massimilianogoi on 9/6/2009 at 11:13
Quote Posted by Morte
Not that I want to defend the movie, but the giant monstarbot appearing out of nowhere didn't bother me that much since it had an aircraft to ride on. I hear those can be pretty fast.
And then you shouldn't ear the noise of some jets?
Thirith on 9/6/2009 at 11:27
Quote Posted by DDL
I mean, the whole cyclic 'man sends other man back to stop his mother being killed, but other man becomes father of first man in clever twist' was reasonably clever, but then you have the fact that now he KNOWS he's sending his future father back in time, which makes it all more silly:
what happens if he just shoots reese? Does he fade away like marty mcfly?
There's one "get out of jail" card they can pull to answer this question: He doesn't. Or he won't. Because if he did/had, then Kyle wouldn't have gone back in time to begin with. It's the "whatever happened, happened" school of thought. Doesn't solve the causality loop, mind you.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2009 at 11:33
I don't see why "Reese is Connor's dad" (a basic time travel chicken-egg paradox) should be more clever than "Skynet uplifted itself from the future." Though it was general Brewster who pushed the button and allowed Skyned to spread, so the human element is there.
If the Judgement Day is inevitable for pulling money from the pockets of the fans, then hell, every stupidity in the Terminator series is inevitable, because once you start developing time paradoxes, there's no way back.
Do we have a better idea anyway? Terminator stuff is mentally burned out since the third installment.
Thirith on 9/6/2009 at 11:36
This is just personal taste, but I am more readily accepting of a causality loop if it's a final twist in the tale than if an entire franchise builds on it. The former is a nicely non-sequitur mindfuck, the latter IMO is more of a "We're written ourselves into this corner... Eep! Let's make it worse!"
DDL on 9/6/2009 at 11:46
Yeah, somehow my brain is happier with the "reese is john's dad" idea ...as long as john isn't implicitly aware of it. Time paradoxes seem to be ok as long as they are assumed to have happened, but when the participants in said time paradox have to actively ensure that said paradox happens...it gets silly. Coz..you know: what if they don't?
Hey, you have to give Back to the Future credit, they actually HAD an idea for what happens "if they don't". It was silly, but at least it was something.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2009 at 11:47
Again, I can't make fully qualified opinion as I didn't see TS, but I think nothing could have been done wrong if they stopped it at T2. I think with such material, writing it into blind corner was INEVITABLE.
BTTF films have been written by the same people and they meant to compose a closed trilogy, this is not the case. Putting aside the fact that BTTF2 was the peak of fun and BTTF3 didn't meet up it's standards.
Who wanted more Terminator films and who expected them to be miracles - that's my question.
Angel Dust on 9/6/2009 at 12:05
It seemed to me that the obvious option for T3, if one really had to me made, was just to have it be John Connor's human resistance's final defeat of Skynet. No time travel marlakey, because as you say you just end up writing yourself into a corner, just a straight up post-apocalypse sci-fi action film.
BTTF was actually never meant to be a trilogy. The promise of a sequel at the end of the first one was meant to be a joke and the setup at the end actually caused some problems for the writers. On the commentary they mention that if they had planned a sequel they most likely would not have had Marty's girlfriend tag along for the ride. The 'To Be Continued...' was added to the VHS version of BTTF once the film was a big success and sequels inevitable. I actually consider Part II the lowpoint of the series and while III is no where near as strong as I, I still enjoy it for the reversed dynamic between Doc and Marty.
Rogue Keeper on 9/6/2009 at 12:26
Yes, I meant that Gale/Zemeckis had a good idea how to develop their own original story and knew how to conclude it, not that they planned the whole trilogy ahead. They have stated in the past they don't want to add any sequels beyond the trilogy ((
http://www.bttf.com/film_faq.htm) (bottom) ... I didn't follow all those BTTF4 rumors properly, I hope the common sense has prevailed). While the Terminator franchise is basically an open project for new writers.
Of course all three BTTF films have their own poetry, but what they did in the second, with hitting the "other selves" and multiple time travels and references, was just ... a wicked ride! And Michael J. Fox x 4 ! Not too many actors beyond Peter Sellers had such an opportunity in one film.
Morte on 10/6/2009 at 07:49
Quote Posted by raph
Morte, fair enough, except the mothership isn't visible anywhere until they are in the canyon.
And that brings me to the other thing: They can fly wherever they want so why the f do they need fracking
motorcycles.
brain: override
I'm fine with the ship not being in the shots until the end, it's not like it's a great stretch to imagine it had other business to attend to, or just stood back and let the big thingamaboob do the hitting. The motorcycle terminators were phenomenally silly though. What do they do when they fall over, flap around like turtles on their backs?
I would have been willing to overlook those as well though, if only something would have happened at some point. Give me some character progression, an idea, a change in the overall situation, SOMETHING. Just not a bunch of cardboard faffing about for two hours only to wind up at the starting point.
