Flounders On Film

John Connor: So… she’s an anti-Terminator Terminator? You’ve got to be shitting me.
T-800: No, I am not shitting you.

So let’s start by looking at the things we don’t like, shall we?

1) The T-X, The Terminatrix; whatever you want to call her. A failure on several levels. First, Kristanna Loken doesn’t bring to the role any of the menace or sheer iconic cool of Robert Patrick in T2 and Arnie before him. She’s also too advanced, in that Terminators aren’t supposed to be able bring moving parts through time (a fact well-established in the earlier films), but yet she’s firing laser cannons through her arms. No way – it’s ‘knives and stabbing weapons’ only. It also makes a mockery of the struggle. You worried that Arnold couldn’t beat the T-1000 in Terminator 2, but here, he doesn’t stand a chance. She’d destroy him in seconds.

2) The tone is far too light and some of the comedy almost camp. Yes, Terminator 2 was far lighter than part 1, but where they cracked the door ajar in T2, T3 blundered right through it to make a family-friendly version of the saga. Hopefully Terminator Salvation this summer will redress the balance.

3) Nick Stahl aint John Connor. He acts well, does his job professionally (and even has some nice chemistry with Claire Danes), but he simply aint John Connor. Edward Furlong is. I know he and Stahl have both played the character the same amount of times, but it is what it is. I hope Christian Bale can make me forget that fact, but we’ll see.

4) There are some unfortunate flourishes forced in to remind us that this really (honestly!) is a Terminator film. First off, Earl Boen’s cameo as Dr Silberman – first time you see it, it’s a nice touch, but on re-watching it’s a travesty. It turns the character into a joke and the unlikelihood of him being in that cemetery for that shoot-out doesn’t even bear thinking about. Also to be filed under this is John Connor trying to jog the T-800’s memory by saying “Hasta la vista, baby” – I cannot even express how much I hate this one line. Stahl’s seems embarrassed to be saying it, but who can blame him? We and he KNOW it’s a different robot. We and he KNOW there’s loads of them that look like Arnold. This line (shoe-horned in) serves only to make the audience groan and the character look stupid, or maybe that he’s not been paying attention. To his own life.

5) The ‘emotional’ climax for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800, where he is re-programmed by the T-X to kill John Connor, but somehow overrides this in order to stick to his original mission of saving him. What? Are we meant to interpret that the Arnie robot is somehow intrinsically good and likes people? And especially likes John Connor? Or is it that he has learned morality in the brief time he’s been back in our time? This is possibly worse than Clark Kent fighting Evil Superman in Superman III. There’s no defending it. It’s a bad idea. In T2, John learned to see the robot as a father figure, but that was because of his robotic qualities of consistency and honesty. The T-800 is NOT a good person deep down. He’s a Terminator who has been programmed to defend rather than kill. That’s all.

And yet, and yet, why do I like this film. Why will I defend it and open myself to the castigation of friends and well-wishers?

First off, it’s a Terminator film. It’s canon. And this isn’t a Tim Burton’s Batman situation where it’s more than easy to pretend Joel Schumacher didn’t happen. Kate Brewster (as Connor’s wife) is now resolutely part of the series and the mythology around her and her father, widens and deepens that of the existing films in a way which I think is a genuinely interesting addition to the overall arc. The inevitability of Judgement Day and the new way in which Skynet is created (via the military and Kate’s father) is a neat variation on Miles Dyson and his boffins in T2.

However, it’s true to say that Robert Brewster and his gang will never mean what Dyson, etc means to me. Miles Dyson has become short-hand for a genius, inventor, overreacher, nutty professor, Prometheus; all of the above. The events of The Terminator and, especially, Terminator 2 are enshrined in my childhood-movie-memory-bank and their legacy is safe and untouchable by any modern re-imagining. They are my Yellow Brick Road, Rosebud and “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” (or rather, “We got Skynet by the balls now, don’t we?”) all rolled into one. However, if a non-Cameron third effort was needed (and I’m sure it wasn’t), I’m glad they did it like this. The series had been so set on the idea of “no fate but what we make” that it was intriguing to see the other viewpoint; that some things are set and we do have a destiny. After all, if John Connor is destined to be a great leader, surely it makes sense that his wife and children have destinies of their own? And that his wife’s destiny would intertwine with his at some point (whether aged 9, 23, whenever), no matter what. After two films, there has to be a shake-up in the way things are done. The first Terminator went after John Connor after he was born, the second when he was a child. This one posits the idea that the T-X is going after his future lieutenants (including Kate, his second in command) as John is living ‘off the grid’ and is therefore untraceable. Now this might not have great impact on the story (it’s still John Connor and Arnie on the run after all), but it’s a lovely little touch to begin the film and enough to get it a few more points on my internal scoreboard.

I have said that Nick Stahl is not John Connor for me, but this deserves some clarification in that I do think he does well in the part. He and Claire Danes have the thankless human roles of running and screaming, but they do it as well as anyone could. They hint at their future romance (think how weird it would be to know a total stranger is definitely going to be your future spouse and love of your life) without the film ever slowing down to get mushy and they do have some nice character moments amid all the mayhem. I particularly like Stahl’s hesitancy and shock over the knowledge of his own future-death and Danes’ clinical demand to know. In fact, the T-800’s explanation of Connor’s murder by him, achieved due to John’s childhood affection for the robot, is my favourite scene in the film.

Arnold Schwarzenegger deserves a mention as the heart and soul of this franchise (how WILL Salvation cope without him?) – yes, he definitely too old for this shit, but the guy’s still in good shape here and he’s so vital to the series that part 3 could not have been made without him. And it’s only right and fitting that this be his last starring role.

The single aspect where I’d argue that Part 3 exceeds the other entries in the series is in its ending. Parts 1 & 2 both end in much the same way. The Terminator is defeated, the hero has sacrificed himself to the cause and Sarah Connor looks towards the future with cautious optimism. Not here. John and Kate realise that they have been sent (by Kate’s father) not to shut down Skynet as they believed, but in fact to a hideout, a nuclear bunker, to protect themselves from the titular Rise of the Machines. Judgement Day is inevitable, the war will happen and it’s the beginning of the end. This bleak, almost apocalyptic ending, is very unusual in a 12A blockbuster and the courage on the part of the film-makers should be applauded.

Finally, judged on its own merits (and not the merits of its two illustrious predecessors), it’s a damn fine action film, with neat set-pieces (John Connor being locked inside the animal cage, Sarah Connor’s coffin being full of weapons) and smash-ups on a big scale (the crane chase). Simply put, it is fun to watch and never for one moment am I bored or restless when watching the film, which I’ve seen several times now. It delivers as an action movie throughout and whilst it will always be the weakest of the Terminator films (unless McG really screws up this summer), there’s definitely a place in my heart for the little film no one wanted.

Role on part 4.