Terminator Trilogy.

[I, Colossus]

[color=#006699]Well. I just finsihed watching the third movie on DVD. I have been waiting to see this movie for a very long time. When it was released in theatres I was unable to go. And I just scrounged up enough money to buy it. It was a good movie but the [i]magic[/i] of T2 just wasn't present.

[spoiler]One thing that I hated was Sarah Conner's death. The whole Lukemia thing was stupid, I [i]really[/i] wish she would've been included in this film. It just wasn't Terminator without her though. Just a side question, why didn't James Cameron write and direct this film? [/spoiler]

The visual effects were done extremely well in this movie. The CGI wasn't sloppy and was no where near as noticable as most movies today. The fusing of CGI and live actors was incredibly well done. Not to mention all of the robotics used. The T-1s were real, they were actually built. Which is amazing on it's own.

I don't have much to say right now, as I'm peeking through the special features on the DVD right now, but I'll be back to edit this.[/color]

[Arkadyz]

[color=silver][font=times new roman][b]Well the only good thing about T3 was the action. As shroom stated they integrated the CG very well, and pretty subtly. But the stroyline...Sighz isnt exactly up to T2 standards.

It pretty much rips off T2's story sooo much its sad...And the "twist" at the end that destiny is unaviodable no matter what anyone does...zzzzz. I guess they where just trying to throw in some psuedo philosphy to make the movie look smarter or something?

Well anywayz final verdict is great action movie and some good popcorn fun...Just dont try and think too much when you watch it :p [/color][/font][/b]

[Dagger]

I really, really loved watching T-1 and T-2; Judgment Day is [i]still[/i] one of my all-time favorite movies. Its action sequences were revolutionary during the era in which it was made (where would The Matrix trilogy be without the liquid metal effects pioneered by James Cameron in T-2?). The original Terminator films are fantastic entertainment. They combine drama, humor, and pulse-pounding car chases--elements which many newer, glossier action movies fail to integrate successfully.

While Rise of the Machines allows Arnold to deliver some hilarious one-liners with his usual stoic panache, like Shroom said, it wasn't nearly as good as T-1 and T-2. Its ending made me fear that they were planning to put together a fourth film.

I [i]hated[/i] the fact that [spoiler]Judgment Day came despite everyone's attempts to stop it. In the first two movies, Sarah Connor said "There is no fate but what you make." So what the hell happened to that principle? I thought that the ability to defy destiny was supposed to be one of the trilogy's main themes.[/spoiler]

~Dagger~

[Semjaza]

Cameron didn't bother because he didn't feel the film needed to be made. He thought of it as a cash in, basically.

I barely remember Terminator at this point. Terminator 2 I have better memories of and I've always liked it. Cameron really goes all out on his films, especially in terms of the facts used to back up the story. That was a large problem with T3, I thought.

That and the film just felt completely unnecessary. The opening is nearly exactly the same and so are a lot of the situations. In terms of story, it accomplishes nearly nothing that you couldn't have come to realize after the second one. I just don't get the point of it.

At the same time, I enjoyed it. It's a decent action flick, but it just doesn't compare to the first two on really any level.

[Brasil]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Dagger IX1 [/i]
[B]While Rise of the Machines allows Arnold to deliver some hilarious one-liners with his usual stoic panache, like Shroom said, it wasn't nearly as good as T-1 and T-2. Its ending made me fear that they were planning to put together a fourth film.

I [i]hated[/i] the fact that [spoiler]Judgment Day came despite everyone's attempts to stop it. In the first two movies, Sarah Connor said "There is no fate but what you make." So what the hell happened to that principle? I thought that the ability to defy destiny was supposed to be one of the trilogy's main themes.[/spoiler]

~Dagger~ [/B][/QUOTE]

Just to give you a hand in understanding the plot progression in the series,

[spoiler]They were never going to be able to prevent Judgment Day, regardless of which movie we examine.

The entire Branching Path ideal of the series is never brought in by anyone other than humans. Think about it. Reese's dialogue in T1:

Sarah: Are you saying it's from the future?
Reese: One possible future...from your point of view, I don't know.

That's a human saying something we take to be real. Humans in the Terminator series are known to be emotionally-controlled. They live by their feelings. They live by their instincts. They are driven by animal instincts. Sarah Conner in T2 illustrates this perfectly. She is a hunter.

Now, realizing that humans are no longer reliable narrators, because they're driven by instinct, we cannot base the Judgment Day scenario on their dialogue or action.

As much as we trust Sarah's narration at the end of T2, we cannot accept her monologue as truth, because it is being [i]filtered[/i] through her eyes. We are seeing the situation as she wants to see it.

"No Fate but what we make" is a human's value, not the films'.

Cameron's inspiration for the original stemmed from a really bad illness in the Mediterranean area. He was bed-ridden for a while, had a nightmare of just one shot: the T-800 rising out of the fire in T1. That nightmare was brought about by his intense feeling of loneliness as he laid there with no-one around.

I would further hypothesize that Cameron [i]is[/i] the Terminator in the films. I mean, think about it. The Terminator is something that instills fear and dread and a very large sense of isolation. It is the epitome of Fate. We are all going to be ill, sick, lonely, etc, at some point in our lives. Cameron was using the Terminator as an allegorical figure. Terminators are coming. We are all going to experience extreme amounts of pain sometime. We are all going to have to face Fate.

Now, here we have John Connor, who will lead the remnants of civilization to victory after a nuclear holocaust. That is his destiny. That is his Fate. And what is directly linked with his destiny? Terminators. So, John's Fate is a Terminator.

Sarah Connor's Fate is a Terminator.

Kyle Reese's Fate is a Terminator.

And what do the humans do? Try to fight their Fate; try to create their own desired Fate. But how can one [i]prevent[/i] sorrow, sadness, fear, loneliness, death, sickness, etc? Simply, we can't. Cameron knows this. He understands that he could not have prevented his illness. It was a destined happening. He accepted it and grew from it. He didn't fight it, but he did work around it.

It actually seems "catch more flies with honey." Granted, I would never get a jar of honey to throw at the T-1000, but...whoa. Check this.

The humans are NEVER able to kill the assailing Terminator in ANY of the movies. It's always another machine that kills it.

The hydraulic press in T1, Arnie with a grenade launcher in T2, Arnie with his fuel cell in T3...it's always another machine that is victorious.

Sarah would have been totally dead in T1 if the hydraulic press wasn't operational. Yes, she did press the activation switch, but if she hadn't, she would not have survived. Thus, the machine saves her. The machine kills the T-800.

Sarah and John would have both been killed had Arnie not launched that grenade into the T-1000. Sarah and John didn't stand a chance with no weapon.

John and Kate were unable to destroy the T-X, even in the particle accelerator. The T-X still came after them. Arnie was the only entity that destroyed T-X.

All of this is an example of machines dictating Fate, not humans. The humans are along for the ride.

EDIT INSERT: This "along for the ride" idea is very well supported through the notion that no matter what the humans do/did, the end result was still the same: Judgment Day. Cameron knew Judgment Day couldn't be stopped. Why do you think he canned his original ending? The ending in which they do prevent it.

Judgment Day was always going to happen, even if we ignore T3. The robotics lab could have been some random company, but it wasn't. [i]It was Cyberdyne.[/i] Oh yeah, check out the deleted scenes. There was a scene that showed a Cyberdyne executive picking up the chip, handing it to an aide, saying, "Get this to Research and Development first thing Monday morning."

Oh yeah. The series is total Fate.

T2: blowing up Cyberdyne's main office and Dyson's home office wasn't going to do anything but [i]delay[/i] Judgment Day. Big tech company like Cyberdyne...they'd have quite a few off-site data back-ups. That kind of destruction would give the company's development a bit of a hiccup, I'd think.[/spoiler]

So, hope that cleared some of it up. I'm always around if you have more questions.