Poll: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

[Major_Tom]

I thought it was OK, not as good as the first, but still a decent flick. Oh, and I'm one of those people who think T1 is vastly superior to T2. I don't think T3 is much worse than T2.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

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

Oh really?

Spoiler

That scene was great, though.

 

[Grumman]

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.
...
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.

Stable time loops are garbage, both logically and narratively, and I hate how easily people are convinced that it's a smarter plot than it really is. If time travel cannot change the future away from its fated course than the entire franchise is pointless. There is no point in sending Kyle Reece back in time, because the Terminator cannot kill Sarah Connor. And since the Terminator cannot kill Sarah Connor, there's no point sending the Terminator back either.

Sarah (1) assuming her child is the one Kyle Reece spoke of (John Connor-Smith and not John Connor-Reece, so to speak),
(2) assuming the problem of Judgement Day is too big for one lousy waitress to solve and
(3) preparing the tapes to try to stack the deck in John's favour
all make sense as in-character thought processes. That does not mean they are correct. And the movie is a stronger story if they aren't.

 

[Hawki]

I voted "mediocore." It's not a bad movie per se, but it's my least favorite of the bunch. While Salvation is arguably more flawed, it at least tried to do its own thing. T3 just plays like a weaker version of T2, everything from its basic premise, to the flow of its plot, to even aping basic scenes (both have the 0.0 human casualties moment for instance). And then the ending...guess what? Turns out there is fate, and everything in the first two films was for nothing. It's pretty much an anti-Terminator film thematically.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Had some good action but overall it was ok. Would rather watch the first two movies than number three.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

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

Oh really?

Spoiler

That scene was great, though.

That scene was one of the most cringe/groan-worthy scenes I think I've ever been witness to in a movie theater.

... and I saw Red Dawn (2012).

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

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.

I agree with you on the time loop, but the last line in 2 makes me unable to agree with the thought that it wasn't about fighting Destiny

Sarah Connor: [narrating] The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.

They found a way in the movie to end it. They found out the source of the Cyberdine, they hunted all the research, and they tried to stop it. Stable Time Loop or not, Sarah could have just took that info and went into hiding. She felt she could do something. And she did. According to the special edition ending, John grew up and became a Senator and Sarah has grandkids. but whatever. We all knew the franchise was too profitable to let that be the ending.

Whether they succeeded or not, the driving force of Sarah Connor (therefore the Termie Team) was to end Cyberdine that night. Not to accept the foretold future, but to change. That is not interpretation. That was the bulk of the script.

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.

... Tis a Quagmire and I should follow the MsT3K mantra, got it.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Another thing that bugs me about T3 is the graveyard scene after Arnie goes nuts with the Browning M1919 .30-cal. We see Kate running away from the shootout. A police car pulls up off in the distance, and the TX (disguised as Scott, Kate's fiance) exits and begins walking toward Kate. While walking over to Kate the TX decides to morph back to its original appearance, turns its arm into a plasma cannon, then gets nailed by Arnie's RPG.

WHY?!

As far as Kate knew that WAS her fiance. The TX could have just rolled down the window or opened the car door and shot her. BLAM. Kate's dead, mission complete. Or the TX could have run over to her, pretending to be her concerned fiance, and then arm-stabbed her like the cops in the car. Either would have been way more effective than exposing itself like an idiot and taking its sweet time to mug for the camera.

The TX is fuckin' dumb. Like, really fucking dumb.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

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

Oh really?

Spoiler

That scene was great, though.

That scene was one of the most cringe/groan-worthy scenes I think I've ever been witness to in a movie theater.

... and I saw Red Dawn (2012).

Talk to the hand.

Another thing that bugs me about T3 is the graveyard scene after Arnie goes nuts with the Browning M1919 .30-cal. We see Kate running away from the shootout. A police car pulls up off in the distance, and the TX (disguised as Scott, Kate's fiance) exits and begins walking toward Kate. While walking over to Kate the TX decides to morph back to its original appearance, turns its arm into a plasma cannon, then gets nailed by Arnie's RPG.

WHY?!

As far as Kate knew that WAS her fiance. The TX could have just rolled down the window or opened the car door and shot her. BLAM. Kate's dead, mission complete. Or the TX could have run over to her, pretending to be her concerned fiance, and then arm-stabbed her like the cops in the car. Either would have been way more effective than exposing itself like an idiot and taking its sweet time to mug for the camera.

The TX is fuckin' dumb. Like, really fucking dumb.

The behavior of Terminators has always defied human logic. The T-1000 was made from liquid metal, yet it almost never took advantage of the fact it could basically shove itself through or into any small space.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

The behavior of Terminators has always defied human logic. The T-1000 was made from liquid metal, yet it almost never took advantage of the fact it could basically shove itself through or into any small space.

Mimicked the floor. Squeezed through metal bars. Squeezed through holes created in the top of an elevator. Oozed its way into a helicopter cockpit. Morphed its body around Uncle Bob's fist to get the better of him in melee.

There's a difference between "defying human logic" and utterly failing at your one goddamn job. The T-1000 at least showed some degree of competence with its mimicry (hell, it probably would have killed John at the end when it was mimicking Sarah if not for the fact that by that point it was glitching out due to damage from being frozen/shattered). The TX had a perfect opportunity and squandered it.

 

[pearcinator]

It was really poor.

I ask everyone to go back and watch them in order.

Terminator 1 was a thrilling suspenseful movie that worked despite the low budget and mediocre special effects.

Terminator 2 is quite simply one of the best action movies ever with a great story to boot.

Then you watch Terminator 3 and straight away you can see how big of a step-down it is from T2. It lacked the gritty realism of the others and the action scenes were quite boring (that scene with the crane had really cheap-looking CGI when it flipped). There really did not need to be a T3 because T2 ended so well (they prevented the war and destroyed the development of skynet).

It was worse than Terminator: Salvation, at least that had some decent action and effects. They should have ended the series after T2 though. Genisys doesn't really interest me that much (although I'll still watch it) but I might be surprised.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

The behavior of Terminators has always defied human logic. The T-1000 was made from liquid metal, yet it almost never took advantage of the fact it could basically shove itself through or into any small space.

Mimicked the floor. Squeezed through metal bars. Squeezed through holes created in the top of an elevator. Oozed its way into a helicopter cockpit. Morphed its body around Uncle Bob's fist to get the better of him in melee.

Yea, but it squeezed itself REALLY SLOWLY through the bars when logically it could have flung a sharp piece of itself through the bars. In fact, there was no reason for T-1000 to grab onto the back of the car with blades when it could easily liquify and move up into the car.

It could have hidden inside her orange juice and stabbed her from the inside. (Yes, I know - that would be a really short movie.)

I guess what I'm saying is that in Terminator 2, T-1000 was really incompetent at plot-convenient moments.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I hope that you all know both Salvation and T3 were written at least in part written by James Cameron.

I keep seeing people talk about Cameron like he had nothing to do with these films... He had lots to do with Terminator, he basically controls the canon anymore.

 

[Fox12]

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.

I absolutely love that concept, but it felt really hollow in T3. I couldn't get over the fact that the machines only won so that the franchise could continue. That's probably why I loved the first film most. It had that impending inevitability to it, but it still a unique concept (if you ignore Harlan Ellison). It felt much more apocalyptic then the first film.

I liked the first two movies, but like most franchises, terminator is 90% mediocre. *cries over the fate of the Alien films*

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

T3 is at best a passable action movie. It's easily the weakest of the trilogy. Don't talk to me about Salvation, I didn't see it and I have no intention to.

Compared to the first two, it just doesn't live up to the franchise. T2 is a classic for good reason, even if it wasn't particularly imaginative. And the first Terminator is excellent. I recently watched it again, and although it can be cheesy in an '80s way, it does a lot of things well. It really nailed the feeling of being pursued by an unstoppable killer; nowhere is safe, nothing can kill it, and it will always find you.

Next to these two, T3 was just unambitious and not that well executed. It didn't have any of the dread of the first or the excitement and heart of the second. But I will say that I quite liked the ending. It was different and gave the film a punch that it probably didn't deserve.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Yea, but it squeezed itself REALLY SLOWLY through the bars when logically it could have flung a sharp piece of itself through the bars. In fact, there was no reason for T-1000 to grab onto the back of the car with blades when it could easily liquify and move up into the car.

It could have hidden inside her orange juice and stabbed her from the inside. (Yes, I know - that would be a really short movie.)

Just because it squeezed slowly doesn't mean it could have squeezed any faster. If your car tops out at 100mph, it's not going to move any faster than that just because you think it "should be able to." As far as we know it did what it was capable of doing.

Also, we have no idea whether or not it actually could have flung part of itself with the velocity needed to kill - we've never seen the T-1000 using pieces of itself as projectiles, other than "Uncle Bob" saying that it can't create propellent. So, logically, the best it could do would be to throw part of itself using its physical strength, and it better have one hell of a Pitcher's arm, because that was a very long hallway.

Just because you say it could "easily" liquify and move up the car doesn't mean that it can. That's a capability that, again, we as an audience have no idea whether or not it actually possesses.

Your arguments here are based on hypothetical capabilities of a machine which we, the viewers, aren't privy to. My argument with regard to the TX is that it simply failed to seize an opportunity. An infiltrator/assassin that intentionally exposes itself before it gets the chance to eliminate its target, giving its target a chance to escape, is an infiltrator/assassin that sucks at its job - regardless of whether it's a machine or a person.

Kyle Reese: "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, unless it gets an opportunity to mug for the camera for a SWEET trailer shot, until you are dead."

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I hope that you all know both Salvation and T3 were written at least in part written by James Cameron.

No they weren't. T3's story was written by John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris, and Tedi Serafian. Brancato and Ferris also wrote the screenplay. James Cameron (and Gale Anne Hurd) were given writer credits for having created the original characters.

Terminator Salvation was also written by Brancato and Ferris, again with credits given to Cameron/Hurd for creating the original characters.

 

[Asita]

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.
...
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.

Stable time loops are garbage, both logically and narratively, and I hate how easily people are convinced that it's a smarter plot than it really is. If time travel cannot change the future away from its fated course than the entire franchise is pointless. There is no point in sending Kyle Reece back in time, because the Terminator cannot kill Sarah Connor. And since the Terminator cannot kill Sarah Connor, there's no point sending the Terminator back either.

Sarah (1) assuming her child is the one Kyle Reece spoke of (John Connor-Smith and not John Connor-Reece, so to speak),
(2) assuming the problem of Judgement Day is too big for one lousy waitress to solve and
(3) preparing the tapes to try to stack the deck in John's favour
all make sense as in-character thought processes. That does not mean they are correct. And the movie is a stronger story if they aren't.

Ok, first of all, that's not how it works. The concept of fate is like a well made movie script. Everyone plays their part because that part is second nature to them. Ever see the Adjustment Bureau? There's a lovely scene near the beginning wherein Matt Damon's character is about to give a concession speech after a failed bid for the presidency. A 'chance' meeting in the men's room with Emily Blunt's character, however, inspires him to abandon the premade speech and give a heartfelt speech addressing the sheer artificiality of his public persona, noting that even the amount of scuff on his shoes was a calculated decision meant to reinforce the story of that persona. The candor of it endears him to the people and makes him a viable candidate (and indeed, likely winner) for the next election, which was the role - we later learn - that fate had cast him in. That's how the concept works. Or if you prefer, the concept could be likened to a chemical reaction. That there is and only will ever be one end result to a given chemical formula does not mean that the reaction intermediate is not essential to the reaction as a whole. It's not starting point, end result, do whatever in between; it's that the starting point will inexorably lead you to the end result because the circumstances demand it.

Skynet sends the Terminator back because it lost the war and was trying one desperate gambit --> Kyle goes back in time to protect Sarah from the Terminator --> Kyle and Sarah conceive John --> the Terminator is killed and her experience with Kyle and the Terminator change Sarah dramatically --> Picture is taken of Sarah --> Sarah goes off the grid before John is born and teaches him how to survive in preparation for the dark future ahead --> Skynet initiates "Judgement Day", John survives by virtue of being off the grid and therefore not amongst the collateral damage --> John starts teaching his survival skills to other survivors --> John becomes leader of the Resistance --> John gives Kyle the photo of his mother, Kyle memorizes the photo and becomes enamored of Sarah --> John leads the resistance to victory against Skynet --> Skynet sends the Terminator back because it lost the war and was trying a desperate gambit...

It's cause and effect and actually a fairly tightly woven narrative. Your distaste for the convention is your prerogative, but it not a point against it in any objective sense.

I agree with you on the time loop, but the last line in 2 makes me unable to agree with the thought that it wasn't about fighting Destiny

Sarah Connor: [narrating] The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.

As I said, "At absolute best that's a retcon Terminator 2 tried to make". I wasn't saying that the characters were fatalistic, I was saying that the narrative was.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Yea, but it squeezed itself REALLY SLOWLY through the bars when logically it could have flung a sharp piece of itself through the bars. In fact, there was no reason for T-1000 to grab onto the back of the car with blades when it could easily liquify and move up into the car.

It could have hidden inside her orange juice and stabbed her from the inside. (Yes, I know - that would be a really short movie.)

My argument with regard to the TX is that it simply failed to seize an opportunity. An infiltrator/assassin that intentionally exposes itself before it gets the chance to eliminate its target, giving its target a chance to escape, is an infiltrator/assassin that sucks at its job - regardless of whether it's a machine or a person.

Kyle Reese: "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, unless it gets an opportunity to mug for the camera for a SWEET trailer shot, until you are dead."

I don't disagree there. T-X has REALLY, REALLY slow reaction times.

One area I feel Terminator 3 doesn't get enough, credit, though, is the endoskeleton visual effects. Compared to the goofy looking stuff from the Terminator 5 trailers, Terminator 3's CG-prosthetic work has held up remarkably well.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I felt Salvation was excessively shiny and CG looking. And Genisys looks like pieces of shiny plastic stuck on their faces.