Movie/TV recommendations

[James]

Elbows galore!

[Wrestlevania]

Terminator Salvation was disappointing, as I'm sure the Whole World (plus however many canine friends he has) knows by now. It had very little ambition to do anything with the whole Terminator story, other than the banal plot vehicle in dumps in front of you right at the start.

It's wasn't horrible, but merely OK.

[miffy495]

I saw it for free a week ago. Left the theater suitably happy that the movie was not shit. Not a superb experience by any means, but decidedly not shit. I enjoyed watching robots blow up for a couple of hours, and if you have time to kill you could do far worse.

[Nachimir]

I also bagged a free ticket. Nicely overwhelming and loud action sequences, but:

- ridiculously tough vanilla humans with inexplicably pearly white teeth for a bunch of freedom fighters.

-

It's about a terminator with a human heart!

FFS that's almost as unforgivable as Jar Jar Binks. The ending is so schmaltzy that I started imagining it read out in Team America voices and giggling.

"Take my heart John! Everyone deserves a second chance. Then your pregnant surgeon wife can operate on you and you'll be together forever.

[castorp]

My biggest problem with the "plot" (see, I even used "'s) was, that the

fucking human hearted terminator scratched the evil chip from the back of his head to regain his freedom.

Not that I expected a deep plot or characters or something, but the extend to which this film was dump and filled with stalking and wooden talking clichés made me pretty much not enjoy the film.

[toblix]

I thought the sequence with Arnie

I haven't even seen the movie

and saving everyone sort of ruined the whole point.

[Wrestlevania]

inexplicably pearly white teeth for a bunch of freedom fighters

This really got to me by the end, so much so I was gnawing on the arm rest of my chair. Surrounded by squalor and the pulverised detritus of modern civilisation, Connor's wife in particular has shiny, flowing red hair, Tipex-white teeth and a different, style-conscious pregnancy outfit in every scene.

So fucking stupid!

Speaking of which,

you just knew the way Connor was going to make his way to "Skynet Central" was by commandeering one of those motorbike drones. But, FFS, he's got that nullifying radio transmission on him, yet he still has to tripwire the thing and stamp on it while he rips its eye and circuitry out.

The whole film was precariously too close to Bay Country throughout for my liking.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Wrestlevania
Flowing red hair, not teeth. ¬_¬

[zomboid]

I really can't stomach most McG/Michael Bay/Bruckheimer BIG-DUMB-LOUD Hollywood spectacle movies.

[Patters]

Am I the only one who thinks we need less post apocalyptic films games and everything, it's getting boring now. As for salvation you could tell all the plot points easily

human terminator, the fake transmission code, etc.

the Arnie cameo was good though.

[Wrestlevania]

the Arnie cameo was good though.

...although he did appear to be made out of a mixture of plasticine and raw beef burger.

[Patters]

...although he did appear to be made out of a mixture of plasticine and raw beef burger.

he isn't?

[Wrestlevania]

Sorry, you're right: 100% accurate.

[miffy495]

All valid criticisms. The ending was pretty dumb, I'll readily admit. You can definitely see about exactly where the original script, which had everyone dying and Skynet winning, gets flipped on its head. As for predictability, I agree. I don't find that so much of a fault in a "blow shit up" movie though. As a film to watch when you're sick and don't want to use your brain at all, I liked it.

For what I expect to be a much better movie, I'm going to see Up with the girl tomorrow night. Ridiculously excited. Every time a Pixar movie comes out I turn right back into that little 7 year old version of me who went into the theater to see Toy Story and came out a much bigger geek with a huge fucking smile on his face.

[zomboid]

For what I expect to be a much better movie, I'm going to see Up with the girl tomorrow night. Ridiculously excited. Every time a Pixar movie comes out I turn right back into that little 7 year old version of me who went into the theater to see Toy Story and came out a much bigger geek with a huge fucking smile on his face.

Up looks great! I've heard it gets pretty melancholy, which only adds to my interest (as if just being a Pixar movie wasn't reason enough). I think my wife and I are gonna try and catch it this weekend in 3-D. I hope the glasses are 1) disposable or 2) somehow sterilized - because if not, then eeew.

[Horticulture Tycoon]

What Pixar movie doesn't get a little melancholy?

Re: Terminator Salvation, it's a minor plot point but it bothered me throughout the whole movie: In the first three Terminator movies, Skynet sends machines back in time to kill John/Sarah Connor after JC leads the humans to victory in the war and becomes a great leader. But in Salvation the war is still ongoing, and Connor is still just a footsoldier. So Skynet shouldn't even know he exists at this point, or if they do, they certainly shouldn't be aware of how important he is. And even if you accept that Skynet does know, even if you assume that the chick Terminator from T3 whipered the info into Skynet's ear or something, they certainly shouldn't know about Reese and his relationship to John. It's typical time-travel bullshittery where a movie can't keep its own logic straight, it really bugged the hell out of me.

[Noyb]

Have you guys seen the article What Went Wrong with Terminator: Salvation?

Essentially, the original script (which wasn't that great anyway) was badly altered in order to give Christian Bale a larger role. Originally,

John Connor was supposed to die and the human terminator would take his name, face, and role.

[zomboid]

Could this be the awesomest review of Terminator Salvation ever?

I think yes.

[ysbreker]

Oh my god. I just saw the finale of the second season of Ashes to ashes, and it was awesome. This second season of ashes to ashes was consistently awesome. Go watch this! Now!

[Roderick]

Just saw Terminator and I agree with everything everyone said here. I would like to add the quiry: why can't Hollywood write a proper sci-fi story anymore? After the plothole that was Star Trek, now we've got the absolutely ridiculous Terminator Salvation, where

there's only one t-800 fighting Connor while they're in a fucking t-800 factory with robots rolling off the conveyor belt every few seconds. Also, heart transplantation surgery is apparently so easy in 9 years that it's a guaranteed success even if you do it in the dusty nuclear fallout underneath a poorly sheltered army tent.

[Thrik]

I have to say, I found Terminator: Salvation pretty good. I didn't like how contrived the whole ending sequence felt, but overall I certainly enjoyed the film.

I can't actually think of how the post-nukes world of Terminator could be better depicted to be perfectly honest. While some of the plot points were questionable, I think there's a lot more good than bad there.

It's certainly a much better film than Terminator 3, whatever the case — and I quite enjoyed that too. Maybe I'm not too fussy about my Terminator.

[Wrestlevania]

Heathen.

[Scrobbs]

I enjoyed it too. On a level that I went to see it on - i.e. there's going to be lots of big explosions and killer robots, it was great fun. The ending soured it a little, yes, but I also really dug the sinister robot 'conversation' sound effects and the big stompy thing.

You can't look too deeply into it. It's a terminator movie. Analysing it too much is insane.

In other news, The Wire series 5 arrived this morning. Hurrah!

[Wrestlevania]

You can't look too deeply into it. It's a terminator movie. Analysing it too much is insane.

Depends on how much you like the subject matter and themes, and could be argued about any topic you consider "over-analysed".

Just sayin', like.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I have to wonder: Of the folks who say they enjoyed Terminator: Salvation, did you go into the cinema knowing that everyone was disappointed with it?

[Wrestlevania]

I went knowing it was meant to be disappointing. But I enjoy the fiction and wanted to see what had been done with it anyway.

Mrs V's pretty hooked on T:TSCC with me at home, too, and she's really enjoyed the new Batman films as well.

Having been pretty anti comics, games and science-fiction when we met 11 years ago, I think she was more keen to see it than I was! What have I done..?