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Terminator Salvation: The only sequel that didn't ride the coattails of T1 & T2


It's surprising to say this, as my reaction to Salvation was pretty "meh" at the time and hasn't changed much since. Sam "cardboard" Worthington didn't help sell me on it either. While not a great film, I have to say to its credit that it was the only Terminator sequel that wasn't largely derivative or otherwise piggybacking off of T1 & T2. It may not have been a great film overall but it at least tried to stand on its own to branch out & move past the first two films.

It was a legit attempt to expand the franchise and move forward with it even if it didn't didn't quite work out.

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Christian Bale (coming hot off the biggest movie of all time), Michael Ironside, (ok no Arnold as he's playing politics but they gonna show him somehow at the end with CG getting made), the future war (so you gonna see the Cameron blue night wastelands/purple laser fire right), and since its future war its all gonna be dark & disturbing like those scenes from T1/2 so obviously gonna mean R rated right (unlike the recent Die Hard 4)

How can that go wrong?

Well.. you completely waste Bale and Ironside in a dud of a script that focusing on some random new character played by the soon to be Avatar dude (but no one knows who he is yet), you make Arnie look like a cartoon and quickly have to shed his skin, you ditch the magical blue night wastelands and instead make it look like a bland washed out MadMax, you introduce Transformer terminators (becuz TF is all cool and making big BO), you make it PG13 (like TF), oh and you get McG from Charles Angels to direct

And you make it boring

That's Salvation for you

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Yeah, still a horrible film. TS taught them that 'doing something new' doesn't work and they should rather stick to old formula.

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The problem wasn't that they did something new. It was just that they didn't execute it very well. Two mediocre "back to formula" films since Salvation (Three overall if you count T3) and none of them have worked either.

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Bale didn't work as Connor he is a monster of acting, but he didn't work maybe he looked more like Batman than John Connor...I mean the hype of TDK was still very fresh and the trilogy wasn't over yet with TDKR coming out 3 years later anyway he was the best choice for the role I can't think someone better as John Connor maybe Mel Gibson if he was 10 younger (btw Gibson would've directed the shit out of a Terminator Future war movie)..
CGI Arnold was horrible I agree.Sam Worthington couldn't carry this film he doesn't have the screen presence and intimidation he is better on an ensemble movie like Hacksaw Ridge or as a supporting character and Avatar came out 6 months after you're right even Clash of the Titans which came out a year later ,I think Salvation would be more profitable if it had came out after these two and if it had 3D, I remember I hated Sam Worthington but today after all this woke bs on a retrospective he is fine not great but fine.
Anyway Salvation even though it was a very mainstream by the book and played safe blockbuster ,looks like a Terminator masterpiece compared to the blasphemous Woke Fate it wasn't that horrible 7/10

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You're on to something.

It's like the Star Wars prequels gaining traction / people saying they're "not so bad".

This generation's garbage makes the previous generation's garbage seem more palatable to those from the generation before that.

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'Terminator' Salvation? I can only remember Throwinator Salvation.

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I remember that being so frustrating to watch, asking myself why the Terminators kept nonsensically grabbing and throwing people. I guess it just wasn't able to overcome its PG-13 programming. No punching holes through people allowed.

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Just the fact that it broke formula doesn't make it good. They could have made a two hour movie of a T-800 trying to take a crap. That would have broken the formula too....

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I didn't say it was good. I thought I was pretty clear about that. The only credit I gave the film was that it tried to take the series forward instead of retreading T1 & T2 even though the film turned out to be at best "so so" overall.

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I was excited as anyone at the prospect of a new Terminator movie with original actors and Cameron but now I don't think the franchise needed to go forward. 1 and 2 were as good as it's gets and less than stellar sequels have proven it's a story best told once.

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T3 was fun. The rest of the sequels sucked.

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I’ve never thought Terminator: Salvation was a bad movie. Nothing great, but it was a good quick fun solid action movie. And it was also the only movie in the Terminator franchise to actually try something different after Terminator 2. 99% of the complaints at the time came from a lack of Arnold’s presence, which is INCREDIBLY ironic because now everyone is mocking T:DF for actually having Arnold?

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99% of the complaints at the time came from a lack of Arnold’s presence, which is INCREDIBLY ironic because now everyone is mocking T:DF for actually having Arnold

Just another proof that stupid people are never happy being stupid.

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A film either works or it doesn’t.

You can try to break formula, but it has to work.

At the end, you go to these movies to be entertained.

Salvation was boring. Heck, it was one of the safest post apocalyptic worlds I had seen. Plus, none of the characters were interesting.

Dark Fate had it’s issues and lacked originality. But it was actioned packed and had likable characters.

As different as Salvation was, it was still inferior in quality to Dark Fate.

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