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"Terminator Genisys" – slick, but does it have anything new to say

It's hard to judge a movie by its trailer. The particular sales approach here — "Look, guys! It's just like the classic Terminator movies, but with modern FX and multiple Arnolds!" — may be pretty much the full summary of what Terminator Genisys actually provides, or it may be just what some suits thought the movie-ticket-buying public wanted.

The movie does provide more background into the War with the Machines and what's going on in the future with John Conner and Kyle Reese. It screws around a bit with Terminator meta-continuity — not just that Kyle goes back only to find that the timeline in the past has already been altered, but the very idea that despite that nothing has changed in the future. So it gives us a kind of desperate and not terribly effectual Kyle and an effectual but not-yet-obsessive Sarah … fighting a T1000, while an aging T800 assists them.

(Surely someone has a past film clip of Arnold Scharzenegger in his salad days saying "I'm getting too old for this shit.")

It's all pretty and glossy and FXy, but the trailer makes no case, for me, that there's anything really new here, just the same furniture given a slipcover or two and arranged differently. There's little distinctive about the characters presented, human or robot. There's not even anything particularly ground-breaking / jaw-dropping about the FX here (there's one pretty cool brief shot of an automotive stunt on the Golden Gate Bridge, but everything else is very been-there, done-that).

Again, the criticism above may just be because the trailer creators were aiming for the familiar, not the new. And, heck, I've complained about movie trailers giving away too many goodies as they run.

But to be perfectly honest, this trailer resolves me only to one thing: I need to watch Terminator and Terminator 2 with my daughter this weekend. If nothing else that to show her how Arnold became famous and how to do the vast majority of this stuff solely with practical FX.

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91 thoughts on “"Terminator Genisys" – slick, but does it have anything new to say”

  1. +Dave Hill Nice to see a well written critique of the trailer. I did want to point out two things:

    1) Actually, for some of us this is probably exactly what we are looking for, though if it isn't what Terminator fans are looking for, I understand how disappointing it will be.

    2) Time travel is already messy. Simply put I actually have the opposite issue that you do; people traveling back in time to change the future. I see timelines as immutable… but not unable to be manipulated. You send someone back in time because doing so either creates or alters another parallel time line, creating a past and future where things happen differently. Needless to say, this requires you allow parallel realities. The other option I am about to present does not; manipulating the timeline. Events still seem to happen as recorded, but that's because they were inaccurately recorded and incompletely observed. Someone die that you need to live? You can try and go back and save them, but when you do you have to make it look like he died to any witnesses, including falsifying physical evidence (if any existed).

    Again though, you made it very clear that you don't match either point one or two, and I can totally understand why you're not excited and/or disappointed with this movie.

  2. +Kami-sama no Otaku It occurred to me, as I was writing, that it was in the perspective of someone who grew up with the Terminator movies (though 2 was the peak and I barely made it through 3), so that's a very different perspective from folk who have mostly seen them in a past tense.

    Once the actual movie is out, I expect that people will do the analyses needed to make the timeline make sense (or else will note with some infamy that it doesn't). My objection was more that if we take 1 and 2 for canon, complete with the changes they made in the future timeline, then the idea that future Kyle could come back to the 1 era as he did, but find it already changed in the meantime … will take very careful handling to make any sense.

    (I do like time travel movies, and have read enough decades of SF to realize there are a lot of different ways it can work — but the rules need to be consistent. If they are, I'm cool with it.)

  3. Some of us want movies to engage our brains as well as our senses. We prefer substance to style, although the latter can certainly enhance the former. Without a solid story and good characterizations, though, all the rock'em-sock'em, slam-bang action and special effects aren't going to hold our interest.

  4. +Dave Hill Some background information that might be relevant, might not, but that perhaps I should have included earlier. I wasn't quite three when the first movie came out, so while I did "grow up" with the series, I wasn't even a teenager when the second movie came out. I haven't seen anything since Terminator 2 because of lack of funds/only mild interest. This one… this one has me curious.

  5. +Shouvik Mukherjee
    Isaac Newton contributed more to humanity as a virgin than you will in a 100 life times…..even that may turn out to be an understatement…stop ranting about virgins….ps before u bit*h about me being one…i've been married for years and have a kid and am 32yo and you will never hear me poking fun of virginity…

  6. +Scott Randel Actually… it might be. The "short" version of it is

    1) Hollywood
    2) Average Viewer
    3) Variance in worldviews among all viewers

    I often find myself waiting for good fiction from a franchise I enjoy when they try to "get deep" because instead they go off the deep end. It is actually worse when such things succeed because it means what once aligned with my own views and understanding of reality, was unaligned or at least ambiguous suddenly becomes hostile and the studios have incentive to further alienate me. =P

  7. Well, there is something to be said for rock'em-sock'em, slam-bang action and special effects — but if I'm not going to get a new story I'd at least like a good story.

  8. i am i big fan of the series and i have been waiting for the next film. this makes a lot of sense because in terminator salvation the twist was that Sam Worthington didn't know he was a machine. in this new moviethe part where he goes through the store finding close and a cop looks for him is so iconic. i just want to see the movie and here the explanation of the new time line . every movie something different is explain that adds so much more the universe of terminator. if you watch the original terminator and look at john conors face move around you can see he looks robotic in his moments. this was explain in terminator salvation when john conor died but his face was transplanted to the sam Worthington terminator body. i might be wrong about that or either sams heart was given to john but i don't know what really happend when john had surgery.

  9. IDK I'd rather pay 40 bucks to watch Terminator Genesis over Disney's JJ Abrams Star Wars The Force Awaken … this film just looks a lot more exciting then SWFA….

    Honestly I'm Sick of Hollywood rehashing the same old movies, where in the world is the originality the new ideas
    completely new works of art. (Hollywood formula: Reboot Sequel Prequel rinse & repeat)

    Superman & Batman, Jurassic World, Annie, Terminator, Star wars, Marvel….. blah they are all boring! but that's just my opinion.

  10. +Dave Hill I thought Conan (1982) was his breakout role? Or Terminator 2? Given my age at the time its a bit hard for me to be certain. Terminator was important but I remember an awful lot of people (even those older than me) that just began with the second film.

  11. +Kami-sama no Otaku Good point — I had forgotten Conan the Barbarian predated Terminator by a couple of years.

    I could make a good argument for Commando (1985), too, as it was his first big Modern-Day Wisecracking Action Hero role, which is mostly what he's played ever since.

  12. The longer this story drags out the less likely it is to believe. Even the plot of T2 seems idiotic when you revisit it. They failed! So they sent ANOTHER MACHINE! How the fuck did they even know they failed in the first place?

  13. +Benjamin Hike Well, the didn't just send another machine, they sent a more powerful machine.

    They would know it failed because … um … sometimes the plot has the future being fixed, other times it has the future being mutable. In this case, sending back the original T800 didn't significantly enough change the time flow that Skynet hadn't already sent back the T800. So it knew the attempt had failed, so it raised the ante.

  14. +Dave Hill +Benjamin Hike For me the main element of both plots – traveling back through time to change your "present" was pretty silly, but as mentioned earlier in the discussion, I'm one of those that subscribes to past functionally being immutable within a specific timeline, but that you can use time travel and altering history to create (or more accurately, shift tracks) to a parallel reality or to actually fulfill the "real" past because you alter it in a way so that most think it hasn't changed.

    Either actually gives ample reasons for Skynet to send back multiple Terminator units. Skynet may either desire others like itself or assume that if can not only alter history to make it easier for a parallel Skynet to conquer the world, but to set-up some sort of "backdoor" so that Skynet "Prime" can take it over, allowing one Skynet to conquer multiple realities.

    If the past can only be manipulated through changes-that-technically-aren't-changes, then we could find out that Skynet, in a sense, "births" itself by sending back Terminator units to steer technological development to ensure it is not only created but "awakens". Instead of sending Terminators to outright kill problematic people (or their ancestors) in the past, it cultivates a humanity that is easier to defeat in its own time. The only "hard" part for it is not jumping the gun but instead sampling humans to realize "How convenient… all these people are incredibly vulnerable to [insert disease] or [insert carcinogen], which I have an ample supply of… so I probably sent units back to help facilitate this bit of genetic fortune."

  15. I think the main issue everyone is missing here is that if the new Arnold takes out the original Arnold at the observatory that means Sarah's room mate never get's killed, which allows her to live a long full life as an 80s hair band groupie and failed cosmetologist

  16. I was glad when I heard that a new Terminator movie was being made… Not so much anymore. 🙁 Also, am I alone in NOT liking the guy playing Reese? I hated him in Die Hard, probably gonna hate him in this. But I'm not gonna say it "looks shit" as some. I'll reserve judgement till I've seen it fully. Really wish someone else was playing Reese though. lol

  17. It's like all your favourite moments from the good Terminator films squashed into one trailer / film. Hollywood at it's cynical best.
    How about they Terminators to other times like the 30's and go after John Conner's grandmother? That would be different. 1800's?

  18. don't know why but somehow whenever some user posts a post as long as yours and the fact that you know your stuff , its instant revalation to everyone on the internet lol , and then all the likes and shares come in

  19. you know, as a European movie enthusiast that started to watch a lot of movies from a very early age, I have to make an another question: "do this movie have to say something?"

    and the answer is: "no. it do not."

    why? because 90% of other movies are not "having something to say" in the LEAST…
    but those rather mediocre movies, that many times have the same problems of the "big hate target" of internet bias, are praised and beloved and defended "by any means necessary"

    this is already "hated" because uses CGI and is a old series brought back to "cash money" or something… but all those haters never said anything to "avengers"( even if it uses a shit ton of CGI… and is done for milk kids of their allowances).
    I frankly prefer to have even other "bad" terminators than have to stand an another bucked of Marvel/Disney movies.

  20. +1r0zz I love all old school movies and loved the first 2 Terminators , that being said the last to in my opinion sucked ass with shity story's and direction and I do hope this one is satisfying, but on the other end you cant beat super hero movies now days if iam going to the movies its most likely a Marvel movie because its worth my money .

  21. +Van Seaco
    terminator 4 is horrible. it lack direction and plot (so it's around Iron Man 3 level of quality)…

    Terminator 3 is not bad…the story is kinda stupid, but just like terminator 2 (the T800 is programmed to do what the kid says? nobody in the right mind would let a teen have decisions power, and Sarah is bloody annoying as a character)…
    and at least the TX is better than the T1000…

    but when you say you are going to watch marvel movies because they are "worth my money" I am rather disappointing…

    they are NOT worth your money… the Winter Soldier is easily the "best one" of the last bucked of films and is the best one mainly because is something not "captain america"…the first one was horrible.
    both Thor Movies are crap, but the first one is at least likable.
    the last two spider-man are pure horror.
    Iron Man 3 is the biggest insult to the franchise they are supposed to be after.
    ALL X-Men movies are rubbish. with the last one being just idiotic…
    both Ghost Rider movies are ridiculous.
    both Punisher movies are rather bad…

    the ONLY good super hero movies of the recent years out there are the first two Raimi spider-man and the first two Iron Man movies.
    avengers is just BARELY good.

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