O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!
This movie was awful from the very start. A goddamn
exposition monologue explaining the premise of the series?! In the
fifth freaking movie?! WHAT THE F*** -
Cutting back and forth between 1984 and the machine-war present? Who in their right mind would
do that?
Opening credits playing over dramatic and important scenes?! Look, assholes, either do opening credits over something atmospheric, like
T2's burning playground, or
don't do opening credits at all. I dunno, maybe I'm being hypocritical here, because I think
T3's opening credits totally work, but while they also play over important scenes, those scenes are also mostly familiar to us as fans (time-traveling, acquiring clothes, etc.), so the distraction isn't a big deal, and the overall direction is far better. With
Genisys, the scenes are new, and it doesn't work at all.
(I really thought for a minute J.K. Simmons was gonna be Dr. Silberman. That would actually have been a
fun twist, unlike the completely pointless token minority castings Dysons cameos. Of all the movie's twists, it
doesn't go with that one?! I mean, sure, it wouldn't make any sense with the character as we know him, but nothing
else in the movie makes a damn iota of sense, so why the hell
not?! Even so, Simmons is pretty much the only good thing about the movie, with even Arnie being completely wasted.)
I'm not gonna spend much time nitpicking the movie, because it's total and utter garbage, with pure-shit dialogue, rotten story points, and everything is terrible and fuck it all and STOP MAKING MORE
TERMINATOR;
T1 is a classic,
T2 is one of my top five all-time favorite movies and I also love
T3 as a sheer popcorn entertainment (at least it has the dignity to be hard-R, with some legit gore, strong direction and
good acting), but THE GODDAMN COLD WAR IS OVER, and therefore THIS SERIES HAS NO MORE REASON TO EXIST, PERIOD, ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS TOTALLY AND NON-DEBATABLY ABSOLUTELY WRONG.
But I
am gonna bring up one point.
I was born and raised in the
City and County of San Francisco.
I love San Francisco. It's my home, and I'm very proud of it.
I'm also proud of our rich cinematic history, from
The Maltese Falcon to
Vertigo to
Dirty Harry,
Milk,
Zodiac, and beyond.
I also think San Francisco should be in more movies. Granted, it's gotten a lot of starring roles lately, and even when movies I have no interest in are set there - like the new
Apes series, nu-
Godzilla, and more - I like and appreciate that.
And I love
Terminator 1-
3.
So I think I'm being fairly objective and clear-eyed here when I say HOLY LIVING FUCK, DO NOT EVER,
EVER, SET A TERMINATOR MOVIE IN SAN FRANCISCO! WHAT THE FUCK IS
WRONG WITH YOU?!
San Francisco is a gem of Planet Earth. It's one of the world's most beautiful cities. It's a very educated, very progressive place. It is the HOME OF
STARFLEET ACADEMY, the BEATING HEART of the
United Federation of Planets. I am very, very proud of this, fiction as it is. (And inspired by the fact that the UNITED NATIONS Charter was signed there, in '45. The UNITED NATIONS, people. PEACE and HARMONY among HUMANKIND.) Okay?
TERMINATOR IS A GODDAMN
LOS ANGELES STORY. In its endless sprawl, oppressive heat, pollution and all that, it's GODDAMN IMPORTANT for
TERMINATOR to take place in LA because LA is ALREADY kind of dystopic and dehumanizing and all that. LA is very
large; SF - at least the downtown/urban parts - is quite
small. SF represents the light; LA represents the dark. LA is also directly adjacent to desert, which is also important; whereas SF is adjacent to evergreen forests, massive bays and estuaries, and pleasant, smallish towns. Even
T3 understood this completely, and stuck to LA and its surroundings as it should have.
SO, DON'T SET A GODDAMN
TERMINATOR MOVIE in
MY SAN FRANCISCO, SHITBAGS. JUST
DON'T FUCKING DO IT. NO. NO, NO,
NO.
...
...
(Now, am I saying one
can't set a dark/dystopic movie in SF/the Bay Area? No, I am not. I kind of love that
The Matrix Reloaded basically places the virtual Megacity in/as Oakland. And sure, there is good satire/sci-fi paranoia to be made out of our digital/Cloud-dependent culture, which is also based in and around SF, but goddamn it,
Terminator is a
Cold War story, based in
Los Angeles.
Christ.)
(
And, if you're gonna send someone forward in time to SF, how about targeting, oh, THE GODDAMN
BEACH? The one that's
MANY MILES LONG?! Or GOLDEN FRICKING GATE PARK? HELLO?
MCFLY?!)
This gets the same grade as
Tomorrowland.: an
F.
(And if I'd actually sat through
Vacation, I'd have seen
three F's in the base theater this year.
Jeeeeeeeezus.)
TM2YC said:
- Big gaps in the story unless I missed something? Who sent Pops back? How/when did John get back? Who sent the South Korean T-1000 back?
Exactly. Burn this movie to pieces. May it kill this festering unholy zombie franchise once and for all.