Terminator: Genisys (2015)

[JohnnyGossamer]

Awful. D.

[Ozymandias]

Why didn't Terminator Connor just use his nanomachines to assimilate Sarah and Kyle? At the end when he stabbed his finger into Sarah's neck or whatever he was doing I totally thought that's what he was going to do.

[CJohn]

I thought there was going to be a reveal that Skynet sent Pops back in time to save Sarah so she could pop out John who gets infected and sent back to shepherd Skynet into the world. But that doesn't explain who sent the T-1000 (which I assumed to be the under-used Byung-hun Lee).

Are we sure there was a T-1000 there? It is never shown to us. It might have been Skynet sending both, tho. The T-1000 to kill Sarah's parents and after that it sent Pops to save her. She needed to lose their parents. 

Why didn't Terminator Connor just use his nanomachines to assimilate Sarah and Kyle? At the end when he stabbed his finger into Sarah's neck or whatever he was doing I totally thought that's what he was going to do.

I thought the same.

[Deep Wang]

Instead of making sure he included Sarah's fingerprints and all that jazz into the Cyberdyne database, why didn't he just upload a virus or a kill switch or better yet - while the building is going up, plant bombs all around and blow that shit up.

I mean seriously. He could have had all that taken care of by the time they get there and they could have just sat back and drank margaritas.

[Moviedweeb]

Posted this in the main thread, but probably more appropriate here. I just got back from seeing this in IMAX and despite my frustrations, I want a sequel:

 

The Good

Schwarzenegger – he is in top form, enormously watchable, and obviously owns this role. Unlike the other actors who definitely need much better direction, Arnold is as believable in the role as ever which is saying a lot. Not once did I think his age lessened the character and it all works organically within the story. However due to the lackluster director, there were clearly missed opportunities. It seems like this is Schwarzenegger playing the role without a director and while he really damn good in this, this could have been really special if there was an opportunity to collaborate with a great director.

 

Honoring the first two films – I am a huge Terminator fan and T2 was a big part of my childhood. I found the film to be reverent to its predecessors and I didn't mind it in the least how they are changing the events of the prior installments (similar to X Men DOFP or ST). I encourage that and since this is a time-travel series, the opportunities to effect the past are ripe for great story telling. Again due to the mediocre director, the moments of homage didn't transcend the originals. But that would have been possible with someone else, so I think that concept is very exciting. 

 

VFX – there could have been a great film within this world. It had the budget, the cast, and the visual effects necessary to bring a great story to life. The film looked great in IMAX 3D and despite what we saw in the trailers, the finished product delivers. The 84 Terminator looked great and it is all the more frustrating because, again, there was an opportunity to take the iconic moments of the series and inject new life into them while also playing to the fan's connections to that material. That works here, imo, because this is a time travel series and changing the past is inherent to that. Jurassic World should not have recreated past sequences to change them but within this context, it does make sense.

 

J.K Simmons – He should have joined the final leg of the journey similar to Miles Dyson in T2. His performance in this was great and he also acted as the audiences surrogate. Another missed opportunity. 

 

Cast – Schwarzenegger and JK are great, Jason Clarke is a great actor who needed better material imo and Emilia Clarke needed an experienced director’s guidance. I thought she was cast very appropriately and I really like her in this role, but she needed a much better director to collaborate with. There is a lot of hate against Jai Courtney, but I don't think he is awful at all. I think he can be charismatic and really solid. His lines were just really mediocre and similar to Emilia, he needed a better director (and also script) to work with. 

 

The Bad

The Director – I’ve got nothing against Alan Taylor, but this movie needed an innovative and really creative director with visual flair. I wish Justin Lin had done this – there are obviously better and more experienced directors, but Justin would have been both a realistic and great choice (someone like David Fincher is not doing this of course). 

• His action was flat. In so many sequences, the ingredients are there but he is not skillful in culling them all together. It is all passable, but this is Terminator and demands greatness

• He is not getting the best out of his actors. Emily and Jai needed it, and he could have gotten a hell of a lot more out of Arnold, J.K, Jason, and even Michael Gladis from Mad Men.

 

The Writing – if you are going to dig into Terminator’s most iconic moments, you better have reason to and the only reason that would suffice is if you can do something inventive and ingenious with the material. You need to elevate it in terms of story. Also, too much of the dialogue just doesn’t work – scenes between Jai and Emilia fall flat, they overdue the humor (although I think some is welcome), they don’t explore Skynet’s perspective at all (even Salvation did that a bit), and it is just not smart enough. When I watch a time-travel sci-fi film, I want to see some really big and unique ideas and this just didn’t have it. The first two films are not only fantastic in terms of character, action, and story. They are incredibly intelligent and really make your mind work. This film simply does not do that.

 

The Story – I am likely in the minority, but I really enjoyed how this film revisited the past. It worked within the context of being a time-travel film and on a meta level – Arnold back in this role for the first time in over a decade and the nostalgia of bringing this film back to its roots. But it didn’t take things far enough and because of all the time-travel, I felt that less was at stake. Maybe if we saw how the original Terminator was sent to the 70s and more of Skynet’s perfective on how they jumped timelines to find John Connor, I could have been more invested. But since those were so open, it felt as if anything could intervene to save the characters. By not showing the parameters, the writers mitigate the peril they are in. 

 

The Studio – As a fan of the series, this was fun to watch but I just kept seeing all the missed opportunities. I love the Terminator and it is one of the greatest characters in film, but when you are attempting to revive a legendary franchise after almost a decade (and really much longer since the first two films are in a league of their own), you have to bring your A game and Paramount really failed on that front. Being decent is not anywhere good enough for this and far from what the first two film’s deserve. This film deserved more passion, thoughtfulness, and a studio who understood that the story could not be mandated but that they needed to higher a visionary director who could really handle juggling all these concepts while pointing the franchise toward the future. This needed to be a director’s movie and the studio did not understand that.

[4815162342]

Are we sure there was a T-1000 there? 

 

Sarah says she saw liquid metal coming up into the bottom of the boat from underneath

[CJohn]

Sarah says she saw liquid metal coming up into the bottom of the boat from underneath

I know, but we never see it. Sounds to me more and more like something Skynet would do. Sending two Terminators. One to save her and one to kill her parents.

[sfran43]

Why didn't Terminator Connor just use his nanomachines to assimilate Sarah and Kyle? At the end when he stabbed his finger into Sarah's neck or whatever he was doing I totally thought that's what he was going to do.

 

I was waiting for the big twist with Sarah transforming into a machine at the end. But no, we get a big anti-climactic ending.

[DeeCee]

It is possible the T-1000 in the early 70's and the one in 1984 are the same one. Did they say they destroyed the one in the 70's. Maybe it couldn't find Sarah and waited till a point in time where it could re-acquire her again through the arrival of Kyle Reese.

[Deep Wang]

It is possible the T-1000 in the early 70's and the one in 1984 are the same one. Did they say they destroyed the one in the 70's. Maybe it couldn't find Sarah and waited till a point in time where it could re-acquire her again through the arrival of Kyle Reese.

I was wondering that too, but as dumb as this movie is, I refuse to believe they would leave a T-1000 hanging around for a decade in the same city and couldn't find her.

[The Futurist]

They should add even more new Terminators models in T6.

[CJohn]

I was wondering that too, but as dumb as this movie is, I refuse to believe they would leave a T-1000 hanging around for a decade in the same city and couldn't find her.

I don't think T-1000's mission was to kill Sarah. It always seemed that his mission was to kill Kyle Reese.

[4815162342]

It is possible the T-1000 in the early 70's and the one in 1984 are the same one. Did they say they destroyed the one in the 70's. Maybe it couldn't find Sarah and waited till a point in time where it could re-acquire her again through the arrival of Kyle Reese.

 

I assumed it was the same one.

[Jay Beezy]

What a mess.

The PG-13 rating really took the grit and darkness out of the original. The long awaited T-800 vs. T-800 is totally underwhelming along with the fact that a CGI'd body double makes it look too cartoonish. The future battle sequences played out like glorified laser tag simulations.

Skynet disguised as a smartphone app just felt like a silly method to attract the smartphone generation.

And they really miscast their key characters. Jai is Jai obviously. Khaleesi is not a soldier. She lacks that warrior's instinct. On top of that, regarding that whole mugshot montage to Bad Boys, which was stupid overall, were they trying to get a laugh by having Emilia stand in front of the mugshot measurement background and stand in at only just over five feet? If it was intended, I think it succeeded in undermining her. Changing characters for the sake of change doesn't work if it undermines what was loved about them in the first place.

And turning Arnie into a T-1000, while cool in theory, was a waste and simply to set up a sequel that we probably won't get.

To those that say it was more like T2 than T3, I'm sorry, I don't know what movie you saw.

And I haven't even discussed the blatant time paradoxes. Them literally posing the question of how John Connor could be there doesn't cut it if you don't have a real explanation. If your answer is just inter-dimensional time travel, then it feels like jumping the shark.

Arnie being back is the only redeeming quality. And having his flesh age over time is the only logical aspect of this movie. Otherwise, this is the TASM2 of the Terminator franchise.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Jay Beezy

[4815162342]

Skynet disguised as a smartphone app just felt like a silly method to attract the smartphone generation.

 

It wasn't just a smartphone app. It was an operating system that would link together every single device you had that utilized the internet, wifi communication, GPS, etc.

 

It was actually one of the better aspects of the film, it just was explained very abruptly.

[kaijukurt]

Not unwatchable but not very rewatchable either, IMO.

I honestly appreciated how they tried to mix elements of the first 2 films together, but it's easy to see why some things got lost in the shuffle.

Action isn't very thrilling (but at least it's serviceable) for the most part except in the climax when John Connor lets loose on Arnold. Now that part I liked.

Arnold as expected is great as the Terminator. The rest of the cast except Simmons were pretty much just there.

6/10 I guess?

[Deep Wang]

I don't think T-1000's mission was to kill Sarah. It always seemed that his mission was to kill Kyle Reese.

 

Then that makes it even worse!  Why would they send the T-1000 back to the seventies when Kyle Reese wasn't born until the 80's??

[CJohn]

Then that makes it even worse!  Why would they send the T-1000 back to the seventies when Kyle Reese wasn't born until the 80's??

We are assuming the T-1000 is the same. With that theory I am thinking it isn't. Arnold killed the T-1000 in the seventies. 

[Deep Wang]

We are assuming the T-1000 is the same. With that theory I am thinking it isn't. Arnold killed the T-1000 in the seventies. 

 

One thing is certain, we are thinking about this a lot more than the writers did.

[CJohn]

One thing is certain, we are thinking about this a lot more than the writers did.

The writers have no idea what the hell is happening in that movie, I am 100% sure.