Terminator 4: Abandon all Hope

[TheCutlery]

T4 should of focused on Reese and the emergence of the T-800 Series culminating in Reese being sent back in time. I am sure I am not the first to say that, its so blindingly obvious.

You can't send Kyle back in T4 because then you have no fucking characters with which to progress the story. Besides, you forget the line from T1 again "Killing Connor then would make no difference, we won, their defense grid was smashed." Reese knew all this. Reese saw the victory. If you're planning on 2 more movies, you can't send Reese back now.

You guys who are bitching about this movie making no sense and have better ideas aren't making any sense either, so no, it doesn't look like you could do a better job.

[PosterOfStuff]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

You can't send Kyle back in T4 because then you have no fucking characters with which to progress the story. Besides, you forget the line from T1 again "Killing Connor then would make no difference, we won, their defense grid was smashed." Reese knew all this. Reese saw the victory. If you're planning on 2 more movies, you can't send Reese back now.

You guys who are bitching about this movie making no sense and have better ideas aren't making any sense either, so no, it doesn't look like you could do a better job.

At that point in time they had won, or to clarify Reese thought they had won the Defense grid was smashed blah blah. But he was wrong there where two more attempts. So no its perfectly acceptable that Reese goes back in time at the end of T4, and we move onto T5 which has the next gen Terminators...

Try and think outside of the square before you post next time.

And wtf are we arguing shit like this for, several posts back you are rofling over how this whole franchise has massive plot holes anyways.

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by PosterOfStuff

But he was wrong there where two more attempts.

Thanks to the beauty of time travel, who the fuck knows when the other 2 were sent back? They could have been back simultaneously, but Connor only noticed the 1984 one immediately, and sent Reese back to deal with it. On closer inspection, he noticed 2 more, and by that time, he had a couple of reprogrammed Arnold's laying around. There's really no indication that several years had passed between time travel events, the T1000 and TX could have been advanced prototypes that were both one of a kind at the time. So no, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the battle kept going on for 30 years after Reese went back, when it's just as reasonable to assume it didn't.

And yes, I know there's a bunch of plot holes in there. It doesn't stop me from enjoying the movies. I'm not gonna sit here and bitch about naggy little details, i'll just sit back and enjoy the ride of humans beating the shit outta robots. Even T4 wasn't that bad. Yes, several glaring inconsistencies and shit that makes no sense, but it wasn't terrible like everyone is claiming. The ending? Okay, well, that was terrible. I can't argue that one, but the movie was fine.

[Runnen]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

There's really no indication that several years had passed between time travel events, the T1000 and TX could have been advanced prototypes that were both one of a kind at the time. So no, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the battle kept going on for 30 years after Reese went back, when it's just as reasonable to assume it didn't.

Actually, this is exactly how it happened. In the storyboard for scenes that were never filmed for T2, John Connor and his men took over the main Skynet complex, and disabled it. They later found the Time-Travel Room, which had obviously just been used. The time machine consisted of a mold shaped like The Thinker, and there was a small remnant of liquid metal acting oddly at the bottom. Skynet had just sent the 1984 T-800 (which was mass-produced), and two extremely advanced and unique prototypes, the still-unstable T-1000 (unstable matrix made it glitchy when exposed to extremes) and the T-X.

Soon after that, John Connor stumbled into a room in the complex which contained rows upon rows of "human" Terminators, one of which was made to look exactly like him.



Also, I've finally seen T4, so here goes my review:

It was definitely worth watching, with good, impressive action scenes. The plot was sometimes good and sometimes very cliché, but overall I left the theater pretty satisfied with what I had seen, and so did all my friends. I would definitely recommend watching it and making your own opinion before judging this movie too harshly.

Although to be fair, perhaps reading some of the harsher reviews in this thread prepared me to suspend my disbelief further than usual, and that made the whole movie more enjoyable for me. In any case, below there be spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Pros:

- Sam Worthington was really quite convincing in his role, and so was Christian Bale for the most part. I think some parts of Connor's role in the story showed that his part had been rewritten and extended, but it didn't bother me all that much. I didn't mind the young Kyle Reese I think he did a good job, and for all the people who complained about the young kid, she didn't even utter a single word, which should become standard procedure for Hollywood movies from now on.

- Various designs for the Terminators was excellent. I liked the brutal T-600, the enormous robot that captured humans was also very impressive and pretty scary, especially when it just wouldn't die. The Hunter Killer is already a classic in the franchise, so no big surprise there. The motorbikes were excellent, the only disappointment was probably the hydrobots or whatever they called them. Also, I would have liked to see more of the spider-turrets glimpsed in the very beginning of the movie.

- The action was pretty damn good, though at times it felt a bit.. exhausting. I mean, I found myself wishing for a break or some conversation at times, but the chase would just keep going, or the rockets keep flying and crisscrossing above the running characters. Whew!

- I liked the references to the previous movies. Obviously the classic "I'll be back", but also the fact that the first time we see the Marcus Terminator, he is naked and steals clothes, just like his counterparts in previous movies. Also, the music when John is riding the bike is the same as T2, and Marcus breaking the truck's windshield to get a clear shot felt very similar to the T2 chase scene with the T-1000 in the truck. I also really liked the scar on John Connor's face, which they made exactly identical to the one we see on Connor in the "future scenes" in T2, which is a very nice touch. Speaking of that scar and the T-800 that caused it, the whole freezing Terminator part was also a reference to the T-1000 in T2.

Cons:

- CGI Arnold was just.. bad. The idea in itself was a nice caméo, but it was just too fake to be taken seriously. Thankfully they blew up his face soon after, but although I realize they tried their best to make it look realistic, it just felt silly more than epic.

- As I said above, the plot is really cliché quite a few times, but I let myself be carried along in the flow, since I went in expecting to see an action movie, and not a deep philosophical argument on man vs machine. I know the Terminator franchise is more than just action movies, but to me the Terminator franchise is T1 + T2, the rest is action movies with Terminator robots in them. Kind of like AVP are just action movies with Aliens and Predators but nothing like the franchises they came from.

To go back to the plot, I really saw it coming that the female pilot (Blair Williams) would release Marcus, I really saw it coming that she would pretend to be him on the field so he could get away, and it was expected that Connor would let him run to go to Skynet Complex.

That said, I find some of the harsh criticisms about the plot here are not justified. Someone mentionned how it's completely silly that Marcus can just walk up to the Skynet chamber unhindered and enter the interface. I think that was Skynet's intention, since we know Skynet is pretty devious and cruel, and I think he was delighted at the thought of revealing to Marcus how he had been manipulated all along to lure Connor to the complex. This was also meant to show how Skynet is too cocky, because he once again undestimated mankind by thinking Marcus would choose to side with his machine side (to survive) rather than go against the logical choice and side with the humans (by removing his chip). However, I do agree that the complex itself seemed pretty badly defended, but remember that this is just ONE complex out of what could be hundreds, and Skynet isn't going to send all his ressources in one place when he has to face hundreds of resistance pockets all around the globe.

- Perhaps TOO much action sometimes, or rather the pacing was a bit odd. From the point when Marcus, Kyle and the kid take the car, the action just barely stops for 20 minutes. They reach the gas station, they get attacked by Megatron, they dodge the massive explosions, they drive away into the truck, they get chased by the bikes, they destroy the bikes then somehow destroy the hunter killer (lucky shot there *ahem*), then they once again get captured by Megatron, then Marcus jumps on the transport, then Megatron catches Marcus, then the AC-10 come in, then they shoot down the Hunter Killers, then they get shot down.. Phew, give the man a break already damnit! But still, it felt really intense and it was nice to see my friends all wide-eyed during the action.

[PosterOfStuff]

Positives

I liked Sam Worthington as well, he is playing Perseus in Clash of the Titans (remake I assume).

The actor I really liked was Anton Yelchin, I thought he was perfect as Reese.

The T-600 look/feel etc was great as well.

[Rhaze]

Marcus goes to get wood, williams looks at him.

then the scene cuts to her surrounded by three dudes and she has pills and gets attacked.


wtf? did my theater fuck up or was that the transition?

[Malakriss]

Originally Posted by Rhaze

Marcus goes to get wood, williams looks at him.

then the scene cuts to her surrounded by three dudes and she has pills and gets attacked.


wtf? did my theater fuck up or was that the transition?

I don't know why but when I read the stand-alone first sentence of your post, I was expecting some kind of metal dick punchline to follow.

Anyways, sounds like the theater had the reel fubar at that point in an earlier showing and they had to splice the damaged frames out. You didn't miss much.

[TheCutlery]

I don't think there was a scene between those two, to be honest.

[Ionsniper]

There wasnt, Its one of "What the fuck" moments in T4.

[Zeste]

This movie was an abomination as a Terminator movie, and a train-wreck as a generic "post apocalyptic" action robot movie.

I'm just gonna highlight the things that really stood out

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

- The pacing. The movie was like watching a 2 hour long trailer. No development of any theme or story, just gorgeous action scenes strewn together with really bad and obvious voice dubbing when you couldn't see the actors mouths. Hey look, it's You Could Be Mine by guns and roses... for 3 seconds inbetween robot bullet bike attacks!

- The characters. One dimensional is being generous. How do you fuck up John Connor? And the rest of the cardboard cast, not even worth mentioning.

- The dialogue. I can't recall a worse use of "show, don't tell." Every goddamn character would find some clumsy, completely contrived way to tell you what they were doing or the consequences of what they just did. "Hand me that bomb, I am going to place it near the robot! When the bomb explodes, it will send fire and shrapnel into the robot! Once the robot has been disabled, we can then escape! We will run away! Once we run, I am sure we'll be tired!"

- The editing. Terrible. The above mentioned scene with the girl Blair is a great example, one of many. Connor jumping into the water, then instantly he's in a sub, and he and the commanders of the Resistance have a three fucking minute talk and connor walks out with a new mission? WTF? Another was the inconsistent use of "location text" on the screen. I think the ONLY time in the movie that we see it is when Marcus arrives at Skynet and it says "NORTH GATE: SKYNET BASE"

- Oh hey, a fucking 3 story tall harvester can sneak up on a dead silent gas station and reach through the roof to grab you, but as soon as it does, it starts blasting its air horn and stomping around like the goddamn T-rex from jurrasic park.

- Hey, robots, when you have a kill order for Kyle Reese... why put him in a cell? Why not just crush him one of the 200 times you had your hands on him? I am pretty sure a T-600 or any of those harvesters could just crush a human to pulp with their bare hands. But instead of having a T-600 just smash his windpipe the first time they get him, they bring him to a cell?

This movie was terrible, by far the worst of all 4. I went to see it to see the Arnold CG and T-800's, and that was cool, but the rest was god damn excruciatingly awful.

[Runnen]

Originally Posted by Zeste

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

- Hey, robots, when you have a kill order for Kyle Reese... why put him in a cell? Why not just crush him one of the 200 times you had your hands on him? I am pretty sure a T-600 or any of those harvesters could just crush a human to pulp with their bare hands. But instead of having a T-600 just smash his windpipe the first time they get him, they bring him to a cell?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

While I agree with some of your nitpicks, this one is not justified.

In the later parts of the movie, Skynet reveals that the "Kill List" was leaked purposely to be intercepted by the Resistance, and that bringing Kyle Reese to the Skynet Complex was meant to lure John Connor there. You see several times in the movie that every single Terminator is able to identify Marcus or Kyle in seconds, so even when the T-600 was shooting its gatling at them, it kept missing because it was not trying to actually kill them, but meant to convince Kyle that Marcus was indeed a target. Otherwise he wouldn't have been attacked, see for instance when the massive Skynet Complex turret sees Marcus but doesn't shoot him.

[Zeste]

Okay, the above point makes more sense.

I forgot to mention one other thing that really bugged me and seemed so cheap:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

The cassette tapes of Sarah Connor. My god, they sounded so terribly fake that it blew any shred of immersion the movie might have had. The voice actress was absolutely terrible, she talked WAY to fast, and her voice inflections and tones didn't sound realistic at all.

It's like they found the worse wanna be actress down at the Improv on a saturday night and said "Hey, want to read some shit into a microphone for the new Terminator movie?"

I guess when your movie is paced like a music video on crack, it's hard to allow your voice actress, to sound "realistic".

[Fedor]

Originally Posted by Zeste

The cassette tapes of Sarah Connor. My god, they sounded so terribly fake that it blew any shred of immersion the movie might have had. The voice actress was absolutely terrible, she talked WAY to fast, and her voice inflections and tones didn't sound realistic at all.

It's like they found the worse wanna be actress down at the Improv on a saturday night and said "Hey, want to read some shit into a microphone for the new Terminator movie?"

I guess when your movie is paced like a music video on crack, it's hard to allow your voice actress, to sound "realistic".

That was Linda Hamilton.

[Kaio]

Originally Posted by Fedor

That was Linda Hamilton.

ROFL... This movie has it's flaws but it definitely entertained. Most people here who absolutely hate it seemed to not even "get" the overall plot. It's not that complicated folks. Then and again I predicted the overall plot before watching the movie here in an old post so I knew what to expect.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

How do you miss important shit like using Kyle to lure Connor anyway? I guess if you are raging about how bad a movie is before watching it and during it you miss important stuff.

Seeing A10's and realistic black/white targeting cameras made me a happy camper at the start. I agree the scenes seemed rush and I wished they had a better director. I'm hoping the extended version will improve on the pacing.

Edit: Also it probably helped that i didn't have unrealistically high expectations.

[Zeste]

Originally Posted by Fedor

That was Linda Hamilton.

Wow. She really did a terrible job.