Ep 99 - Terminator Salvation (2009)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Set somewhere between the future and the past, we find the last remaining people surviving Judgment Day find it necessary to always introduce themselves with their full legal names. Also, Skynet ensures they build all of their weapons of destruction with power switches. Here we find John Connor has become a gruff radio host prophet who rallies the troops against the war on the machines. Oh, man. I don't know how Christian Bale did [00:00:38] Speaker B: that for two hours. [00:00:38] Speaker A: I want you off the set, you prick. Oh, Christian Bale, I'm so sorry. [00:00:43] Speaker C: Don't just be sorry. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Think for one second. The. [00:00:47] Speaker C: Are you doing. [00:00:49] Speaker A: Quiet. Just thought. [00:00:50] Speaker C: Are you professional or not? [00:00:51] Speaker B: No, I'm certainly an amateur compared to you. [00:00:53] Speaker C: I was just doing a gag. [00:00:54] Speaker B: I thought it would be fun. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Oh, good for you. [00:00:56] Speaker A: And how was it? I. I hope it was good, because it's useless now, isn't it? [00:01:03] Speaker B: Maybe we should just start the show. [00:01:15] Speaker C: Completely overrated. [00:01:16] Speaker A: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show where I get together with two of my friends, we take a movie franchise, break it down by movie, give it an individual score. Individual score, throw it back up and see where it lands compared to the other movie franchises this week again, we are Willis. So it is just me and Brian. Brian, how are you this week? [00:01:34] Speaker C: I'm good, Dan. I'm. I'm. I'm cracking up over Will's intro there. I. I miss him. I can't wait till he comes back. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah, Will's been away for the last couple of weeks, and we do miss him greatly. And we just watched his. His review, which we'll get at the end of the episode, and the intro, which you guys just saw, and we've been just killing ourselves laughing. He really brought his AAME this week, which is kind of surprising. They did that for Terminator Salvation of all things. Brian, as always, I gotta ask, is this your first time seeing this movie? [00:02:01] Speaker C: No, this is my second time seeing the film. However, this is my first time watching the director's cut, which has what, like five to eight minutes of extra footage in it? Was it that much? I don't. I don't remember. Somebody told me. I wasn't really paying attention. It sure didn't feel like a whole lot more. There was really only one scene that I noticed that stood out. Yeah, the rest of it was pretty. I. I couldn't even tell you what the new footage was aside from the one scene. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm the exact same. I've seen this one time, and then it was this time around, seeing the director's cut for the very first time, this is one where I was. I was kind of really dreading. I had fond memories of Terminator 3 because I, you know, saw it in theaters for the first time, watched it with some friends, hadn't seen it in 20 something years, and kind of was really disappointed with that one. The opposite for this one. I, I went into this one expecting nothing from it, remembering very little about it. The only things I can tell you about this is that there's a very, like, uncanny valley, Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, and Christian Bale yelled at a stage hand. That's literally all I could have told you about the plot for this one. [00:03:09] Speaker C: That's kind of what I remembered as [00:03:10] Speaker A: well and came out actually enjoying this one more than I thought. At least we'll see how much I enjoyed it by the end of the episode. But this was not a hard watch for me at all. [00:03:21] Speaker C: No, this was easy to watch. I stayed entertained throughout of it. But I will say right off the bat I went, wow, this dialogue is so atrocious. And then. And because I was able to immediately identify that, I let go of it and just enjoyed the whole rest of the film. [00:03:45] Speaker A: That's fair. That's fair. Yeah, there's a, There's a pretty. I was surprised with the caliber of actors in this. Like, a lot of named characters, a lot of people you'll recognize. But yeah, none of them were really given a whole lot to say or do, per se. Which was kind of unfortunate because you got like Helena, Bottom Carter, Christian Bale, Bryce, Dallas Howard. I mean, kind of Terry Crews, but not really. What's his name, the, the. The rapper Common. Like, there's quite a few people in this. Even Moon Bloodgood, which is just the best name ever. Like, all of them are, Are decent enough actors. Michael Ironside, even. Like, the list on this one is way better than it should be. None of them stand out in any way, shape or form. In fact, some of them kind of stand out as, like, this might be one of their worst performances, even from an actor or actress that I really like. Like, I'm, I'm a big fan of Bryce, Dallas Howard, but in this role, she just had either nothing to do or just did not want to be there or something, but, like, she just didn't show up. And it was really unfortunate. [00:04:52] Speaker C: I, I would say that a lot of it felt to me, and I have no idea this would be something Will would normally fill us in on. I would say that a lot of them had a script that they were forced to stick to and it didn't allow them much room to negotiate. Those lines felt really forced for a lot of them. I feel like if they were allowed a little latitude in their roles, they could have adjusted some things, but it didn't feel like they were allowed any latitude at all. Maybe that's why Christian Bale was so upset over this film is because he wasn't allowed to do anything that he wanted to do. And then he had stagehands screwing up what he was supposed to do. But it could be that's about discussion. I just don't know. But I don't want to just immediately blame all the actors and actresses for what the final product was, because it really felt like a terrible, terrible script. And what little chemistry there was was not allowed to be portrayed with the words that they spoke. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I'm not necessarily blaming the actors or actresses in every case, at least. [00:06:04] Speaker C: They certainly didn't fix any of it. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Right, that. Right. Like, even when you're given a. A. A scene, like, just as you mentioned, like, forced is the right word. Like, there are some scenes like the one where Michael Ironside, I think, has a gun to Christian Bale's head. I think every. The watch party just kind of rolled their eyes. Like, what? Yeah. What is happening right now? Like, this is weird. Awful. [00:06:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:26] Speaker A: He's like, show it. Come on, Shoot me. Then you're like, what are we doing here? [00:06:30] Speaker C: It's just getting so excited in that scene four. I just don't even understand. And then, like, not 60 seconds later, they're like, oh, okay. Well, yeah, your team's in charge then. Let's go. [00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah, he's still one of their best soldiers, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to listen to anybody. [00:06:47] Speaker C: Yeah, no, the. [00:06:48] Speaker A: The plot. Sorry, the. Sorry, The. The acting slash characters bothered me a little bit, but not a ton. There were some plot things in this that were just kind of weird to me, though, that I do want to touch on at least. At least briefly, if not longer. [00:07:07] Speaker C: And maybe things bothered you. [00:07:08] Speaker A: Honestly, maybe you can even answer these for me and, like, tell me why some of these things happened in 2018 when this movie takes place. It is 11 years before the. The. The future that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kyle Reese come back from. Right. So we got 11 years to get to that point. How on earth do. Does Skynet know anything about Kyle Reese? Like, why is Skynet after him? Because he dies in 1982. They purposefully say records from that time are incredibly bad. And, like, maybe because he got arrested but if they don't know anything about Sarah Connor, I don't know how they could know who Kyle Reese is. That he's important to the future and that he came back from the future. Like, just that plot line alone was just like, why? Like, I get the robots wanted to kill John Connor. I get the robots want to kill. Actually, even for that matter, why do the robots know John Connor? [00:08:07] Speaker C: Okay. And I'll even double down on it at the end. We realize that Sam Worthington's character, Marcus Wright, is actually a plant by Skynet. And there's so many things that are wrong with this. I'm trying to stick with my original thought and not just go on a huge derailed rant here. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Oh, we're going to talk about Sam Worlinton, don't you worry. [00:08:30] Speaker C: How does Skynet know where this. This Marcus Wright is gonna go find Kyle Reese? Like, he actually pops up out of the ground again? Because John Connor accidentally woke him up by blowing up that. That facility. Right? [00:08:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:50] Speaker C: That's where Sam Worthington comes out. So it was a coincidence that Sam Worthington even got woken up and then just coincidence, apparently happens to go straight to LA and, like, the first person he contacts is Kyle Reese. And this is all supposed to happen, but how? Like you said, how do they know Kyle Reese is important? How does Skynet know where Kyle Reese is? How do they get Marcus Wright to wake up at the right time and go in the right direction? There was nothing pointing him that way. No sense to me. [00:09:28] Speaker A: All of those points, except for the one I don't know, that it was an accident that he woke up, because, yes, he is in that facility that Christian Bale goes to, but so are a lot of human hostages. So the robots must have still been in that area somewhat recently to have captured those people and. And take them in. Do they explain why they're capturing people? [00:09:48] Speaker C: No, not really. They mentioned something about trying to make better Terminators. So maybe that's their R D department, and they're using them like lab rats. That's just kind of what I figured. It's not well explained. I believe Christian Bale walks by Sam Worthington laying on a gurney kind of in a dark scene, and you see it at a glance, and then later, you know, Marcus Wright is woken up. I don't really understand why. Maybe that's Skynet. Maybe he has this, like, really subtle programming going on. And Skynet does know where Kyle Reese is, and that's why he wakes up at that time and heads right to where Kyle Reese is. I'm not really sure. But then like you said, if they know where Kyle Reese is, why not go capture him and then phone John Connor and say, hey, we've got your dad. [00:10:38] Speaker A: I wish I had an answer for any of that. [00:10:40] Speaker C: I know, it's just none of this stuff makes sense. [00:10:43] Speaker A: None of this is explained, but like, maybe there are multiple Marcus's out in the world and when John Connor comes close to him, they're like, oh, that's going to be the one that's going to get close to him because they're already in close proximity so they wake him up on that purpose. But maybe there's like a Marcus in China and a Marcus in Japan and a Marcus in Canada. I don't know. They don't explain that in any way, shape or form. That is me reaching really, really hard for this. Yeah, the, the thing with Marcus is kind of like I said when we watched the original Predator, I wish they didn't show the alien ship coming to Earth because then you know that there's going to be an alien in the movie. Now Obviously, you know, 30, 40 years later, you know what the Predator franchise is, but if you were watching it for the first time in 1987, it'd be really cool if they play up the mystery of what's happening until you see the monster. I wish they didn't have that opening scene. That really doesn't add anything to this movie where Marcus is, you know, on death row and gives himself to Skynet and like get rid of all of that and just have a stranger walking in the desert who doesn't know what he is. And over time you realize like, wow, that guy took a really solid punch to the face. That's interesting. And then you kind of get to yourself like, oh crap. Because like, you know instantly that he's going to be a planter cell. So there's no mystery with that at all. The rest of the movie you were just waiting for him to reveal whatever his master plan is. Like, I just, I think it would have worked significantly better if it was just like, oh, there's a random guy out there, he doesn't understand. Maybe he got hit on the head and forgot. I don't know. That was the thing that bothered me [00:12:10] Speaker C: a lot of the abysmal backstory that we got on Marcus Wright. Why include that opening footage in the first place? It was just. It was just lame. It was lame. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Exactly. One of the things I will say is Helena Bonham Carter as, as interesting as an actress, as she is. And she takes big swings. This didn't feel like the right movie for her. And I didn't need a face for Skynet100.100. I would have cut that first scene that she's in because f that entire scene, let's just have him appear in the desert and we don't know anything about him. And I would have gotten rid of the. The cybernetic organism in a monitor screen telling the whole plot of what's going on. I'm pretty sure we're mostly on board with what's going on at that point. I don't know that we needed it explained to us. We certainly didn't need a human face for Skynet. What's the point of that? Why does Skynet have touch screens? What robot is interfacing with it like. Like these weird things. You're just like, why? Why would you do that? Why would you give the humans an opportunity to tune you down when all of the robots can connect with Bluetooth or whatever the heck they're using? Like, it's just these weird little things where I'm like, you didn't think about this very hard. [00:13:17] Speaker C: I could maybe underscore the sterile environment looking facility because they are now evolving terminators with human flesh over them. So maybe instead of just the warehouse scene where you see the robots being assembled, you have the new facility that Schwarzenegger walks out of when you know, the CGI Schwarzenegger walks into. Yeah, I could maybe understand that. Again, you still don't need the touch screens and stuff. There are no scientists or human scientists. Unless there's some backstory there where they're actually enslaving humans to do some work in there. Maybe, but we don't see that. That's just me guessing. I don't know. [00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's one of the things that I do like about this movie. It is taking a look, if I remember correctly. I have to guess at this one a little bit. But it does not seem like a big leap where we have the Marcus robot that is half man, half robot and he acts like a person and is easily able to infiltrate and. And talk to humans and. And fool them into thinking he's human. In fact, he got moon blood. Sorry. Moon blood. Good to fall in love with him to the point that she turns against the human race just for the sake of this cyborg. So clearly that technology works. Why would you need Arnold Schwarzenegger except be it's too human and he won't turn against his own people and they can't control him. So it does make sense for them to go back to a full robot that they can control and do everything they needed to do, even though he's incredibly uncharismatic. That did work for me. [00:14:42] Speaker C: Okay. And there's a couple of things. When Schwarzenegger steps out, he is their top of the line model and he's like the first one that they've seen so far. They see, they find the data that talks about what is it the T800 model that. Is that what Schwarzenegger is? T800? [00:15:02] Speaker A: I don't remember 800 or 600 something in the beginning. [00:15:07] Speaker C: They find the information that says, hey, this is the new model that's coming out. It's not going to look like these ugly things, which were really cool, by the way. I loved the, the previous versions, but he's supposed to be the newest greatest thing and it just happens at the very end of the movie. Meanwhile, you've got Marcus Wright, who's in my opinion, way more advanced than Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger is just the chassis with skin over it. Sam Worthington is a cybernetic organism who thinks he's human, has a human brain, a human heart and stuff. So I'm just kind of like. And also he started like way back in the past, like in the like, what, the 80s or something, right? [00:15:47] Speaker A: Well, no, like 2000 and like, like right before Judgment Day, I got the [00:15:51] Speaker C: impression, oh, was it right before Judgment Day? I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to the time frame on that. It looked like a 1980s prison or something. I don't know. It looked almost like Shawshank when they were filming that again, let' cut that whole scene out and improve the movie. So I just felt like, how come they have this like super advanced one that they've been working on since before the bombs dropped and then Schwarzenegger pops out as top of the line afterwards. It just didn't jive with me that they had all these clankers in between the two. Like the timeline doesn't match up. So lots and lots of plot holes just coming out everywhere. [00:16:29] Speaker A: However. Fair. [00:16:30] Speaker C: Did those plot holes stop you from having fun watching the film? [00:16:35] Speaker A: I. They really didn't. I. I think aesthetically this movie hit in a way that the past three just haven't. Like I said a lot at the end of last week, I really want just this, this franchise to continue. Instead of just keep sending robots back into the past, like, let's go to the future, let's see this Post apocalypse. And that's exactly what they gave me. Kind of like Transformers meets Mad Max. And I was in. I was in for the scenery. I was in for the robots. When we had the giant robot that shot motorcycles, like the dumbest shit you can think of. And I'm 100% in, I was like, this is really, really cool. [00:17:11] Speaker C: It's kneecaps pop open and motorcycle robots drive out. And I'm just like, right, like, I'm in. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Like, that was so freaking cool. Even though it was dumb, but whatever. But it was just one of those things. Like, this is amazing. And like, why does this movie from 2009 look so much better than we're getting in 2026? [00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it looked fantastic. It looks pulling into the airships every. Everything in this looked great. And a lot of people criticize the Uncanny Valley Schwarzenegger at the end. And I thought it was good enough. They don't show his face for very long. They come up with a clever way to blow his face off so that he's just this, you know, scary looking robot coming after him. And that was fine for me. It was like, okay, cool. The thing that I, I did like about that scene, and this is why I thought they had to have it. A Terminator ver. A Schwarzenegger Terminator version is that we heard in the last one that there's going to be a Schwarzenegger robot sent to kill John Connor. And so I was wondering, is this the one that kills him? And, you know, he stabs him in the chest with that steel pipe. And I was like, oh, you know, he, he's, you know, he's. He stumbles a bit in the beginning because he sees Schwarzenegger. And that gave the robot an opening to start kicking his ass. Maybe that's what they were talking about. But then when they blew up his face and burnt all his skin off right away, I was like, okay, maybe this is probably not the one that goes back in number three. But either way, it. It made me stop and wonder. And I think that was kind of the catch to it. They also just wanted to have a Schwarzenegger appearance in the film. And I was okay with it. I was okay with it. [00:18:58] Speaker A: I will say, when I watched this in probably 20, like, came out 2009, I probably watched it in 2010 because I did not see this one in theaters. I remember thinking like, oh, this looks so dumb. Why would they do that? Maybe we were spoiled back then. I don't know. Watching this now, I was like, that actually looks pretty Good. And usually graphics get worse, not better. So watch this in 2020. Like that looks okay. Like, I don't have a problem with that. You're right, it's super fast. Just enough to like give you a hint of what's going on. But he was still like, I'm on board. Like that didn't take me out of the movie by that much. [00:19:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:26] Speaker A: I will say, as far as the points you're trying to make about Arnold Schwarzenegger, they mention that he. Well, hey, if they killed him now, it'd be 11 years before he sends Kyle Reese back. So that wouldn't have made sense. So I'm really glad that that's not the route they were going to. But they also say that they sent the robot back to kill him because of his emotional connection with the robot. So if it hasn't been. If they kill him before 2029, he won't be able to send the robot back to give himself that emotional connection. Like it's just. [00:19:57] Speaker C: Yeah. By number four, we need diagrams to cover all these little loops in the plot and everything. And it's going to start looking like a ball of yarn here. I just like all that, you know, makes sense after the fact. But when he first comes out the door and you see Schwarzenegger, I had a brief moment of is this the one who was supposed to kill him from number three and then get sent back in time or whatever, but it wasn't. So apparently there's going to be another Schwarzenegger robot that kills him. And I hope that next time they actually do what they did in Indiana Jones and D Age Schwarzenegger and then just don't let him talk like they did. Because the voice was the problem with Indy in that one. But he looked amazing in that one. So if they could DH Schwarzenegger for another film if they had to, that's fine. I'm okay with just never bringing Schwarzenegger back. [00:20:48] Speaker A: I think it was a wrong. Like I get why they put Schwarzenegger in this movie, the D.H. schwarzenegger. I think it doesn't make any sense from, from a. Not from a plot perspective. I guess it is from block from if you're taking it seriously. Because if you're gonna have one robot look like Arnold Schwarzenegger 11 years before they send them back to the past. It's really weird that they wouldn't have been able to upgrade the T800 in 11 years. Like think about an 11 year old cell phone today and how outdated and useless that thing would be. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Right now, it's like a Nokia, man. [00:21:20] Speaker A: It doesn't make sense that they would be using that model as the one to go back and save the war. They would be using something newer. But also, if they're like, oh, well, this is the T500 and we're going to get to the T800, why would you make them all look the same if the point is for them to infiltrate? Because as soon as you were a person on the ground, you're like, oh, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's clearly a robot. Like, you'd have to make them all look different. And Even in Terminator 1, we see them look different because a different T800 enters the base and starts killing people where Reese is. That was great. But why we keep bringing Earl back? Like, I love Arnold, don't get me wrong, but from a lore perspective, it makes way more sense to have completely different robots instead of just, yeah, they're [00:22:00] Speaker C: just trying to make money off of people going, schwarzenegger is coming back. But hardcore fans don't need Schwarzenegger to come back. They need great plot. That's. That's what we want. You know, we want better plot, better storytelling. We want better connection. [00:22:17] Speaker A: I love that you said, I think we need better connection, as your computer crapped out and you call it lost connection with you. That's shockingly funny to me. [00:22:27] Speaker C: Frozen over there. [00:22:28] Speaker A: No, you're back now. Were you going to say, we need better connection? Was that the sentence you were using? [00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah, we need better. That's amazing in those characters. And so, you know, when. When Wright and Williams fall in love in less than 24 hours, it was just ridiculous. I will say Moon Bloodgood is an absolute smoke show in this film. And the director's cut, she gets topless. I'm just letting you know, that's the added footage that really just came through. We were blowing up the chat in that scene. I just think she is. She's a gorgeous specimen. And I thought that she actually was a great character, too. I just didn't. I didn't see her immediately swooning over. Right. That didn't make any sense. It felt terrible. So I would have liked another six weeks for those characters to get to know each other and develop. [00:23:22] Speaker A: That was a little too much. Like, the second she lands, she's flirting with them, you know, I mean, like, she lands with her parachute in the tree and she's like, hey, big boy, want to come help me? I'm just like, sorry, what? And it doesn't get Better. Like, she is throwing herself at him. [00:23:34] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:23:34] Speaker A: The entire time. And then she's like, oh, you're a robot, all right. I'm like, wait, what? Like, we just were just. [00:23:42] Speaker C: I've watched robots kill loved ones for years now, but, yeah, I'm going to totally just let you loose and let's run. Run off into the sunset together. That was dumb. Didn't make sense at all. [00:23:51] Speaker A: No, I didn't. I didn't care for that all. And it would have been more interesting if she'd been betrayed by it and then had to, like, have that conversation of, like, what's human? What are you? Like, all this stuff. Like, that would have been more interesting than she just blindly like, no, we're live. I. I'm good with this. Like, I'm taking it. Yeah, it was a. It was a weird choice for her, but I didn't dislike her in this movie. Definitely enjoyed the director's cut. Anton Yelchin is a actor that I'm gonna sadly say that I completely forgot about. But I remembered how much I enjoyed him in the, what, mid-2000s when he had Star Wars, Star Trek and this, and a couple other things. I thought he was actually pretty good. He did a decent enough job being a young Kyle Reese. [00:24:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I didn't mind him at all. [00:24:31] Speaker A: And I actually thought it was really fun that, like, Sam Worthington's character, Marcus, showed him, like, have a strap on your. Your gun so it doesn't get taken away from you, which we see Kyle Reese do in Terminator 1. We actually have, like, a little bit of that where it's like, they didn't do a ton. It wasn't like, you know, solo, where they had to show every little part of his character, which is like, a little nod to be like, hey, if you've seen these in close succession, you're going to recognize this. Yeah, same thing with, you know, come with me if you want to live, which, you know, is a little played out. It's been in three of the four movies at this point, but it's like, I'll be back. Like, you just. You have to expect it's going to be in there at some point in these films. But I liked the. The playing around with the two of them, and I thought he actually kind of looked enough like a young Michael Bean that I. I was going for it. [00:25:15] Speaker C: And you know what? I would say that Kyle Reese in this film, Anton Yelchin, I thought he did probably one of the better jobs of acting in the film. I believe this character he didn't ever take me out of it. And he was a fun character. And, yeah, he did a good enough job being a young Kyle Reese that I was okay with everything. Again, not stellar performance or anything like that, but he was the least worst, for sure. [00:25:42] Speaker A: I think he was a bit better than that. I will argue he wasn't stellar, but, I mean, with what they had to work with, nobody could have been. Now his co host, Jada Grace. Or Jada Grace, who played Star. The little mute girl. [00:25:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:55] Speaker A: She play any role in this at all? [00:25:58] Speaker C: What was her point being in this, other than being a cute kid? [00:26:02] Speaker A: It felt like they were trying to make her Newt, but without any of the, you know, heart or storyline or interestingness of Newt. Like, it's just. She was just there for the whole time. And you're just like, all right, you're gonna say something at the end and just be like, this revelation. Like, oh, wow, she can talk. No, nothing. Just literal nothing. Not that would have been a good revelation, get me wrong, but literally nothing. [00:26:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. It was almost. She was almost like a distraction from things. It was like just a cute thing to look at. Something to worry about a little bit, maybe, But I didn't even see a point for her character to exist. And another character that made a cameo appearance in this movie that I was just like, why did we not get more of Terry Crews? We literally see him dead and that's it. And we're watching the extended footage. [00:26:59] Speaker A: Well, apparently he did have a bigger role, and we see him as. As whatever his role is. I forget the character's name. And he does that. [00:27:07] Speaker C: Captain Jericho. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Sure. But of course that gets cut. And so he just has this corpse thing. And even during the watch. Is that. Is that Terry Crews? You're like, yep. [00:27:17] Speaker C: Like, you see him on the ground. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Weird. [00:27:19] Speaker C: Like, yeah. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Is his career that hurting in 2019, in 2009, he's just like, you know, playing an extra. But okay, sure. [00:27:27] Speaker C: I freaking love Terry Crews. That's. He's one of those guys that, if I had the opportunity to just go hang out with for a day, I would do whatever it takes. Like, he just seems like a fun guy. And to just see the glimpse of him just laying on the ground, and I'm like, wait, he's in this, but he's just dead on the ground? We don't get anything. So heartbroken. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Give me a flashback scene of what happened or something. Anything. Really. [00:27:48] Speaker C: Anything. [00:27:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:27:50] Speaker C: He was just Barnes. Is. Was he Barnes brother? Was that who. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Who he's Talking about, yeah, it was the emotional attachment. So that Barnes really hated the robots, which, you know, everybody here, everybody's lost somebody to the robots at this point. Yeah, the war has been going on for 20 years or whatever it is. Like, nobody's gotten away scot free. I'm gonna say I'm really disappointed that, like, this is supposed to be the start of a future war trilogy. I'm really disappointed we didn't get the other two halves of this movie because I enjoyed it well enough that I would definitely have watched those at least on the second viewing. Maybe on the first one in 2009, I might have been a little spoiled back, but in 2026, I thought this was actually pretty fun. And to know that we go from this to Genesis, which, again, I've only seen one time, maybe it'll surprise me. Oh, man, I'm not looking forward to next week. We're just right back to, like running around in the early 2000s with a robot chasing us. And hopefully we live. Like, it just feels like this was actually a step forward for the franchise for the first time since one, and we're just like, nah, that didn't work. Let's go back to making one again. It's like, oh, all right. [00:28:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I did like the original story, the world building going on. The look of this film was fantastic from start to finish. That dystopian future, I mean, not the intro scene because that wasn't the dystopian future, but everything else just looked amazing. I loved that all of the older robots, pre Schwarzenegger, had like a dark chassis to them. You had a huge variety of variants of these, these robots. They came in motorcycles, giant robots, flying robots. You had all kinds of stuff. You had the hydro robot, which was really cool. You know, the screeching robotic eels in this film. So lots of fun stuff, lots of fun sequences, lots of great action sequences. And it was really rapid paced, which is, I think the only reason I give such a big pass on the dialogue is because they just got me to the next fun action sequence as fast as they could and I was here for it. [00:29:55] Speaker A: Sir, did you just make a Princess bride reference in our Terminator Salvation? [00:29:59] Speaker C: I absolutely did. [00:30:01] Speaker A: Well done, sir. If I could pat you on the back from however far away we are right now, I would. That was well done. Yeah, I, I, I, I agree. Like it, it, it's not perfect. It's got plot holes, it's got logic holes, it's got some pretty rough scenes, some pretty rough acting. But unlike Will, I Actually think that the action was pretty fun. I think the graphics were pretty incredible. And I. I just did have a pretty solid time beginning to end with this one. Now, admittedly, this is a movie I watched in the Watch Party, which, other than Patreon picks, I don't often get to do. So that might have really helped as opposed to watching this by myself. [00:30:39] Speaker C: But, yeah, lots of fun in there. [00:30:41] Speaker A: But regardless, I. I just. I just had a good time, and that's all I'm looking for out of a Terminator movie. Like, I'm not looking for, you know, massive revelations of what it means to be human. I just kind of want to see blow up and, like, they blew up a lot of. Although, ironically, the one time, like, the biggest explosion in the movie, I think, was one of the more like. Wait, what? Like when they're hunting Marcus down and they just do this, like, napalm line? Yeah, like half a mile. It's like you just had him in your sights. Like you were shooting him with a chain gun from a helicopter. You're like, hold my gun. I'm gonna go do something else. Like, you. You've got them. You got them. [00:31:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:14] Speaker A: It's like, what? [00:31:17] Speaker C: Miss him? Yeah. I mean, we did have one explosion that was bigger than that. They. We got to see the deck used throughout the film. And then at the end, they wrapped the deck cord around the battery system, which we saw from number three. So a little throwback to that. So. And then that creates that huge nuclear explosion which the helicopter somehow managed to escape from. Because I swear they were right above that thing. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Right above it. [00:31:42] Speaker C: And then in the next scene, they're, like, half a mile out. And the EMP shockwave from this nuclear explosion didn't bother them at all. Whatever. It looked cool. It was fun. [00:31:52] Speaker A: Helicopters are faster than shockwaves, Brian. [00:31:54] Speaker C: That's it. That's it. Yeah. [00:31:57] Speaker A: I gotta say, like, this future, granted, the future we've seen in the past is 29. 20, 29 plus, so it's like 11 years worse. I'm shocked they're taking helicopters anywhere if they're fighting these robots. [00:32:09] Speaker C: What were those like, Those, like. Like. Were those, like, B19 Hornets or something that they were flying around? Those. I don't know. [00:32:15] Speaker A: They had no idea. [00:32:16] Speaker C: Some jets that they were flying around. Oh, and they. Yeah. Williams was a jet pilot, which is super sexy to begin with. Right? Like, jet pilots and motorcycles. That's where I want to see women. I think that's hot. And they did that for me. So, like. Yeah, right off the, you know, takes the helmet off, does the hair flip thing, and I was like, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. [00:32:35] Speaker A: I like this movie. Yeah, because it's one of those things where like, helicopters even make some sense. Because this. You have take off and land from anywhere. Airplanes are one of the first things humanity loses because [00:32:47] Speaker C: they're gonna. They're gonna detonate the landing strip. Right. [00:32:49] Speaker A: Landing strips are super easy to see from space. You know what I mean? Like, you're gonna see those and just be like, nope, gone. [00:32:57] Speaker C: What do they call that? Vtol? It didn't. It wasn't vtol. Right. It couldn't do vertical takeoff and landing. It didn't have that. This was regular. This was gonna need a Runway. And. Yeah, I. Well, do they have a hidden Runway on, like a submersible or. I don't know. [00:33:14] Speaker A: Not only you need a Runway, you're also going to need a lot of fuel. And they were burning through fuel like nothing in this film. And I'm just like, where are you getting that from, bud? Where's. Where's that all coming from? Because. Okay, sure, sure. Why not? [00:33:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And one thing that I didn't. I wish they would have touched on in some way somehow. Where's the nuclear fallout from the bombs dropping at the end of three? They don't even mention it. We had a lot of theories bouncing around in the chat while we were watching it, but nothing really felt adequate to me. I needed something more in this film to explain that little piece. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Now, one of the guys in the chat did mention something interesting the other day, I believe. Bubba Hotep. I don't know anything about this. I'm going to pick your brain, see what you know. The nuclear bombs would somewhat work like an emp, would they not? And if they did, would that not wreck a lot of the robots that are, you know, supposed to take over the world? [00:34:08] Speaker C: Yes. In fact, there are lots of military scenarios where they detonate nuclear bombs up in the atmosphere rather than on the surface, because you can get that EMP wave, go over a much wider area, knocking out electronics and then later raining, you know, a nuclear fallout down on things. So it could be much more destructive in that sense. So, yeah, Skynet maybe picking and choosing where it bombs so that it doesn't damage too many of its facilities. Obviously, it's got to have some robotic capability after it detonates everything so it can continue making pieces of itself and other robots to do its dirty work. [00:34:47] Speaker A: If you like what we do and you want to help support us, consider joining our Patreon. There's a link down below. Shout out to our producers as well as our executive producer, Dino. And a huge thank you to our writers, Mrs. Hillary and Real Bubba Hotep. Thank you all very much. [00:35:04] Speaker C: I don't have a lot more to say about this. We really thoroughly covered everything and talking about it really didn't adjust my score any. From what I felt going into this, I give this 67. It's a very watchable, fun film with great action sequences, terrible acting, even worse dialogue, a lot of plot holes. But we're four movies deep into time travel. Luckily. This one basically had a reverse time travel where Wright went forward in time and then woke up. Right? What do they call that, Rumpelstiltskin or something? Who was the guy that fell asleep and woke up in the future? So that was an interesting little spin on the time travel. But all in all, I, I think that if you're a fan of the franchise, this is definitely one that you don't skip and probably you'll enjoy it. I think, I mean, just science fiction enthusiasts in general, there's a lot to enjoy in this, just watching those robots and the explosions that go along with it. So fun film for me. Super high fun factor. Lots of problems with this film. Definitely not perfect by any means. [00:36:16] Speaker A: I interview a lot of what Brian has to say about this one. I, I had a lot of fun with this one. Way more than I actually anticipated. I was. Is it a perfect film? Absolutely not. There's plot holes, there's logic holes, there's a lot of issues with this one. But it was a fun movie about giant robots and people fighting with explosions and gut. Like, this is the kind of action movie where you literally can just turn your brain off and just enjoy it. And I did. I, I just, I just had a really solid time watching this for like two hours. Much more so than three. And honestly, as much as two is a much better made film, I think I had more fun watching this one than I did watching two. Admittedly, I've seen too many, many, many times. This is only my second time watching this one, but I, I kind of surprised myself with that one. Now, that being said, it's not getting a crazy high score. It is still, you know, it's got plot holes and issues with it, but for me, for this one, I'm going to give it a 70. I was actually surprised with how much I enjoyed it. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Listen, I've attempted to record this so many times and I just rant on and on and on. And make this such a long review that it could be its own episode. So let me just hit the pros and cons of Terminator Salvation. Love that it's an original story. They build this world even more so. Seeing the future after Judgment Day, it's. It's grim, it's destructive, it's. It's beautiful to look at. I really enjoy that aspect of this movie. I enjoy the return to more practical effect use compared to the third movie. Stan Winston, this is his final movie. He passed shortly after. There's a big in memory of in this movie for him. I think this movie will stand up against the test of time, more so because of it. Some great practical effects. Great actual robots in this movie. Speaking of robots, love that we get to see some of the different iterations of man killing robots in this movie. We got the eel, we got the rubber 600 that's mentioned in the first movie. We get the motorcycles, the harvester. I enjoyed that variety. It really helped flesh out this universe. And no pun intended. I think that's it for positives. Let's get to the negatives. Action I felt was only okay. It didn't really wow me in any way. It kind of just felt one note. Characters, same thing, very one dimensional. I mean, John Connor maybe was slightly better than in the third iteration, but he was just an angry, tunnel vision minded idiot. Like, he's just not an idiot. He was an a hole. You know, he didn't trust robots, he didn't trust people, he didn't trust anybody. He was gonna do whatever he wanted. It didn't matter. He was breaking all the rules and nobody could stop him. Nobody wanted to stop him. It was just he's an unlikable character. So I, I can't invest into that. Don't come at me, Christian Bale, you angry sob. On top of that, Sam Worthington I felt was even worse because his character is kind of not even necessary. They do this weird, interesting play of, oh, what if we have an actual cyborg who is half man and half robot because he's built from a man. It just didn't work for me. And it was all part of this major, major issue. The most, the most horrible part of this whole movie was the ruining of Skynet. It made Skynet into this like seemingly bumbling, convoluted planning. [00:39:45] Speaker C: They don't know what they're doing or how. [00:39:47] Speaker B: It's got so many layers of getting this cyborg to bring John Connor here because they got to Kyle Reese. It was Just like so many random things had to happen in order for this plan to work, when all they needed to do was dial up John Carter Connor. Sorry. On the phone, and be like, dude, we got. We got your dad. Come and get us. We're. We're at 109 Gotcha Avenue. And there you go. John Connor is there and you can just kill him. But no, instead we have this Sam Worthington, who. I don't think he's one dimensional. His character is one dimensional. So maybe it's a perfect pairing. But don't. Didn't like it whatsoever. Didn't like his arc. Didn't, like, feel like he redeemed himself. Didn't understand why he had to redeem himself because didn't even get enough information on him to know why he murdered his family or any of it. It was just nonsense. The whole character is nonsense. It didn't add anything to this movie for me and actually made me hate Skynet more because of it. And that. That is the biggest qualm against this movie that I have. I just can't. I can't stand for Skynet, supposedly this cold, calculated, killing AI program that will just stop at nothing to eradicate all human life on earth. And instead we got this. And it was just. It was. It was brutal. The writing in general in this movie, I thought was pretty bad. And that brings me to the end of the movie. Was bad. Surprise to no one. I thought it was bad. Sam's character's like, oh, I'll give him my heart. You know, he was only crushed by a terminator and brought back to life by a random electricity voltage. And I'm sure it'll do John Connor proud and he'll live a long and prosperous life. And it was just terrible. They're in the middle of the desert. A veterinarian does this heart transplant. No problem. It's just like, stop. But what could they do? Apparently the original ending was leaked online before the movie was finished, and people were in uproar about that. For those of you who don't know, apparently, you know, Sam's character does all the things he does. Saves John at the end of the. Except for John's dying on the table and actually dies. So his veterinarian wife's like, well, I mean, Sam, you got a pretty good body on you. So she does face off transplant, just like in the 90s movie, throws it on Sam's body. And then we got a new John Connor, but he's crazy, remember? So he kills everybody, and the robots win which one's better, which one's worse? You tell me. I don't know. At the end of the day, I can't not give this movie a slight better score than Terminator 3 just for the fact that it came in with an original story and at least gave us an expansion of this world that we've already loved and enjoyed, but didn't get a full picture of this portion of the story just yet. So that was great. 58 out of 100. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being back in the studio with Dan and Brian discussing these movies live with you. And guess what? The vacation is over. Next week, I'll be back. [00:43:06] Speaker C: Shut up. Shut up. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Okay, Shut up. [00:43:10] Speaker B: I get it. No more impersonations. [00:43:13] Speaker A: I get it. And with that, we see Terminator drop, but only a little bit down below. 28 years later, joining Predator at 74. It's got a 75 from me, a 76 from Brian, a 71 from Will, for a grand total of 74. Tying with Predator just a little bit above Aliens. This is exactly where you predicted this franchise would land, kind of right in that like 80s sci fi area with these other two. Do you think, knowing that it's already here and we've only got two movies left to go, do you think it's going to continue to drop or pretty much level out and stay? [00:43:52] Speaker C: I think we're gonna see it in the Bill Paxton trifecta right there somewhere. It may drop below Predator, probably even below Aliens, but I don't think it's gonna go that much further. I'll tell you, I wasn't a huge fan of Genesis. I don't remember it though, so I'm very curious. But I did like Dark Fate and have seen that a couple of times. Okay. So maybe that will balance out and it'll kind of stay where it's at. But then again, I don't know how you guys are gonna feel about those two movies. So it could drop pretty fast. And like I said last time, I. I would highly recommend. If you are a fan of the Terminator franchise, check out Terminator 0 on Netflix. It's a great seven part series there. [00:44:38] Speaker A: I. Fair enough. I will say Genesis. The only thing that I can tell you about it is I'm, and I'm guessing a little bit here. I'm pretty sure it stars the Queen of Dragons, right? Yeah, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And like, that's literally all I could tell you about it. I've not seen Dark Fate, although I think Linda Hamilton's back for that one, actually. Fun fact, Linda Hamilton did do the voice recordings of the tapes. They are a little bit different than the ones from 1984. [00:45:03] Speaker C: Really? [00:45:04] Speaker A: But that is her voice. Like her. [00:45:06] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:45:07] Speaker A: I agree. And it's probably because she is older as opposed to the younger Linda Hamilton, but that's one of the things I was looking up. But she actually did record those, like. Okay, fair enough. Good for her. So, fun fact. [00:45:17] Speaker C: Strange that they couldn't just use the audio from the first movie, but whatever. [00:45:21] Speaker A: I didn't think there was that much of a difference, but maybe it's because they added tapes. [00:45:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true. [00:45:28] Speaker A: They did have some tapes they wanted it to be. Instead of, like, this tape sounds like she's 17 and this tape sounds like she's 50. All of them sound like she's 50. And then it's a little bit more. Yeah, easy to go with, but that's all I got. [00:45:42] Speaker C: You know what? I kind of liked the whole recorded thing, and I liked the whole John Connor talking over the radio, saying, you know, if you're listening, you are the resistance. I really like that. I thought the. That was a cool thing that they had going on there. I would have liked more backstory out of those kinds of situations. Like I said, I felt like we didn't get quite enough of the world building and definitely not enough of the character building. [00:46:06] Speaker A: I completely agree, but that's again, where I would love to have seen a trilogy of this. Not necessarily from Mick G, but just a trilogy of, like, future. Keep. Keep Christian Bale. I like him quite a bit. Keep some of the cast. Obviously, you know, you can't keep Kyle Reese, unfortunately, but keep what you can and build off of this. I think this is actually a pretty solid starting point. Unfortunately for a franchise we'll never see. Well, that's a great ending point. [00:46:30] Speaker C: I gotta push back on the Christian Bale. I agree with Will in this. I didn't like Christian Bale's character in this. He didn't feel like a John Connor. He was. He was better than John Connor in number three so far. Crazy as it sounds, Eddie Furlong was the best John Connor we've had. [00:46:50] Speaker A: I'm gonna push back on both of you for that one for half a second, because what if this is the start of a trilogy? Your character has to start somewhere and grow from there. We see him get introduced to Kyle Reese, his dad, who is a softer person. What if that introduction and them becoming friends, they can grow off each other. And we see John Connor grow into the person that he's. He's meant to become because of his relationship with his dad, which is why he sends him back to become his. You know what I mean? Like, there's things you can do, right? [00:47:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:19] Speaker A: That make this actually make a lot [00:47:21] Speaker C: of sense after Genesis. And we'll see Genesis. [00:47:24] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying though. Like, I wish we got more of this franchise. [00:47:28] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Like there, there's. There's so much potential in this movie to go forward and instead they scrapped it and moved on. And like, oh, I get it. It didn't get a warm reception in 2009. But I have to wonder, would this movie have done? Because like, you gotta remember, like the, The Christian Bale thing was huge when it. [00:47:46] Speaker C: Yeah, like that. [00:47:47] Speaker A: That's what I remember from the film [00:47:49] Speaker C: and it's not part of the film. [00:47:51] Speaker A: I really, really wish we could see what this movie would have done if the hype around it had been, wow, this looks really good and it's kind of fun. Instead of, wow, Christian Bale's an. [00:48:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. It's very unfortunate. [00:48:03] Speaker A: Maybe it wouldn't have moved the needle at all, but I would love to have seen. Seen it. [00:48:06] Speaker C: Yep. [00:48:07] Speaker A: All right, well, that's our rating of Terminator Salvation, but what's yours? Leave a comment down below. I'd love to hear what you have to say. We record this live or Twitch TV, the Mongoolie show, every Thursday night at 9. 00pm Eastern Standard Time. So come on over there and hit the follow button if you want to hang out with us live and chat in the background. Or if you're enjoying this on YouTube and you made it this far, you probably enjoyed it, hit the like and subscribe button. So we see you in the next one. [00:48:29] Speaker B: I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being back in the studio with Dan and Brian discussing these movies live with you. And guess what? The vacation is over. Next week. [00:48:43] Speaker A: I'll be back. [00:48:44] Speaker C: Shut up. Shut up. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Okay, I get it. [00:48:46] Speaker B: Shut up. I get it. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Oh God, I'm so sad we don't get our actual reactions to that. Cuz that was gold. [00:49:02] Speaker C: Oh man. God bless him. [00:49:05] Speaker A: I love that he always goes above and beyond all. We need him back.