Poll: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

[Ambient_Malice]

I know this is a controversial opinion, but I think that Terminator 3 was a genuinely great action film, and quality entry in the Terminator series. In fact, it's my favorite entry.

Terminator 3 has snappy writing, tight action scenes, excellent visual effects that take advantage of CG without constantly looking cheap and dated, and a sense of style. The film has consistently passable acting. It has a surprising lack of cringeworthy dialogue, at least in my view. (IMO, clunky, heavyhanded dialogue is James Cameron's trademark at this point. I suppose it was a blessing he wasn't involved if only so we didn't have to suffer through the melodramatic "NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE" again.)

The film certainly isn't without flaws. The fight scenes, while action-packed, sometimes feel too scripted. The fights against T-X often involve this slow paced back-and-forth grappling and punching and slamming Terminators through walls.

Compared to what we've seen of Terminator Genisys so far, however, Terminator 3 is shaping up to be some sort of retrospective cinematic masterpiece - especially in the visual effects department.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Terminator 3... Well considering that it's been declared non-cannon, it's a decent little popcorn flick, but that's about it. It's fun but the way it's put together feels like an unnecessary addition to the franchise. It's kinda like with Men in Black. The same thing all over again, but this time with new paint job, and the stakes raised. It's all; escape the Terminator try to be prepared for judgement day. Same schlock done again. It worked twice, but the third time is just cashing in.

Terminator 2 is still my favourite. It and the first movie, gives us an arc for all the important characters, it tells a story that's genuine. T3 on the other hand is practically a comedy by having no self awareness of it's own preposterous plot, nor the franchise as a whole. As an action flick it's fine, but as a Terminator movie it just falls completely flat.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, the only thing it has going for is that it's part of a franchise that had two good movies before it.

 

[Erttheking]

I have to say I didn't really mind it that much, I thought it was pretty good.

Though I fully understand how some people are angry that it messes with the ending of Judgement Day.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Terminator 3 is different to Terminator and Terminator 2 in the sense that humanity loses. Terminator 2 pushed the idea, or the dream, that humans can make their own fate. Terminator 3's fundamental premise is that the machines are predestined to succeed. "Judgement Day is inevitable."

Terminator 3 follows the template of Terminator 2, but is bleaker in tone than Terminator 2 despite its Die Another Die-esque fanservice and jokes.

Terminator 2, however, has its own problems. It fails on a certain level as a sequel to Terminator. It is riddled with James Cameron excesses. It has a bloated, very influential action film formula which alternates between expository dialogue and visual or special effects-driven action scenes. Completely unlike the first film. (This bloat and awful clunk dialogue during dramatic moments is one reason I dislike Avatar.)

In this regard, the Terminator series started having an identity crisis with the introduction of the second film.

 

[Scarim Coral]

To simply put it, I didn't liked it and I only accept the first and second film only. I made watched the new one thought.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It was fucking stupid.

'Hey, remember how awesome the T-1000 was Terminator 2? Let's do that again, but now it'll have tits.'

This was the amount of creative vision that went into the third movie. A movie which should never have existed since the second movie ended with everything Skynet related being destroyed. But now apparently Judgement Day is inevitable, because we need more sequels.

Fuck this movie and every other sequel that followed and will follow.

 

[Evonisia]

In terms of the story it's completely unnecessary, ill thought out and shits on Terminator 2, and I hate the way they handle Sarah Connor in it.

On it's own, it's a pretty good action film with nice use of CG with practical stuff, set pieces galore and it does feel like it has stakes. It works, but it's no Terminator 2.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

It has a surprising lack of cringeworthy dialogue, at least in my view.

Oh really?

Spoiler

Yeah... I voted terrible. As a stand-alone non-franchise popcorn action flick it would have been a solid B+, but as a Terminator movie it was just awful. The constant "jokes" like the Elton John sunglasses missed the mark every single time, felt completely out of place both within the franchise and even within their own movie, and it completely screwed over the darker tone that they were apparently trying to go for. The acting was average at best, and probably hurt more by the script and direction than the actual performers themselves (although I've yet to see a good performance from Kristanna Loken, which is probably why she now does mostly C-list TV and low budget straight-to-video trash these days). The CGI was atrocious (it's not even that it just aged badly; I recall thinking it was bad when I saw it in theaters back in '03), particularly during the "future" sequences (especially when you compare them to the "future" sequences from the prior movies that were done primarily with physical effects and miniatures and still hold up pretty well today).

The action sequences were the parts where the movie shined brightest, and even then there really wasn't anything particularly memorable after the car chase.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Awful movie crawling up the heels of two superior ones (T2 being the better one).

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I'm for bad movies.

Like I can stand Alien Resurrection. Mainly because I became a teenager in the 90s, therefore it was right in my bad taste threshold. I do realize that dna doesn't work like that, and if something is implanted to you, that doesn't mean you'll grow it if your dna is cloned. It would be like expecting Silicone to take the place of breasts of a cloned woman who had plastic surgery.

However, as bad as Alien Resurrection is, it did not unwrite the Alien series.

The driving force of Terminator is "You have control of your destiny. Continue to Fight. Nothing is determined"

Terminator 3 is "Lol, jk. y'all totes screwed. Sorry about the messed up life."

...

sidebar, I always wondered something. Was their any limitation to the Time travel machine other than the organic rule (don't get me started on the T-1000). I mean, is there a reason they only sent one? I mean, what could Reese have done against 50 Termies with our weapons? Or, why just one Termie at a time? Send one as a decoy, Send another to get Sarah as a child, and then send another to attack her parents before she was born? Hell, Send a terminator as the President and other leaders of the free world, and sculpt the world give Cyberdine more power while getting rid of all weaponry under the guise of finally achieve world peace.

Why is it just this myopic target of Sarah Connor once when she was unaware and the rest of the times when she was older? Why not even just send another terminator at the spot where the first T-800's arm was found (which Skynet would know where it was because they showed it in Terminator 2) and just liter the landscape with Terminators to finish the job. Then go into hiding so when Cyberdine is reaching it's sentience, it would have a strike squad and protection to make sure humanity is completely wiped out?

captcha: I'm so cold

... Did I just give ideas to skynet?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'd say it's mediocre. I didn't care for the female terminator's gimmick, the whole interfacing with and controlling machines, or the mini nuclear battery thing that hadn't been brought up until it was convenient. I did like the ending, and that John Connor wasn't that screechy kid in T2.

The Terminator was the best of the bunch though.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

It had moments but I hated the story from the beginning, hated how old Arnie looked in it (sorry Arnold) and I really disliked how it pretty much just crossed out the previous films entire ending (you know, stopping Skynet) with a few lines of dialogue about inevitability. Why is it inevitable? Because the series needs to go on to make money obviously. <.<

Good things? I did like the activating Skynet scene, the hacked T-800 bit and the whole power cell thing. John Conner was acted by someone who said their lines like they were always out of breath but it could have been worse cast-wise.

I prefer it to Salvation, despite Salvation's better action sequences, because at least Rise of the Machines remembered the future had LASERS. There was no pew-pew in Salvation and I could have forgiven it a lot if it had a Phased Plasma Rifle in a 40 watt range.

I will always like the Cameron Terminators better. The future flashbacks always looked so grim and the humor wasn't as forced is it felt in 3. The 'ladies night' thing seemed to be someone desperately writing for a joke out of an established Terminator cliche.

But that's just my $4.16.

 

[Mister K]

It wasn't bad movie by the merit of a "dumb movie with robots and explosions" movies. But I still wish Cameron made the alternative ending to Terminator 2 cannon one.

 

[FalloutJack]

I have nothing wrong with it. Other people should be more forgiving, given what Michael Bay has done to Transformers.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

snip

My understanding of it, going by some of the non-canon books/comics/games, is that the time displacement equipment draws a massive amount of power each time it's used, which limits how much it can send back and how frequently it can do it. I'm pretty sure Sgt. Reese also mentioned in the first movie that they'd assaulted the complex right as it was becoming operational, so presumably SkyNet only had enough time to send back the T-800 and T-1000 before the resistance liberated it and sent back Reese and their own reprogrammed T-800. As for how the T-1000 (and the T-X, I guess) are even capable of going back what with the whole organic rule... /shrug. As for why they focused entirely on the Connor family... /shrug. I think there's a throwaway line in the first movie about how records of the past have been mostly lost, so maybe SkyNet only knows about its current enemies and not about political figures of the past... but I guess that would leave Arnie's "detailed files" about the past/future-past somewhat underwhelming and spotty.

Hell, Send a terminator as the President and other leaders of the free world, and sculpt the world give Cyberdine more power while getting rid of all weaponry under the guise of finally achieve world peace.

The Obamanator: Final Term, brought to you by the GOP.

I prefer it to Salvation, despite Salvation's better action sequences, because at least Rise of the Machines remembered the future had LASERS. There was no pew-pew in Salvation and I could have forgiven it a lot if it had a Phased Plasma Rifle in a 40 watt range.

Salvation takes place fairly early in the war, the Plasma weapons presumably weren't developed yet (or at least weren't miniaturized for "infantry" use yet). That's why the endoskeletons you see in the movie are bigger and clunkier than the ones from previous movies, because they were the same earlier models that Reese in the original movie was commenting on as being terrible infiltrators. The CGI Arnie at the end is the only "classic" endoskeleton in the movie.

 

[Foehunter82]

I prefer it to Salvation, despite Salvation's better action sequences, because at least Rise of the Machines remembered the future had LASERS. There was no pew-pew in Salvation and I could have forgiven it a lot if it had a Phased Plasma Rifle in a 40 watt range.

I wrote the Terminator: Salvation "no lasers" thing off to Skynet being a learning machine that hadn't reached that level of technology yet. Keep in mind that Skynet apparently invented time-travel, so it's not a stretch to think that maybe Skynet invents energy weaponry, as well. When John finally sends Reese back in time, John is a much older man (although, having a 40-50 year old actor playing as John didn't help my head-canon much).

With that in mind, I think this "reboot/remake/rehash/rewhatever" is going to wind up taking the "Skynet is a learning machine" into account. It makes no sense to lock in the Terminator franchise to a predetermined course of events when Skynet could just develop new ways to do things. Especially since the first three movies demonstrate that learning capability.

Terminator: Kill Sarah Connor
Terminator 2: Since the first plan failed, Kill John Connor
Terminator 3: Since the first two plans failed: Kill John Connor and/or anyone with sufficient technical skill to challenge Skynet. Additionally, insure Judgement Day/Activation of Skynet. (This film's entire plot could have easily been stretched out into a trilogy of films in itself.)

Wasn't crazy about Rise of the Machines. Changing John Connor from a screeching teenage kid to a whiny "I give up" character wasn't a step forward for the franchise.

 

[Asita]

However, as bad as Alien Resurrection is, it did not unwrite the Alien series.

The driving force of Terminator is "You have control of your destiny. Continue to Fight. Nothing is determined"

No, it really wasn't. At absolute best that's a retcon Terminator 2 tried to make. The first movie had very fatalistic overtones to the point that it ends with Sarah recording messages telling her son that he'd need to send his father back in time - ultimately to his death - to follow the Terminator as his very existence depended on it. This is punctuated by the kid taking a picture of her, the same picture that we saw Kyle Reese looking at in his memory and later describing to her. Kyle also describes Sarah as having taken John into hiding before the war and teaching him the survival skills he'd later use to lead the human resistance to its ultimate victory against Skynet[footnote]which is what in turn led Skynet to send the Terminator to the past as a last desperate gambit[/footnote], which would be very out of character for the Sarah Connor we saw at the start of the movie (as she herself acknowledges) but fits the one we see at the end of it to a T. Put simply, the movie was built around the concept of a stable time loop, wherein Skynet's attempt to avert its fate ended up making it the architect of its own destruction, ultimately being an integral part of the creation of the very enemy it sought to destroy.

 

[Bad Jim]

I thought it was okay. Yes, it did ignore all the work they did in Terminator 2 to stop Skynet happening, but it is plausible that backups were made that Dyson didn't know about.

The really bad one is Salvation. There was too much stupidity in Salvation.