Terminator Genisys (2015)

[J Riff]

Some spoilage.
Didn't like it. Wanted to, and it had all the makings; Arnie, liquid metal guy, new black flake terminator... thousands of rounds fired, helicopter battles, explosions, time machine, you-name-it.
Plot? Ridiculous. John Connor and his pal are destroying Skynet in the future, palsky goes back to stop the madness, meets Sarah, turns out John is their kid... uh, uhm...Skynet is 'alive'... its a hologram of a mean little kid... er, well it's pretty twisted, and it all fits, sort of, into the non-stop run and gun FX.... but feh. Terminator movies are all about 'keep running and keep shooting' and this one is no different. Arnie is good as Arnie.

 

[Vince W]

You're not the only one who didn't like it. With the exception of a few scenes with Arnold there is little to redeem this film. By the end of this film I want Skynet to win.

 

[J Riff]

It is an annoying little Skynet, isn't it? But the action is acceptable, which is really all we need from a Terminator flim. Sure, twist time all you like, it still boils down to 'it's coming, it will-not-stop, but shoot it a million times anyway.' I enjoyed that part.

 

[Mark Ragland]

The local newspaper review that I read said that the plot had potholes galore in it.

 

[kaufmannp]

The movie had potential, I think, but it was bogged down by too many random plot threads that didn't end up tying together. I don't know what that means for the proposed trilogy. What I find disappointing is that I felt that Terminator Salvation was a perfectly serviceable story; it was planned as a new trilogy of films as well, until being panned by critics.
Everyone wants T2 all over again, as if lightening can be bottled.

 

[BigBadBob141]

I haven't thought much of them since T2, should of finished there !

 

[ralphkern]

Grumble. A wasted opportunity. This movie had some great moments in it. Some individual scenes were great, but they didn't fit into one cohesive whole.

 

[kaufmannp]

Yeah cohesive is about as far from descriptive of this movie as one could get.

 

[REBerg]

I think it was an entertaining romp. I enjoyed it much more than Terminator Salvation.

It was great to see Arnie getting back into his signature role – while he can still do it without a walker.

I was amazed at what a waif Emilia Clarke is. I thought she was some kid when she made her first scene appearance. She seems much taller as Daenerys. She did a great job with her American accent.

Yeah, the plot was a confused, jumbled mess, but that sort of goes with the whole traveling back in time concept.

Spoiler

In this case, jumping back, then forward, made things even worse.

I had to laugh, though, at the Terminator model traffic jam-- original Arnie, old Arnie and a new T-1000 -- Reese encountered at the original jumpback point. Nicknaming the “old, but not obsolete” T-800 “Pops” also struck me as funny. It really cracked me up when Arnie delivered the obligatory “I'll be back,” and Emilia countered with “What?”

 

[ralphkern]

As I say, some individual moments were excellent. The T800 vs T800 fight was awesome. In fact most of the first act was fun, interesting and coherent. It's just later it loses it.

 

[Dave]

Despite these poor reviews, I might still go and see this tomorrow. I know! I can't help myself! They should have ended with T2: Judgement Day as it was a great film with a "bookend" ending, but they didn't. I actually liked the Terminator Salvation story but they are working the metaphorical mine to exhaustion now.

 

[REBerg]

Despite these poor reviews, I might still go and see this tomorrow. I know! I can't help myself! They should have ended with T2: Judgement Day as it was a great film with a "bookend" ending, but they didn't. I actually liked the Terminator Salvation story but they are working the metaphorical mine to exhaustion now.

Just turn off your logic circuit, along with your cellphone.

 

[ralphkern]

If you view it less as a movie, and more of a montage of excellent short action set pieces, you'd probably enjoy it more. Due to modern special effects, it is the first time we see Terminators battling as was probably envisaged.

It is similar to say, Aliens V Predator Requiem - over all a naff film, but the aliens were at their most impressive in terms of how they moved and actual on-screen presence. (notwithstanding a lot of their menace came from the fact in previous movies there was only ever glimpses of them until the end)

 

[Dave]

Okay, well first of all, I think the continuity regarding timelines was pretty good on the whole. Someone at least sat down and drew them out to try to get the film to work (which no one did for Aliens V Predators Requiem.) It just means that the timeline in the first two films is extinguished, and that of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. It is difficult given that there have been so many different actors playing parts, and also Arnie ages a lot more in his first 20 years as Sarah Connor's Terminator guardian than he does in the next 31. It hardly looks like he aged at all. Quite a Game of Thrones crossover going on now with Lena Headley and Emilia Clarke. You don't need to explain where all these different Terminators are coming from because they come from another timeline, and making John Connor into the bad guy Terminator was unexpected.

I may be being thick again, but my problem was that I didn't understand why the Terminators couldn't time travel. The time travel machine was designed by Skynet to send them back in time, so why can only humans survive. I've probably forgotten something that was previously explained.

 

[REBerg]

I may be being thick again, but my problem was that I didn't understand why the Terminators couldn't time travel. The time travel machine was designed by Skynet to send them back in time, so why can only humans survive. I've probably forgotten something that was previously explained.

I think the thing about the Skynet time travel device is that everything transported has to be covered in flesh, hence the naked requirement. Maybe Arnie had too much metal showing due to damage sustained in his fight with original Arnie to make the trip.

I don't know if Terminators can travel forward as well as backward in time. In the movie, I think the machine had a one-shot power issue when they were heading for 2017. Taking the "long way" had the additional plot advantage of giving Pops 30 years to find and equip his bat cave with a nice arsenal.

 

[Dave]

Looking into this more and remembering what Arnie said in the film:

The time time displacement machine only allows living tissue and mimetic polyalloy to be sent backward and forward in time. It is definitely forward in time too, because they went forward in the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series. Now Arnie actually said that his skin was too damaged to travel and would take too long to heal, but he might have meant that he would stand out in the crowd too much in the future, rather than he would die in the machine. Inside his flesh, he is mimetic pollyalloy so I can't see the problem - as I said, the time machine was designed to send a T-800 through time, not a human.

Now the John Connor Terminator T-3000 was not living tissue - his tissue had been "converted at a cellular level" (this was said about three times in the film so it must be very important.) Maybe this is why he was killed by the magnetic field inside the time machine. It looked like he was made of metallic nanites. Arnie's T-800 was thrown out while they fought, so he isn't relevant.

The only problems with that theory are that the T-1000 look pretty metallic to me and they can certainly time travel - several have done. Secondly, when he got stuck to the NMR machine he recovered from that magnetic field okay. However, the biggest problem is that the John Connor T-3000 Terminator had to have time travelled back to 1997 at some point in order to have helped build the Cyberdyne corporate enterprise.

I've found this useful Terminator Wiki website and if you read that they also cannot explain it either:

as they do not possess living tissue, it is unclear how they can be transported.

Then they try to make up some weak excuses.

It is probably best not to think about it any more.

 

[REBerg]

It is probably best not to think about it any more.

Amen to that.
Time travel is convoluted enough without throwing in conditions which must be met. Let's just look it as entertainment, and let the nuts and bolts behind it slide.

 

[ralphkern]

The only answer I found for the T1000 metallic time travel plot hole was the fact the polymemetic alloy could either simulate human flesh as far as the time travel machine was concerned (or negated whatever characteristic of non living material was the problem). Not a clue where I read it... but probably den of geek which is where I tend to find these nuggets as they like to go for cannon sources.

Either way, I agree with Dave's sage wisdom.

 

[Dave]

Sorry, I didn't want to bang on about this but that explanation, while fine for the T1000, doesn't explain the John Connor Terminator being in 2017.

When they arrive in 2017 and meet John Connor back from the future they initially don't know he is a Terminator so it isn't questioned. He was created by Matt Smith when the real John Connor died in the future, but he has obviously been around in the past for a while, probably since 1997. How did he go back in time? If he went back in the machine, why can't he go in the machine again now?

 

[JoanDrake]

"I really hate temporal mechanics" Captain Janeway