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How do?

So here's my second attempt at such a thread. Hopefully you're all aware of the aim.

What follows isn't a 'smartest guy in the room' type smugfest. Just my take on the enjoyable side of a film mostly derided. And of course, it's all simply my opinion, rather than statements of fact.

Right, off we go.

1. It updates the basic premise for the Internet Age.

I really cannot praise this bit enough. See, when Skynet first fell, the Internet wasn't really a thing - and wasn't really that big a thing when Terminator 2 rolled around. The concept John pitches, that thanks to that Skynet could never be properly defeated was a good touch.

2. John Connor portrayed as sensible.

Another thing I can only praise. His decision to live off grid complete, just in case does make sense. As far as they know Skynet has been put to bed - but why take the risk? However, overall execution is a bit lacking.

3. The 'comedy' scene.

OK. So you know above I said the execution is a bit lacking? Common thing in this movie. So the bit where the T800 goes into the bar is cringey. Like, seriously cringey. But thinking about it, the poe-faced Arnie not getting 'talk to the hand' does help point out this is a different model to the more humanised one we saw in Terminator 2. They look identical, but are two separate entities. Handled with a bit less...well, less, the scene could've worked quite nicely.

4. The plot itself is pretty solid, and does add to the mythos.

Once again, the execution is lacking - not the concept. The realisation that had T2 not happened, John and Catherine would've got it together works. And I like how it throws Sarah's 'No Fate But What We Make For Ourselves' thing into doubt, instead suggesting Time Will Have Its Way. And that this time, it's just about John surviving is such a nice touch. It takes what's largely a retread chase movie, and just pops up into the realms of a story worth telling.

5. Seeing Skynet's early days attacks.

Just wonderful stuff. Seriously, seriously wonderful. T1, early Hunter Killers. The nukes. It's a pay off that makes the wonky parts of the movie (and there are plenty of those) worth sitting through. Whilst the other action scenes are inferior to their predecessors, this bit is fantastic.

6. The T-X's mission

This probably should've been added earlier, but hey ho. With JC having gone dark, and unfindable, Skynet instead seeking to take out his generals and lieutenants and that is pretty cool, and is good logic. And it's nice to see a Terminator Getting The Job Done - even bumping off mere kids. Had the overall tone cleaved closer to the original, I think the scene would've been truly memorable, as it just goes around the city, taking out innocents.

So, in general. Whilst clearly a flawed movie, there is quite a bit to enjoy here. And to a degree, I'm glad they didn't try to 'one up' everything in T2. After all, the visceral thrill of two Terminators knocking seven bells out of each other is done. And whilst always enjoyable to see, I did like that they kept it 'by the numbers', with the main event being Skynet Doing What It Does.

Turning some tropes on their head, without doing for 'shock and awe' worked nicely for me. And I feel it does stand up as a third entry and continuation of what came before, it's main crime not being as good as the other two. Crucially for me, it tied off the main story. Reese succeeds, Sarah ultimately fails (but wasn't to know she was doomed to), yet come Judgement Day, John Connor isn't just alive - but in pretty much exactly the right place, able to communicate with the remaining military of the outside world, and tell them what he knows.

If it'd just dropped some of the 'comedy' bits, and the 'inflation' bit (I like the concept, but once more, execution!), I think it'd be held in higher regard.

That's my take, feel free to comment and chip in

BONUS SUB THREAD, you lucky people!

Mad Doc Defends - Terminator 4

1. It's got Michael Ironside in it.

And /done.

The fact every hack at the franchise seems to think the only big twist left is that John is a bad guy means T3 is probably going to be the last decent film in the series.

I find T3 really interesting overall. It's not as good as T2 by any means, but few films are. More importantly though, it makes me realize that as great as T2 is, it honestly messed with the premise set forth in the original. T2 gives us this premise that humanity is doomed if Judgement Day isn't stopped, but that was never the point. Sure, it would be vastly preferable if JD didn't happen, but the machines don't win in the future; John does. That's the whole point; John wins the war and discovers (/ knew all along) that the machines had one desperate plan to save themselves by changing the past, but its this plan that creates the warrior trained from birth to defeat them.

T3 seems to get this a little better than T2 does. It's nowhere near the film T2 is, but its got a lot of good ideas and sets up a good opportunity for a couple more stories involving the actual future war that could have nicely closed off the time loop. I actually think that if T4 hadn't been sidelined by so much nonsense (Bale's meltdown, the insistence on replacing John as the protagonist, the "machine's win twist", etc) and been the great future war film we all wanted, T3 might be held in a lot higher regard overall.

The best I can say about it is I didn't hate it,

but the worst (and its far more telling) is I remember almost nothing about it despite seeing it at the cinema and on tv, to the point that several of Mad Doc's points had be going 'they did what?' and nipping off to google to check things had actually happened

I really enjoyed this film - IIRC it came out at the same time as a Matrix sequal and was far superior in all regards.

I thought the first three Term films are excellent

4 is... ok - Ironically John Conner is so much portrayed as a total dick in contrast to the likable terminator/hybrid

the last one was just not good -even without giving away the "twist" in the trailers...

 Mr Morden wrote:

4 is... ok - Ironically John Conner is so much portrayed as a total dick in contrast to the likable terminator/hybrid

The director was pushing hard to replace John with his new character. Pretty much every problem with the film comes from too much of the movie being made with that in mind before someone put a kibosh on it.

Then they went ahead and did it in T5 anyway....

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
The best I can say about it is I didn't hate it,

but the worst (and its far more telling) is I remember almost nothing about it despite seeing it at the cinema and on tv, to the point that several of Mad Doc's points had be going 'they did what?' and nipping off to google to check things had actually happened

Might be time to give it another whirl.

Given we’ve had two more films since then, I reckon it’s possible that alone will let you see it in a somewhat more favourable light.

I mean, it’s not great by any stretch, but as noted in the OP, it does genuinely add to the overall story, even if it doesn’t respect the tone terribly well.

Terminator 3 is … OK, I suppose. I actually quite liked the sunglasses gag. I can see how it could be annoying, playing the unstoppable killing machine for cheap laughs, but I'm fine with it.

As previously mentioned, it makes Judgement Day inevitable again, but after T2 retconning it and now T3 retconning it again,


The relationship between John Connor, the future Mrs Connor and Arnie is interesting, especially when we find out why Arnie's really here and who sent him.

I'm not going to bother to search it out, but I'd watch it if it were on the telly.

Fair comments all.

Me? I’ve got it on Blu-ray, and it goes up the spout every now and again. So no need to await Netflix and that.

I particularly agree on the sunglasses gag. On one hand, it’s kind of insulting T2’s sunglasses moment. On the other, it does get across that the T-800 isn’t human.

The scene is poorly handled, for sure. But the concept is sound.

I mean, in The Terminator, the sunnies are adopted because it’s fleshy eye got messed up and cut out. T2 is a callback to that. T3? Just could’ve been handled better. Such as the T800 being utterly oblivious it looks odd until John sorts it out. Or Catherine. That’d get over that the Terminators aren’t human, and spun the joke out that little bit more, and married it to the lore.

There's a few of those. T3 is also the film that conclusively proves that "I'll be back" means "I'm going to drive a vehicle through a building".

The end bit with the monologue and nukes dropping was the best part. I need to watch it again honestly.

Am I the only one that wanted to see the actual war in the future? I get the point is judgment day not happening or being prepared for it eventually happening and assassin cyborgs but the human resistance vs skynet fighting could be interesting with all the terminator infiltrators too. Either that or more games of it.

Do you guys think it's one of those things best talked about and shown in flashbacks but not fully shown? It would probably be expensive to show.

For the future war, blame Terminator Salvation.

T3 rounded out the original tale, and provided a new Judgement Day.

Salvation? Well, what actually was that film meant to be about? Kinda Future War, but entirely and stylistically different to the glimpses we got in 1-3.

It's more akin to a Knock-Off movie than an actual entry.

Yeah, Salvation should have given us the future war and just... didn't.

The future war should be true to the first two: huge HKs blasting away at the squishy humans with an occasional infiltrator for spice. I do not want to see an army of metal skeletons. Skynet throwing out the unfinished/unfleshed terminators in T2 was a sign of desperation, not a regular tactic.

I liked Cameron’s idea that the machines should not look human at all. If there needs to be robotic infantry, it should look like those hover drones from Terminator 3D (the stunt show) minus the eye lights or a simplified version of the spider HKs from Terminator Genesis.

I remember not really liking it when I saw it in theaters, partly to do with the sillyness of many scenes but mostly because I didn't like the casting, the actor for Conner was all wrong and had no chemistry with Clair Danes, who wasn't particularly great either. It's biggest issue is being a fairly mediocre sequel to one of the best sequels ever made. While it did have some good concepts I did not like the retcon that made it so Skynet was inevitable (contradicting pretty much all of T2), but I really DID like the surprise ending where they're down in the bunker and discover there's no way to stop Judgement Day, they've been tricked into "merely" surviving. The last bit with Conner coordinating survivors on the radio sets up a further sequel that should have been much better than we got. Salvation and Genesys were so bad that T3 was good simply by comparison.

If you can find it, I recommend T3: The Coming Storm fan edit, it goes through scene by scene and cuts out a lot of the sillyness. Still not a great film, but far better than the original film as released.

T3 is an excellent instance showing in glorious detail, why they should have stopped at T2.

1. The story was told and concluded.
2. T2 was an epically good film. How exactly are you going to follow that? Absent a big budget futuristic version of "the Longest Day" should a pivotal battle or such, it just doesn't work.

I think another point of defence for T3 is that it didn’t do rug pulls which undermined the existing story.

No pointless twists, no ‘this character was actually a Terminator all along!’ type nonsense.

So whilst I agree with Frazz the first two tell a complete story, they’re in no way diminished by this addition.

Was this the movie with the redneck soldier the T800 is modeled after? I did kind of like that joke, even if it wasn't necessarily great for the tone of the film.

Yup, though it’s a deleted scene

Next thread? Gonna up my game some, and defend Superman III I think....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup, though it’s a deleted scene

Next thread? Gonna up my game some, and defend Superman III I think....

Wait what?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup, though it’s a deleted scene

Next thread? Gonna up my game some, and defend Superman III I think....

Er whats wrong with Superman III?

Apparently it’s poorly thought of.

Not by me. I really like it, and rank it 2nd best Superman movie ever, after Superman II.

Guess I’ll need to pick another target, what?

Hmmmm. Perhaps not a sequel/prequel this time, but a standalone?

To the Grotsnik Pondering Cave!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yup, though it’s a deleted scene

Next thread? Gonna up my game some, and defend Superman III I think....

If you defend Superman 4, I’ll step up. Loved that movie.

Saw Superman 3 at far too young of an age and was more or less traumatized by what happens to Vera.

That scene still terrifies me to this very day.

It’s just so incredibly well done in terms of effects and direction.

As for Superman IV? A thread would require rewatching it. Whilst I still have childlike eyes for it, I don’t think it would suffer these more cynical adult eyes!

Oooooh. Perhaps ‘The Final Frontier’. Just typing it has given me interesting points to raise in what is ultimately one of the weaker Trek movies.

And I do hope peeps are enjoying this kind of thread. It’s nice to see conversation on them. Any tweaks or improvement suggestions are welcome.

 LunarSol wrote:
Saw Superman 3 at far too young of an age and was more or less traumatized by what happens to Vera.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one!

I haven't seen it since I was young, but even thinking about that scene gives me a minor panic attack.

Come to think of it, Vera’s transformation may have been a Tiny Wee Grotsnik’s first brush with body horror. Particularly as it’s far from voluntary

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Fair comments all.

Me? I’ve got it on Blu-ray, and it goes up the spout every now and again. So no need to await Netflix and that.

For me, it's one of those films where I'm not even bothered enough to stand up and actively get the disc out; it's just that it's not so terrible that I'll actively change channel if I come across it while browsing. Or if I'm scrolling down the Netflix list and it's there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:


If you defend Superman 4, I’ll step up. Loved that movie.

That might be the first film I saw at the cinema. Pretty sure I enjoyed it, but then I was eight.

Oooooooh.

That last comment?

That’s an interesting thread right there!

I only saw Superman3 once as a kid because that scene scared me so much.

I remember really disliking T3 quite a bit except for the last probably 10 minutes? The monologue was the best part and the idea this put them in place to lead the resistance.

Overall I wouldn't say it's a bad movie. Just completely forgettable and not one I'd even put on to watch.