Terminator Salvation is the fourth installment in the Terminator saga. It follows the adult John Connor played by Christian Bale of Batman fame. The year is 2018 A.D. and Connor attempts to build a human resistance force formidable enough to win mankind’s war against the machines of post-apocalyptic Earth. John’s certainty about humanity’s future becomes tested with the sudden appearance of Marcus Wright portrayed by Sam Worthington. Marcus is a mysterious stranger whose last memory is of himself on death row, waiting to be executed by lethal injection.
Wounded by a magnetic land mine, the Resistance fighters discover that he is a cyborg with a mechanical endoskeleton and a human heart. With John’s uncertainty as to whether or not Marcus is an assassin from the future, he begins to wonder if there is still any hope for humankind as the machines grow more cunning and unpredictable. Marcus believes he is human, but John thinks that Marcus has been sent to target him, and orders his destruction.
However, fighter pilot Blair Williams (portrayed by the lovely Moon Bloodgood) helps Marcus escape from the base. During the pursuit, Marcus saves John’s life from Skynet hydrobots, and the two make an agreement: John will let Marcus go if Marcus will enter Skynet headquarters to rescue Kyle Reese (John’s teenage father portrayed by Anton Yelchin) and the other prisoners. Once the two are in Skynet headquarters, they discover Skynet’s master plan and the secrets that could turn the tide of the war against them.
Terminator Salvation has a different feel to it. It isn’t like what we experienced from filmmakers James Cameron (The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). The fourth Terminator movie is part of a new breed, almost as if director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) had decided to combine Terminator with Mad Max. Gone, mostly, is the time traveling and the concept of only a single, deadly villain stalking someone. In their place is a true science-fiction war movie.
With the concept of an insurgency struggling against a vast-and-growing evil empire, there’s more than a little Star Wars in Terminator Salvation, although not even at Empire Strikes Back’s bleakest was Lucas’ saga this dark. Salvation’s story is not only dark, the film’s visual appearance is also dark. Almost too dark. Injecting the Mad Max look of the movie was enough, McG didn’t have to desaturate the film’s color and charcoal the robots to convey a dark atmosphere. The dark and dingy appearance takes away from the movie, and it is much different from the slick, futuristic, color-saturated, flash-forward scenes of the previous movies.
The screenplay for Terminator Salvation went through a number of re-writes, and despite a few big action sequences (involving explosions, trucks, motorcycles, giant Transformer-like robots, planes and flying hunter-killer craft), the first two-thirds of the movie is redundant and uneven. A significant portion of the movie seems slapped-together. I began to wonder whether the movie was made by director McG or McDonalds. The most interesting part of the movie is only the last 30 minutes.
Because of the muddying of Terminator’s timeline in the second and third films, it’s unclear how much of the “established” future remains valid. But still, the movie should have explained why Skynet wanted to kill Kyle Reese when it hadn’t even sent the T-800 back in time yet. One possible explanation is that Skynet sent a second cyborg to 1984 strictly for surveillance in case the first Terminator failed, and that cyborg saw Kyle making out with Sarah Connor. But still… Why should the audience have to think of that? Better yet… why would they think of that?
Fortunately, even with its drawbacks, this movie stands out as the second best Terminator movie. It maybe worse than the second movie, but it’s better than the humorous third movie and the horror-fan oriented first movie. Anton Yelchin was the ideal actor for portraying a young Kyle Reese. The role was played very well. It’s as if someone threw Michael Biehn in a time machine and out popped Anton. The conversation between Marcus Wright and Skynet was notable. Apparently Skynet realized that it could lose the war and started implementing more sophisticated deception tactics. Plus, the reappearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 near the end was a welcome sight even if Arnold was computer-generated this time. Though given the sex scandal with his former housekeeper, the sight of someone running from a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger is a bit hilarious.
Conclusion… the new Terminator trilogy has the potential to be an epic “Star Wars for Adults” with less fairytale elements (such as princesses, knights, magical villains with dark cloaks, etc.) and more intense, gritty action. But there will always be directors and producers who only care about milking the “franchise cow.” From the way things are going, some production company might have to draft Cameron or even Lucas to pull off an exceptional Terminator 5. The only question is not “will” but “can” the Terminator saga truly say “I’ll be back?”
You can join in on the discussion of the latest movie and television reviews at my Twitter page. Mack Morrison (aka Media Mack) is a blogger, reviewer, and a big-time internet movie and TV fan.
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Our Christian Filmmakers 36-Hour Contest submission. Because of the time constraints, we had to compress our story, but we hope you’ll enjoy it nonetheless. Synopsis: “It hurts when a gift is not appreciated. When Emily experiences this pain, she becomes bitter only to discover that gratitude is not just someone else’s problem.” A special Thanks to Roger Hunt! He did a great job on the score for this film. Check him out at www.rogerhuntmusic.com And more thanks to Jean-Marc Le Doux for helping me out with pre-production and for just being there to bounce things off of.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Question by : Are you an atheist or Christian?
If so here are other famous Athiests:
Kevin Bacon (1958–): American film and theater actor.
James Cameron (1954–): Canadian film director known for directing Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic and Avatar.
George Clooney (1961–): American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, and humanitarian
Kari Byron (1974–): American television host and artist, best known for her featured role on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters.
Mackenzie Crook (1971–): English actor and comedian, known for playing Gareth Keenan in The Office and Ragetti in Pirates of the Caribbean
David Cross (1964–): American actor, writer, and Emmy winner, best known for his role as Tobias Fünke on Arrested Development
Stephen Fry (1957–): British humourist, writer, actor, creator of Futurama, and filmmaker .
Jamie Hyneman (1956–): American visual effects expert, best known as the co-host of the television series MythBusters.
Angelina Jolie (1975–): American actress
Larry King (1933-): American radio and television host
Hugh Laurie OBE (1959–): English actor, comedian, writer, and star of the television show House.
Bruce Lee (1940–1973): martial artist, actor and philosopher. John Little states that Lee was an atheist. When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied “none whatsoever.”[119] Also in 1972, when asked if he believed in God, he responded, “To be perfectly frank, I really do not.”
Kevin Macdonald (1967–): Scottish two-time BAFTA winning director, most famous for his films The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void.
Seth MacFarlane (1973–): Creator, animator, executive producer, actor, writer for American Dad! and Family Guy.
Keanu Reeves (1964–): Canadian-American actor best known for his portrayal of Neo in The Matrix trilogy and Ted Logan in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.
Daniel Radcliffe (1989–): English actor. Most notable for his role in the movie productions of the J.K. Rowlings books, Harry Potter
Brad Pitt (1963–): American actor and producer, best known for the films Fight Club, Se7en and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, has stated that he does not believe in God, and that he is partly atheist, partly agnostic
Adam Savage (1967–): American television co-host on the program MythBusters
Etc.
If your a Christian here are some famous people:
Jesus!
Also Stephen Hawking is an athiest.
Best answer:
Answer by Abhorsen
What about if we’re neither?
Add your own answer in the comments!
Our entry into the Christian Filmmakers.org’s 48hr contest (1st place winner). Filmed, edited, scored and uploaded in less than 48hrs. 1st Vol. of Jostie Flicks now available on DVD! Order here: www.jostieflicks.com ADD US ON FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com