Terminator Salvation “restores” the series (SPOILER ALERT)

May 27, 2009 | Published by Chris |

Lets face it, I am not the only one that was heavily disappointed by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Even the sub title itself was just too retarded for me. Although Terminator 3 brought up new distinct philosophy behind the Terminator series, it delivered poor dialogue, storyline and it just felt like I just popped in Terminator 2 into the filmstrip and watched the 2nd one all over again. The best part about Terminator 3 was the whole idea of a “female” Terminator. Inflatable breasts, controlling computers, and she just plain kicked butt. But overall the film was just out right boring and didn’t really just make the cut of Terminator 2.

The problem with Terminator 2 was that it was just too good. T-2 made an incredible exposure into philosophy of fate, time traveling, and flowed so well with Terminator 1, I have to admit that anyone who wants to create a sequel after this film has a high bar to hurdle over. So maybe perhaps I am a T-3 “hater” because I was and am too much of a fan to the 2nd one.

Then comes Terminator Salvation, which I happen to watch almost instantly when it came out. Although I admit that Terminator Salvation still isn’t up to part with T-1 or T-2 (in terms of the philosophy and depth), it did a very good job in telling the story of the future war. The greatest part about this film was that it tied in almost every aspect of all Terminator films in the past into this gigantic salad bowl of awesomeness. Terminator Salvation does an excellent job in including all the cool tech vehicles and terminators we saw in the previous Terminator movies. You get to see the Hunter Killer (“HK”), T-800 models from T-1, 2 and 3, and some of the machines that made an appearance in Terminator 3. The new film does a great job in re-introducing the Terminator Model 1 being this “guard” of a human assembly line of prisoners. Then we get introduced to the new terminator models such as the T-600, which is the predecessor to the T-800, the new moto-terminators, and a gigantic terminator robot that Optimus Prime would be needed to take down. The best part of the movie was the whole fact that the gigantic terminator was not taken down and rendered pretty much invincible in the film.

Another great part about the film is the introduction of Marcus Wright, a prisoner on death row who is approached by a Cyberdine systems employee, to donate his body for an experiment. The camera pans briefly to a clip board a cancer lady that worked for Cyberdine is holding. It had the logo of Cyberdine, and shows that Cyberdine has continued on the research to create cybernetic organisms. I believe that it also did a great job in revealing small emotional story behind John Connor and how he restores some faith in Terminators made or re-programmed to protect instead of destroy by him meeting up with Marcus Wright, who ends up being a Terminator himself. Although it is not revealed what Marcus Wright’s model number is, the film introduces a new type of Terminator which is a hybrid of both human and machine.

I don’t want to get all detailed and tell you everything about the movie, but over all Terminator Salvation gave me a restoration to the series since I wasn’t a big fan of Terminator 3. Although the director “Mcg” has quite a reputation of being a mediocre director, I think he did an okay job with this one. I am hoping the next one in the new trilogy won’t be bad either.