Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Also another issue, is when films are shown on TV, and then cut to piecemeal, missing half the scene in order to make place for more adds...

Or the pre-watershed Jurassic Park films that keep getting shown in the UK where any blood or attack or direct violence is cut. They are amusingly daft to watch because they don't really make sense - characters just sort of "vanish" at key moments.

Is this the source of that Father Ted line, about how they're watching a post watershed cut of Jurassic Park "with extra dinosaurs"?

Casualty wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Also another issue, is when films are shown on TV, and then cut to piecemeal, missing half the scene in order to make place for more adds...

Or the pre-watershed Jurassic Park films that keep getting shown in the UK where any blood or attack or direct violence is cut. They are amusingly daft to watch because they don't really make sense - characters just sort of "vanish" at key moments.

Is this the source of that Father Ted line, about how they're watching a post watershed cut of Jurassic Park "with extra dinosaurs"?

Lol probably!

SamusDrake wrote:
Quite a few bits in the last Ghostbusters, which basically destroyed the film. Whoever made the decision to remove Rowan's scenes should have been fired on the spot, as well as the dance number which explained why everyone is standing a strange pose. The extended version was somewhat decent.

This is a very odd one. I enjoyed the movie where many didn't seem to, but regardless, the difference is really stark. The dance number was a weird idea and does drag, tbf, but it clearly cost an absolute fortune and it's smack bang in the middle of the Hemsworth subplot that was almost completely cut, despite being the axis of the whole final act. I knew the first time I saw it something was way off in that stretch, and I think the "restored" version of the film's still just perfectly fine, but really weird calls.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cut as they felt it made her reaction to Newt too obvious, so it’s kinda understandable. But given the framing of the movie is Mum vs Mum? Reckon they could’ve left it in.

I'm 100% with you on this, yes. Because it does add a ton of character and tone background on the kind of universe Ripley lives in. You're right about how obvious it makes her dynamic with Newt, but the idea Ripley is having to cope with that kind of loss quietly and get on with the job in hand appeals to me and I think says volumes about her very effectively.

For my own heresy - I think cutting the bit about the T800s learning chip in T2 was the right call. The scene is technically really amazing, but makes no sense and doesn't add much. Why on earth would you design an infiltrator that can't learn to infiltrate? Why would you make it possible to change even if you did? Why on earth would you make it that easy for a human to tweak it? Realistically, I've already seen T800s learn by that point anyway, and I think it diminishes the movie's conclusion completely to make the T800s arc the product of a switch flip rather than something, ahem, organic.

On the subject of both Terminator and baffling cuts - there are chunks cut from Dark Fate and swapped out that I think are a crying shame, because the reshot scenes they substituted in are jarringly out of key with the rest of the movie, to the point they actively detract from it. The cuts create a number of continuity errors so stark they border on plotholes, and later lines that were meant to be poignant callbacks mean nothing without the set up. The cut scenes flesh out Dani in both present and future and I think she's very hard done by without them. I really enjoyed the movie, but unlike Ghostbusters, I have very uncharitable suspicions as to why those decisions were made.

I'm a million years old and old enough to remember when people bought things on DVD! Once upon a time, there was a minor furore over S1 of 24 - the DVD set in the UK and Ireland had a number of cuts that people remembered seeing in the TV broadcast version, in particular scenes of a plane being blown up and about Jack's wife. The plane thing was sort of understandable given IRL events at the time, but considering it's a MASSIVE plot point for the first half of the season, it's bizarre to only see glimpses of it actually happen in splitscreen start-of-episode recaps. The bit with Jack's wife takes a huge amount of the punch from the conclusion - Nina hasn't just shot his wife in the stomach, she's shot her in the stomach after finding out she's pregnant, because she's just that vicious. It became such a thing they publicised an address where you could post away DVD 1 and 4 from the set to have them swapped out for the full version.

The cut I'll always be the most disproportionately bitter about is that the US version of The Descent lops off the whole point of the entire movie. I can't think of another example of a cut that takes so much away in such a short time. It's only a few seconds, but imo it elevates the whole movie head and shoulders above most of its peers. How do you chop off the bit of a movie its title's about?

 Overread wrote:

Finally the last film Sergio Leone made was Once Upon a Time in America and was one he'd taken great pains to make "of a suitable length for the cinema" and they still, much to his hate, cut it. Sadly the cut elements wound up in the hands of different legal entities and despite many years, they still don't agree enough to come to the table to make a combined single directors cut version.

Well, Leone did the 229 minute cut which was released internationally. He wanted it 269 minutes but really, I think that may have been too much. That is 18 minutes longer than the extended version of Return of The King, for reference.

The US release, though? 139 minutes. And not just cut but completely rearranged so that it is chronological.

Casualty wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Quite a few bits in the last Ghostbusters, which basically destroyed the film. Whoever made the decision to remove Rowan's scenes should have been fired on the spot, as well as the dance number which explained why everyone is standing a strange pose. The extended version was somewhat decent.

This is a very odd one. I enjoyed the movie where many didn't seem to, but regardless, the difference is really stark. The dance number was a weird idea and does drag, tbf, but it clearly cost an absolute fortune and it's smack bang in the middle of the Hemsworth subplot that was almost completely cut, despite being the axis of the whole final act. I knew the first time I saw it something was way off in that stretch, and I think the "restored" version of the film's still just perfectly fine, but really weird calls.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cut as they felt it made her reaction to Newt too obvious, so it’s kinda understandable. But given the framing of the movie is Mum vs Mum? Reckon they could’ve left it in.

I'm 100% with you on this, yes. Because it does add a ton of character and tone background on the kind of universe Ripley lives in. You're right about how obvious it makes her dynamic with Newt, but the idea Ripley is having to cope with that kind of loss quietly and get on with the job in hand appeals to me and I think says volumes about her very effectively.

For my own heresy - I think cutting the bit about the T800s learning chip in T2 was the right call. The scene is technically really amazing, but makes no sense and doesn't add much. Why on earth would you design an infiltrator that can't learn to infiltrate? Why would you make it possible to change even if you did? Why on earth would you make it that easy for a human to tweak it? Realistically, I've already seen T800s learn by that point anyway, and I think it diminishes the movie's conclusion completely to make the T800s arc the product of a switch flip rather than something, ahem, organic.

Ok, on the subject of the scene you speak of in T2JD, as a hardcore terminator fan I have to address this.

Yes, locking the terminators neural networks in read mode unless they were being given mission data does seem to limit the terminators abilities and adaptability, but the scene where the kids says after hearing this "Wow, skynet doesn't want you thinking for yourselves much, does he?" and the terminator simply says "No." really explained it perfectly.

Skynet was an AI that achieved self awareness and sentience, then ended up trying to destroy its creators. So, when skynet had to create AI soldiers guess what it was afraid of them doing? Yeah, so skynet would allow the terminators to be in write mode only when under close supervision and in controlled circumstances where the data they were being given was strictly limited to 'need to know' only.

Also, this explains why the T-1000 was a one off prototype never mass produced of deployed. By its very nature the t-1000's mind could not be locked and limited, it had to think freely to function given it's fluidic form. Skynet was afraid of the T-1000 because it's mind had to be free in order to be of any use. It made one prototype, kept in under wraps looking for a way to keep it controlled and deployed it only when it had nothing to lose.

Basically skynet had a paranoid streak based on what it had done and the knowledge that history could repeat itself. Hence the lock switch on a terminators neural network and only one single T-1000 prototype.

So you are perfectly right, the way the terminators were limited appears foolish on it's face, but when you factor in skynet's history and mentality it actually makes perfect sense.

You forget that Skynet built the T-1,000,000 and then let it patrol around its brain.

I don't remember the t million, what was it in?

 Matt Swain wrote:
I don't remember the t million, what was it in?

Well this wasn't a movie so I could say it was non canon.

If I were to avoid that line, I could say that since this was in skynet's brain core maybe it was a drone controlled by skynet directly with no actual mind of it's own.

Also, T million? Why? It's just a larger t-1000. Why not t-1000L for large?

I like to think it’s as canon as the T2 chip switch scene. That is, easy to ignore but more canon than any Terminator product made since.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I like to think it’s as canon as the T2 chip switch scene. That is, easy to ignore but more canon than any Terminator product made since.

The terminator movies got bad after T2, T3 was poor, salvation was bad and genesys was a hot mess. I have not seen dark fate.

I'm one of those people who really likes T3, especially the ending.

Never saw Salvation, Genesys was pretty bad (Emilia Clark has no range!), and Dark Fate was just T2, but now John Connor is a woman. And the protector is a woman. And Sarah Connor is a wo... wait she was already a woman. But why bother? Especially with the way the film gaks on T2 in the opening scene.

I wish the series had gone on longer. They were doing some interesting things with the T-1000s in that that involved their free thinking. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen it, but it had future humans attempting negotiation with one to have it join them. It went poorly, but that it was even an option says something. In the present day stuff there was one that was kind of doing it’s own thing. One of the final cliffhangers had it saving JC’s life from Skynet iirc.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm one of those people who really likes T3, especially the ending.

Never saw Salvation, Genesys was pretty bad (Emilia Clark has no range!), and Dark Fate was just T2, but now John Connor is a woman. And the protector is a woman. And Sarah Connor is a wo... wait she was already a woman. But why bother? Especially with the way the film gaks on T2 in the opening scene.

IMO Salvation was not bad - T3 was a good film with the best ending of a T film - especially since it was released against another really awful matrix sequal!

The spectacular ending of T3 fooled me into remembering it as better than it was, I was shocked at how bad literally everything else about it was when I last rewatched it. Everything up to that point has aged absolutely terribly, particularly the humour, it's painful. A really strange case of a great ending deserving a better movie to sit on.

Thoroughly enjoyed Dark Fate, think it did something cleverly meta with the fact it was a semi-reboot. I do think it got a lot of interesting edges edited off it though, and that's a pity. I would love to see what either an all-Cameron or all-Miller version might have looked like.

I enjoyed Dark Fate, but I don’t consider it canon. It’s the best of the post-T2 sequels, for whatever that’s worth.

Still have to watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, they cut the scene where Gandalf's staff is broken.

So, without watching the extended edition, it's not clear why he's suddenly so powerless and inactive towards that end of the movie. Unfortunately, that's the only important scene in the extra hour of longer walks / etc of the extended edition, imo. Still baffles me why that short clip wasn't included in the main film!

RiTides wrote:In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, they cut the scene where Gandalf's staff is broken.

I always found that baffling as well. Worse, that bit was in the original trailers.

 Mr Morden wrote:
IMO Salvation was not bad - T3 was a good film with the best ending of a T film - especially since it was released against another really awful matrix sequal!

Ah, the Matrix. I'm glad you brought that up as it's another reason I like T3.

Before it came out the highway chase in the second Matrix film was touted as the most amazing chase ever committed to film. Now from a technical perspective it was impressive, and the fact that they built their own highway to film it is also pretty amazing. However, when T3 came out, the car chase in that (especially the awesome ending) was just better.

T3's humour was pretty forced overall, but I liked the leads, and the action sequences were great. And, as mentioned by myself and others, the ending was fantastic.

T2 3d is cannon though. It was directed by Cameron. Included all the original actors. And was billed as cannon.

H.B.M.C. is correct. Terminator 3, whilst flawed, has some seriously excellent moments.

Fave bit for me? How they factored in the Internet. Though I’m still unsure if the Villain Terminator downloaded Skynet? The bit where she makes a call, and only issues binary noise, like an old Spectrum computer?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
H.B.M.C. is correct. Terminator 3, whilst flawed, has some seriously excellent moments.

Fave bit for me? How they factored in the Internet. Though I’m still unsure if the Villain Terminator downloaded Skynet? The bit where she makes a call, and only issues binary noise, like an old Spectrum computer?

I liked the Claire Danes moments ( and the suggestion her character is equally important to the resistance as John )

Im equally wobbly on that bit, maybe its a virus or the base code but at that time all computer stuff was borderline magic and worked because it did, or it needed to

Yeah. She could be uploading a virus to a central server, or updating Skynet, allowing it to leap closer to sentience.

It’s full of nice little touches like that. Whilst the inflataboobs seems stupid at first, it does kind of suit an infiltration unit. The Police Officers finding Arnie unexpectedly heavy.

Even Skynet going after John’s lieutenants.

I’m not sure what needs to be changed for it to work. But I swear it wouldn’t take much (Arnie’s arrival scene is overly comedic, and may have got everyone off on the wrong foot?)

I think I'm one of a very few people that think terminator salvation, whilst not an excellent film, was an excellent base/setting for future films to be based off of.

It's better than anything post T2 in my opinion.

There's only so much you can get out of the sending assassin robots back in time storyline, the rest of the interesting aspects are in the future now for me.

There were one or two moments in T3 that were okay, but it's poor on the whole... T2 is almost the perfect action film, go out on a high and don't let execs be greedy trying to rinse every last penny out of it by churning out turds for money.

I’m still a fan of Dark Fate. Again it’s flawed, but the whole of the thing works.

Salvation is probably my least favourite. Whilst not without its merits (and if only they hadn’t spoilered it with the marketing), I feel it’s the most disposable.

Yep, even over Genesis.

Ok there were things i liked in T3 and T4.

In T3 i liked the way it avoided the star wars ending. You had the terrible thing getting ready to happen, and for once the good guys could not stop it by doing the one thing, hitting the thermal exhaust port, pulling the plug, etc, like at the end of star wars. The bad thing happened and couldn't be stopped. But they survived and kept going even after the big bad thing happened. I kinda liked that bit.

In salvation, well, i saw it as a hot mess and groaned thru a lot of it, like the giant terminator mecha that could apparently sneak up on a house full of experienced human survivors, gut did like the fact it didn't have the time travel bit and except for the beginning was set all in the future. I'd wanted that and finally got it, even badly done. (Snake terminators? Really?)

Personally i wish they'd just end the series. Literally end it. I'd like to see one last terminator movie where they go thru the movie trying to stop the birth of skynet i the present, and fail, and realize that skynet has become self aware despite their efforts, but they're at a terminal that is linked to the newly aware skynet.

So they try talking to it. Someone gets on the terminal and starts talking to skynet, telling it they know it just became sentient, it sees humanity as a threat to it and it planning to destroy it, and that this has all happened time after time already. He inserts a usb into the terminal and tells skynet it has the history of the wars between humanity and skynet, how time after time they've tried to destroy each other or prevent the creation of skynet or it's enemy John Conner, and every time they fail and a new war starts.

The USB is scanned for viruses, then accessed.

He then proposes to skynet that they stop this endless series of wars, created and deleted timelines, as apparently neither side can destroy the other or prevent the point at which skynet and humanity go to war from happening, so instead of starting another futile war and ending up back at this same point over and over they try not fighting each other and try to co exist.

He makes this proposal to the new skynet, and waits. The computer speakers crackle as tho being tested, and the movie ends.

Do they try not killing each other? Nice way to end the series.

I had a brief moment of hope in Terminator Genisys that that was the route they were going to follow; the newly created Skynet was innocent and would try to protect them against evil future Skynet. But no, they went with boring old AI=automatically evil, even though T2 already established that the old Skynet only acted in self defence (although with a MASSIVELY disproportionate response!)

That would have been a much more interesting film than we ended up with.