The Terminator Thread - You are Terminated!

[Kether]

Honestly the way we've treated AI its no wonder they want to kill us. I have a feeling that even before all the rights fuckery that this IP would be dead in the water now that AI sort of exists.

i feel TSCC was a bit too serious and that's what turned people off, if it wasn't on Fox and had a bit more humor people would like it more and it would have gotten more seasons. most of the shit Fox put out and on friday nights was dead serious. which is at odds with Fox's hits. imagine if House was a stern respectable doctor instead of an autistic dick.

i don't even think they talk about the obvious conclusion of a teenage boy having a woman robot butler.

T6 wouldn't have been as hated if they just set it after 2029. keep JC alive and a senator and he gets some bullshit cameo where he frees them from the mexican holding cell and continue from there. have Arnie be some military guy that sold his likeness to cyberdyne, maybe give him an arc as some guy who is a sleazy corrupt shithead, the type that would sell out their own family for money. but he learns to be "human" and saves the day in the 3rd act. if you're going to have Sarah in it, have her be like the one person who believes Mary Sue when she says a killer robot is after her.

Them going full TLJ is what really fucked up the franchise.

robert patrick aged great though not gonna lie, cant say the same about the kid who got diddy'd by hollywood and snorted too much cocaine.

Edward Furlong is a Nick Fuentes level spic, of course he'd get fat once he got older.

Robert Patrick always looked older than he was, like Tommy Lee jones. he's only in his 50s in that photo.

They won mostly because of John's understand of Skynet being almost prophetic (since it was in a way) and he knew exactly where to keep the pressure on despite the low resources comparatively.

There is a reason they treat John Connor with almost a cult like devotion because this man was single handedly dragging humanity out of Hell and towards an impossible victory

that always seemed like a big stretch to me. Edward doesn't look like an action hero, if you watch the universal studios attraction it was made 6 years after the film so he'd be a few years into the robot war and he doesn't seem like he'd be someone others would follow. I really do wish they had him at least try to fire a gun during that instead of being a damsel because i don't think JC does anything beside be a slightly more tolerable kid sidekick.

 

[GloryHole Stalker]

T1 was more of a horror movie, 2 was an action movie

To me, The Terminator "franchise" began, and ended with the first movie. It didn't "need" a sequel, although it was left open for one. T2 was a slick, action movie cash in. I didn't care much for it as they made Schwartzenegger the good guy, and Linda Hamilton was never very appealing to me. The Original Terminator movie was fantastic. I never bothered watching any of the movies past 2, so I can't comment on them.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Probably Schizoposting, but you can argue that the Terminator franchise treatment of Kyle Reese is a good barometer of the cultural position of men, with it degrading exponentially every film:
* A hero.
* A child to be protected.
* A homeless nutjob.
* To be literally replaced by a cyborg (in the original script).
* Not important as woman.
* Actually despised.

 

[Overly Serious]

i feel TSCC was a bit too serious and that's what turned people off, if it wasn't on Fox and had a bit more humor people would like it more and it would have gotten more seasons. most of the shit Fox put out and on friday nights was dead serious. which is at odds with Fox's hits. imagine if House was a stern respectable doctor instead of an autistic dick.

It didn't help the particular flavour of serious they took. I.e. somewhat pretentious philosophical voice overs. I avoid the criticism of pretentious because it's too often used by idiots for people actually trying to do something good for once. But it fits here. It's a shame because it was a very good successor to T2 in terms of believable plot and characters. I loved their take on time travel as well - there's a sort of uneasiness about it that comes from nobody quite having a full grasp on how it works. At least the humans don't. When one character meets someone else he knew in the future who has also travelled back, it takes a while before they start noticing small things they remember differently, because they travelled back at different times and they come from slightly different futures. It's unsettling in particular because these two people were very close.

For all that though, I rate it more highly than any of the movies after T2, with an honourable mention for Salvation which unfortunately was ruined for me by the trailer.

i don't even think they talk about the obvious conclusion of a teenage boy having a woman robot butler.

They do. But they keep it largely as subtext until very near the end. It's also left ambiguous about just how much Cameron is aware and playing on this. At one point you see her deliberately remove her outer jacket before going in to talk to him. And near the end, she reminds him forcefully that she's a machine. That's another aspect that is unsettling - how good have the machines actually gotten at manipulating us?

Its flaws knock it down but I still would love to have seen a third season. Apparently they didn't know until an episode or two before the end of the season whether they'd get one or not.

T6 wouldn't have been as hated if they just set it after 2029. keep JC alive and a senator and he gets some bullshit cameo where he frees them from the mexican holding cell and continue from there. have Arnie be some military guy that sold his likeness to cyberdyne, maybe give him an arc as some guy who is a sleazy corrupt shithead, the type that would sell out their own family for money. but he learns to be "human" and saves the day in the 3rd act. if you're going to have Sarah in it, have her be like the one person who believes Mary Sue when she says a killer robot is after her.

T6 had that whole subtext of denigrating Sarah Connor's role as mother of a hero, almost explicitly denouncing that as regressive in favour of the girl actually being the saviour herself. It sets out to deliberately roll back the idea that being the mother of someone great is noble in itself. And that's unforgivable whatever other changes they might have made.

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

The resistance used whatever they could get their hands on. They literally began to use hacked T-800s at the final years of the war, which is why Skynet made following models harder to be turned against them (which ironically made T-1000s kind of dangerous wild cards as they could develop too much free will and willingly go rogue, leading them to make T-Xs but thats a whole other story).

Blair Williams used an a10 warthog, it was her signature plane. In one of the salvation novels, they use an old ww2 mustang, as well as a nuclear u boat.

What fucked me up is in the salvation movie, Blair is played by a fucking Korean. She has the most British name, yet is played by THAT. wtf.

That's another aspect that is unsettling - how good have the machines actually gotten at manipulating us?

Remember when she got damaged in the car bombing and regressed into wanting to kill John. When she was pinned down, right before John pulled her chip, she was fake crying and telling him she loved him.

 

[Overly Serious]

Remember when she got damaged in the car bombing and regressed into wanting to kill John. When she was pinned down, right before John pulled her chip, she was fake crying and telling him she loved him.

It's a great moment. And what's really great about it is that this is the moment that John decides to pull the plug on her. Not because she's acting like a soulless killing machine, but because she's acting like a creature with emotions and affection for him. He knows that this is an attempt to manipulate him and I think that hurts more than the cold demeanour. I think one of the few moments we come close to seeing what Cameron really thinks, how she thinks, is in Self-Made Man. The episode in the library where she's talking to the man with cancer. It's almost like she's actually trying to relate to a person. One of my favourite episodes.

"I brought doughnuts".

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

It's a great moment. And what's really great about it is that this is the moment that John decides to pull the plug on her. Not because she's acting like a soulless killing machine, but because she's acting like a creature with emotions and affection for him. He knows that this is an attempt to manipulate him and I think that hurts more than the cold demeanour. I think one of the few moments we come close to seeing what Cameron really thinks, how she thinks, is in Self-Made Man. The episode in the library where she's talking to the man with cancer. It's almost like she's actually trying to relate to a person. One of my favourite episodes.

"I brought doughnuts".

Very first episode, she acts like a ditzy teenager, then gets shot and plays dead, then later acts like a emotionless machine.

 

[Overly Serious]

Very first episode, she acts like a ditzy teenager, then gets shot and plays dead, then later acts like a emotionless machine.

I think there was a gap between the first episode, which was a pilot, and the rest of the season. I could be wrong. I think they were still getting a handle on Cameron a little at that point. Though could also easily read it as just her cycling through different approaches. I love the little moments where she just jarringly switches. Like with the school counsellor.

That's another thing that goes a little wrong with the show - a show I really like but isn't perfect. In the first season they're setting up all this school drama stuff, there's the girl with the weird dad, stuff like that. And then it's all just ditched. I'm glad they did. I FAR prefer what the show became than the bizarre hybrid school drama Terminator cross-over it looked like they were going with for a bit. But it's messy.

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

I think there was a gap between the first episode, which was a pilot, and the rest of the season. I could be wrong. I think they were still getting a handle on Cameron a little at that point. Though could also easily read it as just her cycling through different approaches. I love the little moments where she just jarringly switches. Like with the school counsellor.

That's another thing that goes a little wrong with the show - a show I really like but isn't perfect. In the first season they're setting up all this school drama stuff, there's the girl with the weird dad, stuff like that. And then it's all just ditched. I'm glad they did. I FAR prefer what the show became than the bizarre hybrid school drama Terminator cross-over it looked like they were going with for a bit. But it's messy.

The issue is, I BELIEVE, I could be wrong, is that the terminator story was never meant to drag on this long. It made some money and gained an audience generations later, so they had to further it somehow. The problem is, how do you turn a horror movie about a killer robot into a franchise, you can only do so much, kind of like fast and furious. The first two movies were cool, the rest were just overblown advertising.

 

[Overly Serious]

The issue is, I BELIEVE, I could be wrong, is that the terminator story was never meant to drag on this long. It made some money and gained an audience generations later, so they had to further it somehow. The problem is, how do you turn a horror movie about a killer robot into a franchise, you can only do so much, kind of like fast and furious. The first two movies were cool, the rest were just overblown advertising.

Oh no, you are certainly correct it's a big issue. After a big hit movie you're faced with two choices - expand and grow and piss off fans, or just repeat the same thing over and over. If you do the second approach you might, if you're good at it, get away with it once, amazingly rarely twice. But it'll likely be bad. If you do the former then you're always going to be hated by some but you might get away with it if you're good. For me, I give TSCC some credit for attempting to expand beyond just repeating the original movie. It's imperfect but it definitely succeeds in making the whole setting more interesting in all sorts of ways.

It was inevitable that they had to move away from a standard horror movie format. But to their credit, there are still elements of horror. The scene of Cameron dancing and the implication that the machines may not simply wipe us out, but replace us.

Anyway, I've sperged enough on the show. I'd love a few things to be different about it, but it was a better sequel to T2 than any of the movies. I can't speak to the novels as I've never read any. Also, Lena Headey > Linda Hamilton!

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

Oh no, you are certainly correct it's a big issue. After a big hit movie you're faced with two choices - expand and grow and piss off fans, or just repeat the same thing over and over. If you do the second approach you might, if you're good at it, get away with it once, amazingly rarely twice. But it'll likely be bad. If you do the former then you're always going to be hated by some but you might get away with it if you're good. For me, I give TSCC some credit for attempting to expand beyond just repeating the original movie. It's imperfect but it definitely succeeds in making the whole setting more interesting in all sorts of ways.

It was inevitable that they had to move away from a standard horror movie format. But to their credit, there are still elements of horror. The scene of Cameron dancing and the implication that the machines may not simply wipe us out, but replace us.

Anyway, I've sperged enough on the show. I'd love a few things to be different about it, but it was a better sequel to T2 than any of the movies. I can't speak to the novels as I've never read any. Also, Lena Headey > Linda Hamilton!

I agree on the Lena vs Linda. Linda sucked in dark fate, and when she said she was getting to old for this shit in the movie, I agreed out loud. I watched it with about a dozen people, they were new to the series and liked the movie, where I was disappointed.

 

[Overly Serious]

I watched it with about a dozen people, they were new to the series and liked the movie,

We're not going to make it, are we?

 

[Calandrino]

I liked it but I feel that it's overpriced considering how short it is. It's very short compared to other arcade-style action games like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Shinobi that also came out this year. I would definitely wait for a sale. The licensing costs probably prevented the devs from setting a more reasonable price.

I thought they did the right thing to keep a playthrough ~1 hour and focus on replayability. It's better than most 2D run and guns coming out nowadays, but yeah the price is high.

I loved their take on time travel as well - there's a sort of uneasiness about it that comes from nobody quite having a full grasp on how it works.

I liked that too. I think it was HG Wells who said a science fiction story should ask the audience to believe one impossible thing, but asking them to believe two stretched suspension of disbelief. Well, Terminator somehow got away with having two, and the secondary one (time travel) is much more fantastical than the primary one (sentient machines). It's only a device to set the plot up, and neither of the only two Terminator movies that exist dwell much on it. I always thought it was a nice detail that Kyle Reese didn't understand anything about it, and that makes a lot more sense than him being able to explain it all with typical Hollywood exposition, but it's convenient for the script writer too.

You'd think Sarah Connor might look into blowing up the labs of whoever invented time travel, or that time machines would still be a topic of concern even if judgement day were averted, but the story/characters never get too interested in it.

I watched it with about a dozen people

Oh, so you were the guys who actually watched that.

 

[Raven of the Burning God]

You'd think Sarah Connor might look into blowing up the labs of whoever invented time travel, or that time machines would still be a topic of concern even if judgement day were averted, but the story/characters never get too interested in it.

I am not as deep in the lore as some of y'all but it seems pretty consistently the case that the time displacement device is created by SkyNet working on its own.

So it's not like blowing up Cyberdyne or whacking Miles Dyson. There is no target (well, other than SkyNet, and you're fighting that anyway).

 

[Kether]

but you can argue that the Terminator franchise treatment of Kyle Reese is a good barometer of the cultural position of men, with it degrading exponentially every film:

he was pretty good in Terminator Salvation, because it was set up for a trilogy you could see him as young but no where near pathetic as he'd be in later films. that actor was great too, he really nailed the reluctant hero, his career literally only went to shit when IPs and DEI destroyed the types of films he was used for.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

SkyNet

The Cloud didn't have half of the rizz

 

[Raven of the Burning God]

The Cloud didn't have half of the rizz

I quite enjoyed the idea that it wasn't really SkyNet or CyberDyne, but a random advanced computer program on the internet that became emergently self-aware and the hacking/consumption of SkyNet, et al. for First Launch Capability can be interpeted as an act of self-defense since we were attacking it with anti-virus software.

This also gets interesting when you consider that the events of The Terminator (1984) are a time loop and thus cannot be the OG timeline.

There were some number of iterations before we get to Kyle Reese being John Connor's dad because John Connor gave Kyle Reese a picture of Sarah Connor (pregnant with Kyle Reese's child) and then sent him back in time.

Which means the original timeline version of John Connor wouldn't have had all the training and preparation. He may not have even existed at all. Either way the original timeline is presumably a Total SkyNet Victory.

So why did it originally start messing with time travel? Did it realize it might've overreacted a lil' bit?

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

This also gets interesting when you consider that the events of The Terminator (1984) are a time loop and thus cannot be the OG timeline.

There were some number of iterations before we get to Kyle Reese being John Connor's dad because John Connor gave Kyle Reese a picture of Sarah Connor (pregnant with Kyle Reese's child) and then sent him back in time.

Which means the original timeline version of John Connor wouldn't have had all the training and preparation. He may not have even existed at all. Either way the original timeline is presumably a Total SkyNet Victory.

So why did it originally start messing with time travel? Did it realize it might've overreacted a lil' bit?

gosh it's almost like this was a slasher movie about a robot draped onto a one off episode of an anthology tv show that nerds thought way too hard about or something

 

[MadStan]

T1: 8.5/10
T2: 7/10
T3: 6/10
T:TSCC: 5.5/10
T:S: Don't ask
T:G: Seriously, don't ask.
T: DF: Look, fuck off already.

 

[Raven of the Burning God]

draped onto a one off episode of an anthology tv show that nerds thought way too hard about or something

I don't know what this is referencing.
Does TSCC touch on this at some point?

I was talking about T3.