TERMINATOR SALVATION movie discussion

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Q: What did Marcus do to earn his death sentence in 2003? - Jack Richlin

McG: He was a car thief that took his brother along for the first time. His brother panicked when the police showed up. Marcus ended up killing the police officers, and his brother was shot in the melee. So his brother and the police officers are dead, he's very down on himself, and he's the type of character who would never appeal the death sentence. Which is why he made the choice he did to accept death. ... We didn't shoot [the scene], although we always talked about it. I even storyboarded it; in fact, I'm going to put the storyboards into the DVD.

This is nice to know. :lol Good thing they left it out of the film though.

Q: When Marcus is inside Skynet and learning about how he was created, the visage of Dr. Serena Kogan mentions that he's managed to do something that none of the other Terminators have been able to. Is Skynet aware of the alternate futures and other events that have taken place? - Pierce Arner

McG: Skynet is aware of the alternate futures, and the way that we play it is in the spirit of parallel worlds, as theorized by Einstein. We try to pay attention to that approach to a fundamentally theoretical construct. So yes, they are aware of the other attempts on the life of John Connor, and they've always subscribed to a bigger-gun philosophy, from the T-800 to the T-1000 to the TX. Now they've decided to bring in a machine with enough humanity in it to properly infiltrate the Resistance and lure John Connor to their lair. That's why Serena speaks of thinking differently, thinking radically.

What? :lol
 
Terminator Salvation: 20 Things We Didn't Like, 10 We Did. [SPOILERS]
By FSR.com

20 Things We Didn’t Like

The follow up to the list above is -

10 Things We Demand from Terminator 5

10. Take the Time to Do it Right. I think the time table is really what killed Salvation. The Writer’s Strike basically froze the script in a pile of ^^^^. The Strike stopped the script while it was still about Marcus and only had 3 pages of John Connor in it. Christian Bale had just said if they write a bigger part for Connor, he’d take it. No one budged on the release date though, so time kept passing with no work being done. Then they were forced to make this movie fast. If a sequel should happen, they have to take the time to do it right. McG loves talking out of his ass about how Christopher Jonathan Nolan is on as a writer. Well, give him the time to write it. Don’t hand him some pile of ^^^^ script and hope he can add in the awesome. Stirring sugar into a pile of dog crap doesn’t make it edible. You already have a great franchise with a great fanbase and a great pair of actors ready - don’t rush the script, you asshats.

9. Forget The Matrix ever happened. Skynet is a vague mastermind computer. It is not a rip-off of ‘The Architect’ who is portrayed by Helena Bonham-Carter being all sassy. There shouldn’t be things like holograms and computer simulations and all that stark whiteness. The machines play dirty and they are dirty. We want androids and cyborgs and badass robots, not smarmy machines.

8. Time Travel is Optional. Some people complained this was the only movie that didn’t feature time travel. That’s okay. It took place in the future, which we wanted. Don’t rob us of our future war and insist on time travel in the next film. You can still do something original while you…

7. Stick to the Canon. There are somethings that shouldn’t change. Judgment Day happens. John Connor leads the resistance to victory. Anything else is bull^^^^. Don’t make it that John Connor leads the resistance to victory by fathering the child who actually leads the resistance to victory. Don’t make it so that his sacrifice is what does it. We’ve seen images of the future in the past, better films and John Connor defeating the machines by being a bad ass. That’s why you hired Christian Bale and machines are so scared of him.

6. Brad Fiedel’s Score. The music that accompanies the Terminator is classic and instantly recognizable. Would you make Jaws without the Jaws Theme? Fiedel’s score should be the starting point, not a reference. PS: Danny Elfman’s score of this latest installment was weaksauce.

5. McG is Optional. There was a lot of hesitation when McG was announced to direct, apparently with good reason. Terminator Salvation wasn’t very good. McG may be contractually bound to sit in the director’s chair again. If that’s so, fine. But if not, feel free to put someone in there to do the job better.

4. Deliver More Kyle Reese. Anton Yelchin did a great job despite not having a big enough role. Kyle Reese and John Connor are supposed to be pretty tight. Give Reese a bigger, more action-oriented part and keep Yelchin in the role.

3. Terminators. Lots and lots of Terminators.
Salvation only delivered us a few T-650s. Most of the robots we saw were Hunter Killers. Meh. More cybernetic assassins. Show us what a war really looks like.

2. A Future War. Who among us does not want to see what Earth looks like in the year 2029? We’ve seen glimpses - hundreds of T-800s marching across Los Angeles. Hunter Killers floating above massive T-1 like tanks. Human skulls crushed underfoot as the resistance fighters themselves flee in armored pick-ups, firing laser cannons, and generally looking like awesome. Salvation was about 10 years too early to be that film. Rumors for the next sequel take even more steps backwards. This can not happen.

1. Make Christian Bale the Star. The Connors have always been the main focus of the franchise. Sarah Connor passed the torch to John and we’ve wanted a movie about awesome ass-kicking action since we first got a glimpse of it. Now they’ve cast Christian Bale as John Connor. Any further Terminator sequel that does not feature Christian Bale as John Connor as the leading role is a serious misstep. In Salvation Marcus Wright was too much the focus. McG said Sarah Connor might be the star of the next sequel. WRONG. Christian Bale as John Connor is it or you can go ^^^^ yourself.

Those are our demands. If you expect the franchise to survive to Terminator Six, you had best meet them.
 
Danny's theme wasnt that bad dammit!

Brad's score in T1 is epic....but T2....if you listen to the score on it's on...it doesnt hold up. IMO. (Not all of it...but most of the action stuff is just noise. Not musical noise...but bangs, slams, pings, and other sounds. Sounds GREAT in the movie...but eh...)

Elfman's does IMO. It has a strong theme.

Not as good as the Terminator theme, but still good. Fits the resistance.
 
McG is a McGoddamned Idiot. :rolleyes:

And sorry CelticP, but Elfman blows now. In fact, it's extremely rare that he's ever been able to score a film outside of his wheelhouse (i.e. Tim Burton movies) with any real aplomb. His attempt at a superhero score/theme with SPIDER-MAN was a huge fail, and TS shows that he's no great shakes at sci-fi, either. But what makes this even more disappointing is that he had Fiedel's awesome themes to work with if he wanted. Instead, he delivered a score that could just as easily have been written for FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE GENERIC ACTION MOVIE.
 
Spider-Man? Fail....??

Thats the first time I have ever heard that...ever.

The only thing i've hated that Elfman's done nowish, is the HB 2 score.

Everything else is great. Batman, Peewee, Edward Sissorhands, Beetlejuice, Wanted,I dig his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory score, and his Spider-Man score is amazing. I didnt like Young's stuff at all. His new theme for the Black Spidey didnt fit in with any other themes in the movie. It came off as random.



Yes. His TS theme isnt connected to the series...and i'd rather have it back, but really, we could've had worse.
 
Spider-Man? Fail....??

Thats the first time I have ever heard that...ever.

Really? There are people who think his SPIDER-MAN theme is anywhere near the iconic level it should have been??? Hell, I've seen the movies (especially the first 2) many many times I can't even hum the Spidey theme right now. That job should have gone to James Newton Howard or someone with the ability to compose an epic theme that not only sticks in your head, but becomes synonymous with the character in pop culture. Even Ramin Djawadi's IRON MAN stuff does a much better job of this. Elfman hasn't done that in quite a while.

His stuff improved with SPIDER-MAN 2 and the Doc Ock theme, but it was already too late. He never conjured a great theme for Spidey himself or delivered an awesome score. And it's a damn shame Christopher Young kept a lot of what Elfman had established and didn't just start from scratch with SM3, though he still managed to out-do Elfman with the Sandman music.
 
A couple of things that took me out of the movie a bit:

1. The fact that the machines didn't kill Reese the INSTANT they identified him.

2. John Connor allowing another being with ANY humanity to sacrifice himself for him. Its a stretch for the boy who sobbed when a killing machine died to one day allow someone like Marcus to give up his life. Connor is the one who should be making the sacrifices, IMO, not allowing others to do so for his benefit.

You can fanboy "fill in the plot hole" gap and make both scenes work (the machines had an undisclosed reason for keeping Reese alive and Connor truly saw Marcus as nothing more than a machine who thought it was human) but its nice when the writers at least make an attempt do that for you.

And what was with ripping off Duke's "death" from the 1987 GI Joe movie. Hero gets impaled in a way that should have killed anyone, has a red-haired chick with a pony tail crying over him, then he wakes up from his "coma" and has a full recovery. :lol
 
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Danny's theme wasnt that bad dammit!

Brad's score in T1 is epic....but T2....if you listen to the score on it's on...it doesnt hold up. IMO. (Not all of it...but most of the action stuff is just noise. Not musical noise...but bangs, slams, pings, and other sounds. Sounds GREAT in the movie...but eh...)

Elfman's does IMO. It has a strong theme.

Not as good as the Terminator theme, but still good. Fits the resistance.

Nah I beg to differ, it simply sucked ass. I was never zoned in by his music ............ at any time.
 
i did the same flip flop... waited with baited breath for TERMINATOR SALVATION and thought STAR TREK would be nothing more than a nice distraction...

SALVATION seemed like a missed opportunity... there is a wealth of story to be told but the writers seemed content to simply piece together what we already know... unlike STAR TREK, there was nothing compelling about it... there was no one to sympathize with... there was no humor...

i am hopeful McG will learn from this first installment and have faith the next one will improve. unfortunately, i would consider it a little less than "so so".
 
"Q: If there are sequels, will you follow what was said in "T3" in regards to John Connor being killed by a T-850? - Franco Portaro

McG: Likely, yes. There's a lot of value in the mythology put forward in "T3." Listen, I respect [director Jonathan] Mostow and everything — it's hard to make three good movies. Look at "Godfather 3." It's trash."

Umm, what!? Now that he knows, wouldn't he avoid the situation. The future is ever changing.

In T3 they said he was able to infiltrate because of his attachment to the model. But he showed nothing when the T-800 appeared in the film. Not a hint of any emotion...John Connor is smart enough to know that every Terminator looks like Arnold why would he let his guard down to just one?

And if Kyle saw the T-800 even for a brief second in skynet, how was he not able to recognize the sam model in the first T1, when he said he had to wait until it made it's move to identify it...way to screw up logic.
 
In T3 they said he was able to infiltrate because of his attachment to the model. But he showed nothing when the T-800 appeared in the film. Not a hint of any emotion...John Connor is smart enough to know that every Terminator looks like Arnold why would he let his guard down to just one?

And if Kyle saw the T-800 even for a brief second in skynet, how was he not able to recognize the sam model in the first T1, when he said he had to wait until it made it's move to identify it...way to screw up logic.

To answer your first point, it's really messed up, the idea of John letting one in close because of his T2 experience is fine, likely it was programmed to say or do things to suggest he could trust it and reprogram it to have his friend back, but, how would Skynet ever know about that, according to T2 and T3, the Connors live off the grid.

As for the second, Kyle's issues in T1 spotting the Terminator is irrelevant to Salvation, Kyle is now going through different experiences and situations than the T1 future war timeline. Plus he really didn't have a great shot at the face of T-800 in T1 anyway, it was the motion of drawing a gun that really triggered him, so it could hold true, if he didn't sight the T-800 before it got up to Sarah, even if he knows the disguise, he still might not see it to spot it.

Which opens up a whole other can of worms. If Skynet is so all knowing, why keep making Terminators that look like Arnold, surely if it knows enough that the T-800 matters to John and Kyle does too, would it not get the hint that John could teach the resistance the look of the T-800 in disguise to help spot it and use some different look so Connor's know how would be mute. Make a Terminator look like something else if you hope for it to infiltrate.
 
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