Yes, it's another bashing session i'm afraid- this time on one of my other favourite franchises: The Terminator.
Now, i love the first movie as much as i do T2. Absoloute classics of the era, and pure masterpieces of sci-fi cinema. James Cameron created a fantastic world full of nightmarish dark imagery, philosophical freedom and the dangers of mankind's power over technology. Two simply great films, the starting and supposed ending of a dramatic saga. But there was a plothole, thus a sequel could be made...and they made one- one to finish off the saga completly, and end it finally. T3 should have been the greatest 3rd chapter in one of the greatest and most succesful (and groundbreaking) Sci-Fi franchises of all time. Far from it! Not even waiting 5 hours in a sweaty, pushy crowd just to catch a glimpse of my childhood idol Arnold Schwarzenegger at the premiere of said movie (but actually seeing up close and shaking his hand!), not even the sheer excitement of yet another Terminator movie, not the sheer coolness of seeing Arnie agian on the big screen in his most iconic role ever was enough to bring T3 out of the depths of despair. To put it simply, the film sucked.
I just it agian on TV for the 3rd time after so long and, after having some time to reflect upon it, it is still shit. I didn't hate is as much as the first time i saw it, but still it does literally nothing new to the established franchise, more like a re-hash of T2 with a more humorous approach, i was actually pretty gutted that they make fun of it bit too much because i love the movies with a passion, but T3 was just parody from start to finish.
If you want to make a T movie make it serious, not with lame Scary Movie type jokes. There were some pretty bottom of the barrel jokes included that make fun out of the whole franchise, and in all honesty it was pretty hard to watch for the sheer fact that the T films are highly revered and a lot of people including me have a lot of respect for them. I mean sure Arnold's old now and the T movies are a bit campy but still. They didn't have any silly self-parody jokes in the new Rambo, so why the hell did they with T3.
It didn't try to be something new and original it just followed the same format, same Good Terminator vs Bad Terminator chase sequence that we had seen twice before. T3 should have been set in the future with the Resistance but it just gave us another modern-day setting carbon copy of T2 which we did not need becuase we had already seen it before, they just changed T-1000 into a bullshit woman version for eye candy and gave her crappy powers. I don't think it was needed at all, a pointless clone of one of the coolest villians of the 1990s and an easily forgettable character. Its the same stuff with more money thrown at it thats all. Even the effects and CG were sub-par, if anything.
Claire Danes- you don't put her into a T movie, it just doesn't work and it didn't. The music was crap and wasn't Terminator at all, no signature motifs, it sounded like it was lifted from a teenage slasher B-movie; if you make a T movie you NEED Brad Fiedel, no question about it. Arnie looked okay despite being old, but still, i wish this film was never made so i didn't have to have my hopes tarnished. I like to look back on the T series as Arnie in his prime and film-making at it's ultimate best, now we have T3 with a dumbed-down vision, a dumbed-down older Arnie and a crappier plot to look back on. T1 and T2 are masterpeices that both start and end the saga perfectly- then we get this crap that doesn't do anything new and tries to add a different take but doesn't do anything, it's just a bad imitation of T2. I try not to put it in the official timeline, thankfully The Sarah Connor Chronicles retcons it even if people don't like that show, i think it's better than T3.
Now, since we waited 11 years for T3 what was the point if they just churned out the exact same film? No point. It should have been the next chapter- in the future, the War of the Machines. Not John Connor yet agian running away with a good Terminator being chased in cars and trucks yet agian by a bad Terminator. It sucks becuase its the same freaking thing. You cant continue a saga by just copying the previous film in every way but killing off the main character and then changing the history and canon- "Judgement Day was avoided oh no it isn't oh yes it is, oh no it cant be avoided" bullcrap. If they had to make a T3 it had to continue on with the story propetly IE the Skynet future wars, not them sending yet another Terminator to kill John Connor and John sending yet another T-800 series Arnie type to protect him in present day LA agian.
Some nice effects and a cool car chase sequence, but needless to say a movie the world could have done without. The T saga should have ended with T2, but they just change everything around and kill Sarah Connor off, what the hell, pointless.
T3 is an abomination that should not have come, thats the honest truth, It craps all over the established franchise and doesnt add anything new to it. It's like the kiddie PG version of T2 and thinking it's just as good. It's a waste of time.
It is the unremovable stain on an otherwise perfect saga and as a massive T fan i have to live with the fact that it exists, which sucks.
I would have prefered it if they had done the scene differently other than him being in the coffin, becuase that made the "saviour of the human race" look like a loser (but i guess this was how it was supposed to be becuase T3 made Connor look like a complete wimp from the start)! Connor could have done something else in that sequence and i'm not saying he should be shooting people, though him participating would have been fun since he missed out on it in T2.
I think personally a better way would have John and Kate escape in a van round the back (you know, make him look more determined and use his thinking more since he's going to be a leader some day) whilst Arnie destracted the Swat team from the front or something. Anything other than the thought of this John cowering like a kid in a coffin.
John is human yes but he really shouldn't be this loser character that was portrayed in the film, so the problem really can't be solved easily as the whole entire premise of the movie is the problem and completly different to what i thought was going to happen. Instead of John taking control of his life properly and being a courageous, smart-thinking guy (which would have been after T2 as it's in that movie where's hes a wreckless child and learns to follow his mothers advice and be a "soldier") instead in T3 he takes a complete step backwards. Which agian is silly becuase in T2 he was smart and very quick-thinking- remember how he manages to use an Atari laptop for loads of extraordinary things like hacking into cash machines and getting passed Cyberdyne secruity doors? As well as fighting for his life to run away from a relentless T-1000 in a truck with nothing but a little bike! And he was 12 in T2! In T3 he's older so of course he would have been smarter than what we saw in T3 but no, we get a complete loser who can't think for himself, smashes into shops like a drunk bum and gets owned by Kate right at the start. Thats my problem. The fast-thinking John wasnt in T3 and thats where the problem i bought up started. So it's not becuase he's "just human", he's not even the John Connor we know of from T2 which is why he isn't doing things like i expected him to. And if he was the John Connor they created in T2 then he wouldn't be a wimp and hide in a coffin. My problems in T3 can't just be rectified simply as the problems are within the whole film itself, to solve them would mean scrapping the film entirely imo.
Fast thinking in the face of danger people would do something, and John could have done something better than hiding in a coffin imo, Kate was smart anyway so even she could have done something. Since they were surrounded by Swat guys who were intent on shooting the place down i have no problem in them quickly working together just to get out of there. At least not John.
All the films portrayed him as a human, but T3 had him as a character he wasn't supposed to be and thats one of the reasons i hated about him. Yes he was whiny and a kid in T2- and that's becuase he was a kid, but he still showed intelligence, a smart and rebelious attitude and hve a knack for doing things no-one else could do- and where was that in T3? If he had retained that then it would have been a completly different film which is what i would have wanted and all his actions would have been better- he would be showing his character as a future war leader instead (which is what he was supposed to do becuase this is what he starts to learn since he was born and redeems himself in T2 but in T3 they threw it all away, they threw the whole premise of the T saga out the window in favour of something else which i hated.
Even if things had changed and he was living a normal life that doesnt mean he completly forget everything he was taught by Sarah and turn into a whiny, depressed and angsty twenty-something year old guy, which is what we got in T3. It's like they built him up as this character who is about to face his destiny in T2 and then becuase Judement Day doesn't happen (lame) he suddenly turns into a a loser. Wrong way to do things imo, "the future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves" IE anything could happen and any given moment and in T3 it does, things kick off agian and he's not even ready to face it properly as he's suddenly forgotten he's a soldier and they changed his character so he can't deal with the sudden change. Lame. If he's a hero he's supposed to think fast in danger as it comes, in T3 he could barely even walk let alone think straight- and thats not the "future world resistance leader" wer'e meant to have, that doesn't even show any character of a courageous leader- it's completly unrealistic and not true to his character. If he was human he'd at least have certian qualities that would show him being this future hero like they already showed, but he was a complelty differen character altogether. I was gutted when i first saw T3, i'm like "who is this fool? Thats not John Connor, thats just a pathetic lonely ass drunk".
And don't even get me started on Arnie who was a walking, talking parody spoof of his character!
The fact that Sarah Connor died of course is another reason why i completly hate the film which plays a part into why Connor is a loser in it! Of course he was taught by Sarah to be strong no matter what happens, if anything were to happen to her it's okay as long as he's alive, remember in T2 she said this? It didn't matter about Sarah, but it's imperative that Connor be strong, be alert, and most importantly be aware if anything was to happen. And Sarah cops it (lame) and what does he do? Be a depressed, suicidal kid that almost drinks himself to an early grave- charming. Thats not the John we had established in T2 now is it? He was supposed to carry on with his head up high, lying in wait for the future to change- instead he barely scrapes by, as a man who's high on stolen animal medicine, if Sarah saw that she'd be disgusted. I know he learns midway into the film to overcome this, but still the movie shouldn't have even gone in that direction.
Thats one possible direction and base of actions out of many scenarios that could have happened but i can assure you thats not what i wanted nor do i agree with it in the slightest. The direction T3 went in i despised, the whole film's premise was completly agianst what i wanted. If they had to continue it there's loads of better ways they could have done it, one only needs to look at the extended universe such at the comics and original novels to see how they could have done it -better-.
The Terminator novels and some of the comics have much better stories than what T3 gave us though, if adapted by a good writer we would already have a better story other than T3 which was just a blatant re-hash of T2 which doesn't add anything new and all the film really does is say "Sarah Connors dead, Kate Brewster is your future wife, and oh, Judgement Day is gonna happen- it's the internet!". Those were the main 3 things than T3 provided to move the saga along and frankly they could have been presented in a much better way other than just generic action scenes wev'e seen before in T2 with a lame T-100 copycat to link them together which is what the film provides anyway! 3 just fcks it all up in order to make a new saga ans gives us the same freaking film! Everything T3 introduced i felt was unessasary and just ended up screwing with established canon- and the film itself is just T2, from the way it starts to the action scenes to, well, everything. Even going to the military compound was an exact imitation of them going to Cyberdyne building in T2.
