I've always been a defender of Salvation. It's not a great movie by any means, but it's by far the best Terminator sequel after Judgement Day. It's the only movie in the series to actually break up the formula. You gotta give it credit for that.
Terminator: Salvation was a bad Terminator movie whereas everything else past Judgment Day wasn't a Terminator movie at all. That's the important distinction, as I see it.
Well, T3 kind-of broke it too. First, the evil terminator has other targets beside John Connor, something that bugged me through other movies - I get that he leads the resistance, but he alone could not do anything without the skilled men charging the battle. Take out those men and you'll just leave Connor without anyone to fight. Smart move. Next thing is the final outcome of the movie, where they state that you cannot prevent Judgement day, you can only postpone it. This is another thing that bugged me throughout the series. Each movie consists of them trying to prevent Judgement day from happening and each time we see that it will happen, one way or the other. So, they went from "the future is not set" to "the future war is inevitable". Also, I can understand why original Skynet went haywire - it became self-aware, humans were scared of what it could do, they tried to shut it down and Skynet fought back, because it was programmed to protect itself, so it concluded that all humans are threat to its existence and that they all need to be wiped out. While this all sounds like a possible scenario, it also looks like a bad AI design and programming. So, instead of going back in time and trying to prevent future war by blowing up anyone who attempts to work on AI, you could instead warn people of what can go wrong and try to correct the model. It's kind of a feedback from previous Skynet incarnations and what went wrong. We live in a world where AI is already being used in many different forms and developing something like Skynet is indeed inevitable, so they had to use that in the movies, where they say "okay, we realize that we cannot stop mankind from making this new industrial and technological revolution, but let's try to see if we can somehow interfere with the work and fix the problems from past failed versions". "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" tv show had an interesting idea, where in the future there is a part of the resistance with their own AI that is actually a good one and works alongside humans, so they sent one of their cyborgs back in time to ensure that this friendly AI will get created. Yes, the actor portraying that cyborg was bad, her scenes were bad, the entire TV show was pretty much dumb (especially how it ended), but I like that idea and it seemed to be based on reality more, because you have plenty of people working on different types of AI today and, in case there was one that goes rogue and starts murdering everyone around it, there would be others that could be used to help fight the evil one. This also could be the way how T-800 was originally reprogrammed to be a good one in T2. Why not? Sounds more reasonable than some hacker-wannabe plugging in advanced AI-controlled robot and re-programming it from scratch.
@@vladpiranha I give it praise for at least trying to do something completely different and I think, given time and sequels, we'd have had quite the trilogy of future war.
I'm the kinda guy who liked Salvation and was especially excited to see it in theatres. A Terminator movie years after T3? Christian Bale? The actual post-apocalypse?! Sounded pretty darn exciting at the time, lemme tell ya. And I still feel this is the only one of the new sequels I truly enjoy.
Even the inclusion of Marcus Wright didn't wreck the film for me. He was an experiment that could work. Skynet at the end was incredibly cheesy, admittedly. But all of these advanced inclusions can be chalked up to Skynet's eventual loss and most of these systems being destroyed to where it had to start over by 2029.
I don’t even feel the need to comment by itself because you exactly spelled it out joelp4. I was hyped for a post-apocalypse Terminator film in theaters. We finally got the Skynet War! What we’ve been waiting for. I still love it. I see it’s flaws now years later but I still greatly enjoy it. Plus the film is dedicated to Stan Winston’s memory.
@@sagadiablo I think any rational person would realise it's early days in the future war though. The flashbacks in previous films were clearly a lot further ahead in time than Salvation.
What it got right: Trying to do something different for a change. Direction. Acting. Action. Special FX including a good blend of practical and CGI. Introduction of new Terminator types, not just different infiltrators. What it got wrong: The script.
@@DinoDave150 Being justified isn't enough to make it look good. The night-time future war with neon lasers is awesome... why would you ever trade it for grey-brown dusty sludge?
All I wanted in the film was to see the human resistance fighting against Skynet without the time traveling. And the film is good once you watch the director's cut
I personally liked Salvation, I liked the early war stages of judgment day with Skynet still somewhat using conventional weaponry and early Terminator designs.
But the difference is, the Resistance in this timeline uses technology from the late 90s/early 2000s and by the looks of how the humans still have a functional air force and navy in 2016, it appears they can win the "future war" in just 3 years rather than the original indented date in 2032. That would means John won't necessarily die by a T-800 and in turn create another split timeline where Skynet posed less threat than Fallout's Great War, seriously, the nukes only wiped out half the planet and in the movie the machines only used humans as manual labors or grafting materials for the early T-800 models. So by trying make Judgment Day a constant pushed back to 2004, they inevitably shortened their global domination scheme. Hell, Skynet this time placed Kyle Reese highest on the "bounty board" as a last ditch attempt to prevent the events taking place in 1984.
Never got over the whole fiasco where Marcus is told in the end that he's secretly controlled by Skynet, but it also gave him enough free will to rip out the chip he's being controlled by. It's like the ending of Robocop if it were written by an idiot.
@@DubiousConsumption I mean if they're kids they'd probably like 3 as well, but you're probably just gonna confuse them with 5 and 6- most adults cant even keep the timeline straight anymore after those
Even though it looked cool it bugged me when John Connor jumped out of the helicopter into the freezing ocean at night to enter the sub but he had NO scuba gear or LIGHT or WETSUIT OR ANYTHING.
Dredd was the same way. Problem is if you don't establish that potential in the first film it destroys any incentive for others to follow and makes suddenly revealing things not established look try-hard or a rush job or just makes continuing under the old continuity pointless. Affective storytelling needs a chronology, rules and a goal established in the beginning.
Does anyone else think he should take a look at the game Terminator: Resistance? It's not perfect by any means, but it feels like the Terminator 3 that we should have gotten with call-backs and homages to the first two films that don't feel too forced, as well as an ending that ties T1 and T2 together in a complete circle.
Definitely the best Terminator video game if you ask me. The story, soundtrack and environmental designs were all great, even the choices of dialogue options were a cool feature. The graphics and gameplay weren’t groundbreaking but who cares?
For me it is pretty much perfect and counts as canon (as a prequel to T1). It's waaaay better than any other movies made after t2 and is also more in line with the plot and storyline...
Salvation was a step in the right direction. They should have learned from it and improved on things with more films set in the Future War, while trying to finally close the loop. Anything else could have been spin offs following other people targeted by Skynet or other resistance groups dealing with new/experimental models of terminators, but at least the main timeline could finally be put to rest.
I completely agree. Didn't realize why I didn't feel the futuristic background was working for me until you pointed out how they're not the first movies' future. Then you reminded me it isn't YET. Thanks. They tried, that's fair to say. And I agree with your changes, especially still including Michael Ironside. You always keep your Michael Ironside's scenes. That's a must.
In addition to Salvation being an earlier part of the war, I also thought that by delaying judgememt day that also weakend skynet and the resistance had more of an advantage and that's why they can come out during the day and not everything is destroyed yet
I've gotta say, I absolutely love the practical FX for the T-600s. From the construction of the things, the way they're modelled and painted, down to the puppeteering and the way they're shot, it's really fantastic stuff in my book. For me, that was the highlight of this movie.
It IS the best sequel after T2. It stands on it's own, adds to the lore without re-writing the continuity. I thought they did a decent job portraying some of the future events leading to Reese's arrival in 1984. It was dark, gritty, and captured a really great tone and style without going overboard or retconning anything.
Personally, the Resistance from Salvation is better armed than the one depicted in the first two Terminator films. In the "original" future war of 2029, humans scurry like rats in a boneyard hunted by HKs and T-600s, relying only on guerrilla tactics. In T2, the Resistance got slightly better armaments and was seen actively fighting the machines this time. After the events of T3, humans even got advanced tech from the 2000s and in Salvation, the Resistance, while not truly unified, still had functional air forces and a navy, and John as a soldier was already whooping the machines' asses good before Marcus came into the picture. So the Resistance in Salvation could have easily won the future war in just a couple of years instead of until 2032 and after John's death. It could be indicated by the fact that Kyle Reese was Skynet's number 1 bounty in 2016 whereas in the first two films the machines only took interests in John and with the creation of time machines, Sarah Connor, suggesting they knew the tide was against them so badly this time around. Guess trying to eliminate John's future lieutenants didn't do shit.
the only direction that this franchise can go into is a movie like this, about the future. They haven't even scratched the surface on what they could do with The Terminator future war. It's to bad we'll never know.
It’s not a bad movie at all, it’s a pretty good movie actually! Stop overanalysing it all and just enjoy it for what it offers- something different, and something interesting!! Who wants to keep on watching Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing people through the air and keep repeating the same old shit over and over again???? Another really good thing about Salvation, was that there was none of that Hammy Slapstick humour whatsoever that completely ruined the tension of T3 and the pile of shit that was Genysis!!!
@@Clay3613 No I disagree. T5 was just terrible. At best its clichéd rubbish, at worst its a confusing boring and incoherent mess of a movie that feels like a two hour trailer for a franchise that never happened. It is a spit in the face of the legacy of John Connor and an ass raping of T1 and T2.
If only that scene was between Kyle and John instead of a bland throw away character nobody has any connection to played by a some guy you wish wasn't part of the plot
@@AppleSauceGamingChannel I would have been better if Marcus was fleshed out as a character. Give him flash backs like Kyle Reese did when he first arrived and use it to show what Marcus did that ended him up on death row. He just needed something more to him than confused man machine hybrid who never seemed like he was struggling to do what he believed was right or Human. When he had the seen with Skynet and the chip was 'activated" he should have had a struggle between himself with his human brain and the chip.
@@314jeepsnmopars3Marcus stabbed a man to death… it was in the computer database he scanned when he entered Skynet.. I had to pause it to read the article
If I were a movie production company... I would give you all the money to make your vision of the best Predator and Terminator films with the team you would want. Everything you have to say to make those franchises make sense and stay true to what they are gets me excited for something I know will never happen. Love the vids!
Making good movies isn't easy, and TH-camrs who do video essays on what they think about certain movies aren't always going to be the best directors for action films. Who do you think the people who go into film are? They're not people with a passing fancy with films who want to join the lucrative film industry to get a job cranking out studio drivel, they're film nerds who also wrote tons of essays about what they do and don't like about film, it's just the reality of movie making and the requirement for leadership qualities get in the way. It's not as simple as having a good idea for a film, you need a good team who works well together.
Just a little fanon moment, I like to believe that Star in this movie is the female soldier that gets vaporized in Kyle's flashback in The Terminator when they throw bombs at the HK Tank.
Aw man that’s actually pretty cool but I think if it was Star, Kyle would have had a big more of a reaction to her death if he was looking after her for years...
@@l.pricetag.5207 I feel like you got a point too, but I also think that after years of fighting the machines, Kyle at that point would be a lot less reactionary. He knows their role as soldiers and he knows he doesn't have time to mourn outside of that "disappointed and saddened" look he has after she dies. He also knows he needs to get the hell out of dodge or he’ll get zapped too. Prob not her though cuz the actress in that film is white, but still.
I knew about the leaks before I went to go see it. Don't pay too much attention to the things you love. You can love them to death if you try hard enough.
There was another ending planned where Marcus with John's face suddenly turns full Terminator, grabs a gun and kills all the Resistance members in the tent, Kyle Reese and Kate included
Yeah im so glad they didnt go with that. Thay movie was already going bonkers after the midway point and that ending would have easily angered a lot of people just like the dark fate intro
There was also an entirely different second half where we find out Skynet never went rogue and is instead trying to save humanity from self-inflicted extinction by killing 99% of the population and turning the remaining 1% into cyborg hybrids (like Marcus!) who live in a pleasure dome hidden deep within the center of Skynet’s main HQ. That’s what happens to the people nabbed by the robots. Seriously.
I actually like the idea of human-robot hybrid. Imagine if when a Terminator started acting human or hybrids the other terminator would try to talk robot, but switch to human because they don't understand anymore. And robots talking to each other just sounds like electronic noises.
One thing to mention is that the Terminators in this movie look and sound HEAVY , you can tell that they can absolutely crush your skull with one hand, so hats off the the special effects team and the sound design team.
Star Wars literally repeats quotes on all of their movies, like "I've got a bad feeling about this" *But when Terminator does it, people lose their mind???*
I recommend u play Terminator Resistance to see how Terminator Salvation shud had played out :D They even play the technoir song (Burn in the 3rd degree) right before the Terminator attacked the Resistance hideout. Also they went into detail about the T-800 model r actually different from the infiltrator version, as well as the change from ammo cartridge to the red plasma then purple more powerful plasma. It is a great lore add on to the Terminator series.
The late-but-still-great Anton Yelchin was PERFECT as the young Reese. You can tell he really studied Michael Biehn. And the makeup artists did a great job making him look like Mike. But still, lasers! I want lasers! It's been proven already that intermediate-caliber small arms don't do jack squat against a hyper-alloy combat chassis. If yer gonna use bullets, you need the anti-material kind like .50 BMG. Heck, even 40mm grenades don't always do the job! So rockets, bombs, and directed-energy weapons are the way to go. If not lasers, then phased plasma, which uses a laser beam to guide a bolt of ionized plasma (which is basically lightning). So, yeah, it's kind of a lot like the lightning gun from Quake, maybe combined with the tau cannon from Half-Life. Or maybe even the gluon gun! Oh, and positively charged lightning is hotter than negatively charged lightning, so a "positron collider" (or "proton pack") could also be viable. Something like those ion guns from The Matrix: Revolutions.
Want to know a good plot twist. Skynet is actually trying to save humanity. The whole ending humanity and war was to get humans to see themselves as a single group working together. Removing all borders and perceived differences. The ending would be Skynet making a secret piece with John Conner and the hole time travel thing was to force a ending/scenario that saves both humanity and the AI.
*The entire rubber mask in the Marcus and Reese vs 600 showdown was seen in the unreleased McG cut. It's such a shame we may never ever be able to see it.*
This was the reason for my enjoyment of terminator genisys, I went in totally blind and did not know of the John connor being the bad guy twist and it made the movie more enjoyable for me. I found out later that the twist was revealed in a trailer, and had I seen it in a trailer I think I would not have enjoyed the movie one bit.
@@BayAreaRushHour I remember having fun watching it, but for me it's the worst one. I thought it had a lot of interesting ideas that could be explored though. A mixture of this one & that one might be interesting.
I am way late for this. But I was born in 2003. So I was six when this movie came out. Terminator Salvation was the very first Terminator film I have ever watched. At some pizza buffet place where I used to live was a small arcade game of Terminator Salvation, it was one of those zapper shooters games. I loved the film. Then my dad introduced me to T2 and I was hooked. Today, yeah. Salvation wasn't the best. But I loved that it showed us what happens when skynet went through with judgment day. The different types of terminators, I believe I had an action figure of the T600 at some point. Had a bit of skin on the face. But damn. I still have a good time with it, T2 and T1 were perfect. But Salvation was my introduction of the world of the machines, and I can't be too mad about it
I think the "come with me if you want to live" line, while overused, does work in T2 and Salvation. In T2 it's used as a short hand to Sarah Connor to establish that the Terminator is indeed there to protect them. And in Salvation it is a line spoken by Kyle Reese, and it's a good shorthand to establish that this kid is in fact Kyle Reese for those in the crowd who haven't realized it yet without being patronizing.
Love the video. I think some of the 'changes' made to this future were meant to reflect the idea that due to time travel, things were slowly being literally retconned. The idea, the worry that despite all of her best efforts, that the future that Sarah was training John for didn't exactly line-up with what Future John was facing. Because of the stalled Judgement Day, SkyNet had gotten a slight upgrade. PLUS I think some of the weird robot designs were meant to bridge with what was shown in T3. SkyNet was slowly outmoding/discontinuing certain models and designs.
I've always considered the first movies' vision of the future as the most accurate. Forget the giant walking mecca with a very vulnerable joints. Forget sophisticated terminator skeletons being used as infantry and instead as elite infiltration units. Probably the most unrealistic thing to me of all was why the air wasn't constantly filled with bioweapons.
I've thought for a while that Skynet doesn't hate _life_ so it's not going to go out of its way to make the planet _unlivable_ but instead "merely" a waking nightmare for humanity. Skynet's beef is with humanity, not with the planet.
@@dylanwight5764 interesting hypothesis but there are ways to biologically target humanity, plus not so sure a global nuclear war was really great for other life, either.
Great review of a movie I really enjoy (not as much as T1 and T2 obvs). Not gonna lie, I completely missed the homages to Kyle's Future War flashbacks from T1 - that's going to completely change how I watch this movie.
I liked the T-800 fight at the end. It was just intense seeing it back in its horror roots. Blow it up? Nope. Cover in molten metal? Ahh a warm blanket. Fight with other terminator? Would have worked better if it wasn't part human. You could really feel the desperation from Connor and I just loved how it one shot Marcus using that advanced understanding of human anatomy.
Remember, from T1, that Reese talked about how we were starting to win. So the laser guns, which were more effective then live rounds, would make more sense toward the end of the war. That is why the terminators had been sent back in time too. It wasnt that Skynet was winning and also sent back the Terminators through time, it was, rather, that Skynet was winning and was getting desperate, so, they sent back Terminators to hopefully eliminate the threat to them completely.
Hmm, I guess Skynet *could* know who Reese was/is based on the police records. I always felt they shouldn't know anything about him at this point in the timeline given that no terminators survived long enough to tell them. The likelihood of these records surviving the nuclear war seems small and how would they know what to look for if they didn't even know they were going to send terminators back through time, yet? I dunno...seems like it should have been explained or the story rewritten with them not knowing who Reese is. John Conner's knowledge of the future should be mankind's greatest weapon against them. Oh, and yeah, the Marcus character shouldn't exist in the story.
Great video! It covers many of the things I enjoyed about the film and didn't in equal measure. I could have done without the Marcus Wright character entirely, though, and would have loved if the story had been focused on John, his struggle for survival, and how he begins to cobble together the resistance. I did think it was smart touch that the early resistance fighters (surviving military) were skeptical of John and his knowledge of future events/technologies and that there is division in the ranks in terms of who unwaveringly follows and trusts him, and who would need convincing over time. The biggest plot hole for me was always with regards to Kyle Reese. There was never indication given in T1 or T2 that Skynet had any knowledge of Connor's father, and in fact, that very secret was what gave John an advantage as a target. Reese himself wasn't even in the know that he was John's father, and how would John have even had the ability or opportunity to explain that to him? In T2 when the T-1000 travels back, kills the cop, takes the form of an officer, acquires the officer's car and then does a search of John in the computer records, on the screen it indicates natural mother- Connor, Sarah and natural father: unknown. The fact that in the future, before John is even the resistance leader, Skynet has a hit list with both John and Kyle at the top made no sense to me. It was never explained how Skynet would even have had that information, and if it did, John would have had to hide his father from Skynet for years before they discovered the Time Displacement Equipment and explain: "just so you know-you're my father". That simple detail and lack of explanation made most of the movie fall apart for me, and bothered me as much as the timeline inconsistencies that came about in every sequel that appeared following T2. It felt like a plot contrivance-just like Judgement Day only being "postponed" by the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2 without much explanation of how and why it still came to be. The main thing I liked about Salvation was that it attempted to do something new. Instead of handing Terminator fans another time travel movie with yet ANOTHER more advanced model of Terminator battling yet ANOTHER version of Arnold's T-800, it actually attempted to tell a story set in the future war. At times the ashen aesthetic of the nuclear post apocalyptic wasteland really worked and added grit, and some of the early clunky models of the endos and some of the HK's looked great. Hollywood unfortunately, as always, dumbed the whole thing down though, and just produced a blockbuster without soul. No real stakes, no real emotion, no truly compelling story. Just a bunch of repeated one liners, cool looking robots and explosions. I just wish someone as ambitious as Cameron, who had a true passion for this story and its canon, set out to make a riveting trilogy chronicling the future war as harrowing as it should have been. It should have told John's story in depth: his forming of the resistance, the battle between man and machine, John's eventual meeting and conflicted relationship with his young father who he must both watch over and train during the war and then send back in time to die to ensure his own survival. Also, the story should have come full circle, with the Resistance smashing Skynet's defence grid, winning the war, and finding the time equipment-setting up the doomed war for humanity's survival in the past-a tragic time loop. They could have thrown in all the cool robots and explosions in there that they wanted as long as the story was a riveting and human one, and the characters mattered. After T2 I wished the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show (which had great potential and strong themes/characters) had continued in lieu of all the movie sequels being made, but it seems the franchise's "Dark Fate" had already been sealed as early as T3.
7:08 All GNR fans know “you could be mine” but it’s still so much fun to see them play it live ever today. Cause you know the casual ticket buyers or random friends who went, they know the song from T2.
This movie by far had the most potential after T2. Loved seeing the A-10 thunderbolt laying lead in the opening scene, but I hated the harvester later on. Really hope one day we can get a full reset of all the lore and just give us something more akin to the James Cameron T1 future war, with the synth soundtrack and all the lasers.
I think also to the overall aesthetic of the film is a bit of a letdown as for most of us who grew up with Terminator wanted to the future war sequences seems pretty because consistent and a lot of us would often imagine what to our film of that would look like so when we get to it it's a prequel to that and it doesn't exactly feel the same. I think on a script level there's a lot of clever things in salvation that a lot of people don't actually give credit to I think having someone from our time being transported into the future as a reversal is actually kind of interesting but gets lost in the film slightly keep up the great work enjoying your videos.
Say what you want about the ending, but that one shot where the T-800 emerges from the lava like Connor's angel of death with the breaking lava falling off of it like a hooded cloak is the best shot in the whole franchise
The first video I saw of yours was the nun review a few years ago. I was on my way to Australia and your “OMG bois, it’s the nun” line had me in stitches at the airport. Now here’s the funny thing, a few days later in OZ I was chilling on a beach with me boys and I kid you not I saw an actual nun walking along the beach and I said out loud “OMG boys, it’s a nun!” They all looked at me confused as if to say “Err yeah? And?” And then like a weirdo I just bust out laughing to myself! So just wanted to say thank you for all the fantastic content and congratulations on hitting 100k subs!!
I was going to write this huge list of what's wrong with the Terminator, and what I liked about it. But you nailed my biggest issues. I'm the guy who hated Terminators throwing people around after T2. You're right, once you see it...you can't unsee it. I am vocal more about Salvation because it was closest to greatness. Genisys and Dark fate were never going to be great. I feel like Kenobi yelling, "You were supposed to be the chosen one!" This is the movie I would have pitched (minus the stupid Marcus Wright character). It hurts to see it turn out like this. What kills me, is they show the labor camps, and John is barely in there. Imagine John saying: "Those labor camps, worst 20 minutes of my life!". What a waste. You're right, saving those people should have been the finale. It should have been very difficult to do. A Terminator hybrid could have worked because we've already seen it in other mediums. In Terminator 2029 they get ahold of a Terminar tech in a suit. In the Terminator comics we got a human/Terminator hybrid that was supposed to get past the dogs. But the human part of him took control and rebelled against the robot half. He was in a constant struggle fighting off an insistent machine that would never quit. That was written so much better than this. But it shouldn't have been written here. Save that for the sequels. Not looking like Cameron's future war because it's 10 years earlier. I disagree with. People went to this movie to see because of Cameron's future war, so having some resemblance would at least in some scenes would have helped this movie. The reality is, this wasn't done to make the movie better, or show us something different. It was for budgetary reasons. It was just cheaper. I think it's important for sequels to follow the universes' rules set up by previous movies. Otherwise it becomes a jumbled mess. This felt far too different than the world we saw. But it's a minor quibble. Overall, it bugs me. This was a chance to do what Aliens did with Alien. Take the movie in another direction. The first was a horror movie, the second an action movie. Make this a war movie. Take the D-Day scene in saving private Ryan. Replace Nazis with Terminators. What makes that scene great, is it felt like real people fighting. The soldier crying out for his mother. The man horrified at seeing his intestines outside his body and trying to put them back in. It showed the absolute horror of war. It humanized them. The horrors faced made the victory feel like a real achievement. That's what I was hoping for.
I actually thought Salvation’s use of “I’ll be back” was the best since T1. Felt really natural, made sense in context, got me pumped for the third act of the movie. Glad to see this flick getting *some* love. It’s not great and still has a lot of problems, but it’s my favorite of ANY Terminator movie after T2.
First, it's about time someone make an analysis of the best sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Second, I completely agree with you 100% about everything good and everything bad with Salvation. And it is because of all the good things you mention in this video that I defend it every time the discussion about this saga arises. Third, the problem always with this type of saga is, in a film that talks about a global conflict, when in its second half the plot becomes something too personal, and focuses exclusively on the traumas of the protagonists. Which leads to a melodrama that they do not know how to resolve and that generally ends up looking ridiculous compared to the sophistication of the general plot, which is that of the war against the machines. Great, great analysis. Big hug from Argentina!
When this came out, friends always moaned about how Salvation didn't match the "Future War" setting. I always have to explain that John sends Kyle back in 2029 while Salvation is set in 2018... that's 11 years prior to events. Salvation 2 and 3 would have simply filled out that story and ended with John sending back Kyle to make it full circle.
I also hate those kinds of people who say that same shit. Did you expect humanity to be futuristic and the war happened or did they expect Skynet to launch the nukes and suddenly also had the technology to be 30 years in the future? Salvation got it right in my opinion and it's because they based it on what was said by Uncle Bob in T2 which was that SKynet was given slow but sure control of the military but the military only had a few upgrades. They mentioned that the B2 Stealth bomber was still be used just no longer piloted by humans. And then Kyle Reese said in T1 that Skynet started off by killing off survivors in slaughter houses before John organized a resistance of some sort. None of this tells me that Future War was what we saw at first which makes sense. In fact I believe Salvation got it right in the sense that with Skynet nuking a lot of cities on Earth leaves a lot of other cities and towns untouched before Skynet came in and started to clean this shit out meaning the first wave of killing humans had to be very slow and method like. The only thing about Salvation I thought was too much was the Terminator's all using miniguns, that seems too resource heavy for the situation Skynet created. They should of been using small arms.
So happy you made this. You share many of my own sentiments. Well done. If I were to add one thing, I wish that instead of the Marcus twist, it was leading into the development and implementation of time travel.
You're joking, but thinking about a plot where the resistence has basically won but needs to wipe out anything that Skynet left, including a last T-800, that now thinks by itself because not receiving any orders anymore and running from it's certain desintegration, sounds like a somewhat weird but very interesting and original story to me. In general, showing the end of the war at some point would be interesting. Oh well, tells us once more, that a Salvation-trilogy could have been so awesome.
2029 is coming. I'd love to see a sequel to this around then. An older John Connor leading the resistance to victory. But the story is Kyles. He's the main character. And we're made to absolutely feel sorry for him. To watch him suffer, to hope and dream, and to eventually volunteer. The movie ends with John Connor crying or some shit because he just sent his father to his death. Just a good, gut wrenching, personal story. Showing us what it was really like for Kyle.
Oh, and a short post-credit scene of a wholely intact T-800 deactivated and being dragged away on John's orders saying "let's see what we can make of this." As a nod to T2 and to get Arnie his cameo.
Nice job on this one mate. Decent review (even if not intended as a review) but hits all the points I’ve always felt as well - good to not be alone. My son just got to the point to watch T2 and despite some foibles I’ll probs be putting this one in as the 3!
I have to disagree with you about removing the "this is not the future my mother warned me about" plot point. Without that new twist, you're implying to the audience that John is already on the path of victory and they've basically already won. The layer of unpredictability is actually needed to leave some doubt in the audience's mind (mirroring John's confusion) as well as adding intrigue to a story we're otherwise already familiar with after hearing about it from the other films. Now that doesn't mean I agree with the decision to make a Terminator/Human hybrid the protagonist of the movie, but they were on the right track by adding a new twist and giving John a fakeout death. Other than that, you're right on the money as always. Great vid
The film could've centred around a group of original characters tasked with rescuing Reece. The rescue of Reece would still be inevitable, but the fates of the other characters would still provide suspense to the audience. Something like _Star Wars: Rogue One_, I guess (a film I haven't actually seen).
Salvation is what I call one of those 80% movies... 80% of the ideas and execution are good, it's that 20% that always murders these efforts. Still, I'd rather watch this than most of the other pieces of shit sequels in this franchise.
I feel the same way about the sci-fi flop Supernova. Good ideas and mostly good execution...only for it to turn into your typical _10 little indians* horror schlock in space in the third act.
5:43 This theory is an anomaly , In the T2 John Connor flashback , they are using conventional weaponry . Always looked at , as more of a tracer round , using light projectile based bullets.
The First Terminator in my opinion is still the best and scarier because is in the time when there are no Cellphones, no Social Media, there are only public Phone Booths, so imagine you have a Terminator coming after you and trying to kill you and if you try going to law enforcement, the media, family, family members, friends, they would all think you are crazy and that maybe you are the one killing all those civilians and you are making up that is a Robot Cyber from the Future.
What Salvation got right: *Acting* *New Plot Direction* *Soundtrack* *Ambiance* *New Character* *New Terminator Models* *Comics, video games, even toys* What Salvation got wrong: *Cancelled the continuation universe including movies, comics and games because Skydance listened to Toxic Fans... Let that sink in... People acted like Salvation was the worst thing that the Terminator franchise got rebooted... TWICE.*
Personally, considering there is SO MUCH they COULD show us, it honestly would better if they ditch the films, cause they have failed at this point, especially with "Inclusive Political Crap Fate", A Terminator Salvation ERA should be made, but in Tv Show format. With that, they can keep the original story-line and they can build up John's story in that era with as large a cast as they want. We can see what the first Terminator series looked like, we can see how long before Skynet starts developing Infiltration units, we can see if they ever used T-1000 and later models on the battlefield, we can see if the War against The Machines is actually winnable (The "final assault" that Kyle mentions could easily be an assumption, he doesn't really know), and we would get to see the Laser Guns. The Past has been milked to death. I think everyone by now is sick of the past. I certainly am...
And without adding different timelines please! We don't need different timelines, just show us the events as they were supposed to happen (that's why I'm more in favor of a prequel than of a sequel), adding a twist here and there so to not making boring but without altering the continuity of the first two films. I think building up John's story was what TSCC tried to do, but they had to go and add a different timeline. Just forget about time travel until it's time for John to send Kyle back, it's that much to ask?
I found this video randomly and just started watching it. didn't really have much of an interest in it but that sound skit at 13:42, that broke me and my brother.
The Terminator movie we never got to see. Terminator: "I am programmed to go to the past and keep the Terminator franchise from being a total waste of time."
Have you heard about the unreleased McG cut of Terminator Salvation? It’s the original cut of Terminator Salvation before it was heavily reshot due to studio demand.
This is the best summary of this movie i have seen so far. I wish some people at Hollywood would watch it. It seems after T2 nobody that had a say on the subsequent movies understood the Terminator universe. They all just slapped their own spin on it and none of it worked.
I've always been a defender of Salvation. It's not a great movie by any means, but it's by far the best Terminator sequel after Judgement Day. It's the only movie in the series to actually break up the formula. You gotta give it credit for that.
Exactly. And it's the last one to include Stan Winston as a designer for the endoskeletons. The T600 is a mean looking fucker and I love it
Terminator: Salvation was a bad Terminator movie whereas everything else past Judgment Day wasn't a Terminator movie at all. That's the important distinction, as I see it.
@@vladpiranha At least it isn't a nostqlgia cashgrab
Well, T3 kind-of broke it too. First, the evil terminator has other targets beside John Connor, something that bugged me through other movies - I get that he leads the resistance, but he alone could not do anything without the skilled men charging the battle. Take out those men and you'll just leave Connor without anyone to fight. Smart move.
Next thing is the final outcome of the movie, where they state that you cannot prevent Judgement day, you can only postpone it. This is another thing that bugged me throughout the series. Each movie consists of them trying to prevent Judgement day from happening and each time we see that it will happen, one way or the other. So, they went from "the future is not set" to "the future war is inevitable".
Also, I can understand why original Skynet went haywire - it became self-aware, humans were scared of what it could do, they tried to shut it down and Skynet fought back, because it was programmed to protect itself, so it concluded that all humans are threat to its existence and that they all need to be wiped out. While this all sounds like a possible scenario, it also looks like a bad AI design and programming. So, instead of going back in time and trying to prevent future war by blowing up anyone who attempts to work on AI, you could instead warn people of what can go wrong and try to correct the model. It's kind of a feedback from previous Skynet incarnations and what went wrong. We live in a world where AI is already being used in many different forms and developing something like Skynet is indeed inevitable, so they had to use that in the movies, where they say "okay, we realize that we cannot stop mankind from making this new industrial and technological revolution, but let's try to see if we can somehow interfere with the work and fix the problems from past failed versions".
"The Sarah Connor Chronicles" tv show had an interesting idea, where in the future there is a part of the resistance with their own AI that is actually a good one and works alongside humans, so they sent one of their cyborgs back in time to ensure that this friendly AI will get created. Yes, the actor portraying that cyborg was bad, her scenes were bad, the entire TV show was pretty much dumb (especially how it ended), but I like that idea and it seemed to be based on reality more, because you have plenty of people working on different types of AI today and, in case there was one that goes rogue and starts murdering everyone around it, there would be others that could be used to help fight the evil one. This also could be the way how T-800 was originally reprogrammed to be a good one in T2. Why not? Sounds more reasonable than some hacker-wannabe plugging in advanced AI-controlled robot and re-programming it from scratch.
@@vladpiranha I give it praise for at least trying to do something completely different and I think, given time and sequels, we'd have had quite the trilogy of future war.
I'm the kinda guy who liked Salvation and was especially excited to see it in theatres. A Terminator movie years after T3? Christian Bale? The actual post-apocalypse?! Sounded pretty darn exciting at the time, lemme tell ya. And I still feel this is the only one of the new sequels I truly enjoy.
If you can hear this,
You are the resistance.
Chills
Even the inclusion of Marcus Wright didn't wreck the film for me. He was an experiment that could work. Skynet at the end was incredibly cheesy, admittedly. But all of these advanced inclusions can be chalked up to Skynet's eventual loss and most of these systems being destroyed to where it had to start over by 2029.
I don’t even feel the need to comment by itself because you exactly spelled it out joelp4. I was hyped for a post-apocalypse Terminator film in theaters. We finally got the Skynet War! What we’ve been waiting for. I still love it. I see it’s flaws now years later but I still greatly enjoy it. Plus the film is dedicated to Stan Winston’s memory.
@@BloodyFlowerFilms And like, the use of regular guns instead of plasma rifles at the very start was so cool and unexpected!
@@sagadiablo I think any rational person would realise it's early days in the future war though. The flashbacks in previous films were clearly a lot further ahead in time than Salvation.
What it got right: Trying to do something different for a change.
Direction.
Acting.
Action.
Special FX including a good blend of practical and CGI.
Introduction of new Terminator types, not just different infiltrators.
What it got wrong: The script.
Also the set designs were awful. Grey-brown isn't fun.
@@trequor I mean yeah, but I always justified it as it's set after a nuclear holocaust, so nothing is going to look pretty wherever you go.
@@DinoDave150 Being justified isn't enough to make it look good. The night-time future war with neon lasers is awesome... why would you ever trade it for grey-brown dusty sludge?
@@trequor Because you... I mean... Look man, I'm just trying to be nice to the movie, okay?
@@DinoDave150 Lol this is still the third best Terminator movie
All I wanted in the film was to see the human resistance fighting against Skynet without the time traveling. And the film is good once you watch the director's cut
Theres a director's cut???
@@joltster109 , Never seen or heard of one!!
@@joltster109 yep
I didn't think the directors cut added that much
the somewhat directors cut,its not a full directors cut,theres a directors directors cut that has not been released yet
I personally liked Salvation, I liked the early war stages of judgment day with Skynet still somewhat using conventional weaponry and early Terminator designs.
It even got a sequel comic
But the difference is, the Resistance in this timeline uses technology from the late 90s/early 2000s and by the looks of how the humans still have a functional air force and navy in 2016, it appears they can win the "future war" in just 3 years rather than the original indented date in 2032. That would means John won't necessarily die by a T-800 and in turn create another split timeline where Skynet posed less threat than Fallout's Great War, seriously, the nukes only wiped out half the planet and in the movie the machines only used humans as manual labors or grafting materials for the early T-800 models. So by trying make Judgment Day a constant pushed back to 2004, they inevitably shortened their global domination scheme. Hell, Skynet this time placed Kyle Reese highest on the "bounty board" as a last ditch attempt to prevent the events taking place in 1984.
Never got over the whole fiasco where Marcus is told in the end that he's secretly controlled by Skynet, but it also gave him enough free will to rip out the chip he's being controlled by. It's like the ending of Robocop if it were written by an idiot.
LOL
I don't believe it "gave" him free will. More likely it is because his humanity overpowered Skynet.
@@mercenaryknight5419 ok, but then why did Skynet even build that feature in? Surely you would have made it so it could not rebel.
And why does the machine feel any need to explain its evil plan?
@@lucasoheyze4597 It secretly knows it's part of a movie! lol.
Sam Worthington really does have to scream a lot doesn’t he?
“The numbers, Mason. What do they mean?”
Turns out he can't act.
@@mrillis9259 I’d say he’s pretty great as a Voice Actor, playing Mason in Black Ops
@@trevorcoyle517 I had no idea that was him
I'd pay 10 mil for that scream ngl
He’s also great in Manhunt: UNABOMBER on Netflix
When I'm "Watching The Series" im only watching the first two and this one
Smart.....me too (Salvations not perfect but it's got tons of great scenes so...)
Agreed.
I'm about to introduce this series to my kids, and was considering doing just that.
@@DubiousConsumption I mean if they're kids they'd probably like 3 as well, but you're probably just gonna confuse them with 5 and 6- most adults cant even keep the timeline straight anymore after those
When I do I watch T1, T2, TSCC, and maaaaybe Salvation and the Resistance video game if you can find a way to fit them into the timeline...
Even though it looked cool it bugged me when John Connor jumped out of the helicopter into the freezing ocean at night to enter the sub but he had NO scuba gear or LIGHT or WETSUIT OR ANYTHING.
Soldier, you put every man and woman in this sub in jeopardy with your little frogman stunt
But Anubis he's just that GOOD.
Irradiated sea as well
Was such a stupid movie
Terminator Salvation holds a lot of potential actually. I really wished it could be expanded.
Dredd was the same way. Problem is if you don't establish that potential in the first film it destroys any incentive for others to follow and makes suddenly revealing things not established look try-hard or a rush job or just makes continuing under the old continuity pointless. Affective storytelling needs a chronology, rules and a goal established in the beginning.
Yeah I was disappointed it didn't have a sequel
How did this movie not end with Kyle and the t800 going into the last
@@fresnoniiji luckily terminator resistance exists to help expand the lore of the future
Same as a sequel. I liked it best terminator movie after the first two
Does anyone else think he should take a look at the game Terminator: Resistance? It's not perfect by any means, but it feels like the Terminator 3 that we should have gotten with call-backs and homages to the first two films that don't feel too forced, as well as an ending that ties T1 and T2 together in a complete circle.
Definitely the best Terminator video game if you ask me. The story, soundtrack and environmental designs were all great, even the choices of dialogue options were a cool feature. The graphics and gameplay weren’t groundbreaking but who cares?
@@l.pricetag.5207 Yeah, the soundtrack was especially good. With the highlight being the rendition of the Terminator theme on the main menu.
Underrated gem
Terminator 3 the redemption on ps2 is the best terminator game of all time. It’s amazing
For me it is pretty much perfect and counts as canon (as a prequel to T1). It's waaaay better than any other movies made after t2 and is also more in line with the plot and storyline...
Salvation was a step in the right direction. They should have learned from it and improved on things with more films set in the Future War, while trying to finally close the loop. Anything else could have been spin offs following other people targeted by Skynet or other resistance groups dealing with new/experimental models of terminators, but at least the main timeline could finally be put to rest.
+1
“We can win this war….cause I’m Batman!” 😋🤣
ugh yeah his Batman voice just wrecked it for me lol
I completely agree. Didn't realize why I didn't feel the futuristic background was working for me until you pointed out how they're not the first movies' future. Then you reminded me it isn't YET. Thanks.
They tried, that's fair to say. And I agree with your changes, especially still including Michael Ironside. You always keep your Michael Ironside's scenes. That's a must.
In addition to Salvation being an earlier part of the war, I also thought that by delaying judgememt day that also weakend skynet and the resistance had more of an advantage and that's why they can come out during the day and not everything is destroyed yet
season 3 of the tv series was supposed to pick up a similar storyline , shame they cancelled it.
indeed
I've gotta say, I absolutely love the practical FX for the T-600s. From the construction of the things, the way they're modelled and painted, down to the puppeteering and the way they're shot, it's really fantastic stuff in my book. For me, that was the highlight of this movie.
The puppetry was some of the best I’ve ever seen in movie history everything looked so real and scary
Sam Worthington screams in all his movies 😂😂😂😂
And black Ops 😂😂
And star wars force unleashed
@@69Kazeshini it’s not Sam Worthington in the Force Unleashed
I love it
It IS the best sequel after T2. It stands on it's own, adds to the lore without re-writing the continuity. I thought they did a decent job portraying some of the future events leading to Reese's arrival in 1984. It was dark, gritty, and captured a really great tone and style without going overboard or retconning anything.
Personally, the Resistance from Salvation is better armed than the one depicted in the first two Terminator films. In the "original" future war of 2029, humans scurry like rats in a boneyard hunted by HKs and T-600s, relying only on guerrilla tactics. In T2, the Resistance got slightly better armaments and was seen actively fighting the machines this time. After the events of T3, humans even got advanced tech from the 2000s and in Salvation, the Resistance, while not truly unified, still had functional air forces and a navy, and John as a soldier was already whooping the machines' asses good before Marcus came into the picture. So the Resistance in Salvation could have easily won the future war in just a couple of years instead of until 2032 and after John's death. It could be indicated by the fact that Kyle Reese was Skynet's number 1 bounty in 2016 whereas in the first two films the machines only took interests in John and with the creation of time machines, Sarah Connor, suggesting they knew the tide was against them so badly this time around. Guess trying to eliminate John's future lieutenants didn't do shit.
the only direction that this franchise can go into is a movie like this, about the future. They haven't even scratched the surface on what they could do with The Terminator future war. It's to bad we'll never know.
Check out Terminator Resistance. It's pretty much what we've all been asking for story-wise.
Terminator 4 is the best post T2 sequel and vastly underrated.
not underrted. it's still a bad movie. BUT, it's the best sequel since T2.
It’s not a bad movie at all, it’s a pretty good movie actually! Stop overanalysing it all and just enjoy it for what it offers- something different, and something interesting!!
Who wants to keep on watching Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing people through the air and keep repeating the same old shit over and over again????
Another really good thing about Salvation, was that there was none of that Hammy Slapstick humour whatsoever that completely ruined the tension of T3 and the pile of shit that was Genysis!!!
I prefer Genisys, with the exception of Cyberdyne Connor and Jai Courtney.
@@Clay3613 No I disagree. T5 was just terrible. At best its clichéd rubbish, at worst its a confusing boring and incoherent mess of a movie that feels like a two hour trailer for a franchise that never happened. It is a spit in the face of the legacy of John Connor and an ass raping of T1 and T2.
@@shadowleon659 You lost all credibility with your dumbass comparisons to sexual assault, plus you liked your own comment!
One thing that was a great throw back was Marcus teaching Kyle how to tie the sling around the shotgun to Kyle.
If only that scene was between Kyle and John instead of a bland throw away character nobody has any connection to played by a some guy you wish wasn't part of the plot
@@AppleSauceGamingChannel I would have been better if Marcus was fleshed out as a character. Give him flash backs like Kyle Reese did when he first arrived and use it to show what Marcus did that ended him up on death row. He just needed something more to him than confused man machine hybrid who never seemed like he was struggling to do what he believed was right or Human. When he had the seen with Skynet and the chip was 'activated" he should have had a struggle between himself with his human brain and the chip.
@@314jeepsnmopars3Marcus stabbed a man to death… it was in the computer database he scanned when he entered Skynet.. I had to pause it to read the article
8:03 - That Arnold voice was absolutely hilarious 😂
If I were a movie production company... I would give you all the money to make your vision of the best Predator and Terminator films with the team you would want. Everything you have to say to make those franchises make sense and stay true to what they are gets me excited for something I know will never happen. Love the vids!
Oh, that's certainly what I would pour my money in if I were a billionaire!
That would happen, if creative quality would have a meaning to the studios. But there is only one thing that matters to anyone there.
The Greens.
Making good movies isn't easy, and TH-camrs who do video essays on what they think about certain movies aren't always going to be the best directors for action films. Who do you think the people who go into film are? They're not people with a passing fancy with films who want to join the lucrative film industry to get a job cranking out studio drivel, they're film nerds who also wrote tons of essays about what they do and don't like about film, it's just the reality of movie making and the requirement for leadership qualities get in the way. It's not as simple as having a good idea for a film, you need a good team who works well together.
None of these TH-cam movie reviewers can make a good movie.
Prey did an excellent job on a limited budget so more money does not always mean better movie, it is the whole package.
The best part of this movie was Bale's rant on set.
Ohhhgooooooood
@@Psilocybin77
And how was it?
ladeladedaaaa ohhh goood for you!
Reent?
F*ck sake man, you amateur!
Just a little fanon moment, I like to believe that Star in this movie is the female soldier that gets vaporized in Kyle's flashback in The Terminator when they throw bombs at the HK Tank.
Aw man that’s actually pretty cool but I think if it was Star, Kyle would have had a big more of a reaction to her death if he was looking after her for years...
@@l.pricetag.5207
I feel like you got a point too, but I also think that after years of fighting the machines, Kyle at that point would be a lot less reactionary. He knows their role as soldiers and he knows he doesn't have time to mourn outside of that "disappointed and saddened" look he has after she dies. He also knows he needs to get the hell out of dodge or he’ll get zapped too.
Prob not her though cuz the actress in that film is white, but still.
I never saw the trailers, so i got to enjoy the movie without it being spoiled!
I knew about the leaks before I went to go see it. Don't pay too much attention to the things you love. You can love them to death if you try hard enough.
What Terminator Salvation got right imo was that “it was not boring!”
"The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?"
Good Ol black ops 1
There was another ending planned where Marcus with John's face suddenly turns full Terminator, grabs a gun and kills all the Resistance members in the tent, Kyle Reese and Kate included
Yeah im so glad they didnt go with that.
Thay movie was already going bonkers after the midway point and that ending would have easily angered a lot of people just like the dark fate intro
There was also an entirely different second half where we find out Skynet never went rogue and is instead trying to save humanity from self-inflicted extinction by killing 99% of the population and turning the remaining 1% into cyborg hybrids (like Marcus!) who live in a pleasure dome hidden deep within the center of Skynet’s main HQ. That’s what happens to the people nabbed by the robots.
Seriously.
@@tawdryhepburn4686 ....wait a minute
THAT'S A PREMISE FROM DIGIMON!
@@tawdryhepburn4686 Lol is this WALL-E?
Seems hard to make that idea into a trilogy!
I actually like the idea of human-robot hybrid. Imagine if when a Terminator started acting human or hybrids the other terminator would try to talk robot, but switch to human because they don't understand anymore. And robots talking to each other just sounds like electronic noises.
Sometimes I feel like this is the only channel that feels the exact same way about these movies that I do.
8:10 Anton yelchin, RIP, even made an effort to SPEAK like Michael Biehn.
One thing to mention is that the Terminators in this movie look and sound HEAVY , you can tell that they can absolutely crush your skull with one hand, so hats off the the special effects team and the sound design team.
Star Wars literally repeats quotes on all of their movies, like "I've got a bad feeling about this"
*But when Terminator does it, people lose their mind???*
I recommend u play Terminator Resistance to see how Terminator Salvation shud had played out :D
They even play the technoir song (Burn in the 3rd degree) right before the Terminator attacked the Resistance hideout. Also they went into detail about the T-800 model r actually different from the infiltrator version, as well as the change from ammo cartridge to the red plasma then purple more powerful plasma. It is a great lore add on to the Terminator series.
I know the original battles were 80's schlock. BUT DAMNIT I WANT THAT! I want the lazer lights and red bandanas and junkyard landscape.
The late-but-still-great Anton Yelchin was PERFECT as the young Reese. You can tell he really studied Michael Biehn. And the makeup artists did a great job making him look like Mike. But still, lasers! I want lasers! It's been proven already that intermediate-caliber small arms don't do jack squat against a hyper-alloy combat chassis. If yer gonna use bullets, you need the anti-material kind like .50 BMG. Heck, even 40mm grenades don't always do the job! So rockets, bombs, and directed-energy weapons are the way to go. If not lasers, then phased plasma, which uses a laser beam to guide a bolt of ionized plasma (which is basically lightning). So, yeah, it's kind of a lot like the lightning gun from Quake, maybe combined with the tau cannon from Half-Life. Or maybe even the gluon gun! Oh, and positively charged lightning is hotter than negatively charged lightning, so a "positron collider" (or "proton pack") could also be viable. Something like those ion guns from The Matrix: Revolutions.
That cat footage was freaky as Hell.
Want to know a good plot twist. Skynet is actually trying to save humanity. The whole ending humanity and war was to get humans to see themselves as a single group working together. Removing all borders and perceived differences. The ending would be Skynet making a secret piece with John Conner and the hole time travel thing was to force a ending/scenario that saves both humanity and the AI.
That makes as much sense as my dad beating the shit out of me to straighten my behavior.
The more they attempt to reboot/retcon the "series", Salvation becomes more of a classic.
Without seeing this yet, I just want to say that I enjoyed this film on its own perfectly fine, but not really as a Terminator film.
*The entire rubber mask in the Marcus and Reese vs 600 showdown was seen in the unreleased McG cut. It's such a shame we may never ever be able to see it.*
*I always liked Marcus Wright. I never watched any of the trailers so I had a deep connection and I was shocked to see the twist*
This was the reason for my enjoyment of terminator genisys, I went in totally blind and did not know of the John connor being the bad guy twist and it made the movie more enjoyable for me. I found out later that the twist was revealed in a trailer, and had I seen it in a trailer I think I would not have enjoyed the movie one bit.
@@BayAreaRushHour I remember having fun watching it, but for me it's the worst one. I thought it had a lot of interesting ideas that could be explored though. A mixture of this one & that one might be interesting.
I am way late for this. But I was born in 2003. So I was six when this movie came out. Terminator Salvation was the very first Terminator film I have ever watched. At some pizza buffet place where I used to live was a small arcade game of Terminator Salvation, it was one of those zapper shooters games. I loved the film. Then my dad introduced me to T2 and I was hooked. Today, yeah. Salvation wasn't the best. But I loved that it showed us what happens when skynet went through with judgment day. The different types of terminators, I believe I had an action figure of the T600 at some point. Had a bit of skin on the face. But damn. I still have a good time with it, T2 and T1 were perfect. But Salvation was my introduction of the world of the machines, and I can't be too mad about it
I think the "come with me if you want to live" line, while overused, does work in T2 and Salvation. In T2 it's used as a short hand to Sarah Connor to establish that the Terminator is indeed there to protect them. And in Salvation it is a line spoken by Kyle Reese, and it's a good shorthand to establish that this kid is in fact Kyle Reese for those in the crowd who haven't realized it yet without being patronizing.
True - I totally bought that youngster as young Kyle Reese. The look and behaviour. Very good.
I thought Sam Worthington was famous for his screaming considering he does it in damn near every movie he's ever been in.
Love the video. I think some of the 'changes' made to this future were meant to reflect the idea that due to time travel, things were slowly being literally retconned. The idea, the worry that despite all of her best efforts, that the future that Sarah was training John for didn't exactly line-up with what Future John was facing. Because of the stalled Judgement Day, SkyNet had gotten a slight upgrade.
PLUS I think some of the weird robot designs were meant to bridge with what was shown in T3. SkyNet was slowly outmoding/discontinuing certain models and designs.
I've always considered the first movies' vision of the future as the most accurate. Forget the giant walking mecca with a very vulnerable joints. Forget sophisticated terminator skeletons being used as infantry and instead as elite infiltration units. Probably the most unrealistic thing to me of all was why the air wasn't constantly filled with bioweapons.
I've thought for a while that Skynet doesn't hate _life_ so it's not going to go out of its way to make the planet _unlivable_ but instead "merely" a waking nightmare for humanity. Skynet's beef is with humanity, not with the planet.
@@dylanwight5764 interesting hypothesis but there are ways to biologically target humanity, plus not so sure a global nuclear war was really great for other life, either.
Wouldn't AI be intelligent & advanced enough to know war wouldn't work?
@@cyberjunk2002 True, but humanoid robots are cooler and what else was Skynet going to do with such perfect specimens as Sgt Candy?
When CorderyFX talks about horror films or the Terminator franchise, it's ALWAYS gold! 😁👍
"OH, GOOD FOR YOU"
Great review of a movie I really enjoy (not as much as T1 and T2 obvs). Not gonna lie, I completely missed the homages to Kyle's Future War flashbacks from T1 - that's going to completely change how I watch this movie.
Just needed one more film to have that perfect terminator movie.
Edit: this is on tonight on tnt.
I liked the T-800 fight at the end. It was just intense seeing it back in its horror roots. Blow it up? Nope. Cover in molten metal? Ahh a warm blanket. Fight with other terminator? Would have worked better if it wasn't part human. You could really feel the desperation from Connor and I just loved how it one shot Marcus using that advanced understanding of human anatomy.
Finally figured out what your intro is a reference to...Danger 5!
Remember, from T1, that Reese talked about how we were starting to win. So the laser guns, which were more effective then live rounds, would make more sense toward the end of the war. That is why the terminators had been sent back in time too. It wasnt that Skynet was winning and also sent back the Terminators through time, it was, rather, that Skynet was winning and was getting desperate, so, they sent back Terminators to hopefully eliminate the threat to them completely.
MY TERMINATOR TIMELINE...
The Terminator
Judgement Day
Sarah Connor Chronicles
Battle Across Time
Salvation
Excellent video as always dude 👌👍
Sarah connor chronicles is so damn good and basically the best sequel since T2 even though it’s a tv show
@@MrMont804 Absolutely. It deserves more attention
Hmm, I guess Skynet *could* know who Reese was/is based on the police records. I always felt they shouldn't know anything about him at this point in the timeline given that no terminators survived long enough to tell them. The likelihood of these records surviving the nuclear war seems small and how would they know what to look for if they didn't even know they were going to send terminators back through time, yet? I dunno...seems like it should have been explained or the story rewritten with them not knowing who Reese is. John Conner's knowledge of the future should be mankind's greatest weapon against them. Oh, and yeah, the Marcus character shouldn't exist in the story.
HEY HEY I like Marcus Wright’s screams.
Great video! It covers many of the things I enjoyed about the film and didn't in equal measure. I could have done without the Marcus Wright character entirely, though, and would have loved if the story had been focused on John, his struggle for survival, and how he begins to cobble together the resistance. I did think it was smart touch that the early resistance fighters (surviving military) were skeptical of John and his knowledge of future events/technologies and that there is division in the ranks in terms of who unwaveringly follows and trusts him, and who would need convincing over time.
The biggest plot hole for me was always with regards to Kyle Reese. There was never indication given in T1 or T2 that Skynet had any knowledge of Connor's father, and in fact, that very secret was what gave John an advantage as a target. Reese himself wasn't even in the know that he was John's father, and how would John have even had the ability or opportunity to explain that to him? In T2 when the T-1000 travels back, kills the cop, takes the form of an officer, acquires the officer's car and then does a search of John in the computer records, on the screen it indicates natural mother- Connor, Sarah and natural father: unknown. The fact that in the future, before John is even the resistance leader, Skynet has a hit list with both John and Kyle at the top made no sense to me. It was never explained how Skynet would even have had that information, and if it did, John would have had to hide his father from Skynet for years before they discovered the Time Displacement Equipment and explain: "just so you know-you're my father". That simple detail and lack of explanation made most of the movie fall apart for me, and bothered me as much as the timeline inconsistencies that came about in every sequel that appeared following T2. It felt like a plot contrivance-just like Judgement Day only being "postponed" by the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2 without much explanation of how and why it still came to be.
The main thing I liked about Salvation was that it attempted to do something new. Instead of handing Terminator fans another time travel movie with yet ANOTHER more advanced model of Terminator battling yet ANOTHER version of Arnold's T-800, it actually attempted to tell a story set in the future war. At times the ashen aesthetic of the nuclear post apocalyptic wasteland really worked and added grit, and some of the early clunky models of the endos and some of the HK's looked great. Hollywood unfortunately, as always, dumbed the whole thing down though, and just produced a blockbuster without soul. No real stakes, no real emotion, no truly compelling story. Just a bunch of repeated one liners, cool looking robots and explosions.
I just wish someone as ambitious as Cameron, who had a true passion for this story and its canon, set out to make a riveting trilogy chronicling the future war as harrowing as it should have been. It should have told John's story in depth: his forming of the resistance, the battle between man and machine, John's eventual meeting and conflicted relationship with his young father who he must both watch over and train during the war and then send back in time to die to ensure his own survival. Also, the story should have come full circle, with the Resistance smashing Skynet's defence grid, winning the war, and finding the time equipment-setting up the doomed war for humanity's survival in the past-a tragic time loop. They could have thrown in all the cool robots and explosions in there that they wanted as long as the story was a riveting and human one, and the characters mattered.
After T2 I wished the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show (which had great potential and strong themes/characters) had continued in lieu of all the movie sequels being made, but it seems the franchise's "Dark Fate" had already been sealed as early as T3.
All I can really say, as more of a casual terminator viewer, is that I enjoyed Salvation a lot. And, as you said, wanted to see more of it.
7:08
All GNR fans know “you could be mine” but it’s still so much fun to see them play it live ever today. Cause you know the casual ticket buyers or random friends who went, they know the song from T2.
This movie by far had the most potential after T2. Loved seeing the A-10 thunderbolt laying lead in the opening scene, but I hated the harvester later on. Really hope one day we can get a full reset of all the lore and just give us something more akin to the James Cameron T1 future war, with the synth soundtrack and all the lasers.
I think also to the overall aesthetic of the film is a bit of a letdown as for most of us who grew up with Terminator wanted to the future war sequences seems pretty because consistent and a lot of us would often imagine what to our film of that would look like so when we get to it it's a prequel to that and it doesn't exactly feel the same. I think on a script level there's a lot of clever things in salvation that a lot of people don't actually give credit to I think having someone from our time being transported into the future as a reversal is actually kind of interesting but gets lost in the film slightly keep up the great work enjoying your videos.
Say what you want about the ending, but that one shot where the T-800 emerges from the lava like Connor's angel of death with the breaking lava falling off of it like a hooded cloak is the best shot in the whole franchise
Tbh salvation is my third favorite move in terminator series
I still believe that terminator salvation is the best since t2 because they add more story and they don’t use the terminator plot (unlike the squeals)
Just watched this movie again today, nice timing on this video
The Director's Cut is Really Good. I recommend it.
I wish it had the original ending which was bonkers.
How much extra footage does it have?
The first video I saw of yours was the nun review a few years ago. I was on my way to Australia and your “OMG bois, it’s the nun” line had me in stitches at the airport. Now here’s the funny thing, a few days later in OZ I was chilling on a beach with me boys and I kid you not I saw an actual nun walking along the beach and I said out loud “OMG boys, it’s a nun!” They all looked at me confused as if to say “Err yeah? And?” And then like a weirdo I just bust out laughing to myself! So just wanted to say thank you for all the fantastic content and congratulations on hitting 100k subs!!
I was going to write this huge list of what's wrong with the Terminator, and what I liked about it. But you nailed my biggest issues. I'm the guy who hated Terminators throwing people around after T2. You're right, once you see it...you can't unsee it. I am vocal more about Salvation because it was closest to greatness. Genisys and Dark fate were never going to be great. I feel like Kenobi yelling, "You were supposed to be the chosen one!" This is the movie I would have pitched (minus the stupid Marcus Wright character). It hurts to see it turn out like this.
What kills me, is they show the labor camps, and John is barely in there. Imagine John saying: "Those labor camps, worst 20 minutes of my life!". What a waste. You're right, saving those people should have been the finale. It should have been very difficult to do.
A Terminator hybrid could have worked because we've already seen it in other mediums. In Terminator 2029 they get ahold of a Terminar tech in a suit. In the Terminator comics we got a human/Terminator hybrid that was supposed to get past the dogs. But the human part of him took control and rebelled against the robot half. He was in a constant struggle fighting off an insistent machine that would never quit. That was written so much better than this. But it shouldn't have been written here. Save that for the sequels.
Not looking like Cameron's future war because it's 10 years earlier. I disagree with. People went to this movie to see because of Cameron's future war, so having some resemblance would at least in some scenes would have helped this movie. The reality is, this wasn't done to make the movie better, or show us something different. It was for budgetary reasons. It was just cheaper. I think it's important for sequels to follow the universes' rules set up by previous movies. Otherwise it becomes a jumbled mess. This felt far too different than the world we saw. But it's a minor quibble.
Overall, it bugs me. This was a chance to do what Aliens did with Alien. Take the movie in another direction. The first was a horror movie, the second an action movie. Make this a war movie. Take the D-Day scene in saving private Ryan. Replace Nazis with Terminators. What makes that scene great, is it felt like real people fighting. The soldier crying out for his mother. The man horrified at seeing his intestines outside his body and trying to put them back in. It showed the absolute horror of war. It humanized them. The horrors faced made the victory feel like a real achievement. That's what I was hoping for.
I feel like this movie was almost the prototype for Terminator Resistance. Now *that's* the best thing post T2.
Yup, that in movie form would be fantastic
Is that game good?
@@comixproviderftw_02 that game is excellent
Heard it's going free for PS Plus next month, will defo play it for free lmao
I need a MK evaluation. When possibly. Glad you’re back!
I actually thought Salvation’s use of “I’ll be back” was the best since T1. Felt really natural, made sense in context, got me pumped for the third act of the movie. Glad to see this flick getting *some* love. It’s not great and still has a lot of problems, but it’s my favorite of ANY Terminator movie after T2.
First, it's about time someone make an analysis of the best sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Second, I completely agree with you 100% about everything good and everything bad with Salvation. And it is because of all the good things you mention in this video that I defend it every time the discussion about this saga arises.
Third, the problem always with this type of saga is, in a film that talks about a global conflict, when in its second half the plot becomes something too personal, and focuses exclusively on the traumas of the protagonists. Which leads to a melodrama that they do not know how to resolve and that generally ends up looking ridiculous compared to the sophistication of the general plot, which is that of the war against the machines.
Great, great analysis. Big hug from Argentina!
When this came out, friends always moaned about how Salvation didn't match the "Future War" setting. I always have to explain that John sends Kyle back in 2029 while Salvation is set in 2018... that's 11 years prior to events. Salvation 2 and 3 would have simply filled out that story and ended with John sending back Kyle to make it full circle.
I also hate those kinds of people who say that same shit. Did you expect humanity to be futuristic and the war happened or did they expect Skynet to launch the nukes and suddenly also had the technology to be 30 years in the future? Salvation got it right in my opinion and it's because they based it on what was said by Uncle Bob in T2 which was that SKynet was given slow but sure control of the military but the military only had a few upgrades. They mentioned that the B2 Stealth bomber was still be used just no longer piloted by humans. And then Kyle Reese said in T1 that Skynet started off by killing off survivors in slaughter houses before John organized a resistance of some sort. None of this tells me that Future War was what we saw at first which makes sense. In fact I believe Salvation got it right in the sense that with Skynet nuking a lot of cities on Earth leaves a lot of other cities and towns untouched before Skynet came in and started to clean this shit out meaning the first wave of killing humans had to be very slow and method like. The only thing about Salvation I thought was too much was the Terminator's all using miniguns, that seems too resource heavy for the situation Skynet created. They should of been using small arms.
So happy you made this. You share many of my own sentiments. Well done. If I were to add one thing, I wish that instead of the Marcus twist, it was leading into the development and implementation of time travel.
Im going to rewatch the terminator movies to watch this video. Ill be back
Edit: I am back to watch the video
Oh you just were looking for an excuse right there...
@@eskanderx1027 wrong
Holy fuck, that would have been an AMAZING SEQUEL. Great take on that, Cordery
The Salvation sequels were probably gonna be named "The Last Terminator" and "The Rise of Connor"...
Bruh no, not the Disney Terminator movies!
You're joking, but thinking about a plot where the resistence has basically won but needs to wipe out anything that Skynet left, including a last T-800, that now thinks by itself because not receiving any orders anymore and running from it's certain desintegration, sounds like a somewhat weird but very interesting and original story to me. In general, showing the end of the war at some point would be interesting. Oh well, tells us once more, that a Salvation-trilogy could have been so awesome.
@@Marc_Fuchs_1985 Yep, so disappointing it didn't happen.
Salvation should have been the lukewarm intro to the perfect Terminator story.
T1, T2, TSCC, and Salvation are the only canon Terminator entries in my mind
what about non movies like Terminator: Resistance?
2029 is coming. I'd love to see a sequel to this around then. An older John Connor leading the resistance to victory. But the story is Kyles. He's the main character. And we're made to absolutely feel sorry for him. To watch him suffer, to hope and dream, and to eventually volunteer. The movie ends with John Connor crying or some shit because he just sent his father to his death. Just a good, gut wrenching, personal story. Showing us what it was really like for Kyle.
Oh, and a short post-credit scene of a wholely intact T-800 deactivated and being dragged away on John's orders saying "let's see what we can make of this." As a nod to T2 and to get Arnie his cameo.
Nice job on this one mate. Decent review (even if not intended as a review) but hits all the points I’ve always felt as well - good to not be alone. My son just got to the point to watch T2 and despite some foibles I’ll probs be putting this one in as the 3!
I have to disagree with you about removing the "this is not the future my mother warned me about" plot point. Without that new twist, you're implying to the audience that John is already on the path of victory and they've basically already won. The layer of unpredictability is actually needed to leave some doubt in the audience's mind (mirroring John's confusion) as well as adding intrigue to a story we're otherwise already familiar with after hearing about it from the other films. Now that doesn't mean I agree with the decision to make a Terminator/Human hybrid the protagonist of the movie, but they were on the right track by adding a new twist and giving John a fakeout death.
Other than that, you're right on the money as always. Great vid
The film could've centred around a group of original characters tasked with rescuing Reece. The rescue of Reece would still be inevitable, but the fates of the other characters would still provide suspense to the audience. Something like _Star Wars: Rogue One_, I guess (a film I haven't actually seen).
the movie didn't suck, miles better than 3, genisys and dark fate. the comics definitely were a great add on!
To those who hated Salvation, who's laughing now?
4:53 What is this stock music? I first heard it through the Mystery Recapped channel and I always associate it with them now, haha.
They are not a bad channel
Salvation is what I call one of those 80% movies... 80% of the ideas and execution are good, it's that 20% that always murders these efforts.
Still, I'd rather watch this than most of the other pieces of shit sequels in this franchise.
There's quite a few films I like that are like that to be fair
@@AlexGreat321 You and me both :-)
I feel the same way about the sci-fi flop Supernova. Good ideas and mostly good execution...only for it to turn into your typical _10 little indians* horror schlock in space in the third act.
5:43 This theory is an anomaly , In the T2 John Connor flashback , they are using conventional weaponry .
Always looked at , as more of a tracer round , using light projectile based bullets.
The First Terminator in my opinion is still the best and scarier because is in the time when there are no Cellphones, no Social Media, there are only public Phone Booths, so imagine you have a Terminator coming after you and trying to kill you and if you try going to law enforcement, the media, family, family members, friends, they would all think you are crazy and that maybe you are the one killing all those civilians and you are making up that is a Robot Cyber from the Future.
What Salvation got right:
*Acting*
*New Plot Direction*
*Soundtrack*
*Ambiance*
*New Character*
*New Terminator Models*
*Comics, video games, even toys*
What Salvation got wrong:
*Cancelled the continuation universe including movies, comics and games because Skydance listened to Toxic Fans... Let that sink in... People acted like Salvation was the worst thing that the Terminator franchise got rebooted... TWICE.*
Yeah exactly. These toxic fans reap what they sow, the salvation trilogy would have been a good trilogy.
I hope Christian Bale has another breakdown on the set of Thor: Love and Thunder.
Shooooot didn’t even know he was gonna be in that movie. Bet.
Knocked it out of the park once again Cordy 👌
Personally, considering there is SO MUCH they COULD show us, it honestly would better if they ditch the films, cause they have failed at this point, especially with "Inclusive Political Crap Fate", A Terminator Salvation ERA should be made, but in Tv Show format.
With that, they can keep the original story-line and they can build up John's story in that era with as large a cast as they want. We can see what the first Terminator series looked like, we can see how long before Skynet starts developing Infiltration units, we can see if they ever used T-1000 and later models on the battlefield, we can see if the War against The Machines is actually winnable (The "final assault" that Kyle mentions could easily be an assumption, he doesn't really know), and we would get to see the Laser Guns.
The Past has been milked to death. I think everyone by now is sick of the past. I certainly am...
And without adding different timelines please! We don't need different timelines, just show us the events as they were supposed to happen (that's why I'm more in favor of a prequel than of a sequel), adding a twist here and there so to not making boring but without altering the continuity of the first two films.
I think building up John's story was what TSCC tried to do, but they had to go and add a different timeline. Just forget about time travel until it's time for John to send Kyle back, it's that much to ask?
I found this video randomly and just started watching it. didn't really have much of an interest in it but that sound skit at 13:42, that broke me and my brother.
The Terminator movie we never got to see.
Terminator: "I am programmed to go to the past and keep the Terminator franchise from being a total waste of time."
the "what it got wrong" part had a better music in the background. music in the first part was like really melancholic.lol
Have you heard about the unreleased McG cut of Terminator Salvation? It’s the original cut of Terminator Salvation before it was heavily reshot due to studio demand.
Cheers bro. I was looking forward to this
This is the best summary of this movie i have seen so far. I wish some people at Hollywood would watch it. It seems after T2 nobody that had a say on the subsequent movies understood the Terminator universe. They all just slapped their own spin on it and none of it worked.