Jun
3
The Skinny on “Terminator 4″
Filed Under Blockbusters, Movies, Spoilers
I desperately wanted to like “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” “T2: Judgment Day” is one of my absolute favorite action films. I love time-travel, I love killer robots and I love Arnold Schwarzenegger. So how could I have not liked “T3?” Well, I also love James Cameron and Cameron didn’t direct “T3.” Warner Bros., in their infinite wisdom, hired Jonathan Mostow, director of such middling fare as “Breakdown” and “U-571,” to run the franchise into the ground with a gutted remake of the second film but this time with a downer ending. “Terminator 3″ was so bad, Arnold Schwarzenegger changed careers and became the Governor of California. And I decided to stop counting the Terminator films as canon after movie two.
There’s since been a TV series, “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles,” which like me, chooses to ignore the events of the third film. I haven’t actually bothered to watch it, though. I tend to avoid anything with the word “Chronicles” in the title on principle. It’s a word that no human being ever uses in ordinary conversation, but for whatever reason, it’s terribly popular with movie and TV studios when they’re coming up with overlong titles for their craptacular output.
A fourth Terminator film — “Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins” — is currently in production in New Mexico. Not only does it have a worse title than the television series, but Ain’t-It-Cool News has reported a major spoiler from the film that’s so ginormous and so stupid, the Bush Administration may declare war on Warner Bros. Pictures. And I would support it.
(*Spoilers Ahead*) What I’ve read is that Human Resistance leader John Conner, played by Christian Bale, will be killed by a Terminator at film’s end. “T4″ is set in the early 21st Century, during the war between man and machine, not during the present day like the first three. Instead of giving him a proper Christian [Bale] burial, Conner’s compatriots skin his dead body and then tailor his flesh to fit over the endoskeleton combat chassis of a Terminator. Dun-dun-dun!!!
I think it would be kind of funny if the filmmakers (I’m using the word “filmmakers” loosely, as McG is the director this time around) make the Conner/Terminator sort of like Edgar from “Men in Black.” His flesh-suit doesn’t fit quite right, and it’s sort of obvious to everyone that there have been some shenanigans. But the members of the Human Resistance are good sports and just play along. (*End Spoilers*)
“T4″ is supposed to kick off a second trilogy of Terminator films. Why Hollywood has to do everything in threes is beyond my understanding. Name one franchise that hasn’t lost steam after its first sequel. I’m not sure how movies five and six are going to top the shocker at the end of the fourth one. But Hollywood’s never short on bad ideas, so I’m sure they’ll come up with something.
-Brad Lohan
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In the fifth film, we discover that “Wall-E” is actually set in the Terminator universe, after the war between man and machine has obliterated all life on the planet. Then in the sixth film, he goes back in time to the 1980s and becomes Johnny-5.
Also, his best friend is a talking pie.
[…] one more entry, “Terminator Salvation.” You may remember an earlier piece I wrote about a potential third-act spoiler for this installment, which is apparently supposed to kick off another trilogy of Terminator movies […]