Terminator (film franchise)

I kinda disagree, is more a set up of how Connor become the leader of the resistence and I think it kinda show a lot.

I mean, is not overall pointless like terminator 3 or got into a TFA "let please the fans" mentality.

It's biggest problem for me was that it felt too tame. Like the future world there is nowhere near the bleak hellish nightmare that we see in the flashbacks of the first two films.

Also that movie paints the idea that The Resistance was better off BEFORE John Connor became leader, which is the opposite of how it supposed to be.

Basically starting with T3, every film has seeming gone out of it's way to crap on John Connor. They seem to not know how to write him as an actual character as opposed to just an idea.

Also if I'm not mistaken, Natalie Reyes is playing the new lead in this film.

Salvation is a movie that basically exists in the current form it is because Christian Bale is not a moron.

The movie is about John Connor being unimportant and getting replaced by a reprogrammed Terminator, making all of the films Shoot the Shaggy Dog stories as well as shitting on the franchise. The writers thought this was clever the way the writers of Mass Effect 3 probably did.

Christian Bale then gets asked to play the Terminator.

"No, I want to play John Connor."

"But John is..."

"And who the fuck cares about these guys? John is the star of the movies. Fix the ending."

"but...but..."

"NOW."

And then Genysis decided to double-down on that by just flat-out making John into a Terminator AND into the villain of the film, ugh.

New set photos for Terminator 6 see Linda Hamilton return

http://collider.com/terminator-6-images-sarah-connor-linda-hamilton/

She looks ready to kick butt.

Also of note, the Pop Culture Detective cited the original film as part of the Abduction Is Love trope. Given I can't really argue with him (Sarah violently resists as part of the requirement), what's everybody's thoughts on the original film and how has it faired with feminist discussions over the years? I can't imagine it's had the most positive reputation.

I don't see it brought up much in feminist discussion actually. Typically when people discuss Sarah Connor as a feminist icon they're talking about the second film.

That's what I was thinking, because I've always seen Sarah Connor in the second film brought up as an example of an interesting female character with the first film never mentioned. Plus, as much as I love both films, the way Kyle abducted her always bugged me, which is probably why I've watched the second film more.

There's a bit of a divide on which Sarah Connor was the better feminist icon. James Cameron personally insists that his Sarah is the ultimate feminist icon and has even picked fights with other feminist works over it. Most notably shitting on Wonder Woman and accusing her of being an inferior feminist icon next to his character.

Others, however, have pointed out that the second film's Sarah is a largely superfluous character. She's a typical "Strong Female Character" archetype who looks tough and acts fierce but contributes almost nothing to the plot - apart from an assassination attempt against Miles Dyson that's foiled when her Mommy Instincts override her Action Girl murderboner for the man who accidentally destroyed the world.

Her whole character is pretty much wrapped up in how tough and rugged she is, but since the T-800 already has the job of being the team's tough, rugged badass, she struggles to actually find opportunities to really do anything with it. So she just sort of drifts between being one male character's mom and being the quasi-badass you're not actually paying attention to because the other male character is playing the same role better.

By contrast, the first film's Sarah was very much the main character of the story. In fact, one could even consider it a subversion of what has become a fairly modern cliche.

Picture this film premise. It won't be hard. We've all seen it before.

The first Terminator is that movie, but with its genders flipped.

That's the distinction. In the first Terminator film, Sarah starts out weak and needing to be protected, but she grows over the course of the film and ends it strong. She progresses, she grows, and in the end, she - not Kyle - destroys the Terminator.

In the second Terminator film, Sarah starts out strong but her strength is almost immediately invalidated when she needs to be saved by the film's male characters. Unlike the first film, she never recovers from there because the movie's not really about her anymore. For the rest of the film, she remains in their shadow, contributing little and sometimes even actively hindering the protagonists.

James Cameron's Sarah Connor has the visual aesthetic of a "Strong Female Character", but Gale Anne Hurd's Sarah is the one with an actual identity, personality, and a key role in the film's plot.

edited 21st Jun '18 12:29:04 PM by TobiasDrake

Bare in mind that in the case of the first Terminator, Sarah's grand destiny is to give bit to humanity's saviour not to save humanity herself.

While that is true, the film is still her story. She's the main character, she's the one the Terminator's after, she's the one learning from Kyle Reese. Kyle is her love interest, not the other way around.

In the narrative of the first Terminator, John Connor is the excuse for Sarah's Everyman Specialness. He's the ticket that buys her way into the plot. The One Ring, so to speak. But in the second film, John's the main character and Sarah's just kinda there to stand nearby and look tough.

EDIT: Incidentally, fun fact, James Cameron actually started dating Linda Hamilton just after T2 wrapped up, which paints an interesting picture about Sarah Connor's role in the film.

edited 21st Jun '18 12:42:50 PM by TobiasDrake

One Conner to lead them all. One Conner to find them. One Conner to bring them all and on Judgement Day bind them. In the Land of Machines where Skynet lies.

Wouldn’t the abduction romance kind of detract from that though? First film Sarah Connor still falls in love with her abductor, regardless of the save the world thing.

Let me get this straight. The T-800 is now the T-1000. Sarah Connor is old b. John Connor is dead.

Okay then. Not the way I would have predicted this franchise going but, whatever, I'm game.

So that article mentioned a Mackenzie Davis...

Screeeeeew that.

Because it's not a franchise with a premise that was meant to go on forever and ever, and because the timeline got murky and confusing.

Why do I feel like we're heading in the Transformers Age of Extinction direction.

Arnold/Laura won't be around forever, but I don't want a trilogy focused around some other group of people. I still very much want to follow Sarah and John Connor. Getting rid of them would be like getting rid of Doc Brown and Marty Mc Fly. It's spelled out from the beginning that Sarah Connor will give birth to John. That John will lead mankind to victory against Skynet. Diverging from this with Sarah saving Reese was a good diversion.

You can mix things up with characters like Cameron and Marcus, alternate timelines and such, but I've no idea how you're going to move away from that with a new main character.

Is Skynet going to go after somebody else with the same ridiculous methods? Does the new Sarah rescues Kyle timeline mean that John Connor no longer leads the resistance? Are we going for a "post-Skynet" storyline and make a movie as divorced from "robots sent back in time to assassinate people" premise as possible?

They should just stop the films and go back to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I say that only half-jokingly.

edited 21st Jun '18 3:58:59 PM by Soble

I think they should take a page from The Sarah Connor Chronicles and establish that Skynet sent loads of Terminators back in time, carrying out various missions to help insure their eventual victory. Killing John Connor was just one mission of many. There are loads of Terminators who are carrying out long term infiltrations of society, often taking the place of real people. Make it more of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers scenario.

I happen to agree, with a twist-the show was about the only reasonable way you can squeeze the premise into perpetuity. Have actual branching timelines, with characters and terminators coming into the central timeline from different forms of the Resistance, different Skynets seeding Terminators into various timelines with contradictory or even adversarial orders, and go whole hog-have a complete clusterf#$% of a timeline for your premise, instead of keep hitting the reset button and try to sell the audience on a new version.

Make the fudged timelines the premise; like Quantum Leap, except the main characters are deliberately screwing up the timeline for their benefit.

edited 21st Jun '18 4:17:04 PM by ViperMagnum357

Well, I think when making blanket statements, you sometimes do have to take the circumstances involved into account.

Kyle Reese doesn't abduct Sarah Connor because he loves her.

He abducts her because she's about to die horribly.

Hence, while there's some similarities, I don't think it's precisely a defense of the Abduction Is Love trope.

She also goes with him willingly after the police shoot out. Sarah Connor is also a bit more than John's mother as she's also described as the person who trains him to be The Chosen One.

edited 21st Jun '18 7:49:45 PM by CharlesPhipps

Which we should have seen in the second film, if only in flashback/Dream Sequence. We get at least some of that in the TV series: we get bits like a flashback with Sarah and John in some tropical Rebel camp, with John learning Chess alongside how to field strip the AK he is carrying.

Basically, the problem with Terminator sequels is that Terminator is a film that is impossible to sequel without either screwing up the timeline, rehashing the film, or both.

T2 is not exempt from this. It's basically the first film but with a male protagonist, a cool robot bro in place of a boyfriend from the future, and the awesomeness that was the T-1000. It also screws up the timeline by taking the Stable Time Loop of the first film and going, "...yeah, no, f*ck that You Already Changed the Past bullshit. This is MY MOVIE now and I say they change the future and defeat Skynet forever. Fight me."

T2 is basically a Fix Fic for T1.

But the novelty of the T-1000, Arnie being a good guy this time, and the "Strong Female Character" archetype having not yet grown thin on audiences made it popular nonetheless. Plus it had a happy ending. People like happy endings.

edited 21st Jun '18 9:10:46 PM by TobiasDrake

While I still think an Invasion of the Body Snatchers style story set in the present day would be the best way to go, it'd also be neat to see Terminators and humans going further back in history (possibly the best episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles involved a Terminator winding up in the 1930's and using a Tommy gun).

Like, suppose the human resistance got it into their heads to send some agents back to the early 20th Century and kill off all the top physicists whose work contributed to the development of atomic weapons, reasoning that, even if they can't stop Skynet from being built, it won't have the necessary tools to destroy the world if humanity doesn't have a vast nuclear arsenal for it to hijack.

The Machines would naturally send their own agents back to stop this, and we'd get an inversion of the usual formula, where the humans are trying to terminate innocent people and the Machines are going all "Come with me if you want to live." Maybe even have it that the humans have sent back a reprogrammed T-800 Terminator to do the killing, all big and bulky and emotionless, while the Machines have sent back a highly advanced infiltration unit that can pass perfectly as an ordinary human, to the point where we're made to wonder whether their emotions are a put on or not.

It could all culminate in a big action scene at the Manhattan Project, the reprogrammed Terminator trying to use the prototype A-bomb to kill everyone working on the project, the Machine-loyal Terminator trying to stop it, and guys like Oppenheimer, learning about the apocalyptic world their research will be used to create, are torn about what to do.

I'll admit, it's kind of a cheesy idea, only one step shy of recycling an establish premise IN SPACE!, but I also think it could be pretty fun.

Mind you, the movie does at least allude to it with the fact John Connor is a computer genius and exceptionally talented at survival—all coming from his mother. I also like the fact the movie did reverse the gender roles with the fact what John brings to the table being the fact he's The Heart and The Chick of the team—but that role is important as he keeps everyone from going off the rails.

He also doesn't need to talk down his mother.

edited 21st Jun '18 10:59:07 PM by CharlesPhipps

The thing about Sarah Conner that made her stand out is that she was written as a viewpoint character and protagonist rather than merely a Macguffin Girl in similar stories. Kyle has few, if any, lines before explaining the backstory, and the movie is with her as she becomes paranoid about being stalked by "the phonebook killer." It was a similar thing in T2, it was her decisions that drove the second half of the film. There was actually just a conversation along this line in the Jurassic World thread, but one of the things about women in James Cameron films is that they display both strength and feminine values, even as Sarah "butches up" with muscles, tank top and shotgun her Mama Bear undertones are maintained throughout.

Also, Kyle and Sarah isn't really an Abduction Is Love but a Rescue Romance / Bodyguard Crush. Kyle doesn't make contact until Sarah is attacked (he specifically says he had to because he didn't know what Arnold looked like, the fact Arnold didn't expect him to be there was his biggest advantage) and notably Sarah is the one to initiate romance with him.

I do have to agree that the Terminator Franchise simply never had the longevity necessary for a long movie franchise. The expanded universe has a lot more freedom to explore smaller details, but the Robot Apocalypse premise was almost instantly dated, and the only thing really holding it together was the engaging characters, robot action and Time Travel premise. The actors changed the characters, robot smashing is only as good as the movie and time travel quickly becomes a lot of nonsense.

That's why losing Cameron was a major blow to the franchise, his direction was what made the movies what they were and in other hands it became more generic. One of the defining elements in the first two films was how ruthless the robots were, there was no "throwing you around for five minutes before making a killing blow." They break the chain on the door and shoot an older woman in the forehead, kills the gun dealer before they even register what he is doing, shoot the guard in the knees without breaking stride "[[Exact Words He'll live." That takes a lot of effort, as it means you can't have a terminator and their target in the same room for long. T3 deviated from that a little, to it's own detriment, but has been virtually nonexistent in all other films.

Part of the problem with the franchise feeling formulaic is Arnold.

T2 had a really cool twist that is so well-known by now that some people probably don't even realize it was a twist anymore. I took a friend through the Terminator films a year back and she was actually confused by the first one because even though she'd never seen a single one, she had enough pop culture knowledge to ask, "Wait, isn't Arnold supposed to be the good guy?"

T2 opens with Arnold and Robert Patrick arriving from the future in a set of scenes that parallel the Terminator and Kyle Reese's arrivals in T1. The opening's put together very carefully to make you recognize the formula and go, "Oh, yeah, I get this." Arnold's here to kill John Connor and Robert Patrick's another future freedom fighter here to save him.

This lasts right up until this scene flips the table on the audience's expectations.

It was quite the impressive twist. But the problem is that you can only fire off a twist like that once. After that, it's just rehashing. Arnold's now designated as the "Good Terminator" even though it's kinda silly for the future rebels to just keep on finding T-800 models to capture and reprogram.

In fact, it's silly for there to even be multiple Arnolds in the first place. He's supposed to be an infiltration and assassination machine. That there's a whole product line of the same f*cking guy means that all you have to do to avoid infiltration and assassination is to hand out posters with that guy's face on them.

Genisys tried to flip the tables and would have succeeded if the commercials hadn't spoiled the film's big twist.