Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Quentin,
Except for a few naysayers, most of the participants in this thread and the review thread loved this film. Also, personal opinion is a funny thing. Last summer, some of these same people that didn't think much of Terminator 3 were singing the praises for Spider Man which is a film that I couldn't stand to see again which is why I never purchased the dvd even though I consider myself a collector and own 2100 dvds. You know what they say "different strokes for different folks".





Crawdaddy

 

[Ruben Zamora]

I think what confused people is the opening date. Almost all theaters showed this movie the day before, most people were thinking Wed. was the day, some even thought JULY 4 was the date.


Someone screwed up in the advertising dept.

 

[PaulP]

About the 000 casualties thing, I remember that in T2 that counter said 0.0 casualties - much more precise. So an upgraded Terminator has worse software? Must be a beta. I wonder who designs T-software, AOL?

But T3 rocked. Can't wait for T4. Wonder if Arnold will return for it. Would there be a role for him, since the film would most likely be set post Judgment Day, meaning all terminators would appear in their endoskeleton form, right? And I'm hoping for a T-1000 return!

 

[John Geelan]

I think what confused people is the opening date. Almost all theaters showed this movie the day before, most people were thinking Wed. was the day, some even thought JULY 4 was the date.

That may be the reason.

I'm so used to Opening Day madness that it was wierd to watch a major Franchise Picture open with no crowds when lately these pictures do massive amounts of money on Opening Day.

They may have waited too long to do this sequel. 10 years is a long time between films.

Bad Boys 2 may suffer the same fate.

 

[Quentin]

You may be right, Robert. I'm also not a Spidey fan (the movie), and I think time is already starting to hurt that film.

 

[Matt Stone]

Well, I would rather see a newcomer to a franchise be cautious with the material than try to do something radical with it and totally fuck it up.

My thoughts exactly. I have no problem with Mostow making safe choices here.

Except, I still think the Judgment Day is inevitable revelation is pretty ballsy...as evidenced by a few pissed off viewers

 

[Tom-G]

I think people are missing the meaning of John Connor's final scene with him proclaming that he was "in charge." That moment is important because it shows that John Connor has accepted his fate as being the leader of the resistance.

I'm glad that there are so many positive comments being made about this movie. I really want Arnold to have another hit. I realize he is limited in range of roles, but I still consider myself a fan of the "Austrian Oak."

One thing that bothers me is that the T-850 didn't have an arc like the T-800 in Terminator 2. In T2, Arnie's character learns emotion as implied by his statement "I know now why you cry." In this film, Arnie's character was more of comedic sidekick, doing things I thought were out of character such as choking John Connor to evoke an emotional response.

My main problem with the movie is the humor though. Cameron picked his spots for humor almost flawlessly, but in this one, I felt the humor was forced and something you would see in a Jerry Bruckheimer production.

 

[Matt Stone]

Arnie's character learns emotion as implied by his statement "I know now why you cry." In this film

Quite a few fans of T2 think that emotion-arc was the worst aspect of the film. I personally was glad to see it go. Although I did like the fact that Arnie had psychology programming. "Anger is more effective than despair."

 

[Rollie]

T3 was a hell of a lot better than I expected it to be. Loken played a pretty convincing villain. She was very machine-like in her mannerisms, which was great.

I also liked the change in theme for this one. As others have pointed out the "Fate is what we make" concept has been rejected. I really liked the way the director symbolized this change of pace. The Terminator is shown destroying the quote on Sarah Conner's tomb and then pulling out the coffin full of guns; basically saying "forget optimism, some things you can't change and the only thing you can do about it is fight." The idea of hope has been replaced with another theme that is not new to Terminator films, the theme of survival at any cost.

The ending was a bit of a shocker, but I probably should have seen it coming since the frikkin' title of the movie is Rise of the Machines!

I do have one question. Didn't Arnold say that the humans eventually lose the war with the machines? If this is the case, then why all this trouble about Conner's resistance movement? Why send any Terminators at all?

 

[Tom-G]

Quite a few fans of T2 think that emotion-arc was the worst aspect of the film.

Really? I've never seen/heard any complaints about it. The arc was important statement that Cameron was making in that film. The point that machines can learn the value of human life, but humans can not is very poignant.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Tom,
Those scenes might not have been funny to you, but in the two viewings I've attended for this film, the audiences laughed a lot during those scenes. Humor is subjective so there will always be some people like you that won't find all attempts at humor successful.




Crawdaddy

 

[StevenW]

I absolutely loved this movie! Its making me die for a part 4 already! For me its the top movie of the year so far. And regarding the humor moments in the film. Every attempt at humor had the audience I was with laughing really loud.

 

[todd stone]

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is set to bring in some healthy numbers at the box office this weekend, so what does producer Mario Kassar have to say about possible future installments?

He tells Empire magazine, "If this one's successful, then of course we'll think about Number 4. And then maybe Number 5 and Number 6. We have some ideas already, but you're not going to get them out of me today."


www.comingsoon.net

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

If I had BBS posts from back in '91-'92 I'd post HUNDREDS of comments of people complaining about the emotion angle in T2 and the humor as well. "Why do you cry?" and "I know now why you cry" were among the most wretched lines (to the complainers) and most big fans of film 1 were super pissed that in #2 Arnold's ENTIRE line delivery changed, he was no longer an emotionless killing machine, he seemed...well, sorta human...errr Austrian actually. I actually see the "humor" in T3 as much darker, more incidental, and Arnold has actually pulled back the emotion in his line delivery to probably something between film 1 and 2 level, which I feel is perfect since in this film, his character obviously is in "learning mode" from the moment he arrives.

-Dennis

 

[Lou Sytsma]

I hear you Dennis but you are fighting an uphill battle against nostalgia where everything is seen through rose-coloured glasses.

Most of the negative remarks about T3 are the same ones I heard about T2.

 

[Brad Porter]

It's time to discuss time travel as proposed in the Terminator films. Avert your eyes if this sort of thing bugs you.

The basic rules of time travel:
1. Only externally organic materials may pass through time. This gives the filmmakers an opportunity to show some skin and prevents Skynet from sending fancy weapons backwards that aren't wrapped in skin.
2. Time travellers can fundamentally alter the past, causally eliminating the future from which they arrived. They continue to exist to maintain the causality in the "present", but this does create a paradox concerning their origin.
3. In spite of what was said in T3, the rise of Skynet was never inevitable. There are numerous scenarios through which the activation of Skynet could have been prevented at any point during its development history. Fate is still malleable. It must be in order for the whole sending robots back in time to make any sense at all. The future is still not written. If they try to claim that the rise of Skynet is inevitable, then so is its fall.

What paradoxes exist:
1. The prinicple one is how a Terminator continues to exist in the past when his actions have destroyed the specific future that he was sent from. That's a part of time travel in this universe as depicted in the films, so it must be dismissed from the paradox list.
2. Where did John Connor originally come from? Once upon a time Sarah Connor was a waitress. At some point in that future timeline Skynet destroys most of the human population. A human resistance group is led by a man named John Connor - who is supposedly Sarah Connor's son. A terminator and a protector are both sent back in time prior to John Connor's birth. The protector impregnates Sarah with John, informs her of her destiny as his trainer, and helps protect her from the Terminator. If John Connor didn't exist, he could not have sent Reese back in time to impregnate his mother. This is the one instance in the films where the future is creating its own past, rather than creating a new future. It had to be possible to create a different future or else there would have been no reason to send a Terminator back in time. Time travel in the first film is really confusing because of this causality loop. Another issue to note is that the events of the second film eliminate the future of the first film - therefore Reese would not have been sent back in time to father John Connor - who would not have sent a Terminator back to protect his teenage self - which would have prevented the elimination of the future that created him.
3. The Arnold model Terminator in T3 seems to maintain some of the characteristics of the Arnold model Terminator in T2 (how to find keys in a truck, not to kill humans, etc.). These two Terminators could not have passed this information to each other. The only explanation is that John Connor left instructions (foolishly) to program all Terminators that are sent by his crew to the past with these instructions. Or the writers were lazy.

My fundamental questions:
1. Why did they only try to kill Sarah Connor once? Skynet's first instinct for defeating the John Connor led resistance was to eliminate the existence of John Connor. They sent one Terminator back to kill his mother. Why don't they continue to send Terminators farther into her past? Eventually one of them should succeed. They only reason I can come up with is that the events of the first film were key to enabling the more rapid development of Skynet, something that Skynet doesn't want to jeapordize. Skynet knows that it can't kill Sarah Connor prior to the events of the first film without endangering its creation. This still leaves her wide open for termination during the pregnancy. It also leaves John Connor vulnerable throughout the entirety of his first thirteen years of existence. The only explanation I can come up with is that it's extraordinarily difficult to send Terminators back in time.
2. John Connor spent his teens and early 20s living "off the grid" to hide from Terminators, although he presumably had destroyed the Skynet future at the end of T2. Either he believes that Skynet future is destroyed and he lives a normal life, or he believes it can re-emerge and he continues to seek and destroy any occurrence of Skynet in the present. Why did they write his character in T3 as a drifter who seems oblivious to the development of Skynet? Does this bother anyone else?

Brad

 

[Matt Stone]

The only humor that I had a big problem with in T3 was the bit w/the Elton John glasses, and the "Talk to the hand" line. Seemed a little too cheese-tastic to me.

I did like when Arnie opened the back of the truck to let Kate out, and after been hit a few times, threw her back.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

One thing I really liked about the film was how they showed where the original timeline would have worked out (how John would have become the leader of the resistance, how he would have ended up with Claire Danes and her father, etc.).

And while the movie might not be perfect, I think the main goal for the director was to get the series moving again and make it enjoyable, not necessarily perfect. That's why there are paradoxes and little anachronisms and such.

BTW, since the timeline has changed, couldn't the T-101's program be somehow rewritten a little from what it used to be? Couldn't Claire Danes have changed it in the future to include stuff like the "000 Casualties" or check for the keys in the truck? I mean, the T-101 in T2 didn't have psychology programming, so why should we assume that's the only modification?

 

[John Geelan]

T3 was a pleasant surprise for me. Didn't expect much going in but the Crane Chase sealed it for me plus how good Arnold looks resuming the classic role.

I'll be seeing this one again.

 

[Brett_B]

I am surprised to say that I am one of the few who DESPISED this movie. I won't even start on the "humor" aspect since that has been debated here quite a bit.

There were just TOO MANY scenes that left me shaking my head in disgust. For example, when John, Kate, and the terminator were fleeing the TX in the hearse. When the TX jumps onto the roof, instead of using its strength to just rip the roof right off (just like when the TX ripped the truck door from its hinges when it first approached Kate) the TX transforms its arm into a cutting tool and SLOWLY cuts through the top. What is up with that? To me, that seemed like the writer was trying to show what all the TX "could" do, but placed it in a very bad spot. In other words, they, the writers, did not pay any attention to details.

Another aspect that wasn't even touched upon was the aftermath of the second installment. After T1, Sarah was arrested and placed in a mental institution for blowing up a computer factory, and John was placed in foster care. After the end of T2, Sarah had escaped from the mental institution with the help of the terminator, who was being sought after for the deaths of the police officers in the first film. They blew up yet another computer factory, and now we are to believe that they went on the live their lives happily ever after in Baja California? Not to mention that she had a will written up to bury guns and ammo in her coffin in the United States?

Like I said, I am happy that most of the people like this installment, but I will NEVER watch this one again. (seems like the Alien franchise all over again).

I will say something positive about the film, it did have "some" good action sequences in regards to "shoot-em-up" demolition. Other than that, flush this one down the toilet.

I add one more thing (things that make you go, "Hmmm?"). What about the flying machines that were being developed by the Air Force. What kind of advancement is it when this hi-tech machine can be destroyed by a few rounds from a machine gun? My guess is is that the developer just got fired after seeing that one!