Terminator GENiSYS review.
Warning, there will be spoilers.
You have been warned.
Still here?
Ok, let’s begin.
Let me just say, that despite it’s many flaws, I love the
Terminator franchise. I have ever since
I saw the original Terminator, when I was far too young to be allowed to see an
R-rated movie mind you, but hey it was the 80s and my grandparents slept in
late.
I still consider the original Terminator to be one of the
best sci-fi-action-thrillers ever put on screen. It is a tightly written causal loop time
travel story, that is made even moreso by the scenes cut from the theatrical
release. In those scenes we see Kyle
Reese dealing with being a man out of time, cliché, but was well done and
showed that Michael Beihn had some real acting chops. The other key scene was at the end where an
employee at the plant where the Terminator is destroyed shows the damaged arm
and chip to his friend, who then tells him to hide them, shuffling his friend
out of frame in time to show the cybverdine systems logo behind them. Had the franchise ended there all would be
right with the world. Terminator did not
need a sequel, nor did anyone really want one.
Some people call the movie’s ending bleak, but they forget that while
Judgement Day was coming, the war was won thanks to John Connor, otherwise
Reese and the Terminator would never have been sent back in time, and John
would not have been conceived.
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| There is a funny scene in the later half of the movie where they compare the heights of all the actors. Funny but not right for a Terminator Movie. |
I’ll discuss the other movies later, but let’s jump to
GENiSYS. (Yes I am writing it that way
for a reason, will get back to that later).
On the whole, it was a fun summer action movie, with plenty of cheesy
one liners, explosions enough to make Michael Bay’s mouth water, and gunplay to
satisfy your post July-4th need for action. It lacked the tension and the sense of
unrelenting doom that original Terminator brought to screen. On the whole, this soft reboot of the
franchise (which relies heavily on the viewer having seen the previous movies)
is what I would call a missed opportunity.
The movie opens with Kyle Reese’s Monologue about how his
future history, including Judgement Day and how he eventually meets John Connor
(played by Jason Clarke, he does a great job BTW for the most part). This is well done, but feels very much like a
book prologue, and on the whole, I prefer how the original handled this. It also throws out the continuity established
in Terminator Salvation for how John and Kyle meet. When John kills an early terminator, saving
Kyle, it is great, the Terminator in question doesn’t look like Arnold,
reinforcing that they don’t all look alike.
We then continue into the future war all the way up to the
final battle, where John Connor leads an assault on a Skynet work camp, instead
of the assault on the Skynet main core in Colorado. Kyle questions this, but John assures him that
there is a reason. All looks hopeless
when suddenly all the Terminators, Hunter Killers, etc… all shutdown Phantom
Menace style with the destruction of Skynet over a thousand miles away. But it’s too late, and a T-800 model 101 has
been sent back to 1984.
The resistance then takes the base and Kyle is sent back in
time. Ladies the following scenes are for you, naked Jai Courtney and CG naked
Arnold. However I must point something
out here. Michael Biehn was a wirey guy,
that fit the role of a man fighting for his life in the post-apoc, Jai Courtney
is a beefy bruiser, while he handled the role well, he had far too much muscle
mass for the role. This is where things
start to change. *** SPOILERS HERE
*** The biggest surprise, which wasn’t
shown in the trailers happens here. The
Doctor, I mean Matt Smith, or an all new terminator type, played by Matt Smith,
attacks John Connor just as Kyle begins to travel back in time. Kyle then proceeds to see two different
possible timelines, the one he grew up in, and one where Judgment day was
postponed 20 years. In the process, the
Kyle sees two pivotal events that will help him later.
 |
Your Four John Connor's to date:
Wheres the Beef, Chicken Sandwich, Whopper Junior, In 'N out 4x4. |
Kyle and the T-800 arrive in 1984, much like the
original. Only in the case the T-800 is
intercepted before getting his snazzy punker duds by an older T-800 who it
proceeds to get into a brawl with before someone with a Barret M82 50Cal Sniper
rifle drills a special round through the chest of the T-800. How they got hold of a gun that was only
introduced 4 years earlier is left unstated.
The CG Arnold is not terrible, and in most shots looks pretty good, not
entirely convincing, but close enough.
In too many shots it still looks very claylike with some serious uncanny
valley, which kind of works for the character.
 |
| The image on the left is from the trailer (it looks better in the final film) and the right from the original Terminator. Close, but not close enough. |
Meanwhile Kyle finds himself pursued by a T-1000 while he
steals some clothes from a homeless man.
He is arrested by two uniformed police officers during the chase. One is killed, while the other releases him
just before Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke, rocking more the T-2 Linda Hamilton
look that the T-1 poffy 80s hair) smashes into the clothing store in an armored
truck and saves him. “Come with me if
you want to live!”
 |
I know which Sarah Connor I prefer.
Two Games of Thrones Actresses play Sarah Connor, I wonder if they ever joke about that. |
Kyle is left obviously confused as to why meek little Sarah
Connor just saved him and has a Terminator guardian. There is a brief fight about this and a chase
by the T-1000 before they lead it back to a trap they’d been setting for it
since 1973. Seems that the older T-800
was sent back in time, by person’s unknown, to protect Sarah and raise her into
being a warrior woman. “Pops,” as she
has named him, has even briefed her on whole Kyle Reese will be to her, the
father of her future savior son, John Connor.
She has some very awkward talks with Pops about why she doesn’t immediately jump Kyle’s
bones, and there is definite tension between Kyle and Pops, not just because he
is a Terminator, but also some father-suitor issues going on.
The trio defeats the T-1000 by raining acid on it. I liked this bit, it was well done. They also melt down the younger T-800 in the
acid. Pops is damaged in the fighting
though with several facial scars and the flesh of his right hand melted away
before Sarah can treat it with an acid neutralizing Base solution. This hand was also damaged when fighting the
younger T-800, and will come back into play later.
Sarah and Pops then reveal their plans to Kyle. They have constructed a one-time use time machine
that will send them forward to 1997, so that they can destroy Skynet before
Judgement Day. Kyle correctly points out however that they have
now altered the timeline, and that now Skynet will go online in 2017 using a Trojan
Horse program called GENiSYS. This was
the first message he received from his younger self, the second is a hand
gesture he shows Sarah, one that only comes about because of the 1973 intervention
of Pops and the T-1000 (it had been hunting her for 10 years). This convinces her to jump forward to 2017
instead. Ladies more naked Jai Courtney,
gentlemen, it’s PG-13 so we get some above the butt backside of Emilia Clarke
only, go watch Game of Thrones if you want more.
Kyle and Sarah arrive in the middle of the San Francisco freeway,
disrupting traffic, a callout to the
Sarah Connor Chronicles. Pops was supposed
to meet them there, taking “the long road” and waiting for them for 33 years
preparing. He, unfortunately, gets
caught in traffic and they are arrested, and taken to a local hospital. There two detectives are told to process them
before homeland security arrives, but another detective, an older drunk detective
(JK Simmons) insists that there is something more about these two, he
recognizes Kyle. He even bursts in on
the interrogation and after revealing that he was the surviving beat cop from
1984, Kyle starts a ruckus and the detectives leave when told that Homeland has
arrives.
The Homeland Security agent turns out to be John
Connor. He helps the pair to escape as
Pops arrives at the Hospital with a giant teddy bear, and accidentally reveals
that he Kyle is his father. The quartet
meet back up in the parking garage where Pops attacks John with no explanation
before John gets back up and reveals himself to be, you guessed it a Terminator
(come on it was in the previews). John
is an all new type of Terminator created by Skynet at the very end that
replaces every cell in the person’s body with magnetically adhering
nanobots. A fight ensues and the trio
escape thanks to trapping John with an MRI machine.
I won’t spoil the rest, or reveal too much more about the
plot. Needless to say the heroes fight
to stop skynet going online. Cyberdyne has
created an app/OS called GENiSYS that links all electronic devices, phones,
tablets, computers, cars, even military hardware (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) and it goes
online in less than 24 hours. Once that
happens, and everyone downloads it, Skynet will come online and start Judgement
Day. The heroes eventually prevail and
destroy the Cyberdyne HQ, stopping GENiSYS from going online, and averting
Judgement Day, happy ending. I was told
later that there is an after credits scene with a server node comes back online and the holographic Skynet
is shown to be alive (can we please stop these stupid after credit’s scenes?).
All in all it was fun and as a straight action movie (with
too much comedy) would give it a Shield Rating of 77%.
The PG-13 rating really hurt this movie in a lot of ways,
and no not because of the lack of nudity or cussing. The PG-13 rating pushed the humor and forced
the removal of the blood and gore that made the earlier Terminator movies feel
so much more real and gave them that sense of dread. In all the earlier movies blood dripped off
the T-800s when they took damage. The
scene in T-2 when the Terminator rips the skin off its arm to reveal the blood
soaked metal beneath sells the scene.
There is none of that here and it hurts the movie as a result.
 |
| Look at all that gore. |
 |
| Bloody, bloody, bloody. |
 |
| Umm, that looks awfully clean for having half a face torn of 2 seconds ago. |
As a Terminator movie, and a time travel movie, I give it a Shield Rating of
42%.
I was hoping this would be a full on reboot of the series
and it really could have been. Keeping
just the primary elements of the story this could have been done very well and
could have formed a nice Causal Loop story.
The Comedy in it, while funny, was in appropriate to the tone of what a
Terminator Movie is supposed to be. T-2
started introducing the Comedy, but it was delivered in an uncomfortable way
that reminded the audience of the dire nature of the situation. The whole tone of the movie was too light
hearted to be Terminator.
 |
| That Smile is pretty terrifying though. |
The movie could have easily been made into a true reboot
with just some minor changes:
#1. Erase the
original timeline, just throw it out, no more 1984 attack, no more 1997 Skynet.
Done, kaput, no more. The Star Trek reboot should never be taken as
the format by which to reboot all franchises.
The New Battlestar Galactica had it right, start fresh, make some slight
nods to the original and move on.
#2. Modernize the
whole thing. There is a great line in
the movie about how they can find nothing the system on Sarah Connor, no
fingerprints, no facial recognition through Social Media, etc… Take that idea and run with it and
incorporate that into some good social commentary.
#3. Keep Pops, I
liked him actually but send him back to 2007 to rescue young Sarah Connor, right when Social Media was
starting to come into being and before the pervasive use of smart phones.
#4. In 2017 Sarah
Connor come back into play, she is spotted on Social Media when she and Pops
come out of hiding and start their bid to take down Skynet.
#5. Multiple
Terminators are sent back to stop her and ensure the creation of Skynet as
well.
#6. The resistance
still wins in the future and sends back Kyle.
Once Kyle is sent back John then orders another T-800-101 out of storage
before something attacks him, maybe even show another model terminator attack
him.
#7. The rest can move along much for
the movie, did but remove the comedy, or make it darker, this a serious and
dark story. Have Sarah save Kyle, the
uncomfortable bit with Pops, all that and make some real social commentary about
too much inter-connectivity in devices.
#8. Instead of the birth
of GENiSYS causing Judgment from the start show/explain that the Skynet
consciousness evolves from it, and eventually blackmails the military into
installing into their weapon systems, or installing Skynet.
#9. This is the
important part, have them fail to stop Genisys, let them blow up the main site,
only to see the countdown continue and the altered John Terminator reveal that
there was more than one server location before it dies.
#10. Show the
survivors escape back into the wild, with shots taken from various social
media, and CCTV sources. Maybe even show
Sarah as pregnant and agonizing over whether or not to tell him what will
happen to him, if it even really was him and not some kind of copy. Include messages they post to the web about
not trusting GENiSYS or Skynet, warnings that allow people to escape and get
out of the line of fire once Judgment Day comes.
#11. Final bit, maybe
make this an in credits (not post credits scene). Fast forward through Judgmetn Day and the war
back to the time travel device, after the attack that “kills John.”
Show another group of resistance fighters arrive and retake the time
machine, their leader ( a woman) orders the second T-800-101 readied to be reprogrammed
and sent back, also show her grieving the loss of John. This could be an older Sarah or possibly John’s
future wife.
*** BONUS ROUND ***
This next bit is cribbed from a conversation I had on a discussion board about the Terminator Franchise but explains my thoughts on the individual entries.
I grew up watching a version of the Terminator my G-Pa got that had the cut scenes at the end (back in the 80s) that showed how the whole plot was a casual loop, and how skynet planned to bring about its creation even with the death of Sarah and John. The reveal that the final battle took place at Cyberdine, and that those parts of the terminator survived forms the basis for the creation of Skynet. Even if the terminator were successful, it likely would have self destructed at Cyberdine in order to ensure the creation of Skynet.
T2 threw the causal loop out the window with its ending, and no one in the movie ever mentions it. Even the cut scenes didn't help matters, there is no reason to ever create the time machine to ensure John Conner's birth and even if you did, they would have to send a terminator and a brainwashed Kyle Reese back in time to do so, to ensure John grows up the right way. Taken on its own T2 can be a good, fun illogical (lets change the past) sci-fi action movie, but it fails as a sequel to a true Causal loop storyline, and also breaks some of the rules established by T1.
T3, I view as a poor attempt to try and correct the timeline. It shows that somehow the Cyberdine tech survived, and all they managed to do was delay Judgement Day. It could have been done better, with a better John Connor, but it tried to correct the issues left by T2. Even then it leaves massive plot holes, especially in regards to why Kyle tells Sarah certain dates for Judgement Day, that obviously are wrong.
T4. This movie should have saved the franchise. They jump forward, have an awesome cast, and show us the future war. Unfortunately it was saddled with bad plotting and a terrible director that just bogged the whole thing down. The root story should have worked, and some nice twists could have been worked in, but the fact that Skynet knew who Kyle Reese was ruined things. All the new terminators, especially the giant one, just made no sense and screwed with things. If it had just been the story of how John C rose to power as the leader of the resistance, and met Kyle it would have been great. It maybe could have even introduced or foreshadowed the T-800 at the end, or showed early T-600 infiltration attempts, instead of making them those lumbering oversized humanoids. A proper sequel, or two, would have shown the resistance coming full force against the T-800 infiltrators, and getting their butts handed to them before turning the tide and making the final push on Skynet HQ. The last movie could then end with showing Kyle travel back in time to save Sarah, along with any other Terminator(s) that are sent back.
What people tend to forget with the original Terminator, is that by having Sarah/John live, we win the war. Yes, Judgement Day is coming, and that is a dark immediate future, but John will save humanity from Skynet, and the only reason he can is because he defeats Skynet before the movie begins. Sending the Terminator back in time was a last ditch effort by Skynet because it had to know the risks of doing so, and possibly knew it had to do so no matter what. Kyle getting sent back is because the human defeated Skynet and so they send him to ensure that John will be born, live and be there to defeat Skynet.
