Terminator 3 Thoughts, Oppinions, Comments

[Pedro]

You know you're actually right, I'd never looked at it that way, the fact he bumped into her on judgment day is what made her a target in the first place. Wow thanks Q that was bugging me in a big way.

 

[ChanceKell]

T3 has minimalistic music, yes, now whilst the first two terminators were minimalist when there was an emotion to be had they had a appropriate music in both tense and action scenes, all that seemed to be present in T3s action scenes and tense moments were the sound effects, I find these are the most crucial places for music, you need some kind of constant to counteract the overwhelming barrage of sounds.

I would have preferred little or no music to the constant drums or loud horns that seem to take over action music scores.

True although there still is an element of conincidence there, its best if one actions follows on logically from the last.

Yeah, there was no real hint for the T-X that John would go to SkyNet.

I meant the very presence of the paticle accelerator, theres only a few on the planet and they're mostly for study, I'm not sure what practical military use they have.

Don't forget: That's the military facility that's been inventing and designing new types of computers, alloys, energies, and robots for years now.

God no that death was so cheesy, if bratt kid and insane steroid mom hadn't already ruined it then that scene did, T2 was boiled down to a much lesser movie thanks to the character (or lack thereof)...

...Little biased?

No the bullets produced no blood most of the time, this really reminded you that it was just a film, I'm squeemish but bullet blood spatters I can watch and are neccessary imo.

There wasn't that many people getting shot in this movie or the last (except the SkyNet office). The only people who could bleed were either thrown across rooms or shot behind desks.. I do prefer that there isn't unecessary gore. But didn't that scene where the T-800 rips off his chest the least bit squeemish?

You know you're actually right, I'd never looked at it that way, the fact he bumped into her on judgment day is what made her a target in the first place.

Other way around. T-X was sent back to get John's future liutenants.

 

[Pedro]

John didn't goto Skynet, he went to some 30 year old bunker, which he was tricked into thinking was skynet when it was nothing of the sort, how would the T-X know he would be lied to?

Which one of those military inventions would require a particle accelerator (btw good thing john didn't have fillings )

I can't be biased against T2 more so than T1, both are just films to me, its just I didn't care if any of the characters in T2 died, save maybe Dyson and his family.

Skynet office was EXACTLY what I was reffering to when I talked about the lack of blood. Anyway a few gross out scenes add to fear, watching the terminator as they fail to react to what they've just done.

And what I was saying about John bumping into her on Judgement day being WHY she was hunted is very much valid, if the T-X hadn't shown up connor would have spent the day with her right until the nukes, they'd have gotten to know eachother and thus that meeting sparked her BECOMING one of the lieutenants the T-X was after.

 

[Wedge009]

I'm not sure where you people are going with this John-Kate thing.

...that death was so cheesy, if [a brat] kid and [his] insane steroid mom hadn't already ruined it then that scene did, T2 was boiled down to a much lesser movie thanks to the character (or lack thereof) and that scene, it had the potential to be greater than the first.

That's your opinion. I felt the T-800 allowing itself to be destroyed in T2 was quite emotionally impacting.

No the bullets produced no blood most of the time, this really reminded you that it was just a film, I'm [squeamish] but bullet blood spatters I can watch and are neccessary imo.

Speaking of blood spattering, I didn't even like the spraying blood when the T-X chopped up Kate's fiancé.

A movie should first and foremost be entertainment, so for me the comedy was spot on.

Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean comedy. Plus the Terminator films are supposed to be primarily action films, not comedies. Of course, there's nothing with the odd joke, I just felt there was a little too much levity in T3.

Thats more about [not?] letting yourself enjoy it than it not actually being any good...

No, no, no, I still enjoyed T3, and I'd watch it again, but I was disappointed with how it turned out compared to the T1 and T2.

 

[Pedro]

T-800 allowing himself to be killed failed to be emotionally impacting, lets forget Arnie couldn't express an emotion if he wanted to he was just a machine and couldn't so with his only witnesses being the bratt kid and steroid mom I couldn't care if I tried. A machine killing its self infront of 2 people less human than machines, big woop.

Aren't you a bit squeemish to be watching the terminator movies then? Or even watching the intro to WC3?

Entertainment doesn't necessarily mean comedy, but its a form of entertainment, in this case a very effective one, yes I felt the balance was changed from the previous films but I can live with that since I was having such a great time

Finally the thing about letting yourself enjoy it I was talking about the ending rather than the whole film. Personally I too still preffer 1 and 2 but they're both in the top 250 films of all time at IMDB, for sci-fi action movies thats damn impressive, I didn't think it was likely a 3rd could live upto that.

 

[Wedge009]

About the T2 ending, I suppose everyone has their own opinion.

Yes, I probably am squeamish, but that's just me. If the blood and what-not is just there, I'll watch it, but if I knew there's too much of it beforehand, I'd probably try to avoid it. I remember seeing Species at a friend's place when I was 15, I really didn't like that (but maybe that's 'cause I don't really like horror movies).

 

[Ijuin]

A movie should first and foremost be entertainment, so for me the comedy was spot on

Yeah, I loved the "Talk to the hand" gag--when the stripper says it to Arnold, Arnie grabs the hand and speaks into it. Then later, when Arnold is grabbing snacks at the gas station, and the clerk tries to make him pay for the stuff, Arnold says "talk to da hand" to him.

The other running gag I liked was with the sunglasses (T-800 has to have shades of course). He tried on the ones he got from the stripper, but they were no good. Then, when he starts up the pickup truck, he finds a better pair there, and he puts them on, and we're thinking "yeaaah".

 

[steampunk]

Actually the part about controlling cars isn't as far fetched as it might seem. If you were to pull apart a modern car you'll find that basically all the systems are controlled electronically. The most popular method at the moment is a system called the CAN bus. Or Controller Area Network. It is basically 3 long wires with nodes. A typical bus. So microcontrollers do things like regulate the engine, switch on lights, controll the airbags, ABS and now-a-days the DVD and LCD screen for the kids.

You'll find such systems in Mercs and most other European cars, Japanese cars and several American manufacturers are switching to the CAN bus, Chrysler for example. Such systems have been used for quite a while now, at least a decade.

 

[iCe]

i saw it too. great graphics. the only thing that sucked was the ending. i realy hoped that the war didn't started. so it was i good movie, because i was sucked in it

 

[Pedro]

I loved the ending!

DEATH TO AMERICAN HAPPY ENDINGS, THEY RUIN MOVIES.
Lets take Lord of the Rings, no happy endings to any of the 3 books.... now the movies:

FotR: "Let's go hunt some orc" not happy but considerably more upbeat than the original

tTT: Sams insanley disturbing it always works out in the end speech, yes its theme was ripped from a conversation actually in the book but this was so sickeningly happy go lucky for the situation, infact the real conversation began with Sam stating they shouldn't even be there, and ending with people in those tales had no idea whether the ending would be a good ending or a sad one, much more of a wait and see apprroach, we have a chnce from 2 hobbits in serious danger, not a ohhhhh it'll be alright, don't worry Seriously that speech in the movie is just a disgrace.

tRotK: apparently they filmed the ending where the shire was destroyed but "it didn't work" so they've gone back and made a happy one where everyone in the shire is well, I doubt frodo will even have his mental breakdown of sorts. Hurrah another classic killed by the american film makers

Thank god I say for T3s ending, thank god!

 

[ChanceKell]

And thank you so very much for ruining the ending of the LotR trilogy. I appreciate it how you brought in something totally unrelated and explained something nobody asked for.

 

[Pedro]

Sorry, I tend to take for granted everyone in these forums has read tLotRs, and the changes for the films wasn't going to be anything anyone looked forward to.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Peter Jackson is from New Zealand... and the LotR movies were also made there. I'll admit that the US is responsible for lots of great things, but Lord of the Rings isn't one of them.

 

[PopsiclePete]

tRotK: apparently they filmed the ending where the shire was destroyed but "it didn't work" so they've gone back and made a happy one where everyone in the shire is well, I doubt frodo will even have his mental breakdown of sorts.

Scouring of the Shire was never intended to be in the film, because in a movie it would have displaced the emotional impact of the climax. A movie's gotta end relatively soon after the climax, no ?

And thank you so very much for ruining the ending of the LotR trilogy. I appreciate it how you brought in something totally unrelated and explained something nobody asked for.

Don't worry, there is still much much much more to be discovered, and I am pretty sure what Pedro said won't spoil the story a bit for you.

 

[Pedro]

The funding of a film is what counts, an american funded film simply won't go shown until the ending is a happy one from all the accounts I've heard (numerous interviews with directors and the like) where a movie is filmed is irrelevant in that regard, its who is funding it. I also wonder why the film wasn't filmed in Switzerland, I've actually seen a great number of the places Tolkein based the locations in the book upon, but hey the look and feel of the movie is pretty damn good anyway

As for closing up a film quickly after the climax... no, no the viewers are proving they can watch a 9 hour movie (closer to 11 with the extended editions), we're not talking about 100min film here, people are going to expect a proportional ending. Besides from what I read we're STILL seeing the shire, just not in ruins. Films which end with a blink of an eye can often prove to feel incomplete anyway.

Tolkein was making a very strong point, that things DON'T go back to how they were before, life goes on but not as it did before, people need to rebuiled from the ashes, this is one of my favourite elements of tLotRs, infact if I could only pick ONE thing about the book which made is so great it would be the way it ended, to see the ending I've heard described the entire trilogy of films would seem incredibly pointless, as though it was just another page of history which didn't really matter, that didn't effect future generations.

Another good example of a "forced" happy ending would be that of the original version of Blade Runner, you know the one that just brought the song "gum drops, lolly pops, rainbows.... *shoots self*" to mind.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I can say with absolute certainty that in the case of a project as big and thusfar profitable as Lord of the Rings (and with a director with as much clout as Mr. Jackson) that the director has absolute 100% say over the final cut.

Furthermore, he's been great about explaining every other major change so far... do you have any evidence of this horrible "American" conspiracy?

(It's an especially inane claim, given that there haven't even been test screenings yet -- if anything was reshot (and I have seen nothing to this effect), it was a decision by the director and not by the studio...).

 

[Pedro]

Well I'm fairly certain he must have gotten a memo

But i sure hope I can blame it on an american conspiracy, if he intentionally made those changes it would explain the wizard battle (why oh why?!)

I've also been hoping that oringinally the ents were scripted to go to isenguard much earlier and then move onto helms deep otherwise merry a pippin spent a good few weeks on treebeards back in that small forest. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the insane timing issues on The Two Towers movie, it was very disorientating, I've got a very active subconcious and hence it bugs me pretty much instantly when the timing is out.

 

[PopsiclePete]

Besides from what I read we're STILL seeing the shire, just not in ruins. Films which end with a blink of an eye can often prove to feel incomplete anyway.

As fas as I know, we don't even know if we'll see the Shire at all at the end of the movie, some says the movie will end at the Gray Havens.

Tolkein was making a very strong point, that things DON'T go back to how they were before, life goes on but not as it did before, people need to rebuiled from the ashes, this is one of my favourite elements of tLotRs, infact if I could only pick ONE thing about the book which made is so great it would be the way it ended, to see the ending I've heard described the entire trilogy of films would seem incredibly pointless, as though it was just another page of history which didn't really matter, that didn't effect future generations.

Jackson himself said ROTK was about what was lost, and that the things will never be the same. He is trying to stay faithfull to those themes. Call it "The price of victory"

And about the Scouring cut, here's Philippa Boyens's explaination:

"Unfortunately, as wonderful and brillian as that last chapter is, it's not something we believe our film could sustain. You can't have a huge climax that your main characters have been striving for, for three films, and then start the story up again and play out an episodic ending. An audience sitting in the cinema just wouldn't go for it.".

You can see a list of the changes from book to film with explanations, pros and cons at Tolkien Online's The Complete List of Film Changes.

 

[PopsiclePete]

I've also been hoping that oringinally the ents were scripted to go to isenguard much earlier and then move onto helms deep otherwise merry a pippin spent a good few weeks on treebeards back in that small forest.

Cheer up, there's a rumor the Huorns made it back into the TTT Extended Edition DVD ! There should also be more ents scenes in it, so it could fill those timing gaps that annoyed you.

 

[Pedro]

I'm sorry but no one intending to make the point that things never go back to the way they were would have allowed Sams speech to make the cut, it was all wrong.

The directors view that the ending couldn't be done in the film is his own, whether or not he thinks its a good idea was not what I was questioning, what I was questioning was whether it would damage the whole point of the books. Some of the changes were necessary, some have been, on reflection more appropriate for film but to assume the viewer is too stupid and impatient to accept the ending I would HOPE is underestimating him. RotK is 1/3rd appendices, it works out as the shortest of the books, granted TTT ended in the wrong place (much less appropriate place IMO but it was running a little long as it was) but there should be time for a real ending, 15 minutes is all it would take to cover everything, after 11 hours does he really think people won't tolerate 15 minutes?!

With some clever editing we could loose the elves from Helms Deep too Ahhhhh a man can dream. Shame we'll never see a less overdone transformation of King Theodin.