Terminator: Genisys

[Cail]

For the TLDR crowd.....Thumbs up.



I think the original Terminator is one of the best action/sci-fi films ever made, period. It is a triumph of taut storytelling, engrosing story, world-building, charicterization, and balls-out action. There is not a wasted second of film. Every bit of exposition is delivered dynamically during a firefight or a chase, and the only time the movie takes a breather is for a sex scene (which is integral to the story). It, like Jaws and Die Hard, is a perfect action film.

Though T2 gets an awful lot of love, I think it's a steaming pile of excrement. There are a couple of beautifully realized action set-pieces, but the movie as a whole is a dire affair....There's that horrible squealing child, and then there are the gawdawful lulls that the director engineers to inject his overbearing narrative. The story stops flat too many times in order to pontificate about the horrors of nuclear war, and how terrible men are.

T3 has some really interesting ideas and some great action that's unfortunately overwhelmed with a too-campy take on the Terminator mythos. Even still, I prefer it to T2, if for nothing else than the dependence on practical effects and the realization that these terminator folks are heavy.

Terminator Salvation expanded the story in an interesting way, but was dragged down by a combination of the "gritty, dark" mandate of the era and the insufferable Christian Bale inisiting on script control.

And then there's The Sarah Connor Chronicles which was cut way too short.

T:G lavishes loving homage to the first film, then goes completely off the rails, yet manages to channel the best parts of TSCC while re-inventing the series. It embraces the conundrum(s) of time-travel and infuses new life into a series which was treading water. It gives us a logical explination for Arnie's advanced age - "old, not obsolete" - and creates a plausable path forward (since, you know, we didn't all die in 1997).

I'll grant that the CGI work is terrible, especially the helicopter chase. Stan Winston and his practical effects team are sorely missed. And there's an awful lot of talking. But the talking is necessary to explain what's happening within the framework of the existing mythos.

It's nothing short of exhillerating to see full scenes from the original movie reinterpreted into the revised timeline(s). Emilia Clarke channels Linda Hamilton so well you'd think it's her. Jai Courtney ilacks the emotional vulnerability of Michael Biehn, but he makes it work. J.K. Simmons makes for a much better audience surrogate than Earl Boen could muster. And Arnold....He just damn steals the show. The camp is kept to a minimum (though it's still there as it always was), and the story is surprisingly tight.

In other words......This is a surprisingly good film. It all but negates the third and fourth films, and it pays little notice to the second one (other than the smiling from the Director's Cut). And it makes for both a good stand-alone film, and a good jumping-off point for a new series of movies (unlike T:S which was needlessly bleak). One can oly hope that they get people like Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruf, Jr. to infuse more practical effects for a hopeful sequel.

I don't see many movies in the theater anymore, and I'm glad I saw this one in IMAX. It's far better than it has any right to be, and it's a worthy sucessor to the first film.

Big, big thumbs-up.

[JIkj fjds j]

I'm looking forward to seeing this one.

I once knew a sufferer of manic depression. Highly intelligent bloke. He told me one time that he would sometimes catch the glimpse of a metallic or partially metallic human, and this would send him plunging into a deep abyss of depression.

On seeing some stills of the new Terminator movie I immediately thought of my old friend and his similar depictions of those machinoids - how strange the world will can sometimes turn.

[Menolly]

Saw this yesterday. I really enjoyed it.

[aTOMiC]

I'm not sure I understand the box office response as I really enjoyed the film. I thought T3 and Salvation were both meh so I was concerned that Genisys would have been strike three but I was pleasantly surprised.

[ItisWritten]

I'm not sure I understand the box office response as I really enjoyed the film. I thought T3 and Salvation were both meh so I was concerned that Genisys would have been strike three but I was pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, I didn't get it either. I saw it on the 3rd, and I loved it. I echo Cail's sentiment regarding how they placed the old scenes into the new.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

So it is essentially a Star Trek-type reboot where everything that happened before no longer happens? That is probably the best way to reset a franchise, if your goal is to resurrect something rather than do something new.

[I'm Murrin]

Not seen it, but I think the idea is that it all did happen, and now the timeline is being altered again by more time travel.

I was a little put off by the way the trailer seemed to give away most of the plot, and the fact that the response has generally been that it's empty nostalgia and not very good...

[Cail]

I'm legitimately crushed that the response has been so poor. This is really a great film that does all sorts of justice to the original.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I suspect the poor response is because the franchise painted itself into a corner too quickly and has been retconning itself out of that mistake ever since. Star Trek managed to retcon and reboot itself successfully and correctly. Tron managed to reboot itself but talk of sequels has died down and I suspect now they aren't going to happen. Mad Max managed to reboot itself in glorious splendor--I would actually go see Fury Road again.

I saw the trailer for Genisys and it looked "cool" but it simply didn't instill any "omg I have to see that film" feelings in me.

[High Lord Tolkien]

For the TLDR crowd.....Thumbs up.

Big, big thumbs-up.

Perfect review.
It's like you took all the fragmented thoughts in my head, gave it sentence structure and raised it up above my 5 year olds ability to express.

Spoiler

What are your thoughts on who/what sent the Term back to the 70's?

[Cail]

Spoiler

What are your thoughts on who/what sent the Term back to the 70's?

Spoiler

That's a tricky one. The sentimental part of me would like to think that it was Pops who sent himself back.

[SoulBiter]

See what you did there Cail!?? Now I have to go see this on the big screen. I have been planning to see it but got turned off by the poor CGI I was seeing in the trailers. So now I will make a point to go see it.

[Cail]

See what you did there Cail!?? Now I have to go see this on the big screen. I have been planning to see it but got turned off by the poor CGI I was seeing in the trailers. So now I will make a point to go see it.

The helicopter chase is really bad. The rest isn't awful at all, and the story's pretty compelling. We've already decided to get the Blue-Ray when it comes out.

[SoulBiter]

I saw this over the weekend and it was very good. Thanks for posting your thoughts on this movie Cail, since it got my attention and 'forced' me to go see it. The story itself is compelling and they did a really good job with it. I highly recommend it!

The terminator smile was too funny and it never got old.