Terminator 1, 2, & 3: Review and Discussion Thread

[CELTICPRED]

The only time I notice it is the jump off the ledge, even then, he still looks close enough.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

^When he goes around the truck, just before it cuts to Arnie is totally obvious as well. I know it was the 90's but if the likes of T1, First Blood, Predator and Aliens etc can do it so could T2.

 

[Pittman4Two]

Just watched T2 on BluRay...simply the best sci-fi/action movie of all time.

 

[Nightmare]

Greatest of all time!!!

 

[LostSon88]

kyle reese should be a nobody as far as the termintors are concerned. how do the termintors know about him anyway. its a strecth that they know about john conner at this time because he isn't yet a leader of the resistance yet. do the termintors somehow have a two way communication phone with the past? the termintors send a termintor back to kill john conner beause he is the reason they lost, how do they know about kyle reese? he hasn't gone into the past yet?

By sending Kyle Reese to 1984, it created an alternate timeline and changed the original course of events...in this timeline, Skynet has learned of the past...about Sarah Connor and her time in the mental institution, Kyle Reese and his rants to the police, John Connor...possibly through sifting through past datafiles post-judgement day.

"This is not the future my mother warned me about."--John Connor

This is a line that was in the trailer but cut from the final film. But what it suggests is that this is a future where everything Sarah was told about the past has changed.

This is a future where Skynet is well aware of the events in the previous 3 films and is trying to rectify the past attempts on John Connor by eliminating Kyle Reese. This would also explain how and why the T-800 is already in production nearly a decade before its supposed to be.

 

[returntovoid]

I finally got to T2 and I think it's the best of the series, IMHO.

I thought it was awesome and I would rank it with the likes of Predator, Die Hard, Hard Boiled and First Blood etc.

I give it 10/10.

 

[returntovoid]

The Terminator series should have ended at T2 because I felt T2 gave the story a proper closure, IMO.

Besides, T3 and TS were utter crap, IMO.

 

[Legion]

By sending Kyle Reese to 1984, it created an alternate timeline and changed the original course of events...in this timeline, Skynet has learned of the past...about Sarah Connor and her time in the mental institution, Kyle Reese and his rants to the police, John Connor...possibly through sifting through past datafiles post-judgement day.

"This is not the future my mother warned me about."--John Connor

This is a line that was in the trailer but cut from the final film. But what it suggests is that this is a future where everything Sarah was told about the past has changed.

This is a future where Skynet is well aware of the events in the previous 3 films and is trying to rectify the past attempts on John Connor by eliminating Kyle Reese. This would also explain how and why the T-800 is already in production nearly a decade before its supposed to be.

I agree with what you said but it would also mean that Kyle is not the father of The John Connor. Just a half brother that was named after him.

But maybe it is the idea of him that is more important than the actual man. Thats why I said it would have been interesting if this had been revealed or something that was in the back of John's mind.

 

[Pittman4Two]

The only question I had about T1 is...

During the parking garage chase scene where Arnold smacked head on into the wall and Kyle and Sarah are held up, why would the Terminator run off and hide? Why wouldn't it have just got out of the car, walk over to the cadillac and blow Sarah away?

 

[Nightmare]

Even with a ton of cops there, and the fact that his eye was messed up from the crash. Im sure he could of raised his gun and shot her from 20 feet away.

 

[:eek:]

The Terminator 4K UHD Release Arrives in 2024

James Cameron's breakout sci-fi classic is getting an upgrade. The Terminator 4K UHD release is confirmed to be on the way from Warner Bros.

www.comingsoon.net

 

[Cap2024]

Apparently Edward Furlong was originally cast in Terminator 3.

I always thought they didn’t even consider him being in it.

But, the contract stated he couldn’t do drugs. That night he went to a club to celebrate and OD’d.

Didn’t know we were that close to getting him in T3. Him being in T3 would have made it a lot better.

 

[Zantera]

I had heard before that he wasn't in it because of the drug issues but I didn't realize he had been cast either. I do agree that a big issue with T3 (aside from killing off Sarah Connor) was the recasting of John Connor. No offense to Nick Stahl as an actor but when you watch T3 it doesn't feel like the same guy and it loses a lot because of that. Even though at that point John Connor had already been portrayed by 3 or 4 other actors in T1 and T2 combined. But I think an older Furlong in T3 would have helped for sure. It sucks that his career went off track because of drugs and alcohol because I think he's great in T2 and American History X but beyond that point its mostly b-movies and stuff.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Yeah I remember him being cast and then fired. Stahl did well and I think history has been kind to T3, but Furlong being Connor definitely would have given the movie something extra.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Stahl himself ended up having a lot of drug issues eventually torpedoeing his career as well.

I didn’t mind Stahl for the John Connor they gave us in 3. The child who never amounted to anything as an adult. Though I suspect that he was written that way because they had the adult Furlong in the role originally.

 

[Drizzle]

I agree that Nick Stahl worked well enough with what he had but T3 still feels disconnected without Furlong as John. As another "What If" scenario, if Furlong had kept clean and focused on his career there's even a chance that he could have played John in Salvation in addition to T3. That said, I don't think his involvement would have improved either film significantly if everything else about them had remained the same, it just would have been interesting to see that character have an arc spanning almost two decades from childhood to adulthood played by the same actor.

 

[Zantera]

For all its flaws I think T3 actually has some good/interesting ideas to it. The ending is actually pretty great even if I understand it might be too bleak for some. But I also think it's a great choice to make John Connor this washed out pill addict who didn't live up to his messiah future. I also think it's interesting to make the returning Arnold different and not make him remember the events of T2 somehow and slipping back into that.

But yeah there's other things that fail the movie, I think the villain is pretty weak and similar to all the other sequels, once you get past the T-1000 they just never found an idea that could top that. Loken does what she can but it comes off as a weaker Robert Patrick as the T-1000. I also feel like despite its budget it feels like a TV movie at times and the action sequences don't look as great as T2 which holds up really well.

 

[Drizzle]

For all its flaws I think T3 actually has some good/interesting ideas to it. The ending is actually pretty great even if I understand it might be too bleak for some. But I also think it's a great choice to make John Connor this washed out pill addict who didn't live up to his messiah future. I also think it's interesting to make the returning Arnold different and not make him remember the events of T2 somehow and slipping back into that.

But yeah there's other things that fail the movie, I think the villain is pretty weak and similar to all the other sequels, once you get past the T-1000 they just never found an idea that could top that. Loken does what she can but it comes off as a weaker Robert Patrick as the T-1000. I also feel like despite its budget it feels like a TV movie at times and the action sequences don't look as great as T2 which holds up really well.

T3's ending might be the best thing about it. In general the movie retreaded too much of the same ground as T2 as far as the villain and certain action beats but I think all of the Terminator sequels after T2 were trying to chase that same high, with the only real exception being Salvation. If anything that one could have benefitted from taking a lot more cues from the opening future war scene of T2.

 

[Scarlet Spider]

Furlong was great when he reprised his role in Battle Across Time as an older John. T3 at least would have felt more like an authentic sequel with him in it. I suspect that's why John was killed off in Dark Fate.

 

[Zantera]

I thought it would be interesting if they made a Terminator movie where the protagonist would be a Miles Dyson character. It would also be cool if it wasn't leaning too heavily into the Terminator branding but I know that's impossible since the movie would have Terminator in its name and the studio would push that angle in trailers etc to make people go see it. But I'm thinking something like this:

1. The terminator shows up back in time to kill our main character
2. Main character has no relationship or connection to the Connors at all
3. Their profession isn't a big focus but have some scene(s) hinting that our main character just works in IT
4. Have the 'twist' of the movie be that our main character actually is highly responsible for the creation of Skynet and the 'bad' terminator chasing him/her is actually sent by the good guys from the future, trying to rewrite history by killing this character a few years before he gets a job at Cyberdyne or whatever

I guess it's already been touched upon a bit with Miles Dyson but considering we have 5 Terminator movies (everything except Salvation) following the formula of "terminator sent by the bad side to kill important character on the good side" I thought it was interesting they never flipped it and have the surprise be that actually our main protagonist will turn out to make Judgement Day happen and the terminator chasing them was actually working for the resistance.

Just an idea that might sound good in my head but maybe would be terrible in a movie.