Ok, the following is a must-read. We all have our reasons as to why Terminator Salvation wasn’t phenomenal, to some it was disappointing. But check out this brief review of McG’s movie, via UGO, by the man who brought us the first 2 Terminator films, James Cameron and I think his statement is dead-on…
I think Sam [Worthington] is remarkable in the film because, well, I think Sam is remarkable in anything he does. Interestingly, I think McG did a good job in the sense…I think he was almost too referential to the mythos of the first and second film. He over-quoted them in a way? It didn’t feel to me to be enough of a reinvention. I mean the thing we did with the second film is that we reinvented the first film completely; spun it on its ass and made the Terminator the good guy, and came up with a whole new concept for a villain, it felt fresh. I didn’t feel the fourth picture was fresh enough. It also lacked a certain stamp of authenticity because Arnold wasn’t in it. I mean, he was in it briefly, digitally, but that’s not the same thing.
I didn’t think it was bad. I didn’t think it was embarrassing. I don’t think he let the franchise down in some huge way, but I did feel some sort of unease that it didn’t go beyond.
Preach it, Cameron, preach it!
McG’s fault is that he tried too hard to please the fans that he didn’t make Terminator Salvation as something of his own. It wants to connect to the mythology so badly that it didn’t stand out as anything unique or memorable.
But you can only expect so much from McG anyway.
In McG’s *slight* defense, it’s honestly hard to redo a franchise like this. In my opinion, the franchise should have stopped after the second one and I still think Salvation was better than Rise of the Machines.
I think it was good that there was definitely some reference to the first two, but yeah, James probably had it spot on that it wasn’t enough of it’s own movie. Then again, is there anything that *anyone* can do to hold a candle to the first two?