Terminator 3 Thoughts, Oppinions, Comments

The IMDb is your friend, people:

Terminator, The (1984)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
 
I was looking foward to see T3 when it first came out, even though I'm not a huge fan of the series. It was an enjoyable film to watch, despite its reduced plot. (It seems that movie series only proceed to impress people visually after the second movie or so.. after the core creators leave the project and just hand it off to someone else. Jurassic Park 3, anyone?) I did think that the story itself was a decent continuation of the last Terminator film, even though it didn't have as much backstory as T2 (remember little John explaining his past with his mother in the desert?). I thought the ending sequence was very well done, what with Judgement Day happening with John having his own monolouge.

Me not being a fan of the series, it had been a number of years since I had seen the other two movies. So, I decided to watch the older ones. Oddly enough, my rental place doesn't have the classic Terminator, but about four versions of T2. So, I watched it again. It was during the credits that I became confused.. The ending of Terminator 2 was clear: Judgement Day didn't happen. Period. Sarah Connor becomes an old lady, John becomes a senator and has kids. So... how the heck did they come up with T3?

I know the "Special Edition" having a different ending with just a Sarah monolouge where she says the future isn't set, but, still, the non-JD ending was shown first, in theaters all over the world.. How could the T3 people toss out that ending?

(BTW: Although T2 was made in 1991, it was set in 1994. There are numerous refrences to "ten years ago" (1984, first Terminator), and several to "35 years from now" (2029, the end of the war). T3 is set in the present, unless I'm mistaken.)
 
ChanceKell said:
but about four versions of T2. So, I watched it again. It was during the credits that I became confused.. The ending of Terminator 2 was clear: Judgement Day didn't happen. Period. Sarah Connor becomes an old lady, John becomes a senator and has kids. So... how the heck did they come up with T3?
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That is the alternate ending, not the ''canon'' one.
Much like the WC4´s Blair Admiral ending.
 
ChanceKell said:
How is it an alternate ending? Was it not in the original theatrical release?
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It wasn't -- it was the 'original' ending in that it was the ending they originally made... but it was cut from the theatrical release, and didn't appear until recently as an extra in the 'extended' version.
 
Really, now? I wasn't old enough to see T2 in theaters, and I probably couldn't remember even if I did go. I do, however, remember seeing that scene on the video release maybe.. Five or six years ago. IIRC, the Ultimate Edition DVD (the newest release, a great buy, filled with tons of hard-to-reach extra features) mentioned that the Old Sarah ending was the original ending, though I don't recall them saying that it was put in theaters.

So, if the ending seen in theaters is the "no fate but what we make" monolouge, I suppose my problems with T3 have lessened notably.
 
Ultimate Edition or Extreme Edition (G)? Extreme is the newest DVD... IIRC, Extreme is the 'extended' cut, whereas the Ultimate Edition has both the theatrical and the extended versions...

(And then to be more confusing, Extreme also has the original cut, but it's an easter egg of some sort).
 
Extreme, then. My mistake. It's the version that Artisan just came out with, two-disc in a tin case.

It seems to have too many easter eggs, then. I saw (from a hidden "DVD behind the scenes" trailer) a main menu with both Theatrical and Special editions, but I couldn't seem to get the Theatrical. You can find both the Old Sarah endings and deleted seens by watching the "pop-up" version, which has options that come up on screen to let you watch behind the scene videos, concept drawings, effect documentaries, etc. Although hard to get, there is a lot of bonus features. Really too bad I only rented the thing.
 
The Extreme edition isn't really worth buying in my opinion. But I did it anyway. The only advantage I really care about over Ultimate is the improved picture quality. The bonus disc just sucked. So I did what every red-blooded me would do and cannibalised the two different editions to create a truly ultimate edition.
 
Actually I had no trouble with the metal case until I read about it destroying some keep-cases. I of course confused as to how this could happen had to push out the keep-case the other way which did hurt it. Stupid curious me :(
 
Yeah my keepcase is torn all to shit, so I just cut the plastic off, saved the insert, and slipped it back into the metal, since no one is really gonna see the keepcase anyway. The cover is really sweet though :).
 
Just watched it 10 hours ago.

Cool... love the car chase scene...

Think there's excessive violence and explosion throught out the first half of the movie.
 
Yeah I saw it a while ago. I thought it was pretty good. Not as good as the previous two, but good. I aslo thought it was a lot different from Terminators 1 and 2. The first two were more horror/scifi movies. The third one is more action. The first two also had this sort of menacing feel two it. When you saw Arnold or Robert Patrick walking by on scene, you always got this kinda dark, scary, bad guy feel. You don't get that same feel in the third one. I think it's because James Cameron wasn't directing it; not because of Kristanna Loken's acting.

Anyway, that bathroom fight scene was ok. I don't think it was a very well thought through fight scene though. I mean, arnold would be sitting there, hammering away at the chick, throwing her through walls and such. And every now and then she'd like stand up and swat him away through a couple walls. Then Arnold would get back up, and resume. I was like "ok, so what makes this new terminator so bad again?"
 
Mav23 said:
...they called the T-800 the T-101.
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Huh? I must have missed that bit. I thought Arnie in T3 was a T-850 or something. Those basic psychology upgrades and such. He (It?) did seem to know more than the T-800 in T2.

Lord_Nathrakh said:
...i did like her ability to be a cross between the t1000 and arni...
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I knew the T-X had an endoskeleton like the T-800, but I didn't know about the "liquid metal" skin, so beforehand I was wondering what happened to the T-1000 technology. It was a nice surprise to see the two mixed together. A sort of 'best of both worlds' idea, even though it proved to be the T-X's downfall when it got crushed by the second helicopter.

Lord_Nathrakh said:
...i also liked the plasma launcher on her arm...
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Did they explain why she has that? IIRC, time travel was only possible for organic beings, hence the "living tissue" around the T-800.

Quarto said:
In the original, the special effects were there to propel the plot onwards. Here, the plot is there to propel the special effects onwards.
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Agreed.

Quarto said:
In the hands of an inept director, making her female only served to highlight the fact that the terminator can be neither male nor female - it's just a machine, with no personality whatsoever.
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I never thought a director could make that much of a difference, but I really miss James Cameron influence in T3. I also thought T-X wasn't really that scary, not as scary as the T-1000, anyway. In fact, it was almost humorous how it looked so prim all the time (aside from its entry, of course).

Quarto said:
The ending of the film... the first two films were very conclusive in their ending - they were designed to stand alone and *not* make room for sequels. And that was great.
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T2 wrapped things up nicely, I was disappointed how T3 ripped everything open, and just left things hanging. At least it explains the time paradox of Cyberdyne blowing up, yet the Terminators still existing afterwards.

ChanceKell said:
The ending of Terminator 2 was clear: Judgement Day didn't happen.
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I know this has been explained in later posts, but I never saw or even heard of that ending.

Overall, I have to say I was pretty disappointed (see above about "ripping things open). Unlike Q, I liked Reloaded, despite it's open ending. To me T3 is hollow by comparison. I was watching bits of "The Making of T3" which was split up during ad breaks of a recent TV screening of T2, and I recall the director (or someone) saying that T1 was about a woman finding her "inner strength" or some such, T2 was about a boy being reconciled to her mother... T3 basically just says, "Judgement Day happens".

I found T3 to be quite funny in several parts (I loved the cameo appearance of that psychologist/doctor/whomever 'counselling' Kate), but in hindsight, I think the humour didn't fit in with the movie, it broke up the rhythm too much. In contrast, I felt T2 (I only saw T1 once, I can't remember much about it) was kept very tense throughout.

Another thing which I thought was better in T2. John Connor and the T-800 develop quite a close relationship - if it is possible to have a personal relationship with an artificially intelligent cybernetic organism. Even Sarah made a point about the T-800 making a the perfect choice as a 'father' figure.

By comparison, I felt the T-101/850/whatever was too cold and insensitive. Of course, that makes sense given that it's just a machine, but I felt the emotional impact of the T-800 allowing himself to be 'terminated' at the end of T2 was much greater than in T3. Although it could be thought of as heroic 'self-sacrifice' to destroy the T-X, I didn't feel much of an impact seeing the T-101 blow up.
 
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