Terminator 4: Abandon all Hope

[Kais[]]

as was previously mentioned, and i'll broaden this statement to include most action movies made in the past 7 years, there is a serious lack of the dirt and grime. CGI has turned environments and characters into polished chrome and perfect paint. The biggest element that really brought home T1 and T2 was that the place was a fucking mess. Fucked up makeup, beat to hell clothing and vehicles, characters that were dragged through shit during fight scenes and goddamn did they look it.

You can see the same thing in other genres. Star Wars 4-6 Mos Eisley is a perfect example. sand piled up in all the corners, scarred and dented building and furniture, everything about the environment screamed ass end of the universe run down but functional enough to matter. 1-3 looked like they employed people to level the streets and dust off the doorways.

Hell the orcs in mordor were deformed but ill be damned if you could tell they slept in the mud.

I like bad lighting and deep shadows, give me a character who hasn't showered in a couple days or spent more than $12 on a haircut, rent a bar that's been open and abused for 30 years instead of building one for a set.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Millie

For what it's worth, they kind of hinted in T2, as well, that the cycle was inevitable (Arnold's arm was left behind in the steel mill; they never got around to destroying Miles Dyson's files at his house, etc.).

Yes! Why is this so rarely mentioned? That's a large part of why I hated T3, they ignored all of that in favor of: "Cyberdyne was a Red Herring, it was the government all along lolol!"

If it was just the destruction of Cameron's story I might have been ok with it, but the writing was beyond terrible. Ahnold was throwing out cheesy one liners which made absolutely no sense for a Terminator to make. Another example I'm fond of mentioning is the "heart-warming" farewell between John and the Terminator, where the Terminator says something to the extent we'll meet again. It's supposed to be real touchy feely but anyone who's been paying attention in the film knows that the next time they meet the Terminator kills JC (John Conner) and it's like the writers don't even realize it.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Burf

Isn't this a bannable offense on these boards?

Is this not a bannable offense anywhere on this planet?

[Shuyo]

Originally Posted by Millie

For what it's worth, they kind of hinted in T2, as well, that the cycle was inevitable (Arnold's arm was left behind in the steel mill; they never got around to destroying Miles Dyson's files at his house, etc.).

Um, I'm fairly certian BOTH of those items were destroyed.

Exhibit A: When the T-1000 arrives at Dyson's house, what does the camera focus on? a Trashcan of flaming paper. I think it's safe to infer that these are the files which needed to be destroyed. Also, Sarah connor already shot up his desk with a whole lot of lead, so i think it's safe to say the computer files are toasty too.

Exhibit B: Completely crushed in steel mill gears. Don't think theres much to be gotten from that. It appears that the microchip from the terminator's head was responsible for most of the research advances by cyberdyne anyways.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Another example I'm fond of mentioning is the "heart-warming" farewell between John and the Terminator, where the Terminator says something to the extent we'll meet again. It's supposed to be real touchy feely but anyone who's been paying attention in the film knows that the next time they meet the Terminator kills JC (John Conner) and it's like the writers don't even realize it.

Yeah, I picked up on that scene, too. It's like, any halfway competant screenwriter would have made that scene really heartwarming and chilling at the same time. But try as I might, I get the feeling that the writers of T3 just completely forgot that this Terminator is the one who kills John Conner in the future.

Also, I have pretty low to moderate hopes for a new Terminator trilogy set entirely in the future. I'd go so far as to say that most of what made the original Terminator and T2 so cool was that they took place in the present. It's fun to watch some crazy robot from the future kick ass in the present day, where nothing can touch it. If you set the whole movie in the future, you lose a lot of that "cool factor."

The same thing, to some extent, happened in the Matrix sequels. It's fun to watch Neo and Agent Smith fight it out in a "present day" setting (i.e., within the Matrix), but the second they jumped the shark and showed all those "real world" fights between humans and machines, it started to lose its thrills. At least for me it did; I know there is still a lot of conflicting opinion about Matrix 2 and 3.

Originally Posted by Shuyo

Um, I'm fairly certian BOTH of those items were destroyed.

Exhibit A: When the T-1000 arrives at Dyson's house, what does the camera focus on? a Trashcan of flaming paper. I think it's safe to infer that these are the files which needed to be destroyed. Also, Sarah connor already shot up his desk with a whole lot of lead, so i think it's safe to say the computer files are toasty too.

Exhibit B: Completely crushed in steel mill gears. Don't think theres much to be gotten from that. It appears that the microchip from the terminator's head was responsible for most of the research advances by cyberdyne anyways.

You may be right. But I walked away from that movie thinking it was pretty ambiguous.

a) The file on Dyson's computer when Sarah Conner first starts opening fire on him was a mockup of the microchip. It's safe to assume he had the files on the chip in that computer at his house. Sarah destroyed the monitor, if I remember correctly, but did she destroy the computer itself? I'd have to watch the movie again to find out.

b) The arm is still there, regardless of how bad of shape it's in. If I remember correctly, the parts of Arnold left over in the original Terminator were in similarly rough condition.

EDIT:

According to Google, there were some officially sanctioned Terminator comics made shortly after T2 in which the arm was recovered from the steel mill by the FBI. So, at the very least, we can assume that James Cameron intended for that arm to be more than a simple write-off.

7.5 Malibu Comics
-----------------
Malibu Comics currently holds the T2 licence, and has produced two series
that
tied together in the flip-book _T2: Cybernetic Dawn_ #0/_T2: Nuclear
Twilight_
#0. These series are notable for including several scenes described in the
_T2
Annotated Screenplay_ that were left out of T2. (In some cases, the
renderings
look suspiciously similar to the storyboards.)


7.5.1 _T2: Cybernetic Dawn_ (aka "Present War")
-----------------------------------------------
Issues #1-4 and #0 (1995/1996). Written by Dan Abnett, art by Rod Whigham &
Jack Snider and Gordon Purcell, covers by Rob Prior and Rod Whigham & Chuck
Maiden and Joel Naprstek. Picks up where T2 left off. Sarah and John go to
Salceda's ranch, but Enrique has been killed by the T-1000. Meanwhile, the
T-800's arm is recovered from the steel mill by two FBI agents, Vincent
Spasky and Karyn Stern, who are in league with NetWork Developments. Sarah and John help Tarissa Dyson and her children escape from the Feds, who are trying to learn more about Miles' project. In the chase, one LAPD officer is killed
by a Terminator!

Sarah and LAPD officer Mossberg kill the T-800 at a construction site. To find
out their plans, Sarah surrenders to the feds. Stern shows Sarah dozens of
(nonfunctional) endoskeletons, and then reveals herself to be a T-1000!
Meanwhile, Mossberg, John, and the Dyson kids fight off *another* Terminator,
which Mossberg destroys with a shoulder-launched missile. Sarah destroys the
T-1000 by dousing it with a corrosive solvent; the ensuing conflagration
levels NetWork Developments. John and Sarah meet up and realize that Judgment
Day is inevitable, and they all must prepare for it...

So even from these early comic spin-offs, which followed shortly on the heels of T2, received Cameron's creative blessing, and drew heavily upon his annotated T2 screenplay, we see that Cameron probably intended for the cycle to be neverending. The whole "Judgment Day is inevitable" thread was part of the idea long before T3 came around.

[Twobit Whore]

Wait.. how can the Terminator from 2 be the one in 3? They sent him back in time twice and he got destroyed twice..

[Daven]

I wish they would have done Frank Miller's version of Robocop vs Terminator instead. Such a brilliant story.

[Thorpe]

Originally Posted by Millie

The same thing, to some extent, happened in the Matrix sequels. It's fun to watch Neo and Agent Smith fight it out in a "present day" setting (i.e., within the Matrix), but the second they jumped the shark and showed all those "real world" fights between humans and machines, it started to lose its thrills.

QFMFT.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Shuyo

Um, I'm fairly certian BOTH of those items were destroyed.

You don't think it's an astonishing coincidence that the items in Cyberdyne's possesion were a broken Terminator arm and a broken processor chip and then during the final fights of the movie, the Terminator has his arm ripped off and his head smashed open? Yeah, there is no way that could have been intentional...

[Millie]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Wait.. how can the Terminator from 2 be the one in 3? They sent him back in time twice and he got destroyed twice..

He's not the same exact unit. He's the same (Arnold) model. But each Arnold in each of the three Terminator movies was a different individual terminator. There are thousands of terminators walking around who look like Arnold Schwarzenegger; it's not the same unit each time.

T1: Arnold "A" sent back to kill Sarah Conner; destroyed.
T2: Arnold "B" sent back to save John Conner; destroyed.
T3: Arnold "C" kills John Conner in future; reprogrammed by John Conner's wife; sent back in time to save John Conner in present; destroyed.

The Arnold in T3 kills JC in the future and still exists in the future, but is killed in the present (past). So he will always "meet" JC in the future and then always go back in time to save JC in the present.

[Millie]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

You don't think it's an astonishing coincidence that the items in Cyberdyne's possesion were a broken Terminator arm and a broken processor chip and then during the final fights of the movie, the Terminator has his arm ripped off and his head smashed open? Yeah, there is no way that could have been intentional...

I should also add: the same arm ripped off, and the same "crawling" effect after losing the arm. I think the parallel was intentional.

As for the chip, though, I'm reasonably sure that Arnold didn't lose his chip in the steel mill. He made a point of asking to be destroyed at the end of the movie because he still contained the final chip.

However, it's ambiguous whether a "virtual chip" still existed within Cyberdyne's files -- either at Dyson's house, or possibly at anyone else's house who may have been working on the project. Presumably Dyson wasn't the only person at the entire company with access to those files. He was the one who finally "cracked the code" and "invented" the chip based on the existing chip, but I'm sure others on the project could have followed his work after his death.

[The Ancient]

Originally Posted by Millie

There are thousands of terminators walking around who look like Arnold Schwarzenegger; it's not the same unit each time.

Kinda makes you wonder how effective the human skin camoflauge really was...

"Hey, there's a guy out there who looks just like that other guy who turned out to be a terminator and killed off half the guys in the bunker. Hey guy!Come inside, quick! It's dangerous out there, guy!"

guy

[Thorpe]

Originally Posted by Millie

He's not the same exact unit. He's the same (Arnold) model. But each Arnold in each of the three Terminator movies was a different individual terminator. There are thousands of terminators walking around who look like Arnold Schwarzenegger; it's not the same unit each time.

T1: Arnold "A" sent back to kill Sarah Conner; destroyed.
T2: Arnold "B" sent back to save John Conner; destroyed.
T3: Arnold "C" kills John Conner in future; reprogrammed by John Conner's wife; sent back in time to save John Conner in present; destroyed.

The Arnold in T3 kills JC in the future and still exists in the future, but is killed in the present (past). So he will always "meet" JC in the future and then always go back in time to save JC in the present.

<3 Time Travel!

[Millie]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Kinda makes you wonder how effective the human skin camoflauge really was...

"Hey, there's a guy out there who looks just like that other guy who turned out to be a terminator and killed off half the guys in the bunker. Hey guy!Come inside, quick! It's dangerous out there, guy!"

guy

LOL. I remember reading somewhere that there are several different skin variations, but yeah, you'd think they would retire the Arnold skin after awhile. Not to mention the accent.

[Twobit Whore]

I thought they explained in the first one that the skin was only to hide the machinery and release pheremones to trick the guard dogs. Once they are past that point it doesn't matter because in close combat they are virtually unstoppable.