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Terminator Genisys (July 1st, 2015)
- Thread starter ChaserFan
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Yes I'm sure that's a possibility. There's no way he's been typing for like two straight hours.
Must have fallen asleep on his keyboard.
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Good for you.
Right then. Saw it tonight. Errrrrr....this is gonna be a hell of a disjointed post....had a reasonably enjoyable time.
The cinema was pretty much empty for a new release so I hope they aren't entirely dependant on box office for this in order to make the sequels because it doesn't look good if the showing I saw was anything to go by.
But anyway, much like Khev I suppose, I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so. Not quite the future war of Cameron's films but that's maybe because it just doesn't happen to show the typical civilian life of someone living in post-apocalypse LA, keeping warm by small fires inside smashed television sets and hunting rats for food and so on - the film instead goes right to the final assault on the key machine compound, the one with the time displacement machine. At this, I guess it did no better or worse a job than I expected. In fact I think it sold the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese better than I thought it would. I liked Jason Clarke (AKA Julian McMahon's less handsome brother (vintijdroidgutz' description I believe) and I thought the dialogue between he and Reese wasn't bad. I rather liked their quiet scene before the storming of the facility in fact. And following on from that I thought the scene with Reese volunteering for the 1984 mission was fine.
I was grinning from ear to ear during the T-800's arrival in 1984. I dunno, even though I had watched the fight scene on youtube, seeing the actual arrival redone with the new ''what the hell?'' dumpster truck driver and the CGI Arnold standing up and looking around exactly as he did in the original film...that was a major geek moment I suppose. Oh and heck I even liked Jai Reese's arrival - he landed splat on his side much like the original film and in some pain....though I don't recall such proximity to the homeless man that he takes the pants off of. In Cameron's film Reese jogs a few paces before reaching that guy. Minor detail.
Lee Byung Hun was great as the T-1000 - I could totally see his respect for Robert Patrick's portrayal, I really saw no fault in anything he did. Top marks to the man, his role was all too brief...is that a spoiler? I don't think so, we'd all seen the trailers and considering everything that had to fit into this film.....
Pops.....Pops...I think this is where the movie fell down for me. Contrary to what critics are saying and what many fans are saying (including Jedibear, I see)...I don't think Arnie was the strong-point of this film. So much of this feeling hinges on the interpretation of T2's line - ''I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do''. That was the T-800's final word, pretty much, in T2. He said ''goodbye'' after that and did the thumbs up but that line was really his final line of major significance in T2. And how you interpret that line, I think, really informs your reaction to his portrayal in Terminator Genisys. For me, Pops......goes against that line in T2. Why, you ask.
Jai Courtney as Reese.....he wasn't terrible, kinda generic really. The problem may lay with the writers moreso than him. He was given dialogue that I just can't see Michael Biehn's Reese ever saying and so, in that way, they felt like different characters, even setting aside their physical difference. So I would say Courtney did a fine enough job with what he was given but.....couldn't he have questioned some of it (like Lee Byung Hun apparently did)? Was he himself so unfamiliar with Biehn's Reese that he couldn't interject during the script-readings - ''Reese wouldn't say that'' or ''y'know, I should at least grow my hair to the length Michael Biehn had his in T1''.
Physical appearance matters because they kept Arnie on. If Arnie is still the Terminator then other characters should at least have some resemblance to the original actor. Emilia Clarke somewhat pulls that off compared to T2 Linda Hamilton Sarah but Courtney's Reese utterly fails in this regard. Height, build, hairstyle - nothing alike to Biehn really. And why is any of that a problem? Well, because it might help when you're trying to connect the audience to the original film, when you're trying to build some sort of emotional oomph. I feel that a Kyle Reese that more closely matches Michael Biehn's Reese in both character and physical appearance would have helped Genisys piggyback on the emotion built by T1. With the writing and casting of Reese, it did an ok job but fell way short of what it potentially could have done. I mean he was a pretty major role here, even replacing Sarah Connor as the narrator for the movie.
I had no particular problem with Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. A T1 Sarah's age with experience of 29 year old T2 Sarah, I thought she was fine.
I liked J K Simmon's as already mentioned, pretty cool little strand to keep going throughout the film.
Speaking of strands, I also liked the parts about Kyle's alternate memories while he was in the time-field and how those paid off later in the film. That sort of thing made me feel like the writers had put a bit more thought into this story than I was giving credit for prior to seeing the film.
What about the rest...well a lot of the humour fell completely flat for me. ''Old, not obsolete'' got...well, old, pretty quickly. And while Cameron originally deleted the smiling scene from T2 for fear that it was making the T-800 too much of a joke character this movie saw fit to use it....3 times I think?
Biggest surprise for me - not hating Jason Clarke's Terminator. From what I had read, he sounded awful, like something that went against everything I thought a Terminator should be. However Khev's synopsis of how a chatty bad guy Terminator contextually worked in this movie sold me on him. The whole point was that he was as 'personable' a Terminator as there could possibly be. Skynet co-opting their arch nemesis into their plans...kinda clever actually. So that whole part of the plot I didn't mind. And I thought he was very good ''pre-assimilation'' too. So much so that, like Kyle, I wanted him to fight against it.
TLDR: A preliminary 7/10
T1 and T2 remain on their pedestals right alongside eachother. Genisys is probably more interesting than T3 and T4, I'm curious where they'll go with it if they get a chance to. I doubt that I personally will ever consider it canon but as its own thing it's enjoyable.
The cinema was pretty much empty for a new release so I hope they aren't entirely dependant on box office for this in order to make the sequels because it doesn't look good if the showing I saw was anything to go by.
But anyway, much like Khev I suppose, I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so. Not quite the future war of Cameron's films but that's maybe because it just doesn't happen to show the typical civilian life of someone living in post-apocalypse LA, keeping warm by small fires inside smashed television sets and hunting rats for food and so on - the film instead goes right to the final assault on the key machine compound, the one with the time displacement machine. At this, I guess it did no better or worse a job than I expected. In fact I think it sold the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese better than I thought it would. I liked Jason Clarke (AKA Julian McMahon's less handsome brother (vintijdroidgutz' description I believe) and I thought the dialogue between he and Reese wasn't bad. I rather liked their quiet scene before the storming of the facility in fact. And following on from that I thought the scene with Reese volunteering for the 1984 mission was fine.
I was grinning from ear to ear during the T-800's arrival in 1984. I dunno, even though I had watched the fight scene on youtube, seeing the actual arrival redone with the new ''what the hell?'' dumpster truck driver and the CGI Arnold standing up and looking around exactly as he did in the original film...that was a major geek moment I suppose. Oh and heck I even liked Jai Reese's arrival - he landed splat on his side much like the original film and in some pain....though I don't recall such proximity to the homeless man that he takes the pants off of. In Cameron's film Reese jogs a few paces before reaching that guy. Minor detail.
Lee Byung Hun was great as the T-1000 - I could totally see his respect for Robert Patrick's portrayal, I really saw no fault in anything he did. Top marks to the man, his role was all too brief...is that a spoiler? I don't think so, we'd all seen the trailers and considering everything that had to fit into this film.....
I was surprised in a way that he replaced the cop that Reese takes the gun from in the original film. Reese took the gun from a T-1000!!!! He asks the T-1000 what date it is, what year!!! That was kinda cool. Imagine his surprise with this police officer's response. I loved that, of the two policemen Reese gets caught by shortly after, one of them ends up being J K Simmons, in a thread picked up later in 2017 - I really thought that was great, very nifty
Pops.....Pops...I think this is where the movie fell down for me. Contrary to what critics are saying and what many fans are saying (including Jedibear, I see)...I don't think Arnie was the strong-point of this film. So much of this feeling hinges on the interpretation of T2's line - ''I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do''. That was the T-800's final word, pretty much, in T2. He said ''goodbye'' after that and did the thumbs up but that line was really his final line of major significance in T2. And how you interpret that line, I think, really informs your reaction to his portrayal in Terminator Genisys. For me, Pops......goes against that line in T2. Why, you ask.
Well...he does seem to have emotion, genuine feelings for Sarah. I mean, jokes are one thing (and there are many of those) but there are indicators that he has grown to love Sarah as a daughter - the photographs and drawings he has kept in the intervening years between 1984 and 2017 - and this topped off by his line directed at Reese in the final battle with evil John - ''Kyle Reese - protect my Sarah''.....I swear I predicted a line like that so many posts ago in this very thread. But anyway, yeah, I thought it was 'touching'....I'm just not sure it was something I wanted to see.
I have always defended T2 against T1 purists on the grounds that I did not think that Uncle Bob was actually feeling any emotion at the end of T2. Some people think that the ''I know now why you cry'' line was intended to be taken literally as the T-800 is physically incapable of crying and that otherwise he would cry. In other words he was feeling emotion. I on the other hand took it as the T-800 using a metaphor - an impressive enough learning feat in its own right for a machine - he was saying that he now understands the circumstances in which a human being will cry but he cannot cry because he simply does not feel that emotion. He surely has tear ducts to keep his human eyes moist and to thereby preserve them for his infiltration purposes but they serve no purpose beyond that, his tear ducts will not react to emotion that just isn't there to begin with. The thumbs up, in my interpretation, was just a final gesture to assure John that everything would be alright - it was a human gesture that he knew a human would appreciate, even though he was indifferent at that point. And as for Sarah's narration about the machine learning the value of human life - I've always seen it as Sarah projecting onto him what she wanted to believe. He just went along with the mission. The mission evolved somewhat as it went along but it was all in line with his primary objective of protecting John Connor, so he did it - really for no reason beyond that.
So now we have Genisys with a T-800 who, pretty clearly, feels emotion. And I do think that is the specific intention of the writers. Arnie has gone along with it. Was it Cameron's intention? And am I wrong in my interpretation of T2? I'd love to ask him. In fact if I were in a position to do so I absolutely would, it would be my ONE question to ask the man. What was his intention with the ending of T2 with regard the T-800 and the extent of its learning capabilities. Can it feel emotion? And if so, was that ever in his thoughts when he wrote lines like ''it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear'' in T1?
I have always defended T2 against T1 purists on the grounds that I did not think that Uncle Bob was actually feeling any emotion at the end of T2. Some people think that the ''I know now why you cry'' line was intended to be taken literally as the T-800 is physically incapable of crying and that otherwise he would cry. In other words he was feeling emotion. I on the other hand took it as the T-800 using a metaphor - an impressive enough learning feat in its own right for a machine - he was saying that he now understands the circumstances in which a human being will cry but he cannot cry because he simply does not feel that emotion. He surely has tear ducts to keep his human eyes moist and to thereby preserve them for his infiltration purposes but they serve no purpose beyond that, his tear ducts will not react to emotion that just isn't there to begin with. The thumbs up, in my interpretation, was just a final gesture to assure John that everything would be alright - it was a human gesture that he knew a human would appreciate, even though he was indifferent at that point. And as for Sarah's narration about the machine learning the value of human life - I've always seen it as Sarah projecting onto him what she wanted to believe. He just went along with the mission. The mission evolved somewhat as it went along but it was all in line with his primary objective of protecting John Connor, so he did it - really for no reason beyond that.
So now we have Genisys with a T-800 who, pretty clearly, feels emotion. And I do think that is the specific intention of the writers. Arnie has gone along with it. Was it Cameron's intention? And am I wrong in my interpretation of T2? I'd love to ask him. In fact if I were in a position to do so I absolutely would, it would be my ONE question to ask the man. What was his intention with the ending of T2 with regard the T-800 and the extent of its learning capabilities. Can it feel emotion? And if so, was that ever in his thoughts when he wrote lines like ''it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear'' in T1?
Jai Courtney as Reese.....he wasn't terrible, kinda generic really. The problem may lay with the writers moreso than him. He was given dialogue that I just can't see Michael Biehn's Reese ever saying and so, in that way, they felt like different characters, even setting aside their physical difference. So I would say Courtney did a fine enough job with what he was given but.....couldn't he have questioned some of it (like Lee Byung Hun apparently did)? Was he himself so unfamiliar with Biehn's Reese that he couldn't interject during the script-readings - ''Reese wouldn't say that'' or ''y'know, I should at least grow my hair to the length Michael Biehn had his in T1''.
Physical appearance matters because they kept Arnie on. If Arnie is still the Terminator then other characters should at least have some resemblance to the original actor. Emilia Clarke somewhat pulls that off compared to T2 Linda Hamilton Sarah but Courtney's Reese utterly fails in this regard. Height, build, hairstyle - nothing alike to Biehn really. And why is any of that a problem? Well, because it might help when you're trying to connect the audience to the original film, when you're trying to build some sort of emotional oomph. I feel that a Kyle Reese that more closely matches Michael Biehn's Reese in both character and physical appearance would have helped Genisys piggyback on the emotion built by T1. With the writing and casting of Reese, it did an ok job but fell way short of what it potentially could have done. I mean he was a pretty major role here, even replacing Sarah Connor as the narrator for the movie.
I had no particular problem with Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. A T1 Sarah's age with experience of 29 year old T2 Sarah, I thought she was fine.
I liked J K Simmon's as already mentioned, pretty cool little strand to keep going throughout the film.
Speaking of strands, I also liked the parts about Kyle's alternate memories while he was in the time-field and how those paid off later in the film. That sort of thing made me feel like the writers had put a bit more thought into this story than I was giving credit for prior to seeing the film.
What about the rest...well a lot of the humour fell completely flat for me. ''Old, not obsolete'' got...well, old, pretty quickly. And while Cameron originally deleted the smiling scene from T2 for fear that it was making the T-800 too much of a joke character this movie saw fit to use it....3 times I think?
admittedly it was somewhat funny in the police station line-up (called Groot to mind) and when Kyle and Sarah kissed at the end - funny but stupid, not sure it belonged in a Terminator movie, try to imagine something so goofy in T1
the helicopter chase was crap. Awful. There's just no audience investment in physics-defying CGI helicopter chases story-board writers. Please bear this in mind. If it's something set in a present-day world that can only be done with CG then it does not belong, quite simply. We're watching a cartoon at that point and we instantly don't care.
I wasn't too fond of all the Skynet holograms and some of the cheesy reactions/lines to said holograms by the hero characters.
In fact the whole Cyberdyne ending I thought let the last half hour of the film down a bit. It all felt a bit cartoony in a way.
I wasn't too fond of all the Skynet holograms and some of the cheesy reactions/lines to said holograms by the hero characters.
In fact the whole Cyberdyne ending I thought let the last half hour of the film down a bit. It all felt a bit cartoony in a way.
Biggest surprise for me - not hating Jason Clarke's Terminator. From what I had read, he sounded awful, like something that went against everything I thought a Terminator should be. However Khev's synopsis of how a chatty bad guy Terminator contextually worked in this movie sold me on him. The whole point was that he was as 'personable' a Terminator as there could possibly be. Skynet co-opting their arch nemesis into their plans...kinda clever actually. So that whole part of the plot I didn't mind. And I thought he was very good ''pre-assimilation'' too. So much so that, like Kyle, I wanted him to fight against it.
There was to be no fighting against it, as it turned out, which was also good.
So Arnie doesn't die for the first time in a Terminator movie, and yet it could come to nothing anyway if this film bombs! I'd be interested to see another one though if only to see WTF is up with his new T-1000 abilities
TLDR: A preliminary 7/10
T1 and T2 remain on their pedestals right alongside eachother. Genisys is probably more interesting than T3 and T4, I'm curious where they'll go with it if they get a chance to. I doubt that I personally will ever consider it canon but as its own thing it's enjoyable.
GasparZizou
Super Freak
And here I was thinking movies could aspire to be more than disposable mindless entertainment.
Silly me for hoping a movie could manage to lift my spirit or give me something that could nourish me in any way, I guess I should be satisfied if a movie manages to get the same reaction out of me as a lolcat compilation video or a funneh vine.
Going out of your way to find things to hate is one thing, having said things come to you and t-bag you is another
Silly me for hoping a movie could manage to lift my spirit or give me something that could nourish me in any way, I guess I should be satisfied if a movie manages to get the same reaction out of me as a lolcat compilation video or a funneh vine.
Going out of your way to find things to hate is one thing, having said things come to you and t-bag you is another
Okay I must say that my jaw just hit the ****ing floor.
I'm actually watching T2 right now and every once in a while refreshing this thread on my phone and after I saw your post and this opening line I paused that ****ing movie and immediately headed into the office to pull up a comfy chair and read the rest. Reading now....
cmiller99
Super Freak
There he is! Now to read the post...
Okay I read the rest of your post and I have to say I'm quite ecstatic at your take on it a-dev. I'm blown away.
7/10. Check. Some actually compelling entertainment what with the future war, 1984 sequences, JK Simmons' character and cleverness of Reese's intertwining memories/timelines: Check. Courtney was decent but given some surprisingly "un-Biehn-like" dialogue. Didn't he even say something at one point like "And I volunteered for this??" Can you IMAGINE Biehn's Kyle saying that? No freaking way. It was like something John McClane or Indiana Jones would say. BUT as a "John McClane" type Reese he was decent.
I'm a little bummed that you weren't on board for Guardian's feelings for Sarah. And this is with me completely agreeing on your interpretation of Uncle Bob in T2. Completely agree. He didn't feel emotion. It was his programming and tactical behavior and so on. But little shifts in Uncle Bob's mannerisms and the screaming T-1000 were enough of a question mark to let me just go with the notion of a 44 year old T-800 picking up those "feelings" at some point. It's corny yes, but as I said I sure thought it worked.
Did you like the scene where Reese and Pops were loading the magazines together while Sarah listened to music? That was one of my favorite moments.
So glad you saw it, so glad you defied sleep and posted your thoughts. Get some rest man. *embraces a-dev with a shirtless arm clasp*
7/10. Check. Some actually compelling entertainment what with the future war, 1984 sequences, JK Simmons' character and cleverness of Reese's intertwining memories/timelines: Check. Courtney was decent but given some surprisingly "un-Biehn-like" dialogue. Didn't he even say something at one point like "And I volunteered for this??" Can you IMAGINE Biehn's Kyle saying that? No freaking way.
It was like something John McClane or Indiana Jones would say. BUT as a "John McClane" type Reese he was decent.I'm a little bummed that you weren't on board for Guardian's feelings for Sarah. And this is with me completely agreeing on your interpretation of Uncle Bob in T2. Completely agree. He didn't feel emotion. It was his programming and tactical behavior and so on. But little shifts in Uncle Bob's mannerisms and the screaming T-1000 were enough of a question mark to let me just go with the notion of a 44 year old T-800 picking up those "feelings" at some point. It's corny yes, but as I said I sure thought it worked.
Did you like the scene where Reese and Pops were loading the magazines together while Sarah listened to music? That was one of my favorite moments.
So glad you saw it, so glad you defied sleep and posted your thoughts. Get some rest man. *embraces a-dev with a shirtless arm clasp*
cmiller99
Super Freak
Good summary a-dev, I agree with quite a few of your points, though I was a little harsher on a few things here and there myself.
It's good to see that you liked it though, and that you're actually looking forward to more Terminator movies!
It's good to see that you liked it though, and that you're actually looking forward to more Terminator movies!
Thanks a lot chaps. Damn, so many posts over the past 10 pages or so that had me guffawing louder than I should have.
Kinda frustrating that I can't stay up any longer, I'm already taking the piss after 6am in Ireland. And I probably won't get much chance to post tomorrow.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know how this will stand up to repeat viewings. I enjoyed T3 at first but now I regularly ***t on it. Maybe this will end up the same, hard to say, but I certainly had a good time on this first viewing.
Kinda frustrating that I can't stay up any longer, I'm already taking the piss after 6am in Ireland. And I probably won't get much chance to post tomorrow.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know how this will stand up to repeat viewings. I enjoyed T3 at first but now I regularly ***t on it. Maybe this will end up the same, hard to say, but I certainly had a good time on this first viewing.
The Clown Prince of Crime
Super Freak
The cinema was pretty much empty for a new release so I hope they aren't entirely dependant on box office for this in order to make the sequels because it doesn't look good if the showing I saw was anything to go by.
But anyway, much like Khev I suppose, I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so. Not quite the future war of Cameron's films but that's maybe because it just doesn't happen to show the typical civilian life of someone living in post-apocalypse LA, keeping warm by small fires inside smashed television sets and hunting rats for food and so on - the film instead goes right to the final assault on the key machine compound, the one with the time displacement machine. At this, I guess it did no better or worse a job than I expected. In fact I think it sold the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese better than I thought it would. I liked Jason Clarke (AKA Julian McMahon's less handsome brother (vintijdroidgutz' description I believe) and I thought the dialogue between he and Reese wasn't bad. I rather liked their quiet scene before the storming of the facility in fact. And following on from that I thought the scene with Reese volunteering for the 1984 mission was fine.
I was grinning from ear to ear during the T-800's arrival in 1984. I dunno, even though I had watched the fight scene on youtube, seeing the actual arrival redone with the new ''what the hell?'' dumpster truck driver and the CGI Arnold standing up and looking around exactly as he did in the original film...that was a major geek moment I suppose. Oh and heck I even liked Jai Reese's arrival - he landed splat on his side much like the original film and in some pain....though I don't recall such proximity to the homeless man that he takes the pants off of. In Cameron's film Reese jogs a few paces before reaching that guy. Minor detail.
Lee Byung Hun was great as the T-1000 - I could totally see his respect for Robert Patrick's portrayal, I really saw no fault in anything he did. Top marks to the man, his role was all too brief...is that a spoiler? I don't think so, we'd all seen the trailers and considering everything that had to fit into this film.....
Pops.....Pops...I think this is where the movie fell down for me. Contrary to what critics are saying and what many fans are saying (including Jedibear, I see)...I don't think Arnie was the strong-point of this film. So much of this feeling hinges on the interpretation of T2's line - ''I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do''. That was the T-800's final word, pretty much, in T2. He said ''goodbye'' after that and did the thumbs up but that line was really his final line of major significance in T2. And how you interpret that line, I think, really informs your reaction to his portrayal in Terminator Genisys. For me, Pops......goes against that line in T2. Why, you ask.
Jai Courtney as Reese.....he wasn't terrible, kinda generic really. The problem may lay with the writers moreso than him. He was given dialogue that I just can't see Michael Biehn's Reese ever saying and so, in that way, they felt like different characters, even setting aside their physical difference. So I would say Courtney did a fine enough job with what he was given but.....couldn't he have questioned some of it (like Lee Byung Hun apparently did)? Was he himself so unfamiliar with Biehn's Reese that he couldn't interject during the script-readings - ''Reese wouldn't say that'' or ''y'know, I should at least grow my hair to the length Michael Biehn had his in T1''.
Physical appearance matters because they kept Arnie on. If Arnie is still the Terminator then other characters should at least have some resemblance to the original actor. Emilia Clarke somewhat pulls that off compared to T2 Linda Hamilton Sarah but Courtney's Reese utterly fails in this regard. Height, build, hairstyle - nothing alike to Biehn really. And why is any of that a problem? Well, because it might help when you're trying to connect the audience to the original film, when you're trying to build some sort of emotional oomph. I feel that a Kyle Reese that more closely matches Michael Biehn's Reese in both character and physical appearance would have helped Genisys piggyback on the emotion built by T1. With the writing and casting of Reese, it did an ok job but fell way short of what it potentially could have done. I mean he was a pretty major role here, even replacing Sarah Connor as the narrator for the movie.
I had no particular problem with Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. A T1 Sarah's age with experience of 29 year old T2 Sarah, I thought she was fine.
I liked J K Simmon's as already mentioned, pretty cool little strand to keep going throughout the film.
Speaking of strands, I also liked the parts about Kyle's alternate memories while he was in the time-field and how those paid off later in the film. That sort of thing made me feel like the writers had put a bit more thought into this story than I was giving credit for prior to seeing the film.
What about the rest...well a lot of the humour fell completely flat for me. ''Old, not obsolete'' got...well, old, pretty quickly. And while Cameron originally deleted the smiling scene from T2 for fear that it was making the T-800 too much of a joke character this movie saw fit to use it....3 times I think?
Biggest surprise for me - not hating Jason Clarke's Terminator. From what I had read, he sounded awful, like something that went against everything I thought a Terminator should be. However Khev's synopsis of how a chatty bad guy Terminator contextually worked in this movie sold me on him. The whole point was that he was as 'personable' a Terminator as there could possibly be. Skynet co-opting their arch nemesis into their plans...kinda clever actually. So that whole part of the plot I didn't mind. And I thought he was very good ''pre-assimilation'' too. So much so that, like Kyle, I wanted him to fight against it.
TLDR: A preliminary 7/10
T1 and T2 remain on their pedestals right alongside eachother. Genisys is probably more interesting than T3 and T4, I'm curious where they'll go with it if they get a chance to. I doubt that I personally will ever consider it canon but as its own thing it's enjoyable.[/QUOTE]
But anyway, much like Khev I suppose, I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so. Not quite the future war of Cameron's films but that's maybe because it just doesn't happen to show the typical civilian life of someone living in post-apocalypse LA, keeping warm by small fires inside smashed television sets and hunting rats for food and so on - the film instead goes right to the final assault on the key machine compound, the one with the time displacement machine. At this, I guess it did no better or worse a job than I expected. In fact I think it sold the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese better than I thought it would. I liked Jason Clarke (AKA Julian McMahon's less handsome brother (vintijdroidgutz' description I believe) and I thought the dialogue between he and Reese wasn't bad. I rather liked their quiet scene before the storming of the facility in fact. And following on from that I thought the scene with Reese volunteering for the 1984 mission was fine.
I was grinning from ear to ear during the T-800's arrival in 1984. I dunno, even though I had watched the fight scene on youtube, seeing the actual arrival redone with the new ''what the hell?'' dumpster truck driver and the CGI Arnold standing up and looking around exactly as he did in the original film...that was a major geek moment I suppose. Oh and heck I even liked Jai Reese's arrival - he landed splat on his side much like the original film and in some pain....though I don't recall such proximity to the homeless man that he takes the pants off of. In Cameron's film Reese jogs a few paces before reaching that guy. Minor detail.
Lee Byung Hun was great as the T-1000 - I could totally see his respect for Robert Patrick's portrayal, I really saw no fault in anything he did. Top marks to the man, his role was all too brief...is that a spoiler? I don't think so, we'd all seen the trailers and considering everything that had to fit into this film.....
I was surprised in a way that he replaced the cop that Reese takes the gun from in the original film. Reese took the gun from a T-1000!!!! He asks the T-1000 what date it is, what year!!! That was kinda cool. Imagine his surprise with this police officer's response. I loved that, of the two policemen Reese gets caught by shortly after, one of them ends up being J K Simmons, in a thread picked up later in 2017 - I really thought that was great, very nifty
Pops.....Pops...I think this is where the movie fell down for me. Contrary to what critics are saying and what many fans are saying (including Jedibear, I see)...I don't think Arnie was the strong-point of this film. So much of this feeling hinges on the interpretation of T2's line - ''I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do''. That was the T-800's final word, pretty much, in T2. He said ''goodbye'' after that and did the thumbs up but that line was really his final line of major significance in T2. And how you interpret that line, I think, really informs your reaction to his portrayal in Terminator Genisys. For me, Pops......goes against that line in T2. Why, you ask.
Well...he does seem to have emotion, genuine feelings for Sarah. I mean, jokes are one thing (and there are many of those) but there are indicators that he has grown to love Sarah as a daughter - the photographs and drawings he has kept in the intervening years between 1984 and 2017 - and this topped off by his line directed at Reese in the final battle with evil John - ''Kyle Reese - protect my Sarah''.....I swear I predicted a line like that so many posts ago in this very thread. But anyway, yeah, I thought it was 'touching'....I'm just not sure it was something I wanted to see.
I have always defended T2 against T1 purists on the grounds that I did not think that Uncle Bob was actually feeling any emotion at the end of T2. Some people think that the ''I know now why you cry'' line was intended to be taken literally as the T-800 is physically incapable of crying and that otherwise he would cry. In other words he was feeling emotion. I on the other hand took it as the T-800 using a metaphor - an impressive enough learning feat in its own right for a machine - he was saying that he now understands the circumstances in which a human being will cry but he cannot cry because he simply does not feel that emotion. He surely has tear ducts to keep his human eyes moist and to thereby preserve them for his infiltration purposes but they serve no purpose beyond that, his tear ducts will not react to emotion that just isn't there to begin with. The thumbs up, in my interpretation, was just a final gesture to assure John that everything would be alright - it was a human gesture that he knew a human would appreciate, even though he was indifferent at that point. And as for Sarah's narration about the machine learning the value of human life - I've always seen it as Sarah projecting onto him what she wanted to believe. He just went along with the mission. The mission evolved somewhat as it went along but it was all in line with his primary objective of protecting John Connor, so he did it - really for no reason beyond that.
So now we have Genisys with a T-800 who, pretty clearly, feels emotion. And I do think that is the specific intention of the writers. Arnie has gone along with it. Was it Cameron's intention? And am I wrong in my interpretation of T2? I'd love to ask him. In fact if I were in a position to do so I absolutely would, it would be my ONE question to ask the man. What was his intention with the ending of T2 with regard the T-800 and the extent of its learning capabilities. Can it feel emotion? And if so, was that ever in his thoughts when he wrote lines like ''it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear'' in T1?
I have always defended T2 against T1 purists on the grounds that I did not think that Uncle Bob was actually feeling any emotion at the end of T2. Some people think that the ''I know now why you cry'' line was intended to be taken literally as the T-800 is physically incapable of crying and that otherwise he would cry. In other words he was feeling emotion. I on the other hand took it as the T-800 using a metaphor - an impressive enough learning feat in its own right for a machine - he was saying that he now understands the circumstances in which a human being will cry but he cannot cry because he simply does not feel that emotion. He surely has tear ducts to keep his human eyes moist and to thereby preserve them for his infiltration purposes but they serve no purpose beyond that, his tear ducts will not react to emotion that just isn't there to begin with. The thumbs up, in my interpretation, was just a final gesture to assure John that everything would be alright - it was a human gesture that he knew a human would appreciate, even though he was indifferent at that point. And as for Sarah's narration about the machine learning the value of human life - I've always seen it as Sarah projecting onto him what she wanted to believe. He just went along with the mission. The mission evolved somewhat as it went along but it was all in line with his primary objective of protecting John Connor, so he did it - really for no reason beyond that.
So now we have Genisys with a T-800 who, pretty clearly, feels emotion. And I do think that is the specific intention of the writers. Arnie has gone along with it. Was it Cameron's intention? And am I wrong in my interpretation of T2? I'd love to ask him. In fact if I were in a position to do so I absolutely would, it would be my ONE question to ask the man. What was his intention with the ending of T2 with regard the T-800 and the extent of its learning capabilities. Can it feel emotion? And if so, was that ever in his thoughts when he wrote lines like ''it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear'' in T1?
Jai Courtney as Reese.....he wasn't terrible, kinda generic really. The problem may lay with the writers moreso than him. He was given dialogue that I just can't see Michael Biehn's Reese ever saying and so, in that way, they felt like different characters, even setting aside their physical difference. So I would say Courtney did a fine enough job with what he was given but.....couldn't he have questioned some of it (like Lee Byung Hun apparently did)? Was he himself so unfamiliar with Biehn's Reese that he couldn't interject during the script-readings - ''Reese wouldn't say that'' or ''y'know, I should at least grow my hair to the length Michael Biehn had his in T1''.
Physical appearance matters because they kept Arnie on. If Arnie is still the Terminator then other characters should at least have some resemblance to the original actor. Emilia Clarke somewhat pulls that off compared to T2 Linda Hamilton Sarah but Courtney's Reese utterly fails in this regard. Height, build, hairstyle - nothing alike to Biehn really. And why is any of that a problem? Well, because it might help when you're trying to connect the audience to the original film, when you're trying to build some sort of emotional oomph. I feel that a Kyle Reese that more closely matches Michael Biehn's Reese in both character and physical appearance would have helped Genisys piggyback on the emotion built by T1. With the writing and casting of Reese, it did an ok job but fell way short of what it potentially could have done. I mean he was a pretty major role here, even replacing Sarah Connor as the narrator for the movie.
I had no particular problem with Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. A T1 Sarah's age with experience of 29 year old T2 Sarah, I thought she was fine.
I liked J K Simmon's as already mentioned, pretty cool little strand to keep going throughout the film.
Speaking of strands, I also liked the parts about Kyle's alternate memories while he was in the time-field and how those paid off later in the film. That sort of thing made me feel like the writers had put a bit more thought into this story than I was giving credit for prior to seeing the film.
What about the rest...well a lot of the humour fell completely flat for me. ''Old, not obsolete'' got...well, old, pretty quickly. And while Cameron originally deleted the smiling scene from T2 for fear that it was making the T-800 too much of a joke character this movie saw fit to use it....3 times I think?
admittedly it was somewhat funny in the police station line-up (called Groot to mind) and when Kyle and Sarah kissed at the end - funny but stupid, not sure it belonged in a Terminator movie, try to imagine something so goofy in T1
the helicopter chase was crap. Awful. There's just no audience investment in physics-defying CGI helicopter chases story-board writers. Please bear this in mind. If it's something set in a present-day world that can only be done with CG then it does not belong, quite simply. We're watching a cartoon at that point and we instantly don't care.
I wasn't too fond of all the Skynet holograms and some of the cheesy reactions/lines to said holograms by the hero characters.
In fact the whole Cyberdyne ending I thought let the last half hour of the film down a bit. It all felt a bit cartoony in a way.
I wasn't too fond of all the Skynet holograms and some of the cheesy reactions/lines to said holograms by the hero characters.
In fact the whole Cyberdyne ending I thought let the last half hour of the film down a bit. It all felt a bit cartoony in a way.
Biggest surprise for me - not hating Jason Clarke's Terminator. From what I had read, he sounded awful, like something that went against everything I thought a Terminator should be. However Khev's synopsis of how a chatty bad guy Terminator contextually worked in this movie sold me on him. The whole point was that he was as 'personable' a Terminator as there could possibly be. Skynet co-opting their arch nemesis into their plans...kinda clever actually. So that whole part of the plot I didn't mind. And I thought he was very good ''pre-assimilation'' too. So much so that, like Kyle, I wanted him to fight against it.
There was to be no fighting against it, as it turned out, which was also good.
So Arnie doesn't die for the first time in a Terminator movie, and yet it could come to nothing anyway if this film bombs! I'd be interested to see another one though if only to see WTF is up with his new T-1000 abilities
TLDR: A preliminary 7/10
T1 and T2 remain on their pedestals right alongside eachother. Genisys is probably more interesting than T3 and T4, I'm curious where they'll go with it if they get a chance to. I doubt that I personally will ever consider it canon but as its own thing it's enjoyable.[/QUOTE]
I predict that 7/10 will go down to a 3 or a 4 with repeat viewings. Still, TG is wayyyy more entertaining than Salvation.
Maybe if we had seen that particular relationship carry on beyond T2 (John and Uncle Bob) I would have found it plausible and warmed to the whole idea. And I guess the suggestion was there that it could have gone that way. But when you have Genisys showing you a separate relationship between Sarah and a different T-800, it's like they ''saw what others had done, and they took the next step. They didn't earn it for themselves so they don't take any responsibility....for it...'', something like that. You don't see this relationship develop to the point that it had, it all occurred off-screen. Like Anakin and Obi-wan in the Star Wars prequels. It feels like unearned character development in a way.
And if I open myself up to it and if I retroactively acknowledge that it was happening in T2 then there goes a significant defence of that film against its usual detractors, the T1 purists.
Anyway, thanks for the rep. G'night...morning even.
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I predict that 7/10 will go down to a 3 or a 4 with repeat viewings. Still, TG is wayyyy more entertaining than Salvation.The cinema was pretty much empty for a new release so I hope they aren't entirely dependant on box office for this in order to make the sequels because it doesn't look good if the showing I saw was anything to go by.
But anyway, much like Khev I suppose, I enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so. Not quite the future war of Cameron's films but that's maybe because it just doesn't happen to show the typical civilian life of someone living in post-apocalypse LA, keeping warm by small fires inside smashed television sets and hunting rats for food and so on - the film instead goes right to the final assault on the key machine compound, the one with the time displacement machine. At this, I guess it did no better or worse a job than I expected. In fact I think it sold the relationship between John Connor and Kyle Reese better than I thought it would. I liked Jason Clarke (AKA Julian McMahon's less handsome brother (vintijdroidgutz' description I believe) and I thought the dialogue between he and Reese wasn't bad. I rather liked their quiet scene before the storming of the facility in fact. And following on from that I thought the scene with Reese volunteering for the 1984 mission was fine.
I was grinning from ear to ear during the T-800's arrival in 1984. I dunno, even though I had watched the fight scene on youtube, seeing the actual arrival redone with the new ''what the hell?'' dumpster truck driver and the CGI Arnold standing up and looking around exactly as he did in the original film...that was a major geek moment I suppose. Oh and heck I even liked Jai Reese's arrival - he landed splat on his side much like the original film and in some pain....though I don't recall such proximity to the homeless man that he takes the pants off of. In Cameron's film Reese jogs a few paces before reaching that guy. Minor detail.
Lee Byung Hun was great as the T-1000 - I could totally see his respect for Robert Patrick's portrayal, I really saw no fault in anything he did. Top marks to the man, his role was all too brief...is that a spoiler? I don't think so, we'd all seen the trailers and considering everything that had to fit into this film.....
I was surprised in a way that he replaced the cop that Reese takes the gun from in the original film. Reese took the gun from a T-1000!!!! He asks the T-1000 what date it is, what year!!! That was kinda cool. Imagine his surprise with this police officer's response. I loved that, of the two policemen Reese gets caught by shortly after, one of them ends up being J K Simmons, in a thread picked up later in 2017 - I really thought that was great, very nifty
Pops.....Pops...I think this is where the movie fell down for me. Contrary to what critics are saying and what many fans are saying (including Jedibear, I see)...I don't think Arnie was the strong-point of this film. So much of this feeling hinges on the interpretation of T2's line - ''I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do''. That was the T-800's final word, pretty much, in T2. He said ''goodbye'' after that and did the thumbs up but that line was really his final line of major significance in T2. And how you interpret that line, I think, really informs your reaction to his portrayal in Terminator Genisys. For me, Pops......goes against that line in T2. Why, you ask.
Well...he does seem to have emotion, genuine feelings for Sarah. I mean, jokes are one thing (and there are many of those) but there are indicators that he has grown to love Sarah as a daughter - the photographs and drawings he has kept in the intervening years between 1984 and 2017 - and this topped off by his line directed at Reese in the final battle with evil John - ''Kyle Reese - protect my Sarah''.....I swear I predicted a line like that so many posts ago in this very thread. But anyway, yeah, I thought it was 'touching'....I'm just not sure it was something I wanted to see.
I have always defended T2 against T1 purists on the grounds that I did not think that Uncle Bob was actually feeling any emotion at the end of T2. Some people think that the ''I know now why you cry'' line was intended to be taken literally as the T-800 is physically incapable of crying and that otherwise he would cry. In other words he was feeling emotion. I on the other hand took it as the T-800 using a metaphor - an impressive enough learning feat in its own right for a machine - he was saying that he now understands the circumstances in which a human being will cry but he cannot cry because he simply does not feel that emotion. He surely has tear ducts to keep his human eyes moist and to thereby preserve them for his infiltration purposes but they serve no purpose beyond that, his tear ducts will not react to emotion that just isn't there to begin with. The thumbs up, in my interpretation, was just a final gesture to assure John that everything would be alright - it was a human gesture that he knew a human would appreciate, even though he was indifferent at that point. And as for Sarah's narration about the machine learning the value of human life - I've always seen it as Sarah projecting onto him what she wanted to believe. He just went along with the mission. The mission evolved somewhat as it went along but it was all in line with his primary objective of protecting John Connor, so he did it - really for no reason beyond that.
So now we have Genisys with a T-800 who, pretty clearly, feels emotion. And I do think that is the specific intention of the writers. Arnie has gone along with it. Was it Cameron's intention? And am I wrong in my interpretation of T2? I'd love to ask him. In fact if I were in a position to do so I absolutely would, it would be my ONE question to ask the man. What was his intention with the ending of T2 with regard the T-800 and the extent of its learning capabilities. Can it feel emotion? And if so, was that ever in his thoughts when he wrote lines like ''it doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear'' in T1?
Jai Courtney as Reese.....he wasn't terrible, kinda generic really. The problem may lay with the writers moreso than him. He was given dialogue that I just can't see Michael Biehn's Reese ever saying and so, in that way, they felt like different characters, even setting aside their physical difference. So I would say Courtney did a fine enough job with what he was given but.....couldn't he have questioned some of it (like Lee Byung Hun apparently did)? Was he himself so unfamiliar with Biehn's Reese that he couldn't interject during the script-readings - ''Reese wouldn't say that'' or ''y'know, I should at least grow my hair to the length Michael Biehn had his in T1''.
Physical appearance matters because they kept Arnie on. If Arnie is still the Terminator then other characters should at least have some resemblance to the original actor. Emilia Clarke somewhat pulls that off compared to T2 Linda Hamilton Sarah but Courtney's Reese utterly fails in this regard. Height, build, hairstyle - nothing alike to Biehn really. And why is any of that a problem? Well, because it might help when you're trying to connect the audience to the original film, when you're trying to build some sort of emotional oomph. I feel that a Kyle Reese that more closely matches Michael Biehn's Reese in both character and physical appearance would have helped Genisys piggyback on the emotion built by T1. With the writing and casting of Reese, it did an ok job but fell way short of what it potentially could have done. I mean he was a pretty major role here, even replacing Sarah Connor as the narrator for the movie.
I had no particular problem with Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. A T1 Sarah's age with experience of 29 year old T2 Sarah, I thought she was fine.
I liked J K Simmon's as already mentioned, pretty cool little strand to keep going throughout the film.
Speaking of strands, I also liked the parts about Kyle's alternate memories while he was in the time-field and how those paid off later in the film. That sort of thing made me feel like the writers had put a bit more thought into this story than I was giving credit for prior to seeing the film.
What about the rest...well a lot of the humour fell completely flat for me. ''Old, not obsolete'' got...well, old, pretty quickly. And while Cameron originally deleted the smiling scene from T2 for fear that it was making the T-800 too much of a joke character this movie saw fit to use it....3 times I think?
admittedly it was somewhat funny in the police station line-up (called Groot to mind) and when Kyle and Sarah kissed at the end - funny but stupid, not sure it belonged in a Terminator movie, try to imagine something so goofy in T1
the helicopter chase was crap. Awful. There's just no audience investment in physics-defying CGI helicopter chases story-board writers. Please bear this in mind. If it's something set in a present-day world that can only be done with CG then it does not belong, quite simply. We're watching a cartoon at that point and we instantly don't care.
I wasn't too fond of all the Skynet holograms and some of the cheesy reactions/lines to said holograms by the hero characters.
In fact the whole Cyberdyne ending I thought let the last half hour of the film down a bit. It all felt a bit cartoony in a way.
Biggest surprise for me - not hating Jason Clarke's Terminator. From what I had read, he sounded awful, like something that went against everything I thought a Terminator should be. However Khev's synopsis of how a chatty bad guy Terminator contextually worked in this movie sold me on him. The whole point was that he was as 'personable' a Terminator as there could possibly be. Skynet co-opting their arch nemesis into their plans...kinda clever actually. So that whole part of the plot I didn't mind. And I thought he was very good ''pre-assimilation'' too. So much so that, like Kyle, I wanted him to fight against it.
There was to be no fighting against it, as it turned out, which was also good.
So Arnie doesn't die for the first time in a Terminator movie, and yet it could come to nothing anyway if this film bombs! I'd be interested to see another one though if only to see WTF is up with his new T-1000 abilities
TLDR: A preliminary 7/10
T1 and T2 remain on their pedestals right alongside eachother. Genisys is probably more interesting than T3 and T4, I'm curious where they'll go with it if they get a chance to. I doubt that I personally will ever consider it canon but as its own thing it's enjoyable.
Hah! Tremors girl! Nice.
Repeat viewings are the real test. But hey at least this one warrants them, I feel.
I'm shocked. Shocked. This must be some multiverse thing happening. I'm in the wrong time-stream. Help!
VintijDroidGutzz
Super Freak
Really enjoyed reading your review there a-dev, you're a very articulate chap indeed.
A major thing I've gleaned from your post, is that there is much to stomach in order to make it through.
A major thing I've gleaned from your post, is that there is much to stomach in order to make it through.
I suppose we're all either Malcolms or Hammonds when it comes to these and many other movies. Like you I'm definitely a Malcolm regarding the CG helicopter chase. "So eventually you do plan to have actual helicopters on your heli...helicopter chase?" *breathes on camera*
But for the Pops/Sarah thing I'm full Hammond.
Well as a part time T1 purist myself I'd just say the same thing to them. T-800's couldn't feel pity or remorse during any singular battle or ambush of a Resistance hideout. But during his time in L.A. he did pick up appropriate human responses over the course of three days. Did he feel any pity or remorse or emotion? No way. But T1 does NOT say how much they would pick up or change or evolve over four and a half DECADES interacting with humans. Especially living with one who actively bonds with and tries to teach that T-800.
T2 just took the "**** you ***hole" to the next level and then Genisys did it again. If Pops' feelings ARE the result of him protecting Sarah for 11 years how DO you show that? I didn't think it was a copout or some PT Anakin/Obi-Wan thing because you'd almost have to do a Forrest Gump/Jenny thing over multiple years that would get its own entire movie to really show it. And then if they did devote an entire film to establishing that bond then they wouldn't get to have the "surprise" of Sarah being this semi-badass in 1984 when Reese shows up. I put surprise in quotes of course because anyone who saw even the first teaser already knew that moment was happening. But if you take the film outside of its marketing then it was a good "moment" with regard to Terminator twists.
"What? Sarah was ready for him? The whole timeline changed? What does that mean???" It allowed us to experience this new 1984 through Reese's eyes, all over again. Think of it like Marty going back to the "altered" 1985 in BTTF II. We wouldn't have wanted the movie to show us Biff's whole new life with the Sports Almanac and how he made his bets, married Lorraine, etc., because it was all part of this "new world" shock that Marty experienced. And that's what I think they were going for with Genisys and that it was a valid "non-cheating" approach.
I feel like a-dev just threw you over the railing while you were electrocuting me. I can't wait to go tell sis that I was right about him.
I'm shocked that my lowball numbers on box office take for this movie might be way too high.
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