scariest when he wasn’t stabbing people.
Nobody cares about your Mexican border political bullcrap.
To be fair, the mexican setting and getting across the border quest was something that helped connect Dark Fate to T2:JD(evading the T-1000 and aquiring arms and supplies), when all else was sandbagged.
Yeah, there probably is a political agenda behind it, but politics aside border control is an example of a system that could one day be part of our downfall - if we are not careful. And that is the strength of the Terminator series; its future is a dark mirror of the present. Its warning to us is to take responsibility for our technology - our systems - lest it becomes our downfall. Its a deep subject with many examples throughout modern life and history, but I think you see my point.
That said, fair play to your view of the film. I used to get jumped on for liking the Star Wars prequels and now The Last Jedi, which is the other end of the spectrum of this...
Azreal13 wrote: That wasn't aimed at you Bob, you just interrupted my addendum. But equally, a discussion would be most welcome, the same three or so people telling each other they liked the movie on a loop isn't all that interesting.
A lot of what I found most interesting in the film delves deeply into the lore and spoiler territory. The throw away line about there having been at least two other terminators/time travelers really made me wonder who or what sent them and why. The implications are that AI/sapient computing is a technology that is fairly easily achieved, that time travel technology is a generation or so away or much easier to discover for inhuman intelligences, and that the time stream will select for timelines that actively attempt to protect themselves (via desperate machines weaponizing time travel in this case). I’d love to see the next order implications, where machines learn that time travel has failed before and send units back specifically to enforce their own causality loop pasts. I don’t think a modern movie would develop that well at all, but a series could.
I also enjoyed how the future of Legion was different, and yet familiar. It sold the idea that certain technological trends will be inevitable.
I also liked how the internet-age Legion has more socially manipulative and quippy robots.
The border patrol scene seemed to be filmed as inoffensively as possible. The illegal immigrant detainees seemed pretty bland. The guards seemed pretty cynical, but when push came to stab they threw themselves between the RAV4 and their detainees. I’d say it was on par with the police in T1 in terms of “politics”, more a setting for a set piece right than a statement.
Yeah the "shoehorning in a political angle" seems like a far reach. Sarah Connor has always had connections to Mexico, certainly in the second movie - and the idea she was a wanted felon in the US wasn't exactly a reach given her actions in Terminator 2.
There was no bigger commentary involved other than what the logistics of the plot required, and if you're seeing one, then you are probably inventing one to fulfill something you require.
I've seen precisely one accurate portrayal of the border situation on film, and it's not in a Terminator film. Always amusing to see what people "think" though, particularly those with zero experience or information on the situation down there...
cuda1179 wrote: So.... What's up with this terminator? Metal endoskeleton with polymemetic alloy skin, kind of like the T-X in Terminator 3. The difference being that the liquid metal can at least temporarily split off from the skeleton to do it's own thing? I wonder if this is actually 2 terminators acting together, or a networked single entity.
Weirdly enough, now that the movie came out, I still can't answer that. They never explain how the Rev9 works at all. So, pretty much what you saw in the trailer, or barring that, what you saw with Transformers: Pretenders.
And, not to be pendantic, but
Spoiler:
the Rev9 isn't actually a Terminator at all, in the sense of the previous films - if we define Terminators as semi-autonomous agents of Skynet - since there is no Skynet, and Legion taking that branding seems gauche at best.
Also, the Rev9 was not at all equipped to deal with an actual T800 in the way the T-X was. I think from what we saw in the movie, a T-800 would probably destroy the Rev9 9 times out of 10.
Legion and the Rev9 seem really, really predisposed to hand-to-hand combat.
Also, it takes a plasma rifle or powerful rpg to kill a Terminator or HK. Dani’s Resistance were using what looked like large caliber assault rifles. A T-800 is built for a whole other level of fighting.
I think that might actually make sense in terms of tech?
In the Skynet future, the resistance get most of their plasma weapons by capturing and reworking the Terminators' own rifles so humans can use them. That always seemed to me like a massive oversight - one of the only weapons that can kill a Terminator, while not being especially more effective at killing humans than a ballistic rifle... and the Terminators keep dropping them everywhere?
In the Legion future, the ones we see attacking - Rev 7s - use their own bodies as weapons and do so fairly effectively. A relatively small number of them take down a vehicle and pretty much everyone in it, and they leave nothing behind humans can use (Unless that's where the augmentation parts come from, but it's hard to say because the humans clearly have their own R&D department)
It's also worth saying that in terms of the augmented soldiers, Grace has much better luck dodging projectiles or thwarting stuff like the drone that she can anticipate than she has with fighting him hand to hand. So if the humans have a bunch of those super soldiers (we only see one other) maybe it's the most reliable way of killing them?
cuda1179 wrote: So.... What's up with this terminator? Metal endoskeleton with polymemetic alloy skin, kind of like the T-X in Terminator 3. The difference being that the liquid metal can at least temporarily split off from the skeleton to do it's own thing? I wonder if this is actually 2 terminators acting together, or a networked single entity.
Weirdly enough, now that the movie came out, I still can't answer that. They never explain how the Rev9 works at all. So, pretty much what you saw in the trailer, or barring that, what you saw with Transformers: Pretenders.
And, not to be pendantic, but
Spoiler:
the Rev9 isn't actually a Terminator at all, in the sense of the previous films - if we define Terminators as semi-autonomous agents of Skynet - since there is no Skynet, and Legion taking that branding seems gauche at best.
Also, the Rev9 was not at all equipped to deal with an actual T800 in the way the T-X was. I think from what we saw in the movie, a T-800 would probably destroy the Rev9 9 times out of 10.
Spoiler:
Legion still uses the same 2 classifications for it's machines it seems though. In the future people call them HK's (Hunter Killers for the "vehicles") and terminators (for the "man sized" entities).
cuda1179 wrote: So.... What's up with this terminator? Metal endoskeleton with polymemetic alloy skin, kind of like the T-X in Terminator 3. The difference being that the liquid metal can at least temporarily split off from the skeleton to do it's own thing? I wonder if this is actually 2 terminators acting together, or a networked single entity.
Weirdly enough, now that the movie came out, I still can't answer that. They never explain how the Rev9 works at all. So, pretty much what you saw in the trailer, or barring that, what you saw with Transformers: Pretenders.
And, not to be pendantic, but
Spoiler:
the Rev9 isn't actually a Terminator at all, in the sense of the previous films - if we define Terminators as semi-autonomous agents of Skynet - since there is no Skynet, and Legion taking that branding seems gauche at best.
Also, the Rev9 was not at all equipped to deal with an actual T800 in the way the T-X was. I think from what we saw in the movie, a T-800 would probably destroy the Rev9 9 times out of 10.
Spoiler:
Legion still uses the same 2 classifications for it's machines it seems though. In the future people call them HK's (Hunter Killers for the "vehicles") and terminators (for the "man sized" entities).
Well the leader of the resistance Was introduced to them via a person who referred to them as Terminators.
Well, looks like Tim Miller got his wish and scared off those trolls. The movie according to the various industry news reports is a bomb and expected to lose $100+ million dollars and do worse than the previous two reboots.
warboss wrote: Well, looks like Tim Miller got his wish and scared off those trolls. The movie according to the various industry news reports is a bomb and expected to lose $100+ million dollars and do worse than the previous two reboots.
What is this in reference to? What was Tim Miller's exact quote?
In my opinion it was obvious as soon as that poster with three women appeared that there would be a culture war backlash against the movie. But there's some culture war backlash against every big budget movie these days, so no surprise. Without knowing what Tim Miller said and in what context, I assume he was talking about that.
As for the film having any kind of culture war message, there is one belabored conversation that was super cringey, out of character, and felt like it had been written for a film 25 years ago, but--but!--it was not written into the story for culture war purposes but rather to set up a twist. A really obvious twist that was in fact the audience's first assumption about the film and thus not a twist at all. That whole tangent was just embarrassing.
As for people being upset about an event in the first 5 minutes...Yeah, it's supposed to be upsetting. And shocking. And it removed a lot of baggage from the character and actor that could have overly complicated a film where even Dani feels superfluous for most of the movie. If you don't like that moment, that's fine. If it ruins the film for you, that's understandable. For me, it put the movie into that "what if" category of side-canon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Casualty wrote: I think that might actually make sense in terms of tech?
In the Skynet future, the resistance get most of their plasma weapons by capturing and reworking the Terminators' own rifles so humans can use them. That always seemed to me like a massive oversight - one of the only weapons that can kill a Terminator, while not being especially more effective at killing humans than a ballistic rifle... and the Terminators keep dropping them everywhere?
In the Legion future, the ones we see attacking - Rev 7s - use their own bodies as weapons and do so fairly effectively. A relatively small number of them take down a vehicle and pretty much everyone in it, and they leave nothing behind humans can use (Unless that's where the augmentation parts come from, but it's hard to say because the humans clearly have their own R&D department)
It's also worth saying that in terms of the augmented soldiers, Grace has much better luck dodging projectiles or thwarting stuff like the drone that she can anticipate than she has with fighting him hand to hand. So if the humans have a bunch of those super soldiers (we only see one other) maybe it's the most reliable way of killing them?
Did Skynet invent plasma weapons? The Terminator seemed to believe he could buy one from a human. I always assumed humans invented the tech and Skynet just made better use of It. The infiltrators were likely given weapons that the Reistance would not immediately spot as fresh Skynet originals. Also, the yield earlier in the war was noticeably higher, blasting humans into flaming rags. In T2-3D, one shot from a plasma rifle blasts a freeway pillar to dust. Skynet seems to have dialed down the yield for the final battle either to increase the rate of fire or charge life of the weapon or to reduce friendly fire damage and Tech Com's ability to pick up a rifle and get immediate use out of it. Also, Skynet may not have had the logistics for solid rounds; the HK's appear to be built for long, autonomous patrols.
I don't feel like we got to know enough about the Legion future. Apparently technological civilization fails soon and never restarts, but the resistance have cybernetic augment parts and flying water-strider troop carriers. Legion also used what were essentially missiles, but the Rev 7s never thought to pick up some rocks and turn any of their tentacles into slings.
An early “Dark Fate” poster received backlash, calling Davis and her co-stars “feminazis” and other chauvinist hate speech. How do you think she’ll be received in the room at Comic-Con?
If you’re at all enlightened, she’ll play like gangbusters. If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the f–k out of you, because she’s tough and strong but very feminine. We did not trade certain gender traits for others; she’s just very strong, and that frightens some dudes. You can see online the responses to some of the early s–t that’s out there, trolls on the internet. I don’t give a f–k.
An early “Dark Fate” poster received backlash, calling Davis and her co-stars “feminazis” and other chauvinist hate speech. How do you think she’ll be received in the room at Comic-Con?
If you’re at all enlightened, she’ll play like gangbusters. If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the f–k out of you, because she’s tough and strong but very feminine. We did not trade certain gender traits for others; she’s just very strong, and that frightens some dudes. You can see online the responses to some of the early s–t that’s out there, trolls on the internet. I don’t give a f–k.
I'm not seeing much of a problem with this other than his use of the word "enlightened" where "chill" or even "normal" would have been the better choice. This is pretty much exactly what I expected: trolls went nuts over the poster and Tim Miller said anything at all about it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Could you explain to me, if you see his comment as some kind of outrage, why?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I'm not seeing much of a problem with this other than his use of the word "enlightened" where "chill" or even "normal" would have been the better choice. This is pretty much exactly what I expected: trolls went nuts over the poster and Tim Miller said anything at all about it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Could you explain to me, if you see his comment as some kind of outrage, why?
It would be impossbile to have an open and honest discussion regarding the problems many folks (including myself) have with the messaging and apparently the end product (I didn't see it myself but rather watched spoiler reviews) without breaking the rules of this forum. It would be doubly stupid to do so with a mod warning on the prior page.
Fair enough. We can discuss in PMs if you're interested.
My own take on the film bombing is that the last 3 Terminator films were crap, the advertisements for Dark Fate were crap, there are angry people online (who may not have seen it) calling it crap, and most action movies are crap, so most people just assumed it was crap. The Bumblebee Effect, they call it.
It is commented on once in that cringe-inducing conversation I mentioned earlier, but it was in service of a lame twist rather than gender politics.
Having her "Kyle Reese" unable to impregnate her also neatly keeps the audience from wasting time anticipating the closed loop twist of the first movie. I suppose they could have done that with Danny and Gary instead of Dani and Grace, but then the movie would have felt even more repetitive.
My own take on the film bombing is that the last 3 Terminator films were crap, the advertisements for Dark Fate were crap, there are angry people online (who may not have seen it) calling it crap, and most action movies are crap, so most people just assumed it was crap. The Bumblebee Effect, they call it.
Yeah, I'll pm you later tonight as I can't right now. Needless to say, the prior three movies also being "meh" to "bad" depending on the viewpoint on top of whatever folks thought of this one certainly didn't help this movie either on top of the voldemort issues (that can't be discussed).
I thought Bumblebee was a financial success; am I mistaken? I remember the general talk around that movie being positive in regards to how much it was making at the time with the studio execs hinting that it might spawn a reboot fo the franchise even.
I thought Bumblebee was considered a soft success at best, like Godzilla KOTM, but for the studios a failure to live up to studio expectations and the death-knell for the franchise.
Common wisdom is that it massively underperformed for its quality.
warboss wrote: Needless to say, the prior three movies also being "meh" to "bad" depending on the viewpoint on top of whatever folks thought of this one certainly didn't help this movie.
Yeah, it's kind of ironic that the only good Terminator movie post-T2 is probably going to be the one to sink the franchise. My guess would be "franchise exhaustion" - you can only have so many turds in a row before all but the diehards tune out.
Even if the next Predator movie is somehow amazing*, I imagine it will meet the same fate.
Kinda sad we're likely never going to get any answers to some of the questions I was thinking about last night:
Spoiler:
Can the liquid half of the Rev9 survive without the endoskeleton? How come when it got shoved into a giant grinder, the liquid half was destroyed iirc but the endoskeleton kind of survived when you would expect the exact opposite to happen? (bad writing is probably the answer to that))
Can the Rev9 throw pieces of itself the way the T-1000 could?
How come the T800 estimated the chances of destroying the Rev9 at like 12% or whatever when it appears the T800 was significantly better in hand-to-hand combat? In that same vein, why was the Rev9 - with a clear and distinct predisposition to melee - so bad at fighting the T800? I mean, at one point the T800 literally just grabbed him and tarpitted him for a fight.
Maybe the 12% was factoring in what the Rev9 response would have been: doing what you do with a Land Raider and just ignoring it.
How come the T800 estimated the chances of destroying the Rev9 at like 12% or whatever when it appears the T800 was significantly better in hand-to-hand combat? In that same vein, why was the Rev9 - with a clear and distinct predisposition to melee - so bad at fighting the T800? I mean, at one point the T800 literally just grabbed him and tarpitted him for a fight.
Spoiler:
I think this comes down to Rev9's resilience. Almost nothing does him permanent harm, while both Grace and the T800 take damage with physical consequences for them. T800 does put up a good fight in the dam, but you could say a lot of that is because Grace is also there to keep him off balance with the chain - fighting him/them alone before then cost Carl an arm. And while Rev9 only needs to be lucky once, Team Goodguy needs to stay lucky indefinitely.
The liquid half seemed to lose its "plastic" qualities after it was burned in the explosion, I think that's what we see dripping, hardening and cracking off him when he emerges from the molten wreckage?
I wasn’t planning to see this movie at all until I read MDG’s review and a couple others. Franchise exhaustion is real.
Too be fair to Carl, the Rev 9 had his hands on Dani a couple of times and should have killed her instantly like he did the border patrol. Carl couldn’t have anticipated such incompetence.
My main takeaway is that maybe we should all be more careful what we wish for in terms of Cameron's involvement because this is the latest of a few examples where his takes seem WAY off base to me.
Yeah, I remember Cameron raving about how amazing Salvation was going to be, too. Yet another dude who created something awesome and now desperately needs to be kept away from it (see George Lucas, Chris Carter, etc).
thanks for that article, lots of neat backstory. One of the things that was kind of a bummer - but I guess consistent with the franchise worldview - was
Spoiler:
When the T800 showed off it's giant weapons stash and explained that he calculated a 78% chance or whatever that civilization was going to collapse, regardless of if Judgement Day had happened or not.
So, while Skynet specifically isn't inevitable, something Skynet-esque surely is.
warboss wrote: Well, looks like Tim Miller got his wish and scared off those trolls. The movie according to the various industry news reports is a bomb and expected to lose $100+ million dollars and do worse than the previous two reboots.
I mean, I like how everyone tries to make this about gender.
Keep in mind, these same movie-goers hated The Predator just as much. I know I did.
I'm sick of the creatively bankrupt just rebooting old stuff and hoping the name carries it. And when that's not enough, they seem to do the lazy writing thing where "this new thing is so much scarier than the old one and kicks its ass!"
JAWS 5- SPACE JAWS, THE SHARK FROM SPACE THAT EATS THE ORIGINAL JAWS BECAUSE IT IS BETTER!
I can't imagine disliking a movie and then someone's response is to call me a 'troll' or some variation of a bigot. No wonder the movie industry is flailing.
He was speaking about people who were against the movie before they could possibly have seen it based on their belief that the poster was a culture war statement. What you are describing is not that. He did not do what you say he did. Please stop being deliberately obtuse.
Ouze wrote: Yeah, I remember Cameron raving about how amazing Salvation was going to be, too. Yet another dude who created something awesome and now desperately needs to be kept away from it (see George Lucas, Chris Carter, etc).
Oh God. Chris Carter is such a good, terrible call. Ugh.
Yeah, so while I sort of liked Carl, and get why they wanted him in, I think I've made up my mind he was probably one of the movie's big weak points. Everything slows down abruptly once he appears, and the justification he gives for the texts etc feels very much like something somebody wrote on a napkin in a hurry when Arnie said yes. I can live with it, but *just about*.
More than that though, while some comic relief was fine, the amount Cameron seems to have wanted feels really misjudged to me.
Any further explanation on Carl’s change of heart would have slowed the movie down even more. They just wanted to skip to the part where the audience accepts Uncle Bob mk2. From the interview posted earlier, it sounds like a lot of that kind of exposition got cut.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Any further explanation on Carl’s change of heart would have slowed the movie down even more. They just wanted to skip to the part where the audience accepts Uncle Bob mk2. From the interview posted earlier, it sounds like a lot of that kind of exposition got cut.
Third best in the franchise indeed.
I get that, but I'm inclined to think the movie could have been far sleeker and meaner without him at all. I enjoyed him - and I think they actually did well to give him a sort of ersatz "happy family" while making it clear he is not and cannot be a human - but I wonder if there was a draft that ran cleaner without having to get bogged down in an extended pitstop around him.
I doubt the film would have been funded without him attached o it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean, I agree, but his presence does add some fun fight scenes and a better explanation for Sarah's presence than "I saw it on the news and drove right over."
Adeptus Doritos wrote: At this point, I'm just ready for these movies to do what slasher flicks did, and embrace the absurdity.
A bunch of the roughest, toughest, rootinest, shootinest geriatrics running around with a 5'1" 100lb butt kicking savior of humanity didn't scratch that itch? I would have thought that the muscle bound killer robot from the future turned seamstress/interior decorator living like Al Bundy in Married with Children would have clinched that. There's a great article out there lampooning Carl and his predicament as an 80's/90's TGIF sitcom. They must have executed it really well for it not be as absurd as it sounds from this outsider's perspective.
Even the Usual Suspects sounds stupid if you hear the plot explained by a hater.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That said, I would love it if they embraced the ridiculous. a Short Circuit/Terminator crossover would make me very happy.
A bunch of the roughest, toughest, rootinest, shootinest geriatrics running around with a 5'1" 100lb butt kicking savior of humanity didn't scratch that itch? I would have thought that the muscle bound killer robot from the future turned seamstress/interior decorator living like Al Bundy in Married with Children would have clinched that. There's a great article out there lampooning Carl and his predicament as an 80's/90's TGIF sitcom. They must have executed it really well for it not be as absurd as it sounds from this outsider's perspective.
I said embrace the absurdity, not turn into a parody.
I'm going to pretend you made that bit up because no terminator movies exist after the 2nd one.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I don’t get why the physical size of the commander of the Resistance matters. Did John Connor defeat Skynet with his muscles?
But the rest of it...sure. Whatever.
I heard there was a scene where future her singlehandedly beats up a whole group of rapists all individually much bigger than her. Was that reviewer mistaken? Unless it was made clear that she too is upgraded like Grace, that's why her physicality matters. If they had instead cast someone like Gina Carano or anyone with an impressive physical presence (like Linda Hamilton in T2 but not T1) then it wouldn't matter. I'd be saying the same thing if they had instead cast the guy from Napoleon Dynamite in the shape he was in for that movie as a T-800.
To be fair, no one would eve expect this to be a killing machine. It's actually rather brilliant I mean, in the post-apocalyptic future who is healthy enough to be ripped like a body builder?
LordofHats wrote: To be fair, no one would eve expect this to be a killing machine. It's actually rather brilliant I mean, in the post-apocalyptic future who is healthy enough to be ripped like a body builder?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I don’t get why the physical size of the commander of the Resistance matters. Did John Connor defeat Skynet with his muscles?
But the rest of it...sure. Whatever.
I heard there was a scene where future her singlehandedly beats up a whole group of rapists all individually much bigger than her. Was that reviewer mistaken? Unless it was made clear that she too is upgraded like Grace, that's why her physicality matters. If they had instead cast someone like Gina Carano or anyone with an impressive physical presence (like Linda Hamilton in T2 but not T1) then it wouldn't matter. I'd be saying the same thing if they had instead cast the guy from Napoleon Dynamite in the shape he was in for that movie as a T-800.
They are more like food thieves than rapists, half of them are women, and Inonly recall one of them being huge. Also, they are attacking someone else when Dani gets the drop on them, uses martial arts to stun two or three of them (I don’t remember if she fights the huge guy, but he seems confused or conflicted the whole time anyway, and we earlier saw him fighting with the Resistance later on) before making her speech. And she had a whole bunch of armed people with her just out of sight the entire time. And she knew how the moment would play out because the the other person there was grace, the time traveler who told her how they met.
Automatically Appended Next Post: PS: Sarah Connor trained Dani, too.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I don’t get why the physical size of the commander of the Resistance matters. Did John Connor defeat Skynet with his muscles?
But the rest of it...sure. Whatever.
I heard there was a scene where future her singlehandedly beats up a whole group of rapists all individually much bigger than her. Was that reviewer mistaken?
I wouldn’t say "mistaken", but they're certainly trying to... present that scene through a certain lens. There's no suggestion at all the three are rapists, for example (and at least one is a woman).
The attackers are starving and reluctantly mugging a kid for food. She disarms two and talks down the third guy.
It's the worst executed scene in the movie, don't get me wrong, but the stuff that's wrong with it isn't this.
The scene is supposed to set her up as a leader who can unite desperate people and give them a purpose*, not as a badass. She is trained, well fed, and has backup, fighting against starving civilians.
*That's like the movie's jam. Everyone's arc involves finding a purpose to become a better person.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The scene is supposed to set her up as a leader who can unite desperate people and give them a purpose*, not as a badass. She is trained, well fed, and has backup, fighting against starving civilians.
*That's like the movie's jam. Everyone's arc involves finding a purpose to become a better person.
Yeah, I was surprised not to hear more about the "purpose" theme in stuff afterwards, because I thought it was actually quite well woven in overall. I could go along with Carl's family because his fixation on "purpose" made it less of a sentimental thing and more a slightly creepy attempt by a machine to give itself missions, objectives, purpose, within a human framework.
Presumably a result of the multiple writers, but the contrast in how hammy the dialogue in that scene was compared how deft it was in the bit of Sarah talking about John is quite striking.
Doesn't he imply that his mission is to infiltrate, so that's why he behaves as human as possible? That he doesn't have human emotions, but he does absorb human values?
I got the impression that without Skynet around to give him orders, he really wasn't interested in killing so much as passing for human.
Saw it last night, would echo the others on here that it’s pretty good; the action scenes are generally well done (the first car chase in particular), the characters are interesting and have good chemistry and the plot is different enough whilst following the same mould.
With regard to Carl, I think they were trying to build on the “I know now why you cry, but it’s something I can never do” idea from T2; he’s trying to give himself objectives but is also growing beyond his original programming. And I think they did that pretty well. Also, although the comedy felt a little out of tone at times, the jokes were good, particularly Carl’s machine precision applied to his chosen...profession.
In fact the one thing that the franchise has never satisfactorily explored (although they were building toward it in Chronicles) is that if left to evolve independently, AI’s are not automatically genocidal maniacs. That’s just Skynet. Having machines that support humanity against Skynet, or just on their own agenda, could make for some really interesting stories.
I mean, Carl even says that once he jobbed JC ‘there were no more orders’.
And we know from T2, they cannot self Terminate.
So what does it do from there? We know T-800’s have an on/off switch for learning. And I think there’s a certain argument can be made that in order to be a successful infiltration unit, that the deployment default is ‘on’. With a matching argument that for a reprogrammed unit having it switched off, so it cannot deviate from a protection plan.
I put it to Dakkanauts that Carl simply found a way to entertain himself, as his learning mode was on.
In fact the one thing that the franchise has never satisfactorily explored (although they were building toward it in Chronicles) is that if left to evolve independently, AI’s are not automatically genocidal maniacs. That’s just Skynet. Having machines that support humanity against Skynet, or just on their own agenda, could make for some really interesting stories.
And more robot battles! Can never have too many of those!
T-800s are Infiltration Units. Which suggests a need for adaptive programming. After all, do you really want to take out a small cell of the Resistance, or embed within and await the opportunity and intelligence to strike a larger force?
And if not, why have a physical learning on/off switch? What purposes does that serve?
So I’m leaning toward it’s default mode is actually ‘on’, with the Terminator 2 T-800 having it switched off in an attempt to limit harm done should the reprogramming not stick.
This is just a fan theory based on the films. I’ve read some Terminator comics from Dark Horse, but am aware their may be more sources to shoot me down elsewhere.
It's an interesting box that James Cameron created: he presented the idea that Terminators can learn, but also expressly presented the idea they are intentionally shipped out with that feature disabled.
Perhaps Skynet enables that feature when it sends terminators on specific missions, but prefers most units to remain perfectly compliant? The Resistance may not have known how to enable it or wanted to take the risk.
Ouze wrote: It's an interesting box that James Cameron created: he presented the idea that Terminators can learn, but also expressly presented the idea they are intentionally shipped out with that feature disabled.
I disagree. The only one we know to have is disabled is the resistance reprogrammed one.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Perhaps Skynet enables that feature when it sends terminators on specific missions, but prefers most units to remain perfectly compliant? The Resistance may not have known how to enable it or wanted to take the risk.
Skynet presets the switch to read-only when they are sent out alone, which is the case for the first two T-800s and "Carl". The resistance merely reprogrammed John's T-800 guardian to protect him.
As far as we know, Carl is acting alone when he "accomplishes his mission" so unless someone has adjusted his switch for him(the guardian needed assistance in the T1000 edition of T2) I don't see how he is able to think as he does in Dark Fate.
That said programs in the real world can contain bugs that produce unexpected behaviour - sometimes going unnoticed for years. With the tell-tale signs of the T-600s, even Skynet needs to revise its designs...
Ouze wrote: It's an interesting box that James Cameron created: he presented the idea that Terminators can learn, but also expressly presented the idea they are intentionally shipped out with that feature disabled.
I disagree. The only one we know to have is disabled is the resistance reprogrammed one.
SamusDrake wrote: Skynet presets the switch to read-only when they are sent out alone, which is the case for the first two T-800s and "Carl". The resistance merely reprogrammed John's T-800 guardian to protect him.
As far as we know, Carl is acting alone when he "accomplishes his mission" so unless someone has adjusted his switch for him(the guardian needed assistance in the T1000 edition of T2) I don't see how he is able to think as he does in Dark Fate.
That said programs in the real world can contain bugs that produce unexpected behaviour - sometimes going unnoticed for years. With the tell-tale signs of the T-600s, even Skynet needs to revise its designs...
Where is it stated that Skynet sets its time-traveling terminators to read only? I would think they would need to be the most adaptable.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Where is it stated that Skynet sets its time-traveling terminators to read only? I would think they would need to be the most adaptable.
T2, Garage scene. When they're patching each other up.
In a deleted scene from Terminator 2 - one that James Cameron says he really regrets omitting. I linked it above. It's notable for two reasons:
1.) It's the one that establishes as actual canon that Terminators can learn, so you can't have one without the other.
2.) It's an incredible clever piece of filmmaking. For example, how did they shoot that scene without the cameraman showing up in the mirror? No CGI - Linda Hamilton has a twin sister, and the "mirror" is just a hole in the wall. The cast is on the side you can see, stand-ins are on the side you can't. The second clever use of real-life twins in the movie.
It's a great scene, and as you say an ingenious bit of filmmaking, but it's not considered canon officially, that's the theatrical cut, which papers over the point it should have been.
Tbh though it wouldn't make a ton of sense to send a Terminator back in time like that and then make it incapable of learning, for all the reasons above. It needs to be able to absorb information either to blend in or to effectively pursue a target.
I guess it depends on what you consider canon, which is a little slippery but.... they added it back in to the ultra skynet mega edition or whatever later, along with the flashback of her with Kyle Reese's ghost. There have been about 20 different Terminator 2 versions on home media and I think most of them now include it, but some do and some don't.
Is the scenes were Ripley finds out her daughter died canon? It wasn't in the theatrical cut, but added in later and much like T2, generally included as part of the movie and not special features.
If only the theatrical cut is what counts, then neither scene is canon, and while I don't agree with that point of view, I certainly understand and respect it - because it's inarguable, really. RAW vs RAI.
Well, either way it does show the possibility that Carl was set to learn mode, and likely before he was sent out.
So for the purpose of Dark Fate, he is possible as a character.
As to why he started a family? I guess AIs can go insane without a purpose. So why not become nurturing where many humans become murderous?
Sure, it’s remains a bit of a plot hole, but not the gaping one first thought. Best thing for me is that Arnie convinces in the role.
Plus, seeing him and Mackenzie wail on the Rev-9 remains incredibly satisfying!
I mean, in T2 the T-1000 is clearly the superior creation. So the fights are one sided. Here, we get to see a different combat design. One that is simply massively resilient to damage.
So despite it having ten bells knocked out of it by a combat model, and an enhanced soldier? It just keeps going. That to me is a pleasing hark back to Kyle’s original explanation to Sarah.
That they also make him genuinely scary through efficiency is just icing. The way it’s actually kinda charismatic, but switches to ruthless in the blink of an eye is great.
In short, the Rev-9 is a successful new take on the Terminator concept, in the same way way the T-1000 was. It’s more advanced. It’s a better mimic. And they didn’t have to ‘give it four arses’ to keep it scary.
What does someone who is not like other men do when he wants to fit in? He gets a family, grows a beard, buys some guns, ...and then goes into his dream job, but he can still 'pass' because he pushes his customers towards heteronormative purchases.
I have a head canon for the switch thing, that there’s a contingency built into the T800 that turns the self-learning on if they run out of orders, precisely so that they can then develop their own directives. I imagine that if Skynet managed to get an infiltrator in place and achieve it’s objective without being detected it would be wasteful to have it just go into standby mode when it could be seeking out opportunities to do further damage.
If only the theatrical cut is what counts, then neither scene is canon, and while I don't agree with that point of view, I certainly understand and respect it - because it's inarguable, really. RAW vs RAI.
Even worse example: if the theatrical cut is the only canon version then we're stuck with that awful studio mandated ending of Blade Runner, no unicorn dream and the terrible voiceover.
And what about films where the theatrical cut was different based on where you saw it?
Jadenim wrote: I have a head canon for the switch thing, that there’s a contingency built into the T800 that turns the self-learning on if they run out of orders, precisely so that they can then develop their own directives. I imagine that if Skynet managed to get an infiltrator in place and achieve it’s objective without being detected it would be wasteful to have it just go into standby mode when it could be seeking out opportunities to do further damage.
That said, the first T-800 was able to be teleported because it was surrounded by living tissue, so somehow metal is still transferable - otherwise Arnold would have materialized as an empty skinbag. We must also remember that Kyle Reese is a solider and not a scientist and thus "doesn't understand that tech stuff", and might be generalising what someone else was trying to explain to him(probably due to a lack of time, due to the emergency). As far as he knows the "time displacement equipment" was destroyed after he used it - presumably by his fellow resistance soliders. That alone begs the question - how did Skynet and the resistance send Arnold and Robert back without the time equipment?
Giving thought to it, I reckon the time equipment used for the events in T2 suggests that somehow Skynet survived the resistance victory mentioned in the first film("its defence grid was smashed! We'd already won" sounds like a boast of confidence), and is an improved version of the equipment where metal isn't a problem anymore. Skynet created a Terminator that can shape its own weapons so its not concerned with sending back an arsenal with it. The resistance, on the other hand, are in a race against time and are like wise - they know that the T-800 will equip itself as an efficient infiltration unit...
But at the end of the day, they are just movies. For all the crap being thrown at Dark Fate, it is still a well made action movie, and if tickets weren't so damn expensive these days I wouldn't mind seeing it again. Personally, I prefer T3 and Salvation as the real continuation of the first two movies, but I still enjoyed Genysis and Dark Fate for what they are - fun cyborg movies.
Giving thought to it, I reckon the time equipment used for the events in T2 suggests that somehow Skynet survived the resistance victory mentioned in the first film("its defence grid was smashed! We'd already won" sounds like a boast of confidence), and is an improved version of the equipment where metal isn't a problem anymore. Skynet created a Terminator that can shape its own weapons so its not concerned with sending back an arsenal with it. The resistance, on the other hand, are in a race against time and are like wise - they know that the T-800 will equip itself as an efficient infiltration unit...
I forget the specifics, but there was originally scripted a pretty massive opening for T2 to explain all of that that was almost entirely cut because it was almost a movie into itself. Basically, we would have seen the Resistance victorious and John very purposefully go into Skynet to use the time displacement equipment he knows is there to send Kyle back to save his mother, acknowledging to another soldier after that he sent his father back to die. Then he mentions there's more to do and goes to the T-800 storage to get Arnie to stop the T-1000. The implication was that Skynet sent both Terminators back at the same time. The prototype, one of a kind T-1000 was sent to kill John directly while they sent a standard T-800 after Sarah as a backup plan. The original opening heavily implies that John knows this because he already fought the T-1000 in the past.
Like most things in the franchise, T2 successfully stopping Judgement Day really makes a mess of the way time travel is written and used throughout the series.
My understanding was always that they didn’t stop Judgement Day. T2 only makes sense if it is part of the same closed loop as T1. “No fate but what we make” is just something humans tell themselves to feel better about the inevitable.
The cut scene where Judgement Day is prevented I don’t consider canon.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: My understanding was always that they didn’t stop Judgement Day. T2 only makes sense if it is part of the same closed loop as T1. “No fate but what we make” is just something humans tell themselves to feel better about the inevitable.
The cut scene where Judgement Day is prevented I don’t consider canon.
I actually quite like the line in the context of a film in which John of the future makes his own past happen.
I always figured that the T-1000 being able to time travel was due to it effectively being alive; IIRC the line from T1 was “something to do with the field around a living thing, nothing dead will go”.
The unfortunate thing is that it fell into a niche that's mostly occupied by people suggesting The Raid instead. If it had gotten the attention it deserves it could have been the movie everyone realizes is great and the hipster crowd whines about instead. It's pretty great on its own merits though.
Love the two Dredd movies. The ABC was badass and Olivia Thirlby done up in sci-fi police garb gets me all hot and bothered. Omg, Rob Schider was damn funny, and Lena Hedy is a great nasty piece of work. Can't go wrong there.
I think Dark Fate will eventually be seen in a more favourable light when its had some time on home release. Nothing will change the flaws but it deserves praise for at least the action, pacing and enthusiastic cast. Personally, I wished Cameron had done something that fans would have genuinely appreciated; a final season of Sarah Connor Chronicles.
LucasFIlm and Disney are doing this for The Clone Wars and a third season taking place in the future would have been a fantastic send off for the series and the fans. That series has accomplished far more to date than any sequel to T2.
That said - what else is on at the pictures at the moment? Dark Fate should at least be a magnet for those suffering from boredom!
I think Dark Fate will eventually be seen in a more favourable light when its had some time on home release. Nothing will change the flaws but it deserves praise for at least the action, pacing and enthusiastic cast. Personally, I wished Cameron had done something that fans would have genuinely appreciated; a final season of Sarah Connor Chronicles.
From what I've read Cameron was heavily involved with the editing, would he be willing to hand final approval back over to Miller for the home release?
I'm very curious about what kind of Director's Cut they might come up with, if they do one, and how different it might feel as a result. I think the future war stuff could have changed the overall shape of the movie a lot (whether for good or bad idk).
Also that reminds me, I really need to get around to seeing Dredd finally.
From what I've read Cameron was heavily involved with the editing, would he be willing to hand final approval back over to Miller for the home release?
I'm very curious about what kind of Director's Cut they might come up with, if they do one, and how different it might feel as a result. I think the future war stuff could have changed the overall shape of the movie a lot (whether for good or bad idk).
Also that reminds me, I really need to get around to seeing Dredd finally.
I doubt that there will be a directors cut for Dark Fate, and to be honest it doesn't actually need one unlike, say, GB'2016 which had serious issues with editing.
And yes, defintely give Dredd a shot. Just bear in mind that some shots were designed to take advantage of 3D glasses - and its actually one of the finer examples out there.
Can never have too many of those!
I did not know this.
