Terminator 4: Abandon all Hope

[Zhaun's_Shade]

Originally Posted by meStevo

Opening weekend numbers rolling in, it's going to miss Terminator 3's opening by $1m, at $43m. Finishing behind Night at the Museum II's $53m. They'll spin it by including Thursday numbers which put it at $56m for the holiday so far though.

Good job funding another shitty sequel guys! Thanks a lot!

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Lejina Bloodbath

I can forgive a lot, because I fucking love watching robots blowing shit up, but

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Wtf Skynet built a robot with its own free will? Wtf is the point of that? I guess that's because Skynet can't program a robot to act human, so it had to use a human brain to infiltrate humans. But even then Skynet could/should still have control over him.

Ripping the chipset at the back of his head was corny as hell. It's not like that chip was doing anything anyway.

It's one of those Catch-22 situations

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

If it's too machine it will never get close enough, if it's too human Skynet won't have control. The only option was not to go after Connor directly, but to lure him into a trap. In order to do that Marcus had to be on the "too human" side, but remain in ignorance until it's too late.

I can fully agree with Skynet's tactics up until the point that it made the big reveal to Marcus. Regardless of whether he's under your control or not, he's done his job and you can't take the risk. 6 terminators should have shown up behind him and turned him into burned metal/flesh. But that's the problem, Skynet doesn't think like humans and has no wish to, so it doesn't have the instincts and common sense to make the choice glaringly obvious. No gut feelings without a gut.

[Manatra]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

It's one of those Catch-22 situations

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

If it's too machine it will never get close enough, if it's too human Skynet won't have control. The only option was not to go after Connor directly, but to lure him into a trap. In order to do that Marcus had to be on the "too human" side, but remain in ignorance until it's too late.

I can fully agree with Skynet's tactics up until the point that it made the big reveal to Marcus. Regardless of whether he's under your control or not, he's done his job and you can't take the risk. 6 terminators should have shown up behind him and turned him into burned metal/flesh. But that's the problem, Skynet doesn't think like humans and has no wish to, so it doesn't have the instincts and common sense to make the choice glaringly obvious. No gut feelings without a gut.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In other words, Skynet's downfall will be its hubris.

[psu199]

I'd say the REAL enemy was man

[Modo Icecrown]

Considering the source material they could have done a lot better... but I think it could have been a lot worse. If this was any other movie that came out I don't think I would have minded at all.

This is the first movie I can think of that the sound effects blew me away, the score was really filthy too.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

A lot of it seemed unnecessary.

- Why the fuck was Common in this movie?
- If they were going for a series "reboot" of sorts, they should have left out the cheesy one liners.
- Bale used the batman growl a little too much.
- They gave too much away in the trailers, Marcus was pretty badass and I wish they would have kept him around.
- Marcus/Skynet scene was just retarded. There was a story to be told there and it shouldn't have been the one they used.
- Bale hijacking the bike was dumb too, really wish they would have showed him leading more than just everyone listening to him on the radio. He could have done some badass tactical shit, ala Adama Maneuver.

Despite it's flaws it had some pretty badass moments. If this had a different story line and had nothing to do with terminators I think I would have appreciated it a lot more.

McG is a dumbass.

[Darph]

This movie was wayyyy too busy. Should have been 3 movies.

The first one would have been good, think "Madmax" or Fallout 3..but with Terminators! It goes downhill from there.

[ChewieTobbacca]

Like I said, I wish they had more actual battle, you know like the war thats actually going around, rather than literally 3 chase scenes put together. That said, they did manage to cover a lot of different post-apoc environments and groups so there's some hope for that

And I was definitely thinking Fallout at times

[TheCutlery]

My only real complaint is that we've missed a good chunk of story here. John Connor has the respect and leadership of a TON of resistance. Why? What the fuck is so special about him? How did we get to this point? Because he knows what's gonna come rolling down the assembly line? Fuck that. He's supposed to be a tactical genius, and yet we saw nothing, not a fucking thing to explain him being in the position of respect that he's in.

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

My only real complaint is that we've missed a good chunk of story here. John Connor has the respect and leadership of a TON of resistance. Why? What the fuck is so special about him? How did we get to this point? Because he knows what's gonna come rolling down the assembly line? Fuck that. He's supposed to be a tactical genius, and yet we saw nothing, not a fucking thing to explain him being in the position of respect that he's in.

I think they just went off the ending of T3 as a basis for John's ranking, he was the original voice on the radio when shit went south. Seems pretty easy to assume that knowing what he did at that time, he would have been able to predict much of what would occur early on and direct people to here and there which would have given him that respect....

Though none of it really at that point would have been deserving based on his tactical know how which is yet another fun timeline thing in that, would John be this almighty leader of the resistance if this time travel shit didn't happen?

It's as dumb really as his father needing to be sent back by him to conceive him and then sending a t-800 back to teach him shit he needs to know so that he can guarantee the position he is in actually happens.... because even though he's in that position, he isn't? or he isn't really alive until Reese goes back? It's stupid.

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by Surlok TP

It's as dumb really as his father needing to be sent back by him to conceive him and then sending a t-800 back to teach him shit he needs to know so that he can guarantee the position he is in actually happens.... because even though he's in that position, he isn't? or he isn't really alive until Reese goes back? It's stupid.

Meh, you can ignore the time travel crap because it doesn't really matter and arguing about it is pretty pointless. It is what it is, a fad of the 80's, when time travel was cool. Now the story has it, and it's gotta stick with it.

I think the problem is that too many people walked into this expecting something it wasn't. It wasn't going to be a super awesome perfect movie, it's just a movie. Directed by a douche named McG, who rewrote the story so Batman could star in it. And they lucked out and got an awesome performance from an unknown Aussie.

It's a decent movie. It's better than T3. It's better than Wolverine. It's just not the second coming of christ (that would be Ironman 2, this time next year). It deserves a bit better shake than it's getting around here.

[Malakriss]

What if originally Skynet sent back a lesser terminator model to kill Sarah in Alternate-T1, but Kyle not only destroys that one but he survives. Thus he goes on to raise John to be a badass super soldier. However, Cyberdyne still gets ahold of the terminator parts and Skynet's advancement is accelerated. This time around, Skynet is able to develop the T-800 and send the first back before the badass John takes it down. Except now in T1 the T-800 kills Kyle.

So now John is not going to be super bad ass, so he struggles to lead the Resistance and win the war. This allows Skynet to advance even further and thus the T-1000 is created and sent back. Now here's where the machine logic comes in. Although Skynet has not managed to kill John Connor in the past, the missions were still a success because a) it's technology has advanced far faster than it should and b) John Connor is not a super soldier, he's a pussy-whipped momma's boy with only dreams of grandeur. That's not a bad deal.

While the ultimate goal is to win the war, Skynet doesn't want to screw up the past and erase it's own advancement or the pussy-ification of John Connor. So Skynet doesn't mind that Kyle will go back and father John, as long as Kyle dies before he can train him. Better to know who your enemy is and that he'll only be half the man he could be, than risk tampering with the timeline and another different leader rises to power to kick your ass. So linking back to the ultimate goal, the objective then is simply to destroy all of the Resistance, which would be easily accomplished by assassinating the Resistance leadership which...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

is exactly what Skynet's plan is in T4. Actually it's the plan for T3 as well, as the T-X is sent back to eliminate the leadership. Skynet laid the trap for Resistance Command to broadcast the signal and give away their position, and prompt they are all killed. That just leaves John as the last major leader who's not at command but almost impossible to get close to due to his knowledge. Thus Skynet does the elaborate ruse with Marcus+Kyle to lure Connor out, and Skynet comes just a heart transplant away from winning the war. Or in the alternate ending... it does win the war.

[Daerath]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

On this we disagree. Or as the T-101 would say "Talk to the hand."

I disagree. T3 will forever be a superior movie to T4 for the simple reason that it doesn't have a gay ass "give the cowardly lion a heart" scene.

[Arbitrary]

Stolen from elsewhere. It's sad when I like the ideas of internet nerds more than those from actual filmmakers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

At first, I was thinking something along the lines of “John Connor must die” to save the franchise. From the beginning, the series has been somewhat shackled to the belief that John Connor is this mythical “chosen one” who would rally the last remnants of humanity and lead them against the machines. It’s a cool idea, but perhaps something that’s better left to the imagination. I was, to be blunt, unimpressed with the way Terminator Salvation portrayed Connor as humanity’s savior. Why was he so highly-regarded? What made him such a big damn hero as opposed to the others? Because he gave useless advice to people on the radio? Please. We only know he’s the savior of humanity because people from the future told us that he is.

And that’s what killed John Connor. More assuredly than a T-800 shooting his mother between the eyes, knowledge of Judgment Day irrevocably changed the future. It gave Sarah and John forewarning, allowed them to prepare, and set into motion a chain of events radically different than the original timeline. More terminators were sent back, people died, and John was a completely different person than he was in the original timeline when Judgment Day came around. In fact, when John destroyed Cyberdyne, he delayed the original Judgment Day and the timeline really took it in the ass. Now we’re talking about a completely different war, where Connor might not have been important to the war effort at all!

John Connor was a dead man whether Kyle Reese went back in time or not. You could argue that John would never have been born without the time paradox, but that’s the nature of a time paradox; it’s impossible to find the endpoint of a circle, and it had to start somewhere.

Here’s the real truth about John Connor, the first time around, before any robots were sent back to screw the timeline up: he singlehandedly held an assault base perimeter against a sustained, night-long attack when infiltrator terminators killed nearly everyone else on sentry duty. If not for Connor raising the alarm and holding the perimeter for hours against those insane odds, thousands of refugees might have been overrun and killed. Connor became a symbol of heroism, of courage, and of hope. His name became a rallying cry to inspire others to heroic acts, and his voice on the radio inspired fanatical loyalty and suicidal obedience.

He died about six months later.

He died when HKs plasma bombed his command post two years before Skynet even figured out time travel. Skynet didn’t even know Connor had been killed. Neither did most of the Resistance– there’s no way in hell Resistance Command would let that bit of news out.

Look. John Connor was a great warrior, and an inspiring commander. But he was just a man like any other soldier. He was a hero, no doubt, but let’s face it, he got lucky, and Command exploited his name and embellished his story to legendary proportions because the Resistance needed to boost morale. Things were looking hopeless, and Connor was just the kind of story people could latch onto. But really, it could have been anyone.

In fact, that’s the point. He could be anyone. John Connor is a name and a voice, nothing more. He’s the Uncle Sam on recruiting posters. Right now, HQ has about six John Connors running around whipping the troops into shape, leading forlorn hopes into suicide missions. John Connors are dying all the time. Your average Resistance fighter doesn’t know what he looks like; it’s not like he’s on TV. All they might have heard is that he has a scar over his eye, so when Command sends a guy over to lead them and says it’s Connor, who are they to argue?

Skynet doesn’t know what’s hitting it; it doesn’t have the creativity to think that the Resistance might have created a fictional character. It doesn’t know anything about the value of symbolism or the hope Connor inspires in people. To Skynet, this John Connor bastard is everywhere, and he has to die.

Skynet is wasting its time, chasing a phantom and wasting invaluable resources on a target it believes is pivotal to the human war effort. That suits Resistance Command just fine. The longer Skynet devotes resources to killing a dead man, playing whack-a-mole with the half-dozen Connors in the present, the more unfocused it is and unprepared when the Resistance finishes its preparations to strike its final blow.

[Malakriss]

Good thing the internet nerds of today, will survive to become the Resistance generals of tomorrow.

[Zuuljin]

They should have had it where John Conners son is the one who goes back to conceive him, so that he is his fathers father! Just to complete the mind fuck.