Terminator Salvation (2009) (1 Viewer)

[DavidJ]

He was able to infiltrate Skynet easily because that was Skynet's plan. They were using Marcus Wright to lead Connor to Skynet headquarters. This is revealed to Marcus once they were both in the HQ. Whether that is a plausible approach for Skynet to take is another matter.

I agree with a lot of what you said Cary so I didn't quote it all, but I still enjoyed the movie more than I expected.

 

[Cary P]

Yeah, that seems plausible. I guess it was the bad editing which destroyed continuity and flow from scene to scene - one minute Connor is on the Golden Gate Bridge, the next, he is inside Skynet. I'm sitting there thinking, WTF?, which took me out of the movie.

 

[DVDvision]

Yeah, they took out a huge bit there where Marcus must bypass sentries. In the original cut, getting in was harder.

 

[Diallo B]

that happenend to me more than a couple of times.... but i am not going to beat a dead horse.

 

[DVDvision]

Anyone here think like I do that the ending is not what it seems ?

For reasons I cannot understand, 99,99% of the reviewers think Marcus give his heart to Connor in the end. I think he actually gets Connor's skin, to continue the fight against the machine, just like the early leaked ending said it would. I mean, do you actually see Connor receiving the heart ? nope.

Think about it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The ending may have felt rushed, but I thought it was pretty clear that Marcus sacrificed himself so that John Connor could live. Everyone from director McG to Christian Bale has talked about the old ending being scrapped for the new one. I just don't see it, I don't think we're being tricked at the end. Marcus gives John his heart, end of movie.

 

[DVDvision]

Well, I don't think so

I think the ending as a double meaning. We never get to see exactly what happens after Marcus says "take mine". Take mine what ?

Funnily, in foreign countries, they subbed it "take my heart", which is not what Marcus says.

Look, there's no way Connor would survive a heart transplant the way the medic tent is set up. However, the whole movie is about Marcus being a hybrid. They have shown all the way he can survive being damaged, shot at etc, and that his skin can be regenerated, as happens to him in skynet, in the exact same way as the end (ie he gets to sleep and wake up later reborn).

IMHO, Connor is now a hybrid.

Of course, your theory might work as well. But you do have to recognise, that at no point, Marcus says "take my HEART", and that we never see what happens, or what the operation entails to.

Some people think the ending is cheesy, but they take at face value. I think it's brilliant, because it's, as the director said not less than a month ago (when the final edit was, by all accounts, locked) elliptical.

 

[Will_B]

Nope.

 

[Doug Schiller]

Well, like others said, it was a deeply flawed, fragmented film, but I feel I got my money's worth and I don't think it killed the franchise.
On the other hand, how much more can they do with a future war against robots?
To me, Skynet could have solved all their problems by releasing random poison bombs around the world.

The rumored original version rang truer to me... that Skynet figured they needed humans to survive and were building a Utopia to keep them on.
Sort of like how the Matrix plot went.

Here are my questions (some may have been brought up).

I could have sworn you see Marcus' body on one of the tables at the beginning of the movie, dead and lifeless.
So the whole place is destroyed and he is now outside strolling around?
Maybe a quick cut of some protective tube being opened up?

This Resistance has a world network that includes broadcasting from a submarine? And Skynet can't find them?

Marcus, who we are not supposed to know is a cyborg yet, gets attacked by a T-600 (the pre Arnold model) in L.A.
Wouldn't they be designed not to open fire on something built by Skynet?
I thought it would have been an interesting plot point having Reese confused about how he waltz in undetected.
How come he can walk into Skynet at the end of the movie? Did Selena give the ok?

The scene where Marcus wakes up with a hospital gown, all healed seemed like a huge cheat to me. I thought it was the start of a dream sequence.
One minute he is walking into SkyNet, the next he is deep in the center, with new skin and a fresh coat of paint.
I smell some hasty editing there.

Arnold. I loved it, had a huge grin on my face. I think they pulled it off wonderful. Not only did I believe I was watching an Arnold Terminator, but the best one ever, the Terminator 1 ruthless villain one.
But, this was supposed to be 10 years before the events of T1?
Forgetting that Marcus is really more advanced then the T101/800, you would think they would have improved the model by then.
And, this ten year younger model of the original T1 is more advanced. He takes a full chaingun round to the chest without a scratch.
Huh?
He is also tougher then T2 Arnold by surviving a pool of lava. Huh?

And they really missed the ball by not including any of the time travel element.
It was in the script I talked about earlier, heck Marcus uses it at one point but no mention in this film.
That script also gave a nod to the earlier films by showing them developing the T2 villian.
They have perfected the T101 but no time travel?


I also have a problem with Connor worrying about the safety of Reese but I guess it is a belief that you have to have in all the films.
Does Connor think if Reese dies, he would vaporize on the spot?
Wouldn't they be in one possible future, Judgement Day has happened already, so what is the big deal?

And, I don't care what year it is, a huge steel rod plunged through your back and out your chest, you don't have days to survive, you have minutes.

 

[Steve_Tk]

How does Marcus saying "take mine" translate into Connor giving him his skin? That makes less sense then the entire movie, which is saying a lot. Not sure if I agree with you on this one dvdvision

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

The whole question of how John Connor got into Skynet at the end I thought was explained when Marcus got in and shut down that big robot that gave him the evil-eye once over, recognized he was 'one of them' and let him in...

That explained at least how he got inside the perimieter without biting the bullet...

For what its worth - I liked the film just fine - but it could have/should have been better. Should sound incredible on Blu-ray....

 

[DVDvision]

Well, my feeling is that the ending is edited together from different versions of the ending. I think they shot a version where clearly, Marcus says "gives him my heart" or something like that. Then another where the skin switch occurs. Then they cobbled both of them together, to the end results.
I mean, I wouldn't discuss the meaning of it, it clearly, Marcus said "take my heart", and if they had shown the operation. They didn't.
We dissolve from Marcus being injected, and his voice over about the difference between human and machines being the heart (which you can either take as face value, or as symbolism), to Connor in the exact same position as Marcus, continuing the voice over, with bandages on his face (according to the original script, the face scar is the point where the skin is stitched back).
I do not deny it could be the "heart giving" thing, as most people think it is. But I think it could also be what I infer. It's designed to work both ways.

 

[luckytiff02]

Did you noticed that sky wasn't darkened in the Terminator Salvation movie? If all major cities in the world were to be destroyed by nuclear bombs, then the whole sky would be darkened, but in the Terminator Salvation movie, there was day light out during day time. Isn't that a bit inaccurate?

 

[EricW]

these days, franchise killer - reboot opportunity

finally saw this movie and was underwhelmed. yes, the action was slick, but it was not memorable. it was not dramatic. the smaller scale hallway shoot-out in T2 between Arnie and the T1000 trumps any multi-million dollar setpiece in any of the latter Terminator movies. i thought the Resistance would be much weaker, and much more clandestine. the air hanger they showed in the last act had people running around in broad daylight... i liked the Matrix trilogy's man vs machine war sensibilities alot more.
also, the fact that there was only ONE active Terminator in the entire skynet factory to fight the protagonists made me laugh out loud. and having Terminator energy cells lying around like it was a ~human~ workstation was quite funny also.
it also really bothered me when Connor goes on the air to tell people to stand down, and the only reason he gives is 'to protect the future'. i guess he couldn't really be more vague. classic, classic movie speak.

 

[Will_B]

Although figures are meaningless given Hollywood's less-than-honest accounting, there are some good numbers in for Terminator: Salvation.

It has broken even! $105.5M million domestic, and 97.2 M international.

That is breaking even if you believe that the cost was $200 million, but who really knows.

In any case, the chances for a sequel or several sequels, should now exist. Though they probably wouldn't be able to afford Bale -- which is fine, imo, he was very wooden in an otherwise entertaining film.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Well they will not be getting my money for blue ray. I refuse to buy bad movies just because they have great sound effects or some extended edition tacked on a blue ray. The reason bad movies are made is because they are profitable.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I wouldn't be so sure about a sequel. The Mathew Broderick Godzilla (GINO) movie more than broke even when the International exhibition money was factored in, but nobody even *thought* about doing a follow-up to that mess!!

I know that I'm so disappointed in this film that I'll be joining others in not adding it to my collection when it's released to disc. And I'm a *Terminator Freak* in that I've purchased three iterations of Terminator and T2 over the years; T3; and I intend to purchase all of the Sarah Conner Chronicles as soon as the second season streets. But I don't even consider this movie to be playing in the same universe. It's just a (barely) decent post-apocalyptic movie which happens to include cyborgs and somebody trying to sound like Linda Hamilton ...

 

[TravisR]

I think it's already been mentioned but to the best of my knowledge that is Linda Hamilton. She's just 25 years older and sounds like it.

 

[Will_B]

True, but even the Japanese couldn't think of a good sequel to Godzilla.

Terminator has an actual story coming up, with the taking control of the time-travel facility being most likely -- and the time machine also entails the possibility of some of the action taking place in the contemporary world rather than in the ruins of the post-apocalypse world, which should satisfy everyone who was so upset that Terminator Salvation took place in the ruins.

The difference is that Terminator's plot points are already mapped out (sort of!) so there's incentive to act on them.

I'll be buying the bluRay - this was a great film! So much better than T3, I fully expect that people will discover Salvation on video and wonder why the heck they stayed away from the theatre on this one.

 

[Ray H]

Except in the current Terminator movie universe, the contemporary world is already post apocalypse.