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What would you do with Terminator?

Firstly, let me say that im aware that this story broke a few weeks back – ive been unable to post for a variety of rather dull reasons that i won’t bore you with here.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand – and it seems that the Terminator franchise is up for sale again. If you have a spare $60m lying  around then i would say that it could be a seriously good investment (i could probably stretch to a £100 or so). The maths seem to be relatively simple, even for a dunce like me:

Terminator Salvation  -

• Total production costs =  $200m
• Total worldwide gross = $371m
• Profit = $171m

Thats before the DVD versions have even been released. Not too shabby im sure you’ll agree.

You can read about all the legal shenanigans behind the rights over at the original LA Times article.

The big question is for the new owners though is – what the chuff do we do with this franchise? It obviously has a huge fanbase, there are literally millions of Terminator devotees out there. But where do we go after Salvation?, which although it had a lukewarm critical reception to say the least, has proved to be a box-office success. We wish any of the new owners luck with their decision – meanwhile i think ill leave the final word to The Guardian who pretty much summed up my feelings on the matter:

Give us a relentless Terminator destroying everything in its path in order to track down and eliminate a hero or heroine we actually care about, and the chances are we’ll flock to see the movie.

What would you do if you controlled the Terminator franchise? Sack McG? Do everything to get Arnie back on board? Bring back Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton and Robert Patrick? or do a Re-Boot of the Re-Boot? Let us know you’re thoughts. IGN have some pretty interesting thoughts on all this…………

November the 23rd for Terminator Salvation Blu-Ra

There’s not a huge amount of info available on the DVD version, but according to Amazon, the Terminator Salvation [Blu-ray] will contain the following goodies!

• “Re-Forging the Future” – Go behind the scenes of Terminator Salvation with an exclusive set tour.
• “The Moto-Terminator” – See how the Terminator Salvation visual effects crew and Ducati partnered to create the slick and deadly Moto-Terminator!
• Maximum Movie Mode featuring director McG deconstructing the film’s key moments.
• Picture (PiP) commentary with cast and crew interviews, storyboards, still galleries, timeline and more!
• Plus, 11 mini featurette focus points spotlighting how the ground-breaking special effects were created!

BD LIVE Content Includes:
• “Resist Or Be Terminated” Tech Com videos (nine viral videos from the theatrical campaign and four new videos from the Home Entertainment campaign)
• “The Final Resistance” video – access the secret plans of Skynet
• CINECHAT – BD-Live technology that lets viewers around the world chat live about this, or any other CINECHAT enabled BD disc, from Sony Pictures International Home Entertainment!

Hopefully there’s something of interest there. Despite our criticisms of the movie – being Terminator Merch-Hoarders -we’ll still be buying it!

UPDATE – Despite some reports that the DVD/Blu-Ray will be delayed until December, Amazon still have the release date as November 23rd – we’ll keep an eye on it and let you know what’s happening.

Terminator Salvation is the worst film in the series.

Yes, this was my conclusion after watching the film this week. Im left wondering what film the positive reviewers from the previous post watched because it certainly couldn’t have been this mess.

I apologise to all the Terminator fans out there who were looking forward to this film (and may even have enjoyed it). You may feel im being a little over-critical, but really, i think we just have to face the fact that this film just isn’t good enough, and this will be bourne out in the passage of time.

Spoilers ahead obviously……….

Post-Apocalytic Bore

It’s quite hard to know where to begin. Firstly, the post apocalyptic world was pretty unconvincingly realised. Mad Max managed a more convincing post-nuke environment (utilising the Aussie outback) 30 years ago, with about a 1000th of the budget of Salvation. Despite the starkness of the environments Mad Max was exciting and vibrant, with a real sense of danger – all qualities Salvation sorely lacked  (despite the fact the whole place is being run by evil futuristic machines). On the subject of the machines – yes, there was some fairly impressive CGI, but nothing that the original Transformers movie didn’t do three years ago, and certainly nothing as revolutionary as the T1000 from T2. Also – giants, bikes and water terminators – is this the best that Skynet could come up with? I think the machines could do with a ‘reboot’.

Acting without heart

Next, the acting. Christian Bale – what happened to you here? Somehow you managed to turn John Connor, the saviour of mankind and leader of the resistance, into a monosyllabic meathead. Sam Worthington – tried his heart out but was unconvincing and banal. The Terminator series has always had some lighter moments beneath the doom and gloom, but there was none of that here – the film lacked heart and personality. To be fair though, Anton Yelchin put in a decent performace as Kyle Reese (hamstrung by the poor script obviously).

The female characters were essentially a sideshow – Helen-Bonham Carter and a conveniently pregnant Bryce Dallas Howard had nothing to do. For a series that developed one of the strongest female leads of all time in Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), this was unacceptable.

Plot shoehorning – hybrids, ho hum…….

Plotwise, the number of holes and ridiculous ‘shoehorning’ in of events echoing the series past was just irritating. ‘You Could Be Mine’, The Scar, the T-800 prototype (horrendous CGI) – give us a break McG!.

Marcus is a hybrid – who saw that coming? – ONLY EVERYONE THAT’S SEEN ANY OF THE TRAILERS! I literally couldn’t beleive what i was watching: this was the big reveal? On the subject of hybrids, why does every sci-fi movie franchise seem to go down the hybrid route? Could it because the writers have ran out of ideas of where to take these movies? (the Aliens Vs Predator series is a classic example of this). It was disappointing to see the Terminator movies take this path.

Also, the entire assault on the Skynet compound was so lame, it made even the worst video games look like works of utter genius.

Conclusion – rudderless

So, there we go. I think it’s safe to say that i didn’t enjoy Terminator Salvation very much. The box office for the film has not exactly been stellar – in it’s third week of release the film has grossed $113m, Star Trek had brought in $191m by this point (it’s now up to $231m) (source: IMDB), proving that an intelligently managed ‘reboot’  of a series can be successful.

Sadly, i was left with the nagging feeling that the Terminator franchise is largely rudderless and irrelevant without its guiding light on board, James Cameron (just as the Alien films without Ridley Scott). I doubt that even Cameron could resurrect this series now.

Will we even see another Terminator movie after this debacle?…let me know what you think. Also, feel free to tell me how wrong i am about Salvation if you wish………………….

Score…….

Terminator Salvation – 3/10

——–

Sorry to all the readers out there who are desperately waiting for my review of Terminator Salvation (and some fresh blog posts), but im afraid that my pesky ‘real life’ has taken over in the last couple of weeks and i haven’t managed to see it yet. Im intending to hit my local cinema this weekend. I was hoping to catch an IMAX screening but it appears that my local (Glasgow Science Centre) is showing Star Trek, with Harry Potter and Transformers 2 on the horizon – so it looks like Terminator may not appear so theres no point waiting!

Anyway, in the meantime ive been scanning cyberspace looking at the various Terminator Salvation reviews that have been coming in, and they are a mixed bag to say the least. Here are some examples of the basic camps that each review is falling into…….

It was great!

• Empire Online gave the movie a healthy 4/5 – “McG has sparked a moribund franchise back to life”.
• NME like it alot – “Salvation’ can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other movies in the series“
• Miami Herald were also keen – “Terminator Salvation belongs to Australian actor Sam Worthington“

It wasn’t that bad – but not great either

• LOUDREAMS thought it was OK – “a great deal of action and stunning visual effects“
• Sky Movies also had a lukewarm review – “Salvation undoubtedly has more to offer than 2003’s makeweight third chapter“
• Total Film though it was alright – “The Terminator story recharges with a post-apocalyptic jolt of energy“
• Adrian James liked it a bit – “Its far from perfect, but its not the horrible film people have made it out to be“
• SciFi Now gave it 3/5 – “…..with only a few compromises made, Terminator Salvation wins the battle to meet expectation“

It’s possibly one of the worst films ever made!

• Screenhead weren’t convinced – “Big Budget fan fiction“
• Time Out were also pretty offended – “a disappointment of ‘Phantom Menace’ proportions” – oh dear.
• The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw gave it 1/5 – “It couldn’t be worse than this” – ouch,
• …and last but not least, BBC critic Mark Kermode (whom im a big fan of), ripped into it on his blog………

Blimey!

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that i don’t really know what to expect. Guess ill just have to see for myself. My Terminator Salvation Review will be up as soon as possible (promise).

Here are a selection of the first Terminator Salvation reviews to appear, beware of some major spoilers obviously:

• Variety
• Hollywood Reporter
• NY Mag
• College Times

• It’s back – Why the Terminator is Unstoppable – A neat explination of why we all love the Terminator universe so much, plus a bonus column on why “Rise of the Machines” isn’t actually all that bad!
• Terminator creator James Cameron on the origins of Terminator – In a move that has sickened us here at the Terminator Film Blog, Wired have nabbed an exclusive from under our noses (ha!), and managed to talk to the main man himself, James Cameron about the initial conception of the Terminator franchise, interesting stuff.
• The Evolution of a killer franchise – The Terminator (1984-????) – does what it says on the tin – a look back at the major events in the history of the series from 1984 to the future.
• The Terminator as a metaphor for life – Sarah Connor Chronicles creator Josh Friedman explains his thoughts and motivations on Terminator.

There we go, plently of reading material for sure. Enjoy. Now im off to work on some original ideas for posts – Thanks Wired!