Terminator Salvation
Terminator Salvation - the fourth installment of the franchise - was one of the movies this year that I was really looking forward to. Having been a fan of the previous films, as well as the Fox series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the anticipation was pretty high. Add that I’m a big Christian Bale fan, and the previews for the film were fantastic, this film had a lot going for it in my eyes. Sadly however, it was not able to meet expectations.
The film stars Christian Bale as the legendary John Connor - the eventual leader of mankind’s fight against the machines, and a new character by the name of Marcus Wright, played by the up and coming Sam Worthington. The setting is 2018 and deals with the battle against the machines in a post Judgment Day world. McG, who doesn’t exactly have the greatest film history directed.
Now, this movie had so much potential, but it was going to be an uphill battle. To begin with - and to my understanding this could be a first - the film was going to be part of a Saga, yet have very little resemblence to it’s predecessors. The previous films before had time travel, thus having a more “present day” feel, Sarah Connor, and Arnold playing a good Terminator, a protector. It was going to be a different type of Terminator movie. It wasn’t going to be the same formula of protect John Connor and there in lies the double edge sword. There is a huge amount of new and exciting territory to cover which has the potential to make a great movie, however, would audiences be open to a new or different formula when it comes to a Terminator movie?
I for one, was ready to see a badass John Connor - or at least the beginnings of one. I was excited to see the creation of the Terminators and the resistance. However, this is where the story didn’t work. It wasn’t the acting - I felt the performances were fantastic and the actors did great with what they were given, and I won’t really put the bulk of the my faults with the movie completely on McG. The cinematography and presentation of the film was fantastic. I felt he did a great job with the world and I bought into it. The issue, in my opinion is all with the plot. I think that anyone who is any kind of Terminator fan has been waiting to see the John Connor that the previous films make him out to be. And I know that we were definitely expecting him - especially from the previews - to be the center of the film. And that my friend is where they messed up. The writers made John Connor practically a secondary character. Why in the heck would you do that? Why would you make him second-billing to a “new” Terminator that has next no backstory or explanation given? This is even more shocking when you realize that Christian Bale wouldn’t have even signed on for the role until they made the Connor role bigger. Makes you wonder what the original script was like. All in all, even aside from all the plot holes and unexplained events throughout the film, I feel that the movie missed the mark because it forgot was it was about. The Saga is about John Connor…NOT the Terminators. (This is one of the reasons it’s a shame that the Sarah Connor Chronicles was canceled. They were doing it right.)
If you are any kind of Terminator fan, you still have to see it - even if you only ever watch it once. I wanted so much to like this movie, and though I did find it enjoyable from an entertainment standpoint, being a fan of the Terminator Saga, I just couldn’t get past that fact that the movie just played out in and way that was unexpected. Last I heard, there was talk that the sequal was going forward - this movie was envisioned as the start of a new trilogy. I still think they can salvage things and make it right in the coming movies. All was not lost in this film. It did a great job creating the world, now they just need to do a great job of writing what happens in it.