Last movie watched...

[Daveycandlish]

Shaun of the Dead, for the first time in years. Much funnier than I remember it being

[Hawkmumbler]

Chuck did have two fun but admitidly shite outing's in The Octagon and A Force of One. Firstly a Ninja in a running man style tournimant, then as a proto-Walker Texas Ranger. I have them both on BD and stick them on with mate's when drunk, make's for fun viewing.

[Frank]

I'll confess that I really didn't hate it ... I enjoyed it much more than Terminator 3 ... T4's an alright romp.  No big shakes if you can get past the heavy use of cliche, but there's a couple of good setpieces and single-take shots.... It's oddly harmless. Not half a shite as everyone let's you onto believe it is... There's a few things to like in it but I reckon it was mostly shite ... T4 wasn't 'hey how about that awful bit' awful, it was just a bit underwhelming, for mine.  Enough is enough.

There must be something in that whole Wisdom of Crowds business, because the above represents a fair summary of my own response. It was standard production line fun without much to distinguish it from Battleship, which is a pity because McG's other work is characterised by a sense of humour and outrageous camp. He played it as straight and manly here as Bale and Worthington's number three haircuts, which means the film is as bland and forgettable as both. The bikes were fun and everything looks as expensive, expansive, and as ruggedly handsome as Black Hawk Down or Jarhead, but I'll never watch the film again as long as I live.

What meant this and 3 didn't really feel like Terminator films to me was that they didn't share the tight and simple story structure of their predecessors. Cameron's films were impressively lean and efficient, but T4 shits extraneous characters and plot all over the screen: the functions of Blair, Connor's wife and the little Hushpuppy kid could have been collapsed into one character; Michael Ironside was wasted and the whole Resistance movement seemed far too elaborate and well-resourced (submarines?); Sam Worthington's character didn't belong there thematically, and his story added nothing to the film except running time.

[I, Cosh]

Hmm. Not seen Terminator Salvation but I'm more than happy to stand up and be counted for the Charlies Angelses so maybe I should.

Just last night someone was vocally recommending The Sarah Connor Chronicles to me. Was he right?

[JamesC]

I enjoyed Terminator Salvation - it's a decent action film. I agree it doesn't really feel like a Terminator film though.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles was brilliant though. I was convinced it would be shit - I couldn't see how Terminator could work as a TV series but it won me over with the first episode. I highly recommend it - everyone I know that had given it a chance has come away hugely impressed.

[Proudhuff]

Hmm. Not seen Terminator Salvation but I'm more than happy to stand up and be counted for the Charlies Angelses so maybe I should.

Just last night someone was vocally recommending The Sarah Connor Chronicles to me. Was he right?

Yes, the The Sarah Connor Chronicles are well worth a visit, slips into teen soap opera occasionally but IMHO miles better than Terminator Salvation, which I disliked so much the first time (in the Cinema), I watched it again at home thinking that maybe I was too harsh, I wasn't its a stinker.

[sheldipez]

Sarah Connor C is ok but they got the personalities swapped around a bit too much coming off the back off T2; Sarah acts like John (calm, rational, well thought out) which I kinda understand a little if you put her irrational decision making in T2 down to stress and she's had time to settle down but John acts like nothing like his T2 version. Essentially a whiney child that's oblivious to the danger of the terminators. The way they present the two Sarah should be the leader of any future resistance.

The show is a bit all over the place and can go from really great ideas (showing how the terminators prepared for judgement day) to incredibly dumb the next (a terminator that wanders about without a head).

It pretends that T3 movie never happened so gets extra points for that.

I've got to say this is most positive feedback I've read in one place for T4. I just about got to the end of that thing. Truly abysmal in every possible way. I can suspend my disbelief (we're talking about robots here) but it constantly ignores any real world logic it could only be set in some weird alternate universe.

[Mardroid]

There's stuff in Salvation I dislike.[spoiler] The inefficient method of termination the T800 employs for example which seemed to amount to a lot of throwing.* I mean he actually wrecked a T600 at one point and didn't make use of the mini gun. Oh and that sacrificial ending rubbed me up the wrong way. [/spoiler] And I found some of the acting a bit dodgy.

Overall, I really liked it though. I quite liked the idea of [spoiler] Skynet's new tactics with that twist concerning Worthington's character, although it seemed a bit over complicated.[/spoiler]

And yeah, Sarah Connor Chronicles is good if rather slow in places. Actually the second series was the first or second blu-ray I bought (the other concerned a certain future lawman you might have heard of. Clue: it didn't star Sylvester Stallone) . I've delayed watching it until I pick up the first series although I saw the original run on the telly. I think I missed a couple of episodes though. Shame it was discontinued.

*To be fair the terminator [spoiler]in the 80s film does a bit of that too when confronted with Sarah's roommate's boyfriend. [/spoiler]

[Frank]

There's stuff in Salvation I dislike.[spoiler] The inefficient method of termination the T800 employs for example which seemed to amount to a lot of throwing.* I mean he actually wrecked a T600 at one point and didn't make use of the mini gun. Oh and that sacrificial ending rubbed me up the wrong way. [/spoiler]And I found some of the acting a bit dodgy.

Aye, the unstoppable, almost indestructible killing machine which terrorised Sarah Connor and stood up to everything Kyle Reese could fling at it over the course of a battle which raged across Los Angeles in the original film just falls over and dies anytime someone fires a couple of bullets from a handgun in its general direction in T4. On the positive side, I didn't recognise Anton Yelchin as Reese; sometimes he reminded me so much of Biehn I assumed there was digital trickery involved, but I think he conveyed that all through mannerisms and vocal inflection - y'know, acting.

He wasn't in it much though, and I think it could have been a more interesting film if more of the screen time had been devoted to him and Bale on screen together. Replacing Worthington's character and his ambiguous role infiltrating the resistance with Reese seems like a much better source of dramatic tension - and more closely related to both the portrayal of Reese in the first film (i) and the conflicted feelings Connor must have about him - than the Pinocchio side-plot they opted for. Bale was alright but he didn't seem engaged with the role; I'm not sure whether that was the fault of the script or because the actor was distracted.


(i) I remember thinking Reese was another Terminator the first time I watched the original on video, and his description of a Terminator so lifelike he was warm to the touch, and even smelled, infiltrating a band of human survivors set alarm bells ringing too.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

I admit I was watching T4 and there was a moment when Christian Bale jumped out of a Plane [I think it was a C-130 Hercules] into the raging Sea so he could then get aboard the Resistance Submarine. After he'd had a chin wag with them he was suddenly at an Airport with the C-130 again.

How'd he get from the Submarine aboard the Hercules?

Did it fly underwater?! 

I was reminded of that classic VIZ cartoon strip  lampooning 'Commando' Comics where a Spitfire flies underwater shoots up a Nazi Sub and is back home in time for tea and biscuits. Nice production design but not so good a story just like T 3.

I understand there making another Terminator Film soon apparently concentrating on Arnie's Terminator. How Arnie became a killing Machine ? Could that save the franchise or bury it?

[Charlie boy]

I understand there making another Terminator Film soon apparently concentrating on Arnie's Terminator. How Arnie became a killing Machine ? Could that save the franchise or bury it?

That's one of the other things I don't like about Terminator being a franchise instead of one film- the Schwarzenegger insistence. How many times are the human survivors going to fall for yet another cyborg that looks like Schwarzenegger (if not an older-looking version of him)? Even in 3 they confirm there is an assembly line of Schwarzeneggers! Hadn't heard how the next one is his story but somebody told me a while back that there is a deleted scene from Salvation with Schwarzenegger as a soldier of some kind (with a Texas accent) working with Skynet on the whole idea of cyber-fighters for the military. Like this possible plot for the next installment I've just found out about, it sounds terrible to me.

[Frank]

somebody told me a while back that there is a deleted scene from Salvation with Schwarzenegger as a soldier of some kind (with a Texas accent) working with Skynet on the whole idea of cyber-fighters for the military. Like this possible plot for the next installment I've just found out about, it sounds terrible to me.

Sergeant Candy

[Sideshow Bob]

Sergeant Candy

Just brilliant in its' awfulness !!............

[Professor Bear]

GI Joe: Retaliation - which is a film that cost over a hundred million dollars to make, yet still no-one was at any point paid to look at the previous and lucrative GI Joe movies to see that they tried killing off one of the major characters - the exact same character they kill off in this one about ten minutes in - in one of the animated films back in the 1980s and it tested about as well as killing off Han Solo in the original cut of Return of the Jedi by casting a shadow over the rest of the exploding-toy silliness.  Luckily, the character in question is so ephemeral their death only registers when someone acts like we should care, so we can settle down to watch the Rock overpower another screen franchise full of explosions and daft setpieces in an underwritten and not very funny or interesting role, but it's the Rock so it's hard to be disappointed.
The plot is that Cobra Commander is the greatest terrorist in the history of the world and everyone knows this, yet when the President of the United States announces he has subcontracted the defence of the nation to a military organisation called Cobra no-one bats an eye.  The real President, of course, has been replaced by an evil double who declares that since Snake Eyes assassinated the President of Pakistan the Prez has ordered the murder of all members of GI Joe - American servicemen and women - and then Snake Eyes is revealed to actually be Storm Shadow but no-one goes "oops," in fact they find this turn of events really amusing.  Then the Punisher shows up on a rocket-powered transforming motorcycle and uses his exploding robot insects to bust Cobra Commander out of super-prison, Snake Eyes has a swordfight on a vertical mountainside with a hundred ninjas, Cobra Commander unveils his orbiting death satellites which can all be destroyed by pressing a single huge red button in a briefcase he carries with him - I suspect this plot point may become important later - and the Rock saves the day by having a wrestling match.  London is destroyed and Bruce Willis appears, but I'm not sure which of these is the greater tragedy.
This is a stupid film with some great sequences - the mountain swordfight, the explodey finale - but overall it's not as good as the first one and comes off as a really po-faced remake of Megaforce.  It's all very patchy and doesn't really have any central focus beyond maybe the President stuff, with some really shoddy editing killing some jokes entirely to the point they may need explaining to you ("time for extraction") or creating continuity gaffes/plot holes like Storm Shadow being back at Cobra Commander's side despite being captured by Snake Eyes minutes earlier, but all told, it was okay fluff as long as you can tolerate deliberately silly stories with toys showing up at random intervals to be shot at or exploded by other toys.

[Mardroid]

somebody told me a while back that there is a deleted scene from Salvation with Schwarzenegger as a soldier of some kind (with a Texas accent) working with Skynet on the whole idea of cyber-fighters for the military. Like this possible plot for the next installment I've just found out about, it sounds terrible to me.

Sergeant Candy

Yeah, it was for Terminator 3 not Salvation. I'm glad that remained on the cutting room floor although I'm glad it as a deleted scene on the DVD as it has a certain daft comedy appeal.

Speaking of the huge production line of Schwarzenegger terminators, one of the (many) thing I liked about the Sarah Connor Chronicles was there getting back to the original idea that a terminator could be pretty much anyone. (Although a large amount of them still seemed to be good looking and muscular.) [spoiler]Later they even took to replacing specific people. I wasn't sure how I felt about that as that seemed to fit another franchise more, but it makes logical sense in the next step of infiltration.[/spoiler]

Part of me would love to step into that parallel universe where they stuck with the original idea of Lance Henrickssen as the Terminator. Much as I like Arnold's version.