Wow!

I just got back from watching Terminator Salvation.

Wow…

After T3, a lot of people (including me) thought the franchise was pretty much dead. T4 fixed that.

It’s a great movie – telling a good story that feels like it belongs in the universe while still throwing up a lot of surprises.

It focuses on John Conner and a half-human-half-terminator called Markus. Unfortunately the trailers gave that away – so no one would be surprised when Markus is finally revealed to be a machine. That’s sad, as it could have worked well otherwise.

There’s a lot of action – and it’s well done too. The humans are a little more organized than I’d gathered from the other Terminator movies – but hey, we won the war – so we must have been fairly organized (for those who don’t remember, the humans won, which is why Skynet sent the terminators back in time to kill John Conner (or his mother)).

There was an “I’ll be back” – but it was done very well. It wasn’t over the top or corny (like T3) but actually fitted. In fact, you could easily have missed it.

And there was a big surprise (albeit a very welcome one). Arnie comes back! If you haven’t seen it – sorry for spoiling it, but I bet everyone will hear about it shortly anyway. It’s only a small cameo – but it’s good. It’s CG by the way – but good CG.

It's definatly a movie you should watch after watching the others (maybe skip T3) as some of the story wouldnt make much sense otherwise. As long as you half remember the original movies, this one should make sense.

But there was something else...

There was a very hard hitting moment in the movie.

The sort of moment that hits you in the gut and leaves you reeling.

That sort of moment is rare in movies (Serenity had 2 of them! – Star Trek had one when SPOILER 1 was blown up).

In T4, it's after the actual movie – but before the credits.

The movie was dedicated to the memory of Stan Winston.

I hadn’t even heard he was dead.

If Spielberg or Lucas or James Cameron had died it would have been about the same. Stan was a legend. If he worked on a movie – you could be sure it’d be good (effects wise at least).

Stan was the creature guy. He’d do the animatronics for robots and dinosaurs and aliens and just about anything. And they do look better when they’re actually on set. And no one could do them better.

We’ll miss you Stan – the creatures will never be the same again….

 

John Conner and Markus (the stars of the movie)