Terminator Salvation (2009) (1 Viewer)

[Will_B]

"If we've heard the narration before, it should be as we heard it."

Yeah I wondered about that. Who recorded the bits of Sarah Connor's voice on the tape recorder? It sure didn't sound like Linda Hamilton. They should have made the tape sound warbly, as if the tapes were barely playable, to disguise the way that it didn't sound like Linda Hamilton.

I thought I'd read that they asked Linda Hamilton to do the voice. Did they not manage to do that? Maybe they can record her voice in time for the DVDs.

 

[Will_B]

"I would have really preferred that Skynet didn't identify Kyle Reese at the processing center, because I agree that it's implausible that Skynet wouldn't have killed him on sight."

Maybe Skynet has a better understanding of temporal dynamics and believes that the Reese in this timeline is not the same Reese that was sent back originally, but also knows that Connor (who knows less about time travel) will have to err on the side of saving him, because Connor will guess that he does in fact have to send this particular timeline's Reese back. Even if he doesn't.

I agree, it made him look self-centered and douchy to be looking out for himself by saving Reese. I forgave that though, because like you say, he believes he's going to save the world. Why, only Skynet of ~10 years from then knows. The current Skynet probably doesn't even know why Connor is important -- Skynet only knows that Skynet of ~10 years from now sent back a Terminator to kill him (they know this from the evidence that was carried forward from 1985 to the future-present). But they might not know why, yet.

We have to wait for T5 to find out why Connor is important.

Worldwide grosses, please deliver! I want more! Save on the budget next time by casting an unknown as John Connor, I won't mind!

But please try to include Moon Bloodgoodand Anton Yelchin, they were great.

 

[Steve_Tk]

I think the worst part of the movie for me was when the terminator grabbed Connor by the neck, lifted him up against the wall, and just held him there. when did terminators stop being the efficient killing machines? Remember in T1 when the terminator was going to just walk up to Sara in the bar and shoot her in the head. Was no fist fighting, or picking someone up and holding them there for ego, it was smart and efficient. If it got it's hands on you then you were dead.

And if Bale is in another one of these, please tell him he's not in the bat suit anymore and doesn't have to talk like that.

Was the movie trying to imply that if they killed Reese the current John Connor would just disappear?

 

[Brian Dobbs]

you know, I think the trailers really spoiled everything. They should have kept Marcus's secret until people actually saw the movie. Imagine how cool that would have been to realize what was going on while you're watching the movie instead of already knowing.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I also groaned when I saw the Marcus reveal in the trailers as well.

 

[mike caronia]

I enjoyed Salvation, but there were plot holes you could drive a truck through.
Hoping a director's cut does give some more depth to the characters.

How did Marcus got from LA to San Fran by foot in less than a day?!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The problem with that is that Marcus goes through a lot of insane things before the reveal that would be impossible for a normal human to survive. If I didn't know that he was secretly a Terminator, the scene where he gets blown off the hostage plane and skipped over the water like a stone would have been totally laughable.

 

[Shane D]

I think the spark of 'somethings not normal' would have happened though once we saw him looking exactly like he did 15 years prior as he was being executed. that would be enough fore knowledge to know hes different without knowing hes a new kind of infiltrator

 

[Diallo B]

and that is exactly the point. you would have been thinking, wtf??? and then you would have gotten a reveal. i also think that it was poor to do the cyberdyne chick with marcus at the prison scene first thing in the movie.

1. don't reveal major plot points in trailers
2. find a creative way to show that prison scene later in the movie.

although the movie was till subpar those two things alone would have made a large difference.

 

[TravisR]

This movie expanded that dialogue/recording though. I guess the new lines couldn't mix together with the original dialogue so they just re-recorded it all.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

If anything was added to that tape, it certainly wasn't essential. The other tape deck recordings were presumably from other points in time, so it would make sense that they would sound different.

 

[DavidJ]

No kidding. Not killing him makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the Skynet we know from the previous films.

 

[Patrick Sun]

We don't even know how a young, on the run, Kyle would even be #1 on Skynet's hit list. It just seems like super-lazy script-writing (like Skynet acted on omniscent knowledge of Kyle's destiny).

 

[Will_B]

Or Skynet read Sarah Connor's lock-down mental ward reports. She may have said something about Kyle Reese back then. Any info revealed in the 1990 or 2000s or whatever present day is, would have drifted forward.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This is my preferred interpretation, too. The other interpretation was that the T-X uploaded all of its data to Skynet prior to Judgment Day in Rise of the Machines.

This actually highlights T3's biggest plothole. While the terminators in T1 and T2 couldn't pass on their data because Skynet hadn't been constructed yet, in T3 its made clear that Skynet is already well on its way to infiltrating all of the world's computers. The T-X was obviously internet-connected, so she should have been able to upload all her data so that Skynet would be rolling advanced models off of the assembly line before a human resistence can even begin to come together.

 

[DVDvision]

I think the problem people find about Bale portrayal of Connor is that he plays him as being on his last wheels.
My understanding of the ending is not like I read everywhere, that Marcus gave him his heart. My understanding is that Connor died, and Marcus gave up his skin so that Connor's is now grafted on him. That's the elliptical ending right there.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

That was the original ending, but McG didn't like it because it was too cute by half. In interviews he explicitly stated that John Connor got Marcus's genetically engineered super-heart, that he was not Marcus in John Connor's skin. I thought the movie made it pretty clear too.

And I agree with that. Yes, it's a shocking turn of events, but it undermines three films worth of build-up to swap in a male lead that was invented for this movie. It wasn't John Connor's appearance that made him special, it was John Connor himself and the lifetime he lived with this destiny weighing down on him. The symmetry from the original film is so important: that by attempting to destroy its enemy, Skynet in fact created its enemy.

 

[Brian Dobbs]

I enjoyed this movie, but what were they thinking when they wrote this script? For crying out loud!

McG discusses original ending - Spoiler: Terminators alternative ending- msnbc.com

 

[Will_B]

Brian, early scripts are always fun. Usually the only constant is some of the characters. Remember Star Trek IV (the one about the whales) originally had Eddie Murphy as Kirk's friend in 1980, instead of the lady who worked with the whales.

 

[Cary P]

Saw it last night, and my first thought after it ended was "this movie could be a franchise-killer".

I agree with most of what has been said in this thread. I actually enjoyed the first half of the movie and thought it held together. But the movie fell apart completely by the end, and had me groaning and shaking my head as it raced towards the finish.

The impalement and heart transplant scene was totally unnecessary and very poorly done - a horrible way to end the movie. And there were other huge plot holes even before that last incomprehensible segment that totally undermined the movie and the franchise as a whole - why is Kyle Reese not immediately terminated, how does Connor infiltrate Skynet headquarters so easily, what is a major resistance air force base doing out in the wide open desert - it's all been discussed here.

There were many strengths in the first half of the movie, but most of those parts which I found compelling were totally undermined dramatically by the trailer which basically gives away the first half of the movie. I can only conclude that Hollywood is mostly run by marketing idiots.

There is a slim chance that an extended director's cut might address some of my complaints and salvage this mess, but even so, it is a huge misfire, IMO.

The first half showed that the concept and style of this reboot had a lot of potential - it's a damn shame it had to be squandered by what was most likely studio interference, little attention to continuity detail, and a completely boneheaded script.