Today is the 14th anniversary of “Terminator 2: Judgment
Day”. With the exception of “The Phantom
Menace”, I can’t think of any other film that I was so stoked about
seeing. At that point in my life, I had
a huge hard on for anything James Cameron did, as he was a movie making god in
my mind and with all the previews and advance buzz, I just knew T2 was going to
end up being a religious experience for me.
And lo and behold…it WAS! Unlike “Phantom
Menace”, T2 lived up to all my expectations and more. I was so entranced with that film that I
ended up seeing it at least a couple dozen times that summer.
Flash forward to last night, as I was walking into the
theater to purchase a ticket for “Terminator: Genisys “, I was thinking about
how I was feeling the total opposite of how I felt going into T2. I came into this film with the lowest of
expectations based on lackluster previews and less than stellar reviews. Afterwards, as the end credits hit the
screen, my first thought was not only how truly awful the film was, but also how
I would never watch this again, even if my life depended on it.
The film seems to want to be a “soft reboot” and, much like
J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek”, the film quickly goes about trying to set up a whole
new timeline so the franchise can have a fresh start, all while still retaining
its continuity. My question is which
continuity and which timeline are we rebooting?
The film is so mired in all of these ridiculous time travel paradoxes to
where none of it makes any sense and only made my head hurt. I get that this is an alternate timeline to
T1, but T2 is never fully acknowledged neither are the events of T3 and T4 as
well. But then again, those latter two
sequels were also “alternate timelines”, as was the entire television series, “Terminator:
The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, so that makes this film the FOURTH time the
franchise has been rebooted then.
And if you’re going to “reboot” so as to hopefully bring in
younger viewers to the fold, wouldn’t you do it a way where it isn’t so grafted
onto the original film? Even as ardent a
fan as I am of the first two films, I had no idea what was going on, so how
could anyone new to the franchise follow it (and thanks to the PG-13 rating, I
saw a lot of kids in my screening)? The
film is just a mess with all of its many plot holes, to where all I could do
was sit there and wonder, “If they travelled back in time to go to one
timeline, how would they end up in another?”
“Who sent this version of Arnold?” “Who sent the T-1000 to the alternate timeline
of the first film?” “How does Reese remember two different timelines of his
past?” “How does Skynet seemingly see
all of the different timelines?”
The real question though is, “Why make this movie at all?” I don’t think people were clamoring for yet
another “Terminator” sequel about another terminator travelling back in time and
once again establishing alternate timelines, forcing our heroes to once again
have to stop Skynet from becoming self aware.
Nor did they want to see their favorite characters replaced by such dull
actors (and those actors that weren’t dull, like J.K. Simmons & Matt Smith
being criminally underused) and the one star they do bring back, playing a
robot pushing 70. Nor did they want to
see some of the worst CGI effects muddying some rather uninspired action
sequences (this film really exemplifies the need for studios to start cutting
back on their over reliance on CG effects and start using more practical ones
again, much the way “Mad Max: Fury Road” did).
Unlike 14 years ago today, where I was so ecstatic to see the return of
the “Terminator” franchise and was shouting it’s praises from the rooftops,
this time I left the theater praying that Arnold & this series as a whole won’t
“be back’.
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